Article
Ecology
Gesa Roemer, Ditte M. Christiansen, Hendrik de Buhr, Kristoffer Hylander, Owen R. Jones, Sonia Merinero, Kasper Reitzel, Johan Ehrlen, Johan P. Dahlgren
Summary: This study examined the effects of various environmental factors on the demography of the forest understory herb Actaea spicata in Sweden and found that population dynamics were mainly driven by factors affecting survival and growth, determining the realized niche of the species. Soil pH had a significant effect on flowering probability, with a relatively small impact on population growth rate. Assessing a broad range of potential drivers is important for understanding species distributions and abundance patterns.
Article
Plant Sciences
Torbjorn Lindell, Johan Ehrlen, Johan P. Dahlgren
Summary: This study utilized a 34-year individual-based dataset to investigate the effects of precipitation and temperature variations on flowering and population dynamics. Results showed that climatic variables had a significant impact on flowering, with increased precipitation and lower temperatures leading to more flowering instances, but had no significant effects on individual growth or survival. Furthermore, simulations indicated that persistent changes in precipitation and temperature could result in considerable reductions in population sizes compared to current conditions.
JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Ecology
Joseph A. Keller, Katriona Shea
Summary: Climate warming leads to advanced reproductive phenology in an invasive plant, accelerating its life cycle and population growth rate. Rising temperatures increase the average size of reproducing individuals, the proportion of survivors that reproduce, and the fraction of individuals reproducing as annuals, all contributing to the accelerated population growth of invasive species.
Article
Ecology
Lochran W. Traill, Floriane Plard, Jean-Michel Gaillard, Tim Coulson
Summary: Ecologists have been seeking predictive models for population dynamics using IPMs, which offer insights into demographic and phenotypic outcomes based on functional traits. Despite efforts to construct a reliable and general IPM for ungulates, complexities arising from diverse reproductive tactics among species and the interplay of density-dependent and environmental factors hindered the development of a universal model. Environmental context is crucial in understanding the interactions between traits and demographic outcomes in vertebrate populations.
Article
Physics, Multidisciplinary
Santosh Kumar Kudtarkar, Renu Dhadwal
Summary: This work investigates a bistable system induced by noise in the presence of environmental fluctuations. The system transitions between two environmental states at a specified rate and has absorbing boundaries in one state while switching between two metastable states in the other. The model exhibits noise-induced switching behavior at small values of a system parameter, with a bimodal probability distribution that becomes unimodal at large values of the parameter. The exact eigenvalues, steady-state solutions, and mean switching time between metastable states are calculated and compared with simulation results.
PHYSICA A-STATISTICAL MECHANICS AND ITS APPLICATIONS
(2023)
Article
Ecology
James Cant, James D. Reimer, Brigitte Sommer, Katie M. Cook, Sun W. Kim, Carrie A. Sims, Takuma Mezaki, Cliodhna O'Flaherty, Maxime Brooks, Hamish A. Malcolm, John M. Pandolfi, Roberto Salguero-Gomez, Maria Beger
Summary: By surveying coral individuals in Australia and Japan from 2016 to 2019, this study explores the spatial variation in the short- and long-term dynamics of competitive, stress-tolerant, and weedy coral assemblages and how abiotic variability affects their structural composition. The study finds that coral assemblages can reduce their vulnerability to stochastic environments by focusing on short-term potential, but competitive coral taxa have a reduced ability to elevate their short-term potential compared to stress-tolerant and weedy assemblages. Future climatic shifts may threaten the structural complexity of coral assemblages in variable environments.
Article
Ecology
James Cant, Roberto Salguero-Gomez, Sun W. Kim, Carrie A. Sims, Brigitte Sommer, Maxime Brooks, Hamish A. Malcolm, John M. Pandolfi, Maria Beger
Summary: The study revealed that subtropical coral assemblages are significantly affected by thermal stress, with differential shifts in population growth rates and contrasting bleaching responses among taxa. Under high emissions scenarios, coral populations exhibited the lowest growth rates, potentially accelerating the loss of corals in subtropical regions.
JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Ecology
Daniel F. Doak, Ellen Waddle, Ryan E. Langendorf, Allison M. Louthan, Nathalie Isabelle Chardon, Reilly R. Dibner, Douglas A. Keinath, Elizabeth Lombardi, Christopher Steenbock, Robert K. Shriver, Cristina Linares, Maria Begona Garcia, W. Chris Funk, Sarah W. Fitzpatrick, William F. Morris, Megan L. DeMarche
Summary: Researchers have found that IPMs may be more statistically efficient, biologically realistic, and accurate than classic matrix models, but there is little evidence to suggest that discrete vital rate estimation is less accurate than continuous functions across a wide range of sample sizes or size classes. Additionally, empirical sample sizes generally matter more than modeling approach for the accuracy of demographic outputs.
ECOLOGICAL MONOGRAPHS
(2021)
Article
Ecology
Meredith A. Zettlemoyer
Summary: This study examines the demographic responses of locally extinct and extant species to nitrogen addition and deer herbivory. The results suggest that nitrogen addition reduces survival rates, especially for locally extinct species, while deer herbivory has inconsistent effects and does not affect population growth.
AMERICAN NATURALIST
(2022)
Article
Plant Sciences
H. Maria Baden, Deborah Roach, Fritz H. Schweingruber, Kasper Reitzel, Kim Lundgreen, Johan P. Dahlgren
Summary: Age-dependence of demographic rates in plants is influenced by individual size and environmental variations. Considering age interactions may enhance accuracy in studies of plant ageing and population projections. Much remains unknown about how plant ageing is affected by the environment.
JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Ecology
Xianyu Yang, Amy L. Angert, Pieter A. Zuidema, Fangliang He, Shongming Huang, Shouzhong Li, Shou-Li Li, Nathalie I. Chardon, Jian Zhang
Summary: The study found that demographic compensation can delay species' range contraction under climate change, but it may not be able to maintain range stability. Simulated warming has a larger negative impact on population growth rate for most species and weakens the effectiveness of demographic compensation in stabilizing ranges.
Article
Ecology
Robert K. Shriver, Charles B. Yackulic, David M. Bell, John B. Bradford
Summary: Climate change affects the distribution and abundance of tree species, with recruitment and survival rates differing across species in response to drying and warming conditions. This research provides a method for predicting the impacts of global change on species distributions using large-scale monitoring and remotely sensed data.
Article
Forestry
Jiazheng Wang, Xianyu Yang, Gabriel Silva Santos, Hongtao Ning, Tian Li, Wenhao Zhao, Xiaoqian Si, Sihang Lu, Shouzhong Li
Summary: Understanding the mechanisms behind plant species persistence in temporally variable environments is crucial in ecology. This study focused on two hypotheses, the demographic buffering hypothesis (DBH) and the demographic lability hypothesis (DLH), and evaluated their validity in pioneer tree species during ecological restoration. The findings suggest that diverging demographic strategies, driven by among-plot variation in reproduction, contribute to the persistence of pioneer tree species in subtropical forest restoration.
FOREST ECOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT
(2023)
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Wenhao Zhao, Tian Li, Yujie Cui, Jinlu Huang, Hejing Fu, Xianyu Yang, Shouzhong Li
Summary: Pioneer species like Pinus massoniana play a crucial role in the ecological restoration of degraded forests, with their demographic performance varying depending on the level of ecological restoration. This study found that as ecological restoration progressed, the survival probability, stem growth, and population growth rate (lambda) of P. massoniana increased, while the survival rate of seedlings declined. Survival had the greatest impact on lambda, with small individuals more likely to reproduce at low restoration levels.
GLOBAL ECOLOGY AND CONSERVATION
(2021)
Article
Ecology
Davide Ciccarese, Gabriele Micali, Benedict Borer, Chujin Ruan, Dani Or, David R. Johnson
Summary: This study explores the growth and spatial self-organization of microbial co-cultures and reveals the emergence of rare and highly localized clusters, referred to as spatial jackpot events, that help stabilize the composition of the microbial community under fluctuating environmental conditions. A mechanistic agent-based mathematical model is used to understand the underlying mechanisms for the formation of these spatial jackpot events.
Article
Ecology
Sebastian J. Schreiber, Jacob L. Moore
METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
(2018)
Article
Biology
Michel Benaim, Sebastian J. Schreiber
JOURNAL OF MATHEMATICAL BIOLOGY
(2019)
Editorial Material
Ecology
Stephen P. Ellner, Robin E. Snyder, Peter B. Adler, Giles Hooker, Sebastian J. Schreiber
Article
Ecology
Samuel R. Fleischer, Daniel Bolnick, Sebastian J. Schreiber
Summary: When predators consume prey, they are at risk of being infected with the parasites of their prey, which can then affect the predator's immune system and natural selection. This study highlights the interplay between multivariate trait evolution and the dynamics of ecological communities, showing that ecological morphology influences immunity evolution, and vice versa, with fundamental asymmetries.
Article
Biology
Rafal Zwolak, Dale Clement, Andrew Sih, Sebastian J. Schreiber
Summary: The phenomenon of masting plays a crucial role in the evolution of scatter-hoarding, as it reduces seed pilferage and lowers the reproductive cost of caching, promoting the evolution of scatter-hoarding behavior.
PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2021)
Article
Statistics & Probability
Alexandru Hening, Dang H. Nguyen, Sebastian J. Schreiber
Summary: The paper investigates the classification problem of stochastic models of interacting species and proves a variant of Palis' conjecture. The long-term statistical behavior is determined by a finite number of stationary distributions, and there are three general types of behavior that could occur. The classification problem can be simplified by computing Lyapunov exponents. This research provides a rigorous foundation for ecology's modern coexistence theory.
ANNALS OF APPLIED PROBABILITY
(2022)
Article
Ecology
Stephen P. De Lisle, Sebastian J. Schrieber, Daniel Bolnick
Summary: Sexual dimorphism can have significant implications for the coexistence, abundance, and dynamics of consumer and resource species, particularly when there are sex differences in attack rates and resource acquisition by the consumer.
JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Ecology
Sebastian J. Schreiber, Jonathan M. Levine, Oscar Godoy, Nathan J. B. Kraft, Simon P. Hart
Summary: Contemporary studies of species coexistence are often based on deterministic models that do not accurately reflect the complexities found in nature. This study used experimental field data to test the efficacy of deterministic coexistence metrics on the duration of species coexistence in a finite world. The results highlight the importance of integrating information on both invasion growth rates and species' equilibrium population sizes in understanding the variation in species coexistence times.
Article
Ecology
Jay A. Rosenheim, Sebastian J. Schreiber
Summary: Cannibalism, recognized as a widespread behavior, serves as a density-dependent source of mortality and regulates population size. Recent research has revealed various pathways through which cannibalism increases, including individual ecological traits and interactions with other species.
Article
Biology
Josef Hofbauer, Sebastian J. Schreiber
Summary: To understand species coexistence, ecologists study invasion growth rates, which determine if species can recover from being rare and therefore coexist. This study proves theorems that determine when the signs of invasion growth rates determine coexistence, and which invasion growth rates need to be positive. The results highlight the importance of using concepts about community assembly to study coexistence.
JOURNAL OF MATHEMATICAL BIOLOGY
(2022)
Review
Ecology
Masato Yamamichi, Andrew D. Letten, Sebastian J. Schreiber
Summary: Growing evidence suggests that temporally fluctuating environments play a crucial role in maintaining variation within and between species. However, studies of genetic variation within populations have been primarily conducted by evolutionary biologists, while population and community ecologists have focused more on species diversity. This article reviews theoretical and empirical studies in population genetics and community ecology, exploring the connection between the "temporal storage effect" and diversity maintenance. By comparing and synthesizing ecological and evolutionary approaches, the authors aim to enhance our understanding of diversity maintenance in nature.
Article
Biology
Heng-Xing Zou, Sebastian J. Schreiber, Volker H. W. Rudolf
Summary: The relative arrival time of species can influence their interactions and determine which species can persist in a community. The differences in stages of interacting species can generate priority effects, altering the outcomes between exclusion, coexistence, and positive frequency dependence. However, these priority effects are strongest in systems with few generations per season and weaken in systems with many overlapping generations.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2023)
Article
Plant Sciences
Rafal Zwolak, Dale Clement, Andrew Sih, Sebastian J. Schreiber
Summary: Conditional mutualisms involve costs and benefits that vary with environmental factors. Increasing granivore abundance can degrade the quality of plant-scatterhoarder mutualism, but adaptive behavior of rodents can benefit tree recruitment.
Article
Biology
Sebastian J. J. Schreiber
Summary: This study re-examines the interaction patterns among species primarily regulated by a common predator. The P* rule, which states that the prey species supporting the highest mean predator density will exclude other prey species, is proposed. The results show that when the temporal auto-correlations in predator attack rates are positive but not too strong, the prey species can coexist.
Article
Mathematics, Applied
Sebastian J. Schreiber, Shuo Huang, Jifa Jiang, Hao Wang
Summary: Stochastic discrete-time susceptible-infected-susceptible (SIS) and susceptible-infected-recovered (SIR) models of endemic diseases are introduced and analyzed. The basic reproductive number R-0 determines the global dynamics of the models. In deterministic models, the infection persists if R-0 is greater than 1, while in stochastic models, the infection goes extinct in finite time with a probability of 1 for all R-0 values.
SIAM JOURNAL ON APPLIED MATHEMATICS
(2021)
Article
Ecology
Jorge Pena, Aviad Heifetz, Georg Noldeke
Summary: Cooperation usually becomes harder to sustain as groups become larger, but in some cases, increasing group size can increase the probability of cooperation. The expected payoff and the probability of provision of the public good vary with the cost of cooperation.
THEORETICAL POPULATION BIOLOGY
(2024)