Ecological Applications[JOURNAL]
Sun
200 papers
Agricultural intensification indirectly reshapes bee-plant interaction networks through shifts in bee functional traits.
Cano D, Martínez-Núñez C, Pérez AJ … +4 more , Alcántara JM, Moretti M, Salido T, Rey PJ
Ecol Appl · 2025 Sep · PMID 40983340 · Full text
High-intensity farming can lead to non-random local extinctions and functional filtering of pollinating insect assemblages, disproportionately harming species with certain traits. This process can ultimately reshape poll...
High-intensity farming can lead to non-random local extinctions and functional filtering of pollinating insect assemblages, disproportionately harming species with certain traits. This process can ultimately reshape pollinator-plant interaction networks in predictable, consistent manners, although this pathway remains largely unexplored. Here, we investigate how agricultural intensification affects the structure of bee-plant interaction networks both directly and indirectly by influencing the functional composition and diversity (in terms of foraging and nesting traits) of the bee assemblages. We considered 24 paired olive farms with contrasting management over a gradient of landscape complexity. We characterized the network structure and functional composition of bee assemblages visiting floral patches in the olive fields by using both functional identity and diversity metrics. We then built Bayesian multilevel models to assess the direct and indirect (via functional filtering processes) effects of agricultural intensification on network properties. We found that most of the effects of agricultural intensification on bee-plant network properties in floral patches occur through the filtering of the bee functional traits. However, while the effects of farming practices occur fundamentally through the filtering of foraging traits, the landscape effects occur via the modification of the nesting guilds. High-intensity herb cover management negatively affected larger bees (also highly correlated with longer proboscis), resulting in a decrease in the overlap of bees' interaction niches. This filtering was mitigated in flowering patches with higher floral cover, which increased the functional diversity of bees, ultimately reducing the overlap of the plants' interaction niches. In turn, the loss of semi-natural habitats in the landscape disproportionately favored ground excavators, causing homogenization of nesting guild composition. This, coupled with decreased floral abundance (patch scale), led to less diverse and structurally simpler networks. In conclusion, our study suggests that agricultural intensification reshapes bee-plant networks in olive landscapes through functional filtering of bee assemblages and provides cues to mitigate these effects. On a small scale, floral patches with abundant flowers buffer the filtering of bees' foraging traits, suggesting that well-managed flower patches help mitigate the functional depletion imposed by agricultural intensification. Meanwhile, favoring semi-natural remnants at a large scale attenuates the homogenization of nesting guild composition.
Dominant species drive ecosystem multifunctionality under changed precipitation timing in a semiarid steppe.
Zhu H, Fan C, Jin H … +5 more , Zhang Y, Wang H, Li G, Xiao R, Yang Z
Ecol Appl · 2025 Sep · PMID 40977089 · Publisher ↗
Biodiversity significantly affects ecosystem multifunctionality (EMF), particularly in the context of changing precipitation patterns. However, the relative importance of multiple dimensions of diversity (e.g., taxonomic...
Biodiversity significantly affects ecosystem multifunctionality (EMF), particularly in the context of changing precipitation patterns. However, the relative importance of multiple dimensions of diversity (e.g., taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity [PD]) on EMF under different precipitation patterns remains unclear. In this study, we conducted a 7-year field manipulation experiment in the semiarid steppe to examine the effects of taxonomic, functional, and PD on total EMF, aboveground ecosystem multifunctionality (AGEMF), and belowground ecosystem multifunctionality (BGEMF) under changed precipitation in different periods. The results showed that decreased precipitation in the early (DEP), late (DLP), and entire growing season (DP) reduced EMF by 6.5%, 8.4%, and 11.6%, respectively, whereas increased precipitation in different periods had no effect on EMF. DEP, DLP, and DP decreased AGEMF by 10.0%, 9.7%, and 19.0%, respectively. In contrast, increased precipitation in the early (IEP) and entire (IP) growing season enhanced AGEMF by 5.1% and 6.9%, respectively. However, increased precipitation during the late growing season (ILP) did not affect AGEMF. DLP and DP decreased BGEMF by 13.3% and 11.2%, respectively, whereas other precipitation treatments had no effect on BGEMF. Species dominance was the major driver of AGEMF and BGEMF under precipitation decreases while soil moisture was the best predictor of AGEMF under precipitation increases. In contrast, functional and PD had no effect on EMF. The greater sensitivity of EMF, AGEMF, and BGEMF to precipitation decreases than to precipitation increases indicates an asymmetric response of EMF to precipitation changes, highlighting that DLP weakens EMF by reducing the roles of dominant species in the semiarid steppe. The findings are crucial for informing effective grassland management policies and maintaining stable ecosystem provisions.
Landscape context affects both capture probability and abundance of solitary bees in cities.
Dooley KA, Murphy AW, Crone EE
Ecol Appl · 2025 Sep · PMID 40947939 · Publisher ↗
It is intuitive to hypothesize that urban landscapes are broadly hostile to insects, but responses of wild bees to urbanization are inconsistent and often positive. Many people have interpreted this to mean that bees can...
It is intuitive to hypothesize that urban landscapes are broadly hostile to insects, but responses of wild bees to urbanization are inconsistent and often positive. Many people have interpreted this to mean that bees can persist in small habitat fragments in urban landscapes (hereafter the "Patch of Dreams" hypothesis). Another possible mechanism for this surprising pattern is that bees are more attracted to sampling sites or traps in resource-poor landscapes, and the apparent abundance of bees in cities is due to higher capture probability, not higher abundance (the "Only Show in Town" hypothesis). We used a mark-recapture study of the bicolored sweat bee (Agapostemon virescens) to separate capture probability from true abundance. We estimated the contributions of each factor (capture probability vs. abundance) to visitation rates of experimental flower patches in flower-rich gardens and paired non-garden sites along a landscape-scale impervious surface gradient (~35%-95% impervious surface). Bee abundance declined along the gradient in both site types (garden vs. non-garden), and this decline was more apparent for true abundance than for the number of visits to flower patches. Capture probability was higher in non-garden than garden sites and, along the landscape gradient, capture probability increased with impervious surface in non-garden but decreased with impervious surface in garden sites. These results support the Only Show in Town hypothesis at local scales, and at landscape scales when local resources are sparse. This finding emphasizes that the number of bees seen visiting flowers is not a consistent metric of population size across varying resource environments. Understanding the relationship between the sampling process and true abundance at landscape scales is an important priority for future research. In addition to these results, all of our experimental patches were used by A. virescens. This finding emphasizes the importance of urban gardens for supporting native bees, since even isolated flower patches were used by A. virescens in highly fragmented landscapes.
Density-dependent resource partitioning of temperate large herbivore populations under rewilding.
Mas-Carrió E, Cornelissen P, Olff H … +1 more , Fumagalli L
Ecol Appl · 2025 Sep · PMID 40947909 · Full text
In tropical grazer assemblies with abundant large predators, smaller herbivores have been shown to be limited by predation and food quality, while the larger species are regulated by food abundance. Much less is known ab...
In tropical grazer assemblies with abundant large predators, smaller herbivores have been shown to be limited by predation and food quality, while the larger species are regulated by food abundance. Much less is known about herbivore resource partitioning in temperate grazing ecosystems, where humans typically regulate large animal abundances. The Oostvaardersplassen ecosystem in the Netherlands is a unique multispecies assemblage of cattle, horses, red deer, and geese developed after the initial introduction of a few individuals in 1983. During the first 35 years, this herbivore assemblage without predation or human regulation gradually changed into an increasing dominance of the smaller herbivore species. Carrying capacity was reached around 2008, after which numbers started fluctuating depending on winter conditions. From 2018, management changed and population numbers became regulated for biodiversity and animal welfare reasons; however, population numbers still remained close to carrying capacity for several years. We used eDNA metabarcoding of dung to quantify the diet composition of cattle, horses, red deer, and geese, annually in early winter from 2018 to 2021 and calculated their niche overlap. We found strong interspecific diet overlap. Horse and cattle diets remained mostly stable with fluctuating densities of the different species, while only red deer diet showed density dependence. Interspecific niche overlap decreased with increasing red deer population size, the most abundant species. When calculated as total energy expenditure, we found that niche overlap was more linked to red deer abundance than to total herbivore energy intake. We suggest that red deer changed their diet mainly in response to their own population size, reducing their niche overlap in relation to their population increase. In this case, resource competition reduced resource availability and forced herbivores to consume different plant taxa. We conclude that in this predator-free temperate ecosystem, inter- and intraspecific resource competition are key factors structuring this assemblage of different size herbivores. We find a general competitive advantage of the more diet-flexible red deer over horses and cattle, but with also clear signs of resource partitioning.
Linking aquatic vegetation structure with ecosystem metabolism throughout the Klamath River, California, USA.
Genzoli L, Hall RO
Ecol Appl · 2025 Sep · PMID 40947567 · Publisher ↗
While terrestrial biomes are routinely defined by their dominant vegetation structure and coupled primary productivity regimes, connecting primary productivity regimes with the properties of aquatic vegetation in rivers...
While terrestrial biomes are routinely defined by their dominant vegetation structure and coupled primary productivity regimes, connecting primary productivity regimes with the properties of aquatic vegetation in rivers is uncommon. Gross primary production (GPP) and ecosystem respiration (ER) indicate riverine ecosystem processes that are useful for monitoring river response to human alterations, global change, and restoration, but how aquatic vegetation structure and biomass influence GPP and ER is poorly known. We related patterns in the time series of daily GPP and ER to submerged aquatic vegetation biomass at 11 reaches on the Klamath River, California, downstream of four dams prior to their removal in 2024. Rooted macrophytes dominated vegetation assemblages at upriver sites and transitioned to filamentous algae downriver. Fluxes of GPP and ER were high compared to those of other rivers, with the magnitude and timing of mean ER, mean GPP, peak GPP, GPP variability, and green-up varying among sites. While total autotrophic biomass correlated strongly with mean summer GPP ( 0.80), evidence of macrophytes driving mean summer GPP was weaker ( 0.60). Relationships between mean summer ER and macrophyte biomass and total autotrophic biomass ( 0.93 and 0.87, respectively) were stronger than relationships between biomass and GPP. This strong relationship between ER and biomass was due to ER increasing late in summer, possibly because respiration of autotrophic biomass produced earlier in the season, or from vegetation structure creating patches of increased respiration of imported or stored carbon. Assessments of relationships between submerged aquatic vegetation and river metabolism may help inform predictions about changing ecosystem structure and function that influence water quality, including ecosystem response to the removal of four large hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River.
Food webs can deliver win-win strategies for tropical agroforestry and biodiversity conservation.
Jarrett C, Powell LL, Claire TTR … +6 more , Kowo C, Ferreira DF, Quiñones ALS, Welch AJ, Haydon DT, Matthiopoulos J
Ecol Appl · 2025 Sep · PMID 40936441 · Full text
High biodiversity and agricultural productivity are commonly regarded as mutually exclusive. However, functionally diverse communities may provide valuable services to agroecosystems and therefore offer the possibility o...
High biodiversity and agricultural productivity are commonly regarded as mutually exclusive. However, functionally diverse communities may provide valuable services to agroecosystems and therefore offer the possibility of win-win strategies. We developed a dynamic mechanistic community model of the bird-arthropod food web associated with African cocoa agroforestry, structurally informed by metabarcoding data on bird diets, and fitted to trapping data on species abundances. Our novel framework models rates of change and uses space-for-time substitution, thus providing insights into community dynamics without the need for long time-series data. We used our fitted model to predict equilibrium community composition under varying intensities of shade management and pesticide use. Our results indicate that low-intensity farming favors forest bird species, with at least two times the biomass of this bird group compared to any other at high shade cover. Low-intensity farms also favored potential pollinator abundance, while biomass of the main pest species of cocoa, brown capsid, was 25% lower at high shade than at low shade. Our model quantified the net effect of each taxon on the other taxa in the food web: most bird to arthropod interactions were negative, indicating important pest control services provided by birds. Furthermore, our simulations of pesticide application revealed that the long-term effect of pesticide use on biomass of taxa varied according to shade cover. Importantly, pesticide application resulted in the decline of non-pest taxa through trophic cascades: forest birds were the taxa that declined the fastest, and this trend was exacerbated in low shade farms. To achieve a decline of less than 50% in non-pest taxa, pesticide application could only reach 10% in the sunniest farms and 20% in shady farms, which results in a maximal reduction of 19% in pest biomass. By looking at the efficacy of agricultural management through the lens of community interactions, our holistic, quantitative approach demonstrates that low-intensity agriculture may provide a win-win for biodiversity and ecosystem services.
Incorporating fine-scale behaviors into habitat suitability modeling: A case study for sea turtles.
Hounslow JL, Fossette S, van Rooijen A … +3 more , Tucker AD, Whiting SD, Gleiss AC
Ecol Appl · 2025 Sep · PMID 40936416 · Full text
Habitat suitability models (HSMs) are popular statistical tools used to inform decision-making for conservation planning, using species location data to characterize species-environment relationships and identify importa...
Habitat suitability models (HSMs) are popular statistical tools used to inform decision-making for conservation planning, using species location data to characterize species-environment relationships and identify important habitats. Suitable habitats may vary according to behavior-specific resource requirements (e.g., foraging, resting), yet HSMs generally ignore behavior because obtaining spatially explicit behavioral data from wild animals is challenging. As such, suitable habitats may be incorrectly identified, and processes determining habitat selection may be misinterpreted. Despite offering unprecedented behavioral insight, contemporary multi-sensor biologgers remain underutilized in this context. We incorporated behavior into HSMs using biologging data collected from adult flatback turtles Natator depressus (n = 42) at a macrotidal study site in Western Australia and subsequently identified and characterized suitable habitat for key in-water behaviors. Foraging and resting locations derived from high-resolution motion sensor data (e.g., accelerometer, magnetometer) coupled with animal-borne video and GPS data were combined with 10 environmental features (i.e., bathymetry, aspect, slope, terrain ruggedness, distance from the coast and currents from a bespoke hydrodynamic model of the study site). A series of random forest HSMs were implemented for each behavior, accounting for temporal variation in habitat use. Bathymetry, distance from the coast, and currents best determined both foraging and resting suitability, with observed differences in habitat selection between behaviors. Overall, spatiotemporal patterns of most suitable foraging and resting habitat were similar, with shallow (10-15 m deep) nearshore (5-10 km from the coast) waters most suitable for both behaviors; however, habitats nearest to the coast (<5 km) were more suitable for foraging than resting. Overall, for foraging and resting, as water level increased turtles selected increasingly nearshore habitats where current speed was low and more variable direction. Overlap between most suitable habitats and current spatial zoning at the study site varied both seasonally and with water level, likely reflecting strong tidal influence on distribution and hence highlighting considerable opportunity for dynamic management. Our approach facilitates mechanistic insight into habitat selection and is generalizable across behaviors, taxa, and study systems, advancing the application of biologging tools to enhance the utility of HSMs and providing crucial context for decision-makers in threatened species management.
The future of biocontrol in the Anthropocene: A review of climate change impacts on biocontrol agents and their targets.
Evans AE, Pfadenhauer WG, Buonaiuto DM … +3 more , Fertakos ME, Brown-Lima CJ, Morelli TL
Ecol Appl · 2025 Sep · PMID 40936364 · Publisher ↗
Biological control, the practice of using one species (biocontrol agent) to control the population of another (a host or prey species, hereafter target), can be a successful method to reduce pest species in agricultural...
Biological control, the practice of using one species (biocontrol agent) to control the population of another (a host or prey species, hereafter target), can be a successful method to reduce pest species in agricultural and natural systems worldwide. Successful biocontrol agents often share a deep evolutionary history with their targets that results in high target specificity and synchronized phenology. However, with rapidly changing climatic conditions, users of biocontrol agents have questioned how climate change will affect both well-established and more recent biological control relationships. Using a meta-analysis of data collected from a systematic literature review, we evaluated the evidence for the impact of changing temperatures on the efficacy of biocontrol agents and corresponding responses in their targets. Overall, most studies of climate change impacts on biocontrol agents take place in the laboratory and focus on arthropod agents that are parasitoids. Results from our meta-analysis reveal that changes in temperature are projected to impact biocontrol agents and their targets similarly, with no overall significant changes to biocontrol agent or target performance. However, our results also show that temperature responses vary widely across study systems, as illustrated by case studies showing both positive, neutral, and negative effects of temperature on biocontrol agent efficacy, as well as variation in responses across the three core biological control measures of success: survival, reproduction, and efficacy. Our work highlights important knowledge gaps including how climate change will affect both biocontrol agents and their targets simultaneously. Additionally, we find that most current studies of climate impacts examined temperature relationships, predominantly of agricultural biocontrol agents. Increasing the breadth of studies is crucial for understanding the potential for climate change to affect the success of current and future biological control programs.
Thermal drone surveys to detect arboreal fauna: Improving population estimates and threatened species monitoring.
Wagner B, Garnick SW, Ryan MF … +3 more , Isaac JL, Begg A, Nitschke CR
Ecol Appl · 2025 Sep · PMID 40936356 · Full text
Sound methods to determine species occurrence and abundance are crucial for successful wildlife management and conservation. When species communities cannot be readily detected using camera traps or acoustic monitoring,...
Sound methods to determine species occurrence and abundance are crucial for successful wildlife management and conservation. When species communities cannot be readily detected using camera traps or acoustic monitoring, ground survey methods such as spotlighting on foot are commonly used. While able to provide precise detection and density estimates, these methods can be laborious and time consuming and are restricted to surveying small areas. Advances in drone technology now allow for the detection of heat signatures of endothermal wildlife using thermal cameras from the sky, which we contrast to traditional ground surveys. We found that drone and ground surveys achieve similar detection probabilities for nocturnal arboreal mammals of southeastern Australia. Drones achieved high detection rates for targeted arboreal wildlife occurrence and consistently recorded more species and individuals than ground-based surveys via spotlighting. Ground surveys often missed specialist species like the endangered southern greater glider (Petauroides volans) when populations had low densities. Drone-derived density estimates for surveyed areas of 100-200 ha were significantly lower than those extrapolated from 10-ha ground survey results. Thermal drone surveys present a promising tool for measuring and monitoring nocturnal arboreal wildlife populations due to their ability to cover larger areas with comparable detection rates to ground surveys. Drone surveys provide comprehensive information on species assemblage, density, and distribution across management compartment-scale survey areas, offering valuable insights into species occurrence and population status. Drones were particularly effective in areas with dense vegetation or that were otherwise inaccessible for ground-based surveys, enhancing the ability to estimate populations, quantify recovery following large-scale disturbances, and to discover previously undocumented populations. Drone-based wildlife survey methods have the potential to reduce uncertainty in compartment-scale population estimates for improved wildlife monitoring and conservation.
Application of spatially robust stereo-BRUV sampling for quantifying fish assemblages in UK marine protected areas.
Exeter OM, Broderick AC, Harrison XA … +11 more , Garzon F, Morcom S, Pender R, Russell T, Saunders I, Somerfield PJ, Sugar K, Trundle C, Webber J, Hooper T, Metcalfe K
Ecol Appl · 2025 Sep · PMID 40936338 · Full text
Marine protected areas (MPAs) often lack adequate data on the status of marine assemblages to support evidence-based management. Stereo baited remote underwater video (BRUV) systems offer a powerful, low-cost tool for co...
Marine protected areas (MPAs) often lack adequate data on the status of marine assemblages to support evidence-based management. Stereo baited remote underwater video (BRUV) systems offer a powerful, low-cost tool for collecting ecological data, yet they remain underutilized in the North East Atlantic, especially compared to more invasive methods such as fisheries surveys. Here, we demonstrate how a spatially comprehensive stereo-BRUV survey can generate benchmark data to support MPA management at an ecosystem scale, using an ecologically distinct oceanic archipelago as a case study. The archipelago's habitats were found to support high abundances of regionally targeted commercial species, including benthic catsharks (Scyliorhinidae) and European spiny lobster (Palinurus elephas), with ~12,000 individuals recorded representing 64 species and 44 families. Deeper, topographically complex reefs were found to support higher levels of richness and biomass, with sediment-specific increases in depth also driving demersal abundance. Stereo technology was additionally able to provide body size data for 43 species, with remoteness and shelter from exposure found to be common drivers of increased body size for indicator taxa. Survey results represent a contemporary benchmark for measuring changes in local MPA management, fisheries practices, and climate change impacts. The results also illustrate how spatially robust sampling methods and stereo-BRUV systems can facilitate more holistic, fisheries-independent data collection in UK and European waters.
Influence of vessel disturbance on Pacific harbour porpoise (Phocoena phocoena vomerina) echolocation.
Dracott K, Robinson CV, Dares L … +3 more , Woodley E, Migneault A, Birdsall C
Ecol Appl · 2025 Sep · PMID 40936331 · Full text
Vessel disturbance is one of many anthropogenic threats that are negatively impacting coastal cetacean populations worldwide. Noise pollution from vessels can cause varying levels of disturbance in cetaceans, depending o...
Vessel disturbance is one of many anthropogenic threats that are negatively impacting coastal cetacean populations worldwide. Noise pollution from vessels can cause varying levels of disturbance in cetaceans, depending on several factors such as vessel type and speed. Pacific harbour porpoises (Phocoena phocoena vomerina) are distributed throughout coastal waters of the North Pacific Ocean, with large aggregations observed near the entrance to the Port of Prince Rupert in British Columbia, Canada. This area serves as an important year-round foraging ground for harbour porpoises. However, it is also one of the fastest growing container ports in North America, with planned increases in activity. Harbour porpoises are highly sensitive to vessel-related acoustic disturbances, but the effects of vessel activity on their foraging rates remain unclear. In this study, we used a combination of land-based surveys, passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) devices (C-PODs and F-PODs), and automatic identification system (AIS) data to investigate the relationship between vessel activity and harbour porpoise echolocation activity-both foraging and non-foraging-in the heavily trafficked Chatham Sound, adjacent to the Port. Our results show that an increase in the total number of vessels negatively affected both foraging and non-foraging echolocation activity, with less echolocation observed in the presence of more ferries and tugs. Similarly, vessels traveling at higher speeds (>6 m/s kn) had a negative effect on echolocation activity. Tugboats and passenger vessels, in particular, had a wider range of effects on all harbour porpoise echolocation activity. Our findings indicate that implementing a vessel slowdown (~5 m/s) along the approach to the Port of Prince Rupert would reduce disturbances to harbour porpoises and likely benefit other coexisting species that rely on quiet oceans for communication and foraging.
Puma habitat preferences when moving and feeding predict the potential for human-carnivore conflict in shared landscapes.
Suraci JP, Lacey LM, Freeman PT … +9 more , Stratton A, Kupar C, Sager-Fradkin K, Bergman D, Ackerman B, Phillips KA, Murphie S, Sullivan C, Elbroch LM
Ecol Appl · 2025 Sep · PMID 40936321 · Full text
Large carnivore persistence in an increasingly human-dominated world requires coexistence between carnivores and people on shared landscapes. Yet, sharing space with carnivores presents challenges, including maintaining...
Large carnivore persistence in an increasingly human-dominated world requires coexistence between carnivores and people on shared landscapes. Yet, sharing space with carnivores presents challenges, including maintaining sufficient habitat to allow carnivores to satisfy life-history needs (e.g., hunting, dispersal, and territory establishment) while avoiding conflict with people. To understand the drivers of carnivore habitat use and conflict in shared landscapes, we quantified puma (Puma concolor) habitat selection while moving and while feeding on native prey across a mosaic of developed areas, working landscapes, and wildlands on the Olympic Peninsula, Washington, USA. We fit resource selection models to movement data from GPS collars and to kill site locations for pumas across four age-sex classes: male and female adults and dispersers. We then quantified the association between habitat preferences for each behavioral state (moving and feeding) and the spatial distribution of puma-human interactions reported to state wildlife authorities. Across age-sex classes, puma habitat selection was more strongly influenced by human land uses when moving than when feeding, with adult females being the only age-sex class to exhibit avoidance of development and agriculture when feeding. Correspondingly, areas categorized as highly suitable for feeding but unsuitable for movement tended to have substantially greater amounts of developed and agricultural land than areas considered suitable for both behaviors. Analysis of puma-human interactions revealed that habitat preferences when feeding were strongly associated with the probability of both domestic animal depredations and sightings of pumas by people across most puma age-sex classes (except adult females). By contrast, habitat selection when moving was negatively associated with depredations and sightings for all pumas. These findings suggest that pumas are encountering livestock, pets, and people opportunistically in areas that are otherwise highly suitable for hunting native prey, but that sensitivity to human disturbance when moving across the landscape leads to limited opportunity for conflict when engaged in this behavior. We leveraged these findings to identify important multifunctional habitat across our study area (i.e., places that will support both moving and feeding) and to explore pathways toward stable puma-human coexistence based on achievable changes to human behavior that minimize conflict opportunities.
Community-ecosystem interactions control plant biodiversity change before and after mangrove restoration.
Oberle B, Bustetter S, Continentino L … +11 more , Smith T, Frank G, Robison M, Clingo S, Cole P, Hall B, Jefferis C, Scott M, Setterberg C, Sherrod S, Gardiner JM
Ecol Appl · 2025 Sep · PMID 40936294 · Publisher ↗
Restoring biological diversity and ecosystem function requires understanding how introduced species interact with one another and their environments. The most prevalent and challenging scenarios involve multiple invasive...
Restoring biological diversity and ecosystem function requires understanding how introduced species interact with one another and their environments. The most prevalent and challenging scenarios involve multiple invasive species whose traits feed back through ecosystem processes. However, research into these systems often focuses on either community dynamics or ecosystem properties, rather than on their interactions, limiting understanding of what causes biodiversity changes before and after restoration. Leveraging insights from theory and management of single-species invasions driven by feedback between plant litter and germination success, we documented the structure of a disturbed mangrove ecosystem and tested causal hypotheses for community and ecosystem change both in microcosms and across the landscape. Before restoration, competing Schinus terebinthifolia, Casuarina spp., and Cupaniopsis anacardioides generated litter that facilitated the dominance of Cupaniopsis seedlings. After experimental restoration, seedling cover and richness increased only when removing invasive trees and their litter, supporting interacting community and ecosystem effects as the primary drivers of biodiversity change. Effective restoration of multiply invaded ecosystems is possible when simple interventions follow causal hypotheses supported by theoretical mechanisms.
Seasonal asynchrony and harvest diversification contribute to demersal finfish fisheries stability in Chesapeake Bay.
Hardison SB, Lefcheck JS, White SB … +8 more , Liang M, Zhang YS, Patrick CJ, Scheld AM, Latour RJ, Fodrie FJ, Anderson SC, Castorani MCN
Ecol Appl · 2025 Sep · PMID 40936222 · Full text
Biodiversity can confer temporal stability to ecosystem processes through asynchrony in species' abundances and may promote asynchrony and stability of commercial fishing harvests derived from exploited species. However,...
Biodiversity can confer temporal stability to ecosystem processes through asynchrony in species' abundances and may promote asynchrony and stability of commercial fishing harvests derived from exploited species. However, the linkages between asynchrony in the population dynamics of commercially harvested species and asynchrony of associated harvests have been difficult to resolve due to ecological, social, and economic dynamics that mediate resource extraction. Here, we explored coupled human-ecological relationships and emergent asynchrony using commercial fishing harvest data and fisheries-independent trawl surveys in two regions (Maryland and Virginia) of Chesapeake Bay, USA, from 2002 to 2018. For each region, we sought to identify how seasonal (within-year) asynchrony among harvested fish species contributed to (1) seasonal asynchrony in the harvests of these species and (2) within-year stability and economic value of harvests. We found that, in Maryland, seasonal closure of striped bass (Morone saxatilis) fishing resulted in asynchrony by forcing switching to alternative stocks. In Virginia, seasonal migration of harvested species to and from the Chesapeake Bay promoted harvest compensation and therefore harvest asynchrony. However, this effect was negated by the concurrent effects of an increase in the evenness of species dynamics on harvest compensation, reflecting changes in fishing patterns, primarily following declines in the biomass of Atlantic croaker (Micropogonias undulatus). Our findings show that both social (direct management actions and behavioral responses) and emergent properties of ecological systems can influence asynchrony in dynamics of exploited populations and commercial harvests, with implications for their continued management and sustainability.
Developing custom computer vision models with Njobvu-AI: A collaborative, user-friendly platform for ecological research.
Appel CL, Subramanian A, Koning JS … +4 more , Ngosi M, Sullivan CM, Levi T, Lesmeister DB
Ecol Appl · 2025 Sep · PMID 40936206 · Full text
Computer vision models show great promise for assisting researchers with rapid processing of ecological data from many sources, including images from camera traps. Access to user-friendly workflows offering collaborative...
Computer vision models show great promise for assisting researchers with rapid processing of ecological data from many sources, including images from camera traps. Access to user-friendly workflows offering collaborative features, remote and local access, and data control will enable greater adoption of computer vision models and accelerate the time between data collection and analysis for many conservation and research programs. We present Njobvu-AI, a no-code tool for multiuser image labeling, model training, image classification, and review. Using this tool, we demonstrate training and deploying a YOLO multiclass detector model using a modest dataset of 33,664 camera trap images of 37 animal species from Nkhotakota Wildlife Reserve, Malawi. We then applied our model to an independent dataset and evaluated its performance in terms of filtering empty images, species classification, species richness, and per-image animal counts. Our model filtered over 3 million empty images and had similar sensitivity but lower specificity than the MegaDetector model at differentiating empty images from those with animals. Classification performance was high for species with >1000 training images (average precision, recall, and F1 >0.70) and moderate overall (macro-averaged precision = 0.64, recall = 0.76, F1 = 0.63). Site-level species richness using predicted detections with and without manual review were highly concordant, especially when a score threshold of 0.95 was applied ( = 0.91). Counts of animals per image were predicted accurately for many species but underestimated by up to 22% for those in large groups. This workflow represents an option for researchers to implement custom computer vision models for even modest-sized ecological datasets in an all-in-one, collaborative, no-code platform.
Biodiversity effects on seedling growth are modified by light environment across functional groups.
Anujan K, Shabnam A, Ali I … +4 more , Gummadi AK, Sankaran M, Krishnadas M, Naeem S
Ecol Appl · 2025 Jul · PMID 40836579 · Publisher ↗
Numerous studies have shown that biodiversity influences the functioning of ecosystems over space and time. The sensitivity of such biodiversity-ecosystem effects to environmental heterogeneity, however, remains poorly u...
Numerous studies have shown that biodiversity influences the functioning of ecosystems over space and time. The sensitivity of such biodiversity-ecosystem effects to environmental heterogeneity, however, remains poorly understood. In forests, seedling recruitment is a critical phase of forest dynamics, and this phase is highly sensitive to environmental heterogeneity and biotic interactions with surrounding plants. In closed-canopy forests, local variation in light due to variation in canopy cover can result in heterogeneous microenvironments that can enhance or constrain seedling growth and ultimately forest regeneration. Here, we ask, how do light and seedling diversity influence the growth and biomass gain of seedlings in tropical forests? We tested the effects of and interactions between seedling diversity and light availability on the growth of seedlings consisting of tropical broad-leaved evergreen and deciduous forest species using a fully factorial manipulated experiment in the Andaman Islands, India. We compared results from this manipulated experiment with field observations from a long-term forest plot. We show that during the critical seedling establishment phase, species richness and light availability additively increased biomass accumulation of seedlings in communities consisting of evergreen and deciduous species. Moreover, the positive effect of light on biomass gain was consistent across species in these different functional groups. We conclude that the diversity effect on biomass gain is explained more by species complementarity across conditions rather than by compensatory effects by different species under different light conditions or simple probabilistic effects of including faster growing species in species-rich communities. Taken together, our results show that the potential for biodiversity to increase ecosystem functioning in seedling communities is modified by light availability. Although many factors are often important in designing replanting efforts in forest management or restoration, our results suggest that key factors are likely to be the interaction between neighborhood diversity and canopy-mediated light on forest understory, which can be managed to enhance seedling establishment at the early stages of forestry projects aimed at maintaining forest diversity, composition, and functioning.
Toward improved uncertainty quantification in predictions of forest dynamics: A dynamical model of forest change.
Itter MS, Finley AO
Ecol Appl · 2025 Jul · PMID 40816879 · Publisher ↗
Models of forest dynamics are an important tool to understand and predict forest responses to global change. Despite recent model development, predictions of forest dynamics under global change remain highly variable, re...
Models of forest dynamics are an important tool to understand and predict forest responses to global change. Despite recent model development, predictions of forest dynamics under global change remain highly variable, reflecting uncertainty in future conditions, forest demographic processes, and the data used to parameterize and validate models. Quantifying this uncertainty and accounting for it when making adaptive management decisions is critical to our ability to conserve forest ecosystems in the face of rapidly changing conditions. Dynamical spatiotemporal models (DSTMs) are a particularly powerful tool in this setting, given they quantify uncertainty associated with process-based models of forest demography, the parameters upon which those models depend, and the forest data used to inform them. Further, DSTMs propagate this uncertainty to predictions of forest dynamics, allowing for its formal integration within adaptive management decision frameworks. A major challenge to the application of DSTMs in applied forest ecology has been the lack of a scalable, theoretical model of forest dynamics that generates predictions at the stand level-the scale at which management decisions are made. We address this challenge by integrating a matrix projection model motivated by the McKendrick-von Foerster partial differential equation for size-structured population dynamics within a Bayesian hierarchical DSTM informed by forest inventory data. The model provides probabilistic predictions of species-specific demographic rates and changes in the size-species distribution over time. The model is applied to predict long-term dynamics (60+ years) within the Penobscot Experimental Forest in Maine, USA, accounting for uncertainty in inventory observations, process-based predictions, and model parameters for nine Acadian Forest species. We find that variability in inventory observations associated with heterogeneous stand conditions drives uncertainty in predictions of forest dynamics. We conclude with a discussion of how the initial DSTM can be refined and extended to better represent forest dynamics under global change and inform adaptive management.
Placement matters: Implications of trail- versus random-based camera-trap deployment for monitoring mammal communities.
Greco I, Salvatori M, Buonafede E … +7 more , Pistolesi A, Corradini A, Cappai N, Marconi M, Seidenari L, Cagnacci F, Rovero F
Ecol Appl · 2025 Jul · PMID 40772382 · Full text
Optimizing protocols to assess and monitor mammal communities is essential to meet the current biodiversity targets of halting species loss. Camera-traps are the most effective tool for multispecies monitoring, yet their...
Optimizing protocols to assess and monitor mammal communities is essential to meet the current biodiversity targets of halting species loss. Camera-traps are the most effective tool for multispecies monitoring, yet their deployment strategy is debated, with two main strategies adopted: trail- and random-based camera deployment. To date, few studies have compared these two strategies and reached contrasting recommendations. Here, by simultaneously deploying 60 camera-traps for each placement strategy in a National Park in central Italy, we aimed to assess differences in species richness and composition, photographic rate, detection/occupancy probabilities, also in responses to environmental and anthropogenic variables, and temporal activity. Site species richness was greater on than off-trails, with elusive carnivores mainly detected on trails. Community composition was different, with a smaller proportion of ungulates on trails, and lower detections of carnivores off-trails. Photographic rate, detection, and occupancy probabilities were higher on trails for almost all mammals. Occupancy responses to environmental variables did not match, possibly due to the different behavioral strategy adopted by mammals (trails for movement, off-trails for resting and foraging). Thus, a mixed approach with cameras located both on- and off-trails is recommended when studying habitat use. We also found a consistent negative response of occupancy and site-use intensity to human frequentation, with mammals avoiding both highly frequented trails and adjacent random sites. Temporal activity curves were similar between designs, suggesting that the choice of the sampling strategy would not bias the inference. However, nocturnal behavior was higher on trails for some species, indicating varying degrees of temporal avoidance of humans. With faster data accumulation, easier accessibility of sampling sites, and the ability to record human activity, on-trail cameras are more efficient than off-trail cameras for monitoring mammal communities.
Hydrophone placement yields high variability in detection of Epinephelus striatus calls at a spawning site.
Van Horn CJ, Candelmo AC, Heppell SA … +9 more , McCoy CRM, Pattengill-Semmens CV, Waterhouse L, Cherubin LM, Taylor JC, Michaels W, Locascio J, Ibrahim AK, Semmens BX
Ecol Appl · 2025 Jul · PMID 40767246 · Full text
Passive acoustic monitoring is a cost-effective, minimally invasive technology commonly used to study behavior and population dynamics of soniferous fish species. To understand the strengths and limitations of acoustic m...
Passive acoustic monitoring is a cost-effective, minimally invasive technology commonly used to study behavior and population dynamics of soniferous fish species. To understand the strengths and limitations of acoustic monitoring for this purpose at fish spawning aggregations (FSA) requires an assessment of the variability in aggregation-associated sounds (AAS) as a function of time, space, and proximity for spawning fishes of interest. Here, we evaluate temporal and spatial trends in the detection of AAS by Nassau Grouper (Epinephelus striatus) using an array of six hydrophones deployed across a large Nassau Grouper FSA at Little Cayman, Cayman Islands. We collected continuous data for nine days during a winter spawning season and subsequently used an automatic classifier to extract the embedded Nassau Grouper AAS. Using these data, we analyzed variability in spatiotemporal AAS detection rates across the array with a Bayesian mixed effects model. We found high variability in the detection of AAS across the spawning site, with positive correlations among neighboring hydrophone pairs trending toward negative correlations with distances exceeding 350 m. Indeed, temporal trends in AAS rates at the spawning site were approximately inverted at the two most distant hydrophones (~600 m). Across the hydrophone network, our model predicted strong positive effects of fish proximity, spawning behavior, and crepuscular periods on detected AAS. Our findings suggest hydrophone placement can strongly influence AAS detection rates and even basic temporal patterns in AAS across the spawning season. Given both the vagaries of movement and behavior of aggregating fish at spawning sites and the limits of AAS detection using standard monitoring tools, we suggest spawning site acoustic monitoring programs deploy hydrophone arrays of sufficient size to capture the site-wide trends in AAS rates if possible; this is particularly true if researchers hope to compare/contrast AAS rates between spawning sites or across seasons for the purpose of population assessment.
Land-use history causes differences in park nighttime cooling capacity and forest structure.
Richmond IC, Paulauskas MA, Padvaiskas E … +4 more , Gonzàlez Sinisterra LC, Hutt-Taylor K, Robitaille AL, Ziter CD
Ecol Appl · 2025 Jul · PMID 40761092 · Full text
Cities are temporally dynamic ecosystems that experience continuous redevelopment over time. Urban parks, which provide critical benefits to resident wellbeing, are developed on different land-use types and contain natur...
Cities are temporally dynamic ecosystems that experience continuous redevelopment over time. Urban parks, which provide critical benefits to resident wellbeing, are developed on different land-use types and contain natural elements that are susceptible to the effects of historical decision-making. Thus, understanding the current day functioning of our city's ecosystems and planning for the equitable distribution of park benefits in the future requires incorporation and understanding of the impacts of historical decision-making. We measured neighborhood sociodemographic composition, forest structure, and the cooling effect of 33 sites in parks across Montreal, each with a past land-use in one of three classes: agricultural, forested, or industrial. We asked the following questions: (1) what are the effects of historical land-use on current park forest structure, diversity, and consequently the capacity to provide cooling? (2) how do surrounding communities differ around parks of each historical land-use type, and what are the implications for equitable access to cooling? We found that forest structure and cooling capacity differed across past land-use type, and forest structure has complex relationships with park cooling capacity. Our results provide evidence of historical environmental injustice impacting current day cooling capacity for marginalized groups. Previously industrial parks had less cooling capacity at night, while simultaneously being surrounded by communities with higher proportions of immigrants and lower median incomes than Montreal's average. However, daytime cooling capacity was similar across past land-use type, highlighting the importance of current management decisions to provide a critical ecosystem service, temperature mitigation, regardless of a site's history. Planting areas of small, dense forest stands with trees ≥5 cm dbh within urban parks can help augment daytime cooling benefits in the city but may hinder nighttime cooling. To provide both nighttime and daytime cooling, a mixed management strategy of park trees is required, where small and large trees are incorporated at different densities. Finally, we find evidence of gentrification surrounding all park sites, emphasizing the complex socioecological dynamics of green infrastructure and the need for community-led greening projects paired with social housing policies.
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