Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Optimizing aerial imagery collection and processing parameters for drone-based individual tree mapping in structurally complex conifer forests
Published: 2021-09-11
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences, Research Methods in Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Recent advances in remotely piloted aerial systems (“drones”) and imagery processing enable individual tree mapping in forests across broad areas with low-cost equipment and minimal ground-based data collection. One such method involves collecting many partially overlapping aerial photos, processing them using “structure from motion” (SfM) photogrammetry to create a digital 3D representation, and [...]
Metapopulation-level associations in mutualistic stream fishes
Published: 2021-09-03
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Population Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Positive biotic interactions are recognized as important factors determining species distributions. Although effects of positive interactions have often been observed at local scales, much less is known about consequences at larger spatial scales such as metapopulation dynamics. Here, we study nest associations of stream fishes - widespread reproductive mutualism between host (nest-builder) and [...]
Simultaneous effect of habitat remnancy, exotic species and anthropogenic disturbance on orchid diversity and abundance
Published: 2021-08-04
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Orchids are potentially useful as ecological indicators because of their sensitivity to habitat fragmentation and anthropogenic disturbance. While many studies explore the effect of single factors on orchid diversity, few investigate how the extent, configuration and condition of surrounding habitat affect whole orchid communities. Here, we unravel the effect of biological invasions, [...]
Cryogenian glacial habitats as a plant terrestrialisation cradle – the origin of the anydrophytes and Zygnematophyceae split
Published: 2021-07-21
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Plant Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
For tens of millions of years (Ma), the terrestrial habitats of Snowball Earth during the Cryogenian period (between 720 to 635 Ma before present – Neoproterozoic Era) were possibly dominated by global snow and ice cover up to the equatorial sublimative desert. The most recent time-calibrated phylogenies calibrated not only on plants but on a comprehensive set of eukaryotes indicate that within [...]
Autocorrelation-informed home range estimation: a review and practical guide
Published: 2021-07-05
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
1. Modern tracking devices allow for the collection of high-volume animal tracking data at improved sampling rates over VHF radiotelemetry. Home range estimation is a key output from these tracking datasets, but the inherent properties of animal movement can lead traditional statistical methods to under- or overestimate home range areas. 2. The Autocorrelated Kernel Density Estimation (AKDE) [...]
Flotsam and jetsam: a global review of the role of inputs of marine organic matter in sandy beach ecosystems
Published: 2021-07-05
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Sandy beaches are iconic interfaces that functionally link the ocean with the land by the flow of marine organic matter. These cross-ecosystem fluxes often comprise uprooted seagrass and dislodged macroalgae that can form substantial accumulations of detritus, termed ‘wrack’, on sandy beaches. In addition, the tissue of the carcasses of marine animals that regularly wash up on beaches form a rich [...]
Restored off-channel pond habitats create thermal regime diversity and refuges within a Mediterranean-climate watershed
Published: 2021-07-01
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Cool-water habitats provide increasingly vital refuges for cold-water fish living on the margins of their historical ranges; consequently, efforts to enhance or create cool-water habitat are becoming a major focus of river restoration practices. However, the effectiveness of restoration projects for providing thermal refuge and creating diverse temperature regimes at the watershed scale remains [...]
Seasonally variable relationships between surface water temperature and inflow in the upper San Francisco Estuary
Published: 2021-06-23
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Fresh Water Studies, Hydrology, Life Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology, Water Resource Management
Water temperature and inflow are key environmental drivers in aquatic systems that are linked through a causal web of factors including climate, weather, water management, and their downstream linkages. However, we do not yet fully understand the relationship between inflow and water temperature, especially in complex managed systems such as estuaries. The San Francisco Estuary is the center of a [...]
Optimizing stable isotope sampling design in terrestrial movement ecology research
Published: 2021-06-22
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
1. The recognition of adequate sampling designs is an interdisciplinary topic that has gained popularity over the last decades. In ecology, many research questions involve sampling across extensive and complex environmental gradients. This is the case for stable isotope analyses, which are widely used to characterize large-scale movement patterns and dietary preferences of organisms across taxa. [...]
Impacts of the invasive round goby (Neogobius melanostomus) on benthic invertebrate fauna: a case study from the Baltic Sea
Published: 2021-06-11
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
The round goby (Neogobius melanostomus) was first observed in the Baltic Sea in 1990 and has since displayed substantial secondary dispersal, establishing numerous dense populations where they may outcompete native fish and negatively impact prey species. There have been multiple round goby diet studies from both the Baltic Sea and the North American Great Lakes where they are similarly invasive. [...]
An outline summary document of the current knowledge about prescribed vegetation burning impacts on ecosystem services compared to alternative mowing or no management
Published: 2021-06-02
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
A lay summary of our discussion paper: A critical review of the IUCN UK Peatland Programme’s “Burning and Peatlands” position statement (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13157-021-01400-1). In short, we discuss the prescribed burning on blanket bog evidence base and its interpretation within a UK context - specifically in relation to the International Union for Conservation of Nature UK [...]
Constructive criticism of “Misinterpreting carbon accumulation rates in records from near-surface peat” by Young et al: Further evidence of charcoal impacts in relation to long-term carbon storage on blanket bog under rotational burn management
Published: 2021-06-01
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
t is with great interest that we read the recent paper by Young et al. entitled “Misinterpreting carbon accumulation rates in records from near-surface peat”. However, we have some concerns about: (i) the use of an unvalidated deep drainage model to criticise studies investigating the impact of heather burning; (ii) the model scenarios and underlying model assumptions used; and (iii) misleading [...]
Understanding plant microbiomes requires a G x E framework
Published: 2021-05-20
Subjects: Biodiversity, Botany, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Plant Breeding and Genetics Life Sciences, Plant Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Plant microbiomes have become one of the hottest topics in plant biology. Driven by the increased availability of metagenome sequencing methods, analyses of plant-associated microbiomes have been skyrocketing during the last decade. They have generally taken one of two main perspectives: (1) a focus on the microbiome itself, where researchers describe microbiome diversity and attempt to [...]
Warming in the upper San Francisco Estuary: Patterns of water temperature change from 5 decades of data
Published: 2021-04-29
Subjects: Climate, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Fresh Water Studies, Life Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Temperature is a key controlling variable from subcellular to ecosystem scales. Thus, climatic warming is expected to have broad impacts, especially in economically and ecologically valuable systems such as estuaries. The heavily managed upper San Francisco Estuary supplies water to millions of people and is home to fish species of high conservation, commercial, and recreational interest. Despite [...]
Increased adoption of best practices in ecological forecasting enables comparisons of forecastability
Published: 2021-04-27
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Near-term iterative forecasting is a powerful tool for ecological decision support and has the potential to transform our understanding of ecological predictability. However, to this point, there has been no cross-ecosystem analysis of near-term ecological forecasts, making it difficult to synthesize diverse research efforts and prioritize future developments for this emerging field. In this [...]