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Struggling to survive: A comparison of Vanessa cardui larval survivorship on putative host plants Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-03-15 Jo'lene A. Saldivar, Erin E. Wilson‐Rankin
The painted lady butterfly (Vanessa cardui) is a generalist herbivore with a global distribution. In North America, over 100 species have been identified as V. cardui larval host plants. This cosmopolitan species is commercially available in all life stages and can be reared on an artificial diet. As a result, V. cardui commonly serves as a model organism for education and outreach. However, gaps in
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Estimating multivariate ecological variables at high spatial resolution using a cost‐effective matching algorithm Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-03-15 Rachel R. Renne, Daniel R. Schlaepfer, Kyle A. Palmquist, William K. Lauenroth, John B. Bradford
Simulation models are valuable tools for estimating ecosystem response to environmental conditions and are particularly relevant for investigating climate change impacts. However, because of high computational requirements, models are often applied over a coarse grid of points or for representative locations. Spatial interpolation of model output can be necessary to guide decision‐making, yet interpolation
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Geographic gradients in a functional trait: Drivers of body size and size diversity of ground invertebrate communities Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-03-15 Michael Kaspari, Katie E. Marshall, Michael D. Weiser, Cameron D. Siler, Miranda K. Theriot, Kirsten de Beurs
Body size is a key functional trait governing how an animal community transforms resources and conditions into performance, abundance, and fitness. Here we use the National Ecological Observatory Network of pitfall traps to explore how an ecosystem's plant productivity, temperature, and growing season length accounts for the range of body size across 99 ground invertebrate communities. The 19‐fold
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Spatial extent drives patterns of relative climate change sensitivity for freshwater fishes of the United States Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-03-15 Samuel C. Silknetter, Abigail L. Benson, Jennifer A. Smith, Meryl C. Mims
Assessing the sensitivity of freshwater species to climate change is an essential component of prioritizing conservation efforts for threatened freshwater ecosystems and organisms. Sensitivity to climate change can be systematically evaluated for multiple species using geographic attributes such as range size and climate niche breadth, and using species traits associated with climate change sensitivity
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Evidence of handedness in turtles Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-03-15 Caroline Honan, John B. Hopkins, Matthew W. H. Chatfield
Although research supporting cerebral lateralization, or handedness, in non‐human vertebrates is expanding, reptiles represent one of the least studied. While assessing wood turtle shells, we noticed more dents, scrapes, chips, and other forms of damage on the right side of turtles than on the left. Asymmetrical injury has been attributed to cerebral lateralization in other taxa, and current research
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Identifying the drivers of vegetation changes in Inner Mongolia based on residual analysis and Hasse diagram technique Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-03-12 Shuangyan Mu, Siqin Tong, Batunacun, Rong Ah, Li Mei, Gang Bao, Xiaojun Huang, Yuhai Bao
Exploring the effect of climate change and human activities on vegetation is a key requisite for the reconstruction of regional ecological environments. Therefore, based on long-term vegetation GIMMS Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data, climate data, and statistical data, the present study applied the Hasse diagram technique and combined the multivariate regression residual analysis
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Assessing the analytical reliability of traditional and novel sampling methods for the study of flower rewards quality Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-03-14 E. Pioltelli, L. Guzzetti, A. Copetta, M. Labra, A. Galimberti, W. Guidi Nissim, P. Biella
Pollinator insects are declining worldwide also due to the alteration of their diet which plays a pivotal role in influencing their health status. Despite interspecific and intraspecific diversity in the diet, pollinators completely or partly rely on pollen and nectar as food sources. A precise characterization of the chemical composition of these flower resources represents a key step in the definition
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Nonsignificant elevational trends of soil microbial respiration and temperature sensitivity in a subtropical forest Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-03-13 Bingwei Zhang, Yun Jiang, Xianjin He, Youshi Wang, Jiawei Li, Xueli Huang, Zufei Shu, Buhang Li, Chengjin Chu
Soil carbon (C) cycling plays a critical role in regulating global C budget and atmospheric CO2 concentrations. The ongoing global warming potentially accelerates soil C loss induced by microbial respiration (MR) and makes soil a large C source to the atmosphere. Quantifying the drivers of MR and its response to rising temperature (also called temperature sensitivity, Q10) should be a high priority
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Erratum Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-03-13
Ziter et al., authors of the 2013 paper “Functional diversity and management mediate aboveground carbon stocks in small forest fragments” (Ecosphere 4(7):85. https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1890/ES13-00135.1), discovered a coding error in converting downed woody debris values to carbon stocks. In addition to affecting the results specifically pertaining to carbon in dead wood
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Fire severity drives understory community dynamics and the recovery of culturally significant plants Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-03-10 Sarah Dickson-Hoyle, , , Arial Eatherton, Jennifer N. Baron, Florencia Tiribelli, Lori D. Daniels
Anthropogenic influences are altering fire regimes worldwide, resulting in an increase in the size and severity of wildfires. Simultaneously, throughout western North America, there is increasing recognition of the important role of Indigenous fire stewardship in shaping historical fire regimes and fire-adapted ecosystems. However, there is limited understanding of how ecosystems are affected by or
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Restoring freshwater habitat mosaics to promote resilience of vulnerable salmon populations Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-03-12 Flora Cordoleani, Corey C. Phillis, Anna M. Sturrock, Malte Willmes, George Whitman, Eric Holmes, Peter K. Weber, Carson Jeffres, Rachel C. Johnson
Phenotypic diversity and abundance drive salmon resilience in the face of increasing environmental variability. But what happens when human activities fundamentally alter the habitat complexity that drives this diversity? And how can we restore habitats to recover both diversity and abundance to support salmon persistence in a warming climate? Here, we looked at the impact of a large watershed restoration
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Delineating wildfire burns and regrowth using satellite imagery to assess moose (Alces alces) spatial responses to burns Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-03-11 Matthew A. Mumma, Alexandre R. Bevington, Shelley Marshall, Michael P. Gillingham
Climate change is predicted to increase the frequency and size of wildfires. Wildfire burns can influence wildlife space use, but prior to understanding the relationship between wildlife and burns, the extent of wildfires and the regrowth of burned areas must be determined. We used remotely sensed, multispectral satellite imagery to calculate differenced normalized burn ratios (NBRs) to define areas
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Meta‐analysis suggests that, for marine mammals, the risk of parasitism by anisakids changed between 1978 and 2015 Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-03-11 Natalie C. Mastick, Evan Fiorenza, Chelsea L. Wood
As gastrointestinal parasites affect the health of marine mammal species, they are a potentially consequential stressor. Although they are infrequently identified as a cause of mortality, gastrointestinal parasites could drive cryptic declines in individual fitness—including declines in nutritional status—by acting synergistically with other stressors. Nematodes in the family Anisakidae are ubiquitous
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Plant functional traits and abundance jointly shape keystone plant species in a plant–ectomycorrhizal fungus network Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-03-06 Chunchao Zhu, Minhua Zhang, Zheyi Liu, Wenqi Luo, Zihui Wang, Chengjin Chu
Keystone species are more important than others for community dynamics and stability. Keystone species can be identified and evaluated by their centrality (i.e., a relative ranking of the topological positional importance of a species) in ecological networks. Studies of node centrality of plant–fungus bipartite networks, for example, have identified the keystone species that are important for maintaining
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Mechanical soil disturbance in a pine savanna has multiyear effects on plant species composition Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-02-28 Cinnamon M. Dixon, Kevin M. Robertson, Angela M. Reid, Monica T. Rother
Soil disturbance threatens native perennial grasslands and savannas worldwide, including pine savannas of the North American Coastal Plain. Disk harrows are used in the region to plow linear features for firebreaks to contain prescribed fires, to manage game and other wildlife, and to reduce wildfire hazard to protect forest resources. However, the long‐term response of vegetation to these disturbances
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Identifying drivers of demographic rates in an at‐risk population of marine mammals using integrated population models Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-02-26 Benjamin W. Nelson, Eric J. Ward, Daniel W. Linden, Erin Ashe, Rob Williams
Effective conservation of threatened populations requires identification of the processes limiting recovery. When multiple population processes are potentially limiting, they are sometimes analyzed independently, often using different datasets. Analytically, this is suboptimal, as processes are often correlated, which can lead to biased estimates of parameters and quantities of interest. Integrated
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Using phenology to unravel differential soil water use and productivity in a semiarid savanna Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-02-26 Blake Steiner, Russell L. Scott, Jia Hu, Natasha MacBean, Andrew Richardson, David J. P. Moore
Savannas are water‐limited ecosystems characterized by two dominant plant types: trees and an understory primarily made up grass. Different phenology and root structures of these plant types complicate how savanna primary productivity responds to changes in water availability. We tested the hypothesis that productivity in savannas is controlled by the temporal and vertical distribution of soil water
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Legacies of multiple disturbances on fruit and seed patterns in Amazonia: Implications for forest functional traits Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-02-26 Paulo M. Brando, Divino Silvério, Leandro Maracahipes, Rodrigo Benzi, Lucas Paolucci, Leonardo Maracahipes‐Santos, Ludmila Rattis, Marcia N. Macedo, Jennifer K. Balch
Forest disturbances associated with edge effects, wildfires, and windthrow events have impacted large swaths of the tropics. Defining the levels of forest disturbance that cause ecologically relevant reductions in fruit and seed (FS) production is key to understanding forest resilience to current and future global changes. Here, we tested the hypotheses that: (1) low‐intensity experimental fires alone
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Herbivory through the lens of ecological processes across Pacific coral reefs Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-02-26 Tye L. Kindinger, Thomas C. Adam, Julia K. Baum, Sean A. Dimoff, Andrew S. Hoey, Ivor D. Williams
Coral reefs are in global decline primarily due to climate change. Herbivory is often viewed as key to maintaining coral‐dominated reefs, and herbivore management is gaining traction as a possible strategy for promoting reef resilience. The functional impact of herbivorous fishes has typically been inferred from total biomass, but robust estimates of ecological processes are needed to better inform
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Winter cover cropping increases albedo and latent heat flux in a Texas High Plains agroecosystem Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-02-23 Risa McNellis, Natasja van Gestel, R. Quinn Thomas, Nicholas G. Smith
Winter cover crops represent a land cover change that may sequester carbon in the soil and improve agricultural sustainability. Their adoption may also change the Earth's radiative balance and result in biophysical feedbacks to climate through alterations in albedo and latent heat fluxes. Understanding the mechanisms underlying these alterations to the radiative balance is important for making reliable
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Modeling the drivers of large herbivore distribution in human‐dominated southern African savannas Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-02-21 Dionísio V. Roque, Thomas Göttert, Ulrich Zeller, Valério A. Macandza
African savanna ecosystems are home to the world's richest large herbivore (LH) assemblages. However, its landscapes are changing faster than any other region on Earth due to human activities and natural events. Therefore, understanding the factors influencing the distribution of LH in these human‐dominated environments is crucial for decision‐making on wildlife and habitat management. We combined
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The dependence of forecasts on sampling frequency as a guide to optimizing monitoring in community ecology Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-02-18 Uriah Daugaard, Stefanie Merkli, Ewa Merz, Francesco Pomati, Owen L. Petchey
Facing climate change and biodiversity loss, it is critical that ecology advances so that processes, such as species interactions and dynamics, can be correctly estimated and skillfully forecasted. As different processes occur on different time scales, the sampling frequency used to record them should intuitively match these scales. Yet, the effect of data sampling frequency on ecological forecasting
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Seasonal phenology of the little brown bat (Myotis lucifugus) at 60° N Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-02-18 Jesika P. Reimer, Robert M. R. Barclay
To investigate the impact of short summers and long summer solar periods at high latitudes on the behavior of a nocturnal, hibernating mammal, we recorded the phenology of Myotis lucifugus (little brown myotis) at 60° N in the Northwest Territories (NWT), Canada. In particular, we assessed the timing of spring emergence from, and autumn entry into, hibernation, reproduction, and seasonal mass fluctuations
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Impact and control of feral cats preying on wandering albatrosses: Insights from a field experiment Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-02-18 Pierrick Blanchard, Karine Delord, Aymeric Bodin, Kevin Guille, Tobie Getti, Christophe Barbraud
Invasive alien species are a major threat to seabird species, and the number of impacted species is still increasing. A recent study revealed for the first time that feral cats predated a large albatross species and that without cat control, some albatross populations would markedly decline. We examined this new predator–prey system by individually monitoring known-age wandering albatross chicks with
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A habitat-centered framework for wildlife climate change vulnerability assessments: Application to Gunnison sage-grouse Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-02-15 Nathan D. Van Schmidt, Jessica E. Shyvers, Julie A. Heinrichs, D. Joanne Saher, Cameron L. Aldridge
The persistence of threatened wildlife species depends on successful conservation and restoration of habitats, but climate change and other stressors make these tasks increasingly challenging. Applying climate change vulnerability analyses to contemporary wildlife management can be difficult because most analyses predict direct effects of future climate on wildlife species at broad geographic scales
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Aggregating taxa and the influence of scale: Potential concerns for analysis of stability using functional measures Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-02-15 Jurek Kolasa, Brooke Northey, Mueez Shaikh, Matthew Hammond
A functional group approach to analyzing ecological processes calls for aggregating species populations' data (e.g., biomass, abundance) into larger functional units. This method offers a more direct insight into the coarse community and ecosystem dynamics than a species level. Since aggregation changes the scale of analysis, it is reasonable to expect that the results and inferences will also change
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Geographic distribution of feather δ34S in Europe Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-02-15 Vojtěch Brlík, Petr Procházka, Luana Bontempo, Federica Camin, Frédéric Jiguet, Gergely Osváth, Craig A. Stricker, Michael B. Wunder, Rebecca L. Powell
Geographic distribution models of environmentally stable isotopes (the so-called “isoscapes”) are widely employed in animal ecology, and wildlife forensics and conservation. However, the application of isoscapes is limited to elements and regions for which the spatial patterns have been estimated. Here, we focused on the ubiquitous yet less commonly used stable sulfur isotopes (δ34S). To predict the
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Evaluating immaturity risk in young stands of the serotinous knobcone pine (Pinus attenuata) Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-02-15 Katherine F. Marlin, David F. Greene, Jeffrey M. Kane, Matthew Reilly, Buddhika D. Madurapperuma
As wildfire becomes increasingly frequent, many serotinous plant populations risk local extirpation if fire recurs prior to sufficient seed accumulation in the canopy (i.e., “immaturity risk”). Following two 2018 wildfires in northwestern California, we studied seed viability, cone production, and postfire regeneration of a serotinous conifer, knobcone pine (Pinus attenuata), with stand ages (time
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Creating a systematic prioritization of stream reaches for conservation of aquatic species Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-02-15 Alexander H. Kiser, Cody A. Craig, Timothy H. Bonner, Brad Littrell, Chase H. Smith, Clinton R. Robertson, Hsiao-Hsuan Wang, William E. Grant, Matthew S. Johnson, Roel Lopez, Charles R. Randklev
Human impacts on aquatic ecosystems have resulted in systemic declines of global freshwater species abundance and richness. Conservation and governmental groups worldwide have designated protected areas to preserve the remaining diversity. The biodiversity hotspot approach, which designates areas based on high levels of species richness, has been useful for identifying areas to protect both terrestrial
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Decomposing an elevational gradient in predation by insectivorous birds Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-02-15 Lydia S. Dean, Carla Vázquez-González, Sierra Hellwitz, Luis Abdala-Roberts, Kailen A. Mooney
Insectivorous birds have ecologically important effects on prey abundance, behavior, and evolution, and through top-down control, birds indirectly reduce herbivory and promote plant growth. While several studies sought to characterize biogeographic patterns in top-down control by birds, variation in bird predation along elevational gradients is not well characterized in terms of both its commonness
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Using biotracer techniques to uncover consumer diets: A comparison of stable isotopes, fatty acids, and amino acids Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-02-13 Patrick J. Pickett, Georgia K. Dwyer, Ashley Macqueen, Galen Holt, Bryce T. Halliday, Jan L. Barton, Rebecca E. Lester
Biotracers are commonly used in food-web studies to estimate consumer diets. Increasingly, multiple biotracer types are combined to provide more nuanced pictures of consumer resource use, unravel more complex diet mixtures, and improve the discriminatory power of mixing models. However, few studies compare different biotracer types, including the impact of tracer selection choices, and few methods
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Data assimilation experiments inform monitoring needs for near-term ecological forecasts in a eutrophic reservoir Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-02-13 Heather L. Wander, R. Quinn Thomas, Tadhg N. Moore, Mary E. Lofton, Adrienne Breef-Pilz, Cayelan C. Carey
Ecosystems around the globe are experiencing changes in both the magnitude and fluctuations of environmental conditions due to land use and climate change. In response, ecologists are increasingly using near-term, iterative ecological forecasts to predict how ecosystems will change in the future. To date, many near-term, iterative forecasting systems have been developed using high temporal frequency
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Probabilistic genetic identification of wild boar hybridization to support control of invasive wild pigs (Sus scrofa) Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-02-13 Timothy J. Smyser, Peter Pfaffelhuber, Rachael M. Giglio, Matthew G. DeSaix, Amy J. Davis, Courtney F. Bowden, Michael A. Tabak, Arianna Manunza, Valentin Adrian Bâlteanu, Marcel Amills, Laura Iacolina, Pamela Walker, Carl Lessard, Antoinette J. Piaggio
The rapid expansion of wild pigs (Sus scrofa) throughout the United States has been fueled by unlawful introductions, with invasive populations causing extensive crop losses, damaging native ecosystems, and serving as a reservoir for disease. Multiple states have passed laws prohibiting the possession or transport of wild pigs. However, genetic and phenotypic similarities between domestic pigs and
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Variation in the contribution of macroinvertebrates to wood decomposition as it progresses Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-02-11 Melanie K. Taylor, Michael D. Ulyshen, Scott Horn, Emilee M. Poole, Mac A. Callaham
Although necromass decay rates are limited by the slowest portions to decompose, most decomposition studies examine only the earliest stage of decay. As such, these studies run the risk of yielding misleading results regarding the relative contributions of different decomposers. For example, the contributions of macroinvertebrates to wood decomposition remain mostly unknown beyond the first 50% of
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Net carbon sequestration implications of intensified timber harvest in Northeastern U.S. forests Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-02-11 Michelle L. Brown, Charles D. Canham, Thomas Buchholz, John S. Gunn, Therese M. Donovan
U.S. forests, particularly in the eastern states, provide an important offset to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Some have proposed that forest-based natural climate solutions can be strengthened via a number of strategies, including increases in the production of forest biomass energy. We used output from a forest dynamics model (SORTIE-ND) in combination with a GHG accounting tool (ForGATE) to estimate
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Land use predicts proportion of West Nile virus vector-competent mosquitoes Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-02-07 Amely M. Bauer, Robert P. Guralnick, Shelley A. Whitehead, Narayani Barve, Julie M. Allen, Lindsay P. Campbell
Land use and land cover (LULC) change has been identified as an important driver of emerging mosquito-borne zoonotic diseases. However, studies are often limited to individual vector species, despite the potential for interspecific variation in vector competency within mosquito assemblages. This variation can affect transmission hazard, particularly in complex multi-vector disease systems. Here, we
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Temporal variations of the multifaceted biodiversity and assembly mechanisms in lake fish assemblages Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-02-07 Zhice Liang, Chuanbo Guo, Rodolphe Elie Gozlan, Young-Seuk Park, Feng Wen, Chenyi Kuang, Yuxing Ma, Jiashou Liu, Donald A. Jackson
Understanding long-term changes in fish diversity and community assembly rules is crucial for freshwater conservation. Growing evidence indicates that studying functional and phylogenetic diversity beyond purely taxonomic considerations can provide different but complementary information on community assembly. Here, the taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic β-diversity of fish communities, as well
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Evidence from interpretable machine learning to inform spatial management of Palau's tuna fisheries Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-02-04 Eric Gilman, Milani Chaloupka
Static and dynamic area-based management tools hold substantial potential to balance socioeconomic benefits derived from fisheries and costs from bycatch mortality of at-risk species. Palau longline fisheries have high bycatch of at-risk species including the olive ridley marine turtle and silky and blue sharks. This study analyzed a two decades-long time series of observer and electronic monitoring
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Incorporating small-scale disturbances in models of forest structure and aboveground biomass of tropical mountains Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-02-04 Adriana Uscanga, Sophia Shuler, Lucas C. R. Silva
Several efforts have been made to model forest structure and estimate global aboveground biomass (AGB) magnitude and distribution. However, AGB models still show large uncertainties, especially over tropical mountains that are difficult to survey and understudied. Although forest disturbance and land use greatly influence forest structure and AGB accumulation, they are rarely considered in forest structure
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Retreating coastal forest supports saltmarsh invertebrates Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-01-28 Emily M. Goetz, David S. Johnson
As sea-level rise converts coastal forest to salt marsh, marsh arthropods may migrate inland; however, the resulting changes in arthropod communities, including the stage of forest retreat that first supports saltmarsh species, remain unknown. Furthermore, the ghost forest that forms in the wake of rapid forest retreat offers an unknown quality of habitat to marsh arthropods. In a migrating marsh in
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Using resiliency, redundancy, and representation in a Bayesian belief network to assess imperilment of riverine fishes Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-01-24 Corey G. Dunn, David A. Schumann, Michael E. Colvin, Logan J. Sleezer, Matthew Wagner, D. Todd Jones-Farrand, Erin Rivenbark, Sarah McRae, Kristine Evans
Conservation prioritization frameworks are used worldwide to identify species at greatest risk of extinction and to allocate limited resources across regions, species, and populations. Conservation prioritization can be impeded by ecological knowledge gaps and data deficiency, especially in freshwater species inhabiting highly complex aquatic ecosystems. Therefore, we developed a flexible approach
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Modeling the effects of selectively fishing key functional groups of herbivores on coral resilience Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-01-26 Dana T. Cook, Russell J. Schmitt, Sally J. Holbrook, Holly V. Moeller
Mounting evidence suggests that fishing can be a major driver of coral-to-macroalgae regime shifts on tropical reefs. In many small-scale coral reef fisheries, fishers target herbivorous fishes, which can weaken coral resilience via reduced herbivory on macroalgae that then outcompete corals. Previous models that explored the effects of harvesting herbivores revealed hysteresis in the herbivory–benthic
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Researcher effects on the biological structure and edaphic conditions of field sites and implications for management Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-01-22 Shelby A. Rinehart, Jacob M. Dybiec, Parker Richardson, Janet B. Walker, James D. Peabody, Julia A. Cherry
Field studies are necessary for understanding natural processes in spite of the human-induced disturbances they cause. While researchers acknowledge these effects, no studies have empirically tested the direct (e.g., harvesting plants) and indirect (i.e., trampling) effects of researcher activities on biological structure and edaphic conditions. We leveraged field studies in Alabama and California
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Influence of mountain pine beetle outbreaks on large fires in British Columbia Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-01-21 Hyeyoung Woo, Christopher Bone, Khurram Nadeem, Stephen W. Taylor
A key uncertainty in understanding climate change effects on wildfires in western North America is the role of mountain pine beetle (MPB) outbreaks in driving wildfire occurrence and severity. In this study, we investigated the complex relationship between MPB outbreaks, other environmental factors, and wildfire occurrence in British Columbia (BC), Canada. We adopted a fire risk analysis method developed
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Trophic positions of soil microarthropods in forests increase with elevation, but energy channels remain unchanged Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-01-21 Johannes Lux, Zhijing Xie, Xin Sun, Donghui Wu, Melanie M. Pollierer, Stefan Scheu
Mountain forests are at risk as the consequences of climate change will likely lead to altered tree species boundaries. Characterizing food webs along elevation gradients in primary forests may help to predict the potential consequences of such changes, for example with regard to the decomposition of dead organic matter. Here, for the first time, we studied trophic variations in two species-rich microarthropod
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Invasions eliminate the legacy effects of substrate history on microbial nitrogen cycling Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-01-14 Elsa Abs, Michaeline B. N. Albright, Steven D. Allison
Changes in substrate quality driven by climate, land use, or other forms of global change may represent a strong selective force on microbial communities. Invasion of new taxa into a community through dispersal, evolution, or recolonization could impact the outcome of this environmental selection. Here, we simulated substrate change with a trait-based model of microbial litter decomposition (DEMENTpy)
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Consequences of drought for grassland songbird reproduction Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-01-14 Emma B. Smith, Austin J. Roe, Katy M. Silber, Emily J. Williams, Sarah K. Winnicki, W. Alice Boyle
Abiotic stressors can be major sources of selection, resulting in diverse demographic responses operating via multiple direct and indirect mechanisms. However, unusual weather events are notoriously difficult to study due to their spatial and temporal unpredictability. A severe drought affected the Flint Hills of Kansas in 2018, occurring during the ongoing population-level studies of three species
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Ecosystem functions of plant diversity: Comparisons from a large-scale marsh restoration experiment in California, USA Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-01-17 Jenna Shikuzawa, Elizabeth B. Watson, Karen Tanner, Brittany Wilburn, Susanne K. Fork, Sophia Larson, Monique C. Fountain, Alexandra Thomsen, Kerstin Wasson
Although the promotion of biodiversity has been recognized as an important conservation goal, salt marsh restoration typically focuses on reestablishing dominant foundation species. Salt marsh restoration projects that add or remove sediment to optimize marsh elevation often result in a bare landscape following construction. Restoration managers must decide whether to plant and, if so, which species
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Functional responses in American marten habitat selection indicate cumulative effects of progressive habitat change Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-01-11 Tyler F. Woollard, Daniel J. Harrison, Erin M. Simons-Legaard, Kirstin E. Fagan
Shifts in habitat selection may serve as behavioral indicators of changing habitat quality and can provide an insight into the effects of chronic disturbance on wildlife populations before rates of occurrence and other metrics related to population viability are affected. Long-term studies can provide unique opportunities to understand animals' behavioral responses to the cumulative effects of habitat
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Integrating ecosystem and contaminant models to predict the effects of ecosystem fluxes on contaminant dynamics Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-01-11 Anne M. McLeod, Shawn J. Leroux, Matteo Rizzuto, Mathew A. Leibold, Luis Schiesari
Environmental contamination is one of the major drivers of ecosystem change in the Anthropocene. Toxic chemicals are not constrained to their source of origin as they cross ecosystem boundaries via biotic (e.g., animal migration) and abiotic (e.g., water flow) vectors. Meta-ecology has led to important insights on how spatial flows or subsidies of matter across ecosystem boundaries can have broad impacts
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Large and thin leaves are compromised more by chewers Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-01-11 Jiangling Zhu, Lijuan Sun, Chenqi He, Qiong Cai, Jianxiao Zhu, Chengjun Ji
A major proportion of primary production is lost to insect herbivory. Leaf functional traits representing defense costs and palatability explain the intensity of herbivory at local scales. However, whether leaf traits explain herbivory at large scales needs clarification. By combining a leaf herbivory database and the TRY plant-trait database, we compared 190 species from 65 families across 45 sites
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Bryophytes enhance nitrogen content in decaying wood via biological interactions Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-01-11 Yoshitaka Oishi
An increase in the nitrogen (N) content in coarse woody debris (CWD) facilitates its decomposition, affecting the cycling of N and other nutrients in forest ecosystems. Bryophytes may increase the N content by transferring the N in bryophyte tissues to the underlying CWD. This study examined whether and how bryophytes increase N content in the underlying CWD using N-stable isotope ratios (δ15N) as
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Host and floral communities shape parasite prevalence and reproduction in intensively managed forests Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-01-11 Lauren C. Ponisio, Hamutahl Cohen, Sara M. Galbraith, Jocelyn Zorn, Rachel A. Zitomer, James W. Rivers
Understanding how working landscapes can maintain viable wildlife populations is key to evaluating their conservation potential. We assessed the potential of intensively managed conifer forests for supporting healthy, productive bee populations in one of the major timber-growing regions of the world, the Pacific Northwest. We examined the direct effect of the number of years post-harvest and other
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The predictability of near-term forest biomass change in boreal North America Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-01-11 Arden L. Burrell, Sol Cooperdock, Stefano Potter, Logan T. Berner, Robert Hember, Matthew J. Macander, Xanthe J. Walker, Richard Massey, Adrianna C. Foster, Michelle C. Mack, Scott J. Goetz, Brendan Rogers
Climate change is driving substantial changes in North American boreal forests, including changes in productivity, mortality, recruitment, and biomass. Despite the importance for carbon budgets and informing management decisions, there is a lack of near-term (5–30 year) forecasts of expected changes in aboveground biomass (AGB). In this study, we forecast AGB changes across the North American boreal
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Estimating the temporal scale of lagged responses in species abundance and occurrence Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-01-07 Rahel Sollmann
Understanding drivers of species distributions is a central theme in ecology, and species are known to respond to drivers at multiple spatiotemporal scales. Yet, little attention has been paid to the temporal dimensions of predictors of species abundance or occurrence. Studies considering lagged responses typically contrast few points in time, rather than integrating multiple temporal scales. Here
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Native herbivore browsing alters plant physical and chemical traits in a eucalypt forest understory Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-01-09 S. L. Cain, G. J. Cary, W. Blanchard, C. N. Foster
Macropods exhibit selective herbivory on plant traits within and between species and hence can alter plant trait variation. In this study, we asked what are the effects of macropod herbivory on intraspecific variation in plant traits of forest understory species? We tested the effects of herbivory by macropods on eight plant traits, in nine understory species using a herbivore exclusion experiment
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Season influences interspecific responses of canopy-forming kelps to future warming and acidification at high latitude Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-01-07 Lauren E. Bell, Lily Westphal, Evan O'Brien, Jason A. Toy, Haleigh Damron, Kristy J. Kroeker
Variability in primary producers' responses to environmental change may buffer higher trophic levels against shifts in basal resource composition. Then again, in instances where there is a lack of functional redundancy because consumers rely on a few species to meet their energetic requirements at specific times of the year, altered community production dynamics may significantly impact food web resilience
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Stochastic metapopulation dynamics of a threatened amphibian to improve water delivery Ecosphere (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-01-07 Rupert Mathwin, Skye Wassens, Matthew S. Gibbs, Jeanne Young, Qifeng Ye, Frédérik Saltré, Corey J. A. Bradshaw
Water extraction and climate change are altering the availability of surface water globally, thereby contributing to amphibian population declines. The managed delivery of water to benefit environmental values (environmental watering) is a promising conservation technique that can support amphibian recruitment and maintain viable populations. Environmental water can be delivered in various spatial