Ecological Applications最新文献

{"title":"Functional leaf and plant use by leafcutter bees: Implications for management and conservation","authors":"Palatty Allesh Sinu, Krishnan P. Abhiram, Ashly Baby, C. R. Akshatha, K. Aneha, Anjana P. Unni, Harita Nalamati, K. Manoj, A. R. Pooja","doi":"10.1002/eap.3090","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.3090","url":null,"abstract":"Wild solitary bees face a host of challenges from the simplification of landscapes and biodiversity loss to invasive species and urbanization. Pollinator researchers and restoration workers thus far gave much attention to increase flower cover to reduce the impact of these anthropogenic pressures. Over 30% of bee species need nonfloral resources such as leaves and resin for their survival and reproduction. However, the importance of leaves in bee ecology, particularly for leafcutter bees, has received very little attention. Leafcutter bees have global distribution and cut leaves for constructing brood chambers. We have very little information for (a) what bees use and do not use for foraging leaves and (b) what leaf and plant traits and plant community traits drive plant preference and plant usage. To fill this gap and recommend plants for leafcutter bee conservation, we examined 13,062 plants of 612 species and 107 families distributed in 165 plant communities of nine towns/cities of four south Indian states. The plant community of nine locations and four states was quite dissimilar, but had similar proportion of native and exotic plants. The probability of a plant foraged for leaf is governed by its clade, family, nativity, and leaf dimension, particularly the leaf width. Bees have a clear preference for plants of common families, such as Fabaceae, Phyllanthaceae, and Meliaceae for foraging leaves, but bees going to plants of distant lineages, including rare species and families is not rare. At the same time, bees also avoided plants of several cosmopolitan families, such as Apocynaceae, Moraceae, Sapotaceae, and Asteraceae, among others. Bees preferred exotic plants more to native plants. The plant usage in communities is predicted by species richness, proportion of Fabaceae plants in communities, and proportion of herbs; plant diversity and abundance are not crucial drivers. Our study suggests that the bees' preference for leaf‐foraging plants is not random, but governed by leaf, plant, and plant community traits. The preference for exotic plants is helpful for planning urban and homestead greening projects as they are dominated by exotics.","PeriodicalId":55168,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Applications","volume":"22 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142991163","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A probabilistic approach to estimating timber harvest location","authors":"Jakub Truszkowski, Roi Maor, Raquib Bin Yousuf, Subhodip Biswas, Caspar Chater, Peter Gasson, Scot McQueen, Marigold Norman, Jade Saunders, John Simeone, Naren Ramakrishnan, Alexandre Antonelli, Victor Deklerck","doi":"10.1002/eap.3077","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.3077","url":null,"abstract":"Determining the harvest location of timber is crucial to enforcing international regulations designed to protect natural resources and to tackle illegal logging and associated trade in forest products. Stable isotope ratio analysis (SIRA) can be used to verify claims of timber harvest location by matching levels of naturally occurring stable isotopes within wood tissue to location‐specific ratios predicted from reference data (“isoscapes”). However, overly simple models for predicting isoscapes have so far limited the confidence in derived predictions of timber provenance. In addition, most use cases have limited themselves to differentiating between a small number of predetermined location options. Here, we present a new analytic pipeline for SIRA data, designed to predict the harvest location of a wood sample in a continuous, arbitrarily large area. We use Gaussian processes to robustly estimate isoscapes from reference wood samples, and overlay with species distribution data to compute, for every pixel in the study area, the probability of it being the harvest location of the examined timber. This is the first time, to our knowledge, that this approach is applied to determining timber provenance, providing probabilistic results rather than a binary outcome. Additionally, we include an active learning tool to identify locations from which additional reference data would maximize the improvement to model performance, allowing for optimisation of subsequent field efforts. We demonstrate our approach on a set of SIRA data from seven oak species in the United States as a proof of concept. Our method can determine the harvest location up to within 520 km from the true origin of the sample and outperforms the state‐of‐the‐art approach. Incorporating species distribution data improves accuracy by up to 36%. The future sampling locations proposed by our tool decrease the variance of resultant isoscapes by up to 86% more than sampling the same number of locations at random. Accurate prediction of harvest location has the potential to transform worldwide efforts to enforce anti‐deforestation legislation and protect natural resources.","PeriodicalId":55168,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Applications","volume":"183 1","pages":"e3077"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142992188","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The effectiveness of harvest for limiting wildlife disease: Insights from 20 years of chronic wasting disease in Wyoming","authors":"Wynne E. Moss, Justin Binfet, L. Embere Hall, Samantha E. Allen, William H. Edwards, Jessica E. Jennings‐Gaines, Paul C. Cross","doi":"10.1002/eap.3089","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.3089","url":null,"abstract":"Effective, practical options for managing disease in wildlife populations are limited, especially after diseases become established. Removal strategies (e.g., hunting or culling) are used to control wildlife diseases across a wide range of systems, despite conflicting evidence of their effectiveness. This is especially true for chronic wasting disease (CWD), an untreatable, fatal prion disease threatening cervid populations across multiple countries, for which recreational harvest has been suggested as an important disease control strategy. Using observational data to evaluate whether harvest effectively limits CWD prevalence has been difficult because statistical relationships between harvest and disease prevalence can arise from a causal effect of harvest (i.e., harvest's impacts on prevalence via changes in transmission or demographic structure) or from a number of alternative mechanisms. For instance, correlations between harvest and disease prevalence can also be driven by disease's impacts on population size and harvest (i.e., reverse causality) or from confounding variables (e.g., habitat or geographic location) that impact both harvest rates and disease prevalence. We analyzed two decades of surveillance data (2000–2021) from 10 mule deer herds in Wyoming, using statistical approaches informed by causal inference theory, to test for the effects of harvest on CWD prevalence. Herds with consistently high harvest pressure across 20 years had significantly lower prevalence. Our models predicted that harvesting 40% of adult males per year across 20 years would maintain prevalence below 5% on average, whereas if only 20% of males were harvested in each year, prevalence would increase to >30% by year 20. Moreover, shifting the relative harvest pressure within a herd over a shorter period (3 years) reduced subsequent prevalence, albeit to a smaller degree. Although high harvest is unlikely to completely eradicate CWD, our analysis suggests that maintaining hunting pressure on adult males is an important tactic for slowing CWD epidemics within mule deer herds. Our study also provides guidance for future analyses of longitudinal surveillance data, including the importance of demographic data and appropriate time lags.","PeriodicalId":55168,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Applications","volume":"32 1","pages":"e3089"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142992186","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Using predictive models to identify kelp refuges in marine protected areas for management prioritization","authors":"Mary A. Young, Kay Critchell, Michael A. Sams","doi":"10.1002/eap.3084","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.3084","url":null,"abstract":"Kelp forests serve as the foundation for shallow marine ecosystems in many temperate areas of the world but are under threat from various stressors, including climate change. To better manage these ecosystems now and into the future, understanding the impacts of climate change and identifying potential refuges will help to prioritize management actions. In this study, we use a long‐term dataset of observations of kelp percentage cover for two dominant canopy‐forming species off the coast of Victoria, Australia: <jats:italic>Ecklonia radiata</jats:italic> and <jats:italic>Phyllospora comosa</jats:italic>. These observations were collected across three scuba sampling programs that extend from 1998 to 2019. We then associated those observations with habitat and environmental variables including depth, seafloor structure, wave climate, currents, temperature, and population connectivity in generalized additive mixed‐effects models and used these models to develop predictive maps of kelp cover across the Victorian marine protected areas (<jats:styled-content style=\"fixed-case\">MPAs</jats:styled-content>). These models were also used to project kelp coverage into the future by replacing wave climate and temperature with future projections (2090, Representative Concentration Pathways [<jats:styled-content style=\"fixed-case\">RCPs] 4</jats:styled-content>.5 and <jats:styled-content style=\"fixed-case\">8</jats:styled-content>.5). Once the spatial predictions were compiled, we calculated percent cover change from 1998 to 2019, stability over the same period, and future predicted change in percent cover (2019–2090) to understand the dynamics for each species across the <jats:styled-content style=\"fixed-case\">MPAs</jats:styled-content>. We also used the current percentage cover, stability, and future percentage cover to develop a ranking system for classifying the maps into very unlikely refugia, unlikely refugia, neutral, potential refugia, and likely refugia. A management framework was then developed to use those refugia ranking values to inform management actions, and we applied this framework across three case studies: one at the scale of the <jats:styled-content style=\"fixed-case\">MPA</jats:styled-content> network and two at the scale of individual <jats:styled-content style=\"fixed-case\">MPAs</jats:styled-content>, one where management decisions were the same for both species, and one where the actions were species‐specific. This study shows how species distribution models, both contemporary and with future projections, can help to identify potential refugia areas that can be used to prioritize management decisions and future‐proof restoration actions.","PeriodicalId":55168,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Applications","volume":"27 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142991165","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Plant species, inundation, and sediment grain size control the development of sediment stability in tidal marshes","authors":"Marte M. Stoorvogel, Jaco C. de Smit, Lauren E. Wiesebron, Jim van Belzen, Johan van de Koppel, Stijn Temmerman, Tjeerd J. Bouma","doi":"10.1002/eap.3078","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.3078","url":null,"abstract":"Tidal marshes can contribute to nature‐based shoreline protection by reducing the wave load onto the shore and reducing the erosion of the sediment bed. To implement such nature‐based shoreline erosion protection requires the ability to quickly restore or create highly stable and erosion‐resistant tidal marshes at places where they currently do not yet occur. Therefore, we aim to identify the drivers controlling the rate by which sediment stability builds up in young pioneer marshes. Sediment stability proxies were measured over age gradients spanning 18 years in six tidal marsh sites in the Western Scheldt estuary (SW Netherlands): Three were dominated by <jats:italic>Spartina anglica</jats:italic>, a densely growing pioneer species, and three by <jats:italic>Scirpus maritimus</jats:italic>, a less densely growing pioneer species. Our results showed that the presence of densely growing <jats:italic>Spartina anglica</jats:italic> increased sediment shear strength compared to the unvegetated tidal flat, while less densely growing <jats:italic>Scirpus maritimus</jats:italic> did not. This difference may be related to the contrasting clonal expansion strategies and related root densities of these two pioneer species. Sediment stability did not increase further beyond 6 years of coverage by <jats:italic>Spartina anglica</jats:italic>, implying that the observed effect of <jats:italic>Spartina anglica</jats:italic> on sediment stability occurs fast (&lt;6 years). Furthermore, sediment stability often increased with decreasing inundation duration and sediment water content. This study shows that in order to create erosion‐resistant sediment beds in future marsh restoration projects, the aim should be to create densely vegetated tidal marshes with well‐draining, cohesive sediments at relatively high intertidal elevation. Although the development of erosion resistance takes time, our study demonstrates that in the case of densely growing <jats:italic>Spartina anglica</jats:italic> marshes, increased sediment bed stability can already be reached after 6 years. The ability of <jats:italic>Spartina anglica</jats:italic> marshes to increase sediment bed stability within 6 years, in combination with wave attenuation and sediment accretion, offers promising perspectives to implement marsh restoration projects as a nature‐based shoreline protection strategy that can start to deliver its protective service within a reasonable amount of time.","PeriodicalId":55168,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Applications","volume":"9 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142991282","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Relative effects of seed mix design, consumer pressure, and edge proximity on community structure in restored prairies","authors":"Riley B. Pizza, Nash E. Turley, Lars A. Brudvig","doi":"10.1002/eap.3083","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.3083","url":null,"abstract":"A central goal of ecosystem restoration is to promote diverse, native‐dominated plant communities. However, restoration outcomes can be highly variable. One cause of this variation may be the decisions made during the seed mix design process, such as choosing the number of species to include (sown diversity) or the number of locations each species should be sourced from (source diversity, manipulated to affect genetic diversity). The effects that seed mixes have on plant communities may be further modified by other factors at the restoration site, including edge proximity and consumer pressure. Few studies have evaluated both these seed mix attributes together, and none have done so while accounting for realistic restoration site attributes. To address this research need, we conducted a prairie restoration experiment where two aspects of seed mix design (sown diversity and source diversity) and two restoration site factors (edge proximity and vertebrate granivore/herbivore consumer access) were manipulated across 12 replicate fields. We found that when seed mix design impacted plant community structure, these effects were dependent on consumer access or edge proximity and were more prominent after one versus five growing seasons. Low seed source diversity plots had more sown species than high source diversity ones, but only when consumers had access. Similarly, low species diversity plots had higher richness and cover of species included in both the low and high species diversity mixes, but this effect weakened over time. Additionally, plots with high species diversity were buffered from the typically detrimental effects of edges and consumers, although this did not always result in greater sown species abundance. Unexpectedly, plots with the most sown species were those sown with either low source diversity or low species diversity seed mixes, perhaps due to lower seeding rates of reliably establishing species. Our results illustrate how the influences of seed mix design on restored plant communities can be highly contingent on factors like edges, consumers, and time.","PeriodicalId":55168,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Applications","volume":"8 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142989986","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Unfriendly neighbors: When facilitation does not contribute to restoration success in tidal marsh","authors":"Karen E. Tanner, Ingrid M. Parker, Monique C. Fountain, Alexandra S. Thomsen, Kerstin Wasson","doi":"10.1002/eap.3079","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.3079","url":null,"abstract":"Large‐scale restoration projects are an exciting and often untapped opportunity to use an experimental approach to inform ecosystem management and test ecological theory. In our $10M tidal marsh restoration project, we installed over 17,000 high marsh plants to increase cover and diversity, using these plantings in a large‐scale experiment to test the benefits of clustering and soil amendments across a stress gradient. Clustered plantings have the potential to outperform widely spaced ones if plants alter conditions in ways that decrease stress for close neighbors. Here, we test whether intraspecific facilitation improves restoration outcomes using a suite of seven high marsh species native to central California salt marshes. We also applied a biochar treatment to test whether soil amendment boosts restoration success. We compared the performance of clustered and uniform plantings across the high marsh elevation gradient for 3 years. There was a strong effect of elevation on plant performance and clear signs of plant stress related to soil conditions. Clustering slightly improved the survival of one species out of seven, although clustering did not benefit that species in a follow‐up experiment under more stressful conditions. By contrast, clustering had strong negative effects on the growth and/or cover of all species tested. The stressors in this system—likely related to compaction and soil salinity—were not mitigated by neighbors or biochar. The prevailing negative effect on seven species from distinct evolutionary lineages lends strong generality to our findings. We therefore conclude that for this and similar high marsh systems, intraspecific facilitation confers no benefits and practitioners should space plants widely to minimize competition. To take full advantage of the learning opportunities provided by large‐scale restoration projects, we recommend including experimental treatments and monitoring the response of multiple species across years to refine best practices and inform adaptive management.","PeriodicalId":55168,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Applications","volume":"22 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142991287","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Species‐habitat networks reveal conservation implications that other community analyses do not detect","authors":"Zhaoke Dong, Andrew J. Bladon, Coline C. Jaworski, Richard F. Pywell, Ben A. Woodcock, William R. Meek, Peter Nuttall, Lynn V. Dicks","doi":"10.1002/eap.3073","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.3073","url":null,"abstract":"Grassland restoration is an important conservation intervention supporting declining insect pollinators in threatened calcareous grassland landscapes. While the success of restoration is often quantified using simple measures of diversity or similarity to target communities, these measures do not capture all fundamental aspects of community reconstruction. Here, we develop species–habitat networks that aim to define habitat‐level foraging dependencies of pollinators across restored grassland landscapes and compare their value to these more conventional measures of community restoration. We assessed this across Salisbury Plain (UK), which represents the largest area of chalk grassland in northwestern Europe, encompassing six distinct management types aimed at the restoration and maintenance of species‐rich calcareous grassland. Sites that were previously disturbed or reverting from arable agriculture were comparable with those of ancient grasslands in terms of pollinator abundance and species richness. However, intensively managed grasslands exhibited notably lower values across nearly all measured indicators, including flower and pollinator richness and abundance, than ancient grasslands, with unmanaged grasslands following closely behind. This underscores the need for caution with both long‐term neglect and highly intensive management. Applying our species–habitat network approach, we found that pollinator communities in grasslands recovering from past military disturbance showed stronger modular associations with those in ancient grasslands than areas recovering from intensive agriculture. This highlights the importance of habitat history in shaping restoration trajectories. We propose that species–habitat networks should be part of the standard analytical toolkit assessing the effectiveness of restoration at landscape scale, particularly for mobile species such as insects.","PeriodicalId":55168,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Applications","volume":"23 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142989982","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Root functional traits are important predictors for plant resource acquisition strategies in subtropical forests","authors":"Guangcan Yu, Yufang Wang, Andi Li, Senhao Wang, Jing Chen, Jiangming Mo, Mianhai Zheng","doi":"10.1002/eap.3082","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.3082","url":null,"abstract":"Intercorrelated aboveground traits associated with costs and plant growth have been widely used to predict vegetation in response to environmental changes. However, whether underground traits exhibit consistent responses remains unclear, particularly in N‐rich subtropical forests. Responses of foliar and root morphological and physiological traits of tree and herb species after 8‐year N, P, and combined N and P treatments (50 kg N, P, N and P ha<jats:sup>−1</jats:sup> year<jats:sup>−1</jats:sup>) were examined in leguminous <jats:italic>Acacia auriculiformis</jats:italic> (<jats:italic>AA</jats:italic>) and nonleguminous <jats:italic>Eucalyptus urophylla</jats:italic> (<jats:italic>EU</jats:italic>) forests in southern China. N addition did not significantly impact all leaf and root traits except root N concentration per root length. Root traits responded to P addition more than leaf traits in trees; however, both traits responded similarly to P addition in herbs. Tree species deviated from the expected leaf economics spectrum; however, all species aligned with the root economics spectrum. The P and combined N and P treatments significantly altered the position of principal components analysis of root functional traits for herb species compared to the control. However, these changes did not reflect a classic shift in nutrient acquisition strategy within the root economics spectrum. As leguminous species experienced greater P limitation, <jats:italic>AA</jats:italic> responded more to P addition than <jats:italic>EU</jats:italic>; their understories indicated no significant differences. This study reveals how plant aboveground and underground traits adapt to nutrient‐rich environments. These findings highlight the importance of incorporating plant underground traits, which show significant and specific responses to nutrient additions, into Earth system models for accurately predicting plant responses to global change.","PeriodicalId":55168,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Applications","volume":"121 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142991164","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Social dominance influences individual susceptibility to an evolutionary trap in mosquitofish","authors":"Lea Pollack, Michael Culshaw‐Maurer, Andrew Sih","doi":"10.1002/eap.3081","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.3081","url":null,"abstract":"Plastic pollution threatens almost every ecosystem in the world. Critically, many animals consume plastic, in part because plastic particles often look or smell like food. Plastic ingestion is thus an evolutionary trap, a phenomenon that occurs when cues are decoupled from their previously associated high fitness outcomes. Theory predicts that dominance hierarchies could dictate individual responses to evolutionary traps across social environments, but the social dimension of evolutionary trap responses has rarely been investigated. We tested how variation in group size influences the formation of dominance relationships and, in turn, how these dominance relationships drive differences in foraging behavior in Western mosquitofish (<jats:italic>Gambusia affinis</jats:italic>). This included foraging for a variety of familiar and novel food‐like items, including microplastics. Overall, dominant individuals were often the first to sample food and had higher bite rates than subordinates, including when foraging for microplastics. Importantly, how dominance affected foraging behavior depended on group size and on whether groups were presented with familiar or novel foods. Furthermore, individuals were consistent in their foraging behavior across trials with different group sizes, indicating the formation of stable social roles. These results suggest that predicting the ecological and evolutionary consequences of evolutionary traps will require an understanding of how social structures influence trap susceptibility.","PeriodicalId":55168,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Applications","volume":"10 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142991154","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}