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Primacy of plants in driving the response of arthropod communities to drought Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2021-01-15 Jessica T. Kansman, David W. Crowder, Deborah L. Finke
Drought threatens arthropod communities worldwide. Water limitation affects the quantity and quality of plants available to herbivores as food, and can also affect higher trophic-level consumers through variability in prey quality and reduced availability of suitable habitats. Our study assessed the response of an arthropod community to water limited wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) in a field setting
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Climate and weather have differential effects in a high latitude passerine community Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2021-01-13 Jeremy D. Mizel, Joshua H. Schmidt, Carol L. Mcintyre
Climatic factors act on populations at multiple timescales leading to the separation of long-term climate and shorter-term weather effects. We used passerine counts from 1995 to 2019 in subarctic Alaska (Denali National Park, USA) to assess the impacts of the prior breeding season’s weather on breeding season abundance and the impacts of climate measured through shifts in elevational distribution.
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Linkage between species traits and plant phenology in an alpine meadow Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2021-01-10 Yinzhan Liu, Guoyong Li, Xinwei Wu, Karl J. Niklas, Zhongling Yang, Shucun Sun
Plant phenology differs largely among coexisting species within communities that share similar habitat conditions. However, the factors explaining such phenological diversity of plants have not been fully investigated. We hypothesize that species traits, including leaf mass per area (LMA), seed mass, stem tissue mass density (STD), maximum plant height (Hmax), and relative growth rate in height (RGRH)
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Functional importance and diversity of fungi during standing grass litter decomposition Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2021-01-09 Matthew B. Lodato, Jerrid S. Boyette, Rachel A. Smilo, Colin R. Jackson, Halvor M. Halvorson, Kevin A. Kuehn
Although microbial participation in litter decomposition is widely known within terrestrial soils, the role and significance of microorganisms during the aerial standing litter phase of decomposition remains poorly investigated. We examined the fungi inhabiting standing leaf litter of Schizachyrium scoparium and Schizachyrium tenerum in a Longleaf Pine savanna ecosystem and estimated their contribution
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Corridor quality affects net movement, size of dispersers, and population growth in experimental microcosms Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2021-01-09 Dongbo Li, Christopher F. Clements, Isobel L. G. Shan, Jane Memmott
Corridors are expected to increase species dispersal in fragmented habitats. However, it remains unclear how the quality of corridors influences the dispersal process, and how it interacts with corridor length and width. Here we investigate these factors using a small-scale laboratory system where we track the dispersal of the model organism Collembola Folsomia candida. Using this system, we study
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Is a drought a drought in grasslands? Productivity responses to different types of drought Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2021-01-08 Charles J. W. Carroll, Ingrid J. Slette, Robert J. Griffin-Nolan, Lauren E. Baur, Ava M. Hoffman, Elsie M. Denton, Jesse E. Gray, Alison K. Post, Melissa K. Johnston, Qiang Yu, Scott L. Collins, Yiqi Luo, Melinda D. Smith, Alan K. Knapp
Drought, defined as a marked deficiency of precipitation relative to normal, occurs as periods of below-average precipitation or complete failure of precipitation inputs, and can be limited to a single season or prolonged over multiple years. Grasslands are typically quite sensitive to drought, but there can be substantial variability in the magnitude of loss of ecosystem function. We hypothesized
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Sex-specific plasticity in a trophic polymorphic aquatic predator: a modeling approach Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2021-01-08 Tomas O. Höök, Richard Svanbäck, Peter Eklöv
Phenotypic plasticity is common among animal taxa. While there are clearly limits and likely costs to plasticity, these costs are unknown for most organisms. Further, as plasticity is partially genetically determined, the potential magnitude of exhibited plasticity may vary among individuals. In addition to phenotypic plasticity, various animal taxa also display sexual size dimorphism, a feature ultimately
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Muted responses to chronic experimental nitrogen deposition on the Colorado Plateau Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2021-01-08 Michala L. Phillips, Daniel E. Winkler, Robin H. Reibold, Brooke B. Osborne, Sasha C. Reed
Anthropogenic nitrogen (N) deposition is significantly altering both community structure and ecosystem processes in terrestrial ecosystems across the globe. However, our understanding of the consequences of N deposition in dryland systems remains relatively poor, despite evidence that drylands may be particularly vulnerable to increasing N inputs. In this study, we investigated the influence of 7 years
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Leaf isoprene emission as a trait that mediates the growth-defense tradeoff in the face of climate stress Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2021-01-08 Russell K. Monson, Sarathi M. Weraduwage, Maaria Rosenkranz, Jörg-Peter Schnitzler, Thomas D. Sharkey
Plant isoprene emissions are known to contribute to abiotic stress tolerance, especially during episodes of high temperature and drought, and during cellular oxidative stress. Recent studies have shown that genetic transformations to add or remove isoprene emissions cause a cascade of cellular modifications that include known signaling pathways, and interact to remodel adaptive growth-defense tradeoffs
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How important is individual foraging specialisation in invasive predators for native-prey population viability? Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2021-01-08 Pablo García-Díaz, Rachelle N. Binny, Dean P. Anderson
Predation by invasive species is a major threat to the persistence of naïve prey. Typically, this negative effect is addressed by suppressing the population size of the invasive predator to a point where the predation pressure does not hinder the viability of the prey. However, this type of intervention may not be effective whenever a few specialised predators are the cause of the decline. We investigated
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Bryophyte and lichen biomass and nitrogen fixation in a high elevation cloud forest in Cerro de La Muerte, Costa Rica Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2021-01-04 John Markham, Mauricio Fernández Otárola
Cloud forests have been found to lose more nitrogen in stream discharge than they gain from atmospheric deposition. They also support a large diversity and biomass of tree epiphytes, predominately composed of cryptogams. Since cryptogam epiphytes harbor nitrogen fixing cyanobacteria, they may help make up for the nitrogen loss from ecosystems. We assessed cryptogam biomass on the ground, boles and
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Physiological integration can increase competitive ability in clonal plants if competition is patchy Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2021-01-04 Pu Wang, Peter Alpert, Fei-Hai Yu
Physiological integration of connected plants of the same clone, or ramets, often increases clonal fitness when ramets differ in resource supply. However, review of the literature found that no study has directly tested the hypothesis that integration can increase the ability of clones to compete against other species. To test this, we grew two-ramet clonal fragments of the stoloniferous, perennial
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Coupled beta diversity patterns among coral reef benthic taxa Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2021-01-04 Jamie M. McDevitt-Irwin, Carrie Kappel, Alastair R. Harborne, Peter J. Mumby, Daniel R. Brumbaugh, Fiorenza Micheli
Unraveling the processes that drive diversity patterns remains a central challenge for ecology, and an increased understanding is especially urgent to address and mitigate escalating diversity loss. Studies have primarily focused on singular taxonomic groups, but recent research has begun evaluating spatial diversity patterns across multiple taxonomic groups and suggests taxa may have congruence in
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Omnivore density affects community structure through multiple trophic cascades Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2021-01-03 Donald J. Benkendorf, Howard H . Whiteman
Omnivores can dampen trophic cascades by feeding at multiple trophic levels, yet few studies have evaluated how intraspecific variation of omnivores influences community structure. The speckled dace (Rhinichthys osculus) is a common and omnivorous minnow that consumes algae and invertebrates. We studied effects of size and size structure on top-down control by dace and how effects scaled with density
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Sampling effort and the drivers of plant species richness in the Brazilian coastal regions Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2021-01-03 Eduardo Vinícius S. Oliveira, Davi M. C. Alves, Myrna F. Landim, Sidney F. Gouveia
The causes of the gradients in species richness remain contentious because of multiple competing hypotheses, significant knowledge gaps, and regional effects of environmental and historical factors on species pools. Coastal zones are subject to particular sets of environmental constraints, thus identifying the drivers of species richness therein should shed light on the regional gradients of species
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Demography, genetics, and decline of a spatially structured population of lekking bird Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2021-01-03 Hugo Cayuela, Jérôme G. Prunier, Martin Laporte, Jérôme M.W. Gippet, Laurent Boualit, François Guérold, Alain Laurent, Francesco Foletti, Gwenaël Jacob
Understanding the mechanisms underlying population decline is a critical challenge for conservation biologists. Both deterministic (e.g. habitat loss, fragmentation, and Allee effect) and stochastic (i.e. demographic and environmental stochasticity) demographic processes are involved in population decline. Simultaneously, a decrease of population size has far-reaching consequences for genetics of populations
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Tracing sources of carbon and hydrogen to stored lipids in migratory passerines using stable isotope ( δ 13 C, δ 2 H) measurements Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2021-01-03 Libesha Anparasan, Keith A. Hobson
Using measurements of naturally occurring stable isotopes in feathers to determine avian origin and migratory patterns is well established. However, isotopically determining nutritional origins of lipids, a major migratory fuel, has not been attempted. This study explores isotopic links between diet and stored lipids in captive white-throated sparrows (Zonotrichia albicollis) by providing isotopically
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Wildfire severity influences offspring sex ratio in a native solitary bee Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2021-01-03 Sara M. Galbraith, James H. Cane, James W. Rivers
Although ecological disturbances can have a strong influence on pollinators through changes in habitat, virtually no studies have quantified how characteristics of wildfire influence the demography of essential pollinators. Nevertheless, evaluating this topic is critical for understanding how wildfire is linked to pollinator population dynamics, particularly given recent changes in wildfire frequency
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Filter-feeders have differential bottom-up impacts on green and brown food webs Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2021-01-02 Carla L. Atkinson, Halvor M. Halvorson, Kevin A. Kuehn, Monica Winebarger, Ansley Hamid, Matthew N. Waters
Nutrient recycling by consumers can strongly impact nutrient availability for autotrophic and heterotrophic microbes, thus impacting functions such as primary production and decomposition. Filter-feeding freshwater mussels form dense, multispecies assemblages in aquatic ecosystems and have been shown to play a critical role in nutrient cycling. Mussel excretion can enhance benthic primary production
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Behaviorally-mediated trophic cascade attenuated by prey use of risky places at safe times Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2021-01-02 Meredith S. Palmer, C. Portales-Reyes, C. Potter, L. David Mech, Forest Isbell
The mere threat of predation may incite behavioral changes in prey that lead to community-wide impacts on productivity, biodiversity, and nutrient cycling. The paucity of experimental manipulations, however, has contributed to controversy over the strength of this pathway in wide-ranging vertebrate systems. We investigated whether simulated gray wolf (Canis lupus) presence can induce behaviorally-mediated
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Correction to: Age and sex differences in numerical responses, dietary shifts, and total responses of a generalist predator to population dynamics of main prey Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2021-01-02 Giulia Masoero, Toni Laaksonen, Chiara Morosinotto, Erkki Korpimäki
The authors would like to correct errors in the original publication of the article.
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Cold water reduces the severity of parasite-inflicted damage: support for wintertime recuperation in aquatic hosts Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2021-01-02 Ines Klemme, Pekka Hyvärinen, Anssi Karvonen
The reduction in host fitness caused by parasite infections (virulence) depends on infection intensity and the degree of damage caused per parasite. Environmental conditions can shape both virulence components, but in contrast to infection intensity, environmental impacts on per-parasite damage are poorly understood. Here, we studied the effect of ambient temperature on per-parasite damage, which is
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Interactions among intrinsic water-use efficiency and climate influence growth and flowering in a common desert shrub Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2021-01-02 Avery W. Driscoll, Nicholas Q. Bitter, James R. Ehleringer
Plants make leaf-level trade-offs between photosynthetic carbon assimilation and water loss, and the optimal balance between the two is dependent, in part, on water availability. “Conservative” water-use strategies, in which minimizing water loss is prioritized over assimilating carbon, tend to be favored in arid environments, while “aggressive” water-use strategies, in which carbon assimilation is
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Direct effects influence larval salamander size and density more than indirect effects Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2021-01-02 Thomas L. Anderson, Brittany H. Ousterhout, Freya E. Rowland, Dana L. Drake, Jacob J. Burkhart, William E. Peterman
Direct and indirect effects both influence population and community dynamics. The relative strengths of these pathways are often compared using experimental approaches, but their evaluation in situ has been less frequent. We examined how individual and aggregate impacts of direct and indirect effects of species densities, proxies for competition and predation pressure, and habitat variables influenced
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Phylogenetic analysis of macroecological patterns of home range area in snakes Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2021-01-01 Alyssa Fiedler, Gabriel Blouin-Demers, Gregory Bulté, Vincent Careau
A home range is the area animals use to carry out routine activities such as mating, foraging, and caring for young. Thus, the area of a home range is an important indicator of an animal’s behavioural and energetic requirements. While several studies have identified the factors that influence home range area (HRA), none of them has investigated global patterns of HRA among and within snake species
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Leaf litter input to ponds can dramatically alter amphibian morphological phenotypes Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2021-01-01 Julia E. Earl
Phenotypic plasticity in growth and development is commonly examined, but morphology can exhibit plasticity as well. Leg length plasticity is important, because it impacts mobility, which affects predator avoidance, prey capture, and seasonal movements. Differences in relative (i.e., body size adjusted) hind leg lengths > 5% in anurans affect jumping abilities, and resource levels and predation can
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Population cycles and outbreaks of small rodents: ten essential questions we still need to solve Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2020-12-28 Harry P. Andreassen, Janne Sundell, Fraucke Ecke, Stefan Halle, Marko Haapakoski, Heikki Henttonen, Otso Huitu, Jens Jacob, Kaja Johnsen, Esa Koskela, Juan Jose Luque-Larena, Nicolas Lecomte, Herwig Leirs, Joachim Mariën, Magne Neby, Osmo Rätti, Thorbjörn Sievert, Grant R. Singleton, Joannes van Cann, Bram Vanden Broecke , Hannu Ylönen
Most small rodent populations in the world have fascinating population dynamics. In the northern hemisphere, voles and lemmings tend to show population cycles with regular fluctuations in numbers. In the southern hemisphere, small rodents tend to have large amplitude outbreaks with less regular intervals. In the light of vast research and debate over almost a century, we here discuss the driving forces
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Increasing connectivity enhances habitat specialists but simplifies plant–insect food webs Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2020-12-24 Péter Batáry, Verena Rösch, Carsten F. Dormann, Teja Tscharntke
Strong declines of grassland species diversity in small and isolated grassland patches have been observed at local and landscape scales. Here, we study how plant–herbivore interaction webs and habitat specialisation of leafhopper communities change with the size of calcareous grassland fragments and landscape connectivity. We surveyed leafhoppers and plants on 14 small (0.1–0.6 ha) and 14 large (1
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Developmental conditions promote individual differentiation of endocrine axes and behavior in a tropical pinniped Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2020-12-19 Eugene J. DeRango, Jonas F. L. Schwarz, Friederike Zenth, Paolo Piedrahita, Diego Páez-Rosas, Daniel E. Crocker, Oliver Krüger
Between-individual variation in behavior can emerge through complex interactions between state-related mechanisms, which include internal physiological constraints or feedback derived from the external environment. State-related conditions can be especially influential during early life, when parental effort and exposure to social stress may canalize consistent differences in offspring hormonal profiles
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Effects of environmental heterogeneity on phenotypic variation of the endemic plant Lilium pomponium in the Maritime and Ligurian Alps Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2020-12-02 Carmelo Macrì, Davide Dagnino, Maria Guerrina, Frédéric Médail, Luigi Minuto, John D. Thompson, Gabriele Casazza
Geographical limits of species’ distributions are assumed to be coincident with ecological margins, although this assumption might not always be true. Indeed, harsh environments such as Alpine and Mediterranean ecosystems may favour high phenotypic variability among populations, especially those in peripheral sites. Floral traits are often found to be less variable and less affected by environmental
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Seasonal variation in telomere dynamics in African striped mice Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2020-11-17 Francois Criscuolo, Neville Pillay, Sandrine Zahn, Carsten Schradin
Telomere shortening has been used as an indicator of aging and is believed to accelerate under harsh environmental conditions. This can be attributed to the fact that telomere shortening has often been regarded as non-reversible and negatively impacting fitness. However, studies of laboratory mice indicate that they may be able to repair telomere loss to recover from environmental harshness, as indicated
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Just add water: rapid assembly of new communities in previously dry riverbeds, and limited long-distance effects on existing communities Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2020-11-11 Andrew J. Brooks, Jill Lancaster, Barbara J. Downes, Benjamin Wolfenden
Barriers preventing species from dispersing to a location can have a major influence on how communities assemble. Dispersal success may also depend on whether dispersers have to colonise an established community or a largely depauperate location. In freshwater systems, dams and weirs have fragmented rivers, potentially limiting dispersal of biota along rivers. Decommissioning aqueducts on two weirs
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Some like it hotter: trematode transmission under changing temperature conditions Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2020-11-10 Christian Selbach, Robert Poulin
Climate change-related increases in temperature will influence the interactions between organisms, including the infection dynamics of parasites in ecosystems. The distribution and transmission of parasites are expected to increase with warmer temperature, but to what extent this will affect closely related parasite taxa living in sympatry is currently impossible to predict, due to our extremely limited
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Nest substrate, more than ant activity, drives fungal pathogen community dissimilarity in seed-dispersing ant nests Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2020-11-07 Chloe L. Lash, James A. Fordyce, Charles Kwit
Myrmecochory is a widespread mutualism in which plants benefit from seed dispersal services by ants. Ants might also be providing seeds with an additional byproduct benefit via reduced plant pathogen loads in the ant nest environment through their antimicrobial glandular secretions. We investigate this byproduct benefit by identifying fungal communities in ant nests and surrounding environments and
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Metapopulation dynamics over 25 years of a beetle, Osmoderma eremita , inhabiting hollow oaks Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2020-11-07 Ly Lindman, Mattias C. Larsson, Kajsa Mellbrand, Glenn P. Svensson, Jonas Hedin, Olov Tranberg, Thomas Ranius
Osmoderma eremita is a species of beetle that inhabits hollows in ancient trees, which is a habitat that has decreased significantly during the last century. In southeastern Sweden, we studied the metapopulation dynamics of this beetle over a 25 year period, using capture-mark-recapture. The metapopulation size had been rather stable over time, but in most of the individual trees there had been a positive
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Among-individual differences in foraging modulate resource exploitation under perceived predation risk Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2020-11-03 Jana A. Eccard, Thilo Liesenjohann, Melanie Dammhahn
Foraging is risky and involves balancing the benefits of resource acquisition with costs of predation. Optimal foraging theory predicts where, when and how long to forage in a given spatiotemporal distribution of risks and resources. However, significant variation in foraging behaviour and resource exploitation remain unexplained. Using single foragers in artificial landscapes of perceived risks and
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Plant invasion impacts on fungal community structure and function depend on soil warming and nitrogen enrichment Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2020-11-03 M. A. Anthony, K. A. Stinson, J. A. M. Moore, S. D. Frey
The impacts of invasive species on biodiversity may be mitigated or exacerbated by abiotic environmental changes. Invasive plants can restructure soil fungal communities with important implications for native biodiversity and nutrient cycling, yet fungal responses to invasion may depend on numerous anthropogenic stressors. In this study, we experimentally invaded a long-term soil warming and simulated
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Parasite infestation influences life history but not boldness behavior in placental live-bearing fish Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2020-11-03 Andres Hagmayer, Andrew I. Furness, Bart J. A. Pollux
Parasites can negatively affect the reproductive success of hosts. Placental species may be particularly susceptible, because parasite-induced stress during pregnancy could potentially influence embryo development. Here, we examine the consequences of a trematode infestation (black spot disease, BSD) for fetal development and adult behavior in 19 natural populations of the placental live-bearing fish
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Temporal variability in production is not consistently affected by global change drivers across herbaceous-dominated ecosystems Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2020-11-01 Meghan L. Avolio, Kevin R. Wilcox, Kimberly J. Komatsu, Nathan Lemoine, William D. Bowman, Scott L. Collins, Alan K. Knapp, Sally E. Koerner, Melinda D. Smith, Sara G. Baer, Katherine L. Gross, Forest Isbell, Jennie McLaren, Peter B. Reich, Katharine N. Suding, K. Blake Suttle, David Tilman, Zhuwen Xu, Qiang Yu
Understanding how global change drivers (GCDs) affect aboveground net primary production (ANPP) through time is essential to predicting the reliability and maintenance of ecosystem function and services in the future. While GCDs, such as drought, warming and elevated nutrients, are known to affect mean ANPP, less is known about how they affect inter-annual variability in ANPP. We examined 27 global
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Detecting the drivers of functional diversity in a local lichen flora: a case study on the extinct volcano of Roccamonfina (southern Italy) Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2020-10-31 Antonello Migliozzi, Immacolata Catalano, Antonio Mingo, Giuseppa Grazia Aprile
Current strategies for conservation reportedly suffer from an inadequate awareness of the drivers affecting lichen diversity, pointing to the need to fully develop a functional approach to lichen ecology. This study is an attempt to detect the drivers affecting functional diversity in the lichen flora of a volcanic Mediterranean area. Data on epiphytic lichen distribution were correlated with information
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The information provided by the absence of cues: insights from Bayesian models of within and transgenerational plasticity Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2020-10-30 Judy A. Stamps, Alison M. Bell
Empirical studies of phenotypic plasticity often use an experimental design in which the subjects in experimental treatments are exposed to cues, while the subjects in control treatments are maintained in the absence of those cues. However, researchers have virtually ignored the question of what, if any, information might be provided to subjects by the absence of the cues in control treatments. We
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Understanding pollen specialization in mason bees: a case study of six species Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2020-10-26 Megan K. McAulay, Saff Z. Killingsworth, Jessica R. K. Forrest
Many bee species are dietary specialists and restrict their pollen foraging to a subset of the available flowers. However, the reasons for specialization—and the reasons certain plant taxa support numerous specialists—are often unclear. Many bees specialize on the plant family Asteraceae, despite evidence its pollen is a poor food for non-specialists. Here, we studied six mason bee (Osmia) species
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Large-scale disease patterns explained by climatic seasonality and host traits Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2020-10-24 Antoine Filion, Alan Eriksson, Fátima Jorge, Chris N. Niebuhr, Robert Poulin
Understanding factors affecting the distribution of vector-borne diseases in space and across species is of prime importance to conservation ecologists. Identifying the underlying patterns of disease requires a perspective encompassing large spatial scales. However, few studies have investigated disease ecology from a macroecological perspective. Hence, we use a global disease database to uncover worldwide
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Does spatiotemporal nutrient variation allow more species to coexist? Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2020-10-24 Josie Antonucci Di Carvalho, Stephen A. Wickham
Temporal heterogeneity in nutrient availability is known to increase phytoplankton diversity by allowing more species to coexist under different resource niches. Spatial heterogeneity has also been positively correlated with species diversity. Here we investigated how temporal and spatial differences in nutrient addition together impact biodiversity in metacommunities varying in the degree of connectivity
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Anticipatory plastic response of the cellular immune system in the face of future injury: chronic high perceived predation risk induces lymphocytosis in a cichlid fish Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2020-10-23 Denis Meuthen, Ingo Meuthen, Theo C. M. Bakker, Timo Thünken
Vertebrate cellular immunity displays substantial variation among taxa and environments. Hematological parameters such as white blood-cell counts have emerged as a valuable tool to understand this variation by assessing the immunological status of individuals. These tools have long revealed that vertebrate cellular immune systems are highly plastic and respond to injury and infection. However, cellular
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Plant interactions balance under biotic and abiotic stressors: the importance of herbivory in semi-arid ecosystems Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2020-10-22 Marina C. Cock, José L. Hierro
Biotic and abiotic stressors commonly co-occur in plant communities and influence interactions between plants. However, their combined effects on plant interactions have not been widely studied and are still unclear. Here, we assessed the balance of interactions between neighboring plants along a grazing gradient and under two water regimes. We conducted a three-year-field experiment in semi-arid central
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The effects of density dependence and habitat preference on species coexistence and relative abundance Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2020-10-22 Yi Zheng, Fengmin Huang, Minxia Liang, Xubing Liu, Shixiao Yu
In plant communities, some mechanisms maintain differences in species' abundances, while other mechanisms promote coexistence. Asymmetry in conspecific negative density dependence (CNDD) and/or habitat preference is hypothesized to shape relative species abundance, whereas community compensatory trends (CCTs) induced by community-level CNDD and heterospecific facilitation are hypothesized to promote
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Differential resource use in filter-feeding marine invertebrates Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2020-10-20 Belinda Comerford, Mariana Álvarez-Noriega, Dustin Marshall
Coexistence theory predicts that, in general, increases in the number of limiting resources shared among competitors should facilitate coexistence. Heterotrophic sessile marine invertebrate communities are extremely diverse but traditionally, space was viewed as the sole limiting resource. Recently planktonic food was recognized as an additional limiting resource, but the degree to which planktonic
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Megaherbivore browsers vs. tannins: is being big enough? Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2020-10-20 Melissa H. Schmitt, Adrian M. Shrader, David Ward
Megaherbivores have been of particular interest to scientists because of the physiological and ecological challenges associated with their extreme body size. Yet, one question that has seldom been explored is how browsing megaherbivores cope with plant secondary metabolites (PSMs), such as tannins, found in their food. It is possible that the sheer body size of these megaherbivores allows them to ingest
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Exotic garden plants partly substitute for native plants as resources for pollinators when native plants become seasonally scarce Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2020-10-20 Michael Staab, Maria Helena Pereira-Peixoto, Alexandra-Maria Klein
Urban green spaces such as gardens often consist of native and exotic plant species, which provide pollen and nectar for flower-visiting insects. Although some exotic plants are readily visited by pollinators, it is unknown if and at which time of the season exotic garden plants may supplement or substitute for flower resources provided by native plants. To investigate if seasonal changes in flower
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Contrasting responses of above- and below-ground herbivore communities along elevation Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2020-10-19 Camille Pitteloud, Patrice Descombes, Sara Sànchez-Moreno, Alan Kergunteuil, Sébastien Ibanez, Sergio Rasmann, Loïc Pellissier
Above- and below-ground herbivory are key ecosystem processes that can be substantially altered by environmental changes. However, direct comparisons of the coupled variations of above- and below-ground herbivore communities along elevation gradients remain sparse. Here, we studied the variation in assemblages of two dominant groups of herbivores, namely, aboveground orthoptera and belowground nematodes
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Context dependence of transgenerational plasticity: the influence of parental temperature depends on offspring environment and sex Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2020-10-18 Lisa E. Schwanz, Jordann Crawford-Ash, Teagan Gale
Under environmental change, the relationship between phenotype and fitness can change rapidly, leaving populations vulnerable. Plasticity within and between generations could provide the fastest mitigation to environmental change. However, plasticity may depend on interactions among parental environment, offspring environment and offspring sex, and we know little of how these interactions manifest
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Adaptive significance of light and food for a kleptoplastic sea slug: implications for photosynthesis Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2020-10-16 Hiromi Shiroyama, Sayaka Mitoh, Takashi Y. Ida, Yoichi Yusa
Sacoglossan sea slugs can ‘steal’ chloroplasts from their algal food and use them for photosynthesis (kleptoplasty). Although it has been shown that light has positive effects on survival and body size retention of some sacoglossans likely through photosynthesis, it is unknown whether light affects their fitness components such as number of offspring or offspring size. Moreover, whether the effects
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Inter- and intraspecific variation in juvenile metabolism and water loss among five biphasic amphibian species Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2020-10-15 Arianne F. Messerman, Manuel Leal
Population persistence is informed by the ability of individuals to cope with local abiotic conditions, which is commonly mediated by physiological traits. Among biphasic amphibians, juveniles—which are infrequently studied but play a key role in amphibian population dynamics—are the first life stage to experience terrestrial conditions following the aquatic larval stage. To illuminate phenotypic variation
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Trophic structure of apex fish communities in closed versus leaky lakes of arctic Alaska Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2020-10-15 Stephen L. Klobucar, Phaedra Budy
Despite low species diversity and primary production, trophic structure (e.g., top predator species, predator size) is surprisingly variable among Arctic lakes. We investigated trophic structure in lakes of arctic Alaska containing arctic char Salvelinus alpinus using stomach contents and stable isotope ratios in two geographically-close but hydrologically-distinct lake clusters to investigate how
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Correction to: Male energy reserves, mate-searching activities, and reproductive success: alternative resource use strategies in a presumed capital breeder Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2020-10-13 Xavier Glaudas, Stephen E. Rice, Rulon W. Clark, Graham J. Alexander
The authors would like to correct the error in table 4 which was incorrectly published in original version. Correct version of Table 4 is updated here.
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Phytochemistry-mediated disruption of ant–aphid interactions by root-feeding nematodes Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2020-10-13 Fabiane M. Mundim, Elizabeth G. Pringle
Plants link interactions between aboveground and belowground organisms. Herbivore-induced changes in plant chemistry are hypothesized to impact entire food webs by changing the strength of trophic cascades. Yet, few studies have explored how belowground herbivores affect the behaviors of generalist predators, nor how such changes may act through diverse changes to the plant metabolome. Using a factorial
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Facilitative pollinator sharing decreases with floral similarity in multiple systems Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2020-10-10 Melissa K. Ha, Scott A. Schneider, Lynn S. Adler
Investigating the factors that determine whether interactions are competitive or facilitative is essential to understanding community structure and trait evolution. Co-flowering plants interact indirectly through shared pollinators, and meta-analyses suggest that phylogenetic relatedness and floral trait similarity may predict the outcome of these interactions. In a comparative approach, we manipulated
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Costs of reproduction and migration are paid in later return to the colony, not in physical condition, in a long-lived seabird Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2020-10-10 Marie Claire Gatt, Maaike Versteegh, Christina Bauch, B. Irene Tieleman, José Pedro Granadeiro, Paulo Catry
Life history theory suggests a trade-off between costly activities such as breeding and migration and somatic self-maintenance. However, how the short-term cost of parental effort is expressed in species with a slow pace-of-life is not well understood. Also, investigating carry-over effects of migration is most meaningful when comparing migratory strategies within the same population, but this has
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Microbial community assembly in a multi-layer dendritic metacommunity Oecologia (IF 2.654) Pub Date : 2020-10-10 Nathan I. Wisnoski, Jay T. Lennon
A major goal of metacommunity ecology is to infer the local- and regional-scale processes that underlie community assembly. In dendritic ecological networks, branching patterns and directional flow can alter the balance between local and regional factors during assembly. Vertical habitat structure may further affect community assembly in dendritic metacommunities. In this study, we analyzed the bacterial
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