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An integrative paradigm for building causal knowledge Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2024-09-17 James B. Grace
A core aspiration of the ecological sciences is to determine how systems work, which implies the challenge of developing a causal understanding. Causal inference has long been approached from a statistical perspective, which can be limited and restrictive for a variety of reasons. Ecologists and other natural scientists have historically pursued mechanistic knowledge as an alternative approach to causal
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Parasites disrupt a keystone mutualism that underpins the structure, functioning, and resilience of a coastal ecosystem Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2024-09-17 Joseph P. Morton, Brian P. Davis, Taylor A. Walker, India H. Haber, Eve H. Adelson, Brian R. Silliman
Parasites can alter the traits or densities of mutualistic partners, potentially destabilizing mutualistic associations that underpin the structure, functioning, and stability of entire ecosystems. Despite the potentially wide‐ranging consequences of such disruptions, no studies have directly manipulated parasite prevalence and/or intensity in a mutualistic partner, nor quantified the resulting community‐level
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Thermal biology diversity of bee pollinators: Taxonomic, phylogenetic, and plant community‐level correlates Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2024-09-06 Carlos M. Herrera
Community‐wide assembly of plant–pollinator systems depends on an intricate combination of biotic and abiotic factors, including heterogeneity among pollinators in thermal biology and responses to abiotic factors. Studies on the thermal biology of pollinators have mostly considered only one or a few species of plants or pollinators at a time, and the possible driving role of the diversity in thermal
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The enigmatic life history of the bamboo explained as a strategy to arrest succession Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2024-09-02 Aiyu Zheng, Stephen W. Pacala
Bamboos are perennial woody grasses that display an enigmatic mix of traits. Bamboo is highly shade intolerant like early‐successional trees. Without secondary xylem, bamboos cannot continue to grow once they reach a maximum height or replace xylem damaged by hydraulic stress and must instead replace each stem after a few years using vegetative propagation via rhizomes. These traits of bamboo would
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Erratum Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2024-08-30
Erratum for Hobbs, N. Thompson, Danielle B. Johnston, Kristin N. Marshall, Evan C. Wolf, and David J. Cooper. 2024. “Does Restoring Apex Predators to Food Webs Restore Ecosystems? Large Carnivores in Yellowstone as a Model System.” Ecological Monographs 94(2): e1598. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecm.1598. The authors wish to convey several corrections within the “Discussion: Comparison with other studies
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New theoretical and analytical framework for quantifying and classifying ecological niche differentiation Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2024-08-12 Alfredo Ascanio, Jason T. Bracken, Martin Henry H. Stevens, Tereza Jezkova
Ecological niche differentiation is a process that accompanies lineage diversification and community assembly. Traditionally, the degree of niche differentiation is estimated by contrasting niche hypervolumes of two taxa, reconstructed using ecologically relevant variables. These methods disregard the fact that niches can shift in different ways and directions. Without means of discriminating between
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Fire exclusion alters forest evapotranspiration: A comprehensive water budget analysis in longleaf pine woodlands Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2024-08-12 Steven T. Brantley, O. Stribling Stuber, Dakota L. Holder, R. Scott Taylor
Forests are critical to water resources, but high evapotranspiration (ET) can reduce water yield. Thinning and prescribed fire reduce forest density and often reduce ET, promoting higher water yield. However, results from such treatments have been inconsistent, possibly because of unknown interactions among individual ET components. We compare water budget components of longleaf pine (Pinus palustris
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Carbon dynamics in high-Andean tropical cushion peatlands: A review of geographic patterns and potential drivers Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2024-07-22 Mary Carolina García Lino, Simon Pfanzelt, Alejandra I. Domic, Isabell Hensen, Karsten Schittek, Rosa Isela Meneses, Maaike Y. Bader
Peatlands store large amounts of carbon (C), a function potentially threatened by climate change. Peatlands composed of vascular cushion plants are widespread in the northern and central high Andes (páramo, wet and dry puna), but their C dynamics are hardly known. To understand the interplay of the main drivers of peatland C dynamics and to infer geographic patterns across the Andean regions, we addressed
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Using mobile acoustic monitoring and false‐positive N‐mixture models to estimate bat abundance and population trends Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2024-07-19 Bradley J. Udell, Bethany Rose Straw, Susan C. Loeb, Kathryn M. Irvine, Wayne E. Thogmartin, Cori L. Lausen, Jonathan D. Reichard, Jeremy T. H. Coleman, Paul M. Cryan, Winifred F. Frick, Brian E. Reichert
Estimating the abundance of unmarked animal populations from acoustic data is challenging due to the inability to identify individuals and the need to adjust for observation biases including detectability (false negatives), species misclassification (false positives), and sampling exposure. Acoustic surveys conducted along mobile transects were designed to avoid counting individuals more than once
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Why are there so many definitions of eutrophication? Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2024-06-27 Alexandrine Pannard, Philippe Souchu, Christian Chauvin, Monique Delabuis, Chantal Gascuel-Odoux, Erik Jeppesen, Morgane Le Moal, Alain Ménesguen, Gilles Pinay, Nancy N. Rabalais, Yves Souchon, Elisabeth M. Gross
Because of the first observations in the 1900s of the oligotrophic and eutrophic states of lakes, researchers have been interested in the process that makes lakes become turbid because of high phytoplankton biomass. Definitions of eutrophication have multiplied and diversified since the mid-20th century, more than for any other ecological process. Reasons for the high number of definitions might be
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Increasing disturbance frequency undermines coral reef recovery Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2024-06-24 Michael J. Emslie, Murray Logan, Peran Bray, Daniela M. Ceccarelli, Alistair J. Cheal, Terry P. Hughes, Kerryn A. Johns, Michelle J. Jonker, Emma V. Kennedy, James T. Kerry, Camille Mellin, Ian R. Miller, Kate Osborne, Marji Puotinen, Tane Sinclair-Taylor, Hugh Sweatman
Climate-driven alterations to disturbance regimes are increasingly disrupting patterns of recovery in many biomes. Here, we examine the impact of disturbance and subsequent level of recovery in live hard coral cover on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) across the last three decades. We demonstrate that a preexisting pattern of infrequent disturbances of limited spatial extent has changed to larger and more
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Understanding woody plant encroachment: A plant functional trait approach Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2024-06-22 Inger K. de Jonge, Han Olff, Emilian P. Mayemba, Stijn J. Berger, Michiel P. Veldhuis
The increasing density of woody plants threatens the integrity of grassy ecosystems. It remains unclear if such encroachment can be explained mostly by direct effects of resources on woody plant growth or by indirect effects of disturbances imposing tree recruitment limitation. Here, we investigate whether woody plant functional traits provide a mechanistic understanding of the complex relationships
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How to map biomes: Quantitative comparison and review of biome-mapping methods Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2024-06-19 Antoine Champreux, Frédérik Saltré, Wolfgang Traylor, Thomas Hickler, Corey J. A. Bradshaw
Biomes are large-scale ecosystems occupying large spaces. The biome concept should theoretically facilitate scientific synthesis of global-scale studies of the past, present, and future biosphere. However, there is neither a consensus biome map nor universally accepted definition of terrestrial biomes, making joint interpretation and comparison of biome-related studies difficult. “Desert,” “rainforest
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Linking aerial hyperspectral data to canopy tree biodiversity: An examination of the spectral variation hypothesis Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2024-05-06 Anna L. Crofts, Christine I. B. Wallis, Sabine St-Jean, Sabrina Demers-Thibeault, Deep Inamdar, J. Pablo Arroyo-Mora, Margaret Kalacska, Etienne Laliberté, Mark Vellend
Imaging spectroscopy is emerging as a leading remote sensing method for quantifying plant biodiversity. The spectral variation hypothesis predicts that variation in plant hyperspectral reflectance is related to variation in taxonomic and functional identity. While most studies report some correlation between spectral and field-based (i.e., taxonomic and functional) expressions of biodiversity, the
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A flexible theory for the dynamics of social populations: Within-group density dependence and between-group processes Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2024-04-16 Brian A. Lerch, Karen C. Abbott
Despite the importance of population structures throughout ecology, relatively little theoretical attention has been paid to understanding the implications of social groups for population dynamics. The dynamics of socially structured populations differ substantially from those of unstructured or metapopulation-structured populations, because social groups themselves may split, fuse, and compete. These
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Impacts of host availability and temperature on mosquito-borne parasite transmission Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2024-03-13 Kyle J.-M. Dahlin, Suzanne M. O'Regan, Barbara A. Han, John Paul Schmidt, John M. Drake
Global climate change is predicted to cause range shifts in the mosquito species that transmit pathogens to humans and wildlife. Recent modeling studies have sought to improve our understanding of the relationship between temperature and the transmission potential of mosquito-borne pathogens. However, the role of the vertebrate host population, including the importance of host behavioral defenses on
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Novel analytic methods for predicting extinctions in ecological networks Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2024-03-12 Chris Jones, Damaris Zurell, Karoline Wiesner
Ecological networks describe the interactions between different species, informing us how they rely on one another for food, pollination, and survival. If a species in an ecosystem is under threat of extinction, it can affect other species in the system and possibly result in their secondary extinction as well. Understanding how (primary) extinctions cause secondary extinctions on ecological networks
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Social foraging and the associated benefits of group-living in Cliff Swallows decrease over 40 years Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2024-03-11 Charles R. Brown, Mary B. Brown, Stacey L. Hannebaum, Gigi S. Wagnon, Olivia M. Pletcher, Catherine E. Page, Amy C. West, Valerie A. O'Brien
Animals that feed socially can sometimes better locate prey, often by transferring information about food that is patchy, dense, and temporally and spatially unpredictable. Information transfer is a potential benefit of living in breeding colonies where unsuccessful foragers can more readily locate successful ones and thereby improve feeding efficiency. Most studies on social foraging have been short
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A general, resource-based explanation for density dependence in populations of large herbivores Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2024-03-05 N. Thompson Hobbs
The discipline of ecology seeks to understand how ecosystems, communities, and populations are regulated. A ubiquitous mechanism of population regulation of consumers is that capturing energy and nutrients in sufficient quantities for survival and reproduction becomes more difficult as population density increases. Extensive evidence has revealed that populations of large herbivores are often regulated
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Environmental variation structures reproduction and recruitment in long-lived mega-herbivores: Galapagos giant tortoises Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2024-02-13 Stephen Blake, Freddy Cabrera, Sebastian Cruz, Diego Ellis-Soto, Charles B. Yackulic, Guillaume Bastille-Rousseau, Martin Wikelski, Franz Kuemmeth, James P. Gibbs, Sharon L. Deem
Migratory, long-lived animals are an important focus for life-history theory because they manifest extreme trade-offs in life-history traits: delayed maturity, low fecundity, variable recruitment rates, long generation times, and vital rates that respond to variation across environments. Galapagos tortoises are an iconic example: they are long-lived, migrate seasonally, face multiple anthropogenic
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Does restoring apex predators to food webs restore ecosystems? Large carnivores in Yellowstone as a model system Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2024-01-30 N. Thompson Hobbs, Danielle B. Johnston, Kristin N. Marshall, Evan C. Wolf, David J. Cooper
Modification of food webs is a frequent cause of shifts in ecosystem states that resist reversal when the food web is restored to its original condition. We used the restoration of the large carnivore guild including gray wolves (Canis lupis), cougars (Felis concolor), and grizzly bears (Ursus arctos horribilis) to the northern range of Yellowstone National Park as a model system to understand how
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Limits to species distributions on tropical mountains shift from high temperature to competition as elevation increases Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2023-12-29 Jinlin Chen, Owen T. Lewis
Species turnover with elevation is a widespread phenomenon and provides valuable information on why and how ecological communities might reorganize as the climate warms. It is commonly assumed that species interactions are more likely to set warm range limits, while physiological tolerances determine cold range limits. However, most studies are from temperate systems and rely on correlations between
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Phylogeography and climate shape the quantitative genetic landscape and range-wide plasticity of a prevalent conifer Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2023-11-17 Jordi Voltas, Ramon Amigó, Tatiana A. Shestakova, Giovanni di Matteo, Raquel Díaz, Rafael Zas
The contribution of genetic adaptation and plasticity to intraspecific phenotypic variability remains insufficiently studied in long-lived plants, as well as the relevance of neutral versus adaptive processes determining such divergence. We examined the importance of phylogeographic structure and climate in modulating genetic and plastic changes and their interdependence in fitness-related traits of
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Higher metabolic plasticity in temperate compared to tropical lizards suggests increased resilience to climate change: Comment Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2023-10-23 Keith Christian, Gavin Bedford, Chava L. Weitzman
CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
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Novel genomic offset metrics integrate local adaptation into habitat suitability forecasts and inform assisted migration Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2023-10-03 Susanne Lachmuth, Thibaut Capblancq, Anoob Prakash, Stephen R. Keller, Matthew C. Fitzpatrick
Genomic data are increasingly being integrated into macroecological forecasting, offering an evolutionary perspective that has been largely missing from global change biogeography. Genomic offset, which quantifies the disruption of genotype–environment associations under environmental change, allows for the incorporation of intraspecific climate-associated genomic differentiation into forecasts of
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Numerical response of predator to prey: Dynamic interactions and population cycles in Eurasian lynx and roe deer Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2023-10-03 Henrik Andrén, Olof Liberg
The dynamic interactions between predators and their prey have two fundamental processes: numerical and functional responses. Numerical response is defined as predator growth rate as a function of prey density or both prey and predator densities [dP/dt = f(N, P)]. Functional response is defined as the kill rate by an individual predator being a function of prey density or prey and predator densities
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Environmental context, parameter sensitivity, and structural sensitivity impact predictions of annual-plant coexistence Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2023-09-09 Alba Cervantes-Loreto, Abigail I. Pastore, Christopher R. P. Brown, Michelle L. Marraffini, Clement Aldebert, Margaret M. Mayfield, Daniel B. Stouffer
Predicting the outcome of interactions between species is central to our current understanding of diversity maintenance. However, we have limited information about the robustness of many model-based predictions of species coexistence. This limitation is partly because several sources of uncertainty are often ignored when making predictions. Here, we introduce a framework to simultaneously explore how
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Connecting local and regional scales with stochastic metacommunity models: Competition, ecological drift, and dispersal Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2023-08-21 Brian A. Lerch, Akshata Rudrapatna, Nasser Rabi, Jonas Wickman, Thomas Koffel, Christopher A. Klausmeier
Despite the well known scale-dependency of ecological interactions, relatively little attention has been paid to understanding the dynamic interplay between various spatial scales. This is especially notable in metacommunity theory, where births and deaths dominate dynamics within patches (the local scale), and dispersal and environmental stochasticity dominate dynamics between patches (the regional
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A sequence of multiyear wet and dry periods provides opportunities for grass recovery and state change reversals Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2023-08-03 Debra P. C. Peters, Heather M. Savoy
Multiyear periods (≥4 years) of extreme rainfall are increasing in frequency as climate continues to change, yet there is little understanding of how rainfall amount and heterogeneity in biophysical properties affect state changes in a sequence of wet and dry periods. Our objective was to examine the importance of rainfall periods, their legacies, and vegetation and soil properties to either the persistence
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Ecological dynamic regimes: Identification, characterization, and comparison Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2023-08-03 Martina Sánchez-Pinillos, Sonia Kéfi, Miquel De Cáceres, Vasilis Dakos
Understanding ecological dynamics has been a central topic in ecology since its origins. Yet, identifying dynamic regimes remains a research frontier for modern ecology. The concept of ecological dynamic regime (EDR) emerged to emphasize the dynamic property of steady states in nature and refers to the fluctuations of ecosystems around some trend or average. Identifying and characterizing EDRs is of
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Cover Image Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2023-08-01
COVER PHOTO: The cover image shows colonization of sessile taxa on coral rubble at Heron Island on the Great Barrier Reef, Australia. In their study in this issue, Wolfe et al. (Article e1586; doi:10.1002/ecm.1586) use hierarchical structuring theory to characterize hidden biodiversity on coral reefs from seascape to microhabitat perspectives. Through an in-depth assessment of community structure in
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Rarefaction and extrapolation with beta diversity under a framework of Hill numbers: The iNEXT.beta3D standardization Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2023-07-20 Anne Chao, Simon Thorn, Chun-Huo Chiu, Faye Moyes, Kai-Hsiang Hu, Robin L. Chazdon, Jessie Wu, Luiz Fernando S. Magnago, Maria Dornelas, David Zelený, Robert K. Colwell, Anne E. Magurran
Based on sampling data, we propose a rigorous standardization method to measure and compare beta diversity across datasets. Here beta diversity, which quantifies the extent of among-assemblage differentiation, relies on Whittaker's original multiplicative decomposition scheme, but we use Hill numbers for any diversity order q ≥ 0. Richness-based beta diversity (q = 0) quantifies the extent of species
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Drivers of contrasting boreal understory vegetation in coniferous and broadleaf deciduous alternative states Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2023-06-12 Juanita C. Rodríguez-Rodríguez, Nicole J. Fenton, Steven W. Kembel, Evick Mestre, Mélanie Jean, Yves Bergeron
Alternative states defined by tree-canopy dominance result in different ecosystem functioning and shape habitat conditions for the understory vegetation. One example in the boreal forest is the alternation between broadleaf deciduous and coniferous forests. Disturbances related to natural fires and human land uses have produced changes in tree-canopy dominance in the boreal region where coniferous
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Hierarchical drivers of cryptic biodiversity on coral reefs Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2023-06-10 Kennedy Wolfe, Tania M. Kenyon, Amelia Desbiens, Kimberley de la Motte, Peter J. Mumby
Declines in habitat structural complexity have marked ecological outcomes, as currently observed in many of the world's ecosystems. Coral reefs have provided a model for such changes in marine ecosystems; still our understanding has been centered on corals and fishes at broad spatial scales when metazoan diversity on coral reefs is dominated by small cryptic taxa (herein: “cryptofauna”). Given the
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Reexamining the storage effect: Why temporal variation in abiotic factors seems unlikely to cause coexistence Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2023-06-02 Simon Maccracken Stump, David A. Vasseur
The temporal storage effect—that species coexist by partitioning abiotic niches that vary in time—is thought to be an important explanation for how species coexist. However, empirical studies that measure multiple mechanisms often find the storage effect is weak. We believe this mismatch is because of a shortcoming of theoretical models used to study the storage effect: that while the storage effect
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Assessing risk for butterflies in the context of climate change, demographic uncertainty, and heterogeneous data sources Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2023-05-19 Matthew L. Forister, Eliza M. Grames, Christopher A. Halsch, Kevin J. Burls, Cas F. Carroll, Katherine L. Bell, Joshua P. Jahner, Taylor A. Bradford, Jing Zhang, Qian Cong, Nick V. Grishin, Jeffrey Glassberg, Arthur M. Shapiro, Thomas V. Riecke
Ongoing declines in insect populations have led to substantial concern and calls for conservation action. However, even for relatively well studied groups, like butterflies, information relevant to species-specific status and risk is scattered across field guides, the scientific literature, and agency reports. Consequently, attention and resources have been spent on a minuscule fraction of insect diversity
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Editorial Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2023-04-26 Jean-Philippe Lessard, Mar Sobral, Matthias Schleuning, Mariano A. Rodriguez-Cabal
Ecological Monographs is going through some important changes, and 2023 will be a transformative year with the creation of a brand-new board of editors. We have recently welcomed Mar Sobral as our new Associate Editor-in-Chief, Matthias Schleuning as our new Editor of Concepts & Synthesis, and Mariano Rodriguez-Cabal as a Subject-matter Editor who will also coordinate our Diversity and Mentorship Support
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Demography and dispersal at a grass-shrub ecotone: A spatial integral projection model for woody plant encroachment Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2023-04-18 Trevor Drees, Brad M. Ochocki, Scott L. Collins, Tom E. X. Miller
The encroachment of woody plants into grasslands is a global phenomenon with implications for biodiversity and ecosystem function. Understanding and predicting the pace of expansion and the underlying processes that control it are key challenges in the study and management of woody encroachment. Theory from spatial population biology predicts that the occurrence and speed of expansion should depend
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Using mechanistic insights to predict the climate-induced expansion of a key aquatic predator Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2023-04-16 Mark C. Urban, Christopher P. Nadeau, Sean T. Giery
Ameliorating the impacts of climate change on communities requires understanding the mechanisms of change and applying them to predict future responses. One way to prioritize efforts is to identify biotic multipliers, which are species that are sensitive to climate change and disproportionately alter communities. We first evaluate the mechanisms underlying the occupancy dynamics of marbled salamanders
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Off-host survival of blacklegged ticks in eastern North America: A multistage, multiyear, multisite study Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2023-03-30 Jesse L. Brunner, Shannon L. LaDeau, Mary Killilea, Elizabeth Valentine, Megan Schierer, Richard S. Ostfeld
Climatic conditions are widely thought to govern the distribution and abundance of ectoparasites, such as the blacklegged tick (Ixodes scapularis), vector of the agents of Lyme disease and other emerging human pathogens. However, translating physiological tolerances to distributional limits or mortality is challenging. Ticks may be able to avoid or tolerate unsuitable conditions, and what is lethal
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Seasonality of pollinators in montane habitats: Cool-blooded bees for early-blooming plants Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2023-03-07 Carlos M. Herrera, Alejandro Núñez, Luis O. Aguado, Conchita Alonso
Understanding the factors that drive community-wide assembly of plant-pollinator systems along environmental gradients has considerable evolutionary, ecological, and applied significance. Variation in thermal environments combined with intrinsic differences among pollinators in thermal biology have been proposed as drivers of community-wide pollinator gradients, but this suggestion remains largely
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Reduction of invertebrate herbivory by land use is only partly explained by changes in plant and insect characteristics Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2023-03-07 Felix Neff, Daniel Prati, Rafael Achury, Didem Ambarlı, Ralph Bolliger, Martin Brändle, Martin Freitag, Norbert Hölzel, Till Kleinebecker, Arturo Knecht, Deborah Schäfer, Peter Schall, Sebastian Seibold, Michael Staab, Wolfgang W. Weisser, Loïc Pellissier, Martin M. Gossner
Invertebrate herbivory is a crucial process contributing to the cycling of nutrients and energy in terrestrial ecosystems. While the function of herbivory can decrease with land-use intensification, the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. We hypothesize that land-use intensification impacts invertebrate leaf herbivory rates mainly through changes in characteristics of plants and insect herbivores
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Metapopulation regulation acts at multiple spatial scales: Insights from a century of seabird colony census data Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2023-02-27 Jana W. E. Jeglinski, Sarah Wanless, Stuart Murray, Robert T. Barrett, Arnthor Gardarsson, Mike P. Harris, Jochen Dierschke, Hallvard Strøm, Svein-Håkon Lorentsen, Jason Matthiopoulos
Density-dependent feedback is recognized as important regulatory mechanisms of population size. Considering the spatial scales over which such feedback operates has advanced our theoretical understanding of metapopulation dynamics. Yet, metapopulation models are rarely fit to time-series data and tend to omit details of the natural history and behavior of long-lived, highly mobile species such as colonial
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Erratum Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2023-02-27
Erratum for Stephens, R. B., A. P. Ouimette, E. A. Hobbie, and R. J. Rowe. 2022. “Reevaluating trophic discrimination factors (Δδ13C and Δδ15N) for diet reconstruction.” Ecological Monographs 92(3): e1525. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecm.1525. It has come to our attention that a portion of a sentence was mistakenly removed from this paper during the production process. The fourth sentence in the Introduction
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Scale-dependent diversity–biomass relationships can be driven by tree mycorrhizal association and soil fertility Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2023-02-17 Zikun Mao, Fons van der Plas, Adriana Corrales, Kristina J. Anderson-Teixeira, Norman A. Bourg, Chengjin Chu, Zhanqing Hao, Guangze Jin, Juyu Lian, Fei Lin, Buhang Li, Wenqi Luo, William J. McShea, Jonathan A. Myers, Guochun Shen, Xihua Wang, En-Rong Yan, Ji Ye, Wanhui Ye, Zuoqiang Yuan, Xugao Wang
Diversity–biomass relationships (DBRs) often vary with spatial scale in terrestrial ecosystems, but the mechanisms driving these scale-dependent patterns remain unclear, especially for highly heterogeneous forest ecosystems. This study explores how mutualistic associations between trees and different mycorrhizal fungi, i.e., arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) vs. ectomycorrhizal (EM) association, modulate
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Underlying geology and climate interactively shape climate change refugia in mountain streams Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2023-02-16 Nobuo Ishiyama, Masanao Sueyoshi, Jorge García Molinos, Kenta Iwasaki, Junjiro N. Negishi, Itsuro Koizumi, Shigeya Nagayama, Akiko Nagasaka, Yu Nagasaka, Futoshi Nakamura
Identifying climate-change refugia is a key adaptation strategy for reducing global warming impacts. Knowledge of the effects of underlying geology on thermal regime along climate gradients and the ecological responses to the geology-controlled thermal regime is essential to plan appropriate climate adaptation strategies. In the present study, the dominance of volcanic rocks in the watershed is used
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Hydrodynamics structure plankton communities and interactions in a freshwater tidal estuary Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2023-02-15 Adrianne P. Smits, Luke C. Loken, Erwin E. Van Nieuwenhuyse, Matthew J. Young, Paul R. Stumpner, Leah E. K. Lenoch, Jon R. Burau, Randy A. Dahlgren, Tiffany Brown, Steven Sadro
Drivers of phytoplankton and zooplankton dynamics vary spatially and temporally in estuaries due to variation in hydrodynamic exchange and residence time, complicating efforts to understand controls on food web productivity. We conducted approximately monthly (2012–2019; n = 74) longitudinal sampling at 10 fixed stations along a freshwater tidal terminal channel in the San Francisco Estuary, California
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Using a demographic model to project the long-term effects of fire management on tree biomass in Australian savannas Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2023-01-24 Brett P. Murphy, Peter J. Whitehead, Jay Evans, Cameron P. Yates, Andrew C. Edwards, Harry J. MacDermott, Dominique C. Lynch, Jeremy Russell-Smith
Tropical savannas are characterized by high primary productivity and high fire frequency, such that much of the carbon captured by vegetation is rapidly returned to the atmosphere. Hence, there have been suggestions that management-driven reductions in savanna fire frequency and/or severity could significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and sequester carbon in tree biomass. However, a key knowledge
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Abiotic and biotic drivers of tree trait effects on soil microbial biomass and soil carbon concentration Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2022-12-29 Rémy Beugnon, Wensheng Bu, Helge Bruelheide, Andréa Davrinche, Jianqing Du, Sylvia Haider, Matthias Kunz, Goddert von Oheimb, Maria D. Perles-Garcia, Mariem Saadani, Thomas Scholten, Steffen Seitz, Bala Singavarapu, Stefan Trogisch, Yanfen Wang, Tesfaye Wubet, Kai Xue, Bo Yang, Simone Cesarz, Nico Eisenhauer
Forests are ecosystems critical to understanding the global carbon budget, due to their carbon sequestration potential in both aboveground and belowground compartments, especially in species-rich forests. Soil carbon sequestration is strongly linked to soil microbial communities, and this link is mediated by the tree community, likely due to modifications of microenvironmental conditions (i.e., biotic
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Tree symbioses sustain nitrogen fixation despite excess nitrogen supply Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2022-12-29 Duncan N. L. Menge, Amelia A. Wolf, Jennifer L. Funk, Steven S. Perakis, Palani R. Akana, Rachel Arkebauer, Thomas A. Bytnerowicz, K. A. Carreras Pereira, Alexandra M. Huddell, Sian Kou-Giesbrecht, Sarah K. Ortiz
Symbiotic nitrogen fixation (SNF) is a key ecological process whose impact depends on the strategy of SNF regulation—the degree to which rates of SNF change in response to limitation by N versus other resources. SNF that is obligate or exhibits incomplete downregulation can result in excess N fixation, whereas a facultative SNF strategy does not. We hypothesized that tree-based SNF strategies differed
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Interspecific differences in microhabitat use expose insects to contrasting thermal mortality Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2022-12-09 Maria Vives-Ingla, Javier Sala-Garcia, Constantí Stefanescu, Armand Casadó-Tortosa, Meritxell Garcia, Josep Peñuelas, Jofre Carnicer
Ecotones linking open and forested habitats contain multiple microhabitats with varying vegetal structures and microclimatic regimes. Ecotones host many insect species whose development is intimately linked to the microclimatic conditions where they grow (e.g., the leaves of their host plants and the surrounding air). Yet microclimatic heterogeneity at these fine scales and its effects on insects remain
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Partner fidelity and environmental filtering preserve stage-specific turtle ant gut symbioses for over 40 million years Ecol. Monogr. (IF 7.1) Pub Date : 2022-12-07 Yi Hu, Catherine L. D'Amelio, Benoît Béchade, Christian S. Cabuslay, Piotr Łukasik, Jon G. Sanders, Shauna Price, Emily Fanwick, Scott Powell, Corrie S. Moreau, Jacob A. Russell
Sustaining beneficial gut symbioses presents a major challenge for animals, including holometabolous insects. Social insects may meet such challenges through partner fidelity, aided by behavioral symbiont transfer and transgenerational inheritance through colony founders. We address such potential through colony-wide explorations across 13 eusocial, holometabolous insect species in the ant genus Cephalotes