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MelastomaTRAITs 1.0: A database of functional traits in Melastomataceae, a large pantropical angiosperm family Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-04-17 Marcelo Reginato, Carlos A. Ordónez‐Parra, João Vitor S. Messeder, Vinicius L. G. Brito, Agnes Dellinger, Ricardo Kriebel, Camilla Marra, Lilian Melo, Tatiana Cornelissen, Lisieux Fuzessy, Patricia Sperotto, Manuela Calderón‐Hernández, Tadeu J. Guerra, Constantin Kopper, Carolina Mancipe‐Murillo, Marco A. Pizo, Juan Mauricio Posada‐Herrera, Érica Hasui, Wesley R. Silva, Fernando A. O. Silveira
The recent availability of open‐access repositories of functional traits has revolutionized trait‐based approaches in ecology and evolution. Nevertheless, the underrepresentation of tropical regions and lineages remains a pervasive bias in plant functional trait databases, which constrains large‐scale assessments of plant ecology, evolution, and biogeography. Here, we present MelastomaTRAITs 1.0, a
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Improving species distribution forecasts by measuring and communicating uncertainty: An invasive species case study Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-04-13 Shyam M. Thomas, Michael R. Verhoeven, Jake R. Walsh, Daniel J. Larkin, Gretchen J. A. Hansen
Forecasting invasion risk under future climate conditions is critical for the effective management of invasive species, and species distribution models (SDMs) are key tools for doing so. However, SDM‐based forecasts are uncertain, especially when correlative statistical models extrapolate to nonanalog environmental domains, such as future climate conditions. Different assumptions about the functional
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Camera trap surveys of Atlantic Forest mammals: A data set for analyses considering imperfect detection (2004–2020) Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-04-13 Ingridi Camboim Franceschi, Rubem Augusto da Paixão Dornas, Isabel Salgueiro Lermen, Artur Vicente Pfeifer Coelho, Ademir Henrique Vilas Boas, Adriano Garcia Chiarello, Adriano Pereira Paglia, Agnis Cristiane de Souza, Alana Rafaela Borsekowsky, Alessandro Rocha, Alex Bager, Alexander Zaidan de Souza, Alexandre Martins Costa Lopes, Aloysio Souza de Moura, Aluane Silva Ferreira, Alvaro García‐Olaechea
Camera traps became the main observational method of a myriad of species over large areas. Data sets from camera traps can be used to describe the patterns and monitor the occupancy, abundance, and richness of wildlife, essential information for conservation in times of rapid climate and land‐cover changes. Habitat loss and poaching are responsible for historical population losses of mammals in the
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Temperature‐driven homogenization of an ant community over 60 years in a montane ecosystem Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-04-10 Anna W. Paraskevopoulos, Nathan J. Sanders, Julian Resasco
Identifying the mechanisms underlying the changes in the distribution of species is critical to accurately predict how species have responded and will respond to climate change. Here, we take advantage of a late‐1950s study on ant assemblages in a canyon near Boulder, Colorado, USA, to understand how and why species distributions have changed over a 60‐year period. Community composition changed over
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Consequences of pollen defense compounds for pollinators and antagonists in a pollen‐rewarding plant Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-04-09 Sébastien Rivest, Stephen T. Lee, Daniel Cook, Jessica R. K. Forrest
Plants produce an array of defensive compounds with toxic or deterrent effects on insect herbivores. Pollen can contain relatively high concentrations of such defense compounds, but the causes and consequences of this enigmatic phenomenon remain mostly unknown. These compounds could potentially protect pollen against antagonists but could also reduce flower attractiveness to pollinators. We combined
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Pre‐contact and post‐colonial ecological legacies shape Surinamese rainforests Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-04-09 Nina H. Witteveen, Cheryl White, Barbara A. Sánchez‐Martínez, Annemarie Philip, Femke Boyd, Roemer Booij, Reyan Christ, Santosh Singh, William D. Gosling, Dolores R. Piperno, Crystal N. H. McMichael
Disturbances in tropical forests can have long‐lasting ecological impacts, but their manifestations (ecological legacies) in modern forests are uncertain. Many Amazonian forests bear the mark of past soil modifications, species enrichments, and fire events, but the trajectories of ecological legacies from the pre‐contact or post‐colonial period remain relatively unexplored. We assessed the fire and
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Predicting the fundamental thermal niche of ectotherms Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-04-05 Margaret W. Simon, Priyanga Amarasekare
Climate warming is predicted to increase mean temperatures and thermal extremes on a global scale. Because their body temperature depends on the environmental temperature, ectotherms bear the full brunt of climate warming. Predicting the impact of climate warming on ectotherm diversity and distributions requires a framework that can translate temperature effects on ectotherm life‐history traits into
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Density data for Lake Erie benthic invertebrate assemblages from 1930 to 2019 Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-04-04 Lyubov E. Burlakova, Alexander Y. Karatayev, Allison R. Hrycik, Susan E. Daniel, Knut Mehler, Elizabeth K. Hinchey, Ronald Dermott, Ronald Griffiths, Lillian E. Denecke
Benthic invertebrates are important trophic links in food webs and useful bioindicators of environmental conditions, but long‐term benthic organism abundance data across broad geographic areas are rare and historic datasets are often not readily accessible. This dataset provides densities of benthic macroinvertebrates collected from 1930 to 2019 during surveys in Lake Erie, a Laurentian Great Lake
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Plant growth–defense trade‐offs are general across interactions with fungal, insect, and mammalian consumers Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-04-04 Max Zaret, Linda Kinkel, Elizabeth T. Borer, Eric W. Seabloom
Plants face trade‐offs between allocating resources to growth, while also defending against herbivores or pathogens. Species differences along defense trade‐off axes may promote coexistence and maintain diversity. However, few studies of plant communities have simultaneously compared defense trade‐offs against an array of herbivores and pathogens for which defense investment may differ, and even fewer
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Environmental heterogeneity at two spatial scales affects litter diversity–decomposition relationships Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-04-03 Fabiola Ospina‐Bautista, Diane S. Srivastava, Emilio Realpe, Ana María Fernández
The effects of biodiversity on ecological processes have been experimentally evaluated mainly at the local scale under homogeneous conditions. To scale up experimentally based biodiversity‐functioning relationships, there is an urgent need to understand how such relationships are affected by the environmental heterogeneity that characterizes larger spatial scales. Here, we tested the effects of an
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Erratum Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-04-02
Erratum for Staab, Michael, Stefanie Pietsch, Haoru Yan, Nico Blüthgen, Anpeng Cheng, Yi Li, Naili Zhang, Keping Ma, and Xiaojuan Liu. 2023. “ Dear neighbor: Trees with extrafloral nectaries facilitate defense and growth of adjacent undefended trees.” Ecology 104(7):e4057. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.4057 Funding information for the project was incorrectly given in the paper. In the Acknowledgments
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Erratum Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-04-02
Errata for Fox, Jeremy W. 2023. The existence and strength of higher order interactions is sensitive to environmental context. Ecology 104(10):e4156. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.4156 There are two typographical errors in Fox (2023). First, equation (2) should read dN P dt = r P N P 1 − N P K P θ $$ \frac{dN_P}{dt}={r}_P{N}_P\left(1-{\left(\frac{N_P}{K_P}\right)}^{\uptheta}\right) $$ (2) The derivation
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Leaf dicers of Nelliyampathy: Observations of preconsumptive latex avoidance by a sciurid Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-04-01 Kamaraj Mohan, Sayantan Das, Mewa Singh
CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
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Climate change‐associated declines in water clarity impair feeding by common loons Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-04-01 Walter H. Piper, Max R. Glines, Kevin C. Rose
Climate change has myriad impacts on ecosystems, but the mechanisms by which it affects individual species can be difficult to pinpoint. One strategy to discover such mechanisms is to identify a specific ecological factor related to survival or reproduction and determine how that factor is affected by climate. Here we used Landsat imagery to calculate water clarity for 127 lakes in northern Wisconsin
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Pollination of Oberonia japonica (Orchidaceae) by gall midges (Cecidomyiidae) Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-03-29 Yuta Sunakawa, Ko Mochizuki, Atsushi Kawakita
Orchidaceae is the most species-rich plant family, with renowned floral diversity. Floral diversity among orchids is attributed to the diversity of pollination systems, which is a product of specialization within orchid species to different animal pollinators (Micheneau et al., 2009; Schiestl & Johnson, 2013). However, pollination biology remains unknown in over 90% of orchid species (Ackerman et al
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Integrated distance sampling models for simple point counts Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-03-28 Marc Kéry, J. Andrew Royle, Tyler Hallman, W. Douglas Robinson, Nicolas Strebel, Kenneth F. Kellner
Point counts (PCs) are widely used in biodiversity surveys but, despite numerous advantages, simple PCs suffer from several problems: detectability, and therefore abundance, is unknown; systematic spatiotemporal variation in detectability yields biased inferences, and unknown survey area prevents formal density estimation and scaling‐up to the landscape level. We introduce integrated distance sampling
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Tolerance between wolves and golden jackals in India Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-03-27 Víctor Sazatornil, Mihir Godbole, Neha Panchamia, Gayatri Rajgurav Awadhani, Nachiket Awadhani, José Vicente López‐Bao
CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
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Increased density of conspecifics caused niche contraction in a multispecific passerine assemblage Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-03-25 Adrián Barrero, Juan Traba, Rocío Tarjuelo
Competition is a prominent mechanism driving population dynamics and structuring community assemblage, which can be investigated by linking shifts in species’ ecological niche and the densities of sympatric species because the ecological release from competitive constraints is a density-dependent process. In this work we determine how a steppe passerine community segregates their ecological niches
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A marine heatwave changes the stabilizing effects of biodiversity in kelp forests Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-03-24 Maowei Liang, Thomas Lamy, Daniel C. Reuman, Shaopeng Wang, Tom W. Bell, Kyle C. Cavanaugh, Max C. N. Castorani
Biodiversity can stabilize ecological communities through biological insurance, but climate and other environmental changes may disrupt this process via simultaneous ecosystem destabilization and biodiversity loss. While changes to diversity–stability relationships (DSRs) and the underlying mechanisms have been extensively explored in terrestrial plant communities, this topic remains largely unexplored
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Insect root feeders incur negative density‐dependent damage across plant species in an alpine meadow Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-03-25 Lixuan Kou, Nan Yang, Han Yan, Karl J. Niklas, Shucun Sun
Although herbivores are well known to incur positive density‐dependent damage and mortality, thereby likely shaping plant community assembly, the response of belowground root feeders to changes in plant density has seldom been addressed. Locally rare plant species (with lower plant biomass per area) are often smaller with shallower roots than common species (with higher plant biomass per area) in
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The complex circuitry of interactions determining coexistence among plants and mycorrhizal fungi Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-03-20 Mark A. McPeek, Caitlin Hicks Pries
We present a mechanistic model of coexistence among a mycorrhizal fungus and one or two plant species that compete for a single nutrient. Plant–fungal coexistence is more likely if the fungus is better at extracting the environmental nutrient than the plant and the fungus acquires carbon from the plant above a minimum rate. When they coexist, their interaction can shift from mutualistic to parasitic
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Evolution of avian heat tolerance: The role of atmospheric humidity Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-03-19 Marc T. Freeman, Bianca Coulson, James C. Short, Celiwe A. Ngcamphalala, Mathome O. Makola, Andrew E. McKechnie
The role of atmospheric humidity in the evolution of endotherms' thermoregulatory performance remains largely unexplored, despite the fact that elevated humidity is known to impede evaporative cooling capacity. Using a phylogenetically informed comparative framework, we tested the hypothesis that pronounced hyperthermia tolerance among birds occupying humid lowlands evolved to reduce the impact of
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Floral resource partitioning of coexisting bumble bees: Distinguishing species‐, colony‐, and individual‐level effects Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-03-18 Zhong‐Ming Ye, Yong‐Deng He, Pedro J. Bergamo, Michael C. Orr, Wen Huang, Xiao‐Fang Jin, Han‐Ning Lun, Qing‐Feng Wang, Chun‐Feng Yang
Resource partitioning is considered a key factor in alleviating competitive interactions, enabling coexistence among consumer species. However, most studies have focused on resource partitioning between species, ignoring the potentially critical role of intraspecific variation in resource use. We investigated floral resource partitioning across species, colonies, and individuals in a species‐rich bumblebee
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Host plant-mediation of viral transmission and its consequences for a native butterfly Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-03-14 Tara Christensen, Lee A. Dyer, Matthew L. Forister, M. Deane Bowers, Adrian Carper, Mike B. Teglas, Paul Hurtado, Angela M. Smilanich
Pathogens play a key role in insect population dynamics, contributing to short-term fluctuations in abundance as well as long-term demographic trends. Two key factors that influence the effects of entomopathogens on herbivorous insect populations are modes of pathogen transmission and larval host plants. In this study, we examined tritrophic interactions between a sequestering specialist lepidopteran
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Cue the chorus: Canyon treefrog calling phenology on the falling limb of spring floods and warming nights Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-03-12 Heather L. Bateman, Margaret A. Huck, Heidi Klingel, David M. Merritt
CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
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Erratum Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-03-11
Errata for Friend, A.D., Shugart, H.H. and Running, S.W. 1993. “ A Physiology-Based Gap Model of Forest Dynamics.” Ecology 74(3): 792–797. https://doi.org/10.2307/1940806 The last name of the second author was incorrectly published as ‘Schugart’. The correct name should be ‘H. H. Shugart’. We apologize for this error.
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Gypsum lichens: A global data set of lichen species from gypsum ecosystems Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-03-05 Sergio Muriel, Gregorio Aragón, Isabel Martínez, María Prieto
Lichens are significant components of the biological soil crust communities in gypsum ecosystems and are involved in several processes related to ecosystem functioning, such as water and nutrient cycles or protection against soil erosion. Although numerous studies centered on lichen taxonomy and ecology have been performed in these habitats, global information about lichen species from gypsum substrates
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Osmotic responses and oceanic dispersal of upper brackish nemertean: Ecophysiology from field to in vitro observation Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-03-04 Natsumi Hookabe, Yuma Fujino, Hikaru Nagano
CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
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Restoring spatiotemporal variability to enhance the capacity for dispersal-limited species to track climate change Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-03-01 Gregory A. Backus, Christopher F. Clements, Marissa L. Baskett
Climate refugia are areas where species can persist through climate change with little to no movement. Among the factors associated with climate refugia are high spatial heterogeneity, such that there is only a short distance between current and future optimal climates, as well as biotic or abiotic environmental factors that buffer against variability in time. However, these types of climate refugia
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Brown bear digging decreases tree growth: Implication for ecological role of top predators in anthropogenic landscapes Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-02-29 Kanji M. Tomita, Tsutom Hiura
Large carnivores have recently increased in number and recolonized in human-dominated landscapes; however, their ecological roles in these landscapes have not been well studied. In the Shiretoko World Heritage (SWH) site, brown bears have recolonized a previously abandoned mosaic landscape of natural forests and conifer plantations after land abandonment. We previously reported that the bears had recently
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Evaluating top-down, bottom-up, and environmental drivers of pelagic food web dynamics along an estuarine gradient Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-02-28 Tanya L. Rogers, Samuel M. Bashevkin, Christina E. Burdi, Denise D. Colombano, Peter N. Dudley, Brian Mahardja, Lara Mitchell, Sarah Perry, Parsa Saffarinia
Identification of the key biotic and abiotic drivers within food webs is important for understanding species abundance changes in ecosystems, particularly across ecotones where there may be strong variation in interaction strengths. Using structural equation models (SEMs) and four decades of integrated data from the San Francisco Estuary, we investigated the relative effects of top-down, bottom-up
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Dispersal synchronizes giant kelp forests Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-02-28 Miriam S. Wanner, Jonathan A. Walter, Daniel C. Reuman, Tom W. Bell, Max C. N. Castorani
Spatial synchrony is the tendency for population fluctuations to be correlated among different locations. This phenomenon is a ubiquitous feature of population dynamics and is important for ecosystem stability, but several aspects of synchrony remain unresolved. In particular, the extent to which any particular mechanism, such as dispersal, contributes to observed synchrony in natural populations has
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Speed and degree of functional and compositional recovery varies with latitude and community age Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-02-25 Mariana Bonfim, Diana P. López, Michele F. Repetto, Amy L. Freestone
Rates at which a community recovers after disturbance, or its resilience, can be accelerated by increased net primary productivity and recolonization dynamics such as recruitment. These mechanisms can vary across biogeographic gradients, such as latitude, suggesting that biogeography is likely important to predicting resilience. To test whether community resilience, informed by functional and compositional
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Early warning indicators capture catastrophic transitions driven by explicit rates of environmental change Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-02-23 Ramesh Arumugam, Frederic Guichard, Frithjof Lutscher
In response to external changes, ecosystems can undergo catastrophic transitions. Early warning indicators aim to predict such transitions based on the phenomenon of critical slowing down at bifurcation points found under a constant environment. When an explicit rate of environmental change is considered, catastrophic transitions can become distinct phenomena from bifurcations, and result from a delayed
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Food quality shapes gradual phenotypic plasticity in ectotherms facing temperature variability Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-02-22 Marine Van Baelen, Alexandre Bec, Erik Sperfeld, Nathan Frizot, Apostolos-Manuel Koussoroplis
Organisms exhibit reversible physiological adjustments as a response to rapidly changing environments. Yet such plasticity of the phenotype is gradual and may lag behind environmental fluctuations, thereby affecting long-term average performance of the organisms. By supplying energy and essential compounds for optimal tissue building, food determines the range of possible phenotypic changes and potentially
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Long-term drought promotes invasive species by reducing wildfire severity Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-02-21 Sarah Kimball, Jessica Rath, Julie E. Coffey, Moises R. Perea-Vega, Matthew Walsh, Nicole M. Fiore, Priscilla M. Ta, Katharina T. Schmidt, Michael L. Goulden, Steven D. Allison
Anthropogenic climate change has increased the frequency of drought, wildfire, and invasions of non-native species. Although high-severity fires linked to drought can inhibit recovery of native vegetation in forested ecosystems, it remains unclear how drought impacts the recovery of other plant communities following wildfire. We leveraged an existing rainfall manipulation experiment to test the hypothesis
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Using the multivariate Hawkes process to study interactions between multiple species from camera trap data Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-02-18 Lisa Nicvert, Sophie Donnet, Mark Keith, Mike Peel, Michael J. Somers, Lourens H. Swanepoel, Jan Venter, Hervé Fritz, Stéphane Dray
Interspecific interactions can influence species' activity and movement patterns. In particular, species may avoid or attract each other through reactive responses in space and/or time. However, data and methods to study such reactive interactions have remained scarce and were generally limited to two interacting species. At this time, the deployment of camera traps opens new opportunities but adapted
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Masting, fire-stimulated flowering, and the evolutionary ecology of synchronized reproduction Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-02-16 Jared J. Beck, Mark J. McKone, Stuart Wagenius
Synchronized episodic reproduction among long-lived plants shapes ecological interactions, ecosystem dynamics, and evolutionary processes worldwide. Two active scientific fields investigate the causes and consequences of such synchronized reproduction: the fields of masting and fire-stimulated flowering. While parallels between masting and fire-stimulated flowering have been previously noted, there
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Structural diversity is better associated with forest productivity than species or functional diversity Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-02-15 Lu Zhai, Rodney E. Will, Bo Zhang
Understanding the relationship between biodiversity and productivity can be advanced by improving metrics used to quantify biodiversity. Structural diversity, that is, variation of size and form of plant organs, is an emerging biodiversity metric. However, compared with the other biodiversity metrics, its relative importance in specific components of forest productivity, for example, recruitment of
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Maintenance of different life stages of old-growth forest trees in deforested tropical landscapes Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-02-15 Marisela Martínez-Ruiz, Víctor Arroyo-Rodríguez, Ricard Arasa-Gisbert, Manuel Alejandro Hernández-Ruedas, Miriam San-José
Tropical tree species are increasingly being pushed to inhabit deforested landscapes. The habitat amount hypothesis posits that, in remaining forest patches, species diversity in equal-sized samples decreases with decreasing forest cover in the surrounding landscape. We tested this prediction by taking into account three important factors that can affect species responses to forest loss. First, forest
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Estimation and interpretation problems and solutions when using proportion covariates in linear regression models Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-02-15 Denis Valle, Jeffrey Mintz, Ismael Verrastro Brack
Proportion variables, also known as compositional data, are very common in ecology. Unfortunately, few scientists are aware of how compositional data, when used as covariates, can adversely impact statistical analysis. We describe here how proportion covariates result in multicollinearity and parameter identifiability problems. Using simulated data on bird species richness as a function of land use
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Cougars, wolves, and humans drive a dynamic landscape of fear for elk Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-02-15 Taylor R. Ganz, Melia T. DeVivo, Aaron J. Wirsing, Sarah B. Bassing, Brian N. Kertson, Savanah L. Walker, Laura R. Prugh
To manage predation risk, prey navigate a dynamic landscape of fear, or spatiotemporal variation in risk perception, reflecting predator distributions, traits, and activity cycles. Prey may seek to reduce risk across this landscape using habitat at times and in places when predators are less active. In multipredator landscapes, avoiding one predator could increase vulnerability to another, making the
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Coexistence mechanism of sympatric predaceous diving beetle larvae Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-02-15 Reiya Watanabe, Shin-ya Ohba, Shiro Sagawa
CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
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Natal dispersal and exploratory forays through atypical habitat in the mountain-bound snow leopard Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-02-15 Örjan Johansson, Justine Shanti Alexander, Purevjav Lkhagvajav, Charudutt Mishra, Gustaf Samelius
Understanding how landscapes affect animal movements is key to effective conservation and management (Rudnick et al., 2012; Zeller et al., 2012). Movement defines animal home ranges, where animals generally access resources such as food and mates, and also their dispersal and exploratory forays. These movements are important for individual survival and fitness through genetic exchange within and between
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Intraspecific leaf trait variation mediates edge effects on litter decomposition rate in fragmented forests Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-02-14 Shilu Zheng, Mingjian Yu, Bruce L. Webber, Raphael K. Didham
There is strong trait dependence in species-level responses to environmental change and their cascading effects on ecosystem functioning. However, there is little understanding of whether intraspecific trait variation (ITV) can also be an important mechanism mediating environmental effects on ecosystem functioning. This is surprising, given that global change processes such as habitat fragmentation
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Vicuña antipredator diel movement drives spatial nutrient subsidies in a high Andean ecosystem Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-02-13 Julia D. Monk, Emiliano Donadio, Pablo F. Gregorio, Oswald J. Schmitz
Large animals could be important drivers of spatial nutrient subsidies when they ingest resources in some habitats and release them in others, even moving nutrients against elevational gradients. In high Andean deserts, vicuñas (Vicugna vicugna) move daily between nutrient-rich wet meadows, where there is abundant water and forage but high risk of predation by pumas (Puma concolor), and nutrient-poor
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Refrigerated flowers in the torrid Mediterranean summer Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-02-13 Carlos M. Herrera
Torrid summers are consubstantial with the Mediterranean-type climate that prevails over most of the Iberian Peninsula (Capel Molina, 1981). Daily maximum temperature >40°C and relative humidity <10% occur frequently during the rainless period of 3–4 months that follows springtime. This long harsh season brings considerable hardship to plants, particularly in lowland and mid-elevation habitats. Annuals
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Spawning and larval development of Colossendeis megalonyx, a giant Antarctic sea spider Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-02-11 Amy L. Moran, Graham T. Lobert, Ming Wei Aaron Toh
CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
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Wandering outside of the Styx: Surface activity of an iconic subterranean vertebrate, the olm (Proteus anguinus) Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-02-08 Raoul Manenti, Matteo Riccardo Di Nicola, Veronica Zampieri, Giorgio Grassi, Thomas Creanza, Edgardo Mauri, Gentile Francesco Ficetola, Benedetta Barzaghi
Animals living in caves have attracted the interest of naturalists and biologists since the beginning of modern science (Poulson & White, 1969; Vandel, 1964). Caves and other subterranean habitats are often perceived as extreme environments that deserve investigation because their simplified settings can help to understand evolutionary and ecological processes (Howarth, 1993; Mammola, 2019; Moldovan
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Diurnal temperature variation impacts energetics but not reproductive effort across seasons in a temperate dung beetle Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-01-30 J. Morgan Fleming, Katie E. Marshall, Alexander J. Coverley, Kimberly S. Sheldon
Temperature varies on multiple timescales and ectotherms must adjust to these changes to survive. These adjustments may lead to energetic trade-offs between self-maintenance and reproductive investment. However, we know little about how diurnal and seasonal temperature changes impact energy allocation. Here we used a combination of empirical data and modeling of both thermoregulatory behaviors and
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Sparse modeling for climate variable selection across trophic levels Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-01-30 Eliza M. Grames, Matthew L. Forister
Understanding how populations respond to climate is fundamentally important to many questions in ecology, evolution, and conservation biology. Climate is complex and multifaceted, with aspects affecting populations in different and sometimes unexpected ways. Thus, when measuring the changing climate it is important to consider the complexity of the phenomenon and the number of ways it can be characterized
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Ambush hunter attacks land snails in its burrow: Unique larval stage of the click beetle Anthracalaus sakaguchii Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-01-29 Nozomu Sato, Hisanori Okamiya, Aiki Yamada
Snail-eating predators have various specialized organs and predation behaviors to overcome the hard shells and defensive traits of gastropods (Symondson, 2004; Vermeij, 2015). In terrestrial ecosystems, larvae of some species of the Lampyridae, Carabidae, and Elateridae families (Coleoptera) prey on land snails by attaching to the shell and injecting venom to weaken them or else by breaking open the
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Stabilizing effects of spatially heterogeneous disturbance via reduced spatial synchrony on a rocky shore community Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-01-29 Caterina Mintrone, Luca Rindi, Lisandro Benedetti-Cecchi
Understanding how synchronous species fluctuations affect community stability is a main research topic in ecology. Yet experimental studies evaluating how changes in disturbance regimes affect the synchrony and stability of populations and communities remain rare. We hypothesized that spatially heterogeneous disturbances of moderate intensity would promote metacommunity stability by decreasing the
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BatFly: A database of Neotropical bat–fly interactions Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-01-28 Natalya Zapata-Mesa, Sebastián Montoya-Bustamante, Juliana Hoyos, Daniela Peña, Jorge Galindo-González, Julio J. Chacón-Pacheco, Jesús Ballesteros-Correa, Maria Raquel Pastrana-Montiel, Gustavo Graciolli, Marcelo R. Nogueira, Marco A. R. Mello
Global changes have increased the risk of emerging infectious diseases, which can be prevented or mitigated by studying host–parasite interactions, among other measures. Bats and their ectoparasitic flies of the families Streblidae and Nycteribiidae are an excellent study model but, so far, our knowledge has been restricted to fragmented records at a local scale. To help boost research, we assembled
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Fire sparks upslope range shifts of North Cascades plant species Ecology (IF 4.8) Pub Date : 2024-01-25 Rachel N. Wilson, Christopher W. Kopp, Janneke Hille Ris Lambers, Amy L. Angert
As ongoing climate change drives suitable habitats to higher elevations, species ranges are predicted to follow. However, observed range shifts have been surprisingly variable, with most species differing in rates of upward shift and others failing to shift at all. Disturbances such as fires could play an important role in accelerating range shifts by facilitating recruitment in newly suitable habitats