BMC Ecology最新文献

{"title":"Seasonal deviation effects foliar endophyte assemblage and diversity in Asparagus racemosus and Hemidesmus indicus.","authors":"Riyaz Ahmad Rather,&nbsp;Vijayalakshmi Srinivasan,&nbsp;Mumtaz Anwar","doi":"10.1186/s12898-018-0211-y","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s12898-018-0211-y","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Fungal endophytes are the living symbionts which cause no apparent damage to the host tissue. The distribution pattern of these endophytes within a host plant is mediated by environmental factors. This study was carried out to explore the fungal endophyte community and their distribution pattern in Asparagus racemosus and Hemidesmus indicus growing in the study area.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Foliar endophytes were isolated for 2 years from A. racemosus and H. indicus at four different seasons (June-August, September-November, December-February, March-May). A total of 5400 (675/season/year) leaf segments harbored 38 fungal species belonging to 17 genera, 12 miscellaneous mycelia sterile from 968 isolates and 13 had yeast like growth. In A. racemosus, Acremonium strictum and Phomopsis sp.1, were dominant with overall relative colonization densities (RCD) of 7.11% and 5.44% respectively, followed by Colletotrichum sp.3 and Colletotrichum sp.1 of 4.89% and 4.83% respectively. In H. indicus the dominant species was A. strictum having higher overall RCD of 5.06%, followed by Fusarium moniliforme and Colletotrichum sp.2 with RCD of 3.83% and 3%, respectively. Further the overall colonization and isolation rates were higher during the wet periods (September-November) in both A. racemosus (92.22% and 95.11%) and H. indicus (82% and 77.11%).</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>Study samples treated with 0.2% HgCl₂ and 75% EtOH for 30 s and 1 min, respectively, confirmed most favorable method of isolation of the endophytes. Owing to high mean isolation and colonization rates, September-November season proved to be the optimal season for endophyte isolation in both the study plants. Assessing the bioactive potential of these endophytes, may lead to the isolation of novel natural products and metabolites.</p>","PeriodicalId":9232,"journal":{"name":"BMC Ecology","volume":"18 1","pages":"52"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2018-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1186/s12898-018-0211-y","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"36740003","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":"Silicon uptake by a pasture grass experiencing simulated grazing is greatest under elevated precipitation.","authors":"James M W Ryalls,&nbsp;Ben D Moore,&nbsp;Scott N Johnson","doi":"10.1186/s12898-018-0208-6","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s12898-018-0208-6","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Grasses are hyper-accumulators of silicon (Si) and often up-regulate Si following herbivory. Positive correlations exist between Si and plant water content, yet the extent to which Si uptake responses can be mediated by changes in soil water availability has rarely been studied and never, to our knowledge, under field conditions. We used field-based rain-exclusion shelters to investigate how simulated grazing (shoot clipping) and altered rainfall patterns (drought and elevated precipitation, representing 50% and 150% of ambient precipitation levels, respectively) affected initial patterns of root- and shoot-Si uptake in a native Australian grass (Microlaena stipoides) in Si-supplemented and untreated soils.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Si supplementation increased soil water retention under ambient and elevated precipitation but not under drought, although this had little effect on Si uptake and growth (tiller numbers or root biomass) of M. stipoides. Changes in rainfall patterns and clipping had strong individual effects on plant growth and Si uptake and storage, whereby clipping increased Si uptake by M. stipoides under all rainfall treatments but to the greatest extent under elevated precipitation. Moreover, above-ground-below-ground Si distribution only changed following elevated precipitation by decreasing the ratio of root:shoot Si concentrations.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>Results highlight the importance of soil water availability for Si uptake and suggest a role for both active and passive Si transport mechanisms. Such manipulative field studies may provide a more realistic insight into how grasses initially respond to herbivory in terms of Si-based defence under different environmental conditions.</p>","PeriodicalId":9232,"journal":{"name":"BMC Ecology","volume":"18 1","pages":"53"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2018-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1186/s12898-018-0208-6","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"36795719","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":"Flower strip networks offer promising long term effects on pollinator species richness in intensively cultivated agricultural areas.","authors":"Constanze Buhk,&nbsp;Rainer Oppermann,&nbsp;Arno Schanowski,&nbsp;Richard Bleil,&nbsp;Julian Lüdemann,&nbsp;Christian Maus","doi":"10.1186/s12898-018-0210-z","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s12898-018-0210-z","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Intensively cultivated agricultural landscapes often suffer from substantial pollinator losses, which may be leading to decreasing pollination services for crops and wild flowering plants. Conservation measures that are easy to implement and accepted by farmers are needed to halt a further loss of pollinators in large areas under intensive agricultural management. Here we report the results of a replicated long-term study involving networks of mostly perennial flower strips covering 10% of a conventionally managed agricultural landscape in southwestern Germany.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>We demonstrate the considerable success of these measures for wild bee and butterfly species richness over an observation period of 5 years. Overall species richness of bees and butterflies but also the numbers of specialist bee species clearly increased in the ecological enhancement areas as compared to the control areas without ecological enhancement measures. A three to five-fold increase in species richness was found after more than 2 years of enhancement of the areas with flower strips. Oligolectic bee species increased significantly only after the third year.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>In our long-term field experiment we used a large variety of seed mixtures and temporal variation in seeding time, ensured continuity of the flower-strips by using perennial seed mixtures and distributed the measures over c. 10% of the landscape. This led to an increase in pollinator abundance, suggesting that these measures may be instrumental for the successful support of pollinators. These measures may ensure the availability of a network of diverse habitats and foraging resources for pollinators throughout the year, as well as nesting sites for many species. The measures are applied in-field and are suitable for application in areas under intensive agriculture. We propose that flower strip networks should be implemented much more in the upcoming CAP (common agricultural policy) reform in the European Union and promoted more by advisory services for farmers.</p>","PeriodicalId":9232,"journal":{"name":"BMC Ecology","volume":"18 1","pages":"55"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2018-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1186/s12898-018-0210-z","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"36740002","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 high-throughput imaging flow cytometry and deep learning for efficient species and life-cycle stage identification of phytoplankton.","authors":"Susanne Dunker,&nbsp;David Boho,&nbsp;Jana Wäldchen,&nbsp;Patrick Mäder","doi":"10.1186/s12898-018-0209-5","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s12898-018-0209-5","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Phytoplankton species identification and counting is a crucial step of water quality assessment. Especially drinking water reservoirs, bathing and ballast water need to be regularly monitored for harmful species. In times of multiple environmental threats like eutrophication, climate warming and introduction of invasive species more intensive monitoring would be helpful to develop adequate measures. However, traditional methods such as microscopic counting by experts or high throughput flow cytometry based on scattering and fluorescence signals are either too time-consuming or inaccurate for species identification tasks. The combination of high qualitative microscopy with high throughput and latest development in machine learning techniques can overcome this hurdle.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>In this study, image based cytometry was used to collect ~ 47,000 images for brightfield and Chl a fluorescence at 60× magnification for nine common freshwater species of nano- and micro-phytoplankton. A deep neuronal network trained on these images was applied to identify the species and the corresponding life cycle stage during the batch cultivation. The results show the high potential of this approach, where species identity and their respective life cycle stage could be predicted with a high accuracy of 97%.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>These findings could pave the way for reliable and fast phytoplankton species determination of indicator species as a crucial step in water quality assessment.</p>","PeriodicalId":9232,"journal":{"name":"BMC Ecology","volume":"18 1","pages":"51"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2018-12-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1186/s12898-018-0209-5","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"36790892","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":"Classifying development stages of primeval European beech forests: is clustering a useful tool?","authors":"Jonas Glatthorn,&nbsp;Eike Feldmann,&nbsp;Vath Tabaku,&nbsp;Christoph Leuschner,&nbsp;Peter Meyer","doi":"10.1186/s12898-018-0203-y","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s12898-018-0203-y","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Old-growth and primeval forests are passing through a natural development cycle with recurring stages of forest development. Several methods for assigning patches of different structure and size to forest development stages or phases do exist. All currently existing classification methods have in common that a priori assumptions about the characteristics of certain stand structural attributes such as deadwood amount are made. We tested the hypothesis that multivariate datasets of primeval beech forest stand structure possess an inherent, aggregated configuration of data points with individual clusters representing forest development stages. From two completely mapped primeval beech forests in Albania, seven ecologically important stand structural attributes characterizing stand density, regeneration, stem diameter variation and amount of deadwood are derived at 8216 and 9666 virtual sampling points (moving window, focal filtering). K-means clustering is used to detect clusters in the datasets (number of clusters (k) between 2 and 5). The quality of the single clustering solutions is analyzed with average silhouette width as a measure for clustering quality. In a sensitivity analysis, clustering is done with datasets of four different spatial scales of observation (200, 500, 1000 and 1500 m², circular virtual plot area around sampling points) and with two different kernels (equal weighting of all objects within a plot vs. weighting by distance to the virtual plot center).</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>The clustering solutions succeeded in detecting and mapping areas with homogeneous stand structure. The areas had extensions of more than 200 m², but differences between clusters were very small with average silhouette widths of less than 0.28. The obtained datasets had a homogeneous configuration with only very weak trends for clustering.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>Our results imply that forest development takes place on a continuous scale and that discrimination between development stages in primeval beech forests is splitting continuous datasets at selected thresholds. For the analysis of the forest development cycle, direct quantification of relevant structural features or processes might be more appropriate than classification. If, however, the study design demands classification, our results can justify the application of conventional forest development stage classification schemes rather than clustering.</p>","PeriodicalId":9232,"journal":{"name":"BMC Ecology","volume":"18 1","pages":"47"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2018-11-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1186/s12898-018-0203-y","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"36690497","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":"Demographic consequences of reproductive interference in multi-species communities.","authors":"Janice J Ting, Asher D Cutter","doi":"10.1186/s12898-018-0201-0","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s12898-018-0201-0","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Reproductive interference can mediate interference competition between species through sexual interactions that reduce the fitness of one species by another. Theory shows that the positive frequency-dependent effects of such costly errors in mate recognition can dictate species coexistence or exclusion even with countervailing resource competition differences between species. While usually framed in terms of pre-mating or post-zygotic costs, reproductive interference manifests between individual Caenorhabditis nematodes from negative interspecies gametic interactions: sperm cells from interspecies matings can migrate ectopically to induce female sterility and premature death. The potential for reproductive interference to exert population level effects on Caenorhabditis trait evolution and community structure, however, remains unknown.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Here we test whether a species that is superior in individual-level reproductive interference (C. nigoni) can exact negative demographic effects on competitor species that are superior in resource competition (C. briggsae and C. elegans). We observe coexistence over six generations and find evidence of demographic reproductive interference even under conditions unfavorable to its influence. C. briggsae and C. elegans show distinct patterns of reproductive interference in competitive interactions with C. nigoni.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>These results affirm that individual level negative effects of reproductive interference mediated by gamete interactions can ramify to population demography, with the potential to influence patterns of species coexistence separately from the effects of direct resource competition.</p>","PeriodicalId":9232,"journal":{"name":"BMC Ecology","volume":"18 1","pages":"46"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2018-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6219154/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"36652181","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":"Enhancing soil organic carbon, particulate organic carbon and microbial biomass in semi-arid rangeland using pasture enclosures.","authors":"C O Oduor,&nbsp;N K Karanja,&nbsp;R N Onwonga,&nbsp;S M Mureithi,&nbsp;D Pelster,&nbsp;G Nyberg","doi":"10.1186/s12898-018-0202-z","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s12898-018-0202-z","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Rehabilitation of degraded rangelands through the establishment of enclosures (fencing grazing lands) is believed to improve soil quality and livelihoods, and enhance the sustainability of rangelands. Grazing dominated enclosure (GDE) and contractual grazing enclosure (CGE) are the common enclosure management systems in West Pokot County, Kenya. Under CGE, a farmer owning few animals leases the enclosure to households with relatively more livestock, while GDE is where the livestock utilizing the enclosure are purely owned by the farmer. Livestock management in both systems is via the free-range system. This study evaluated the effect of enclosure management on total soil organic carbon (SOC), particulate organic carbon (POC) and microbial biomass carbon (MBC) and nitrogen (MBN) as key indicators of soil degradation at 0-40 cm depth. The two enclosure systems were selected based on three age classes (3-10, 11-20 and > 20 years since establishment) (n = 3). The adjacent open grazing area (OGR) was used as a reference (n = 9).</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Relative to OGR, the pasture enclosures significantly decreased soil bulk density and increased the concentrations of total organic C, POC, MBC and MBN compared to the degraded OGR (P < 0.001). Significantly higher concentrations of POC and MBC was recorded in GDE than CGE (P = 0.01). The POC accounted for 24.5-29.5% of the total SOC. MBC concentrations ranged from 32.05 ± 7.25 to 96.63 ± 5.31 µg C g^-1 of soil in all grazing systems, and was positively correlated with total SOC and POC (P < 0.001). The proportional increase in POC and MBC was higher in GDE (56.6 and 30.5% respectively) compared to CGE (39.2 and 13.9% for POC and MBC respectively).</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>This study demonstrated that controlling livestock grazing through the establishment of pasture enclosures is the key strategy to enhance total SOC, POC, MBC, and MBN in degraded rangelands; a precondition for improving soil quality. Therefore, the establishment of enclosures is an effective restoration approach to restore degraded soils in semi-arid rangelands.</p>","PeriodicalId":9232,"journal":{"name":"BMC Ecology","volume":"18 1","pages":"45"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2018-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1186/s12898-018-0202-z","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"36602208","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 biomass-density relationship in seagrasses and its use as an ecological indicator.","authors":"Vasco M N C S Vieira,&nbsp;Inês E Lopes,&nbsp;Joel C Creed","doi":"10.1186/s12898-018-0200-1","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s12898-018-0200-1","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Biomass-density relations have been at the centre of a search for an index which describes the health of seagrass meadows. However, this search has been complicated by the intricacy of seagrass demographics and their complex biomass-density relations, a consequence mainly of their modular growth and clonality. Concomitantly, biomass-density upper boundaries have been determined for terrestrial plants and algae, reflecting their asymptotic maximum efficiencies of space occupation. Each stand's distance to its respective biomass-density upper boundary reflects its effective efficiency in packing biomass, which has proved a reliable ecological indicator in order to discriminate between taxonomic groups, functional groups and clonal vs. non-clonal growth.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>We gathered data from 32 studies on 10 seagrass species distributed worldwide and demonstrated that seagrasses are limited by their own boundary line, placed below the boundaries previously determined for algae and terrestrial plants. Then, we applied a new metric-d_grass: each stand's perpendicular distance to the seagrass boundary-and used this parameter to review fundamental aspects such as clonal growth patterns, depth distribution, seasonality, interspecific competition, and the effects of light, temperature and nutrients.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>Seagrasses occupy space less efficiently than algae and terrestrial plants. Using only their biomass and density data we established a new and efficient tool to describe space occupation by seagrasses. This was used with success to evaluate their meadows as an ecological indicator for the health of coastal ecosystems.</p>","PeriodicalId":9232,"journal":{"name":"BMC Ecology","volume":"18 1","pages":"44"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2018-10-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1186/s12898-018-0200-1","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"36588761","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":"Is stemflow a vector for the transport of small metazoans from tree surfaces down to soil?","authors":"Christoph Ptatscheck,&nbsp;Patrick Connor Milne,&nbsp;Walter Traunspurger","doi":"10.1186/s12898-018-0198-4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s12898-018-0198-4","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Stemflow is an essential hydrologic process shaping the soil of forests by providing a concentrated input of rainwater and solutions. However, the transport of metazoans by stemflow has yet to be investigated. This 8-week study documented the organisms (< 2 mm) present in the stemflow of different tree species. Because the texture of the tree bark is a crucial determination of stemflow, trees with smooth bark (Carpinus betulus and Fagus sylvatica) and rough bark (Quercus robur) were examined.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Up to 1170 individuals per liter of stemflow were collected. For rotifers and nematodes, a highly positive correlation between abundance and stemflow yield was determined. Both taxa were predominant (rotifers: up to 70%, nematodes: up to 13.5%) in the stemflow of smooth-barked trees whereas in that of the oak trees collembolans were the most abundant organisms (77.3%). The mean number of organisms collected per liter of stemflow from the two species of smooth-barked trees was very similar. A higher number of nematode species was found in the stemflow of these trees than in the stemflow of rough-barked oak and all were typical colonizers of soil- and bark-associated habitats.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>This pilot study showed for the first time that stemflow is a transport vector for numerous small metazoans. By connecting tree habitats (e.g., bark, moss, lichens or water-filled tree holes) with soil, stemflow may influence the composition of soil fauna by mediating intensive organismal dispersal.</p>","PeriodicalId":9232,"journal":{"name":"BMC Ecology","volume":"18 1","pages":"43"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2018-10-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1186/s12898-018-0198-4","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"36576161","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 relationship between the abundance of the Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes ellioti) and its habitat: a conservation concern in Mbam-Djerem National Park, Cameroon.","authors":"Serge Alexis Kamgang,&nbsp;Kadiri Serge Bobo,&nbsp;Fiona Maisels,&nbsp;Ruffin Dupleix Delarue Ambahe,&nbsp;Désiré Edgar Ambassa Ongono,&nbsp;Mary Katherine Gonder,&nbsp;Paul Johnson,&nbsp;Jorgelina Marino,&nbsp;Brice Sinsin","doi":"10.1186/s12898-018-0199-3","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s12898-018-0199-3","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Understanding the relationship between great apes and their habitat is essential for the development of successful conservation strategies. The chimpanzee Pan troglodytes ellioti is endemic to Nigeria and Cameroon, and occupies an ecologically diverse range of habitats from forests to forest-savannah mosaic in Mbam-Djerem National Park (MDNP) in Cameroon. The habitat variation in chimpanzees is poorly understood in MDNP which provides an excellent opportunity to assess ecological factors that shape the abundance and distribution patterns of P. t. ellioti over a small geographic scale.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>We counted 249 nests along 132 km of transects in total. Of these, 119 nests along 68 km occurred in dense forest and 130 nests along 64 km in forest-savannah mosaic. Chimpanzee density was 0.88 [95% CI (0.55-1.41)] individuals/km² in the dense forest and 0.59 [95% CI (0.19-1.76)] in the forest-savannah mosaic. Nest abundance varied with vegetation type and was higher in areas with dense canopy cover, steeper slopes and relatively higher altitudes.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>Our estimates of chimpanzee densities were lower than reported in other studied populations in the range of the Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee. However, we found that habitat features, slope and altitude likely play a role in shaping patterns of chimpanzee nesting ecology. Further studies need to be focused on nest decay rates and phenology of useful plants in order to model chimpanzee abundance and distribution in Mbam-Djerem National Park.</p>","PeriodicalId":9232,"journal":{"name":"BMC Ecology","volume":"18 1","pages":"40"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2018-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1186/s12898-018-0199-3","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"36599306","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}