Ecological Applications最新文献

{"title":"Seafloor sediment microtopography as a surrogate for biodiversity and ecosystem functioning","authors":"Stefano Schenone,&nbsp;Judi E. Hewitt,&nbsp;Jenny Hillman,&nbsp;Rebecca Gladstone-Gallagher,&nbsp;Johanna Gammal,&nbsp;Conrad Pilditch,&nbsp;Andrew M. Lohrer,&nbsp;Eliana Ferretti,&nbsp;Mihailo Azhar,&nbsp;Patrice Delmas,&nbsp;Simon F. Thrush","doi":"10.1002/eap.3069","DOIUrl":"10.1002/eap.3069","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Marine soft sediments play crucial roles in global biogeochemical cycles and biodiversity. Yet, with organisms often hidden in the sediment, they pose challenges for effective monitoring and management. This study introduces a novel approach utilizing sediment microtopography as a proxy for ecosystem functioning and biodiversity. Combining field sampling, benthic chamber incubations, and advanced Structure-from-Motion photogrammetry techniques, we investigated the relationships between microtopographic features and various ecological parameters across diverse subtidal habitats. Our findings reveal strong associations between sediment microtopography and environmental variables, benthic fluxes, biodiversity metrics, and community functional traits, with microtopography consistently explaining more than 50% of the variance in the data. This research demonstrates the potential of sediment microtopography as a cost-effective and scalable tool for assessing soft-sediment ecosystem dynamics and informing conservation strategies. By providing insights into the links between habitat structure and ecological processes, this study advances our understanding of marine benthic ecology and opens new possibilities for habitat assessment applications worldwide.</p>","PeriodicalId":55168,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Applications","volume":"35 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2024-11-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11735455/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142752147","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":"Active restoration efforts drive community succession and assembly in a desert during the past 53 years","authors":"Qingqing Hou,&nbsp;Weigang Hu,&nbsp;Ying Sun,&nbsp;Elly Morriën,&nbsp;Qiang Yang,&nbsp;Muhammad Aqeel,&nbsp;Qiajun Du,&nbsp;Junlan Xiong,&nbsp;Longwei Dong,&nbsp;Shuran Yao,&nbsp;Jie Peng,&nbsp;Yuan Sun,&nbsp;Muhammad Adnan Akram,&nbsp;Rui Xia,&nbsp;Yahui Zhang,&nbsp;Xiaoting Wang,&nbsp;Shubin Xie,&nbsp;Liang Wang,&nbsp;Liang Zhang,&nbsp;Fan Li,&nbsp;Yan Deng,&nbsp;Jiali Luo,&nbsp;Jingyan Yuan,&nbsp;Quanlin Ma,&nbsp;Karl J. Niklas,&nbsp;Jinzhi Ran,&nbsp;Jianming Deng","doi":"10.1002/eap.3068","DOIUrl":"10.1002/eap.3068","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Regreening efforts in deserts have been implemented globally to combat land degradation and desert expansion, but how they affect above- and belowground community succession and assembly processes remains unknown. Here, we examined variations in plant and soil microbial community attributes along a 53-year restoration chronosequence following the establishment of straw checkerboard barriers (SCBs) in the Tengger Desert of China. This approach is a combination of fixing shifting sand and adding organic material (straw) simultaneously to expedite vegetation restoration by enhancing the success of plant establishment. Our findings revealed that the establishment of SCBs significantly triggered plant and soil microbial communities to gradually approximate those of the natural community along restoration duration. We observed positive and negative bidirectional shifts in plant and soil microbial community composition. Critical temporal threshold zones for relatively rapid changes in community composition were identified, with 2–15.5 years for plants, 0.5–8.5 years for bacteria, and 2–8.5 years for fungi. This suggests a delayed response of plant communities to restoration efforts compared with soil microbial communities. Both stochastic and deterministic processes regulated plant and soil microbial community assembly. Stochastic processes played a more important role in plant and fungal community succession, whereas deterministic processes primarily governed bacterial succession. In terms of deterministic processes, temporal variations in community composition mainly resulted from the intrinsic correlations among plant, bacterial, and fungal communities, as well as an increase in soil organic carbon (SOC) with restoration duration. Thus, temporal patterns and functional contributions of bacterial communities appear to be more predictable than those of plant and fungal communities during desert ecosystem restoration. This study emphasizes that plant-bacteria-fungi correlations and increasing SOC content are critical for accelerating community succession and promoting dryland restoration. Future studies should explore and integrate temporal variations and restoration effects of multiple ecosystem functions to better predict dryland development and resilience to global climate changes over a large temporal scale.</p>","PeriodicalId":55168,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Applications","volume":"35 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2024-11-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/eap.3068","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142713107","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":"Probabilistic ecological risk assessment for deep-sea mining: A Bayesian network for Chatham Rise, Pacific Ocean","authors":"Laura Kaikkonen,&nbsp;Malcolm R. Clark,&nbsp;Daniel Leduc,&nbsp;Scott D. Nodder,&nbsp;Ashley A. Rowden,&nbsp;David A. Bowden,&nbsp;Jennifer Beaumont,&nbsp;Vonda Cummings","doi":"10.1002/eap.3064","DOIUrl":"10.1002/eap.3064","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Increasing interest in seabed resource use in the ocean is introducing new pressures on deep-sea environments, the ecological impacts of which need to be evaluated carefully. The complexity of these ecosystems and the lack of comprehensive data pose significant challenges to predicting potential impacts. In this study, we demonstrate the use of Bayesian networks (BNs) as a modeling framework to address these challenges and enhance the development of robust quantitative predictions concerning the effects of human activities on deep-seafloor ecosystems. The approach consists of iterative model building with experts, and quantitative probability estimates of the relative decrease in abundance of different functional groups of benthos following seabed mining. The model is then used to evaluate two alternative seabed mining scenarios to identify the major sources of uncertainty associated with the mining impacts. By establishing causal connections between the pressures associated with potential mining activities and various components of the benthic ecosystem, our model offers an improved comprehension of potential impacts on the seafloor environment. We illustrate this approach using the example of potential phosphorite nodule mining on the Chatham Rise, offshore Aotearoa/New Zealand, SW Pacific Ocean, and examine ways to incorporate knowledge from both empirical data and expert assessments into quantitative risk assessments. We further discuss how ecological risk assessments can be constructed to better inform decision-making, using metrics relevant to both ecology and policy. The findings from this study highlight the valuable insights that BNs can provide in evaluating the potential impacts of human activities. However, further research and data collection are crucial for refining and ground truthing these models and improving our understanding of the long-term consequences of deep-sea mining and other anthropogenic activities on marine ecosystems. By leveraging such tools, policymakers, researchers, and stakeholders can work together toward human activities in the deep sea that minimize ecological harm and ensure the conservation of these environments.</p>","PeriodicalId":55168,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Applications","volume":"35 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2024-11-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/eap.3064","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142713106","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":"Wheat field earthworms under divergent farming systems across a European climate gradient","authors":"Visa Nuutinen,&nbsp;Maria J. I. Briones,&nbsp;Stefan Schrader,&nbsp;Igor Dekemati,&nbsp;Nikola Grujić,&nbsp;Juha Hyvönen,&nbsp;Mari Ivask,&nbsp;Simon Bo Lassen,&nbsp;Eva Lloret,&nbsp;Irene Ollio,&nbsp;Paula Pérez-Rodríguez,&nbsp;Barbara Simon,&nbsp;Merit Sutri,&nbsp;Nancy de Sutter,&nbsp;Kristian K. Brandt,&nbsp;Krista Peltoniemi,&nbsp;Merrit Shanskiy,&nbsp;Lieven Waeyenberge,&nbsp;Silvia Martínez-Martínez,&nbsp;David Fernández-Calviño","doi":"10.1002/eap.3066","DOIUrl":"10.1002/eap.3066","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Earthworms are a key faunal group in agricultural soils, but little is known on how farming systems affect their communities across wide climatic gradients and how farming system choice might mediate earthworms' exposure to climate conditions. Here, we studied arable soil earthworm communities on wheat fields across a European climatic gradient, covering nine pedo-climatic zones, from Mediterranean to Boreal (S to N) and from Lusitanian to Pannonian (W to E). In each zone, 20–25 wheat fields under conventional or organic farming were sampled. Community metrics (total abundance, fresh mass, and species richness and composition) were combined with data on climate conditions, soil properties, and field management and analyzed with mixed models. There were no statistically discernible differences between organic and conventional farming for any of the community metrics. The effects of refined arable management factors were also not detected, except for an elevated proportion of subsurface-feeding earthworms when crop residues were incorporated. Soil properties were not significantly associated with earthworm community variations, which in the case of soil texture was likely due to low variation in the data. Pedo-climatic zone was an overridingly important factor in explaining the variation in community metrics. The Boreal zone had the highest mean total abundance (179 individuals m⁻²) and fresh mass (86 g m⁻²) of earthworms while the southernmost Mediterranean zones had the lowest metrics (&lt;1 individual m⁻² and &lt;1 g m⁻²). Within each field, species richness was low across the zones, with the highest values being recorded at the Nemoral and North Atlantic zones (mean of 2–3 species per field) and declining from there toward north and south. No litter-dwelling species were found in the southernmost, Mediterranean zones. These regional trends were discernibly related to climate, with the community metrics declining with the increasing mean annual temperature. The current continent-wide warming of Europe and related increase of severe and rapid onsetting droughts will likely deteriorate the living conditions of earthworms, particularly in southern Europe. The lack of interaction between the pedo-climatic zone and the farming system in our data for any of the earthworm community metrics may indicate limited opportunities for alleviating the negative effects of a warming climate in cereal field soils of Europe.</p>","PeriodicalId":55168,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Applications","volume":"35 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2024-11-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11734576/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142717943","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":"Declining ecological resilience and invasion resistance under climate change in the sagebrush region, United States","authors":"Daniel R. Schlaepfer,&nbsp;Jeanne C. Chambers,&nbsp;Alexandra K. Urza,&nbsp;Brice B. Hanberry,&nbsp;Jessi L. Brown,&nbsp;David I. Board,&nbsp;Steven B. Campbell,&nbsp;Karen J. Clause,&nbsp;Michele R. Crist,&nbsp;John B. Bradford","doi":"10.1002/eap.3065","DOIUrl":"10.1002/eap.3065","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In water-limited dryland ecosystems of the Western United States, climate change is intensifying the impacts of heat, drought, and wildfire. Disturbances often lead to increased abundance of invasive species, in part, because dryland restoration and rehabilitation are inhibited by limited moisture and infrequent plant recruitment events. Information on ecological resilience to disturbance (recovery potential) and resistance to invasive species can aid in addressing these challenges by informing long-term restoration and conservation planning. Here, we quantified the impacts of projected future climate on ecological resilience and invasion resistance (R&amp;R) in the sagebrush region using novel algorithms based on ecologically relevant and climate-sensitive predictors of climate and ecological drought. We used a process-based ecohydrological model to project these predictor variables and resulting R&amp;R indicators for two future climate scenarios and 20 climate models. Results suggested widespread future R&amp;R decreases (24%–34% of the 1.16 million km² study area) that are generally consistent among climate models. Variables related to rising temperatures were most strongly linked to decreases in R&amp;R indicators. New continuous R&amp;R indices quantified responses to climate change; particularly useful for areas without projected change in the R&amp;R category but where R&amp;R still may decrease, for example, some of the areas with a historically low R&amp;R category. Additionally, we found that areas currently characterized as having high sagebrush ecological integrity had the largest areal percentage with expected declines in R&amp;R in the future, suggesting continuing declines in sagebrush ecosystems. One limitation of these R&amp;R projections was relatively novel future climatic conditions in particularly hot and dry areas that were underrepresented in the training data. Including more data from these areas in future updates could further improve the reliability of the projections. Overall, these projected future declines in R&amp;R highlight a growing challenge for natural resource managers in the region, and the resulting spatially explicit datasets provide information that can improve long-term risk assessments, prioritizations, and climate adaptation efforts.</p>","PeriodicalId":55168,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Applications","volume":"35 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2024-11-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142697108","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":"Ecosystem service indicators on military-managed drylands in the Western United States","authors":"Samuel E. Jordan,&nbsp;William K. Smith,&nbsp;Osvaldo E. Sala","doi":"10.1002/eap.3044","DOIUrl":"10.1002/eap.3044","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Lands devoted to military use are globally important for the production of ecosystem services and for the conservation of biodiversity. The United States has one of the largest military land estates in the world, and most of these areas occur in water-limited landscapes. Despite many of these areas receiving intense or sustained disturbance from military training activities, the structure and function of ecosystems contained within their boundaries continue to provide critical benefits to people across spatial scales. The land owned and managed by the Department of Defense is subject to regulation across local, state, and federal governing bodies, constraining and shaping both how land management is conducted and how ecosystem services are prioritized. Here, we explored the supply of ecosystem services from military lands in dryland areas of the United States using key indicators of ecosystem services: biodiversity estimates derived from range maps, ecosystem productivity estimates from satellite observations, and spatially explicit, hierarchical ecosystem classifications. Additionally, we utilized content analysis of the environmental management plans of these areas to describe the unique set of demands and regulatory constraints on these areas. We found that the US military land estate in drylands contains many types of ecosystems and provides a large and diverse supply of ecosystem services, comparable to the sum of services from public lands in these areas. Additionally, the degree to which the ecosystem services concept is captured in environmental management plans is strongly shaped by the language of the governing legislation that mandated the use of environmental management plans in these areas, although these plans do not explicitly address land management using the concept of ecosystem services. Collectively, our findings suggest that military use and management of land represents an important source of ecosystem services, that military land use can be considered a cultural ecosystem service unto itself, and that top-down regulation can affect how these services are identified and valued. Our work highlights the need for the research and conservation communities to quantify ecosystem services from individual military installations so that both services and biodiversity can be safeguarded in an era of military conflict across the globe.</p>","PeriodicalId":55168,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Applications","volume":"35 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2024-11-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142689749","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":"Smaller and bolder fish enhance ecosystem-scale primary production around artificial reefs in seagrass beds","authors":"Katrina S. Munsterman,&nbsp;Maximilian H. K. Hesselbarth,&nbsp;Jacob E. Allgeier","doi":"10.1002/eap.3055","DOIUrl":"10.1002/eap.3055","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Effective management of wild animals requires understanding how predation and harvest alter the composition of populations. These top-down processes can alter consumer body size and behavior and thus should also have consequences for bottom-up processes because (1) body size is a critical determinant of the amount of nutrients excreted and (2) variation in foraging behavior, which is strongly influenced by predation, can determine the amount and spatial distribution of nutrients. Changes to either are known to affect ecosystem-scale nutrient dynamics, but the consequences of these dynamics on ecosystem processes are poorly understood. We used an individual-based model of an artificial reef (AR) and reef fish in a subtropical seagrass bed to test how fish body size can interact with variation in foraging behavior at the population and individual levels to affect seagrass production in a nutrient-limited system. Seagrass production dynamics can be driven by both belowground (BGPP) and aboveground primary production (AGPP); thus, we quantified ecosystem-scale production via these different mechanistic pathways. We found that (1) populations of small fish generated greater total primary production (TLPP = BGPP + AGPP) than large fish, (2) fish that foraged more increased TLPP more than those that spent time sheltering on ARs, and (3) small fish that foraged more led to greatest increases in TLPP. The mechanism by which this occurred was primarily through increased BGPP, highlighting the importance of cryptic belowground dynamics in seagrass ecosystems. Populations of extremely bold individuals (i.e., foraged significantly more) slightly increased TLPP but strongly affected the distribution of production, whereby bold individuals increased BGPP, while populations of shy individuals increased AGPP. Taken together, these results provide a link between consumer body size, variation in consumer behavior, and primary production—which, in turn, will support secondary production for fisheries. Our study suggests that human-induced changes—such as fishing—that alter consumer body size and behavior will fundamentally change ecosystem-scale production dynamics. Understanding the ecosystem effects of harvest on consumer populations is critical for ecosystem-based management, including the development of ARs for fisheries.</p>","PeriodicalId":55168,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Applications","volume":"35 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2024-11-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11733711/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142689750","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":"Incorporating stressor interactions into spatially explicit cumulative impact assessments","authors":"Jackson Stockbridge,&nbsp;Alice R. Jones,&nbsp;Christopher J. Brown,&nbsp;Mark J. Doubell,&nbsp;Bronwyn M. Gillanders","doi":"10.1002/eap.3056","DOIUrl":"10.1002/eap.3056","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Human-induced stressors are impacting the oceans and reducing the biodiversity of marine ecosystems. The many stressors affecting marine environments do not act in isolation. However, their cumulative impact is difficult to predict. Most of the available methods for quantifying cumulative impacts on marine ecosystems sum the impact of individual stressors to estimate cumulative impact. We demonstrate how experimental evidence from interacting stressors can be accounted for in cumulative impact assessments. We adapted a widely used additive model to incorporate nonadditive stressor interactions into a marine spatially explicit cumulative impact assessment for seagrasses. We combined experimental data on the impact of multiple stressors with spatial data on stressor intensity to test whether stressor interactions impact seagrasses in a case study region in South Australia. We also assessed how uncertainty about cumulative impacts changes when uncertainty in stressor interactions is included in the impact mapping. The results from an additive spatial cumulative impact assessment model were compared with results from the model incorporating interactions. Cumulative effects from the interaction model were more variable than those produced by the additive model. Five of the 15 stressor interactions that we tested produced impacts that significantly deviated from those predicted by an additive model. Areas of our study region that showed the largest discrepancies between the additive and interactive outputs were also associated with higher uncertainty. Our study demonstrates that the inclusion of stressor interactions changes the pattern and intensity of modeled spatial cumulative impact. Additive models have the potential to misrepresent cumulative impact intensity and do not provide the opportunity for targeted mitigation measures when managing the interactive effects of stressors. Appropriate inclusion of interacting stressor data may have implications for the identification of key stressors and the subsequent spatial planning and management of marine ecosystems and biodiversity.</p>","PeriodicalId":55168,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Applications","volume":"35 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2024-11-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11733263/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142677792","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":"Divergent trajectories of regeneration in early-successional forests after logging and wildfire","authors":"Elle J. Bowd,&nbsp;Lachlan McBurney,&nbsp;David B. Lindenmayer","doi":"10.1002/eap.3061","DOIUrl":"10.1002/eap.3061","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Increases in forest disturbances have altered global forest demography rates, with many regions now characterized by extensive areas of early-successional forest. Heterogeneity in the structure, diversity, and composition of early-successional forests influence their inherent ecological values from immediately following disturbance to later successional stages, including values for biodiversity and carbon storage. Here, using 14 years of longitudinal data, we describe patterns in the structure, richness, and composition of early-successional forests subject to one of three different disturbance types: (1) clearcut logging followed by slash burn, (2) severe wildfire followed by salvage logging, and (3) severe wildfire only, in the Mountain Ash (<i>Eucalyptus regnans</i>) and Alpine Ash (<i>Eucalyptus delegatensis</i>) forests of southeastern Australia. We also documented the influence of disturbance intervals (short, medium, and long) on early-successional forests. Our analyses revealed several key differences between forests that regenerated from wildfire versus two different anthropogenic perturbations. Most ash-type plant communities were resilient to wildfire within historical fire-regimes (75–150 years), exhibiting temporal trends of recovery in plant structure, richness, and composition within the first decade. In contrast, the richness, occurrence, and abundance of some plant lifeforms and life history traits were negatively associated with clearcut logging and salvage logging, relative to forests disturbed by wildfire alone. These included resprouting species, such as tree ferns and ground ferns. However, <i>Acacia</i> spp. and shrubs were more abundant after clearcut logging. Our findings also provide evidence of the pronounced negative impact of salvage logging on early-successional plant communities, relative to that of both clearcut logging and wildfire. Notably, plant richness declined for over a decade after salvage logging, rather than increased as occurred following other disturbance types. Early-successional forests provide the template for the stand structure and composition of mature forests. Therefore, altered patterns of recovery with different disturbance types will likely shape the structure and function of later-successional stages. Predicted increases in wildfire will increase the generation of early-successional forests and subsequent salvage logging. Therefore, it is pertinent that management consider how different disturbance types can produce alternate states of forest composition and structure early in succession, and the implications for mature stands.</p>","PeriodicalId":55168,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Applications","volume":"35 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2024-11-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142677786","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":"Global dynamics of functional composition in CITES-traded reptiles","authors":"Dominic Meeks,&nbsp;Oscar Morton,&nbsp;David P. Edwards","doi":"10.1002/eap.3060","DOIUrl":"10.1002/eap.3060","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Global wildlife trade is a billion-dollar industry, with millions of individuals traded annually from a diversity of taxa, many of which are directly threatened by trade. Reptiles exhibiting desirable life-history or aesthetic traits, such as large body sizes or colorful morphologies, are traded preferentially. A key issue is understanding geographic and temporal variation between desirable species traits and their trade. Poor understanding of this can generalize patterns of consumer trait preferences and conceal functional consequences of wild harvest in ecosystems. Using records of legal, international trade in Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES)-listed reptiles between 2000 and 2020, we examine geographic and temporal variation in the functional composition of traded assemblages, both captive- and wild-sourced, identifying key hotspots and routes of functional diversity in trade. We also identify associations between functional traits and species presence in trade. We find that functionally diverse trade assemblages are exported primarily from the tropics, with hotspots in sub-Saharan Africa, and imported across Asia, Europe, and North America. Patterns of functional composition in trade remained broadly stable from 2000 to 2020. Globally, the species most likely to be traded were large, fecund, generalists. Sustained wild harvest of functionally diverse reptilian assemblages in trade hotspots, such as Madagascar and Indonesia, places substantial pressure on large-bodied reptiles that fulfill important ecological functions, including population control and nutrient cycling, while also endangering harvest-vulnerable species with slow life histories. Despite limited species-specific descriptions of reptilian ecological functions, management in harvest hotspots can safeguard ecosystem functioning by prioritizing protection for threatened species that contribute disproportionately to local and regional functional diversity.</p>","PeriodicalId":55168,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Applications","volume":"35 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2024-11-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11733411/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142677789","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}