Ecological Applications最新文献

{"title":"Evaluating environmental drivers and synchrony of Arctic shorebird demographic rates to inform conservation management","authors":"Kayla L. Davis,&nbsp;Richard B. Lanctot,&nbsp;Sarah T. Saalfeld,&nbsp;Elise F. Zipkin","doi":"10.1002/eap.70049","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.70049","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Many Arctic-breeding shorebirds are assumed to be declining, yet obtaining reliable estimates of species' demographic rates and trends is difficult because of challenges collecting data in remote breeding regions and throughout the annual cycle. For many vulnerable species, data limitations impede efforts to determine appropriate management actions in the face of ongoing environmental change. Integrated population models (IPMs) offer an approach to maximize the utility of available data by providing a framework for estimating demographic rates and environmental drivers of population change, while also accounting for sources of uncertainty. Here, we used an IPM to estimate demographic rates, synchrony, and population trends of Arctic-breeding shorebirds within the context of climatic and management-related changes. We estimated species-specific breeding population sizes, adult survival rates, number of adults gained into the breeding population through recruitment (i.e., the sum of immigration and reproduction), as well as the effects of environmental drivers on demographic traits for three shorebird species nesting near Utqiaġvik, Alaska, over an 18-year study period (2005–2022). We found that the annual number of adults recruiting into the breeding population was important for maintaining local populations, and that local environmental factors and management regimes had strong effects on demographic rates. The timing of snowmelt had a notable effect on (1) fecundity, (2) the number of adults recruited for two of the three species, and (3) adult survival during the following year for one species. Predator removal increased fecundity of all three species but had limited effects on subsequent local population sizes. The Pacific Decadal Oscillation, a broad-scale climate metric, affected adult survival differently across species, with a positive and negative effect for one species each, and a negligible effect for the other. Unlike adult recruitment and fecundity that varied synchronously among species, annual adult survival varied asynchronously. Our results suggest that differences in survival were likely related to conditions experienced during nonbreeding periods arising from dissimilar migratory routes, stopover sites, and nonbreeding season ranges. Future work should focus on incorporating additional environmental factors on the nonbreeding grounds to determine when and where these species could benefit most from management interventions.</p>","PeriodicalId":55168,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Applications","volume":"35 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2025-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/eap.70049","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144339452","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":"Urbanization and climate drive long-term bird community trends across a desert city ecosystem","authors":"Jeffrey D. Haight,&nbsp;Fabio S. de Albuquerque,&nbsp;Heather L. Bateman,&nbsp;Amy E. Frazier,&nbsp;Kelli L. Larson","doi":"10.1002/eap.70063","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.70063","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Sustaining biodiversity requires measuring the interacting spatial and temporal processes by which environmental factors shape wildlife community assembly. Declines in bird communities due to urban development and changing climate conditions are widely documented. However, the combined impacts of multiple environmental stressors on biodiversity remain unclear, especially in urbanized desert ecosystems. This is largely due to a lack of data at the scales necessary for predicting the consequences of environmental change for diverse species and functional groups, particularly those that provide ecosystem services such as seed dispersal, pest control, and pollination. Trends in the prevalence and diversity of different functional groups contribute to understanding how changes in bird communities impact well-being through the lens of ecosystem services. Across the rapidly developing drylands of the metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona, USA, we ask the following question: How have inter- and intra-annual landscape changes associated with urbanization and climate shaped the dynamic characteristics of bird communities, specifically the abundance and richness of species and their functional groups? We analyzed long-term drivers of bird communities by combining a two-decade, multi-season spatial dataset of environmental conditions (urbanization, vegetation, temperature, etc.) with biotic data (species richness and abundance) collected seasonally during the same time periods (winter and spring; 2001–2016). Results show that increased impervious surface area and land surface temperature were negatively associated with overall bird abundance and species richness across the study period, especially during winter. However, these relationships varied among functional groups, with potentially mixed outcomes for ecosystem services and disservices provided by urban biodiversity. By improving knowledge of long-term trends in multiple environmental drivers that shape wildlife community dynamics, these results facilitate effective evaluation of how landscape management practices in drylands influence the outcomes of evolving human-wildlife relationships.</p>","PeriodicalId":55168,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Applications","volume":"35 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2025-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144339201","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":"Distinct bird assemblages emerge after fire versus forest harvest but converge with early seral forest development","authors":"Graham S. Frank,&nbsp;Matthew G. Betts,&nbsp;Andrew J. Kroll,&nbsp;Jake Verschuyl,&nbsp;James W. Rivers,&nbsp;Mark E. Swanson,&nbsp;Meg A. Krawchuk","doi":"10.1002/eap.70032","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.70032","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Anthropogenic changes to disturbance regimes, including intensified forest management, have been hypothesized to drive population declines in early seral forest birds. Species adapted to early seral conditions can benefit from timber harvest, but intensively managed stands often lack key habitat features that exist after natural disturbances. To evaluate how early seral bird communities differ between areas regenerating from natural (i.e., wildfire) and anthropogenic (i.e., timber harvest) disturbance, we sampled stands across a chronosequence of 2–20 years post-disturbance in southwest Oregon, USA, in sites regenerating after wildfire, clearcut harvest with intensive management, or post-fire salvage logging. We found that fire-origin stands supported 8.8 more species (90% CI: 4.1, 14.1; 54% more) than clearcut stands immediately following disturbance (2–5 years), including a greater number of cavity-nesting species. These differences diminished somewhat with stand age, but fire-origin stands still supported 4.9 more foliage-gleaning species (90% CI: 3.2, 6.5; 102% more) 6–9 years after disturbance. Differences in species richness and composition between disturbance types attenuated as stands approached canopy closure (16–20 years), suggesting that intensive management may emulate natural stand-replacing disturbance for birds that occupy developmentally advanced early seral forests. Salvage-logged stands exhibited few differences from unlogged fire-origin stands, although they supported 1.8 fewer (90% CI: 0.0, 3.4) cavity-nesting species 6–9 years after fire. Overall, distinct bird communities in recently burned forests suggest that these areas may be especially valuable for promoting biodiversity. Guilds more strongly associated with recently burned forests than harvested stands tended to be associated with biological legacies, including deciduous shrub cover, large residual trees, and snags. Therefore, emulating post-fire structural legacies and early seral vegetation in managed forests should enhance their value for birds, including species experiencing long-term declines.</p>","PeriodicalId":55168,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Applications","volume":"35 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2025-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/eap.70032","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144339200","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":"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}