Ecological Complexity最新文献

{"title":"Climate change and the shifting dynamics of marine ecology","authors":"Abhijit Jana ,&nbsp;Aparna Das ,&nbsp;Sankar Kumar Roy","doi":"10.1016/j.ecocom.2025.101137","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ecocom.2025.101137","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study presents a four-dimensional mathematical model with time-varying parameters to analyse the diverse effects of global warming on marine ecology over the next 100 years. Key environmental factors, including rising sea surface temperature and decreasing dissolved oxygen concentrations, are evaluated in relation to their influence on plankton species. The model’s predictions are validated through a case study, comparing results with prior research. Findings indicate that rising temperatures accelerate the dilution of dissolved oxygen, significantly affecting plankton densities, with zooplankton being more susceptible to temperature changes than phytoplankton. This reduction in zooplankton and oxygen levels is anticipated to impact overall ocean productivity. The study also proposes a threshold for annual temperature increments aligned with global environmental targets. Additionally, a second model incorporating a time delay examines the period required for phytoplankton-released toxins to impact zooplankton populations. Results suggest that the time delay has minimal long-term effect on marine ecology within the study time frame. Overall, this research provides insights into the impact of atmospheric changes due to global warming on oceanic ecosystems.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":50559,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Complexity","volume":"63 ","pages":"Article 101137"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144749506","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"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":"Edge effect evaluation on natural regeneration in fragment of Atlantic Forest, south of Minas Gerais, Brazil","authors":"Ingled Borges Toledo ,&nbsp;Farley Soares Braz ,&nbsp;Pedro Henrique Abreu Moura ,&nbsp;Vanessa da Fontoura Custódio Monteiro ,&nbsp;Valter Henrique Marinho dos Santos","doi":"10.1016/j.ecocom.2025.101135","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ecocom.2025.101135","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The Atlantic Forest, one of the most biodiverse yet threatened biomes worldwide, has undergone extensive fragmentation, resulting in pronounced edge effects. This study investigates how edge effects influence species diversity and natural regeneration structure in an Atlantic Forest fragment in southern Minas Gerais. We established eighteen 5 × 5 m plots along two transects to analyze phytosociological patterns and calculated the Shannon-Wiener diversity and Pielou evenness indices for regenerating individuals (DBH &lt; 5 cm, height 1–3 m). Results show that edge effects significantly influence species composition and regeneration dynamics, revealing distinct patterns between transects. Transect 2 exhibited greater species stability, suggesting better conservation conditions. These findings highlight the need for targeted conservation strategies to mitigate edge-related disturbances and enhance forest regeneration in fragmented landscapes.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":50559,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Complexity","volume":"63 ","pages":"Article 101135"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-07-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144704172","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"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":"Advances in Rhea pennata: A global bibliometric perspective and emerging trends","authors":"Jesús Miranda-Mamani ,&nbsp;Alfredo Loza-Del Carpio ,&nbsp;Humberto Peñaranda-Barra ,&nbsp;Ingrid Maldonado","doi":"10.1016/j.ecocom.2025.101136","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ecocom.2025.101136","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div><em>Rhea pennata</em> populations play a vital ecological role in the Andean highland ecosystems. This study aims to critically assess the evolution, scope, and focus of global scientific research on <em>Rhea pennata</em>, in order to identify trends, gaps, and opportunities that can guide future conservation and ecological studies on the species. For this purpose, we realize a bibliometric analysis of 73 articles published from 1974 to 2024. For this purpose, the bibliometric tools Biblioshiny in R and the VOSviewer were utilized. Results reveal an urgent need to expand scientific research on this species, given its projected 50-year extinction risk in Peru. Furthermore, a low publication rate and several emerging research areas with potential for future investigation were identified. Key authors, significant keywords, influential sources, and high-impact publications in this field were also highlighted. Argentina stands out, particularly through the Applied Zoology Centre of the University of Córdoba, for its major scientific contributions and international collaborations. Although there are reports of captive breeding of the <em>Rhea pennata</em>, no successful reintroduction cases in the wild have been documented. In contrast, population increases have been observed in protected natural areas without direct human intervention and in semi-captive conditions, suggesting a shift in conservation strategies for the <em>Rhea pennata</em> compared to current approaches.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":50559,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Complexity","volume":"63 ","pages":"Article 101136"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-07-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144685803","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"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":"Tri-trophic networks of oak gall-inducing-insects and their parasitoids in Mexican avocado agrosystems: Forest coverage and local climatic variables importance","authors":"Icauri Sofía Prieto-Dueñas ,&nbsp;Pablo Cuevas-Reyes ,&nbsp;Marcela Sofía Vaca-Sánchez ,&nbsp;Ken Oyama ,&nbsp;Walter Santos de Araújo ,&nbsp;Magno Augusto Zazá Borges ,&nbsp;Marcílio Fagundes ,&nbsp;G․Wilson Fernandes ,&nbsp;Yurixhi Maldonado-López","doi":"10.1016/j.ecocom.2025.101133","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ecocom.2025.101133","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Despite trees of temperate forest ecosystems (TFEs) maintain a great diversity of biotic interactions, they are threatened by changes in land use. In Mexico, the main threat to TFEs is the conversion to avocado orchards, generating forest fragmentation affecting trophic networks, like gall-inducing insects (GII) and their parasitoids. We determined the changes in structure and diversity of trophic assemblages of GII and their parasitoids associated in <em>Quercus castanea, Q. obtusata</em> and <em>Q. magnolifolia</em>, as well as the plant vigor roll on GII diversity in sites with different percentages of forest and avocado orchards in Mexico. Per study site, we selected 20 trees with gall presence for each oak species. Also, we assessed climatic variables effects on plant vigor and GII diversity. We found that plant vigor traits and GII diversity for all oak species increases as avocado orchard does. Contrary, a decrease of parasitoid diversity was detected for areas with greater avocado orchard cover. GII diversity had a positive relationship with temperature, but negatively with precipitation in all study sites. Tri-trophic networks differed among sites, having lower connectance and greater modularity in sites with higher avocado orchard cover, while in sites with higher forest cover was the most connected and diverse. Our results suggest that TFEs conversion to avocado orchards increases plant vigor and GII diversity, but decreases parasitoid diversity and modifications in trophic networks. Therefore, we highlight the need to conserve and manage forest remnants in the avocado belt because they preserve and maintain a great diversity of biotic interactions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":50559,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Complexity","volume":"63 ","pages":"Article 101133"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-06-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144322815","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"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":"Network analysis reveals humans as top predators and the key role of cuttlefish in the food web structure of a marine protected area (Arrábida Natural Park)","authors":"Catarina Vinagre ,&nbsp;Luís Almeida ,&nbsp;Pilar Ronquillo ,&nbsp;Vanessa Mendonça ,&nbsp;Duarte Frade ,&nbsp;Emanuel J. Gonçalves ,&nbsp;Karim Erzini ,&nbsp;Ester A. Serrão","doi":"10.1016/j.ecocom.2025.101134","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ecocom.2025.101134","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The marine protected area (MPA) of the Arrábida Natural Park is a mid-latitude hotspot for biodiversity. To understand its trophic structure, a highly defined food web network was assembled for this ecosystem, consisting of 884 taxa. Network analysis showed that humans are the top predators, as well as various seabirds, dolphins and sharks. This web is dominated by intermediate species, and its general organization follows previously reported patterns for other marine and coastal ecosystems. Two swimming crabs, <em>Polybius navigator</em> and <em>Polybius henslowii</em>, assume important roles as mid-trophic level consumers and prey, due to their high connectivity in the network. The cuttlefish, <em>Sepia officinalis</em>, a cephalopod of high commercial value, assumes the most pivotal role in the network, as it is the species with the highest number of prey and is among the top 10 most highly connected species (with more links to other species). Additionally, the cuttlefish is among the species with shortest path length, that is the lowest number of links connecting it to any other species. Since, this cephalopod is highly mobile and extends its territory outside the MPA, into the Sado estuary, where it is the main target of local fisheries, and is exposed to various pollution sources, close monitoring the local population of cuttlefish is of the utmost importance, not only in the Arrábida MPA but also in the adjacent Sado estuary.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":50559,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Complexity","volume":"63 ","pages":"Article 101134"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-06-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144241312","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"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":"Systems coupling and cross-diffusion drives complex nested pattern self-organization in predator-prey systems","authors":"Tousheng Huang,&nbsp;Yifan Yang,&nbsp;Zhenyu Ren,&nbsp;Ruyin Li,&nbsp;Zequn Lin,&nbsp;Wang Tian","doi":"10.1016/j.ecocom.2025.101125","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ecocom.2025.101125","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The pattern self-organization of spatially extended predator-prey systems has been under intensive investigations in recent decades, but the spatiotemporal dynamics in the case of systems coupling is still lack of understanding. In this research, we focus on the pattern self-organization when two reaction-diffusion predator-prey systems are coupled together via population vertical migration. The dispersion relation and Turing instability conditions are derived, and we find the emergence of nested patterns when the dispersion relation shows two peaks. Moreover, the positive cross-diffusion enlarges parametric region for the nested patterns and enhances the pattern complexity. Numerical simulations reveal rich types of new patterns, such as white-eye pattern, nested spot pattern, and nested stripe-spot pattern. The obtained results may provide a theoretical basis for explaining the nested structures and complex patchiness phenomena occurring in aquatic ecosystems.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":50559,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Complexity","volume":"62 ","pages":"Article 101125"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-05-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143929544","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"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":"Accelerating ecosystem monitoring through computer vision with deep metric learning","authors":"Yurika Oba,&nbsp;Hideyuki Doi","doi":"10.1016/j.ecocom.2025.101124","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ecocom.2025.101124","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Significant progress has been made in the application of deep learning models to ecosystem monitoring. Deep learning has opened up new opportunities in the interpretation of ecological data, such as detecting and identifying objects in images and acoustic monitoring analysis. However, these have created new challenges, such as the need to further improve the efficiency of data processing due to the increasing volume of data, the need for more advanced feature extraction methods due to the complexity of data characteristics, and limitations of available annotated data. In this study, we focused on deep metric learning as a new application for environmental observation data to overcome these challenges. The extraction of features such as patterns and changes from large and complex environmental observation data using a deep metric learning approach may provide new opportunities for monitoring ecosystems experiencing unprecedented loads from climate change and human activities. While these methods demonstrate the potential of deep metric learning for flora and fauna and various datasets, they also suggest challenges to overcome, such as the need for more valid training datasets, diverse data collection, training time proportional to the data volume, and the identification of unknown classes. We expect that deep metric learning will be a powerful tool for various ecosystem monitoring systems, from remote sensing of wide-area data to ecological data obtained through field surveys.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":50559,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Complexity","volume":"62 ","pages":"Article 101124"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-05-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143929545","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"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":"What do functional diversity, redundancy, rarity, and originality actually measure? A theoretical guide for ecologists and conservationists","authors":"Carlo Ricotta ,&nbsp;Sandrine Pavoine","doi":"10.1016/j.ecocom.2025.101116","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ecocom.2025.101116","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Functional diversity, redundancy, rarity, and originality (or distinctiveness) are fundamental concepts in ecology and conservation biology. Despite their frequent use, the precise meaning and relationships between these measures are often unclear. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive theoretical framework to elucidate what each of these measures captures and how they interrelate. By integrating traditional community-level diversity metrics with species-level specificity measures derived from fuzzy set theory, we bridge the gap between these concepts. Our framework reveals that while all four measures address distinct aspects of community-level and species-level functional resemblance, they can all be traced back to a common conceptual and formal background. This guide is intended to help ecologists and conservationists understand the meaning of these measures and apply them more effectively in their research and conservation strategies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":50559,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Complexity","volume":"61 ","pages":"Article 101116"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143529703","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":"Deterministic and stochastic plankton dynamics: Effects of contamination, refuge, and additional food sources","authors":"Bapin Mondal ,&nbsp;Sayan Mandal ,&nbsp;Pankaj Kumar Tiwari ,&nbsp;Hao Wang ,&nbsp;Pablo Venegas Garcia","doi":"10.1016/j.ecocom.2025.101117","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ecocom.2025.101117","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Studying plankton systems encompasses different interests, including understanding ecological cycles and developing sustainable strategies in aquaculture research regarding food security. Zooplankton farming is economically valuable, and its production may depend primarily on the availability of phytoplankton and other external food sources. However, diverse factors may affect overall phytoplankton–zooplankton interactions. For example, phytoplankton’s defense mechanisms, such as finding refuge and releasing toxins or low phytoplankton’s sustainable environments, can decrease zooplankton populations. Another critical factor is the adverse effects of pollution on plankton systems, which are more frequently present in water bodies. Still, zooplankton may survive harsh conditions if present pollutants are in low concentrations and external sources, including animal waste, are available. The partial understanding of these trophic interactions depends on initial assumptions, and using stochastic approaches may reduce the gap between deterministic mathematical outcomes and reality. In this work, we have mathematically described a planktonic system under the above assumptions using a deterministic model as well as its stochastic version. Our findings suggest that zooplankton growth is possible under polluted environments by providing them with external food sources, complementing phytoplankton availability. However, in these circumstances, random external environmental factors may cause the phytoplankton population to collapse. Through stochastic numerical experiments, we estimate which possible scenarios are more likely to induce phytoplankton extinction in these plankton systems.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":50559,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Complexity","volume":"61 ","pages":"Article 101117"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-02-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143453809","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":"Ecological and environmental factors influencing exclusion patterns of phytoplankton size classes in lake systems","authors":"Sze-Wing To ,&nbsp;Esteban Acevedo-Trejos ,&nbsp;Sherwood Lan Smith ,&nbsp;Subhendu Chakraborty ,&nbsp;Agostino Merico","doi":"10.1016/j.ecocom.2024.101115","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ecocom.2024.101115","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>For decades, ecologists have been intrigued by the paradoxical coexistence of a wide range of phytoplankton types on a seemingly limited number of resources. The interactions between environmental conditions and trade-offs emerging from eco-physiological traits of phytoplankton are typically proposed to explain coexistence. The number of coexisting types over ecological time scales reflects what we call here ‘exclusion patterns’, that is, the temporal removal of certain phytoplankton types due to competition. Despite many observational and mathematical modelling efforts over the last two decades, we still know surprisingly little, in quantitative terms, about how the interplay of nutrient regimes and specific zooplankton grazing strategies affects the exclusion patterns of competing phytoplankton types. Phytoplankton types can be distinguished according to many different traits. Among various morphological traits, phytoplankton cell size is considered one of the most meaningful in explaining crucial eco-physiological processes, including nutrient uptake and zooplankton grazing. Here we use a size-based plankton model to investigate exclusion patterns of phytoplankton size classes over ecological time scales and under varying environmental conditions. We performed numerical experiments under different allometric scaling relationships, different combinations of specialist and generalist grazing strategies, different inorganic nutrient regimes, and different mixing frequencies. We quantified exclusion patterns by using two metrics: (1) coexistence, defined here as the average number of size classes present over the first 30 days of the simulations, and (2) exclusion time scale, defined here as the time required to outcompete 80 % of the size classes present in the system at the beginning of the simulations. Under low nutrient regimes, we found that the impact of grazing on the exclusion patterns of phytoplankton was almost negligible. Under high nutrient regimes, different exclusion patterns emerged depending on the grazing strategy. When the community of zooplankton was dominated by generalist grazers, we found higher coexistence and longer exclusion time scales of phytoplankton size classes than when the community of zooplankton was dominated by specialist grazers. We further found that the combined effects of grazing strategies and allometric relationships on the size structure of the phytoplankton community were significant and non-trivial. We thus argue that plankton models disregarding these processes may miss relevant drivers of phytoplankton community assembly and trait diversity.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":50559,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Complexity","volume":"61 ","pages":"Article 101115"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143132591","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}