Biotic interactions are expected to influence species' responses to global changes, but they are rarely considered across broad spatial extents. Abiotic factors are thought to operate at larger spatial scales, while biotic factors, such as species interactions, are considered more important at local scales within communities, in part because of the knowledge gap on species interactions at large spatial scales (i.e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAs queer and trans scientists, we face varied and systemic barriers to our professional success, resulting in our relative absence from faculty ranks at many institutions. In this Perspective, we call for a change in faculty hiring practices and present concrete guidance to make it a more inclusive process.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn mobile animals, selection pressures resulting from spatio-temporally varying ecological factors often drive adaptations in migration behavior and associated physiological phenotypes. These adaptations may manifest in ecologically and genetically distinct ecotypes within populations. We studied a meta-population of northern pike (Esox lucius) in brackish environments and examined intrapopulation divergence along environmental gradients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNPJ Biodivers
February 2024
Rivers are an important component of the global carbon cycle and contribute to atmospheric carbon exchange disproportionately to their total surface area. Largely, this is because rivers efficiently mobilize, transport and metabolize terrigenous organic matter (OM). Notably, our knowledge about the magnitude of globally relevant carbon fluxes strongly contrasts with our lack of understanding of the underlying processes that transform OM.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBased on an extensive model intercomparison, we assessed trends in biodiversity and ecosystem services from historical reconstructions and future scenarios of land-use and climate change. During the 20th century, biodiversity declined globally by 2 to 11%, as estimated by a range of indicators. Provisioning ecosystem services increased several fold, and regulating services decreased moderately.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnlabelled: Streams and rivers act as landscape-scale bioreactors processing large quantities of terrestrial particulate organic matter (POM). This function is linked to their flow regime, which governs residence times, shapes organic matter reactivity and controls the amount of carbon (C) exported to the atmosphere and coastal oceans. Climate change impacts flow regimes by increasing both flash floods and droughts.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDispersal is a key life-history trait for most species and is essential to ensure connectivity and gene flow between populations and facilitate population viability in variable environments. Despite the increasing importance of range shifts due to global change, dispersal has proved difficult to quantify, limiting empirical understanding of this phenotypic trait and wider synthesis. Here, we introduce a statistical framework to estimate standardised dispersal kernels from biased data.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTrends Ecol Evol
December 2020
We are facing a biodiversity crisis at the same time as we are acquiring an unprecedented view of the world's biodiversity. Vast new datasets (e.g.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBiol Rev Camb Philos Soc
August 2018
Glob Chang Biol
January 2018
Across the globe, invasive alien species cause severe environmental changes, altering species composition and ecosystem functions. So far, mountain areas have mostly been spared from large-scale invasions. However, climate change, land-use abandonment, the development of tourism and the increasing ornamental trade will weaken the barriers to invasions in these systems.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRecent work has demonstrated that evolutionary processes shape ecological dynamics on relatively short timescales (eco-evolutionary dynamics), but demonstrating these effects at large spatial scales in natural landscapes has proven difficult. We used empirical studies and modeling to investigate how selective pressures from fire and predispersal seed predation affect the evolution of serotiny, an ecologically important trait. Serotiny is a highly heritable key reproductive trait in Rocky Mountain lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta subsp.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPhenotypic selection that is sustained over time underlies both anagenesis and cladogenesis, but the conditions that lead to such selection and what causes variation in selection are not well known. We measured the selection exerted by three species of predispersal seed predators of lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta latifolia) in the South Hills, Idaho, and found that net selection on different cone and seed traits exerted by red crossbills (Loxia curvirostra) and cone borer moths (Eucosma recissoriana) over 10 years of seed crops was similar to that measured in another mountain range. We also found that the strength of selection increased as seed predation increased, which provides a mechanism for the correlation between the escalation of seed defenses and the density of seed predators.
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