The fisheries and biodiversity benefits of marine reserves are widely recognised but there is mounting interest in exploiting the importance of herbivorous fishes as a tool to help ecosystems recover ...from climate change impacts. This approach might be particularly suitable for coral reefs, which are acutely threatened by climate change, yet the trophic cascades generated by reserves are strong enough that they might theoretically enhance the rate of coral recovery after disturbance. However, evidence for reserves facilitating coral recovery has been lacking. Here we investigate whether reductions in macroalgal cover, caused by recovery of herbivorous parrotfishes within a reserve, have resulted in a faster rate of coral recovery than in areas subject to fishing. Surveys of ten sites inside and outside a Bahamian marine reserve over a 2.5-year period demonstrated that increases in coral cover, including adjustments for the initial size-distribution of corals, were significantly higher at reserve sites than those in non-reserve sites. Furthermore, macroalgal cover was significantly negatively correlated with the change in total coral cover over time. Recovery rates of individual species were generally consistent with small-scale manipulations on coral-macroalgal interactions, but also revealed differences that demonstrate the difficulties of translating experiments across spatial scales. Size-frequency data indicated that species which were particularly affected by high abundances of macroalgae outside the reserve had a population bottleneck restricting the supply of smaller corals to larger size classes. Importantly, because coral cover increased from a heavily degraded state, and recovery from such states has not previously been described, similar or better outcomes should be expected for many reefs in the region. Reducing herbivore exploitation as part of an ecosystem-based management strategy for coral reefs appears to be justified.
1. Priority question exercises are becoming an increasingly common tool to frame future agendas in conservation and ecological science. They are an effective way to identify research foci that ...advance the field and that also have high policy and conservation relevance. 2. To date, there has been no coherent synthesis of key questions and priority research areas for palaeoecology, which combines biological, geochemical and molecular techniques in order to reconstruct past ecological and environmental systems on time-scales from decades to millions of years. 3. We adapted a well-established methodology to identify 50 priority research questions in palaeoecology. Using a set of criteria designed to identify realistic and achievable research goals, we selected questions from a pool submitted by the international palaeoecology research community and relevant policy practitioners. 4. The integration of online participation, both before and during the workshop, increased international engagement in question selection. 5. The questions selected are structured around six themes: human–environment interactions in the Anthropocene; biodiversity, conservation and novel ecosystems; biodiversity over long time-scales; ecosystem processes and biogeochemical cycling; comparing, combining and synthesizing information from multiple records; and new developments in palaeoecology. 6. Future opportunities in palaeoecology are related to improved incorporation of uncertainty into reconstructions, an enhanced understanding of ecological and evolutionary dynamics and processes and the continued application of long-term data for better-informed landscape management. 7. Synthesis. Palaeoecology is a vibrant and thriving discipline, and these 50 priority questions highlight its potential for addressing both pure (e.g. ecological and evolutionary, methodological) and applied (e.g. environmental and conservation) issues related to ecological science and global change.
Yucatán Box Turtles (Terrapene yucatana) are the only fully tropical lineage of box turtles (Terrapene spp.). We studied the ecology, movements, behavior, and habitat associations of T. yucatana in ...northern Yucatán, México, over 218 field days from 2014–2019. We estimated the size of two subpopulations to comprise 36.6 and 3.0 turtles, with corresponding densities of 2.29 and 0.39 turtles/ha, respectively. We obtained 2,808 radio locations from radiotelemetry of 20 adults. We estimated an annual survivorship rate over a 5-yr period exceeding 0.989. For both sexes combined, the average annual 95% minimum convex polygon (MCP) home range size was 0.684 ha, and the average distance between consecutive annual home range centroids was 22.5 m. In 2 of 5 yr, males exhibited significantly larger 95% MCP home ranges than females. We observed feeding, courtship, and fighting in the wild between June and December. Females moved more than males in July, when gravid turtles were also observed. We found that T. yucatana was positively associated with Mimosa sp. and Bromelia spp. The use of aquatic habitats was infrequent (0.17%). Our findings support the conclusion that T. yucatana, an allopatric and fully tropical lineage, is an interior forest and thornscrub species that occurs at low densities. In such undisturbed contexts, T. yucatana may exhibit high survivorship rates, small home range size, and home range fidelity that underscore the importance of large-scale forest conservation efforts in concert with the targeted protection of documented Yucatán Box Turtle populations. La tortuga de caja de Yucatán (Terrapene yucatana) es el único linaje completamente tropical de tortugas de caja (Terrapene spp.). Realizamos un estudio de la ecología, movimientos, comportamiento y asociaciones de hábitat de T. yucatana en el norte de Yucatán, México, durante 218 días de campo entre 2014 y 2019. Estimamos el tamaño de dos poblaciones comprendidas en 36,6 y 3,0 tortugas, respectivamente, con densidades correspondientes a 2,29 y 0,39 tortugas / ha. Obtuvimos 2,808 radiolocalizaciones de 20 tortugas adultas. Estimamos una tasa de supervivencia anual superior a 0,989 basado en el marcado y recaptura de 37 individuos. Para ambos sexos, el tamaño medio anual del área de distribución (95% del MCP) fue de 0,684 ha, y la distancia entre los centroides del área de distribución anual consecutivos fue de 22,5 m. Los machos exhibieron rangos de distribución significativamente mayores que las hembras en 2 de los 5 años. Observamos alimentación, cortejo y peleas en su estado natural entre junio y diciembre. Las hembras se movieron más que los machos en julio, cuando también se observaron tortugas grávidas. Encontramos que T. yucatana se asoció positivamente con Mimosa sp. y Bromelia spp. El uso de hábitats acuáticos fue infrecuente (0,17%). Terrapene yucatana, un linaje alopátrico y completamente tropical de las tortugas de caja de América del Norte, es una especie de bosque interior y matorrales espinosos que ocurre en densidades bajas. En ambientes no perturbados, T. yucatana puede exhibir altas tasas de supervivencia, un ámbito hogareño pequeño y una notable fidelidad a su ámbito doméstico, lo que acentúa la importancia de los esfuerzos de conservación de bosques a gran escala junto con la protección específica de poblaciones documentadas de tortugas de caja.
1. Although there is ample support for positive species richness–productivity relationships in planted grassland experiments, a recent 48‐site study found no diversity–productivity relationship (DPR) ...in herbaceous communities. Thus, debate persists about diversity effects in natural versus planted systems. Additionally, current knowledge is weak regarding the influence of evenness on the DPRs, how DPRs are affected by the variation in life‐history traits among constituent species in polycultures and how DPRs differ among biomes. The impacts of these factors on DPRs in forest ecosystems are even more poorly understood. 2. We performed a meta‐analysis of 54 studies to reconcile DPRs in forest ecosystems. We quantified the net diversity effect as log effect size ln(ES), the log ratio of the productivity in polycultures to the average of those in monocultures within the same type of mixture, site condition and stand age of each study. The first use of a boosted regression tree model in meta‐analysis, a useful method to partition the effects of multiple predictors rather than relying on vote‐counting of individual studies, unveiled the relative influences of individual predictors. 3. Global average ln(ES) was 0.2128, indicating 23.7% higher productivity in polycultures than monocultures. The final model explained 21% of the variation in ln(ES). The predictors that substantially accounted for the explained variation included evenness (34%), heterogeneity of shade tolerance (29%), richness (13%) and stand age (15%). In contrast, heterogeneity of nitrogen fixation and growth habits, biome and stand origin (naturally established versus planted) contributed negligibly (each ≤ 4%). Log effect size strongly increased with evenness from 0.6 to 1 and with richness from 2 to 6. Furthermore, it was higher with heterogeneity of shade tolerance and generally increased with stand age. 4. Synthesis. Our analysis is, to our knowledge, the first to demonstrate the critical role of species evenness, richness and the importance of contrasting traits in defining net diversity effects in forest polycultures. While testing the specific mechanisms is beyond the scope of our analysis, our results should motivate future studies to link richness, evenness, contrasting traits and life‐history stage to the mechanisms that are expected to produce positive net biodiversity effects such as niche differentiation, facilitation and reduced Janzen–Connell effects.
1. Top-down control can be an important determinant of ecosystem structure and function, but in oceanic ecosystems, where cascading effects of predator depletions, recoveries, and invasions could be ...significant, such effects had rarely been demonstrated until recently. 2. Here we synthesize the evidence for oceanic top-down control that has emerged over the last decade, focusing on large, high trophic-level predators inhabiting continental shelves, seas, and the open ocean. 3. In these ecosystems, where controlled manipulations are largely infeasible, 'pseudo-experimental' analyses of predator-prey interactions that treat independent predator populations as 'replicates', and temporal or spatial contrasts in predator populations and climate as 'treatments', are increasingly employed to help disentangle predator effects from environmental variation and noise. 4. Substantial reductions in marine mammals, sharks, and piscivorous fishes have led to mesopredator and invertebrate predator increases. Conversely, abundant oceanic predators have suppressed prey abundances. Predation has also inhibited recovery of depleted species, sometimes through predator-prey role reversals. Trophic cascades have been initiated by oceanic predators linking to neritic food webs, but seem inconsistent in the pelagic realm with effects often attenuating at plankton. 5. Top-down control is not uniformly strong in the ocean, and appears contingent on the intensity and nature of perturbations to predator abundances. Predator diversity may dampen cascading effects except where nonselective fisheries deplete entire predator functional groups. In other cases, simultaneous exploitation of predator and prey can inhibit prey responses. Explicit consideration of anthropogenic modifications to oceanic foodwebs should help inform predictions about trophic control. 6. Synthesis and applications. Oceanic top-down control can have important socio-economic, conservation, and management implications as mesopredators and invertebrates assume dominance, and recovery of overexploited predators is impaired. Continued research aimed at integrating across trophic levels is needed to understand and forecast the ecosystem effects of changing oceanic predator abundances, the relative strength of top-down and bottom-up control, and interactions with intensifying anthropogenic stressors such as climate change.
Species enter and persist in local communities because of their ecological fit to local conditions, and recently, ecologists have moved from measuring diversity as species richness and evenness, to ...using measures that reflect species ecological differences. There are two principal approaches for quantifying species ecological differences: functional (trait‐based) and phylogenetic pairwise distances between species. Both approaches have produced new ecological insights, yet at the same time methodological issues and assumptions limit them. Traits and phylogeny may provide different, and perhaps complementary, information about species' differences. To adequately test assembly hypotheses, a framework integrating the information provided by traits and phylogenies is required. We propose an intuitive measure for combining functional and phylogenetic pairwise distances, which provides a useful way to assess how functional and phylogenetic distances contribute to understanding patterns of community assembly. Here, we show that both traits and phylogeny inform community assembly patterns in alpine plant communities across an elevation gradient, because they represent complementary information. Differences in historical selection pressures have produced variation in the strength of the trait‐phylogeny correlation, and as such, integrating traits and phylogeny can enhance the ability to detect assembly patterns across habitats or environmental gradients.
The finding that regular spatial patterns can emerge in nature from local interactions between organisms has prompted a search for the ecological importance of these patterns. Theoretical models have ...predicted that patterning may have positive emergent effects on fundamental ecosystem functions, such as productivity. We provide empirical support for this prediction. In dryland ecosystems, termite mounds are often hotspots of plant growth (primary productivity). Using detailed observations and manipulative experiments in an African savanna, we show that these mounds are also local hotspots of animal abundance (secondary and tertiary productivity): insect abundance and biomass decreased with distance from the nearest termite mound, as did the abundance, biomass, and reproductive output of insect-eating predators. Null-model analyses indicated that at the landscape scale, the evenly spaced distribution of termite mounds produced dramatically greater abundance, biomass, and reproductive output of consumers across trophic levels than would be obtained in landscapes with randomly distributed mounds. These emergent properties of spatial pattern arose because the average distance from an arbitrarily chosen point to the nearest feature in a landscape is minimized in landscapes where the features are hyper-dispersed (i.e., uniformly spaced). This suggests that the linkage between patterning and ecosystem functioning will be common to systems spanning the range of human management intensities. The centrality of spatial pattern to system-wide biomass accumulation underscores the need to conserve pattern-generating organisms and mechanisms, and to incorporate landscape patterning in efforts to restore degraded habitats and maximize the delivery of ecosystem services.
1. Land-use change is the main driver of global biodiversity loss, but its relative impact on species turnover (β-diversity) across multiple spatial scales remains unclear. Plant communities in ...fragmented rain forests can undergo declines (floristic homogenization) or increases (floristic differentiation) in β-diversity. 2. We tested these alternative hypotheses analysing a large vegetation data base from a hierarchically nested sampling design (450 plots in 45 forest patches in 3 landscapes with different deforestation levels) at Los Tuxtlas rain forest, Mexico. Differences in β-diversity across spatial scales (i.e. among plots, among patches, and among landscapes) were analysed using multiplicative diversity decompositions of Hill numbers. 3. Plant β-diversity among plots within forest patches decreased in landscapes with higher deforestation levels, leading to floristic homogenization within patches. This homogenization process can be explained by the loss of rare and shade-tolerant plant species, and the recruitment and dominance of disturbance-adapted species, and can limit the accumulation of species (γ-diversity) in landscapes with higher deforestation. 4. Nevertheless, the landscape with the highest deforestation level showed the highest floristic differentiation among patches. This landscape showed the greatest isolation distances between patches; a landscape spatial pattern that can limit the interchange of seeds (and species) between patches. Because the study patches are undergoing secondary succession following disturbances (e.g. logging, edge effects), different disturbance regimes and increased distance among patches could lead to higher β-diversity. 5. Synthesis. These findings indicate that patterns of floristic homogenization and differentiation depend on the landscape configuration and on the spatial scale of analysis. At the landscape scale, our results suggest that, in accordance with non-equilibrium dynamics and the landscape-divergence hypothesis, patches located in landscapes with different forest cover and different connectivity can experience contrasting successional pathways due to increasing levels of compositional differentiation between patches. These novel findings add further uncertainties to the maintenance of biodiversity in severely deforested tropical landscapes and have key ecological implications for biodiversity conservation planning.
Coexistence theories develop rapidly at the ecology forefront, outpacing their experimental testing. I discuss the reasons for this gap, call on interdisciplinary researchers to construct a road map ...for coexistence research, and recommend the actions that should be implemented therein.
Coexistence theories outpace their experimental testing. I argue that this imbalance results from a combination of interdisciplinary gaps, a disparity in research approaches, and the limited accessibility of the theory to experimentalists. I call on interdisciplinary researchers to construct a road map for coexistence research, recommend the actions that should be implemented therein, and illustrate how multiple mechanisms can be integrated under the same coexistence terms, thus constructing a research landscape that can create uniformity in their experimental designs.
cological immunology requires techniques to reliably measure immunocompetence in wild vertebrates. The PHA-skin test, involving subcutaneous injection of a mitogen (phytohemagglutinin, PHA) and ...measurement of subsequent swelling as a surrogate of T-cell mediated immunocompetence, has been the test of choice due to its practicality and ease of use in the field. However, mechanisms involved in local immunological and inflammatory processes provoked by PHA are poorly known, and its use and interpretation as an acquired immune response is currently debated.
Here, we present experimental work using a variety of parrot species, to ascertain whether PHA exposure produces larger secondary than primary responses as expected if the test reflects acquired immunocompetence. Moreover, we simultaneously quantified T-lymphocyte subsets (CD4(+), CD5(+) and CD8(+)) and plasma proteins circulating in the bloodstream, potentially involved in the immunological and inflammatory processes, through flow cytometry and electrophoresis.
Our results showed stronger responses after a second PHA injection, independent of species, time elapsed and changes in body mass of birds between first and second injections, thus supporting the adaptive nature of this immune response. Furthermore, the concomitant changes in the plasma concentrations of T-lymphocyte subsets and globulins indicate a causal link between the activation of the T-cell mediated immune system and local tissue swelling.
These findings justify the widespread use of the PHA-skin test as a reliable evaluator of acquired T-cell mediated immunocompetence in diverse biological disciplines. Further experimental research should be aimed at evaluating the relative role of innate immunocompetence in wild conditions, where the access to dietary proteins varies more than in captivity, and to ascertain how PHA responses relate to particular host-parasite interactions.
PDF
