Ecology最新文献

{"title":"Unpacking the drivers of gut-passage times of seeds dispersed by frugivorous lemurs","authors":"Onja H. Razafindratsima,&nbsp;Jadelys Tonos,&nbsp;Hasinavalona Rakotoarisoa","doi":"10.1002/ecy.70548","DOIUrl":"10.1002/ecy.70548","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The impacts of endozoochory on plant populations are primarily determined by how seeds are processed in animal guts. Therefore, understanding the factors that determine how long seeds remain in the gut is crucial for predicting the outcomes of animal-mediated seed dispersal. We sought to provide a comprehensive understanding of the factors that may influence gut-passage times of endozoochorous seeds by (1) examining the extent of interspecific variation in gut-passage times across a diverse range of plant species and among a frugivore assemblage, (2) investigating the mechanistic drivers that may influence these gut-passage times of endozoochorous seeds, specifically focusing on the influence of seed and fruit traits, consumption of leaves following seed ingestion to dispersal, and animal activity patterns, and (3) exploring the degree of intraspecific variation to determine how gut-passage times fluctuate within species. We used data from direct observations of the interactions of three frugivorous lemur species with their food plants (81 species) over approximately 3 years, along with the traits of the plant community they dispersed. We found interspecific variations in seed gut-passage times for both lemur and plant species. Also, we found that fruit protein content, leaf consumption after eating fruits, and high levels of inactivity were positively associated with seed gut-passage time. In contrast, the fiber and fat content of fruits and the proportion of feeding times had a negative influence, while seed size and fruit sugar showed no significant effects. Additionally, our data show significant intraspecific variations in gut-passage times among different individual plants of the same species; however, we did not find significant differences in gut-passage times between male and female lemurs. These results provide compelling evidence of the significance of both plant and frugivore traits in shaping seed gut-passage times. They also highlight the importance of considering both intra- and interspecific differences in seed dispersal studies and the broader implications of endozoochory for plant population dynamics.</p>","PeriodicalId":11484,"journal":{"name":"Ecology","volume":"107 10","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.1,"publicationDate":"2026-10-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ecy.70548","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149087522","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Doomed from the start: Consequences of a harsh early life on life-history traits of a wild Arctic ungulate","authors":"Mattis Pelletier,&nbsp;Joëlle Taillon,&nbsp;Vincent Brodeur,&nbsp;Julien H. Richard,&nbsp;Anthony Asselin,&nbsp;Steeve D. Côté,&nbsp;Sandra Hamel","doi":"10.1002/ecy.70544","DOIUrl":"10.1002/ecy.70544","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Environmental conditions in early life can generate long-term individual differences in life-history traits such as survival and reproduction. Early-life conditions can challenge developing individuals through distinct environmental mechanisms. Each mechanism can induce long-term consequences, potentially leading to cohort effects in which individuals born in different years exhibit persistent differences in life-history traits. In ungulates, early life spans three sensitive periods—gestation, preweaning, and postweaning—during which distinct environmental mechanisms may exert long-term effects. Most studies, however, have examined only a single period or mechanism, leaving the combined effects of multiple mechanisms across development largely untested, despite evidence that these effects are often multifactorial. Benefiting from over 20 years of life-history data on migratory caribou (<i>Rangifer tarandus</i>) from the Rivière-aux-Feuilles and Rivière-George herds in northern Québec and Labrador (Canada), we investigated how three environmental mechanisms—environmental energetic constraints, resource availability, and competition—during gestation, preweaning, and postweaning influenced life-history traits. We hypothesized that harsh conditions during gestation and preweaning would most strongly reduce early-life body condition, survival to adult age, and longevity. We first performed a confirmatory path analysis to evaluate effects on early-life body condition and survival to adult age, followed by a time-to-event analysis to assess differences in longevity. Our results indicate that high environmental energetic constraints during gestation and limiting resource availability in late gestation and early preweaning reduced early-life body condition and survival to adult age. Among individuals surviving to adulthood, early-life competition also strongly reduced longevity. Overall, effects on life-history traits were associated with environmental conditions during gestation or early preweaning and stemming from multiple environmental mechanisms. These findings underscore the importance of gestational and early postnatal environments in shaping life-history traits. These results also demonstrate how a multifactor, multi-period approach provides a more complete understanding of how early-life conditions determine individual fitness, with strong implications for population dynamics.</p>","PeriodicalId":11484,"journal":{"name":"Ecology","volume":"107 10","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.1,"publicationDate":"2026-10-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149090194","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Parents don't dictate the menu: Lack of strong host-specific parental effects may help maintain dietary generalism","authors":"Emma J. Sellers,&nbsp;Mayra C. Vidal,&nbsp;Dhaval K. Vyas,&nbsp;Mykaela Tanino-Springsteen,&nbsp;Gina M. Wimp,&nbsp;Mattheau S. Comerford,&nbsp;Mariana Abarca,&nbsp;Shannon M. Murphy","doi":"10.1002/ecy.70499","DOIUrl":"10.1002/ecy.70499","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The environment or experiences of a parent generation can impact the fitness of the next generation, a phenomenon known as parental effects. While a high-quality diet can directly benefit an individual and a low-quality diet can reduce fitness, a parental effect occurs only when there is a transgenerational response to these stimuli that manifests in the individual's offspring. In dietary generalists, a parental effect could play an important role for offspring performance if the species experiences considerable variation in quality across host plants; positive parental effects may result from host matching between parents and offspring on high-quality host plants, whereas negative effects may result from host matching on low-quality host plants or parent-offspring host mismatching. A lack of strong parental effects across host plants may also help explain the maintenance of dietary generalism for generalist herbivores. We investigated whether parental effects occur in the generalist herbivore fall webworm (<i>Hyphantria cunea</i>) by testing whether offspring performance depended on the host plant on which the parental generation was reared. We found that parental effects do not play an important role for fall webworm and the weak effects that do exist depend on both the larval and parental host plant. Rather than demonstrating benefits of parent-host matching, our results demonstrate that the offspring of parents from one poor-quality host performed worse on one high-quality host than offspring from any of the other hosts. Overall, our study suggests that larval host plant identity rather than parental effects is important to the performance of this generalist herbivore. Notably, a lack of strong, consistent parental effects may help explain the maintenance of dietary generalism in an extreme generalist herbivore.</p>","PeriodicalId":11484,"journal":{"name":"Ecology","volume":"107 10","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.1,"publicationDate":"2026-10-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ecy.70499","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149087525","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Nitrogen dynamics 35 years after stand-replacing fire: Aboveground pools grow as surface soil pools remain unchanged","authors":"Timon T. Keller,&nbsp;Cory C. Cleveland,&nbsp;Robert E. Heumann,&nbsp;Arielle C. Link,&nbsp;Lucille T. McGuire,&nbsp;Monica G. Turner","doi":"10.1002/ecy.70546","DOIUrl":"10.1002/ecy.70546","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Natural disturbances induce variable recovery pathways, and long-term studies are key to understanding how that variability affects ecosystem function over time and across space. In subalpine forests, high-severity wildfires produce high variability in postfire tree density, but how this variability relates to nitrogen (N) cycling remains unclear. We resampled lodgepole pine (<i>Pinus contorta</i> var. <i>latifolia</i>) stands 35 years after stand-replacing fire and asked (1) how N concentrations, pools, and mineralization changed with increasing lodgepole pine biomass from 15 to 35 years postfire; (2) how N concentrations, pools, and rates of change varied across the gradient of early postfire stand density; and (3) whether among-stand structure and function were converging over time. Vegetation, forest floor litter, downed coarse wood, surface mineral soil (0–15 cm), and resin-sorbed N were measured in fourteen 0.25-ha plots in Yellowstone National Park (Wyoming, USA). From 25 to 35 years postfire, average total aboveground N pools increased from 252 to 405 kg N ha⁻¹. Over the same 10-year period, soil N pools averaged 986 kg N ha⁻¹ and did not change, resin-sorbed soil N remained low, and the only common symbiotic N-fixing plant in the plots (silvery lupine, <i>Lupinus argenteus</i>) remained sparse. Aboveground lodgepole pine biomass increased at similar rates from 15 to 25 and 25 to 35 years postfire (2.5 and 2.2 Mg ha⁻¹ year⁻¹, respectively) along with N pools (4.6 and 3.8 kg N ha⁻¹ year¹) and forest floor litter N (1.2 and 2.2 kg N ha⁻¹ year¹). Among stands 35 years postfire, total aboveground N varied threefold (212–638 kg N ha⁻¹) and was positively correlated with lodgepole pine aboveground net primary productivity and biomass but unrelated to stem density. Soil N pools ranged from 570 to 1668 kg N ha⁻¹ and were negatively correlated with lodgepole pine stem density but unrelated to tree productivity or biomass. Among-stand variation in stem density remained high but declined over time while N pools became less variable even as pools increased and variability in tree productivity increased from 25 to 35 years postfire. Rapid tree growth and biomass accumulation strongly regulate the N cycle in 35-year-old lodgepole pine stands, but sources of recovered N remain unresolved.</p>","PeriodicalId":11484,"journal":{"name":"Ecology","volume":"107 10","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.1,"publicationDate":"2026-10-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ecy.70546","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149087456","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Warm springs compress budbreak, affecting floral freezing risk in red (Acer rubrum) and silver maple (A. saccharinum)","authors":"Will A. Lawson,&nbsp;Jake J. Grossman","doi":"10.1002/ecy.70533","DOIUrl":"10.1002/ecy.70533","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Red (<i>Acer rubrum</i>) and silver maple (<i>Acer saccharinum</i>) flower before leafing out in the early spring, making them vulnerable to post-budbreak freezing (false springs), a risk climate change exacerbates. They also show interannual variation in fruit production (masting), but it is unknown whether this pattern is related to freezing damage after budbreak. We observed budbreak phenology and measured cold hardiness of floral and vegetative buds of both maple species from dormancy to spring budbreak in 2024 and 2025. We also collected buds three times in 2025, incubated them in growth chambers up to 22°C, and quantified their deacclimation velocity. Finally, we used regional phenological data to assess whether local variation in fruit production might depend on false spring risk. We established the physiological context of spring budbreak in our study species: Silver maple floral buds open first and when very cold hardy, need minimal chilling, and lose cold hardiness rapidly; red maple vegetative buds open last and when least cold hardy, need considerable chilling, and lose cold hardiness slowly; and red maple floral buds and silver maple vegetative buds are intermediate. Though low fruit production was found to correlate with warm March temperatures followed by late March cold spells, we did not find direct, mechanistic evidence that local cold weather killed floral buds, decreasing fruit production. Differential physiology of maple buds interacts with climate to determine phenology. Both study species are at low risk of false spring damage, although it is unclear whether and how variable spring weather affects masting dynamics.</p>","PeriodicalId":11484,"journal":{"name":"Ecology","volume":"107 10","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.1,"publicationDate":"2026-10-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149086838","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Distributions of economically important nonindigenous forest pests in the conterminous United States","authors":"Katie A. Grong,&nbsp;Randall S. Morin,&nbsp;Yue S. Li,&nbsp;Ningning N. Kong,&nbsp;Susan J. Crocker,&nbsp;Frank J. Krist,&nbsp;Andrew M. Liebhold,&nbsp;Songlin Fei","doi":"10.1002/ecy.70551","DOIUrl":"10.1002/ecy.70551","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The geographical distributions of established nonindigenous forest insects and pathogens have historically not been well documented nor centrally aggregated, the absence of which has contributed to constrained efforts to manage and minimize resultant damages. To address this need, we present the construction of a centralized database accessible via a publicly available web portal, the Alien Forest Pest Explorer. All nonindigenous forest insect and pathogen species known to cause economic impacts in the conterminous U.S. were selected for inclusion in the database. The occurrence of these established pests, which is derived from a variety of data streams including reports by state and Federal agencies, the scientific literature, and biodiversity databases, is recorded at the county level. In addition to data on geographical distribution of the pests, the database also provides county-level data that quantifies the volume of host trees species derived from forest inventory data. Overall, the data and analyses presented here provide baseline information regarding the distribution of nonindigenous forest pests and changes in host resources. Our database can also help to provide a more complete understanding of the impacts of nonindigenous forest pests on U.S. forests and can be used as a public resource in supporting regional invasive forest pest research and management. The data are available for reuse under CC0 1.0 Universal licensing; however, we appreciate the citation of this data paper when reusing the dataset.</p>","PeriodicalId":11484,"journal":{"name":"Ecology","volume":"107 10","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.1,"publicationDate":"2026-10-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ecy.70551","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149086839","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Urban vegetation data across 12 cities in northeastern North America","authors":"Stephanie A. Rivest,&nbsp;Simon Joly,&nbsp;Étienne Léveillé-Bourret,&nbsp;Stéphanie Pellerin,&nbsp;Elsa C. Anderson,&nbsp;Carlos A. Arnillas,&nbsp;Martin Béland,&nbsp;Alexandre Bergeron,&nbsp;Daniel Blouin,&nbsp;Marie-Hélène Brice,&nbsp;Paul CaraDonna,&nbsp;Jérôme Cimon-Morin,&nbsp;Sabrina Cloutier,&nbsp;Rebecca W. Dolan,&nbsp;Sarah R. Eysenbach,&nbsp;Jeremie Fant,&nbsp;Constance E. Hausman,&nbsp;Megan Herrmann,&nbsp;Mélanie Jean,&nbsp;Sarah E. Johnson,&nbsp;Heather M. Kharouba,&nbsp;Richard LaPaix,&nbsp;Daniel J. Larkin,&nbsp;Jeremy T. Lundholm,&nbsp;Poliana Mendes,&nbsp;Gregory W. Mitchell,&nbsp;Joslyn Mink,&nbsp;Emily Minor,&nbsp;Marcia E. Moore,&nbsp;Zoë Pekos,&nbsp;Monique Poulin,&nbsp;Emily Rauschert,&nbsp;John E. Reinier,&nbsp;Sarah L. Robinson,&nbsp;David A. Rogers,&nbsp;Rebecca K. Tonietto,&nbsp;Donald M. Waller","doi":"10.1002/ecy.70552","DOIUrl":"10.1002/ecy.70552","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Datasets describing the composition of biological communities across broad anthropogenic gradients are valuable resources for ecologists and conservation biologists, with applications ranging from testing theories of community assembly to guiding biodiversity management. But much of the most rigorously collected field survey datasets, particularly for vascular plant communities in urban environments, remain underutilized because they are not curated or publicly accessible. We compiled and standardized a large database of information on the composition of vascular plant communities from sites spanning urbanization gradients in 12 cities in northeastern North America. The database integrates 26 field studies conducted by researchers from 1987 to 2024, encompassing 746 sites of either forest (<i>n</i> = 408 sites) or open habitat (e.g., meadow, prairie, vacant lot; <i>n</i> = 338 sites). Forest sites include canopy (overstorey) and ground (understorey) layers, while open habitats only include a ground layer. Field sites span a gradient of urbanization from rural to urban areas and are characterized as being minimally managed in situ at the time of surveys. Thus, the data are representative of spontaneous vegetation that was not seeded or planted. In total, the database contains records for 1296 taxa identified to the species level, including 322,101 presence/absence records and 23,805 abundance records, all geo-referenced and accompanied by metadata on site area, sampling effort, site management, site history, and methodology, all of which varied by site. To ensure consistency across studies, taxonomic names were standardized according to the Database of Vascular Plants of Canada (VASCAN), and all measurements were summarized at the site level. Unlike presence-only data commonly available from citizen science repositories, this database provides both presence/absence and abundance records collected through systematic surveys. As a result, it avoids many of the pitfalls associated with citizen science data such as opportunistic sampling, bias towards public/highly frequented sites, lack of a complete record of all species in a community, and misidentifications by nonexpert observers. It also enables analyses that would otherwise be difficult or impossible, such as studies of species abundance, community composition, rare taxa, and species of low desirability. Overall, this database offers a valuable resource for those interested in studying plant community dynamics and the impacts of urbanization and other anthropogenic gradients on biodiversity. The data are available for reuse under CC0 1.0 Universal licensing; however, we appreciate the citation of this data paper when reusing the dataset.</p>","PeriodicalId":11484,"journal":{"name":"Ecology","volume":"107 10","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.1,"publicationDate":"2026-10-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ecy.70552","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149086841","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The vascular flora of the Maritime and Ligurian Alps: Species diversity, functional traits, and conservation status","authors":"Davide Casalino,&nbsp;Martino Adamo,&nbsp;Gabriele Casazza,&nbsp;Maria Guerrina,&nbsp;Luigi Minuto,&nbsp;Virgile Noble,&nbsp;Marco Mucciarelli","doi":"10.1002/ecy.70550","DOIUrl":"10.1002/ecy.70550","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;p&gt;The three datasets provide occurrences, functional traits, and conservation status for the vascular plants of the Maritime and Ligurian Alps (Italy and France), one of the major biodiversity hotspots in the Mediterranean basin and the primary center of endemism in the Alps. The presence of each taxon was verified through national and international databases, as well as through validation by experts specialized in regional vascular flora and on specific taxonomic groups. The first dataset includes 3521 taxa, comprising 3309 species and 212 subspecies, belonging to 924 genera and 153 families. For each taxon, we provide detailed taxonomical information (phylum, class, family, genus, and taxon rank). To reconcile nomenclatural differences between Italy and France, we standardized the nomenclature according to the International Plant Names Index, reporting national synonyms where available. In the second dataset, we compiled information on the main reproductive, morphological, ecological, and biogeographical features of the taxa. Data were retrieved from Baseflor, FloraVeg.EU, GIFT, SID, and TRY databases and complemented, when necessary, with data from regional and national flora, including Flora d'Italia, Flora Gallica, and Flora Alpina. Information for 21 traits is available for 2032 taxa (57.7%). We successfully assigned at least 19 traits to 842 taxa (23.9%). Another 544 taxa (15.4%) have between 2 and 18 traits, while 99 (2.8%) have between 5 and 10. Fewer than two traits are identified only for three taxa. Two taxa had no trait data available. Life forms and growth forms were the traits with the least missing data (assigned in 99.8% and 99.7% of the taxa, respectively), while seed mass showed the least data (present in 77.9% of the taxa). Plant functional traits are key drivers of ecosystem functioning and vegetation dynamics; therefore, understanding these traits is crucial for predicting how present vascular flora will respond to global warming and anthropogenic pressures in the future. A third dataset was compiled including the IUCN red lists together with international, national, and regional protection with the aim of providing a tool to guide future measures for the conservation of this vascular flora and its habitats, also with the occurrence of invasive or naturalized allochthonous species. Importantly, this will support the development of coordinated management and conservation strategies across two national borders, highlighting the need for a transnational approach to vascular flora and habitat conservation in the Maritime and Ligurian Alps. The three datasets are designed to be continuously updated, through their integration with new data on species occurrence, functional traits, and conservation status as these become available to the scientific community. Together, they provide a robust baseline for future research on plant evolution and vegetation dynamics and responses to global changes. Furthermore, these datasets will enha","PeriodicalId":11484,"journal":{"name":"Ecology","volume":"107 10","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.1,"publicationDate":"2026-10-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ecy.70550","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149086842","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Variation among populations of Quercus macrocarpa in a reciprocal transplant experiment across a latitudinal gradient","authors":"Lucy M. S. Rea,&nbsp;Laura Ostrowsky,&nbsp;Rebekah Mohn,&nbsp;Mira Garner,&nbsp;Lindsey Worcester,&nbsp;Cathleen Lapadat,&nbsp;Heather R. McCarthy,&nbsp;Andrew L. Hipp,&nbsp;Jeannine Cavender-Bares","doi":"10.1002/ecy.70517","DOIUrl":"10.1002/ecy.70517","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Ongoing climate change will negatively impact tree populations unless they are able to acclimate to the changes in their local environment. Effective planning for climate adaptation management requires an understanding of the current state of local adaptation and physiological performance to assess whether populations are at risk of local extinction, to determine if seed movement is appropriate, and to select appropriate seed sources if intervention is needed. We established a new reciprocal transplant experiment (Adaptation to Climate and Environment [ACE]) across a latitudinal gradient in North America spanning a range of climate and soil conditions to examine the impacts of warming on three bur oak (<i>Quercus macrocarpa</i>) populations across much of the species' range. We established common gardens in Minnesota, Illinois, and Oklahoma in 2021 grown from seeds collected in 2018–2019 within 50 km of each of those locations from a total of 60 maternal families. In 2023, we measured physiology and 3-year growth and survival to understand local adaptation in bur oak populations. We aimed to (1) assess local adaptation in each of the populations using survival and size as fitness metrics and (2) evaluate physiological responses to different environments along the latitudinal gradient. We found evidence for local adaptation of the southern population in the southernmost garden, but that the northern populations were maladapted to high levels of warming, as evidenced by their low survival, growth, and photosynthetic rates in the warmest common garden. However, mild climate and relatively high nutrient conditions in the middle garden resulted in the highest fitness and best physiological performance for all populations. Growth and survival were correlated in the middle garden but were decoupled in the northern and southern gardens, likely due to stress associated with more extreme climates at the ends of the gradient. Our results suggest that southern seed sources may perform well in warmer conditions in the north brought on by climate change, which has important implications for managers assisting broadly ranged tree species in adapting to climate change.</p>","PeriodicalId":11484,"journal":{"name":"Ecology","volume":"107 10","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.1,"publicationDate":"2026-10-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ecy.70517","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149086840","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Maternal plant exposure to fire enhances offspring germination","authors":"Julia Gegunde, Maria Clara Castellanos, Juli G. Pausas","doi":"10.1002/ecy.70531","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.70531","url":null,"abstract":"Plants that resprout after fire experience drastically altered conditions in post‐fire environments. However, the effects of plant exposure to fire on offspring traits remain understudied. Many resprouting species are herbaceous plants that flower and fruit rapidly after fire (i.e., fire‐stimulated flowering), developing their seeds under increased resource availability and modified biotic interactions, particularly enhanced pollination. We hypothesize that these changes may improve early offspring development through maternal provisioning and increased quality of floral visitation and pollen deposition. To test this, we selected three Mediterranean geophytes ( <jats:italic>Asphodelus cerasifer</jats:italic> , <jats:italic>Drimia maritima</jats:italic> , <jats:italic>Narcissus assoanus</jats:italic> ) and compared seed mass (3161 seeds) and total germination (2262 seeds) between paired burned and adjacent unburned plants during the first post‐fire fruiting season, sampling six populations over 4 years. Although responses varied among localities and species, on average, seeds from burned plants were 13.9% heavier and had a 16.9% higher germination than those from unburned plants. Our results demonstrate that plant exposure to fire can enhance seed mass and germination and suggest that these improvements may be largely influenced by maternal effects. These fire‐driven increases in offspring performance may have important consequences for recruitment, regeneration dynamics, and the long‐term persistence of plant populations in fire‐prone ecosystems.","PeriodicalId":11484,"journal":{"name":"Ecology","volume":"96 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.8,"publicationDate":"2026-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149048683","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}