Journal of Animal Ecology最新文献

{"title":"Critical constraints to ecological buffering in a rapidly changing Arctic: A long-term seabird study.","authors":"David Grémillet, Françoise Amélineau, Ann M A Harding, Jérôme Fort","doi":"10.1111/1365-2656.70358","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.70358","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Long-term ecological studies testing global change impacts are rare yet essential in the Arctic, a region warming nearly four times faster than the global average. These rapid environmental changes reshape ecosystem functioning across the pan-Arctic and affect the livelihoods of local communities. Seabirds are widely recognised indicators of environmental change. Identifying species-specific critical constraints is therefore essential for detecting early warning signals of population decline and ecosystem reorganisation. Little auks (Alle alle), the most abundant Arctic seabirds, are key ecosystem engineers shaping coastal environments through for example food-web interactions and guano deposition. We present a 20-year study (2005-2024) of an East Greenland little auk population, combining long-term demographic monitoring with behavioural, physiological and ecotoxicological data. We quantified fitness-related traits (adult body condition, overwinter survival and chick growth) alongside potential constraints, including parental foraging effort, trophic ecology, winter distribution, and mercury contamination in adults, eggs and chicks. Over the study period, climate-driven ocean warming, sea-ice decline, altered zooplankton communities, and increasing mercury exposure reshaped environmental conditions. Faced with these changes, little auks exhibited marked behavioural and dietary plasticity, allowing them to maintain relatively stable fitness metrics in most years. However, sustained monitoring revealed key constraints that undermine this apparent resilience: (a) Elevated mercury burdens may reduce aerobic diving capacity and thermal tolerance in adults and were associated with reduced reproductive performance. (b) Chick growth was strongly impaired during years with increased summer storm activity, which disrupted adult foraging trips and provisioning rates. Winter storms are also likely to negatively affect adult overwinter survival. Together, these findings show that little auks can partially buffer rapid Arctic change through behavioural flexibility, but multiple interacting climatic and contaminant stressors impose increasing, possibly cumulative constraints on performance. Identifying such critical constraints is crucial for understanding the limits of resilience in wild populations and for improving predictions of ecosystem responses to ongoing climate change.</p>","PeriodicalId":14934,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Animal Ecology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149220364","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"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":"Burned habitats facilitate predation and lead to long-term reductions in prey success.","authors":"Kirby L Mills, Martin Leclerc, Mark A Ditmer, David C Stoner, Zachary L Steel, Joseph O Sexton, Panshi Wang, Kent R Hersey, Cody A Schroeder, Alyson M Andreasen, Kristin Engebretsen, Julie K Young, Brock McMillan, Randy Larsen, Derek B Hall, Brandon Holton, David Choate, Neil H Carter","doi":"10.1111/1365-2656.70370","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.70370","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Intensifying wildfire regimes under global change are expected to shift species interactions through changes in habitat structure and composition, vegetation productivity, and sensory cues. Yet there is little evidence of how burn-induced changes in habitat composition and structure modify predator-prey relationships. We investigated how wildfires influence relationships between mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) and cougars (Puma concolor) in the US Intermountain West using high-resolution telemetry data, kill site locations, and annual measures of mule deer fawn production. Burned habitats experienced a wide range of fire severities, and most fires occurred between 5 and 20 years prior to animal data collection. We found that cougars were located closer to deer and their kill sites were nearly 2× more likely to occur in burned areas compared to unburned sites, suggesting that burns confer advantages to predators. In addition, fawn production declined by up to 14% at sites with histories of more recent, higher severity burns. Our findings suggest that increasingly frequent, severe burns are diminishing herbivore reproductive success, potentially due to increasing predation risks that outweigh improved foraging opportunities for prey. Ultimately, we reveal a possible pathway through which changing fire regimes could threaten herbivore prey populations in Western US ecosystems.</p>","PeriodicalId":14934,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Animal Ecology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149181993","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"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":"Hydrodynamic gradients affect facilitation in soft sediment communities.","authors":"Rebecca V Gladstone-Gallagher, Judi E Hewitt, Caleb J Crosbie, Richard Bulmer, Kelly Carter, Vonda Cummings, Emily J Douglas, Joanne I Ellis, Georgina J L Flowers, Sarah F Hailes, Jenny R Hillman, Fabrice Stephenson, Simon F Thrush, Li Hao Yeoh, Conrad A Pilditch","doi":"10.1111/1365-2656.70372","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.70372","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Positive species interactions, or facilitation, are fundamental drivers of ecological community assembly and stability. In terrestrial plant-dominated systems, the effects of facilitation on biodiversity have been shown to intensify along environmental stress gradients; however, comparable examples are absent for marine soft-sediment ecosystems (particularly those with animal facilitators), hindering progress in expanding ecological theory. Using a multi-site field experiment, we investigated the role of an intertidal infaunal clam (Austrovenus stutchburyi) as a community-level facilitator of macrofaunal species diversity across gradients of hydrodynamic forces acting on the seabed (wind waves and tidal currents). Strong density-dependent influences of the clam on seabed stability were expected to be central to facilitation. At 21 intertidal sites across 4 estuaries in Aotearoa New Zealand, we removed adult clams from 9 m² plots (removal plots) and then, after 12 months, measured the difference in macrofaunal community composition, richness and abundance between removal and adjacent non-removal plots. After 12 months, differences in macrofauna biodiversity between removal and non-removal plots were observed, and at some sites, these differences were associated with non-removal plots supporting up to 9× higher macrofauna abundance and up to 4× higher species richness than removal plots, indicating facilitation by Austrovenus as important for community composition. Facilitation was strongest at sites with high adult Austrovenus density (linear model R² = 0.52) but also proximity to strong tidal currents (polynomial model R² = 0.52), indicating that Austrovenus may extend macrofaunal communities into locations where they would otherwise be excluded by hydrodynamic forces. Synthesis: Our results provide evidence that the strength of facilitation in intertidal soft-sediments changes across hydrodynamic stress gradients; however, there are likely to be interactions between indirect and direct effects that we discuss in the context of our study system. Our study extends ecological theory on facilitation to marine soft-sediment systems and offers insight into the functional role of habitat-forming infauna.</p>","PeriodicalId":14934,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Animal Ecology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149181934","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"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":"Milder winters alleviate seasonal challenges for a migratory goose facing Arctic warming.","authors":"Jan Geisler, Eldar Rakhimberdiev, Michiel P Boom, Barwolt S Ebbinge, Gerhard J D M Müskens, Preben Clausen, Bart A Nolet","doi":"10.1111/1365-2656.70356","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1365-2656.70356","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Many migratory birds now reach their Arctic breeding grounds earlier in response to advancing springs and shifting nutrient peaks, either by departing earlier from non-breeding grounds or by travelling faster. For dark-bellied brent geese, there is limited potential to travel faster, as their spring migration is already among the fastest of Arctic geese and swans. Earlier departure would require reaching departure body mass earlier, either through a faster accumulation of energy stores during spring staging in the Wadden Sea or via adjustments earlier in the annual cycle. We examined long-term shifts in spring staging phenology and changes in winter and spring body mass trajectories of brent geese at the population level, with particular emphasis on the effects of winter temperature on body mass and spring body mass on departure timing. We used more than five decades of body mass measurements from individuals caught in the United Kingdom and France and in the Dutch Wadden Sea to reconstruct changes in winter and spring mass trajectories, respectively. These data were combined with over five decades of migration counts in the Netherlands and more than two decades of counts in Denmark to quantify changes in arrival and departure timing, respectively. We found that brent geese were heavier during and after milder winters and that their body mass trajectories flattened over the years: they no longer lose body mass during winter; during spring staging, fuelling rates have declined (in the so-called 'fattening phase'), while they also no longer lose body mass in the 1-2 weeks prior to departure ('plateau phase'). Brent geese have not shifted their spring arrival in the Wadden Sea but have advanced departure timing. Annual variation in body mass was not related to annual departure timing. These results suggest that milder winters have relaxed energetic constraints and improved body condition in brent geese throughout the non-breeding season. Our findings highlight the importance of considering the full annual cycle when assessing how migratory animals respond to global change, in particular those with limited capacity to adjust migration timing or speed.</p>","PeriodicalId":14934,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Animal Ecology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149181996","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"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":"Host-mediated filtering and interspecific associations structure strongyle parasite communities in Sable Island horses.","authors":"Sangwook Ahn, Philip D McLoughlin, Jocelyn Poissant","doi":"10.1111/1365-2656.70368","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.70368","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Mixed-species parasite infections are common in wildlife, yet the ecological processes that structure these communities remain poorly understood. We hypothesized that host-mediated and extrinsic environmental filtering, alongside biotic interactions, act concurrently to shape parasite community composition, and that these structuring patterns would depend on parasite traits or evolutionary history. We applied nemabiome DNA metabarcoding to 3147 faecal samples from 916 feral horses with no history of anthelmintic treatment, collected over 10 years as part of a long-term individual-based study on Sable Island, Canada. Using joint species distribution models, we tested whether strongyle parasite communities were structured by host-associated factors, extrinsic environmental variables or interspecific interactions. Host factors, particularly age and individual identity, explained the greatest proportion of variation in both parasite prevalence and infection intensity, indicating strong host-mediated environmental filtering. In contrast, spatial location and year explained minimal variation, suggesting weaker effects of extrinsically mediated environmental filtering. Parasite traits such as body size and gut site preference had limited associations with species' environmental responses. Positive species associations were common, particularly among species occupying the same gut region, suggesting that strong, consistent competitive interactions were not prominently reflected in the residual covariance structure. Negative associations were less frequent but consistently involved Strongylus equinus, indicating potential context-dependent biotic interactions involving this species. By integrating species-level molecular data with hierarchical joint species models, this study quantifies patterns of host-related filtering and species co-variation within a natural parasite community and provides a framework for examining mixed infections in wild systems.</p>","PeriodicalId":14934,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Animal Ecology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149167192","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"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":"Why don't all birds lay early? Causes and consequences of breeding timing for a long-lived migratory seabird.","authors":"Katrina Siddiqi-Davies, Natasha Gillies, Hector Bailey, Sarah Bond, Annette Fayet, Holly Kirk, Lewis Lancaster-Reeves, Joe Morford, Oliver Padget, Akiko Shoji, Martyna Syposz, Joe Wynn, Tim Guilford","doi":"10.1111/1365-2656.70363","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.70363","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The relationship between earlier laying and higher breeding success is well-established in avian species. However, a wide distribution of breeding timings is often maintained within a population, and the causes and consequences of this variation require further exploration, particularly as many avian species advance breeding phenology in response to climate change. Using a 16-year dataset combining colony observations and biologging of Manx shearwaters (Puffinus puffinus), we show that earlier laying does not always result in higher breeding success, with later laying becoming less costly in recent years. We additionally report a slight advancement in breeding timing within breeding pairs, despite finding no temporal trends in spring bloom onset. Nonetheless, birds adjusted lay date in response to interannual variation in phytoplankton bloom timing, and years with stronger Celtic Sea blooms exhibited stronger selection for early breeding. Breeding timing was also influenced by repeatable individual differences in migratory behaviour, with birds undertaking generally earlier, shorter migrations to less southerly destinations laying earlier across years. However, lay date was not determined solely by individual behaviour. In this long-lived species with stable pair bonds, the arrival date of the second-returning bird constrained advancement in laying. This study suggests that variation in breeding timing is maintained through the combined effects of fluctuating selection, persistent individual differences, variation in non-breeding duration and pair-level processes.</p>","PeriodicalId":14934,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Animal Ecology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149147945","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"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":"No effect of short-term exposure to ocean acidification on individual-level variation in behaviour and susceptibility to predation in a Great Barrier Reef damselfish.","authors":"Dominique G Roche, Josefin Sundin, Ben Speers-Roesch, Shinichi Nakagawa, Timothy D Clark, Sandra A Binning","doi":"10.1111/1365-2656.70346","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.70346","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Ocean acidification, caused by rising carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the atmosphere, has been reported to negatively impact a wide variety of behaviours in fishes, including activity, exploration, and predator avoidance. These effects have been documented at the population level, but many animal species naturally show large and repeatable individual-level differences in behaviour. How environmental stressors, such as ocean acidification, affect behavioural variation at the individual level remains largely unknown but is vital in understanding adaptation given natural selection operates on variation at the individual rather than population level. Using a statistical approach allowing variation in means and variation in variance to be modelled within a single framework, we quantified individual-level differences across five behaviours in the coral reef Ambon damselfish Pomacentrus amboinensis (emergence time, activity level, time spent sheltering, thigmotaxis and novel object inspection). We measured behaviour in a novel environment assay, twice before (CO₂ ~450 μatm) and twice following 4-6 days of exposure to predicted end-of-century ocean acidification conditions (~1100 μatm). Following behavioural assays, we tested individual survival in a live predation experiment. We used predatory rock cod, Cephalopholis microprion, acclimated to the same CO₂ treatments as Ambon damsels and examined predictors of survival probability. All behaviours in damselfish were moderately and significantly repeatable, with no marked differences in repeatability estimates between the ambient CO₂ and elevated CO₂ treatment groups. Exposure to end-of-century ocean acidification conditions had no effect on any of the five behaviours measured, both in terms of group means and residual (within-individual) variance. The probability of survival in the predation trials was similar for damselfish in the ambient and elevated CO₂ treatment groups. Smaller damselfish as well as those that spent a greater amount of time inspecting a novel object (i.e. bolder individuals) had a lower probability of survival regardless of their CO₂ treatment. Our results challenge assumptions about the impacts of ocean acidification on coral reef fish behaviour and susceptibility to predation, both at the population and individual level. They also provide support for a trade-off between boldness and predation risk in fish.</p>","PeriodicalId":14934,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Animal Ecology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149136945","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"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":"Filtered, yet not homogenised: Urbanisation does not lead to cross-city convergence in Mexican urban bird communities","authors":"Ian MacGregor-Fors,&nbsp;Christine C. Rega-Brodsky,&nbsp;Bruno Flório Lessi,&nbsp;Jorge E. Schondube","doi":"10.1111/1365-2656.70311","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1365-2656.70311","url":null,"abstract":"<p>\u0000 \u0000 </p>","PeriodicalId":14934,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Animal Ecology","volume":"95 10","pages":"1933-1943"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1365-2656.70311","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148874018","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"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":"Predator decision-making shapes the dynamics and stability of mimicry systems","authors":"Yi Sun,&nbsp;Po-Ju Ke","doi":"10.1111/1365-2656.70319","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1365-2656.70319","url":null,"abstract":"<p>\u0000 \u0000 </p>","PeriodicalId":14934,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Animal Ecology","volume":"95 10","pages":"1984-1998"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148793604","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"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":"Comparisons of wild and domestic ungulate zoogeochemical impacts rarely evaluate mechanisms underlying functional dissimilarity","authors":"Julia D. Monk,&nbsp;Kristin J. Barker,&nbsp;Samantha M. L. Maher,&nbsp;Mitchell W. Serota,&nbsp;Avery L. Shawler,&nbsp;Guadalupe Verta,&nbsp;Wenjing Xu,&nbsp;Arthur D. Middleton,&nbsp;Laureano A. Gherardi","doi":"10.1111/1365-2656.70317","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1365-2656.70317","url":null,"abstract":"<p>\u0000 \u0000 </p>","PeriodicalId":14934,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Animal Ecology","volume":"95 10","pages":"1824-1840"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148520539","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"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}