Abstract:
:Overexploitation of predators has been linked to the collapse of a growing number of shallow-water marine ecosystems. However, salt-marsh ecosystems are often viewed and managed as systems controlled by physical processes, despite recent evidence for herbivore-driven die-off of marsh vegetation. Here we use field observations, experiments, and historical records at 14 sites to examine whether the recently reported die-off of northwestern Atlantic salt marshes is associated with the cascading effects of predator dynamics and intensive recreational fishing activity. We found that the localized depletion of top predators at sites accessible to recreational anglers has triggered the proliferation of herbivorous crabs, which in turn results in runaway consumption of marsh vegetation. This suggests that overfishing may be a general mechanism underlying the consumer-driven die-off of salt marshes spreading throughout the western Atlantic. Our findings support the emerging realization that consumers play a dominant role in regulating marine plant communities and can lead to ecosystem collapse when their impacts are amplified by human activities, including recreational fishing.
journal_name
Ecologyjournal_title
Ecologyauthors
Altieri AH,Bertness MD,Coverdale TC,Herrmann NC,Angelini Cdoi
10.1890/11-1314.1subject
Has Abstractpub_date
2012-06-01 00:00:00pages
1402-10issue
6eissn
0012-9658issn
1939-9170journal_volume
93pub_type
杂志文章相关文献
ECOLOGY文献大全abstract::Predators exert a strong influence on ecological communities by reducing the abundance of prey (consumptive effects) and shaping their foraging behavior (non-consumptive effects). Although the prevalence of trophic cascades triggered by non-consumptive effects is increasingly recognized in a wide range of ecosystems, ...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1002/ecy.2649
更新日期:2019-05-01 00:00:00
abstract::Random walks are used to model movement in a wide variety of contexts: from the movement of cells undergoing chemotaxis to the migration of animals. In a two-dimensional biased random walk, the diffusion about the mean drift position is entirely dependent on the moments of the angular distribution used to determine th...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1890/09-1729.1
更新日期:2010-10-01 00:00:00
abstract::Forests play an influential role in the global carbon (C) cycle, storing roughly half of terrestrial C and annually exchanging with the atmosphere more than five times the carbon dioxide (CO2 ) emitted by anthropogenic activities. Yet, scaling up from field-based measurements of forest C stocks and fluxes to understan...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1002/ecy.2229
更新日期:2018-06-01 00:00:00
abstract::Plant-root-associated microbes influence plant phenotype and tolerance to environmental stress, and thus have been hypothesized to play a role in plant local adaptation. Here, we test this hypothesis with factorial experiments addressing the role of microbes in local adaptation of Hypericum perforatum (St. John's wort...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1002/ecy.3092
更新日期:2020-08-01 00:00:00
abstract::Population responses of synanthropic species to urbanization may be explained by the resource-matching rule, which postulates that individuals should distribute themselves according to resource availability. According to the resource-matching rule, urban habitats will contain greater densities if they provide better r...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1890/07-0358.1
更新日期:2008-02-01 00:00:00
abstract::Long-distance dispersal (LDD) may contribute disproportionately to range expansions, the creation of new evolutionary lineages, and species persistence in human-dominated landscapes. However, because data on the individual consequences of dispersal distance are extremely limited, we have little insight on how LDD is m...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1890/09-1458.1
更新日期:2010-10-01 00:00:00
abstract::Mutualisms are well known to influence individual fitness and the population dynamics of partner species, but little is known about whether they influence species distributions and the location of geographic range limits. Here, we examine the contribution of plant-pollinator interactions to the geographic range limit ...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1890/11-1462.1
更新日期:2012-05-01 00:00:00
abstract::The need to model and test hypotheses about complex ecological systems has led to a steady increase in use of path analytical techniques, which allow the modeling of multiple multivariate dependencies reflecting hypothesized causation and mechanisms. The aim is to achieve the estimation of direct, indirect, and total ...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1890/11-1899.1
更新日期:2012-08-01 00:00:00
abstract::Lianas are a common plant growth form in tropical forests, where they compete intensely with trees, decreasing tree recruitment, growth, and survival. If the detrimental effects of lianas vary significantly with tree species identity, as is often assumed, then lianas may influence tree species diversity and community ...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1890/14-2261.1
更新日期:2016-01-01 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::Recent theory predicts that stochastic dilution effects may result in species-rich communities with statistically independent species spatial distributions, even if the underlying ecological processes structuring the community are driven by deterministic niche differences. Stochastic dilution is a consequence of the s...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1890/14-2357.1
更新日期:2016-02-01 00:00:00
abstract::Global biodiversity decline has prompted great interest in the effects of habitat modification and diversity on the functioning and stability of ecosystem processes. However, the applicability of previous modeled or mesocosm community studies to real diverse communities in different habitats remains ambiguous. We expo...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1890/0012-9658(2006)87[3047:defaso]2.0.co;2
更新日期:2006-12-01 00:00:00
abstract::Epidemiological models concerned with the control of malaria using interventions such as bed nets and vaccines increasingly incorporate realistic aspects of malaria biology. The increasing complexity of these models limits their ability to abstract ecological processes and to address questions on the regulation of pop...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1890/08-1022.1
更新日期:2009-09-01 00:00:00
abstract::The diversity and composition of local communities depends strongly on the pool of species that have been able to colonize that community from elsewhere. Typically this is thought to depend on a larger regional species pool that is subject to local environmental constraints that act as "filters." Often, however, colon...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1002/ecy.2628
更新日期:2019-04-01 00:00:00
abstract::An understanding of the demographic processes contributing to invasions would improve our mechanistic understanding of the invasion process and improve the efficiency of prevention and control efforts. However, field comparisons of the demography of invasive and noninvasive species have not previously been conducted. ...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1890/12-1310.1
更新日期:2013-05-01 00:00:00
abstract::The problem of scale dependency is widespread in investigations of ecological communities. Null model investigations of community assembly exemplify the challenges involved because they typically include subjectively defined "regional species pools." The burgeoning field of community phylogenetics appears poised to fa...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1890/0012-9658(2006)87[2418:tpapos]2.0.co;2
更新日期:2006-10-01 00:00:00
abstract::Coupled trophic-engineer interactions are potentially important for maintaining habitat function and ecosystem services. As ephemeral submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV), Ruppia maritima has a short well-defined growth-senescence cycle and should benefit from any ecological interaction that enhances its physical condit...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1890/06-0375
更新日期:2007-03-01 00:00:00
abstract::Within most free-living species exists a cryptic community of interacting parasites. By combining multiscale field data with manipulative experiments, we evaluated patterns of parasite coinfection in amphibian hosts and their underlying mechanisms. Surveys of 86 wetlands and 1273 hosts revealed positive correlations b...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1890/10-0570.1
更新日期:2011-03-01 00:00:00
abstract::Many pest species exhibit huge fluctuations in population abundance. Understanding their large-scale and long-term dynamics is necessary to develop effective control and management strategies. Occupancy models represent a promising approach to unravel interactions between environmental factors and spatiotemporal dynam...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1890/14-0183.1
更新日期:2015-03-01 00:00:00
abstract::Consumer-mediated nutrient supply is increasingly recognized as an important functional process in many ecosystems. Yet, experimentation at relevant spatial and temporal scales is needed to fully integrate this bottom-up pathway into ecosystem models. Artificial reefs provide a unique approach to explore the importanc...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1890/12-1122.1
更新日期:2013-02-01 00:00:00
abstract::Body size and temperature are fundamental drivers of ecological processes because they determine metabolic rates at the individual level. Whether these drivers act independently on individual-level metabolic rates remains uncertain. Most studies of intraspecific scaling of unitary organisms must rely on preexisting di...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1002/ecy.1624
更新日期:2017-01-01 00:00:00
abstract::Accurate description of spatial distribution of species is essential for correctly modeling macroecological patterns and thus to infer mechanisms of species coexistence. The Poisson and negative binomial distribution (NBD) are most widely used to respectively model random and aggregated distributions of species in inf...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1890/09-2233.1
更新日期:2010-12-01 00:00:00
abstract::Paleorecords provide information on past environmental variability, and help define ecological reference conditions by means of changes in their characteristics (accumulation rate, geochemical composition, density, etc.). A measure of temporal dissimilarity, which has traditionally been used in dendrochronology and is...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1890/07-0783.1
更新日期:2008-04-01 00:00:00
abstract::Modern coexistence theory holds that stabilizing mechanisms, whereby species limit the growth of conspecifics more than that of other species, are necessary for species to coexist. Here, we used experimental and observational approaches to assess stabilizing forces in eight locally co-occurring, annual legume species ...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1002/ecy.3290
更新日期:2021-01-23 00:00:00
abstract::Ecological tests of 1/f-noise models have advanced our understanding of how environmental fluctuations affect population abundance and species distributions. Most empirical studies have been conducted under controlled laboratory conditions and have focused on individual drivers. We present the results of a four-year f...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1890/12-1293.1
更新日期:2013-05-01 00:00:00
abstract::Nitrogen and phosphorus frequently limit terrestrial plant production, but have a mixed record in regulating the abundance of terrestrial invertebrates. We contrasted four ways that Na could interact with an NP fertilizer to shape the plants and invertebrates of an inland prairie. We applied NP and Na to m2 plots in a...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1002/ecy.1677
更新日期:2017-02-01 00:00:00
abstract::Wind disturbance profoundly shapes temperate forests but few studies have evaluated patterns and mechanisms of long-term forest dynamics following major windthrows. In 1990, we initiated a large hurricane simulation experiment in a 0.8-ha manipulation (pulldown) and 0.6-ha control area of a maturing Quercus rubra--Ace...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1890/12-0487.1
更新日期:2013-02-01 00:00:00
abstract::Climatic extremes, such as severe drought, are expected to increase in frequency and magnitude with climate change. Thus, identifying mechanisms of resilience is critical to predicting the vulnerability of ecosystems. An exceptional drought ( journal_title:Ecology pub_type: 杂志文章 doi:10.1002/ecy.2983 更新日期:2020-04-01 00:00:00
abstract::Species richness has been shown to increase biomass production of plant communities. Such overyielding occurs when a community performs better than its component monocultures due to the complementarity or dominance effect and is mostly detected in substrate-bound plant communities (terrestrial plants or submerged macr...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1890/08-2370.1
更新日期:2010-01-01 00:00:00
abstract::Understanding of how plant communities are organized and will respond to global changes requires an understanding of how plant species respond to multiple environmental gradients. We examined the mechanisms mediating the distribution patterns of tidal marsh plants along an estuarine gradient in Georgia (USA) using a c...
journal_title:Ecology
pub_type: 杂志文章
doi:10.1890/11-0487.1
更新日期:2012-01-01 00:00:00