OecologiaPub Date : 2024-06-01Epub Date: 2024-06-02DOI: 10.1007/s00442-024-05570-7
Shuai Fang, Jing Ren, Marc William Cadotte, Zuoqiang Yuan, Zhanqing Hao, Xugao Wang, Fei Lin, Claire Fortunel
{"title":"Disturbance history, neighborhood crowding and soil conditions jointly shape tree growth in temperate forests.","authors":"Shuai Fang, Jing Ren, Marc William Cadotte, Zuoqiang Yuan, Zhanqing Hao, Xugao Wang, Fei Lin, Claire Fortunel","doi":"10.1007/s00442-024-05570-7","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00442-024-05570-7","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Understanding how different mechanisms act and interact in shaping communities and ecosystems is essential to better predict their future with global change. Disturbance legacy, abiotic conditions, and biotic interactions can simultaneously influence tree growth, but it remains unclear what are their relative contributions and whether they have additive or interactive effects. We examined the separate and joint effects of disturbance intensity, soil conditions, and neighborhood crowding on tree growth in 10 temperate forests in northeast China. We found that disturbance was the strongest driver of tree growth, followed by neighbors and soil. Specifically, trees grew slower with decreasing initial disturbance intensity, but with increasing neighborhood crowding, soil pH and soil total phosphorus. Interestingly, the decrease in tree growth with increasing soil pH and soil phosphorus was steeper with high initial disturbance intensity. Testing the role of species traits, we showed that fast-growing species exhibited greater maximum tree size, but lower wood density and specific leaf area. Species with lower wood density grew faster with increasing initial disturbance intensity, while species with higher specific leaf area suffered less from neighbors in areas with high initial disturbance intensity. Our study suggests that accounting for both individual and interactive effects of multiple drivers is crucial to better predict forest dynamics.</p>","PeriodicalId":19473,"journal":{"name":"Oecologia","volume":" ","pages":"295-306"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141186605","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}
OecologiaPub Date : 2024-06-01Epub Date: 2024-06-08DOI: 10.1007/s00442-024-05580-5
Nicholas N Dorian
{"title":"Voltinism of a solitary bee was influenced by temperature but not provision size.","authors":"Nicholas N Dorian","doi":"10.1007/s00442-024-05580-5","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00442-024-05580-5","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Changes in the timing and duration of life cycles are distinctive fingerprints of environmental change. Yet, the biotic and abiotic cues underpinning phenology and voltinism, i.e., number of generations per year, are poorly understood. Here, I experimentally test how temperature and provision size influence voltinism and survival to emergence in a solitary bee Colletes validus, and how temperature influences voltinism in the brood parasite Tricrania sanguinipennis. Within the same population, univoltine individuals emerge after 1 year (1-year form), whereas semivoltine individuals enter prolonged dormancy and emerge after 2 years (2-year form). I reared field-collected bees under 2 × 2 factorial experiments with cool (18.5 °C ± 0.5 °C) vs. warm (24 °C ± 0.5 °C) temperature treatments (bees and beetles) and no supplement vs. supplemental food treatments (+ 20% ± 5% pollen provision by mass); beetles were reared under temperature treatments only. Cool temperatures consistently increased the proportion of 2-year bees regardless of provision size, a finding that was consistent with three years of field observations. There was a demographic cost to prolonged dormancy in that both 1- and 2-year bees survived to emergence as adults, but survival of 2-year bees was approximately 50% lower than 1-year bees. Two-year beetles were produced under cooler temperatures, but unlike bees, beetles had nearly perfect survival to emergence in all treatments. This experiment advances our mechanistic understanding of the environmental drivers of voltinism in diverse insect taxa and underscores the importance of considering cryptic life stages when interpreting responses to environmental change.</p>","PeriodicalId":19473,"journal":{"name":"Oecologia","volume":" ","pages":"245-256"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141293618","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}
OecologiaPub Date : 2024-06-01Epub Date: 2024-06-19DOI: 10.1007/s00442-024-05581-4
Shelby L Ziegler, Wil E Atencio, John M Carroll, James E Byers
{"title":"High parasite prevalence in an ecosystem engineer correlated with both local- and landscape-level factors.","authors":"Shelby L Ziegler, Wil E Atencio, John M Carroll, James E Byers","doi":"10.1007/s00442-024-05581-4","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00442-024-05581-4","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Spatial variation in parasitic infection may have many physical and biological drivers. Uncovering these drivers may be especially important for parasites of ecosystem engineers because the engineers are foundational to their communities. Oysters are an important coastal ecosystem engineer that have declined drastically worldwide, in part due to enhanced cases of lethal oyster diseases, such as Dermo and MSX, caused by the protozoan parasites Perkinsus marinus and Haplosporidium nelsoni, respectively. Besides water quality and hydrodynamics, there is little information on how other variables influence the prevalence and intensity of these pathogens in oysters across a regional scale. To examine drivers of spatial variation in these oyster parasites-including host size, local reef properties, and landscape properties-we sampled 24 reefs systematically spread along the coast of Georgia, USA. Across sites, we found universally high prevalence of oysters with at least one of these parasites (91.02% ± 8.89, mean ± SD). Not only are high levels of parasite prevalence potentially problematic for a pivotal ecosystem engineer, but also low spatial variability may limit the explanatory power of variables across a regional scale. Our statistical models explained between 18 and 42% of the variation in spatial patterns of prevalence and intensity of these microparasites. Interestingly, landscape context was a positive predictor of P. marinus, but a negative predictor of H. nelsoni. Overall, our findings suggest that factors driving parasite prevalence and intensity operate across multiple spatial scales, and the same factor can both facilitate and hinder different parasites within the same host species.</p>","PeriodicalId":19473,"journal":{"name":"Oecologia","volume":" ","pages":"423-435"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141427379","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}
OecologiaPub Date : 2024-06-01Epub Date: 2024-06-05DOI: 10.1007/s00442-024-05571-6
Axel Chabrerie, Francisco Arenas
{"title":"What if the upwelling weakens? Effects of rising temperature and nutrient depletion on coastal assemblages.","authors":"Axel Chabrerie, Francisco Arenas","doi":"10.1007/s00442-024-05571-6","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00442-024-05571-6","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Surface temperature of the oceans has increased globally over the past decades. In coastal areas influenced by eastern boundary upwelling systems (EBUS), winds push seawater offshore and deep, cold and nutrient-rich seawater rise towards the surface, partially buffering global warming. On the North coast of Portugal, the NW Iberian upwelling system allows extensive kelp forests to thrive in these \"boreal-like\" conditions, fostering highly diverse and productive communities. However, the warming of the upper layer of the ocean may weaken this upwelling, leading to higher sea surface temperature and lower nutrient input in the coastal areas. The effects of these changes on the structure and function of coastal ecosystems remain unexplored. The present study aimed to examine the combined effects of elevated temperature and nutrient depletion on semi-naturally structured assemblages. The eco-physiological responses investigated included growth, chlorophyll fluorescence and metabolic rates at the levels of individual species and whole assemblages. Our findings showed interactive effects of the combination of elevated temperature with nutrient depletion on the large canopy-forming species (i.e., kelp). As main contributor to community response, those effects drove the whole assemblage responses to significant losses in productivity levels. We also found an additive effect of elevated temperature and reduced nutrients on sub-canopy species (i.e., Chondrus crispus), while turfs were only affected by temperature. Our results suggest that under weakening upwelling scenarios, the ability of the macroalgal assemblages to maintain high productivity rates could be seriously affected and predict a shift in community composition with the loss of marine forests.</p>","PeriodicalId":19473,"journal":{"name":"Oecologia","volume":" ","pages":"365-381"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11281971/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141246820","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}
OecologiaPub Date : 2024-06-01Epub Date: 2024-06-03DOI: 10.1007/s00442-024-05577-0
Yue Wang, Qian Hu, Yu Wang, Jinfa Liu, Zhiyong Du, Jiliang Xu, Jianqiang Li
{"title":"Selective effect of winter weather on a songbird's morphology depends on individual sex and winter condition.","authors":"Yue Wang, Qian Hu, Yu Wang, Jinfa Liu, Zhiyong Du, Jiliang Xu, Jianqiang Li","doi":"10.1007/s00442-024-05577-0","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00442-024-05577-0","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Knowledge of the effect of harsh weather on the phenotypic traits of organisms is essential for understanding the environmental influence on phenotype evolution and holds implications for predicting how species respond to current climate change. For many birds, harsh weather in winter often imposes a strong selective effect on their survival, and only the individuals with certain phenotypes may survive. However, whether the selective effect on phenotype varies with winter weather conditions has been poorly investigated. Here, we explored the selective effect of winter weather on black-throated tit's (Aegithalos concinnus) morphological traits under winters with and without severe snowstorms. We found that for males, the sizes of their bills, heads and wings significantly affected their overwinter survival, but the effects varied with winter conditions. In relatively benign winters, males with smaller bill depths, smaller bill surface areas, and greater head lengths survived better; whereas, in winters with severe snowstorms, a reverse pattern was found. This phenomenon was likely driven by selection pressures from heat retention and foraging requirements, with their relative importance depending on winter conditions. Additionally, wing length was positively correlated with male survival and the relationship was stronger in harsher winters, which was probably due to longer wings' higher flight efficiency in adverse weather. By contrast, we found no correlation between morphological traits and survival in females. These results suggest a sex-specific and condition-dependent selective effect of environment on bird phenotypes, implying complicated interactions between different selection pressures and phenotype evolution.</p>","PeriodicalId":19473,"journal":{"name":"Oecologia","volume":" ","pages":"339-350"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141200383","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}
OecologiaPub Date : 2024-06-01Epub Date: 2024-06-03DOI: 10.1007/s00442-024-05574-3
Matthias Pilecky, Samuel K Kämmer, Katharina Winter, Radka Ptacnikova, Travis B Meador, Leonard I Wassenaar, Patrick Fink, Martin J Kainz
{"title":"Compound-specific stable isotope analyses of fatty acids indicate feeding zones of zooplankton across the water column of a subalpine lake.","authors":"Matthias Pilecky, Samuel K Kämmer, Katharina Winter, Radka Ptacnikova, Travis B Meador, Leonard I Wassenaar, Patrick Fink, Martin J Kainz","doi":"10.1007/s00442-024-05574-3","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00442-024-05574-3","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Spatial and temporal zooplankton feeding dynamics across the water column of lakes are key for understanding site-specific acquisition of diet sources. During this 6-week lake study, we examined stable carbon (δ<sup>13</sup>C) and nitrogen (δ<sup>15</sup>N) isotopes and conducted compound-specific fatty acid (FA) stable isotope analysis (CSIA) of edible seston in the epi-, meta-, and hypolimnion, and zooplankton of Lake Lunz, Austria. We predicted that CSIA of essential FA can discern the foraging grounds of zooplankton more accurately than the commonly used bulk stable isotopes. The δ<sup>13</sup>C and δ<sup>15</sup>N values of seston from different lake strata were similar, whereas a dual CSIA approach using stable carbon and hydrogen isotopes of FA (δ<sup>13</sup>C<sub>FA</sub> and δ<sup>2</sup>H<sub>FA</sub>) provided sufficient isotopic difference in essential FA to discern different lake strata-specific diet sources throughout the study period. We present a CSIA model that suggests strata-specific foraging grounds for different zooplankton groups, indicating higher preference of cladocerans for feeding on epilimnetic diet sources, while calanoid copepods retained more hypolimnetic resources. The CSIA approach thus yields strata-specific information on foraging strategies of different zooplankton taxa and provides more details on the spatial and temporal trophodynamics of planktonic food webs than commonly used bulk stable isotopes.</p>","PeriodicalId":19473,"journal":{"name":"Oecologia","volume":" ","pages":"325-337"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11628586/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141200407","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}
OecologiaPub Date : 2024-06-01Epub Date: 2024-06-06DOI: 10.1007/s00442-024-05578-z
Boris R Krasnov, Goni Barki, Irina S Khokhlova
{"title":"Dissimilarity in flea and host assemblages and their interaction networks along a spatial distance gradient: different patterns revealed by different network dissimilarity metrics.","authors":"Boris R Krasnov, Goni Barki, Irina S Khokhlova","doi":"10.1007/s00442-024-05578-z","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00442-024-05578-z","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>We investigated the distance-decay pattern (an increase in dissimilarity with increasing geographic distance) in regional assemblages of fleas and their small mammalian hosts, as well as their interaction networks, in four biogeographic realms. Dissimilarity of assemblages (βtotal) was partitioned into species richness differences (βrich) and species replacement (βrepl) components. Dissimilarity of networks was assessed using two metrics: (a) whole network dissimilarity (β<sub>WN</sub>) partitioned into species replacement (β<sub>ST</sub>) and interaction rewiring (β<sub>OS</sub>) components and (b) D statistics, measuring dissimilarity in the pure structure of the networks, without using information on species identities and calculated for hosts-shared-by-fleas networks (Dh) and fleas-shared-by-hosts networks (Df). We asked whether the distance-decay pattern (a) occurs among interactor assemblages or their interaction networks; (b) depends on the network dissimilarity metric used; and (c) differs between realms. The βtotal and βrepl of flea and host assemblages increased with distance in all realms except for host assemblages in the Afrotropics. βrich for flea and host assemblages increased with distance in the Nearctic only. In networks, β<sub>WN</sub> and β<sub>ST</sub> demonstrated a distance-decay pattern, whereas β<sub>OS</sub> was mainly spatially invariant except in the Neotropics. Correlations of Dh or Df and geographic distance were mostly non-significant. We conclude that investigations of dissimilarity in interaction networks should include both types of dissimilarity metrics (those that consider partner identities and those that consider the pure structure of networks). This will allow elucidating the predictability of some facets of network dissimilarity and the unpredictability of other facets.</p>","PeriodicalId":19473,"journal":{"name":"Oecologia","volume":" ","pages":"397-409"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141262343","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}
OecologiaPub Date : 2024-06-01Epub Date: 2024-06-06DOI: 10.1007/s00442-024-05576-1
M I Hamilton, B L Drake, E Dzhinenko, A Galloway, S V Nelson
{"title":"Sr/Ca ratios indicate frugivory versus folivory in primates: a case study using handheld XRF in Kibale National Park, Uganda.","authors":"M I Hamilton, B L Drake, E Dzhinenko, A Galloway, S V Nelson","doi":"10.1007/s00442-024-05576-1","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00442-024-05576-1","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Researchers often use trace element concentrations, including strontium-calcium ratios (Sr/Ca), to reconstruct paleodiets. While most commonly used as a proxy for meat consumption, a more appropriate application may be to differentiate frugivory from folivory. Sr/Ca ratios in animal tissue reflect the Sr/Ca ratios of the highest calcium components of that animal's diet. Because plants have much higher concentrations of calcium than meat, meat consumption signals are often overwhelmed by the variation in Sr/Ca ratios coming from different plant parts. This study uses faunal and plant data from Kibale National Park, a protected forest in southwestern Uganda home to numerous primate species (for example, common chimpanzees and baboons), to assess the reliability of Sr/Ca ratios to differentiate between primate dietary groups. We find that leaves consistently have higher strontium and calcium concentrations than fruits and that this is mirrored in higher Sr/Ca ratios in folivorous primates compared to frugivorous primates. Plant species differ widely in both their overall Sr/Ca ratios and the differences between their fruit and leaf Sr/Ca ratios, but this variation does not overwhelm the dietary signal separating frugivores and folivores. Furthermore, this research demonstrates that non-destructive and portable X-ray florescence (XRF) methods are an effective means of gathering Sr/Ca data from plant and faunal material, increasing the opportunities to apply such methods to fossil material in the future.</p>","PeriodicalId":19473,"journal":{"name":"Oecologia","volume":" ","pages":"383-395"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141262346","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}
OecologiaPub Date : 2024-06-01DOI: 10.1007/s00442-024-05563-6
Addisu Asefa, Victoria M Reuber, Georg Miehe, Luise Wraase, Tilaye Wube, Nina Farwig, Dana G Schabo
{"title":"Giant root-rat engineering and livestock grazing activities regulate plant functional trait diversity of an Afroalpine vegetation community in the Bale Mountains, Ethiopia.","authors":"Addisu Asefa, Victoria M Reuber, Georg Miehe, Luise Wraase, Tilaye Wube, Nina Farwig, Dana G Schabo","doi":"10.1007/s00442-024-05563-6","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00442-024-05563-6","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Disturbances from rodent engineering and human activities profoundly impact ecosystem structure and functioning. Whilst we know that disturbances modulate plant communities, comprehending the mechanisms through which rodent and human disturbances influence the functional trait diversity and trait composition of plant communities is important to allow projecting future changes and to enable informed decisions in response to changing intensity of the disturbances. Here, we evaluated the changes in functional trait diversity and composition of Afroalpine plant communities in the Bale Mountains of Ethiopia along gradients of engineering disturbances of a subterranean endemic rodent, the giant root-rat (Tachyoryctes macrocephalus Rüppell 1842) and human activities (settlement establishment and livestock grazing). We conducted RLQ (co-inertia analysis) and fourth-corner analyses to test for trait-disturbance (rodent engineering/human activities) covariation. Overall, our results show an increase in plant functional trait diversity with increasing root-rat engineering and increasing human activities. We found disturbance specific association with traits. Specifically, we found strong positive association of larger seed mass with increasing root-rat fresh burrow density, rhizomatous vegetative propagation negatively associated with increasing root-rat old burrow, and stolonifereous vegetative propagation positively associated with presence of root-rat mima mound. Moreover, both leaf size and leaf nitrogen content were positively associated with livestock dung abundance but negatively with distance from settlement. Overall, our results suggest that disturbances by rodents filter plant traits related to survival and reproduction strategies, whereas human activities such as livestock grazing act as filters for traits related to leaf economics spectrum along acquisitive resource-use strategy.</p>","PeriodicalId":19473,"journal":{"name":"Oecologia","volume":" ","pages":"281-293"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11281956/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141186608","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}