Abstract:
:The importance of density dependence in natural communities continues to spark much debate because it is fundamental to population regulation. We used temporal manipulations of density to explore potentially stabilizing density dependence in early survivorship among six local populations of a tropical damselfish (Dascyllus flavicaudus). Specifically, we tested the premise that spatial heterogeneity in the strength of temporal density dependence would reflect variation in density of predators, the agent of mortality. Our field manipulations revealed that mortality among successive cohorts of young fishes was density dependent at each reef, but that its strength varied by approximately 1.5 orders of magnitude. This spatial heterogeneity was well predicted by variation among the six reefs in the density of predatory fishes that consume juvenile damselfishes. Because density dependence arose from competition for enemy-free space within a shelter coral, the mortality consequence of the competition depended on the neighborhood density of predators. Thus, the scale of heterogeneity in the density dependence largely reflected attributes of the environment that shaped the local abundance of predators. These results have important implications for how ecologists explore regulatory processes in nature. Failure to account for spatial variation could frequently yield misleading conclusions regarding density dependence as a stabilizing process, obscure underlying mechanisms influencing its strength, and provide no insight into the spatial scale of the heterogeneity. Further, models of population dynamics will be improved when experimental approaches better estimate the magnitude and causes of variation in strength of stabilizing density dependence.
journal_name
Ecologyjournal_title
Ecologyauthors
Schmitt RJ,Holbrook SJdoi
10.1890/06-0970subject
Has Abstractpub_date
2007-05-01 00:00:00pages
1241-9issue
5eissn
0012-9658issn
1939-9170journal_volume
88pub_type
杂志文章相关文献
ECOLOGY文献大全abstract::All communities vary through time. This variability originates from both intrinsic and extrinsic sources. Intrinsic sources are due to actions of organisms in a community, i.e., population dynamics and species interactions, while extrinsic variability is variability created by elements of habitat or environmental chan...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1890/09-0350.1
更新日期:2010-06-01 00:00:00
abstract::The arcsine square root transformation has long been standard procedure when analyzing proportional data in ecology, with applications in data sets containing binomial and non-binomial response variables. Here, we argue that the arcsine transform should not be used in either circumstance. For binomial data, logistic r...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1890/10-0340.1
更新日期:2011-01-01 00:00:00
abstract::The scaling of metabolic rates to body size is widely considered to be of great biological and ecological importance, and much attention has been devoted to determining its theoretical and empirical value. Most debate centers on whether the underlying power law describing metabolic rates is 2/3 (as predicted by scalin...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1890/09-0817.1
更新日期:2010-09-01 00:00:00
abstract::Individual variation in movement can have important consequences for spatial population dynamics. For instance, individual variation increases leptokurtosis in dispersal distance, such that more individuals move very short and very long distances relative to a homogeneous population. We quantified individual variation...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1002/ecy.1216
更新日期:2016-01-01 00:00:00
abstract::Plant tolerance of herbivory, i.e., the ability to recover after damage, is an important component of how plants cope with herbivores. Tolerance has long been hypothesized to be constrained evolutionarily by plant resistance to herbivores, traits that allow plants to cope with stressful growing conditions, and traits ...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1002/ecy.1995
更新日期:2017-11-01 00:00:00
abstract::The contribution of interspecific competition to structuring population and community dynamics remains controversial and poorly tested. Interspecific competition has long been thought to influence the structure of migrant-resident bird communities in winter, yet experimental evidence remains elusive. The arrival of bi...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1002/ecy.3208
更新日期:2020-09-27 00:00:00
abstract::On St. Paul Island, a remnant of the Bering Land Bridge, woolly mammoths persisted until 5,600 yr BP with no known predators or competitors, providing a natural system for studying hypothesized environmental drivers of extinction. These include overheating due to rising temperatures, starvation, and drought. Here, we ...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1002/ecy.2524
更新日期:2018-12-01 00:00:00
abstract::Epidemiological theory suggests that pathogens will not cause host extinctions because agents of disease should fade out when the host population is driven below a threshold density. Nevertheless, infectious diseases have threatened species with extinction on local scales by maintaining high incidence and the ability ...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1890/11-2257.1
更新日期:2013-01-01 00:00:00
abstract::It is well known that sampling variability, if not properly taken into account, affects various ecologically important analyses. Statistical inference for stochastic population dynamics models is difficult when, in addition to the process error, there is also sampling error. The standard maximum-likelihood approach su...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1890/04-1655
更新日期:2006-01-01 00:00:00
abstract::Although many species face numerous predators in nature, the combined impact of multiple predators on the inducible defenses of prey has rarely been studied. Prey may respond with an intermediate phenotype that balances the risk from several sources or may simply respond to the most dangerous predator. I examined the ...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1890/08-1653.1
更新日期:2009-06-01 00:00:00
abstract::Contemporary animal-plant interactions such as herbivory are widely understood to be shaped by evolutionary history. Yet questions remain about the role of plant phylogenetic diversity in generating and maintaining herbivore diversity, and whether evolutionary relatedness of producers might predict the composition of ...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1890/14-0784.1
更新日期:2015-04-01 00:00:00
abstract::The forage maturation hypothesis (FMH) states that herbivores should follow the onset of growth in spring to obtain access to forage of higher quality and quantity, the so-called "green wave surfing." Several studies have found correlative evidence in support of this by associating animal movement with plant phenology...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1002/ecy.1596
更新日期:2016-12-01 00:00:00
abstract::Empirical tests of the resource dispersion hypothesis (RDH), a theory to explain group living based on resource heterogeneity, have been complicated by the fact that resource patch dispersion and richness have proved difficult to define and measure in natural systems. Here, we studied the ecology of African lions Pant...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1890/12-0018.1
更新日期:2012-11-01 00:00:00
abstract::Parasites are integral members of natural communities, but large-scale determinants of their abundance and diversity, including the importance of biotic and abiotic factors, both natural and anthropogenic, are often not well understood. Here, we examine which factors best predict larval trematode communities in the mu...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1890/13-0509.1
更新日期:2014-07-01 00:00:00
abstract::Mechanisms of community assembly and ecosystem function are often analyzed using community-weighted mean trait values (CWMs). We present a novel conceptual framework to quantify the contribution of demographic processes (i.e., growth, recruitment, and mortality) to temporal changes in CWMs. We used this framework to a...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1002/ecy.1990
更新日期:2017-11-01 00:00:00
abstract::Bioclimatic envelope models use associations between aspects of climate and species' occurrences to estimate the conditions that are suitable to maintain viable populations. Once bioclimatic envelopes are characterized, they can be applied to a variety of questions in ecology, evolution, and conservation. However, som...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1890/11-1930.1
更新日期:2012-07-01 00:00:00
abstract::Competitive interactions among species with similar ecological niches are known to regulate the assembly of biological communities. However, it is not clear whether such forms of competition can predict the collapse of communities and associated shifts in ecosystem function in the face of environmental change. Here, w...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1890/14-1731.1
更新日期:2015-10-01 00:00:00
abstract::Using long-term data on two kangaroo rats in the Chihuahuan Desert of North America, we fitted logistic models including the exogenous effects of seasonal rainfall patterns. Our aim was to test the effects of intraspecific interactions and seasonal rainfall in explaining and predicting the numerical fluctuations of th...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1890/07-1246.1
更新日期:2008-09-01 00:00:00
abstract::Our ability to predict how temperature modifies phenology at the community scale is limited by our lack of understanding of responses by functional groups of flowering plants. These responses differ among species with different life histories. We performed a reciprocal transplant experiment along four elevation gradie...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1002/ecy.1685
更新日期:2017-03-01 00:00:00
abstract::Temporal fluctuations in plant species coexistence are key to understanding ecosystem state transitions and long-term maintenance of species diversity. Although plant microbiomes can alter plant competition in short-term experiments, their relevance to natural temporal patterns in plant communities is unresolved. In a...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1002/ecy.2756
更新日期:2019-08-01 00:00:00
abstract::Floodplains are among the world's most threatened ecosystems due to the pervasiveness of dams, levee systems, and other modifications to rivers. Few unaltered floodplains remain where we may examine their dynamics over decadal time scales. Our study provides a detailed examination of landscape change over a 60-year pe...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1890/05-1149
更新日期:2007-04-01 00:00:00
abstract::Direct and indirect effects of predators are highly variable in complex communities, and understanding the sources of this variation is a research priority in community ecology. Recent evidence indicates that herbivore community structure is a primary determinant of predation strength and its cascading impacts on plan...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1002/ecy.1571
更新日期:2016-12-01 00:00:00
abstract::Decades of ecological study have demonstrated the importance of top-down and bottom-up controls on food webs, yet few studies within this context have quantified the magnitude of energy and material fluxes at the whole-ecosystem scale. We examined top-down and bottom-up effects on food web fluxes using a field experim...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1002/ecy.1530
更新日期:2016-11-01 00:00:00
abstract::We used tree ring data (AD 1601-2007) to examine the occurrence of and climatic influences on spruce beetle (Dendroctonus rufipennis) outbreaks in south-central and southwest Alaska and found evidence of regional-scale outbreaks dating from the mid-1700s, related to climate variability at multiple temporal scales. Ove...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1890/10-1118.1
更新日期:2011-07-01 00:00:00
abstract::Farmland is a major land cover type in Europe and Africa and provides habitat for numerous species. The severe decline in farmland biodiversity of the last decades has been attributed to changes in farming practices, and organic and low-input farming are assumed to mitigate detrimental effects of agricultural intensif...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1890/15-1985.1
更新日期:2016-06-01 00:00:00
abstract::Humans are implicated as a major driver of species extinctions from the Late Pleistocene to the present. However, our predictive understanding of human-caused extinction remains poor due to the restricted temporal and spatial scales at which this process is typically assessed, and the risks of bias due to "extinction ...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1002/ecy.2783
更新日期:2019-09-01 00:00:00
abstract::To elucidate the factors that affect the performance of plants in their natural environment, it is essential to study interactions with other neighboring plants, as well as with above- and belowground higher trophic organisms. We used a long-term field experiment to study how local plant community diversity influenced...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1890/0012-9658(2006)87[2002:ibsjap]2.0.co;2
更新日期:2006-08-01 00:00:00
abstract::We chose the interaction between the Mediterranean dwarf palm (Chamaerops humilis) and its major seed disperser, the Eurasian badger (Meles meles), to evaluate the hypothesis that endozoochory is characterized by a mixture of conflicting and overlapping interests, with the capacity of being positive or negative for pl...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1890/09-2194.1
更新日期:2011-02-01 00:00:00
abstract::Belowground herbivory is commonly overlooked as a mechanism of top-down control in vegetated habitats, particularly in aquatic ecosystems. Recent research has revealed that increased densities of the herbivorous crab Sesarma reticulatum have led to runaway herbivory and widespread salt marsh die-off on Cape Cod, Massa...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1890/12-0010.1
更新日期:2012-09-01 00:00:00
abstract::Ecosystems can undergo abrupt transitions between alternative stable states when the driver crosses a critical threshold. Dynamical systems theory shows that when ecosystems approach the point of loss of stability associated with these transitions, they take a long time to recover from perturbations, a phenomenon know...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1002/ecy.2722
更新日期:2019-07-01 00:00:00