Article
Ecology
Jason Cosens Walsman, Alexander Thomas Strauss, Spencer Ryan Hall
Summary: Parasites can both decrease and increase host density by causing mortality and affecting host foraging behavior. This study integrates trait measurements, a resource-host-parasite model, and experimental epidemics to explore the effects of parasites on host density. The findings demonstrate the tension between density-mediated and trait-mediated effects of parasites, and reveal the importance of resource feedback in determining host density during epidemics.
FUNCTIONAL ECOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Fernando Jeronimo, Isabela G. Varassin
Summary: This paper investigates how landscape structure can influence coffee production at different scales, and evaluates the predictive utility of landscape metrics. The study finds that the composition of the landscape surrounding coffee farms helps predict production in a spatially explicit approach, but these metrics cannot detect the impact of the landscape in an aspatial approach. The findings highlight the importance of landscape spatial structure in the stability of coffee production.
ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING AND ASSESSMENT
(2023)
Article
Ecology
Maartje J. Klapwijk, Michael B. Bonsall
Summary: The indirect interactions between a focal and alternative resource mediated by a generalist consumer can be influenced by associational effects, resulting in various dynamics such as apparent competition and apparent mutualism. The inclusion of density-dependence expands the range where alternative resources positively influence the focal resource.
FRONTIERS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
(2022)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Marta Maziarz, Richard K. Broughton, Przemyslaw Chylarecki, Grzegorz Hebda
Summary: This study explores the impact of ambient temperatures and rainfall on the cohabitation of bird nests by Wood Warblers, blowflies, and ants. The probability of ectoparasites occurring in nests increases with increasing temperatures and declining precipitation, while the number of ectoparasites is influenced by both temperature and ant presence. However, the nestling growth is unaffected by ectoparasite abundance or ant presence.
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
(2022)
Article
Ecology
Moritz Stuber, Ayco J. M. Tack, Beyene Zewdie, Esayas Mendesil, Tamiru Shimales, Biruk Ayalew, Sileshi Nemomissa, Jorgen Sjogren, Eero Vesterinen, Alexander Wezel, Kristoffer Hylander
Summary: This study found that the top-down control by ants on coffee pests and diseases varies significantly across different spatial scales. Ants significantly suppressed herbivory and coffee leaf rust at distances less than 10 meters from nesting trees, with different levels of control observed at sites with varying management intensities. The strength of top-down control by ants is highly heterogeneous across spatial scales due to predator biology at the small scale and herbivore density or interactions at the landscape scale.
Article
Biology
Ilias Berberi, Eliot T. Miller, Roslyn Dakin
Summary: Sociality can have both positive and negative effects on competition in ecological networks, depending on the context. In this study, we used a large dataset of bird interactions at backyard feeders to examine the relationship between sociality and dominance hierarchies. We found that solitary species are more likely to displace opponents in one-on-one contests, but social species gain a competitive advantage when in the presence of conspecifics. Additionally, social species have fewer dominance interactions with heterospecifics and more with conspecifics.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2023)
Article
Ecology
Ana Beatriz Navarro, Marcelo Magioli, Juliano Andre Bogoni, Marcelo Zacharias Moreira, Luis Fabio Silveira, Eduardo Roberto Alexandrino, Daniela Tomasio Apolinario da Luz, Marco Aurelio Pizo, Wesley Rodrigues Silva, Vanessa Cristina de Oliveira, Reginaldo Jose Donatelli, Alexander Christianini, Augusto Joao Piratelli, Katia Maria Paschoaletto Micchi Barros Ferraz
Summary: Research found that in human-modified landscapes, the ecological niches of frugivores, insectivores, nectarivores, and omnivores were narrower, while granivores had wider niches. Birds in human-modified landscapes consumed more resources from agricultural areas, but most guilds showed a preference for forest resources in both landscape types, except granivores.
Article
Marine & Freshwater Biology
Ewerton Fintelman-Oliveira, Carla Kruk, Gissell Lacerot, Gabriel Klippel, Christina Wyss Castelo Branco
Summary: Trait-based approaches were used to construct zooplankton trait-based functional groups (ZFG) in tropical reservoirs. Six ZFGs were identified based on three non-redundant functional traits, and their density and biomass were found to be influenced by reservoir morphometry, hydrology, rainfall, and phytoplankton biomass. This study provides valuable insights for monitoring and predicting zooplankton community changes in tropical reservoirs.
Article
Agriculture, Multidisciplinary
Jules Chiffard, Ilham Bentaleb, Nigel Gilles Yoccoz, Francois Fourel, Elodie Blanquet, Aurelien Besnard
Summary: Large mammalian herbivores (LMH) have had a profound influence on landscapes and wildlife in alpine and mountain grasslands in France. The grazing intensity of LMH affects the diet of insectivorous birds, shifting their food source from herbivorous arthropods to other groups such as predators and detritivores. This study highlights the trophic link between LMH and insectivorous birds in open landscapes, providing insights for landscape management and bird conservation.
AGRICULTURE ECOSYSTEMS & ENVIRONMENT
(2023)
Article
Entomology
Elia Guariento, Wolfgang Wanek, Konrad Fiedler
Summary: Studying the feeding ecology of ants at the Alpine tree line revealed a shift in resource use from subalpine forests to alpine grasslands, with wood ants occupying a higher trophic position compared to other ant species. Energy resources were found to be more limiting for ants in the alpine environment, likely due to abundant trophobiotic associations with honeydew-producing homopterans in forests.
ECOLOGICAL ENTOMOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Ecology
Hagen M. O'Neill, Sean D. Twiss, Philip A. Stephens, Tom H. E. Mason, Nils Ryrholm, Joseph Burman
Summary: Ecosystem engineers, such as red deer, can have both trophic and non-trophic effects on other organisms, potentially impacting the abundance of species of conservation concern. Understanding these interactions is crucial for conservation objectives.
Article
Ecology
Joseph A. Tobias, Catherine Sheard, Alex L. Pigot, Adam J. M. Devenish, Jingyi Yang, Ferran Sayol, Montague H. C. Neate-Clegg, Nico Alioravainen, Thomas L. Weeks, Robert A. Barber, Patrick A. Walkden, Hannah E. A. MacGregor, Samuel E. I. Jones, Claire Vincent, Anna G. Phillips, Nicola M. Marples, Flavia A. Montano-Centellas, Victor Leandro-Silva, Santiago Claramunt, Bianca Darski, Benjamin G. Freeman, Tom P. Bregman, Christopher R. Cooney, Emma C. Hughes, Elliot J. R. Capp, Zoe K. Varley, Nicholas R. Friedman, Heiko Korntheuer, Andrea Corrales-Vargas, Christopher H. Trisos, Brian C. Weeks, Dagmar M. Hanz, Till Topfer, Gustavo A. Bravo, Vladimir Remes, Larissa Nowak, Lincoln S. Carneiro, Amilkar J. Moncada R., Beata Matysiokova, Daniel T. Baldassarre, Alejandra Martinez-Salinas, Jared D. Wolfe, Philip M. Chapman, Benjamin G. Daly, Marjorie C. Sorensen, Alexander Neu, Michael A. Ford, Rebekah J. Mayhew, Luis Fabio Silveira, David J. Kelly, Nathaniel N. D. Annorbah, Henry S. Pollock, Ada M. Grabowska-Zhang, Jay P. McEntee, Juan Carlos T. Gonzalez, Camila G. Meneses, Marcia C. Munoz, Luke L. Powell, Gabriel A. Jamie, Thomas J. Matthews, Oscar Johnson, Guilherme R. R. Brito, Kristof Zyskowski, Ross Crates, Michael G. Harvey, Maura Jurado Zevallos, Peter A. Hosner, Tom Bradfer-Lawrence, James M. Maley, F. Gary Stiles, Hevana S. Lima, Kaiya L. Provost, Moses Chibesa, Mmatjie Mashao, Jeffrey T. Howard, Edson Mlamba, Marcus A. H. Chua, Bicheng Li, M. Isabel Gomez, Natalia C. Garcia, Martin Packert, Jerome Fuchs, Jarome R. Ali, Elizabeth P. Derryberry, Monica L. Carlson, Rolly C. Urriza, Kristin E. Brzeski, Dewi M. Prawiradilaga, Matt J. Rayner, Eliot T. Miller, Rauri C. K. Bowie, Rene-Marie Lafontaine, R. Paul Scofield, Yingqiang Lou, Lankani Somarathna, Denis Lepage, Marshall Illif, Eike Lena Neuschulz, Mathias Templin, D. Matthias Dehling, Jacob C. Cooper, Olivier S. G. Pauwels, Kangkuso Analuddin, Jon Fjeldsa, Nathalie Seddon, Paul R. Sweet, Fabrice A. J. DeClerck, Luciano N. Naka, Jeffrey D. Brawn, Alexandre Aleixo, Katrin Bohning-Gaese, Carsten Rahbek, Susanne A. Fritz, Gavin H. Thomas, Matthias Schleuning
Summary: Functional traits provide a quantitative framework for theories in evolutionary biology, ecology, and ecosystem science. The AVONET dataset contains comprehensive functional trait data for all bird species, allowing integration with other datasets and providing a global template for testing hypotheses and exploring the origins, structure, and functioning of biodiversity.
Article
Ecology
Piotr Szefer, Kenneth Molem, Austin Sau, Vojtech Novotny
Summary: The relative roles of plants competing for resources and top-down control of vegetation by herbivores, influenced by predators, in early stages of tropical forest succession are not well understood. This study examines the impact of excluding insectivorous birds, bats, and ants on arthropod communities in pioneer early successional vegetation plots in lowland tropical forest gaps in Papua New Guinea. The exclusion of predators resulted in increased biomass of herbivorous and predatory arthropods, as well as increased density and decreased diversity of herbivorous insects. Changes in plant, herbivore, and arthropod predator biomass were either positively correlated or uncorrelated at these three trophic levels and between individual arthropod orders. The abundance and biomass of arthropods strongly correlated with plant biomass, regardless of their trophic position, indicating bottom-up control. Herbivore specialization patterns confirmed a lack of strong top-down control and were largely unaffected by the exclusion of insectivorous birds, bats, and ants. No changes in plant-herbivore interaction networks were detected, except for a decrease in modularity in the exclusion plots.
Article
Ornithology
Ana B. Navarro, Juliano A. Bogoni, Marcelo Z. Moreira, Luis F. Silveira
Summary: Isotopic analysis reveals that granivorous birds in southeastern Brazil coexist through niche and resource partitioning, with low isotopic niche overlap suggesting distinct foraging in different habitat types.
Article
Ecology
Janelle A. Goeke, Emelie M. Foster, Anna R. Armitage
Summary: Tropicalization is a global phenomenon that is changing ecosystems, and mangrove encroachment is a specific form of tropicalization that can have consequences for coastal wetland fauna. This study focuses on the interactions between key coastal wetland consumers and encroaching black mangroves and identifies physiological responses that may contribute to shifts in floral and faunal communities.
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Megan O'Connell, Zachariah Jordan, Erin McGilvray, Hamutahl Cohen, Heidi Liere, Brenda B. Lin, Stacy M. Philpott, Shalene Jha
Summary: This study found that urban gardens with greater plant species richness and higher levels of urbanization impact bee pollen collection behavior, with bees preferring ornamental plants over crops. Landscapes supporting plant diversity have a positive effect on within-garden pollen collection in urban gardens.
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Hamutahl Cohen, Stacy M. Philpott, Heidi Liere, Brenda B. Lin, Shalene Jha
Summary: Biodiversity and ecosystem functioning are linked through habitat and species composition, especially critical for mobile ecosystem service providers like pollinators. In urban agricultural systems along the California central coast, local resource density, landscape composition, pollinator abundance and richness, and pollination services were found to be interconnected. It was also observed that optimizing for both pollinator richness and floral resource availability is crucial for achieving optimal pollination outcomes in urban environments.
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
John H. Armstrong, Andy J. Kulikowski, Stacy M. Philpott
Summary: The study found that there is a substantial abundance and diversity of arthropods underneath ground-mounted solar arrays in urban area parking lots, and arrays integrated with vegetation have significantly greater arthropod abundance and more detritivores, parasitoids, and family richness.
Article
Agriculture, Multidisciplinary
Celine Moreaux, Desiree A. L. Meireles, Jesper Sonne, Ernesto Badano, Alice Classen, Adrian Gonzalez-Chaves, Juliana Hipolito, Alexandra-Maria Klein, Pietro K. Maruyama, Jean Paul Metzger, Stacy M. Philpott, Carsten Rahbek, Fernanda T. Saturni, Tuanjit Sritongchuay, Teja Tscharntke, Shinsuke Uno, Carlos H. Vergara, Blandina F. Viana, Niels Strange, Bo Dalsgaard
Summary: Animal pollinators play a crucial role in enhancing coffee fruit set, increasing it by an average of approximately 18%. Dense forests in close proximity to coffee plantations can positively affect fruit set by providing high-quality habitats for bees, while forest cover and distance to open forest have minimal impact on bee richness and coffee fruit set. Further research is needed to better understand the biodiversity value of dense forest for pollinators and their pollination services.
AGRICULTURE ECOSYSTEMS & ENVIRONMENT
(2022)
Article
Ecology
Hamutahl Cohen, Monika Egerer, Summer-Solstice Thomas, Stacy M. Philpott
Summary: The study revealed that urban cover and garden size are positively associated with bee species richness and abundance. Urban cover is also related to the prevalence of specific bee traits, suggesting that urbanization selects for species with certain characteristics.
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Hamutahl Cohen, Lauren C. Ponisio, Kaleigh A. Russell, Stacy M. Philpott, Quinn S. McFrederick
Summary: Urbanization leads to increases in impervious land cover and alters resource distribution for wildlife. This study focuses on urban gardens and finds that garden size and flowering perennial plant abundance have a positive effect on parasite and pathogen richness in bumble bees. Parasitism rates in honey bees are also associated with parasites and pathogens in bumble bees, suggesting species spillover. Management can mitigate parasitism through indirect effects on bee diversity. Floral resources play a complex role in disease transmission and further research is needed for conservation efforts.
Article
Ecology
Vannesa V. Catzim, Stacy M. Philpott, Yann Henaut, Anmi Garcia-Arellano, Gabriela Perez-Lachaud
Summary: Coccinellids in the tropics are affected by the rural-urban gradient, and both local and landscape variables influence their abundance and species richness. Coccinellid diversity is highest in rural areas and positively correlated with prey abundance and temperature.
Article
Microbiology
Marshall S. McMunn, Asher Hudson, Ash T. Zemenick, Monika Egerer, Lucas Bennett, Stacy M. Philpott, Rachel L. Vannette
Summary: This study reveals that elevated temperatures have an impact on the abundance and composition of ant-associated bacteria, and seasonal temperature and local temperature differences play a role in shaping microbiomes within the ant population.
FEMS MICROBIOLOGY ECOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Nicholas A. Ivers, Zacchariah Jordan, Hamutahl Cohen, Amber Tripodi, Mark J. F. Brown, Heidi Liere, Brenda B. Lin, Stacy Philpott, Shalene Jha
Summary: This study investigates the impact of urban garden management and regional landscape composition on the disease dynamics of a critical native pollinator, the bumble bee Bombus vosnesenskii. The research found that higher pollinator taxonomic richness in gardens led to lower prevalence of certain parasites, indicating a dilution effect. Additionally, gardens with higher mulch use and surrounded by greater proportions of impervious urban cover had higher prevalence of certain parasites.
Article
Ecology
Theresa W. Ong, Brenda B. Lin, Azucena Lucatero, Hamutahl Cohen, Peter Bichier, Monika H. Egerer, Alana Danieu, Shalene Jha, Stacy M. Philpott, Heidi Liere
Summary: Rare species in urban areas play a crucial role in increasing functional diversity and promoting biodiversity conservation. A study found a significant number of rare plants, birds, and bees in urban gardens. Social and biophysical factors, such as gender, age, and proximity to garden sites, influence the presence and richness of rare species. The study also noted positive correlations between the number of rare plants and bee species, and between bee and bird species.
ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS
(2022)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Monika Egerer, Stacy M. Philpott
Summary: Agroecosystem management can be influenced by people's aesthetic preferences, which may have both positive and negative effects on beneficial biodiversity and ecosystem function. This study investigated the influence of aesthetic preferences for 'tidy' versus 'messy' gardens on insect pests, natural enemies, and pest control services in urban community gardens. The findings showed that aesthetic preferences did not significantly affect the abundance of natural enemies or herbivores, but did alter the composition of natural enemy communities. The study suggests that allowing some 'messiness' in urban gardens may promote specific natural enemy assemblages and have no negative impact on pest control services.
Article
Ecology
Shalene Jha, Monika Egerer, Peter Bichier, Hamutahl Cohen, Heidi Liere, Brenda Lin, Azucena Lucatero, Stacy M. Philpott
Summary: Ecosystem services (ESs) are vital for human well-being, especially in urban areas where a majority of the global population will reside in the near future. This study analyzed data from a network of urban community gardens over five years to identify the factors that influence biodiversity and ES trade-offs and synergies. The findings challenge previous assumptions that food production is incompatible with biodiversity, revealing multiple synergies and minimal trade-offs. Additionally, the study shows that the combination of natural landscape cover and local management can influence services provided by mobile animals, such as pest control and pollination. By quantifying the factors that support a diverse range of ES, the study emphasizes the critical role of garden management and urban planning in optimizing biodiversity and human well-being.
Article
Ecology
Suzanne Lipton, Rachel S. Meyer, Greg Richardson, Stacy M. Philpott
Summary: Intensive grazing of grasslands can lead to biodiversity loss and increased greenhouse gas emissions, but agroecological practices can create diverse habitats and act as carbon sinks. The presence of the tunneling dung beetle Onthophagus taurus has a clear effect on the soil microbial community, increasing the abundance of soil microbes associated with degrading plant materials and carbohydrate metabolism.
RANGELAND ECOLOGY & MANAGEMENT
(2023)
Article
Entomology
Stacy M. Philpott, Azucena Lucatero, Sofie Andrade, Cameron Hernandez, Peter Bichier
Summary: Urban sprawl contributes to biodiversity loss, but the presence of native plants in urban areas may help support diversity. In urban gardens, where non-native plants are common, native plants may be especially important in providing resources to pollinators and other beneficial arthropods, although little research has examined their impact on non-pollinators. A study conducted in California found that native plants had little influence on arthropods, except for a negative effect on non-native spiders. Garden features like size, floral abundance, mulch cover, and tree and shrub abundance had positive impacts on the biodiversity of bees, ants, and spiders, but the effects varied by organism type. Natural habitat near gardens was also important for certain species. Overall, native plants may not strongly affect beneficial arthropods, but other garden management features can be manipulated to promote conservation and ecosystem services.
Article
Entomology
Sanya Cowal, Jonathan R. Morris, Esteli Jimenez-Soto, Stacy M. Philpott
Summary: Vegetation connectivity is crucial for arboreal ants in coffee agroecosystems, influencing their activity, resource recruitment, and pest control ability. Naturally occurring vegetation connections have a greater impact on ant behavior and pest removal rates compared to artificial connectivity (string). Vegetation connectivity also buffers reductions in ant activity with increasing distance from the ant nest tree.
