Review
Ecology
Isaac Overcast, Guillaume Achaz, Robin Aguilee, Carmelo Andujar, Paula Arribas, Thomas J. Creedy, Evan P. Economo, Rampal S. Etienne, Rosemary Gillespie, Claire Jacquet, Flora Jay, Susan Kennedy, Henrik Krehenwinkel, Amaury Lambert, Emmanouil Meramveliotakis, Victor Noguerales, Benoit Perez-Lamarque, George Roderick, Haldre Rogers, Megan Ruffley, Isabel Sanmartin, Alfried P. Vogler, Anna Papadopoulou, Brent C. Emerson, Helene Morlon
Summary: MacArthur and Wilson's theory of island biogeography has been important for predicting patterns of species diversity, abundance, and trait data. However, there is a need to incorporate the genetic component into these models and unify processes across different organizational scales. This review highlights the potential for developing a genetic theory of island biogeography and outlines two approaches for integrating genetic diversity patterns into community-scale models.
GLOBAL ECOLOGY AND BIOGEOGRAPHY
(2023)
Editorial Material
Ecology
Lynn Govaert, Florian Altermatt, Luc De Meester, Mathew A. Leibold, Mark A. McPeek, Jelena H. Pantel, Mark C. Urban
Summary: Recent studies show that ecological and evolutionary processes can often interact; however, our understanding of evolution in multi-species communities is still lacking; focusing on interactions between evolutionary biology and community ecology processes can explore eco-evolutionary dynamics in multi-species communities.
FUNCTIONAL ECOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Ecology
Roxanne M. W. Banker, Ashley A. Dineen, Melanie G. Sorman, Carrie L. Tyler, Peter D. Roopnarine
Summary: Ecosystem structure plays a crucial role in determining community stability and the response to crises. This study reconstructs trophic networks from different time periods and compares them to understand the impact of the Mesozoic Marine Revolution on ecosystem dynamics. The results show that trophic structure is influenced by the taxa present and primary production, and highlight the need for understanding trophic position in restoration activities.
FRONTIERS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
(2022)
Review
Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
Karma Nanglu, Thomas M. Cullen
Summary: Quantitative studies of fossil data have played a critical role in major macroevolutionary and macro-ecological discoveries, but issues such as bias, preservation, sampling, and taxonomy can affect the interpretative resolution and obscure biological signals. This study provides two case studies that illustrate the impact of biases on ecological reconstructions and analysis, and proposes recommendations for future paleoecological and macroecological studies.
EARTH-SCIENCE REVIEWS
(2023)
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Darin Kopp, Daniel Allen
Summary: This study quantified the impacts of several environmental gradients on the spatial and temporal characteristics of aquatic insect subsidies across the contiguous United States by synthesizing geospatial, aquatic biomonitoring, and biological traits data. The trait composition of benthic macroinvertebrate communities varied among hydrologic regions, affecting how aquatic insects transport subsidies as adults. The results suggest that natural and anthropogenic gradients could affect aquatic insect subsidies by changing the trait composition of benthic macroinvertebrate communities.
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Miika Kotila, Kati M. M. Suominen, Ville V. V. Vasko, Anna S. S. Blomberg, Aleksi Lehikoinen, Tommi Andersson, Jouni Aspi, Tony Cederberg, Jari Haenninen, Jasmin Inkinen, Janne Koskinen, Goeran Lundberg, Katja Makinen, Markku Rontti, Martin Snickars, Jostein Solbakken, Janne Sundell, Ilkka Syvanpera, Silja Vuorenmaa, Jari Ylonen, Eero J. J. Vesterinen, Thomas M. M. Lilley
Summary: The distribution ranges and spatio-temporal patterns of boreal bats are poorly known. In this study, a passive-acoustic sampling setup was established in Finland to investigate the effect of latitude on bat species composition and activity patterns in northern Europe. Bat calls were identified and seasonal activity patterns were modeled for three target species across seven sampling years. The results indicate an increase in activity for E. nilssonii and Myotis spp. since 2015, with significant latitude-dependent seasonal patterns. The passive-acoustic monitoring network proved to be an effective and cost-efficient method for studying bat activity and analyzing spatio-temporal patterns.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Matthew McLean, Rick D. Stuart-Smith, Sebastien Villeger, Arnaud Auber, Graham J. Edgar, M. Aaron MacNeil, Nicolas Loiseau, Fabien Leprieur, David Mouillot
Summary: Research indicates that despite differences in biogeography and evolutionary history, similar environments host reef fish assemblages with similar trait compositions. This suggests that similar trait-based management strategies can be applied across different regions, potentially leading to improved conservation outcomes.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
(2021)
Article
Microbiology
Richard Wolff, William Shoemaker, Nandita Garud
Summary: The human gut microbiome exhibits substantial ecological diversity at both the species and strain levels. The majority of species maintain stable genetic diversity over time, and strain abundances can be predicted by a stochastic logistic model, suggesting dynamic stability. Additionally, strain abundances follow macroecological laws known to hold at the species level. These findings highlight the importance of strains as an ecological unit in the human gut microbiome.
Article
Ecology
James H. Thorp, Walter K. Dodds, Caleb J. Robbins, Alain Maasri, Emily R. Arsenault, Jackob A. Lutchen, Flavia Tromboni, Barbara Hayford, Mark Pyron, Gregory S. Mathews, Anne Schechner, Sudeep Chandra
Summary: This article analyzes the nature of research in freshwater macrosystem biology, focusing on lotic studies, from both conceptual and current research perspectives. It describes the boundaries of permanent and transitional lotic macrosystems across spatial extents, contrasts ecosystem vs. macrosystem research, and provides examples of aquatic macrosystems ecology projects in the USA. The article also recommends incorporating large-scale lotic concepts developed over the last 40 years as the basis for lotic macrosystem studies and suggests future research directions in areas of climate change and teleconnections among distant organisms and systems.
Article
Ecology
July A. Pilowsky, Andrea Manica, Stuart Brown, Carsten Rahbek, Damien A. Fordham
Summary: This study investigated the factors influencing the simulations of early human migration into North America. The results show that demographic parameters have a larger impact on migration outcomes than the choice of climate model. The findings suggest that further research on ancient human population dynamics and consideration of parameter uncertainties are important for improving the accuracy of migration models and understanding their implications for biodiversity.
ECOLOGICAL MODELLING
(2022)
Article
Ecology
Suzette G. A. Flantua, Ondrej Mottl, Vivian A. A. Felde, Kuber P. P. Bhatta, Hilary H. H. Birks, John-Arvid Grytnes, Alistair W. R. Seddon, H. John B. Birks
Summary: This article presents a step-by-step guide on how to process fossil pollen data for large-scale palaeoecological analyses. The authors provide a detailed protocol and workflow to ensure transparency and reproducibility of data. Furthermore, they emphasize the importance of expertise and informed decisions based on palaeoecological knowledge when working with open-access palaeoecological data.
GLOBAL ECOLOGY AND BIOGEOGRAPHY
(2023)
Article
Plant Sciences
Jessie Woodbridge, Ralph Fyfe, David Smith, Ruth Pelling, Anne de Vareilles, Robert Batchelor, Andrew Bevan, Althea L. Davies
Summary: Biodiversity plays a key role in ecosystem functioning, habitat recovery, and resilience to environmental changes. Long-term ecological records, such as pollen grains and fossil insects, can be used to explore biodiversity patterns over centuries. Human population changes, insect faunal groups, and climate trends have been found to be related to palynological diversity. Human activities have influenced palynological diversity patterns, suggesting a need for further research to understand biodiversity drivers on a regional scale.
JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Ecology
Ian R. McFadden, Agnieszka Sendek, Morgane Brosse, Peter M. Bach, Marco Baity-Jesi, Janine Bolliger, Kurt Bollmann, Eckehard G. Brockerhoff, Giulia Donati, Friederike Gebert, Shyamolina Ghosh, Hsi-Cheng Ho, Imran Khaliq, J. Jelle Lever, Ivana Logar, Helen Moor, Daniel Odermatt, Loiec Pellissier, Luiz Jardim de Queiroz, Christian Rixen, Nele Schuwirth, J. Ryan Shipley, Cornelia W. Twining, Yann Vitasse, Christoph Vorburger, Mark K. L. Wong, Niklaus E. Zimmermann, Ole Seehausen, Martin M. Gossner, Blake Matthews, Catherine H. Graham, Florian Altermatt, Anita Narwani
Summary: Human impacts such as habitat loss, climate change, and biological invasions are drastically changing biodiversity. We propose an integrative approach to explain the differences in impacts between terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems by linking them to four fundamental processes that structure communities. Through this approach, we aim to provide insights into why human impacts and responses to them may differ across ecosystem types, using a mechanistic, eco-evolutionary framework.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Nittay Meroz, Nesli Tovi, Yael Sorokin, Jonathan Friedman
Summary: Managing and engineering microbial communities requires the ability to predict their composition. While little work has been done on predicting compositions on evolutionary timescales, this study shows that community composition typically changes during evolution, but the composition of replicate communities remains similar. These changes were also predictable, suggesting that it may be possible to forecast the evolution of microbial communities even on long timescales.
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
(2021)
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Nicolas Silva Bosco, Victor Mateus Prasniewski, Jessie Pereira Santos, Natalia Stefanini da Silveira, Laurence Culot, Milton Cezar Ribeiro, Geiziane Tessarolo, Thadeu Sobral-Souza
Summary: Biodiversity knowledge has deficits, and the Wallacean shortfall related to species distribution unknowledge is one of the most studied. It is important to identify gaps and biases in spatial biodiversity knowledge. This study used a dataset of Atlantic Forest primates to examine the spatial bias as a function of spatial scales and cell-size resolutions. The findings indicate that the sampling coverage and spatial knowledge of Atlantic Forest primates are biased depending on spatial cell-size resolution and scale.
PERSPECTIVES IN ECOLOGY AND CONSERVATION
(2022)
Article
Ecology
Giovanni Rapacciuolo
GLOBAL ECOLOGY AND BIOGEOGRAPHY
(2019)
Article
Ecology
Clarke A. Knight, Jessica L. Blois, Benjamin Blonder, Marc Macias-Fauria, Alejandro Ordonez, Jens-Christian Svenning
AMERICAN NATURALIST
(2020)
Article
Biology
Giovanni Rapacciuolo, J. Michael Beman, Lauren M. Schiebelhut, Michael N. Dawson
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2019)
Article
Ecology
Nathaniel S. Fox, Joseph J. Veneracion, Jessica L. Blois
ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
(2020)
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Silvia Pineda-Munoz, Advait M. Jukar, Aniko B. Toth, Danielle Fraser, Andrew Du, W. Andrew Barr, Kathryn L. Amatangelo, Meghan A. Balk, Anna K. Behrensmeyer, Jessica Blois, Matt Davis, Jussi T. Eronen, Nicholas J. Gotelli, Cindy Looy, Joshua H. Miller, Alexandria B. Shupinski, Laura C. Soul, Amelia Villasenor, Scott Wing, S. Kathleen Lyons
Summary: This study explores the ecological changes in late Quaternary North America, particularly focusing on the relationships between mammal species association and body size. The research found that in the Late Pleistocene and Holocene, body mass differences between aggregated and segregated species pairs were significantly smaller than random pairs, indicating environmental filtering and competition as important drivers of community structure. However, in modern times, there was a breakdown in the relationship between body mass differences and co-occurrence patterns, suggesting a reorganization of communities following the Quaternary mammalian extinctions.
Article
Ecology
Robert A. Boria, Sarah K. Brown, Marjorie D. Matocq, Jessica L. Blois
Summary: By integrating genetic variation, demographic modeling, and ecological niche modeling, this study investigates the historical biogeography of the dusky-footed woodrat in California. The research reveals that the species is divided into three regionally distinct populations, with the deepest divergence occurring around 1.7 million years ago in the modern-day San Francisco-Bay Delta region.
Article
Geography, Physical
A. Michelle Lawing, Jessica L. Blois, Kaitlin C. Maguire, Simon J. Goring, Yue Wang, Jenny L. McGuire
Summary: This study utilizes fossil pollen records and occupancy modeling methods to identify that occupancy models work best for pollen taxa with high variation in abundance, while low genus richness and large basin area are important factors influencing low detection rates.
QUATERNARY SCIENCE REVIEWS
(2021)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Diego Nieto-Lugilde, Jessica L. Blois, Francisco J. Bonet-Garcia, Thomas Giesecke, Graciela Gil-Romera, Alistair Seddon
Summary: Anthropogenic pressures are leading to a global decline in biodiversity. To effectively conserve biodiversity, it is essential to integrate knowledge from neoecology and paleoecology, aided by research infrastructures, in order to improve our understanding of biodiversity drivers and responses to global changes. Further integration of research infrastructures from both disciplines is crucial for advancing integrative studies and addressing the challenges of biodiversity loss.
ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH LETTERS
(2021)
Article
Ecology
Giovanni Rapacciuolo, Alison Young, Rebecca Johnson
Summary: Opportunistic and unstructured observations of biodiversity from volunteers, community, and citizen scientists are increasingly contributing to global biodiversity knowledge, offering huge potential to fill gaps in biodiversity monitoring efforts. Overcoming challenges related to lack of standardization is key to successfully integrating these observations into the global ecosystem of biodiversity monitoring tools.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Neil Cox, Bruce E. Young, Philip Bowles, Miguel Fernandez, Julie Marin, Giovanni Rapacciuolo, Monika Bohm, Thomas M. Brooks, S. Blair Hedges, Craig Hilton-Taylor, Michael Hoffmann, Richard K. B. Jenkins, Marcelo F. Tognelli, Graham J. Alexander, Allen Allison, Natalia B. Ananjeva, Mark Auliya, Luciano Javier Avila, David G. Chapple, Diego F. Cisneros-Heredia, Harold G. Cogger, Guarino R. Colli, Anslem de Silva, Carla C. Eisemberg, Johannes Els, Ansel Fong G., Tandora D. Grant, Rodney A. Hitchmough, Djoko T. Iskandar, Noriko Kidera, Marcio Martins, Shai Meiri, Nicola J. Mitchell, Sanjay Molur, Cristiano de C. Nogueira, Juan Carlos Ortiz, Johannes Penner, Anders G. J. Rhodin, Gilson A. Rivas, Mark-Oliver Rodel, Uri Roll, Kate L. Sanders, Georgina Santos-Barrera, Glenn M. Shea, Stephen Spawls, Bryan L. Stuart, Krystal A. Tolley, Jean-Francois Trape, Marcela A. Vidal, Philipp Wagner, Bryan P. Wallace, Yan Xie
Summary: Global assessments have shown that 40.7% of amphibians, 25.4% of mammals, and 13.6% of birds are threatened with extinction, but reptiles have been excluded from these assessments. This study provides a comprehensive extinction-risk assessment for reptiles and finds that at least 21.1% of species are threatened, with similar major threats as other tetrapods. Reptiles in forests are more threatened than those in arid habitats. Threatened reptiles tend to be isolated from other threatened tetrapods.
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Kinsey M. Brock, Marie-Claire Chelini, Cole Ayton, Indiana E. Madden, Cynthia Ramos, Jessica L. Blois, Panayiotis Pafilis, Danielle L. Edwards
Summary: Space is a limited resource that animals compete for, resulting in different behaviors and impacting their survival and adaptation. A study on the Aegean wall lizard found that different color morphs exhibit distinct behaviors during competition, which may contribute to the maintenance of morphs.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Meghan A. Balk, John Deck, Kitty F. Emery, Ramona L. Walls, Dana Reuter, Raphael LaFrance, Joaquin Arroyo-Cabrales, Paul Barrett, Jessica Blois, Arianne Boileau, Laura Brenskelle, Nicole R. Cannarozzi, J. Alberto Cruz, Liliana M. Davalos, Noe U. de la Sancha, Prasiddhi Gyawali, Maggie M. Hantak, Samantha Hopkins, Brooks Kohli, Jessica N. King, Michelle S. Koo, A. Michelle Lawing, Helena Machado, Samantha M. McCrane, Bryan McLean, Michele E. Morgan, Suzanne Pilaar Birch, Denne Reed, Elizabeth J. Reitz, Neeka Sewnath, Nathan S. Upham, Amelia Villasenor, Laurel Yohe, Edward B. Davis, Robert P. Guralnick
Summary: Understanding the variation of traits within and among species is crucial in biology. However, the data and metadata underlying trait measurements are often not reported. This article introduces FuTRES, an online resource for individual-level trait reporting, which already stores millions of trait measurements for various specimens. The article highlights potential issues with simply reporting a single mean estimate and shows that individual-level data improve estimates of body mass for zooarchaeological specimens. FuTRES facilitates trait data integration and discoverability and accelerates new research agendas.
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Robert A. Boria, Jessica L. Blois
Summary: This study investigates the range dynamics and demography of the deer mouse, Peromyscus maniculatus, and finds that climate change has played a significant role in shaping its population and differentiation.
MOLECULAR PHYLOGENETICS AND EVOLUTION
(2023)
Article
Ecology
John W. Williams, Trisha L. Spanbauer, Peter D. Heintzman, Jessica Blois, Eric Capo, Simon J. Goring, Marie-Eve Monchamp, Laura Parducci, Jordan M. Von Eggers
Summary: Ancient environmental DNA data have the potential to provide insights into past global biodiversity dynamics at an unprecedented taxonomic extent and resolution, but this requires bridging bioinformatics and paleoecoinformatics and strengthening expert community governance and curation.
TRENDS IN ECOLOGY & EVOLUTION
(2023)