EcologyPub Date : 2025-03-03DOI: 10.1002/ecy.70030
Lillie Stockseth, Zoey Neale, Volker H. W. Rudolf
{"title":"Strengthening of negative density dependence mediates population decline at high temperatures","authors":"Lillie Stockseth, Zoey Neale, Volker H. W. Rudolf","doi":"10.1002/ecy.70030","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.70030","url":null,"abstract":"<p>While temperature is well known to affect many life history traits of ectothermic organisms, any attempt to scale up these individual-level processes to population-level consequences must assume a relationship between temperature and the strength of per capita density dependence. Yet, theory has made contrasting predictions about this relationship, and we still need clear experimental tests to determine which relationship is realized in natural systems, especially in heterotrophs. Here, we experimentally isolated and quantified the thermal response of density dependence from the population dynamics of the herbivore <i>Daphnia pulex</i>. We show that the strength of negative density dependence increased linearly with temperature, doubling every 7°C, while the intrinsic growth rate of increase showed a humped shape relationship. This difference caused a humped-shaped relationship of carrying capacity with temperature, with a dramatic 50% decline at the highest temperature. The results provide a sorely needed test of theory and highlight the importance of accounting for thermal responses of indirect effects that only emerge at the population level when forecasting the effects of global warming. While warming temperatures may benefit the individual (via increased growth and reproduction), our results reveal that warming still can be a detriment to the population by strengthening density-dependent processes.</p>","PeriodicalId":11484,"journal":{"name":"Ecology","volume":"106 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2025-03-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ecy.70030","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143534052","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}
EcologyPub Date : 2025-03-03DOI: 10.1002/ecy.70027
Anna Lena Heinrichs, Anika Happe, Apostolos-Manuel Koussoroplis, Helmut Hillebrand, Julian Merder, Maren Striebel
{"title":"Temperature-dependent responses to light and nutrients in phytoplankton","authors":"Anna Lena Heinrichs, Anika Happe, Apostolos-Manuel Koussoroplis, Helmut Hillebrand, Julian Merder, Maren Striebel","doi":"10.1002/ecy.70027","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.70027","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Nutrients and light are major resources controlling growth, biomass, and community structure of phytoplankton. When looking at those resources individually, resource uptake and biochemical transformation, and thereby also the demand for resources, have been shown to be temperature-dependent. However, there is still a lack of understanding of how temperature controls the response to multiple resources, although simultaneous limitation by multiple resources is common for single species and whole communities. We conducted a multifactorial, gradient-design experiment growing four freshwater phytoplankton species under 125 combinations of temperature, light, and nutrients (5 × 5 × 5 levels). In three of four species, we found evidence for an interactive effect of light and nutrients on growth that was modulated by temperature. The effect of high-level supply of both resources on algal growth rate generally exceeded the sum of their individual effects. Conversely, the lowest growth rates occurred not necessarily at the lowest level of both resources but at the most extreme light:nutrient supply ratios (either only light or nutrients were at highest supply level but the other resource remained at low supply). These interactive light-nutrient effects were modulated by temperature, resulting in highest growth rates when both resources and temperature were highest. Our study demonstrates that temperature modulates the magnitude of the interactive light-nutrient effect on phytoplankton growth. Consequently, these findings highlight the importance of considering temperature to understand the limitation by multiple resources and show that growth responses would be over- or underestimated when these interactions are not taken into account. Our results provide a first indication that the resource-dependent growth of phytoplankton will change in a warming world when considering multiple resources.</p>","PeriodicalId":11484,"journal":{"name":"Ecology","volume":"106 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2025-03-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ecy.70027","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143530068","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}
EcologyPub Date : 2025-03-03DOI: 10.1002/ecy.70036
Laura C. Leal, Matthew H. Koski, Rebecca E. Irwin, Judith L. Bronstein
{"title":"Costs of floral larceny: A meta-analytical evaluation of nectar robbing and nectar theft on animal-pollinated plants","authors":"Laura C. Leal, Matthew H. Koski, Rebecca E. Irwin, Judith L. Bronstein","doi":"10.1002/ecy.70036","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.70036","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Mutualistic interactions are biological markets in which different species exchange commodities to mutual benefit. Mutualisms are, however, susceptible to exploitation, with some individuals taking without reciprocating. While it is generally assumed that exploiters will inflict fitness costs, evidence for such costs is mixed and difficult to generalize due to their context-dependent nature. Animal-pollinated flowers are commonly exploited by larcenists, non-pollinating animals that consume floral rewards often without transferring pollen. The impacts of larcenists on plant reproduction vary widely, suggesting they inflict differing costs on plants, but which types of floral larceny are most and least costly, and why, has received little attention. We employed a meta-analytical approach to explore the effects of flower larceny on nectar traits, pollinator visitation, and plant reproduction. We focused on the effects of two contrasting forms of larceny: primary nectar robbing—nectar consumption through holes constructed in the corolla rather than entering flowers legitimately—and nectar theft—nectar consumption by entering flowers but with no pollen transfer. We found that both robbing and theft had negative impacts on nectar quantity and quality, but that only theft negatively affected pollinator visitation rates. Similarly, robbers had no impact on either female or male reproductive success, whereas thieves consistently reduced both male and female reproductive success. These effects were not associated with plant mating systems nor with the identities of robbers and effective pollinators, challenging previous generalizations. This study provides a comprehensive evaluation of larcenists' costs to animal-pollinated plants, revealing that nectar theft is more detrimental to plant reproduction than nectar robbing. These results enhance our understanding of the intricate dynamics of mutualism exploitation in ecological and evolutionary contexts.</p>","PeriodicalId":11484,"journal":{"name":"Ecology","volume":"106 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2025-03-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143530059","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}
EcologyPub Date : 2025-02-25DOI: 10.1002/ecy.70011
Natascha Lewe, Robert A. Keyzers, Jason M. Tylianakis, Julie R. Deslippe
{"title":"Plant interaction traits determine the biomass of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and bacteria in soil","authors":"Natascha Lewe, Robert A. Keyzers, Jason M. Tylianakis, Julie R. Deslippe","doi":"10.1002/ecy.70011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.70011","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Plant–arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal (AMF) mutualisms are crucial to ecosystem biodiversity and productivity. Yet, our understanding of the functional roles of plants as AMF generalists or specialists, and the consequences of these plant interaction traits for soil ecosystems are virtually unknown. We grew eight pasture plant species under two experimental conditions, sequencing their root AMF communities to assess interaction traits using a range of numeric and phylogenetic diversity metrics, thereby characterizing each plant species' interaction generalism with AMF. We used lipid analysis of rhizosphere soils and Bayesian modeling to explore how host interaction traits affected carbon allocation to AMF and bacteria. We found that plant interaction traits for AMF remained stable despite large variation in soil conditions and AMF pools. Host interaction generalism was linked to contrasting patterns in bacterial and AMF biomass: Phylogenetic diversity in plant interactions was positively associated with AMF biomass, while numeric diversity was negatively associated with bacterial biomass in rhizosphere soils. Explicit consideration of plant interaction niches may enhance understanding of how changes in biodiversity affect ecosystem carbon cycling.</p>","PeriodicalId":11484,"journal":{"name":"Ecology","volume":"106 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2025-02-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ecy.70011","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143489925","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}
EcologyPub Date : 2025-02-25DOI: 10.1002/ecy.70024
Fabricio Francisco Santos da Silva, Edjane Silva Damasceno, Ramon Athayde de Souza Cavalcante, Francinete Alves do Nascimento, Mateus Brandão Prates, Luís Francisco Mello Coelho, Daniel Salgado Pifano, Renato Garcia Rodrigues
{"title":"Caatinga diaspores: Descriptive overview of dispersal units of seasonally dry tropical forests and woodlands","authors":"Fabricio Francisco Santos da Silva, Edjane Silva Damasceno, Ramon Athayde de Souza Cavalcante, Francinete Alves do Nascimento, Mateus Brandão Prates, Luís Francisco Mello Coelho, Daniel Salgado Pifano, Renato Garcia Rodrigues","doi":"10.1002/ecy.70024","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.70024","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Dispersal unit characteristics provide crucial insights into species ecology and are essential for the conservation and restoration of ecosystems. The Caatinga, the largest ecosystem of seasonally dry tropical forests and woodlands in South America, remains underrepresented in terms of dispersal unit data, which are often scattered across the scientific literature or remain unpublished. To address this gap, we compiled a dataset of morphophysiological data for 100 native taxa, including key information such as germination, seed water content, 1000 seed mass, fruit shape, and the geographic coordinates of 1981 seed lots. Over nine years, more than 60 t of dispersal units were harvested, representing 91% of the most dominant woody species in this ecosystem. These records stem from environmental licensing actions associated with the São Francisco River Integration Project (PISF), the Re-Habitar Ararinha Azul Project, and verified literature. This dataset, the first of its kind for the Caatinga, offers valuable potential for research on forest dynamics, dispersal, germination, conservation, and ecological restoration in the Brazilian semiarid region. We hope this data paper provides reliable information on local flora distribution, dispersal syndromes, and morphological descriptions, while also suggesting methods for overcoming seed dormancy in the Caatinga. No copyright restrictions apply to this dataset, but please cite this data paper in publications. We also encourage researchers and educators to inform us of how they are using the data.</p>","PeriodicalId":11484,"journal":{"name":"Ecology","volume":"106 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2025-02-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ecy.70024","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143489924","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":"Plants and soil biota co-regulate stability of ecosystem multifunctionality under multiple environmental changes","authors":"Huiling Zhang, Bing Wang, Ying Wu, Liji Wu, Linyan Yue, Yongfei Bai, Dima Chen","doi":"10.1002/ecy.4534","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.4534","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The increase in phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N) inputs, as well as soil acidification resulting from multiple environmental changes, has profound effects on the attributes of plant and soil biota communities, and on ecosystem functions. However, how these community attributes impact ecosystem multifunctionality (EMF) and its stability under multiple environmental changes remains unclear. By integrating datasets over four consecutive years from an experiment with enrichments of soil acidification and N and P in a semiarid grassland on the Mongolian Plateau, we explored the effects of environmental changes on community attributes (species richness, asynchrony, and compositional temporal stability) of plants and soil biota (bacteria, fungi, and nematodes) and their associations with EMF stability. The attributes of plants and soil biota showed opposite responses to nutrient enrichment under soil acidification and non-acidification conditions. Soil acidification had a more significant effect on the community attributes of plants and soil biota, as well as on the components of EMF stability, than nutrient enrichment. Soil acidification decreased both the mean and stability of EMF, while N enrichment increased the mean of EMF. P did not have a significant effect on the components of EMF stability, but N and P showed positive interactive effects on the mean and stability of EMF. We also found that plant and soil biota richness had a positive effect on EMF, while plant asynchrony and soil biota compositional stability determined EMF stability. The community attributes of plants and soil biota co-regulate the components of EMF stability under multiple environmental changes. These findings highlight the urgent need to protect the biodiversity of plants and soil biota to maintain EMF and its stability, especially for ecosystems undergoing multiple environmental changes.</p>","PeriodicalId":11484,"journal":{"name":"Ecology","volume":"106 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2025-02-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143481383","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}
EcologyPub Date : 2025-02-25DOI: 10.1002/ecy.70002
Niwu Te, Robert J. Griffin-Nolan, Ingrid J. Slette, Yuan Shi, Lin Song, Jiaqi Chen, Hongqiang Wang, Jianqiang Qian, Qiang Yu, Zhengwen Wang, Xiaotao Lü, Xingguo Han, Jitka Klimešová, Scott L. Collins, Wentao Luo
{"title":"Grassland bud and shoot demographic responses to single and recurrent droughts vary across an aridity gradient","authors":"Niwu Te, Robert J. Griffin-Nolan, Ingrid J. Slette, Yuan Shi, Lin Song, Jiaqi Chen, Hongqiang Wang, Jianqiang Qian, Qiang Yu, Zhengwen Wang, Xiaotao Lü, Xingguo Han, Jitka Klimešová, Scott L. Collins, Wentao Luo","doi":"10.1002/ecy.70002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.70002","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Clonal demographic traits play important roles in regulating community dynamics. Yet, it remains unclear how the responses of these clonal traits to drought might depend on previous drought exposure, and how drought responses vary among grasslands. We conducted a repeated drought experiment across four grasslands along an aridity gradient in northern China. We assessed the effects of single (precipitation reduction in 2021–2022) versus recurrent (precipitation reduction in 2015–2018 and 2021–2022) drought on bud density, shoot density, and the ratio of bud to shoot density. Drought reduced bud density at all grasslands and shoot density at most grasslands. Drought reduced the ratio of bud-to-shoot density only in the most arid grasslands. Recurrent drought had larger negative effects than a single drought on bud density and composition of bud and shoot at only one of four grasslands, and on shoot density at two of four grasslands. Our results suggest that previous drought exposure can alter the response of plant clonal demographic traits to subsequent drought in some but not all grasslands, and that responses can vary with mean climate.</p>","PeriodicalId":11484,"journal":{"name":"Ecology","volume":"106 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2025-02-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ecy.70002","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143481388","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}
EcologyPub Date : 2025-02-25DOI: 10.1002/ecy.70010
Auke-Florian Hiemstra, Barbara Gravendeel, Menno Schilthuizen
{"title":"Birds documenting the Anthropocene: Stratigraphy of plastic in urban bird nests","authors":"Auke-Florian Hiemstra, Barbara Gravendeel, Menno Schilthuizen","doi":"10.1002/ecy.70010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.70010","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The amount of plastics produced annually continues to grow. Of all the plastics ever produced, 79% is still with us, as they remain in landfills or in the natural environment (Geyer et al., <span>2017</span>). The disruption driven by our collective human activities on Earth may result in a new geological epoch: the Anthropocene (Crutzen & Stoermer, <span>2021</span>). This contemporary period in the geological history of planet Earth is defined by the impact humans have on our natural world and is already a firmly established term in environmental sciences. Plastic may be used as a global marker for the Anthropocene, which allows plastic items to be used as “index fossils” to date with accuracy sediment layers within the Anthropocene epoch (Corcoran et al., <span>2017</span>), especially using the expiration date printed or stamped on food packaging or perishable products in general as a back-dating tool (Cau et al., <span>2019</span>; Hoffmann & Reicherter, <span>2014</span>). Single-use plastic food and drink packages now dominate plastic production (Geyer et al., <span>2017</span>; Williams & Rangel-Buitrago, <span>2022</span>) and consequently are the categories of litter most often encountered in Dutch freshwater systems (Boonstra & de Winter, <span>2019</span>, p. 19). As these types of packaging are so widely present as litter, the material has also been adopted by birds to build their nests. Building with artificial materials is widespread (Jagiello et al., <span>2023</span>), and a broad range of items may become part of a bird nest, even materials that are meant to deter birds (Hiemstra et al., <span>2023a</span>). Food and drink packages have been documented as nest material in a wide variety of birds (Appendix S1: Section S1), one of which is the common coot (<i>Fulica atra</i>; Hiemstra, Gravendeel, et al., <span>2021</span>). An urban population of the latter species in Leiden, The Netherlands, proved to be one of the first bird populations for which <i>all</i> nests contained plastic (Hiemstra, Gravendeel, et al., <span>2021</span>). The common coot is a wetland bird that in The Netherlands originally built its nests of plant materials which rapidly decay, so coots normally construct a new nest every year (Gadsby, <span>1978</span>; Jedlikowski & Polak, <span>2019</span>). However, as plastics and other artificial, more durable materials are used for nest construction, new behavior, namely, the reuse of nests from previous years, may appear. This, in turn, may create a history of multiple years of nest use, reuse, and reconstruction to be studied using the stratigraphy of dateable plastic debris in the nest.</p><p>To document such a history of reuse, we collected common coot (<i>F. atra</i>) nests in the city center of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, on 22 September 2021 (after the end of the breeding season, when all nests were abandoned). Before collecting, each nest was checked for the presence of nidicoles l","PeriodicalId":11484,"journal":{"name":"Ecology","volume":"106 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2025-02-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ecy.70010","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143481382","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}
EcologyPub Date : 2025-02-24DOI: 10.1002/ecy.70037
Daichi Iijima, Masashi Murakami
{"title":"Alpine birds in a sky island: Resource subsidies from foothill areas","authors":"Daichi Iijima, Masashi Murakami","doi":"10.1002/ecy.70037","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.70037","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Material fluxes between ecosystems subsidize consumers in recipient ecosystems. While alpine zones are generally regarded as isolated, arthropods from lower elevations may be deposited on the snow surface in alpine zones by flight or wind. This arthropod fallout should be essential food resources for alpine consumers that are forced to deal with scarce food in environments. In this study, the source location of arthropods that fell onto the alpine snowpack was examined using data of their host plants. Furthermore, seasonal changes in the arthropod diets of two insectivorous and one primarily herbivorous alpine bird species were evaluated by fecal DNA metabarcoding with correction of PCR amplification bias among arthropod taxa using DNA mock assemblages of arthropods. We present quantitative evidence that winged aphids originating from the subalpine and montane zones are abundant on the snowpack. These subsidized aphids accounted for approximately 40% of the arthropod portion of the diet, and 6%–40% of the overall diet, of these birds during their early breeding seasons. Our findings indicate that material fluxes from foothill areas contribute to the maintenance of biotic communities in alpine ecosystems during less productive seasons.</p>","PeriodicalId":11484,"journal":{"name":"Ecology","volume":"106 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2025-02-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ecy.70037","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143475447","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}
EcologyPub Date : 2025-02-24DOI: 10.1002/ecy.70035
Khum B. Thapa-Magar, Eric R. Sokol, Michael N. Gooseff, Mark R. Salvatore, John E. Barrett, Joseph S. Levy, Paul Knightly, Sarah N. Power
{"title":"Remote sensing for species distribution models: An illustration from a sentinel taxon of the world's driest ecosystem","authors":"Khum B. Thapa-Magar, Eric R. Sokol, Michael N. Gooseff, Mark R. Salvatore, John E. Barrett, Joseph S. Levy, Paul Knightly, Sarah N. Power","doi":"10.1002/ecy.70035","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.70035","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In situ observed data are commonly used as species occurrence response variables in species distribution models. However, the use of remotely observed data from high-resolution multispectral remote-sensing images as a source of presence/absence data for species distribution models remains under-developed. Here, we describe an ensemble species distribution model of black microbial mats (<i>Nostoc</i> spp.) using presence/absence points derived from the unmixing of 4-m resolution WorldView-2 and WorldView-3 images in the Lake Fryxell basin region of Taylor Valley, Antarctica. Environmental and topographical characteristics such as soil moisture, snow, elevation, slope, and aspect were used as predictor variables in our models. We demonstrate that we can build and run ensemble species distribution models using both dependent and independent variables derived from remote-sensing data to generate spatially explicit habitat suitability maps. Snow and soil moisture were found to be the most important variables accounting for about 80% of the variation in the distribution of black mats throughout the Fryxell basin. This study highlights the potential contribution of high-resolution remote-sensing to species distribution modeling and informs new studies incorporating remotely derived species occurrences in species distribution models, especially in remote areas where access to in situ data is often limited.</p>","PeriodicalId":11484,"journal":{"name":"Ecology","volume":"106 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2025-02-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ecy.70035","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143475449","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}