Ecological Applications最新文献

{"title":"The effect of mechanical canopy reduction on big sagebrush plant communities","authors":"Phoebe L. Ferguson,&nbsp;Trace E. Martyn,&nbsp;Michelle C. Downey,&nbsp;James M. Fischer,&nbsp;Ingrid C. Burke,&nbsp;William K. Lauenroth","doi":"10.1002/eap.70056","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.70056","url":null,"abstract":"<p>A major conservation challenge in the western United States is implementing management treatments that reduce fire risk, control for invasive species, and maintain herbaceous understories in big sagebrush ecosystems. Studies have found that mechanical treatment of big sagebrush can reduce fire risk and promote herbaceous understories, but a consensus on the long-term impacts of big sagebrush reduction remains unclear. We used a time series (20 years) of treated sites to understand the short- and long-term response of herbaceous plants and shrubs to mastication treatment in big sagebrush plant communities of south-central Colorado. We found that mastication to a height of 15 cm significantly reduced big sagebrush cover and increased perennial grass cover in the short term. The significant increase in perennial grass cover on recently treated (1–2 years) sites was largely attributed to C₃ rather than C₄ perennial bunchgrasses. Recently treated sites had greater annual plant cover and density than untreated sites. However, on sites treated more than 2 years ago, there was no significant difference between perennial grass and annual plant cover or density. Perennial forb cover and density was not affected by treatments. Initially reduced by nearly 80%, big sagebrush cover returned at a rapid and constant rate over time and returned to a statistically indistinguishable cover from the untreated sites within 8–10 years while height recovered slowly. Our results underscore the resilience of big sagebrush to partial canopy removal and emphasize the long-term dynamics following treatment.</p>","PeriodicalId":55168,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Applications","volume":"35 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2025-06-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/eap.70056","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144315034","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"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":"Combining co-introduction with patch-size optimization as a novel strategy to maximize seagrass restoration","authors":"Rens J. T. Cronau,&nbsp;Leon P. M. Lamers,&nbsp;Jimmy de Fouw,&nbsp;Marieke M. van Katwijk,&nbsp;Tjeerd J. Bouma,&nbsp;Jannes H. T. Heusinkveld,&nbsp;Thijs Poortvliet,&nbsp;Tjisse van der Heide","doi":"10.1002/eap.70055","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.70055","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Coastal ecosystem engineers, such as mussels, oysters, salt marsh grasses, and seagrasses, typically shape their environment by ameliorating stressors when they grow beyond a critical population size. In doing so, they not only facilitate themselves but also provide habitat for diverse communities, which in turn, can engage in reciprocal interspecific facilitation. Over the last decades, anthropogenic disturbances have caused rapid degradation of coastal ecosystems, emphasizing the need for their restoration. Although the importance of both inter- and intraspecific positive interactions has been confirmed in small-scale experiments, their combined potential remains to be tested in restoration-scale experiments. Here, we examine whether restoration aimed at simultaneous recovery of both facilitation types can increase restoration yields of the seagrass <i>Zostera marina</i>. We conducted a full factorial experiment by manipulating patch size to test for intraspecific facilitation effects and co-introduced the epiphyte-grazing snails <i>Littorina littorea</i> to investigate interspecific facilitation. We found that the effect of including intraspecific facilitation on restoration yields was highly dependent on the hydrodynamic exposure conditions at the restoration site. Large patches in the most exposed sites showed a 40% increase in seagrass restoration yield compared to small patches, while at sheltered sites, large patches counted up to 60% less surviving plants compared to small ones. Interspecific facilitation, on the other hand, increased success yields by 73% on average. Moreover, in some plots where <i>L. littorea</i> survived through the winter, we counted 20 times more shoots than plots without co-introduction. Our study is the first to demonstrate that co-introduction can serve as a successful large-scale restoration strategy. Additionally, we highlight that integration of both inter- and intraspecific facilitation into restoration designs can be a powerful approach to increase coastal restoration success. However, we emphasize that these strategies should be applied specifically to counter environmental stressors as they may have adverse effects themselves in environments without such stressors.</p>","PeriodicalId":55168,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Applications","volume":"35 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2025-06-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/eap.70055","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144315032","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"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":"Shifting and expanding ranges of a sub-Arctic caribou herd and associated changes in vegetation","authors":"Kathleen M. Orndahl,&nbsp;Torsten W. Bentzen,&nbsp;Logan T. Berner,&nbsp;Libby P. W. Ehlers,&nbsp;Mark Hebblewhite,&nbsp;Jim D. Herriges,&nbsp;Kyle Joly,&nbsp;Matthew J. Macander,&nbsp;Eric C. Palm,&nbsp;Michael J. Suitor,&nbsp;Scott J. Goetz","doi":"10.1002/eap.70038","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.70038","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Rapid climate warming has contributed to significant changes in Arctic and boreal vegetation over the past half century. Changes in vegetation can impact wildlife by altering habitat and forage availability, which can affect behavior and range use. However, animals can also influence vegetation through foraging and trampling and therefore play an important role in determining ecosystem responses to climate change. As wildlife populations grow, density-dependent processes can prompt range expansion or shifts. One mechanism for this is density-dependent forage reduction, which can contribute to nutritional stress and population declines, and can also alter vegetation change trajectories. We assessed the range characteristics of a migratory caribou (<i>Rangifer tarandus</i>) herd in east-central Alaska and west-central Yukon Territory as it grew (1992–2017) then declined (2017–2020). Furthermore, we analyzed the correlation between caribou relative spatial density and vegetation change over this period using remotely sensed models of plant functional type cover. Over this period, caribou population density increased in all seasonal ranges. This was most acute in the calving range where density increased 8-fold, from 1.5 to 12.0 animals km⁻². Concurrent with increasing density, we documented range shifts and expansion across summer, post-calving and winter ranges. In particular, summer range size doubled (12,000 km² increase) and overlap with core range (areas with repeated year-round use) was halved. Meanwhile, lichen cover, a key forage item, declined more in areas with high caribou density (2.4% absolute, 22% relative decline in cover) compared to areas where caribou were mostly absent (0.3% absolute, 1.9% relative decline). Conversely, deciduous shrub cover increased more in high caribou density areas. However, increases were dominated by less palatable shrubs whereas more palatable shrubs (i.e., willow [<i>Salix</i> spp.]) were stable or declined slightly. These changes in vegetation cover were small relative to uncertainty in the map products used to calculate change. Nonetheless, correlations between vegetation change and caribou range characteristics, along with concerning demographic trends reported over this same period, suggest changing forage conditions may have played a role in the herd's subsequent population decline. Our research highlights the potential of remotely sensed metrics of vegetation change for assessing the impacts of herbivory and trampling and stresses the importance of in situ data such as exclosures for validating such findings.</p>","PeriodicalId":55168,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Applications","volume":"35 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2025-06-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/eap.70038","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144308846","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"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":"Invasion timing affects multiple scales, metrics, and facets of biodiversity outcomes in ecological restoration experiments","authors":"Emma Ladouceur,&nbsp;Michael Wohlwend,&nbsp;Michele R. Schutzenhofer,&nbsp;Jonathan M. Chase,&nbsp;Tiffany M. Knight","doi":"10.1002/eap.70062","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.70062","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The need to develop optimal restoration protocols for degraded grasslands has led to experimental research aimed at determining how different restoration treatments influence outcomes for biodiversity. The magnitude and direction of diversity responses to restoration treatments may depend on the spatial scale at which diversity is measured (local, regional), the metric of diversity used (Hill numbers), and the facet of diversity (taxonomic, functional, phylogenetic) considered. We conducted a long-term factorial experiment in a degraded grassland in Missouri, USA, in which we experimentally applied a regionally appropriate biodiverse seed mixture, added soil nutrients to restore soil fertility, and varied the timing in which the invasive plant <i>Lespedeza cuneata</i> entered the community. We used a unified framework of Hill numbers to evaluate how treatments influenced diversity, considering different spatial scales, metrics, and facets (taxonomic, phylogenetic, functional). We find that the timing in which the invasive <i>L. cuneata</i> entered the community had large effects on diversity, while nutrient addition had more limited effects. This was driven by the high dominance of the focal invasive when allowed to invade early in the growing season, suppressing diversity. The positive effects of late invasion increased in magnitude with spatial grain and were higher for taxonomic than phylogenetic and functional facets of diversity. This was largely due to the dominance of the focal invasive, negatively affecting diversity within specific plant families or functional phenotypes across treatments. Under early invasion, nutrients had a negative effect, particularly at local scales, inflating beta diversity in this treatment and resulting in negative to no effect of late invasion on many aspects of beta diversity. Our results demonstrate the importance of looking at a multitude of different measures of diversity to understand the relative effects of ecological restoration treatments combined with invasion timing. Efforts to keep noxious plant invaders out of a system early in restoration approaches better allow desirable, native plants to establish and can have long-term benefits for multiple aspects of diversity.</p>","PeriodicalId":55168,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Applications","volume":"35 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2025-06-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/eap.70062","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144308847","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"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":"Not all spatially structured populations are metapopulations: Re-examining paradigms for a threatened shorebird","authors":"Rose J. Swift,&nbsp;Michael J. Anteau,&nbsp;Kristen S. Ellis,&nbsp;Garrett J. MacDonald,&nbsp;Megan M. Ring,&nbsp;Mark H. Sherfy,&nbsp;Dustin L. Toy,&nbsp;David N. Koons","doi":"10.1002/eap.70037","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.70037","url":null,"abstract":"<p>For at-risk species, understanding population vital rates is imperative for developing informed conservation strategies and population models. Managers often assume that species that are spatially distributed among patches of suitable habitat meet the criteria of a metapopulation. Metapopulation dynamics are determined not only by within-patch birth and death processes but also by between-patch dispersal movements of individuals that are infrequent but critical to maintaining population viability across space and time. To conserve and manage such species, an understanding of all these vital rates, including connectivity, is required. The degree to which the northern Great Plains piping plover (<i>Charadrius melodus</i>) breeding population functions as a metapopulation depends, in part, on the rate of movement among patchily distributed breeding areas. Here, we examined annual adult survival and breeding dispersal probabilities for 2582 individuals at two spatial scales within the northern Great Plains piping plover breeding population between 2014 and 2019. Inconsistent with a metapopulation structure, annual survival varied minimally among breeding regions but did vary across years. We also found that breeding dispersal probabilities were temporally variable, high, and unbalanced at both spatial scales examined, suggesting high connectivity in contrast to metapopulation dynamics. Further, we detected context-dependent effects of reproductive success on dispersal decisions. Individuals were more likely to disperse from the northern Missouri River to the US Alkali Wetlands following nest failure due to inundation or severe storms (including in the year prior to dispersal), whereas dispersal from the US Alkali Wetlands to the northern Missouri River decreased following successful nest attempts. Individuals also decreased dispersal from the US Alkali Wetlands to the northern Missouri River in response to renesting attempts in both the year of interest and the year prior to dispersal. Our results contradict the paradigm that northern Great Plains piping plovers are structured as a metapopulation and instead suggest a patchily distributed, likely panmictic, population. Our findings have implications for the conservation and management of this listed species and are also a general reminder that in the absence of robust knowledge of movement, spatial variation in birth and death processes across patches should not be conflated with a metapopulation structure.</p>","PeriodicalId":55168,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Applications","volume":"35 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2025-06-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144273337","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":"Breeding performance of an aerial insectivorous bird under contrasting farming systems","authors":"José M. Zamora-Marín,&nbsp;Antonio Zamora-López,&nbsp;Mario León-Ortega,&nbsp;Pedro Sáez-Gómez,&nbsp;Francisco A. García-Castellanos,&nbsp;José A. Sánchez-Zapata,&nbsp;Carlos Camacho","doi":"10.1002/eap.70059","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.70059","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Over the past decades, intensive agriculture has expanded worldwide in response to the rising human demand for food. Intensive farming practices commonly involve the application of pesticides and other agrochemical compounds, contributing to the global decline in farmland bird populations, particularly aerial insectivores. Moreover, the increased mechanization of agricultural operations (e.g., grass cutting, tree pruning, and brush chipping) may destroy nests and reduce the breeding success of ground-nesting bird species. Here, we used a ground-nesting insectivorous bird, the Red-necked Nightjar (<i>Caprimulgus ruficollis</i>), as a model to test for the effects of organic vs. intensive farming practices on breeding performance. We used data from 191 nightjar nests monitored over a 4-year period in a highly cultivated landscape of SE Spain. Four breeding parameters (clutch size, hatching success, fledging success, and overall breeding success) were compared between two adjacent farms under organic and conventional intensive management. Additionally, we compared four population-level attributes (breeding phenology, breeding density, age structure of breeders, and foraging range size) considered to be important determinants of breeding performance. Nightjars breeding in the organic and in the intensive farms had a moderate breeding performance comparable to that reported in other, more extensive agricultural landscapes (e.g., vineyards). All breeding parameters and two out of the four measured population-level attributes were statistically not different between the organic and the intensive farm. However, nest aggregation was higher in the organic farm, and space use analyses revealed that GPS-tracked nightjars nesting within the intensive farm traveled to foraging areas outside the farm more often than those from the organic farm. This suggests that plasticity in foraging behavior (e.g., the use of alternative foraging sites) may buffer the potential negative effects of intensive farming practices (e.g., decreased prey availability) on the breeding performance of nightjars. Our study underlines the potential role of landscape complementation and ecological plasticity in space-use behaviors as determinants of breeding performance in farmland birds, enabling these species to (partly) compensate for the impacts of intensive agriculture.</p>","PeriodicalId":55168,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Applications","volume":"35 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2025-06-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/eap.70059","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144281377","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"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":"Large, isolated trees have higher mortality than smaller trees in forest fragments across a tropical pastoral landscape","authors":"Cristina Barber,&nbsp;Jennyffer Cruz,&nbsp;Sarah J. Graves,&nbsp;Stephanie A. Bohlman,&nbsp;Pieter A. Zuidema,&nbsp;Gregory P. Asner,&nbsp;Aaron Carignan,&nbsp;Vicente Vasquez,&nbsp;Jodi Brandt,&nbsp;T. Trevor Caughlin","doi":"10.1002/eap.70046","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.70046","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Agricultural tree cover is declining globally, including the loss of large, scattered trees that function as keystone structures. Understanding the drivers of agricultural tree loss could help prevent further declines. However, the drivers of agricultural tree mortality vary across scales, from individual trees to landscapes, complicating efforts to quantify mortality risk. We applied high-resolution remote sensing and multi-method occupancy models to test hypotheses of drivers of tree mortality in a pastoral landscape of Southwestern Panama. Our approach enabled us to identify individual tree mortality across a &gt;20,000 ha area, encompassing a wide range of land use intensity. Neighboring tree cover was the strongest predictor of mortality, with a higher probability of death for isolated trees relative to trees with many neighbors. Landscape-level covariates also predicted mortality risk, including higher mortality closer to roads and in parcels with larger area. These results implicate land use intensity as a primary driver of agricultural tree loss in our study area. At the individual tree level, we found that larger trees were more likely to die than smaller trees. Our study suggests that the trees with high ecosystem service value in a fragmented landscape—large, isolated trees—also face the highest mortality risk. Supporting agricultural practices that maintain trees in pastures is likely to decrease tree mortality in our study site, broadly representative of cattle ranching landscapes across Latin America. Our workflow could be implemented in other landscapes globally to prioritize agricultural tree conservation, paving the way for increased tree survival and improved ecosystem services.</p>","PeriodicalId":55168,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Applications","volume":"35 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2025-06-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144255935","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":"Method matters: Comparing habitat- and process-based approaches for favorability assessment","authors":"Galen Holt,&nbsp;Georgia K. Dwyer,&nbsp;Rebecca E. Lester","doi":"10.1002/eap.70060","DOIUrl":"10.1002/eap.70060","url":null,"abstract":"<p>It is common to use environmental conditions combined with habitat delineations as proxies for ecological outcomes, such as inundation of particular wetland habitats as a proxy for vegetation persistence. An alternative is to include physical environmental conditions as drivers in process-based models that capture important events in a life cycle, thereby accounting for the environmental and biological conditions that enable those events to occur. Each approach has benefits and drawbacks and is likely to give a different assessment of the state of the target ecological responses. We modeled four iconic species of woody vegetation in the Murray–Darling Basin and considered two approaches to identifying areas favorable for each species: “habitat-based,” the area of inundation in wetland types associated with each species, and “process-based,” a model of the life cycle dependent on the amount, timing, and sequence of inundation and soil moisture. Calculating favorable area using inundation of identified wetland types in a habitat-based approach provided a fundamentally different assessment to using a small number of life-cycle processes (i.e., a process-based approach). Further, favorable areas often did not overlap in space, with many locations found to be favorable using one method but not the other. There may be useful information to be gleaned from comparing the two, such as identifying locations of possible contraction or expansion of the species in the future. However, it is clear that the two approaches are not equivalent and care is needed in selecting an appropriate method for a given application.</p>","PeriodicalId":55168,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Applications","volume":"35 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2025-06-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/eap.70060","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144237724","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"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":"Return of diversity: Wetland plant community recovery following purple loosestrife biocontrol","authors":"Stacy B. Endriss,&nbsp;Victoria Nuzzo,&nbsp;Bernd Blossey","doi":"10.1002/eap.70064","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.70064","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Spread of non-native species can be important drivers of biodiversity declines, leading to precautionary management based on assumptions that (1) non-native biota have negative impacts and are “guilty” of causing harm and (2) reducing a non-native species' abundance will reduce these negative impacts, in turn, benefiting native species. However, we frequently lack data to gauge both negative impacts of non-native species and success or failure of chosen management interventions to benefit native species. Addressing these knowledge gaps is critical to improving management outcomes for native species while maintaining public trust to sustain funding of management activities. Here, we investigated the response of <i>Lythrum salicaria</i> (purple loosestrife) and associated plant communities to implementation of biological control in more than 10 wetland sites in New York State for up to 28 years. Introduced to North America from Europe in the 1800s, <i>L. salicaria</i> is a prime example of a non-native species with a continent-wide distribution that could not be suppressed by mechanical and chemical treatments. In the 1980s, waterfowl biologists, wetland managers, and conservationists alike worried about the loss of diverse wetland plant communities associated with the rapid expansion of <i>L. salicaria.</i> In response, after careful assessments of safety, and potential costs and benefits, four highly host-specific insect herbivores were released in North America in the early 1990s to reduce <i>L. salicaria</i> abundance and its negative ecological impacts. In a companion paper, Blossey et al. documented reduced <i>L. salicaria</i> occupancy and stem densities following insect releases over time (i.e., biological success), irrespective of site-specific differences in starting plant communities or <i>L. salicaria</i> abundance. Here, we show that reduced abundance of <i>L. salicaria</i> leads to the ultimate goal of non-native plant management: increased cover, abundance, and diversity of species, often of native species (i.e., ecological success). We also conduct analyses to provide inference about which plant species are most sensitive to <i>L. salicaria</i>, including changes in <i>L. salicaria</i> stem density. Overall, we provide an important conservation success story: our findings emphasize that biocontrol of non-native plants can be effective and safe, allowing native species to recover as a dominant non-native species gradually declines.</p>","PeriodicalId":55168,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Applications","volume":"35 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2025-06-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/eap.70064","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144232314","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"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":"Estimating occupancy and nest survival of cliff-nesting raptors in an open population framework","authors":"Jeremy D. Mizel,&nbsp;Melanie J. Flamme","doi":"10.1002/eap.70051","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.70051","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Nest survival is a key demographic parameter for assessing the viability of bird populations and is frequently responsive to management. While nest survival is often monitored alone, its joint monitoring with abundance permits a more thorough understanding of breeding productivity and the mechanisms of population change. However, nests are subject to a time-to-event process that presents a challenge for joint modeling of these processes. That is, availability for detection is conditional on nest survival until the survey occasion, which, if ignored, results in negatively biased estimates of nest abundance or presence/absence (breeding occupancy). Cliff-nesting raptor abundance and reproductive success have been the subject of intense conservation concern with the recognition of widespread population declines and manifold persecution. Inferences about changes in cliff-nesting raptor abundance and reproductive success are often based on the unadjusted occupancy rates and apparent nest success. Here, we developed methods for joint estimation of breeding occupancy and nest survival in these populations, thereby extending occupancy models to the case in which the occupancy states are subject to an explicit time-to-event process. Our approach accommodates false negatives in the occupancy data due to nest failure prior to the sampling occasions. A simulation study with varied detection probability, nest success, and Markov properties in occupancy showed our model to generally have low to moderate bias. We applied the model to data from American Peregrine Falcon (<i>Falco peregrinus anatum</i>) monitoring in Alaska (1987–2021) with conspicuous observer and stage-specific heterogeneity. Breeding occupancy increased over time while nest success decreased, suggesting potential density-dependent effects. Our approach will allow the discarding of the untenable assumption of constant detectability common to cliff-nesting raptor studies while also helping preserve spatial replication through more efficient sampling. The capacity to explicitly estimate nest success together with breeding occupancy should lead to improved understanding of breeding productivity and the mechanisms of population change.</p>","PeriodicalId":55168,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Applications","volume":"35 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2025-06-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144197372","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}