Publications by authors named "Katharine A Abernethy"
Understanding primate dietary plasticity provides insights into trait evolution and resilience to environmental change. Here, we investigate the feeding ecology of mandrills (Mandrillus sphinx), a species that forms groups of close to 1000 individuals, which presumably impacts feeding ecology by creating exceptionally high feeding competition. Mandrills are also threatened by habitat loss and climate change, and a full understanding of their dietary plasticity is essential to ongoing conservation efforts.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArticle Synopsis
- Classic evolutionary theory attributes sexual dimorphism mainly to sexual and fecundity selection, but emerging evidence suggests that resource competition also plays a significant role.
- The study used stable isotope ratios in animal tissues to analyze the relationship between ecological divergence between sexes and body size dimorphism across various species.
- Findings indicate a modest but significant link between sexual size dimorphism and ecological differences, particularly when there are greater opportunities for dietary divergence, supporting the idea that ecological factors can influence the evolution of sexual dimorphism.
Fine root dynamics across pantropical rainforest ecosystems.
Glob Chang Biol
August 2021
Fine roots constitute a significant component of the net primary productivity (NPP) of forest ecosystems but are much less studied than aboveground NPP. Comparisons across sites and regions are also hampered by inconsistent methodologies, especially in tropical areas. Here, we present a novel dataset of fine root biomass, productivity, residence time, and allocation in tropical old-growth rainforest sites worldwide, measured using consistent methods, and examine how these variables are related to consistently determined soil and climatic characteristics.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArticle Synopsis
- Structurally intact tropical forests contributed significantly to global carbon sequestration in the 1990s and early 2000s, absorbing about 15% of human-caused CO2 emissions.
- A study comparing African and Amazonian forests found that while African forests have maintained a stable carbon sink over three decades, Amazonian forests are experiencing a long-term decline in carbon absorption due to increased tree mortality.
- Recent trends suggest a potential increase in carbon losses in African forests post-2010, indicating that both regions are facing different challenges regarding their carbon sinks and may experience declines in the future.
ENSO Drives interannual variation of forest woody growth across the tropics.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci
October 2018
Meteorological extreme events such as El Niño events are expected to affect tropical forest net primary production (NPP) and woody growth, but there has been no large-scale empirical validation of this expectation. We collected a large high-temporal resolution dataset (for 1-13 years depending upon location) of more than 172 000 stem growth measurements using dendrometer bands from across 14 regions spanning Amazonia, Africa and Borneo in order to test how much month-to-month variation in stand-level woody growth of adult tree stems (NPP) can be explained by seasonal variation and interannual meteorological anomalies. A key finding is that woody growth responds differently to meteorological variation between tropical forests with a dry season (where monthly rainfall is less than 100 mm), and aseasonal wet forests lacking a consistent dry season.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF