Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Distribution, Abundance and Status of At-Risk Birds at a Six-Acre Site Within the Upper Boileau Biodiversity Reserve, Québec: A Year-Long Research Study
Published: 2024-01-22
Subjects: Biodiversity, Life Sciences, Ornithology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Understanding the distribution, abundance and status of at-risk birds in any area where human impact is low is an imperative in understanding the larger ecological situation. Birds have been widely seen as reliable indicators of ecological health and there have been significant population declines in North America, especially among migratory aerial insectivores, and are escalading rapidly. As a [...]
Reef fish functional groups show variable declines due to deforestation-driven sedimentation, while flexible harvesting mitigates this damage
Published: 2024-01-22
Subjects: Dynamic Systems, Natural Resources and Conservation, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Sedimentation is a major coral reef stressor, with effects including suppressing algae consumption by herbivorous fish. This puts pressure on reef fish populations and the fisheries that harvest them. Deforestation causes much sedimentation on reefs, and is an ongoing concern in Pacific island states. Although ecosystem processes like deforestation and fish population dynamics are usually far [...]
A big data and machine learning approach for monitoring the condition of ecosystems
Published: 2024-01-16
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Biodiversity, Bioinformatics, Earth Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Sciences, Forest Biology, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Statistical Methodology, Statistical Models, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Ecosystems are highly valuable as a source of goods and services and as a heritage for future generations. Knowing their condition is extremely important for all management and conservation activities and public policies. Until now, the evaluation of ecosystem condition has been unsatisfactory and thus lacks practical implementation for most countries. We propose that ecosystem integrity is a [...]
Meta-analysis reveals that the effects of precipitation change on soil and litter fauna in forests depend on body size
Published: 2024-01-11
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Anthropogenic climate change is altering precipitation regimes at a global scale. While precipitation changes have been linked to changes in the abundance and diversity of soil and litter invertebrate fauna in forests, general trends have remained elusive due to mixed results from primary studies. We used a meta-analysis based on 352 comparisons from 30 primary studies to address associated [...]
The role of deadwood in the carbon cycle: Implications for models, forest management, and future climates
Published: 2024-01-10
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Sciences, Forest Biology, Forest Management, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Plant Biology, Plant Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Deadwood represents a significant carbon pool in forests and savannas. Although previous research has focused mainly on forests, we synthesise deadwood studies across all ecosystems with woody vegetation. Storage and release of carbon from deadwood is controlled by interacting decomposition drivers including biotic consumers (animals, microbes) and abiotic factors (water, fire, sunlight, [...]
Shrinking body size may not provide meaningful thermoregulatory benefits in a warmer world
Published: 2023-12-13
Subjects: Comparative and Evolutionary Physiology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Ornithology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Physiology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology, Zoology
In a recent and impressive analysis of avian morphological data (covering >250 000 male birds from 105 species), Youngflesh et al.1 report that birds breeding in North America have become significantly lighter over the last three decades, coincident with rising breeding season temperatures. Because these observations recapitulate predictions under Bergmann’s Rule (i.e., that the body size of [...]
Elevated CO2 enhances decomposition and modifies litter-associated fungal assemblages in a natural Eucalyptus woodland
Published: 2023-12-12
Subjects: Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Litter decomposition is a key process governing carbon and nutrient cycles in forest ecosystems that is expected to be impacted by increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations. We conducted two complementary field studies to assess the effects of elevated CO2 on Eucalyptus tereticornis litter decomposition processes. First, we used bags of two different mesh sizes to assess the [...]
Quantifying clearance rates of restored shellfish reefs using modular baskets
Published: 2023-12-08
Subjects: Animal Experimentation and Research, Aquaculture and Fisheries Life Sciences, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Research Methods in Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology, Water Resource Management, Zoology
Shellfish reefs are among the most degraded ecosystems globally, prompting substantial efforts to restore them. While biodiversity gains of restored reefs are well documented, other ecosystem services such as water filtration remain poorly quantified. We present a novel way of measuring water filtration by restored reefs using modular restoration structures called Robust Oyster Baskets (ROB 400). [...]
The world was our oyster: Records reveal the vast historical extent of European oyster reef ecosystems
Published: 2023-12-07
Subjects: Biodiversity, Marine Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Anthropogenic activities have impacted marine ecosystems at extraordinary scales. Biogenic reef ecosystems built by the European flat oyster (Ostrea edulis) typically declined prior to scientific monitoring. Collating >1,600 records published over 350 years, we created a highly resolved (10km2) map of historical oyster reef presence across its biogeographic range, including documenting abundant [...]
Historical dataset details the distribution, extent and form of lost Ostrea edulis reef ecosystems.
Published: 2023-12-07
Subjects: Aquaculture and Fisheries Life Sciences, Biodiversity, Marine Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Ocean ecosystems have been subjected to anthropogenic influences for centuries, but the scale of past ecosystem changes is often unknown. For centuries, the European flat oyster (Ostrea edulis), an ecosystem engineer providing biogenic reef habitats, was a culturally and economically significant source of food and trade. These reef habitats are now functionally extinct, and almost no memory of [...]
ATLANTIC SPATIAL: a dataset of landscape, topographic, hydrological and anthropogenic metrics for the Atlantic Forest
Published: 2023-11-16
Subjects: Spatial Science, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Space is one of the main drivers of biodiversity, once it regulates the underlying processes affecting the distribution and dynamics of species and communities. It is a fundamental factor in the face of the rapid climate and land use and land cover changes at local and global scales, which are linked to habitat loss and fragmentation and their impacts on various organisms. The Atlantic Forest of [...]
Decoupling both local and global abundance from global range size: challenging the abundance-occupancy relationship in birds
Published: 2023-11-01
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Population Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
In macroecology, a classic empirical observation has been positive relationships between local abundance and species' range, known as the abundance-occupancy relationships (AORs). The existence of this empirical relationship has informed both theory development and applied questions. Notably, the spatial neutral model of biodiversity predicts AORs. Yet, based on the largest known meta-analysis of [...]
Avian zoochory is a probable pathway of European perch colonization in artificial lakes: a reply to Vasemägi et al (2023)
Published: 2023-10-14
Subjects: Life Sciences, Population Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Amount of carbon fixed, transit time and fate of harvested wood products define the climate change mitigation potential of boreal forest management - A model analysis
Published: 2023-10-14
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Forest Management, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences, Other Forestry and Forest Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Boreal forests are often managed to maximize wood production, but other goals, among which climate change mitigation, are increasingly important. Examining synergies and trade-offs between forest production and its potential for carbon sequestration and climate change mitigation in forest stands requires explicitly accounting for how long forest ecosystems and wood products retain carbon from [...]
Functional trait dataset of benthic macroinvertebrates in South Korean streams
Published: 2023-09-22
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Functional traits are the result of evolution and adaptation, providing important ecological insights into how organisms interact with their environment. Benthic macroinvertebrates, in particular, have garnered attention as biomonitoring indicators for freshwater ecosystems. This study presents a functional trait dataset for benthic macroinvertebrates, comprising 447 taxa (393 at genus level, 53 [...]