Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Relative contribution of plant traits and soil properties to the functioning of a temperate forest ecosystem in the Indian Himalayas
Published: 2019-12-04
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Plant-soil interactions are a major determinant of changes in forest ecosystem processes and functioning. We conducted a trait-based study to quantify the contribution of plant traits and soil properties to above- and below-ground ecosystem properties in temperate forest in the Indian Himalayas. Nine plant traits (leaf area, specific leaf area, leaf water content, leaf dry matter content, leaf [...]
Effects of ambient climate and three different warming treatments on fruit production in an alpine meadow community
Published: 2019-12-02
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Plant Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Climate change is already having a major impact on alpine and arctic regions, and inter-annual variations in temperature are likely to increase. In a four-year study focusing on fruit production by an alpine plant community in northern Sweden, we applied three different warming regimes over the years. Treatments consisted of (a) a static level of warming with open-top chambers (OTC), (b) press [...]
Bryophyte cover and richness decline after 18 years of experimental warming in Alpine Sweden
Published: 2019-11-06
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Background and Aims: Climate change is expected to affect alpine and Arctic tundra communities. Most previous long-term studies have focused on impacts on vascular plants, but this study examined potential impacts of long-term warming on bryophyte communities. Methods: Experimental warming with open-top chambers (OTCs) was applied for 18 years to a mesic meadow and a dry heath alpine plant [...]
Whither scientific debate? A rebuttal of “Contextualising UK moorland burning studies: geographical versus potential sponsorship-bias effects on research conclusions” by Brown and Holden (bioRxiv 2019; 731117)
Published: 2019-10-31
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
To read the preprint which this publication seeks to criticise, see here: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/731117v1 To read our original peer-reviewed critique of the EMBER project, see here: https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1365-2664.13476 1. We recently published a peer-reviewed critique of the EMBER report. In a preprint response, Brown & Holden (2019) [...]
Evidence synthesis for tackling research waste
Published: 2019-09-20
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Population Biology, Research Methods in Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
There is an urgent need for a change in research workflows so that pre-existing knowledge is better utilised in designing new research. A formal assessment of the accumulated knowledge prior to research approval would reduce the waste of already limited resources caused by asking low priority questions.
Disentangling the role of shared ancestry and the environment on leaf stable isotopes
Published: 2019-09-12
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Ratios of carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) stable isotopes in plants are important indicators of intrinsic water use efficiency and N acquisition strategies. Here, we examined patterns of inter- and intraspecific variation and phylogenetic signal in foliar δ13C and δ15N for 59 alpine tundra plant species, stratifying our sampling across five habitat types. Overall, we found that variation in both δ13C [...]
Egg predation on native fish by invasive round goby revealed by species-specific gut content DNA analyses
Published: 2019-09-12
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
1. Conservation of riverine fish typically aims at improving access to spawning grounds and the restoration of longitudinal connectivity requires substantial investments. However, the removal of migration barriers also enables the upstream invasion of non-native species into spawning areas, with potential negative effects on recruitment of threatened freshwater fish through egg or fry predation. [...]
Structure of past and present food webs from a semiarid wetland subjected to species invasion and environmental degradation
Published: 2019-09-09
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Species invasion and habitat degradation very often result in local species loss, which may result in a cascade of secondary extinctions that typically end up disrupting whole ecological netwroks. Herein, we used historical records and the natural abundance of stable isotopes (13C and 15N) of primary producers, aquatic animals and sediment/detritus to derive the past and present structure of food [...]
Main carbon sources supporting primary and secondary production in a disturbed semiarid wetland from central Spain
Published: 2019-09-07
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Approximately 95% of the total carbon (C) in wetlands is typically found as particulate organic matter (POM). In this study, we evaluated the main C sources of a semiarid floodplain wetland in central Spain under disturbance. For this, we used stable isotopes (13C and 15N) and the Bayesian mixing model SISUS. We show that the allochthonous C derived from wastewater discharges have distinctive [...]
Effects of anthropogenic disturbance on 13C and 15N of aquatic plants from a semiarid wetland
Published: 2019-09-07
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Wetlands provide a great variety of environmental services to society, but they are currently globally threatened by human activities. We evaluated the effects of anthropogenic disturbances on the ecological quality of semiarid wetlands from central Spain (La Mancha Húmeda) through the natural abundance of isotopes (13C and 15N) of aquatic plants. We measured water quality and also compiled [...]
How to build a biodiverse city: environmental determinants of bird diversity within and among 1,581 cities
Published: 2019-08-22
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Cities are novel environments compared with the evolutionary history of the species that reside within them. Collectively, cities and their fauna can be thought of as ecosystems, recognized as playing a critical role in supporting global biodiversity, but they are fundamentally a combination of old species surviving or thriving in a new environment, and the mechanisms and underlying processes [...]
Ecosystem services of a functionally diverse riparian zone in the Amazon–Cerrado agricultural frontier
Published: 2019-08-21
Subjects: Agronomy and Crop Sciences Life Sciences, Biochemistry, Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology, Biodiversity, Botany, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences, Plant Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
The ecological services provided by protected riparian zones in human-altered landscapes are widely acknowledged, yet little is known about them. In this study, we assess ecosystem properties that a protected riparian zone maintains in contrast to environmental changes in its surroundings caused by agro-industrial activities in the northwestern fringe of the Brazilian Cerrado on the [...]
Experimentally altered rainfall regimes and host root traits affect grassland arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal communities
Published: 2019-07-29
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Plant Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Future climate scenarios predict changes in rainfall regimes. These changes are expected to affect plants via effects on the expression of root traits associated with water and nutrient uptake. Associated microorganisms may also respond to these new precipitation regimes, either directly in response to changes in the soil environment or indirectly in response to altered root trait expression. We [...]
Temporal dynamics of mycorrhizal fungal communities and co-associations with grassland plant communities following experimental manipulation of rainfall
Published: 2019-07-29
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Plant Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Climate models project overall a reduction in rainfall amounts and shifts in the timing of rainfall events in mid-latitudes and sub-tropical dry regions, which threatens the productivity and diversity of grasslands. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi may help plants to cope with expected changes but may also be impacted by changing rainfall, either via the direct effects of low soil moisture on [...]
Little difference in average fish growth and maximum size across temperatures
Published: 2019-06-06
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Ectotherms typically increase growth and reduce body size when temperature increases. This physiological response to temperature, termed the temperature-size rule (TSR), is often used to predict how rising temperatures with climate change will affect higher levels of organization, i.e. guilds, communities and ecosystems. Here we study whether faster growth and reduction in adult body size are [...]