Ecosphere最新文献

{"title":"Factors influencing pronghorn migration behavior and plasticity","authors":"Jesse D. DeVoe,&nbsp;Kelly M. Proffitt,&nbsp;Joshua J. Millspaugh","doi":"10.1002/ecs2.70411","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.70411","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Variation in animal migration behaviors can improve population-level resiliency to unpredictable resource and environmental changes. Individuals of some species can switch migration behaviors, thereby optimizing individual fitness through plastic responses to environmental stochasticity and contributing to population resiliency. Pronghorn (<i>Antilocapra americana</i>) demonstrate variation and plasticity in migration behaviors across much of their range, yet the environmental, demographic, and anthropogenic influences on their migration decisions remain poorly understood. This study (2019–2023) analyzed collar location data from 516 adult female pronghorn across eight herds occupying a broad environmental gradient in Montana, USA, to characterize spring migration behaviors and evaluate environmental, demographic, and anthropogenic drivers of migration behavior, winter range plasticity, and migration behavior plasticity. Pronghorn exhibited varied migration behaviors: the majority were nonmigratory, either remaining as residents (77% of 1010 animal-years) or exhibiting gradual range shifts (11%), while others employed migrations to single (18%) or multiple (4%) summer ranges. We observed plasticity in migration behaviors, with 5.5% (of 382 animal-years) of pronghorn switching from nonmigrant to migrant behaviors and 27.7% (of 112 animal-years) switching from migrant to nonmigrant behaviors. Winter range fidelity also showed plasticity, with 84.6% remaining on or returning to their initial winter range, while the remainder shifted to new winter ranges. Our findings provide novel insights into pronghorn migration behaviors, highlighting the influence of both environmental and anthropogenic factors on migration behavior and plasticity. The probability of a migrant behavior increased with winter–spring precipitation and road density, and decreased with green-wave strength (e.g., greater values indicating a more consecutive or wavelike plant green-up across the landscape) and agricultural subsidy. Agricultural subsidy was also associated with a higher probability of switching from migrant to nonmigrant behaviors, suggesting that it may diminish the need for spring migrations by providing consistent forage. The observed migration plasticity suggests adaptive capacity in pronghorn populations occupying montane-valley and prairie environments, enabling them to navigate variable and human-altered environments. These findings underscore the importance of conservation strategies that prioritize landscape connectivity and allow pronghorn populations to maintain plastic migration strategies, accommodating their responses to changing environmental and human pressures.</p>","PeriodicalId":48930,"journal":{"name":"Ecosphere","volume":"16 9","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ecs2.70411","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145146295","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":"Balancing detection probability and survey effort in multistate occupancy models: A camera trap simulation analysis","authors":"Thomas Osinga,&nbsp;Henrik J. de Knegt,&nbsp;Magali Frauendorf,&nbsp;Tim R. Hofmeester","doi":"10.1002/ecs2.70402","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.70402","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Camera trapping has become crucial in wildlife research, enabling detailed observations of elusive and nocturnal species with limited human interference. The use of occupancy modeling to analyze camera trap data is rapidly increasing, aiding in the assessment of species distribution, multispecies dynamics, and the presence of different states of a species (e.g., reproducing or non-reproducing), while considering imperfect detection. Multistate occupancy models, which capture these different states, are particularly effective tools. However, the design of camera trap studies—typically involving large grids with a limited number of cameras and animal observations—often results in sparse data and low detection probabilities, impacting model performance (e.g., convergence) and inference reliability (e.g., accuracy and precision) in basic occupancy models. The effect of these factors on more complex models (e.g., multistate occupancy models) remains largely unexplored. Here, we conducted a series of simulations with varying detection probabilities, numbers of sites, and survey periods for both single- and multistate occupancy models, to evaluate the impact of these factors on model performance and reliability. Our results revealed that multistate models require higher detection probabilities compared to the single-state models. Additionally, minimum needed detection probabilities decreased as the number of surveys increased for all models. Furthermore, the number of sites required was substantially higher for multistate models compared to single-state models. We conclude that when detection probabilities are low, occupancy models encounter difficulties in fitting and produce unreliable results. Strategies such as deploying clustered cameras, targeted camera placement (e.g., at frequent wildlife paths) or using bait to increase detection rates could be used to address these issues but may introduce other biases. The gained model performance from higher detection probabilities might outweigh these biases. Moreover, different data aggregation strategies in combination with increasing the length of the study can increase detection probabilities, addressing reliability issues; however, this is not always feasible due to time constraints (e.g., season-based research questions). This study highlights key thresholds and considerations for improving the use of multistate occupancy models using camera trap data, aiding in the design of more effective wildlife research studies.</p>","PeriodicalId":48930,"journal":{"name":"Ecosphere","volume":"16 9","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ecs2.70402","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145146296","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":"Where the buffalo roam: Ungulate influences on quaking aspen and willow communities in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem","authors":"J. Boone Kauffman,&nbsp;Dian L. Cummings,&nbsp;Robert L. Beschta,&nbsp;William J. Ripple","doi":"10.1002/ecs2.70410","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.70410","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Quaking aspen (<i>Populus tremuloides</i>) and willows (<i>Salix</i> spp.) are keystone species of montane and shrub-steppe landscapes of the Western United States. Intact communities dominated by these species provide a wide range of ecosystem services, harboring an exceptional proportion of landscape biodiversity. Land use, especially overgrazing by large ungulates, is among the greatest threats to these ecosystems. To examine the effects of wild ungulates and levels of grazing at Yellowstone National Park (YNP) and the adjacent Gallatin National Forest, we sampled plant community composition and vegetation structure of aspen and willow communities both inside and outside of exclosures. Within the Park, we found that current grazing pressures from large ungulates, principally American Bison (<i>Bison bison</i>), have a dramatic effect on community composition and structure, resulting in a shift from a structurally diverse forest or tall shrub dominance to that of a grassland. On heavily grazed sites, shrubs common to semiarid uplands are now relatively abundant, as are exotic grass species, in contrast to an abundance of berry-producing shrubs within exclosures. Finally, large herbivores at unnaturally high densities are resulting in the simplification of landscape diversity outside of exclosures through a decline in the patch diversity of the site (i.e., homogenization of the landscape). Increases in exotic species and those adapted to semiarid environments suggest that current levels of bison use at YNP are amplifying the effects of climate change as well as resulting in a loss of biodiversity values. Inside exclosures, the inherent resilience of these keystone ecosystems was demonstrated by the recovery of plant diversity following decades of large ungulate utilization exceeding natural carrying capacity. This suggests that reductions in current grazing pressures within YNP would have positive feedbacks to beneficial ecosystem processes such as increased species and habitat diversity, increased carbon sequestration, and a greater adaptive capacity to climate change.</p>","PeriodicalId":48930,"journal":{"name":"Ecosphere","volume":"16 9","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ecs2.70410","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145146297","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":"Effects of the cyanobacteria Microcystis aeruginosa on eastern oyster feeding","authors":"Julia A. Sweet,&nbsp;Sandra M. Casas,&nbsp;Jerome F. La Peyre,&nbsp;Mark A. Genung,&nbsp;Beth A. Stauffer","doi":"10.1002/ecs2.70408","DOIUrl":"10.1002/ecs2.70408","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The eastern oyster, <i>Crassostrea virginica</i>, is an estuarine consumer of considerable ecological and economic value, with the ability to selectively feed from a mixed phytoplankton community. Estuarine phytoplankton communities are experiencing an increased presence of small, nutritionally poor, salt-tolerant, and potentially toxic cyanobacteria, such as <i>Microcystis aeruginosa</i>. To determine how the presence of the potentially harmful cyanobacteria <i>M. aeruginosa</i> affects oyster feeding, we quantified clearance rates, pseudofeces production, and pseudofeces composition across two feeding experiments conducted with a nontoxic strain. The first experiment consisted of bialgal feeding experiments in which single oysters were fed treatments consisting of (1) only <i>M. aeruginosa</i>, (2) only the diatom <i>Thalassiosira pseudonana</i>, or (3) a 50/50 mix of the two species. To quantify effects of <i>M. aeruginosa</i> on oyster feeding under more environmentally relevant conditions, which include numerous phytoplankton prey options and the presence of inorganic particles, a second feeding experiment was conducted using a natural phytoplankton community collected from a local estuary and oyster habitat. This natural community was then used to create two treatments: (1) an amended treatment in which nontoxic <i>M. aeruginosa</i> was added, and (2) a natural treatment in which only <i>M. aeruginosa</i> growth medium without cells was added. Results from both bialgal experiments (Exp. 1) and natural phytoplankton community experiments (Exp. 2) indicated that ecologically relevant concentrations of nontoxic <i>M. aeruginosa</i> did not significantly affect oyster clearance rates. In bialgal experiments, oysters showed no difference in pseudofeces production or the composition of that pseudofeces relative to the number of <i>M. aeruginosa</i> cells that were captured. However, oysters tested using the compositionally complex background of a natural community with inorganic particles produced significantly more pseudofeces when <i>M. aeruginosa</i> cells were added. These combined results indicate that prey community complexity and water quality metrics can drive the fate of oyster–cyanobacteria interactions in estuarine waters. Future research efforts should focus on implications to oyster fitness that a diet containing the nutrient-poor species <i>M. aeruginosa</i> may have, specifically in relation to other climate- and human-driven stressors.</p>","PeriodicalId":48930,"journal":{"name":"Ecosphere","volume":"16 9","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ecs2.70408","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145111127","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":"Environmental drivers of Greater Sage-grouse population trends over 25 years in Idaho, USA","authors":"Robert S. Arkle,&nbsp;David S. Pilliod,&nbsp;Michelle I. Jeffries,&nbsp;Justin L. Welty,&nbsp;Ann Moser,&nbsp;Ethan Ellsworth,&nbsp;Donald J. Major","doi":"10.1002/ecs2.70331","DOIUrl":"10.1002/ecs2.70331","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Greater Sage-grouse (<i>Centrocercus urophasianus</i>) populations have been in decline for decades across much of the US Intermountain West. However, findings from 25 years of lek counts in Idaho indicate that some populations are stable or even increasing. After accounting for potential biases in past lek count data, we sought to explain the variability in population trends among all 70 lek clusters (i.e., populations) we identified in the state. For each population, we identified lek count troughs, or low-point years, that occurred between the mid-1990s and 2021 and used a regression slope of those abundance low points to quantify each population's trend over the 25-year time span. We related the 70 populations' slopes to climate, fire, topographic, vegetation, and landcover variables. Our analyses revealed that populations with negative trends tend to occur toward the ends of climate gradients (i.e., extremes of occupied habitats) and in locations with more wildfire, agriculture, and riparian landcover. Populations with positive trends generally occur in landscapes toward the middle of the climate gradient, with high amounts of low sagebrush (<i>Artemisia arbuscula</i>) landcover and intermediate amounts of riparian and agricultural landcover. Post hoc analysis indicated that the latter two drivers were strongly associated with high raven occupancy rates, which may contribute to the negative sage-grouse population trends we observed in areas with high riparian or agricultural landcover. When modeled separately for different regions however, various region-specific drivers were identified, including tree cover, annual herbaceous cover, and human development. This information can help guide sage-grouse habitat management decisions and set expectations for population recovery, given the diversity of habitats occupied by the species and the cyclic nature of sage-grouse populations.</p>","PeriodicalId":48930,"journal":{"name":"Ecosphere","volume":"16 9","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ecs2.70331","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145101540","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":"Tripled plant productivity and soil microbiome restructuring in a greenhouse volcanic ash fertilization experiment","authors":"Hubert Staudigel,&nbsp;Mathilde Borg Dahl,&nbsp;Yohannes B. Tesfay,&nbsp;Ilka Beil,&nbsp;Tim Urich,&nbsp;Juergen Kreyling","doi":"10.1002/ecs2.70406","DOIUrl":"10.1002/ecs2.70406","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Volcanic ash is widely held responsible for fertilizing soils, but the processes and conditions leading to volcanic soil fertility remain poorly understood. We report here the results of a greenhouse volcanic ash fertilization (VAF) experiment aimed to explore the impact of basaltic ash addition (0–10 wt%) to soil on plant growth, nutrient uptake, and the soil microbiome. Our four-month experiment with the Coleus species <i>Plectranthus scutellarioides</i> on forest soil revealed a non-linear growth response with distinct growth patterns below and above 3 wt% ash addition, respectively. Low ash VAF (&lt;3 wt% ash) had a negligible growth impact, while high ash addition yielded a threefold increase in biomass production, reproductive effort, and total nutrient uptake in aboveground plant biomass. An increased uptake of nutrients that are not part of the ash itself (e.g., nitrogen) implies that VAF was not a direct nutrient addition process but rather acts indirectly. The soil microbiome composition (16S rRNA; Bacteria/Archaea, and 18S rRNA; Eukaryota, rRNA gene markers) also changed at &gt;3 wt% ash concentrations, with no apparent further change with increasing ash content. Key changes were not only an increased relative abundance of several potentially plant-growth-promoting rhizobacteria and fungi but also a decreased nematode abundance, suggesting that changes in the microbiome are likely a major factor for the substantial VAF effect observed in our experiment. We conclude that VAF with basaltic ash offers substantial potential benefits for agriculture as well as post-eruptive plant productivity on soils possibly associated with significant CO₂ sequestration from the atmosphere. However, VAF is a complex process that does not act by simple nutrient addition from its chemical inventory but rather acts by restructuring the soil growth environment.</p>","PeriodicalId":48930,"journal":{"name":"Ecosphere","volume":"16 9","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ecs2.70406","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145101067","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":"Above- and belowground microenvironmental attributes cluster to varying degrees around Wyoming big sagebrush canopies","authors":"Sofia Koutzoukis,&nbsp;Thomas A. Monaco,&nbsp;Kari E. Veblen","doi":"10.1002/ecs2.70396","DOIUrl":"10.1002/ecs2.70396","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Microsites beneath shrub canopies in dryland landscapes characterized by a mosaic of bare ground and patchy vegetation are often considered critical for the establishment of understory species. “Shrub islands” can create more favorable environmental conditions for both early plant establishment and longer term persistence near the shrub canopy relative to the interspace area between shrubs. However, the degree to which favorable conditions cluster around canopies and whether specific environmental attributes remain beneficial at intermediate distances between the canopy maximum and interspace microsites is understudied. If environmental attributes do not strongly cluster around shrub canopies, the interspace region beyond canopies may provide at least partially favorable conditions for establishment or persistence of understory plants. We hypothesized that favorable aboveground environmental attributes would more tightly cluster around sagebrush canopies than would favorable belowground attributes. At four sites across the Intermountain West, USA we sampled aboveground (i.e., solar radiation and vapor pressure deficit) and belowground (i.e., soil organic matter, moisture content, potassium, phosphorus) attributes at four microsites associated with big sagebrush (<i>Artemisia tridentata</i> Nutt.): canopy edge, maximum interspace distance between neighboring sagebrush canopy edges, and two intermediate distances between these extremes (25% and 50% of the intervening distance). Despite high site-to-site variation of all attributes, solar radiation (aboveground attribute) and soil potassium (belowground attribute) levels generally changed abruptly between the canopy and nearest (25%) interspace microsite, indicative of clustering around the canopy. Interspace levels for the belowground soil attributes, organic matter and soil moisture, as well as the above-ground attribute vapor pressure deficit, tended to change more gradually with distance from canopy, whereas phosphorus did not differ significantly across microsites. Overall, our results reveal that some elements of the favorable shrub canopy microenvironment are concentrated near the canopy, whereas levels of other attributes attenuate more gradually with distance from canopy. Together these results suggest that moving beyond a “canopy versus interspace” dichotomy and independently considering the spatial distributions of different attributes could improve our understanding of shrub island dynamics.</p>","PeriodicalId":48930,"journal":{"name":"Ecosphere","volume":"16 9","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ecs2.70396","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145101058","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":"Synergies and trade-offs between ecosystem services and economics in dryland cover crop systems","authors":"Lisa Eash,&nbsp;Kathleen Russell,&nbsp;Abdel F. Berrada,&nbsp;Meagan E. Schipanski,&nbsp;Pankaj Trivedi,&nbsp;Daniel Mooney,&nbsp;Jenny Beiermann,&nbsp;Joe Brummer,&nbsp;Steven J. Fonte","doi":"10.1002/ecs2.70397","DOIUrl":"10.1002/ecs2.70397","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Replacing bare fallow periods with cover crops in dryland agroecosystems can help reverse soil degradation and control erosion but may also result in cash crop yield penalties due to water limitations. Two field trials were conducted on the Colorado Plateau to quantify the impact of cover cropping on crop production, multiple ecosystem services, and economic trade-offs in this semiarid region. No-till and different cover crop planting windows (fall and spring) were explored as strategies to optimize ecosystem service provision and productivity trade-offs. After three full cover crop cycles (6 years), fall-planted cover crops improved soil structure and erosion control, offering critical soil health benefits for dryland producers. However, these benefits were associated with a decrease in available soil moisture at planting, causing lower and more variable wheat yields (average 48% yield penalty) and a US$176 ha⁻¹ cycle⁻¹ average decrease in net returns. Including the hypothetical sale of forage (based on 50% cover crop biomass removal) more than offset these costs in fall-planted treatments; with both forage and wheat revenue, cover cropping increased net returns as compared to the fallow control by US$92 ha⁻¹ cycle⁻¹. Spring-planted cover crops presented a lower productivity trade-off (24% average wheat yield penalty) but did not provide clear ecosystem service benefits and did not produce enough biomass to offset costs of cover cropping. Our findings indicate that fall-planted cover crops have the potential to reverse soil degradation and control erosion in dryland systems globally, but productivity trade-offs and decreased economic returns must be compensated for by alternative revenue sources, conservation payments, or other incentives to ensure their feasibility.</p>","PeriodicalId":48930,"journal":{"name":"Ecosphere","volume":"16 9","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ecs2.70397","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145062629","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":"Early fawn-rearing habitat of mule deer in an agricultural landscape","authors":"R. A. Hellesto,&nbsp;L. A. Shipley,&nbsp;K. Huggler,&nbsp;M. DeVivo,&nbsp;P. E. Bennett","doi":"10.1002/ecs2.70403","DOIUrl":"10.1002/ecs2.70403","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Survival from birth to recruitment into the adult population can greatly influence population dynamics of wild ungulates like mule deer. Fawn survival can respond to the quality of both food and cover, which can be modified by land-use practices, including agriculture and restoration of agricultural fields through the federal Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). We examined habitat features that influenced (1) fawn-rearing habitat by maternal females (e.g., 3 days before to 3 weeks after parturition), and (2) bed-site selection by mule deer fawns within a nearly 6000-km² agricultural landscape dominated by winter wheat in southeastern Washington, USA. We estimated the parturition date of 57 maternal females from fawn searches and a machine-learning parturition model. We used the females' GPS location during early fawn rearing to create a Resource Selection Function, and land cover measurements of bed sites for 47 fawns between 0 and 12 days old. Within their summer home ranges, maternal females selected shrubs and trees, vegetation types that provided more vertical structure, followed by grassland, with agricultural land cover, especially fallow, as the lowest ranked land cover type. Intact (i.e., never plowed) shrubland and grassland were higher ranked than were shrublands and grasslands restored through CRP. Likewise, fawns selected bed sites with greater overhead canopy cover and horizontal cover, especially when provided by woody shrubs and trees. Although 27% of bed sites were in growing wheat, agriculture was the lowest ranked land cover type in terms of selection. Our research suggests that populations of mule deer in landscapes dominated by cereal grain agriculture would benefit by (1) increasing the prevalence of quality shrubs and trees where possible to improve cover for neonates, and (2) supporting cropland restoration programs like CRP.</p>","PeriodicalId":48930,"journal":{"name":"Ecosphere","volume":"16 9","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ecs2.70403","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145062631","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":"Increasing fruiting synchrony at the community level in an Afromontane tropical forest","authors":"Phillip J. Dugger,&nbsp;Norbert J. Cordeiro,&nbsp;Felix Mulindahabi,&nbsp;Mediatrice Bana,&nbsp;Beth A. Kaplin","doi":"10.1002/ecs2.70409","DOIUrl":"10.1002/ecs2.70409","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Changes in community-level patterns of fruit production can affect resource availability for frugivores, causing cascading effects in forest ecosystems. However, few studies have assessed changes in community patterns of fruit production on timescales sufficient to capture variation in tropical forests. As different tree species respond idiosyncratically to changes in environmental cues, synchronicity or complementarity (overlap or non-overlap) in fruit production among species may shift, with important consequences for the reliability of fruit resources. Such community-level changes may be context-specific; for example, different successional guilds of trees (e.g., pioneers, non-pioneer light demanders, and shade-tolerant species) are adapted to different environmental conditions and likely have unique responses to environmental cues. We examine a 24-year dataset of fruit production in Nyungwe National Park, Rwanda, a tropical montane forest, to assess changes in complementarity and synchrony of fruit production and differences in phenological patterns among three successional guilds of trees: pioneers, non-pioneer light demanders (NPLD), and shade-tolerant (ST). We used generalized additive models to assess nonlinear temporal trends and elevational influences and Bayesian model selection to assess climate predictors of the observed phenological patterns. Pioneer species fruited more synchronously and with more variation than late-successional NPLD and ST species. All guilds increased in synchrony from 2015 to 2019 and higher synchrony coincided with greater fruit production, suggesting that species respond to similar environmental cues for higher fruit production. Synchrony increased with elevation for NPLD, while for pioneers, synchrony was highest at the mid-to-high elevations. Irradiance was positively related to complementarity and inversely related to fruit production. These findings show that differences between functional groups and species in fruiting synchrony or complementarity may decrease when species respond similarly to environmental cues, such as changing irradiance levels. Such changes in community patterns of fruit production could have consequences for frugivore resource availability, plant species coexistence, and long-term community stability and biodiversity.</p>","PeriodicalId":48930,"journal":{"name":"Ecosphere","volume":"16 9","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ecs2.70409","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145062630","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}