Ecography最新文献

{"title":"Dynamic riskscapes for prey: disentangling the impact of human and cougar presence on deer behavior using GPS smartphone locations","authors":"Heather N. Abernathy, Mark A. Ditmer, David C. Stoner, Kent R. Hersey, Kathryn A. Schoenecker, Pat J. Jackson, Kristin N. Engebretsen, Julie K. Young, George Wittemyer","doi":"10.1002/ecog.07626","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ecog.07626","url":null,"abstract":"Prey species adjust their behavior along human-use gradients by balancing risks from predators and humans. During hunting seasons, prey often exhibit strong antipredator responses to humans but may develop tolerance in suburban areas to exploit human-mediated resources. Additionally, areas with high human activity may offer reduced predation risk if apex predators avoid such locations. This study examined mule deer <i>Odocoileus hemionus</i> behavioral responses to risks from humans and their primary predators, cougars <i>Puma concolor</i>, contextualized by differences in risk levels between study sites, individual risk exposure, and human habituation. We framed our investigation using three non-mutually exclusive hypotheses: (H1) neutral impact, (H2) human shielding (human tolerance driven by cougar avoidance), and (H3) super-additive risk (human avoidance dominating behavior). We controlled for deer phenology and diel period, recognizing that deer behavior varies with these temporal dynamics. Spatiotemporal cougar encounter risk was quantified using GPS collar data, while spatiotemporal human encounter risk and use intensity were quantified using GPS smartphone data. Our results supported H2 and H3, emphasizing the significance of site- and individual-level variation in risk exposure and human use intensity. Deer managed cougar risk adaptively, but humans emerged as the dominant perceived risk, varying by study site. At the site with higher cougar density and lower human hunting pressure, deer exhibited antipredator responses to humans based on individual exposure to human activity, except during hunting season, when tolerance for cougars increased. Conversely, humans were the dominant risk at the site with lower cougar density and greater human hunting pressure. Deer behavior varied significantly across a gradient of human use, influenced by nuanced human presence and predation risks, which were discernible using human smartphone data.","PeriodicalId":51026,"journal":{"name":"Ecography","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143905437","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Moving towards better risk assessment for invertebrate conservation","authors":"Robert M. Goodsell, Ayco J. M. Tack, Fredrik Ronquist, Laura J. A. van Dijk, Elzbieta Iwaszkiewicz-Eggebrecht, Andreia Miraldo, Tomas Roslin, Jarno Vanhatalo","doi":"10.1002/ecog.07819","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ecog.07819","url":null,"abstract":"Global change threatens a vast number of species with severe population declines or even extinction. The threat status of an organism is often designated based on geographic range, population size, or declines in either. However, invertebrates, which comprise the bulk of animal diversity, are conspicuously absent from global frameworks that assess extinction risk. Many invertebrates are hard to study, and it has been questioned whether current risk assessments are appropriate for the majority of these organisms. As the majority of invertebrates are rare, we contend that the lack of data for these organisms makes current criteria hard to apply. Using empirical evidence from one of the largest terrestrial arthropod surveys to date, consisting of over 33 000 species collected from over a million hours of survey effort, we demonstrate that estimates of trends based on low sample sizes are associated with major uncertainty and a risk of misclassification under criteria defined by the IUCN. We argue that even the most ambitious monitoring efforts are unlikely to produce enough observations to reliably estimate population sizes and ranges for more than a fraction of species, and there is likely to be substantial uncertainty in assessing risk for the majority of global biodiversity using species-level trends. In response, we discuss the need to focus on metrics we can currently measure when conducting risk assessments for these organisms. We highlight modern statistical methods that allow quantification of metrics that could incorporate observations of rare invertebrates into global conservation frameworks, and suggest how current criteria might be adapted to meet the needs of the majority of global biodiversity.","PeriodicalId":51026,"journal":{"name":"Ecography","volume":"46 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143905694","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Predicting global intraspecific trait variation of grasses","authors":"Robert J. Griffin‐Nolan, Maria S. Vorontsova, Brody Sandel","doi":"10.1002/ecog.07627","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ecog.07627","url":null,"abstract":"Plant traits are important for understanding community assembly and ecosystem processes, yet our understanding of intraspecific trait variation (ITV) is limited. This gap in our knowledge is partially because collecting trait data across a species' entire range is impractical, let alone across the ranges of multiple species within a plant family. Using machine learning techniques to predict spatial ITV is an attractive and cost‐effective alternative to sampling across a species range, although this has not been applied beyond regional scales. We compiled a trait database of over 1000 grass species (family: Poaceae), encompassing six key functional traits: specific leaf area (SLA), leaf dry matter content (LDMC), plant height, leaf area, leaf nitrogen (Nmass) and leaf phosphorus content (Pmass). Using a random forest machine learning approach, we predicted local trait values within species' ranges considering climate, soil type, phylogeny, lifespan, and photosynthetic pathway as influential factors. An iterative random forest modeling technique incorporated correlations between traits, resulting in improved model performance (observed versus predicted R range of 0.72–0.91). Our models also highlight the importance of climate in predicting trait variation. For a subset of species (n = 860), we projected trait predictions across their known distribution, informed by expert maps from Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, to create global maps of ITV for grasses. Such maps have the potential to inform conservation efforts and predictions of grazing and fire dynamics in grasslands worldwide. Overall, our research demonstrates the value and ecological applications of predicting plant traits.","PeriodicalId":51026,"journal":{"name":"Ecography","volume":"7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143880501","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Habitat heterogeneity overrides local processes to drive the species–area relationship of benthic macroinvertebrates in shallow floodplain lakes","authors":"You Zhang, Yongjiu Cai, Jinlei Yu, Mingjie Li, Juhua Luo, Jonathan M. Chase, Zhijun Gong, Kuanyi Li, Hu He","doi":"10.1002/ecog.07603","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ecog.07603","url":null,"abstract":"The species–area relationship (SAR) on islands describes how the numbers of species increase with increasing island size (or island‐like habitat, such as lakes). Despite its conceptual importance, there is considerable uncertainty surrounding its shape in freshwater lakes, as well as the potential mechanisms that underlie the SAR. Here, we used standardized sampling data of benthic macroinvertebrates from 81 shallow lakes in the Yangtze–Huai floodplain of China to evaluate its shape and disentangle several mechanisms (e.g. passive sampling, colonization‐extinction dynamics and heterogeneity) underlying the SAR. At the whole‐lake level, we found an increase in the total species richness with increasing lake area, as well as an increase in rarefied richness controlling for sampling effort. However, within single samples, diversity was negatively related to lake area. This scale‐dependence is because within‐lake β‐diversity increased with lake area, suggesting that heterogeneity overrides local processes to generate the positive SAR. These patterns were only evident for measures of diversity that equally weigh common and rare species (i.e. species richness), and disappeared when diversity measures that weigh common species more heavily were used. This suggests that the influence of heterogeneity on the SAR was largely via its influence on rarer species and their turnover in larger lakes. Overall, our result that heterogeneity was the primary driver of the positive SAR in this system provides an important baseline for making predictions about biodiversity changes with ongoing habitat loss.","PeriodicalId":51026,"journal":{"name":"Ecography","volume":"31 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143880502","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"How many trees are there in the North American boreal forest?","authors":"Kun Xu, Jingye Li, Jian Zhang, Dingliang Xing, Fangliang He","doi":"10.1002/ecog.07677","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ecog.07677","url":null,"abstract":"Boreal forests, the largest terrestrial biome on Earth, are highly varied in local tree density. Despite previous attempts to estimate tree density in boreal forests, the accuracy of the estimation is unknown, leaving the question how many trees there are in boreal forests largely unanswered. Here, we compiled tree density data from 4367 plots in North American boreal forest and developed tree height‐based generalized linear and machine learning models to address this question. We further produced the current boreal tree density map of North America, and projected tree density distribution in 2050 under the shared socioeconomic pathways (SSP) 126, 245 and 585 climate change scenarios. Our best‐performed and cross‐validated random forest model estimated a total of 277.2 (± 137.7 SD) billion trees in the North American boreal forest, 31.3% higher than the previously estimated 211.2 billion. Our projected tree density distributions in 2050 showed at least 11% increase in tree density in the region. This study improves our knowledge about boreal tree density and contributes to understanding the role of boreal forests in regulating forest ecosystem functions and informing adaptation and mitigation policy‐making. The projected warming‐induced increase in tree density suggests the potential of the North American boreal forest for carbon sequestration.","PeriodicalId":51026,"journal":{"name":"Ecography","volume":"24 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143880469","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Global phylogenetic and functional structure of rodent assemblages","authors":"Yoan Fourcade, Bader H. Alhajeri","doi":"10.1002/ecog.07534","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ecog.07534","url":null,"abstract":"Exploring the global patterns of phylogenetic and functional structure of assemblages is key to describe the distribution of biodiversity on Earth and to predict how communities and ecosystem functioning may be affected by anthropogenic pressures. Rodent communities have been studied in this regard in the past, but previous work largely focused on desert ecosystems. Here, we leveraged a large database of rodent range maps, functional traits, and phylogenetic trees to compute several metrics of functional and phylogenetic structure across &gt; 10 000 rodent assemblages spanning all terrestrial biomes. We found that the vast majority of assemblages did not significantly differ from random association among species. Importantly, we show that the current patterns we observed can locally differ from past community structure, revealing the role humans have played in altering large‐scale biodiversity patterns. We also showed a strong scale‐dependence of our metrics and revealed a weak correlation between phylogenetic and functional structure, providing an additional line of evidence that they do not reflect the same processes of community assembly.","PeriodicalId":51026,"journal":{"name":"Ecography","volume":"219 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143880329","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Horizon scanning of potential invasive alien plant species and their distribution in Norway under a changing climate","authors":"Katy Ivison, Christine Howard, Lisa Baldini, Franz Essl, Petr Pyšek, Wayne Dawson, James D. M. Speed","doi":"10.1002/ecog.07604","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ecog.07604","url":null,"abstract":"Invasive alien plant species can cause considerable ecological, economic, and social impacts, and the number of impactful species will likely increase with globalisation and anthropogenic climate change. Preventing potentially invasive alien plant species from becoming introduced is the most cost-effective way to protect Norway's ecosystems from future invasions. We developed and applied a new method for horizon scanning to identify high-risk potentially invasive alien plant species that are not yet present in Norway but could be introduced and become naturalised and invasive in the future. Starting with 16 866 species known to be naturalised somewhere globally, we employed a simple and novel method for assessing the climate match of each species' known distribution to Norway's climate, then used economic and environmental impact data to narrow them down further. Of the species identified, we implemented species distribution models to predict the potential distribution of these high-risk species in Norway under both current and projected future (2060–2080) climate scenarios. A total of 265 plant species were identified as posing a high invasion risk to Norway. Under the current climate, their distributions were mostly limited to the southeast and coastal regions of Norway. However, under future climate change scenarios, the species' potential distribution increased significantly, with their ranges expanding northwards and further inland. Several invasion hotspots containing large numbers of species were identified close to urban areas such as Oslo, which is of particular concern as urban areas are amongst the most highly invaded environments globally. We strongly recommend that the import into Norway of species identified in this study be closely monitored and/or restricted to reduce the risk of invasions and to safeguard Norway's native biodiversity. We have also presented a novel and widely applicable method of horizon scanning with a particular focus on climate matching between species and the area of interest for both current and future climate scenarios.","PeriodicalId":51026,"journal":{"name":"Ecography","volume":"31 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143857790","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Resource quantity and heterogeneity drive successional plant diversity in managed and unmanaged boreal forests","authors":"Vincent Buness, Maja K. Sundqvist, Syed Tuhin Ali, Peter Annighöfer, Carlos Miguel Aragon, Isabelle Lanzrein, Daniel B. Metcalfe, Marie-Charlotte Nilsson, Michael J. Gundale","doi":"10.1111/ecog.07676","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ecog.07676","url":null,"abstract":"The understory vegetation of boreal forests plays a crucial role in maintaining biodiversity by creating habitats, supplying food resources, and regulating microclimate and soil conditions. This essential layer is frequently affected by disturbances such as forest fires and clear-cutting, which significantly alter understory communities and the ecosystem resource availability and heterogeneity. This study aimed to understand how these disturbances influence the spatial and temporal dynamics of key ecosystem resources, and subsequently the patterns of understory diversity. We analyzed and compared understory vegetation diversity in a rotational management chronosequence and an unmanaged fire chronosequence of Scots pine <i>Pinus sylvestris</i> forests across northern Sweden. We assessed the relationship of above- and belowground resource availability and heterogeneity with alpha and beta diversity using generalized additive models and multivariate analyses. We found that belowground resource availability (especially inorganic nitrogen) and aboveground resource heterogeneity (especially variation in forest structural complexity) were most strongly positively correlated with alpha and beta diversity, varying across successional stages. In early stages (0–60 years), high availability of belowground resources and aboveground heterogeneity was associated with high alpha and beta diversity. In mid-stages (100–200 years), reduced belowground resource availability and aboveground heterogeneity was linked to lower diversity. In late stages (&gt; 250 years, which only exists in the unmanaged fire chronosequence), increased aboveground heterogeneity associated with tree mortality was linked to a resurgence in alpha and beta diversity. These results highlight the necessity of maintaining a mosaic of stands with different disturbance regimes and successional stages, particularly early post-fire stands and late successional stands, which are currently much rarer on the landscape, to support biodiversity at the landscape level.","PeriodicalId":51026,"journal":{"name":"Ecography","volume":"28 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143853184","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Living in the edge: demographic responses driven by density-dependence and pulsed resources in a hibernating mammal","authors":"Daniel Oro, Lídia Freixas, Carme Bartrina, Silvia Míguez, Simone Tenan","doi":"10.1002/ecog.07710","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ecog.07710","url":null,"abstract":"Populations at the edge of a species' distribution often encounter more challenging environmental conditions than those at the core, requiring unique adaptations and strategies. However, the demographic processes driving these populations remain poorly understood. This study aims to understand these processes and the population stability of the hibernating edible dormouse under challenging environmental conditions in two Iberian edge populations: Montseny and Montnegre. Despite their geographic proximity, Montnegre is demographically isolated and faces a harsher environment characterized by a drier climate and forests with lower deciduous tree diversity, whereas Montseny remains connected to other populations. Using long-term capture–recapture data, we analyzed the effects of density-dependence and seed availability on population growth, survival, and recruitment of dormice. Results indicated that both populations experienced large fluctuations in population growth rate, with a slight mean decline. Survival fluctuated less and was higher in Montseny than in Montnegre, likely reflecting the harsher conditions of the latter. We found a negative relationship between population size and both growth rate and survival in both populations especially in Montnegre, suggesting significant density-dependent effects that varied with stochastic annual seed abundance. This was likely influenced by the pulsed annual acorn production in Montnegre. Contrarily, high asynchrony between beechnut and acorn abundance in Montseny dampened the pulsed dynamics of seed availability. Interestingly, demographic contribution to population growth was dominated by survival in Montseny and by recruitment in Montnegre. When comparing survival rates with Central European core populations, we found that survival decreased with increasing climatic aridity, but was unrelated to proximity to the core, underscoring the role of spatial heterogeneity in habitat suitability, independent of range position. Our findings emphasize the complex interplay between ecological processes and evolutionary mechanisms at the edge of a species' range, highlighting the critical role of local adaptations and resource availability in shaping population dynamics.","PeriodicalId":51026,"journal":{"name":"Ecography","volume":"23 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143853189","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Disentangling the effect of the spatial scale and species spatial pattern on the abundance–suitability relationship","authors":"David Ferrer-Ferrando, Pedro Tarroso, José Luis Tellería, Pelayo Acevedo, Javier Fernández-López","doi":"10.1111/ecog.07766","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ecog.07766","url":null,"abstract":"Knowledge about species abundance across broad spatial areas is crucial for unraveling ecological processes. Yet, abundance estimation often demands extensive sampling effort associated with logistical challenges. Using suitability values obtained from species distribution models (based on species' presence data) as a proxy for abundance has garnered interest during the last decades. Previous studies suggest a triangular relationship between species abundance and suitability. Specifically, higher suitability can display both low and high abundances, while low suitability only low abundances. This triangular pattern arises because suitability models often fail to consider limiting factors that drive abundance. In this study, we investigate the effect of spatial scale and pattern shaping this relationship. We use a simulation study and a case study to explore how these factors affect the abundance–suitability relationship. The effects of spatial scale are represented by three model levels: 1) only broad-scale covariates, 2) broad and intermediate covariates, and 3) broad, intermediate and local covariates. The effects of spatial patterns are characterized by two different species distribution shapes: aggregated and uniform. Our findings reveal that models integrating local-scale covariates and species exhibiting more aggregated spatial patterns show a stronger relationship. Additionally, we observe an interaction between a species' spatial pattern and model scale. For aggregated species, the abundance–suitability relationship benefits most notably from the addition of intermediate-scale covariates. In contrast, for uniform species, the benefit remains consistent regardless of whether intermediate- or local-scale covariates are added. Our results underscore the importance of considering both methodological and ecological factors to improve proxies for abundance derived from suitability models. We highlight the need for considering information operating at a local scale to make reliable inferences about species abundance from suitability models and suggest potential strategies for doing it.","PeriodicalId":51026,"journal":{"name":"Ecography","volume":"42 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143841699","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}