Ecosphere最新文献

{"title":"Biotic interactions and stream network position affect body size of aquatic vertebrates across watersheds","authors":"Brooke E. Penaluna,&nbsp;Sherri L. Johnson,&nbsp;Amanda M. M. Pollock,&nbsp;Ivan Arismendi,&nbsp;Dana R. Warren","doi":"10.1002/ecs2.70299","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.70299","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The body size of aquatic vertebrates is declining across populations and ecosystems worldwide owing to warmer water temperature and changing streamflow. In freshwaters, the effects of stream network position and density-dependent factors on body size are less understood. We used an extensive dataset spanning 41 stream sites over 7 years to evaluate how density-dependent and density-independent factors influence the size of two top predators in small watersheds, Coastal Cutthroat Trout <i>Oncorhynchus clarkii clarkii</i> and Coastal Giant Salamanders <i>Dicamptodon tenebrosus</i>. We tested three hypotheses of body-size variation for trout and salamanders, including intraspecific density dependence, interspecific density dependence, and resource availability, using empirical observations in hierarchical linear mixed models in a model-selection framework. In our best-supported models, the strongest predictors of size were conspecific negative density dependence, as expected, suggesting greater intraspecific interactions probably owing to conspecific individuals having similar requirements. We reveal a biogeographic pattern in which body size peaks in middle stream-network positions and plateaus or declines at lower and upper locations, proposing that stream network position also plays a role in determining body size in small watersheds. Salamander density also has a quadratic effect on adult trout size, with salamanders having a greater overall effect on the body size of both species than trout, suggesting that salamanders might be more dominant than trout in some interactions. Collectively, we found that biotic interactions, mainly conspecific but also interspecific, and stream-network position affect trout and salamander body sizes in small watersheds.</p>","PeriodicalId":48930,"journal":{"name":"Ecosphere","volume":"16 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-06-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ecs2.70299","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144482095","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"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":"Beyond predator and prey: First evidence of an association between ocelot and opossum individuals","authors":"Ettore Camerlenghi,&nbsp;Dumas Gálvez,&nbsp;Christopher Ketola,&nbsp;Angelo Piga,&nbsp;Nadine Holmes,&nbsp;José Luis Mena,&nbsp;Mathias W. Tobler,&nbsp;Fortunato Rayan,&nbsp;Isabel Damas-Moreira","doi":"10.1002/ecs2.70322","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.70322","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Interspecific associations can provide various benefits, including reducing predation risk, sharing information, or acquiring food. Studying these associations is key to understanding the drivers and mechanisms underlying non-kin cooperation. Here, we present the first evidence of single individuals of ocelot (<i>Leopardus pardalis</i>) and common opossum (<i>Didelphis marsupialis</i>) associating and moving together in the rainforest. This association, unknown until now, was captured in four independent events, through camera-trap videos and photographs taken across different times and locations, suggesting a consistent pattern among different individuals. Additionally, we experimentally show that opossums are significantly more attracted to ocelot scent cues, on which they often rub their bodies, compared to control and puma scents. Both the ocelot and the common opossum are nocturnal, solitary species that share territories and can overlap diets; yet, ocelots can also prey on opossums. This puzzling association might emerge because both species could benefit from each other's presence, potentially improving foraging efficiency or safety. Such a newly discovered association offers insight into the complex dynamics of interspecific associations in tropical ecosystems. Future research investigating its prevalence and benefits will deepen our understanding of the ecological and evolutionary conditions driving this behaviour.</p>","PeriodicalId":48930,"journal":{"name":"Ecosphere","volume":"16 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-06-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ecs2.70322","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144367525","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"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":"Using a plant hydraulic model to design more resilient rehabilitated landscapes in arid ecosystems","authors":"Jean V. Wilkening,&nbsp;Sebastian C. Lamoureux,&nbsp;Erik J. Veneklaas,&nbsp;Sally E. Thompson","doi":"10.1002/ecs2.70313","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.70313","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Mining is a major driver of dryland disturbance and degradation, and there is a growing need for effective and resilient methods for restoration of former mine sites. An important restoration goal is preventing water from accessing mine waste, thus avoiding mobilization and transport of contaminants. Evapotranspiration (ET) covers are soil covers where vegetation manages the water balance to minimize leakage into underlying waste, with potential co-benefits of restoring ecological function and fixing carbon. However, cover designs often overlook potentially complex interactions between plant physiology and physical design parameters (cover depth, soil properties, etc.) that affect plant water fluxes, particularly in water-limited environments. To better understand how physiologically mediated dynamics impact cover performance, we develop an ET cover model that mechanistically describes plant-environment interactions through a plant hydraulics framework. We use the model to determine how soil cover depth, a fundamental design parameter, interacts with physiology to impact leakage, plant stress/mortality, and carbon sequestration. The model is parameterized using data from a prior study of plant water relations in engineered cover systems of varying depths. When run under historical rainfall trajectories, the model shows that significant plant water stress was ubiquitous across cover depths and was most frequent in shallower covers, where it was accompanied by higher leakage and lower net carbon assimilation. Precipitation variation had an important role in driving outcomes, and hydraulic impairment of vegetation played a role in higher leakage and lower net carbon assimilation. Design approaches that account for plant physiological processes have the potential to yield more effective and resilient systems, and we present a framework for incorporating these critical feedbacks into the design process.</p>","PeriodicalId":48930,"journal":{"name":"Ecosphere","volume":"16 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ecs2.70313","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144339195","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"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":"Leveraging wildfire to augment forest management and amplify forest resilience","authors":"Kristen L. Shive,&nbsp;Clarke A. Knight,&nbsp;Zachary L. Steel,&nbsp;Charlotte K. Stanley,&nbsp;Kristen N. Wilson","doi":"10.1002/ecs2.70306","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.70306","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Successive catastrophic wildfire seasons in western North America have escalated the urgency around reducing fire risk to communities and ecosystems. In historically frequent-fire forests, fuel buildup as a result of fire exclusion is contributing to increased fire severity. The probability of high-severity fire can be reduced by active forest management that reduces fuels, prompting federal and state agencies to commit significant resources to increase the pace and scale of fuel reduction treatments. However, lower severity areas of wildfires also have the potential to act as “treatments,” and even catastrophic fires with large areas of high severity can still have substantial areas of lower severity fire that may be improving forest conditions locally. We quantified active management and wildfire severity across yellow pine and mixed conifer (YPMC) forests in the Sierra Nevada of California over a 22-year period (2001–2022). We did not detect increases in the area treated through time, but the area of beneficial wildfire (low to moderate severity) increased substantially, exceeding active treatment area in 8 of 22 years. Overall, beneficial wildfire treated ~17% more area than all treatments combined, and roughly four times more area than fire-related treatments alone. We then used disturbance history to evaluate resistance to high-severity wildfire and forest loss across the YPMC range. Of the 2.3 million ha YPMC of forests in 2001, 20% lost mature forests due to high-severity fire by 2022, which is nearly half of all YPMC area burned. Most of the landscape (47%) remains at risk of high-severity fire because it had no restorative disturbances, but 33% of the study area has some level of resistance to high-severity wildfire. In these areas, resistance will need to be enhanced and maintained over time via active management or managed wildfire, but these treatment needs will likely outpace capacity even under optimistic implementation scenarios. Given limited resources for implementing active management and the likelihood of a more fiery future, incorporating beneficial wildfire into landscape-level treatment planning has the potential to amplify the impact of active management treatments.</p>","PeriodicalId":48930,"journal":{"name":"Ecosphere","volume":"16 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ecs2.70306","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144339193","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"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":"Aquatic habitat response to small dam removal demonstrates recovery in three years","authors":"Jeremy Dietrich,&nbsp;Alison Rickard,&nbsp;Suresh A. Sethi,&nbsp;Scott Cuppett,&nbsp;Patrick Sullivan","doi":"10.1002/ecs2.70323","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.70323","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Dams disrupt river networks by interrupting longitudinal transport of sediment and nutrients and obstructing the movement of aquatic organisms. Increasingly, water resource managers are looking for dam removal as a solution to restore connectivity and improve aquatic habitats, water quality, and fish passage. Empirical studies on small dams (&lt;7.5 m) that incorporate both ecological and geomorphic monitoring over longer time periods (3 year+ post-removal) are rare, limiting the data available to restoration stakeholders to inform barrier removal prioritization decisions. To help address this gap, we implemented a suite of geomorphic, biological, and water quality monitoring efforts to assess the effect of a small dam (3.7 m) removal project in the Hudson River Estuary watershed, New York State (USA). We monitored the site prior to removal and continued observations for three years post-removal to assess differences in ecological conditions between the upstream impoundment and downstream tail-reach before and after dam removal. Instream sediment composition and mean particle size were highly disparate between upstream impoundment and downstream tail-reach areas prior to the dam removal but became more uniform and of higher habitat quality across the study site within two years after removal. Functional diversity, taxonomic diversity, and taxa richness of the macroinvertebrate community improved dramatically in upstream habitats within one year of the dam removal, and differences between the upstream and downstream reaches disappeared by the third year after removal, suggesting rapid recovery of stream conditions in the previously dammed upstream reach. Upstream aquatic habitat designations improved within two years from being “moderately impacted” to “slightly impacted,” rising above the biological impairment threshold according to New York State's Biological Assessment Profile score. This allowed both New York and the Environmental Protection Agency to document water quality improvements as a Type-3 nonpoint source success story. Combined, results from this temperate watershed show that dam removals may provide aquatic ecosystem recovery in relatively short time frames.</p>","PeriodicalId":48930,"journal":{"name":"Ecosphere","volume":"16 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ecs2.70323","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144339196","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"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":"Dynamic environments generate geographic fluctuations in population structure of an inland shorebird","authors":"Andrea Contina,&nbsp;Scott W. Yanco,&nbsp;Allison K. Pierce,&nbsp;Hannah B. Vander Zanden,&nbsp;Craig A. Stricker,&nbsp;Gabriel J. Bowen,&nbsp;Michael B. Wunder","doi":"10.1002/ecs2.70312","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.70312","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Species distributions depend on fine-scale ecological processes and population growth trajectories and are influenced by climate and weather changes. However, the characterization of inter-population dynamics underlying the geographic distributions of migratory organisms remains challenging. We adopted a stable isotope approach to investigate the dynamic population geography of a terrestrial migratory bird across multiple generations. We found that the age-specific geographic source of Mountain Plovers sampled during winter shifted over four years across a latitudinal gradient. Moreover, our results show that differential effects of climate on the probability of occurrence at the wintering ground could be a driver of population turnover in a migratory species adapted to extreme environmental stochasticity (i.e., drought occurrence). We propose a framework for the identification of spatial and temporal climate and weather components and respective effects on population composition and recruitment into migratory wintering populations. Our approach is useful to reveal population compositional shifts through hydrogen stable isotope analysis while accounting for cumulative drought effects.</p>","PeriodicalId":48930,"journal":{"name":"Ecosphere","volume":"16 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ecs2.70312","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144339233","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"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":"Wintering mallard survival is unaffected by brief anthropogenic disturbance on protected areas","authors":"Abigail G. Blake-Bradshaw,&nbsp;Nicholas M. Masto,&nbsp;Cory J. Highway,&nbsp;Allison C. Keever,&nbsp;Jamie C. Feddersen,&nbsp;Heath M. Hagy,&nbsp;Bradley S. Cohen","doi":"10.1002/ecs2.70309","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.70309","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Human activities in natural areas can impose both lethal and non-lethal impacts on animals. Furthermore, anthropogenic disturbance is analogous to predation risk and can cause animals to adjust their behaviors to avoid humans. Quantifying whether disturbance-induced behavioral shifts affect individual fitness or population dynamics is needed to guide science-based conservation and management decisions. We experimentally disturbed GPS-marked mallards (<i>Anas platyrhynchos</i>) on sanctuaries weekly to evaluate the effects of brief pulses (1 h) of non-lethal anthropogenic disturbance on individual survival. We used Cox proportional hazard models to examine how single and cumulative disturbance affected survival and tested whether body mass or hunting season mediated the effects of disturbance. One hundred and eighty-eight mallards were disturbed ≥1 time resulting in 629 disturbance encounters. Only 3 individuals died immediately following disturbance, representing &lt;0.5% of encounters. Collectively, we found no effect of disturbance on daily survival, and our cumulative disturbance model showed undisturbed mallards had lower survival than disturbed mallards. Standardized body mass or hunting season did not mediate the effect of disturbance on survival. Together, we concluded there was no effect of our brief experimental disturbance treatments on mallard survival. Instead, diurnal sanctuary use and individual characteristics, including age, sex, and standardized body mass, affected survival. Diurnal sanctuary use was positively related to survival, and for every 20% increase in diurnal sanctuary use, the risk of mortality decreased by 15%. Additionally, female mallards were 2.7 times more likely to die compared to males, and juveniles had a 53% greater risk of mortality than adults. Lastly, for every 100 g heavier than average mallards were, we found a 23% lower risk of mortality during our study. If a primary goal of waterfowl sanctuary is including non-consumptive recreational use, our results suggest controlled access (e.g., ~1 h/week) may have minimal effects on survival and be consistent with multi-use objectives on public lands with waterfowl sanctuaries. If additional recreational access to support multiple public uses is a goal on public lands managed as sanctuaries, we recommend future work identify disturbance thresholds at which point survival or other fitness metrics are impacted by disturbance related to public uses of protected areas.</p>","PeriodicalId":48930,"journal":{"name":"Ecosphere","volume":"16 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ecs2.70309","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144339194","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"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":"Observations of a puma predation on endangered California condors: Implications for species recovery","authors":"Aidan B. Branney,&nbsp;Joseph C. Brandt,&nbsp;Joshua M. Felch,&nbsp;Jason V. Lombardi","doi":"10.1002/ecs2.70255","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.70255","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Reintroduction of endangered species is wrought with many challenges, but one often overlooked challenge is the threat of predation of naïve individuals. Individuals lacking the insight to avoid predators can become easy prey and even showcase predators capitalizing on the lack of anti-predator behavior. In California, California condors (<i>Gymnogyps californianus</i>) have slowly been recovering since the implementation of recovery actions and management. However, here we report an instance of where three California condors were preyed upon by a puma (<i>Puma concolor</i>) from 28 November to 30 December 2010 near Bitter Creek National Wildlife Refuge, Kern County, California, USA. The puma cached all three condor carcasses and was detected on a nearby camera trap revisiting the carcasses; scat was also identified nearby. This rare photographic documentation not only highlights the relatively unexplored ecological relationship between pumas and California condors but also showcases the need to understand the role predatory naïve behavior has on endangered species survivorship.</p>","PeriodicalId":48930,"journal":{"name":"Ecosphere","volume":"16 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-06-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ecs2.70255","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144323485","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"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":"Potential effects of climate change on the threatened Malagasy poison frogs: A multispecies approach","authors":"Albert Carné,&nbsp;David R. Vieites,&nbsp;Neftalí Sillero","doi":"10.1002/ecs2.70315","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.70315","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Climate change is exposing ecosystems to novel conditions, and understanding its potential effects on species distributions is crucial. Those effects can significantly affect species with narrow environmental requirements inhabiting closed systems where dispersal is limited. Madagascar is a highly biodiverse island, boasting high levels of amphibian species richness and endemism. The impacts of climate change on Malagasy amphibians are scarcely addressed, with studies focusing on single species or localities. We assessed the potential impacts of climate change on the distributions of the endemic Malagasy poison frogs of the genus <i>Mantella</i>, one of the most threatened and best-studied frog genera in Madagascar, which contains species of global interest for the pet trade. We quantified each species' marginality, specialization, and tolerance and modeled their realized niches using the Maximum Entropy algorithm. We projected the models into current and future climates, using five Global Circulation Models, three socioeconomic scenarios, three future periods, and three dispersal scenarios. Our results suggest that 30% of <i>Mantella</i> species may gain habitat suitability extent, while 60% are predicted to lose it, with two threatened species forecasted to lose all suitable habitats island wide by 2100. Furthermore, 80% of species are forecasted to lose habitat suitability in currently occupied pixels, with losses exceeding 90%. Range shifts tracking their optimal niche conditions are expected for nearly all species, but the receptor areas are not always suitable. The current distribution extent is a good predictor of both tolerance and marginality, and tolerance can predict the conservation status in the genus <i>Mantella</i>. We found a linear relationship with higher marginality and tolerance linked to greater potential losses. We discuss the reliability and severity of the forecasts, the caveats of niche projections, and challenges in planning conservation based on them.</p>","PeriodicalId":48930,"journal":{"name":"Ecosphere","volume":"16 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-06-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ecs2.70315","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144308946","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"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":"Navigating novel resources: A field test of the effects of small mammal personality on dispersal of Quercus seeds","authors":"Ivy Yen,&nbsp;Alessio Mortelliti","doi":"10.1002/ecs2.70268","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.70268","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Climate change is shifting the habitable ranges of hundreds of species, and a greater understanding of the mechanisms driving migration velocity may make the difference between extinction and persistence for at-risk species. However, predicting migration velocity is particularly complicated for sessile organisms that rely on animals for the dispersal of their propagules. Extrinsic factors (e.g., seed availability, forest structure) and intrinsic factors of propagules and dispersers (e.g., seed mass, disperser species) interact to influence the seed dispersal process at multiple levels, complicating the conditions under which mutualism can occur. Small mammals are important seed predators and dispersers, and thus, their collective actions may modulate the migration velocity of seed-bearing plants. Recent studies have revealed the importance of disperser intraspecific variation, but the role of behavioral variation—animal personality—is infrequently studied and remains poorly understood. Personality may be critical to consider in the context of novel seeds as inexperienced individuals may default to specific behavioral tendencies and foraging strategies when deciding if and how to utilize resources. In a large-scale field experiment in central Maine (USA), we examined seed selection behavior in two species of small mammals (<i>Peromyscus maniculatus</i> and <i>Myodes gapperi</i>) for eight species of <i>Quercus</i> acorns—two of which are native to Maine and six of which are novel to our populations but expected to migrate northward. We found no discernible effects of seed novelty at any stage of the seed dispersal process, but we found evidence of personality-driven patterns in caching behavior. Docility positively predicted removal probability in voles and distance to burrow caches in mice. Lastly, individual antagonism–mutualism scores for voles were influenced by personality, where shy individuals were more antagonistic to acorns and bold individuals were more mutualistic. Put together, our results indicate that behavioral diversity may be important to consider for the maintenance of ecological function and provide a basis from where conservationists can work toward clarifying plant fitness in their novel ranges, species-specific extinction probabilities, and future trends in forest regeneration.</p>","PeriodicalId":48930,"journal":{"name":"Ecosphere","volume":"16 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-06-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ecs2.70268","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144308735","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"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}