Article
Ecology
Laura H. Antao, Anne E. Magurran, Maria Dornelas
Summary: This study compared the fit of different models to species abundance distributions at different scales and found a higher prevalence of multimodality for larger spatial extents, with the logseries model exclusively selected for smaller areas. Species richness affected SAD shape, and major macroecological theories of biodiversity were unable to accommodate the variability encountered in SAD shape. Both inter- and intraspecific spatial aggregation patterns were found to be important determinants of biodiversity patterns.
FRONTIERS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
(2021)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Kristin M. Conrad, Valerie E. Peters, Sandra M. Rehan
Summary: This study in Costa Rica revealed differences in bee abundance, community composition and crop visitor behavior along elevation gradients. It found that certain bee species showed abundance differences by elevation within a narrow elevational range, with stingless bees being important visitors to crop species. Conservation efforts for tropical montane bee communities and pollination services should focus on elevations that support the highest numbers of each species.
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
(2021)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Roberto Cazzolla Gatti, Peter B. Reich, Javier G. P. Gamarra, Tom Crowther, Cang Hui, Albert Morera, Jean-Francois Bastin, Sergio de-Miguel, Gert-Jan Nabuurs, Jens-Christian Svenning, Josep M. Serra-Diaz, Cory Merow, Brian Enquist, Maria Kamenetsky, Junho Lee, Jun Zhu, Jinyun Fang, Douglass F. Jacobs, Bryan Pijanowski, Arindam Banerjee, Robert A. Giaquinto, Giorgio Alberti, Angelica Maria Almeyda Zambrano, Esteban Alvarez-Davila, Alejandro Araujo-Murakami, Valerio Avitabile, Gerardo A. Aymard, Radomir Balazy, Chris Baraloto, Jorcely G. Barroso, Meredith L. Bastian, Philippe Birnbaum, Robert Bitariho, Jan Bogaert, Frans Bongers, Olivier Bouriaud, Pedro H. S. Brancalion, Francis Q. Brearley, Eben North Broadbent, Filippo Bussotti, Wendeson Castro da Silva, Ricardo Gomes Cesar, Goran Cesljar, Victor Chama Moscoso, Han Y. H. Chen, Emil Cienciala, Connie J. Clark, David A. Coomes, Selvadurai Dayanandan, Mathieu Decuyper, Laura E. Dee, Jhon Del Aguila Pasquel, Geraldine Derroire, Marie Noel Kamdem Djuikouo, Tran Van Do, Jiri Dolezal, Ilija D. Dordevic, Julien Engel, Tom M. Fayle, Ted R. Feldpausch, Jonas K. Fridman, David J. Harris, Andreas Hemp, Geerten Hengeveld, Bruno Herault, Martin Herold, Thomas Ibanez, Andrzej M. Jagodzinski, Bogdan Jaroszewicz, Kathryn J. Jeffery, Vivian Kvist Johannsen, Tommaso Jucker, Ahto Kangur, Victor N. Karminov, Kuswata Kartawinata, Deborah K. Kennard, Sebastian Kepfer-Rojas, Gunnar Keppel, Mohammed Latif Khan, Pramod Kumar Khare, Timothy J. Kileen, Hyun Seok Kim, Henn Korjus, Amit Kumar, Ashwani Kumar, Diana Laarmann, Nicolas Labriere, Mait Lang, Simon L. Lewis, Natalia Lukina, Brian S. Maitner, Yadvinder Malhi, Andrew R. Marshall, Olga V. Martynenko, Abel L. Monteagudo Mendoza, Petr V. Ontikov, Edgar Ortiz-Malavasi, Nadir C. Pallqui Camacho, Alain Paquette, Minjee Park, Narayanaswamy Parthasarathy, Pablo Luis Peri, Pascal Petronelli, Sebastian Pfautsch, Oliver L. Phillips, Nicolas Picard, Daniel Piotto, Lourens Poorter, John R. Poulsen, Hans Pretzsch, Hirma Ramirez-Angulo, Zorayda Restrepo Correa, Mirco Rodeghiero, Rocio Del Pilar Rojas Gonzales, Samir G. Rolim, Francesco Rovero, Ervan Rutishauser, Purabi Saikia, Christian Salas-Eljatib, Dmitry Schepaschenko, Michael Scherer-Lorenzen, Vladimir Seben, Marcos Silveira, Ferry Slik, Bonaventure Sonke, Alexandre F. Souza, Krzysztof Jan Sterenczak, Miroslav Svoboda, Hermann Taedoumg, Nadja Tchebakova, John Terborgh, Elena Tikhonova, Armando Torres-Lezama, Fons van der Plas, Rodolfo Vasquez, Helder Viana, Alexander C. Vibrans, Emilio Vilanova, Vincent A. Vos, Hua-Feng Wang, Bertil Westerlund, Lee J. T. White, Susan K. Wiser, Tomasz Zawila-Niedzwiecki, Lise Zemagho, Zhi-Xin Zhu, Irie C. Zo-Bi, Jingjing Liang
Summary: One of the fundamental questions in ecology is how many species exist on Earth. This study estimated the total number of tree species globally, using global crowdsourced data. The findings suggest that there are approximately 73,000 tree species globally, with around 9,000 species yet to be discovered. These results highlight the vulnerability of global forest biodiversity to human-induced changes.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
(2022)
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
G. Steur, R. W. Verburg, M. J. Wassen, P. A. Teunissen, P. A. Verweij
Summary: This study examines the relationship between non-timber forest products (NTFPs) and plant diversity, finding both positive and negative connections between abundance and plant diversity indicators. It also highlights the impact of a few NTFP species on overall abundance and their association with specific floristic compositions.
ECOLOGICAL INDICATORS
(2021)
Article
Biology
Maike L. Morrison, Noah A. Rosenberg
Summary: The measurement of diversity is crucial in ecology and evolution studies. Population genetics and ecology use similar concepts and mathematical formulas to study diversity. Recent developments in mathematical constraints on the Shannon entropy statistic have improved our understanding of how standard measures depend on the most frequent allele. This study extends these constraints to specific positions in a vector of species abundances and provides new insights into the interpretation of numerical measurements of biodiversity.
JOURNAL OF MATHEMATICAL BIOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Ecology
Shane A. Blowes, Gergana N. Daskalova, Maria Dornelas, Thore Engel, Nicholas J. Gotelli, Anne E. Magurran, Ines S. Martins, Brian McGill, Daniel J. McGlinn, Alban Sagouis, Hideyasu Shimadzu, Sarah R. Supp, Jonathan M. Chase
Summary: This study investigates the interrelationships between changes in abundance, evenness, and richness in biodiversity metrics. The research shows that richness changes maximally when abundance and evenness change in the same direction. Site-to-site differences in abundance, evenness, and richness are often decoupled, while changes in species richness and relative abundance are strongly correlated for assemblages varying through time. The study suggests that understanding the interdependencies between changing abundance, evenness, and richness can provide new insights into biodiversity change in the Anthropocene.
Article
Physics, Multidisciplinary
Tobias Wand
Summary: This comment discusses a universal logarithmic scaling behaviour of Shannon entropy with respect to system size, which can be used to compare the entropy of ensembles with different sizes. The findings in this comment help improve the method of measuring competitiveness in European football leagues.
PHYSICA A-STATISTICAL MECHANICS AND ITS APPLICATIONS
(2022)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Corey T. Callaghan, Shinichi Nakagawa, William K. Cornwell
Summary: Quantifying the abundance of species is crucial in various fields, and the global distribution of species abundances shows a log left skewed pattern. By integrating data from well-studied species with a global dataset of bird occurrences, researchers estimated that there are approximately 50 billion individual birds in the world. This method provides a blueprint for quantifying species-specific abundance worldwide with uncertainty, allowing for a more accurate tracking of temporal changes in global biodiversity.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
(2021)
Article
Biology
Eden W. Tekwa, Matthew A. Whalen, Patrick T. Martone, Mary I. O'Connor
Summary: Species richness is a crucial indicator of ecosystem states and dynamics, but limited sampling effort and spatial aggregation of organisms hinder accurate observation of every species. In this study, we propose a non-parametric, asymptotic, and bias-minimized estimator called omega, which accounts for spatial abundance characteristics. Our simulation tests and real surveys demonstrate that omega consistently outperforms other estimators in balancing bias, precision, and difference detection accuracy. An R-package, Richness, is developed to facilitate the implementation of our proposed estimators. Our findings shed light on the impact of natural and observer-induced variations on species observation, and emphasize the importance of further improving biodiversity assessments.
PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2023)
Article
Forestry
Juan A. Encina-Dominguez, Eduardo Estrada-Castillon, Miguel Mellado, Cristina Gonzalez-Montelongo, Jose Ramon Arevalo
Summary: "Disturbances in the pine forests of Mexico, primarily caused by cattle, horses, goat, and sheep grazing, have resulted in low tree recruitment, establishment of invasive shrubs, changes in species composition, and invasion of weeds primarily spread by livestock. This study compared a grazing-excluded pine forest stand with a nearby area subjected to livestock grazing in the Sierra de Zapaliname natural protected area in northeast Mexico. The results showed that grazing has altered the understory species composition and reduced evenness in the control plots. To maintain species diversity and forest structure, it is recommended to restrict extensive grazing or reduce the number of animals in areas of high ecological value."
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Samuel R. P-J Ross, Jean-Francois Arnoldi, Michel Loreau, Cian D. White, Jane C. Stout, Andrew L. Jackson, Ian Donohue
Summary: The study shows that the responses of ecosystem services to species losses are context-dependent and that there are universal drivers that define the network fragility, which can predict the robustness of empirical ecosystem services. It provides insights into how species, functional traits, and links between them determine the vulnerability of ecosystem service supply to biodiversity loss.
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
(2021)
Article
Plant Sciences
Yongbin Wu, Youhua Chen, Feng-Quan Li, Tsung-Jen Shen, Scott E. Nielsen
Summary: This study developed and compared four estimators for rarefaction and extrapolation of rare-species richness. For rarefaction, the UMVUE estimator is recommended, while for extrapolation, the Bayesian-weighted estimator is recommended. Different estimators have their own merits and should be used under different settings.
APPLIED VEGETATION SCIENCE
(2022)
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Yanyu Wang, Wenqiang Wu, Hancheng Guo, Qianqian Chen, Hanyi Xu, Tieli Xie, Zhou Shi
Summary: Understanding past and present biodiversity patterns in China is crucial for development planning and biodiversity management. Satellite data analysis, specifically the Dynamic Habitat Indices (DHIs) using MODIS input, can effectively characterize the spatial distribution of species and support biodiversity conservation efforts. This study evaluated different surrogates for annual species richness in China and analyzed the trends and triggers of DHI variation from 2003 to 2018. The results showed that DHI Cum and DHI Min had strong explanatory power for estimating species richness, while DHI Var performed poorly. The best-performing individual DHI was GPP-DHI Cum. Trend analysis revealed a decrease in habitat appropriateness for species in areas with high suitability over time, while there was an increase in habitat appropriateness in areas with low suitability. The correlation factors for biodiversity variation varied spatially, with factors such as solar radiation, temperature, precipitation, and human activities influencing biodiversity changes differently in different regions. These findings contribute to a better understanding of biodiversity dynamics and can inform biodiversity conservation efforts and policy-making.
ECOLOGICAL INDICATORS
(2023)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Shuangfei Lu, Siyi Zhou, Xiaojie Yin, Chao Zhang, Rongliang Li, Jiahui Chen, Dongxu Ma, Yi Wang, Zhexiu Yu, Yuheng Chen
Summary: This study focused on the response of tree species richness to climate change in southwest China and found that as temperatures rise, tree species tend to migrate towards higher elevations. Climate factors and elevation were identified as the most critical factors affecting tree species richness.
ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING AND ASSESSMENT
(2021)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Matteo Galli, Paola Tepsich, Matteo Baini, Cristina Panti, Massimiliano Rosso, Ariadni Vafeiadou, Martha Pantelidou, Maria Cristina Fossi
Summary: This study investigates the impact of plastic pollution on biodiversity in the coastal waters of the Mediterranean Sea, and identifies potential sensitive areas of exposure.
MARINE POLLUTION BULLETIN
(2022)
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Shane A. Blowes, Jonathan M. Chase, Antonio Di Franco, Ori Frid, Nicholas J. Gotelli, Paolo Guidetti, Tiffany M. Knight, Felix May, Daniel J. McGlinn, Fiorenza Micheli, Enric Sala, Jonathan Belmaker
JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY
(2020)
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Asa R. Julien, Daniel J. McGlinn, Andrew W. Tweel, Peter R. Kingsley-Smith
SOUTHEASTERN NATURALIST
(2020)
Article
Biotechnology & Applied Microbiology
Babar S. Mirza, Daniel J. McGlinn, Brendan J. M. Bohannan, Klaus Nusslein, James M. Tiedje, Jorge L. M. Rodrigues
APPLIED AND ENVIRONMENTAL MICROBIOLOGY
(2020)
Article
Ecology
Daniel J. McGlinn, Thore Engel, Shane A. Blowes, Nicholas J. Gotelli, Tiffany M. Knight, Brian J. McGill, Nathan J. Sanders, Jonathan M. Chase
Summary: The study utilized the MoB framework to analyze ant samples and found that a decrease in ant species richness along an elevational gradient was associated with decreasing evenness and total number of species, with the aggregation effect having the strongest impact at coarser spatial grains.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Sara Snell Taylor, Jessica R. Coyle, Ethan P. White, Allen H. Hurlbert
Article
Biology
Ben G. Weinstein, Sergio Marconi, Stephanie A. Bohlman, Alina Zare, Aditya Singh, Sarah J. Graves, Ethan P. White
Summary: By utilizing remote sensing techniques and deep learning methods, researchers conducted individual-level crown estimates for 100 million trees at 37 sites across the United States. This open-source dataset has the potential to significantly expand individual-level research on trees in the United States.
Review
Ecology
Petr Keil, Thorsten Wiegand, Aniko B. Toth, Daniel J. Mcglinn, Jonathan M. Chase
Summary: Interspecific spatial associations (ISA) provide insights into community structuring, but have been primarily examined in the context of interspecific interactions. Neglect of other aspects of ISA, confusion regarding measurement approaches, and uncertain theoretical connections to biodiversity facets, highlight the need for a specific focus on ISA in biodiversity assessments. ISA measurements are more informative when spatially explicit, and links to classical biodiversity aspects such as alpha, beta, and gamma diversity mostly fail to reflect ISA changes, except for average pairwise beta diversity. Study of ISA can provide tests for biodiversity theories and explore potentially predictive macroecological patterns beyond biotic interactions.
ECOLOGICAL MONOGRAPHS
(2021)
Article
Ecology
Juniper L. Simonis, Ethan P. White, S. K. Morgan Ernest
Summary: Probabilistic near-term forecasting is crucial in ecology for informing environmental decision-making and societal change. Many ecologists are unfamiliar with tools for evaluating probabilistic forecasts, but this gap can be addressed by reviewing literature from diverse fields. Established practices for evaluating probabilistic forecasts, including selecting evaluation data, graphical evaluation, quantitative evaluation, and comparing scores across models, can help improve ecological forecasting.
Article
Ecology
Thore Engel, Shane A. Blowes, Daniel J. McGlinn, Felix May, Nicholas J. Gotelli, Brian J. McGill, Jonathan M. Chase
Summary: Understanding the non-random distribution of species in space and how spatial structure responds to ecological, biogeographic, and anthropogenic drivers is important for biodiversity research. This study introduces a new method, beta(C), that captures changes in intraspecific aggregation independently of changes in species pool size. Analysis of case studies did not show systematic changes in spatial structure with latitude.
Article
Ecology
Shane A. Blowes, Gergana N. Daskalova, Maria Dornelas, Thore Engel, Nicholas J. Gotelli, Anne E. Magurran, Ines S. Martins, Brian McGill, Daniel J. McGlinn, Alban Sagouis, Hideyasu Shimadzu, Sarah R. Supp, Jonathan M. Chase
Summary: This study investigates the interrelationships between changes in abundance, evenness, and richness in biodiversity metrics. The research shows that richness changes maximally when abundance and evenness change in the same direction. Site-to-site differences in abundance, evenness, and richness are often decoupled, while changes in species richness and relative abundance are strongly correlated for assemblages varying through time. The study suggests that understanding the interdependencies between changing abundance, evenness, and richness can provide new insights into biodiversity change in the Anthropocene.
Article
Ecology
Grace J. Di Cecco, Sara J. Snell Taylor, Ethan P. White, Allen H. Hurlbert
Summary: In two datasets of avian communities in North America, we assessed support for two hypotheses explaining productivity-richness relationships. The results suggest that landscape diversity may affect the strength of productivity-richness relationships. Although the More Individuals Hypothesis (MIH) and the Niche Specialization Hypothesis (NSH) may not be mutually exclusive, the level of support for each hypothesis differs.
JOURNAL OF BIOGEOGRAPHY
(2022)
Article
Ecology
Thore Engel, Shane A. Blowes, Daniel J. McGlinn, Nicholas J. Gotelli, Brian J. McGill, Jonathan M. Chase
Summary: Patterns of biodiversity can provide insights into the processes shaping biological communities globally. By partitioning species diversity into components of species abundance distribution (SAD) and abundance, we can compare the effects of different components on diversity change. Results from tree and fish studies suggest that the main factors influencing diversity may vary for different species.
ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
(2022)
Article
Geochemistry & Geophysics
Ira Harmon, Sergio Marconi, Ben Weinstein, Yang Bai, Daisy Zhe Wang, Ethan White, Stephanie Bohlman
Summary: Forest inventory is crucial for forest management, and remote sensing is an efficient method for measuring forest parameters. Remotely sensed species classification can estimate species abundances and distributions, and approximate metrics like aboveground biomass. However, current methods using deep-learning models have limitations in classifying rare species and lacking explainability. By combining convolutional neural networks with a neuro-symbolic framework, an improved classification approach is proposed, which incorporates domain knowledge and enhances model explainability, achieving up to eight F1-points improvement in rare species classification.
IEEE GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING LETTERS
(2023)
Article
Geochemistry & Geophysics
Ira Harmon, Sergio Marconi, Ben Weinstein, Sarah Graves, Daisy Zhe Wang, Alina Zare, Stephanie Bohlman, Aditya Singh, Ethan White
Summary: This article introduces a convolutional neural network-based ITC delineation algorithm that uses a neuro-symbolic framework to inject domain knowledge. The results show that the injection of rules improves model performance and affects model bias. The addition of domain data positively impacts the accuracy of the model and reduces errors.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING
(2022)
Article
Engineering, Electrical & Electronic
Dylan Stewart, Alina Zare, Sergio Marconi, Ben G. Weinstein, Ethan P. White, Sarah J. Graves, Stephanie A. Bohlman, Aditya Singh
Summary: Supervised methods for object delineation in remote sensing rely on labeled ground-truth data, which can be challenging to gather; the newly proposed RC evaluation metric provides a more robust way to evaluate tree crown delineations, considering the imprecision in annotations; compared to the commonly used intersection over union method, the RC metric shows reduced variance among multiple annotators, making it more suitable for scoring target delineations in the presence of uncertainty and imprecision in annotations inherent to tree crown delineation.
IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN APPLIED EARTH OBSERVATIONS AND REMOTE SENSING
(2021)