Sea urchin consumption of kelp controlled by the density of drift algae
Rocky reef kelp forests can exhibit abrupt shifts between forested and barren states where unchecked sea urchin grazing inhibits kelp recovery. Forefront to urchin barren …
TaxonBodyMassML: Taxonomy-informed prediction of body mass using gradient-boosted trees
1. Body mass is a key ecological trait governing metabolic rates, life-history characteristics, interaction strengths, and community structure and dynamics. Despite its centrality …
grant-pasquantonio
Symbolic regression for empirically realistic population dynamic time series
Applications of machine learning in ecology are rapidly expanding. Symbolic regression is gaining particular attention for its success in reverse-engineering human-readable …
Models reveal potential synergies in management actions for bull kelp forest resilience and restoration
1. Heatwaves are a growing threat to marine ecosystems. Kelps are particularly vulnerable because they require cool, nutrient-rich water to thrive. Heatwave conditions can also …
j.-wilson-white
FracFeed: Global database of the fraction of feeding predators
The proportion of individuals that are found to have empty stomachs during a survey of a predator population’s diet has been used as an indicator of the average individual’s state …
In defense of Type I functional responses: The frequency and population-dynamic effects of feeding on multiple prey at a time
Ecologists differ in the degree to which they consider the linear Type I functional response to be an unrealistic versus sufficient representation of predator feeding rates. …
Simple, universal rules predict trophic interaction strengths
Many critical drivers of ecological systems exhibit regular scaling relationships, yet, often, the underlying mechanisms explaining these relationships are unknown. Trophic …
Body mass–biomass scaling modulates species keystone-ness to press perturbations
Identifying species with disproportionate effects on other species under press perturbations is essential, yet how species traits drive their keystone-ness and how this depends on …
xiaoxiao-li
Age-prevalence curves in a multi-species parasite community
The relationship between infection prevalence and host age is informative because it can reveal processes underlying disease dynamics. Most prior work has assumed that …
Corrigendum: Geometric complexity and the information-theoretic comparison of functional-response models
Due to an error in our formulation of the citardauq solution to quadratic equations, our reformulation of the Steady State Saturation (SSS) model of Jeschke et al. (2002) to a …
High variation in handling times confers 35-year stability to predator feeding rates despite community change
Historical resurveys of ecological communities are important for placing the structure of modern ecosystems in context. Rarely, however, are surveys alone sufficient for providing …
Predator feeding rates may often be unsaturated under typical prey densities
Predator feeding rates (described by their functional response) must saturate at high prey densities. Although thousands of manipulative functional response experiments show …
Effects of predator novelty on intraguild predation communities with adaptive prey defense
Understanding coexistence within community modules such as intraguild predation (IGP), where an omnivore both preys on and competes with an intermediate consumer for a shared …
Kelp-forest dynamics controlled by substrate complexity
The factors that determine why ecosystems exhibit abrupt shifts in state are of paramount importance for management, conservation, and restoration efforts. Kelp forests are …
PressPurt - Network sensitivity to press perturbations under interaction uncertainty
While the use of networks to understand how complex systems respond to perturbations is pervasive across scientific disciplines, the uncertainty associated with estimates of …
david-koslicki
Collective behaviour can stabilize ecosystems
Collective behaviour is common in bacteria, plants, and animals, and thus across ecosystems, from biofilms to cities. With collective behaviour, social interactions among …
ben-dalziel
The effects of formalin fixation and fluid storage on stable isotopes in rodent hair
Stable isotopes are increasingly being used to unlock the wealth of information contained in specimens preserved in museum collections. However, preservation methods that employ …
david-taylor
Geometric complexity and the information-theoretic comparison of functional-response models
The assessment of relative model performance using information criteria like AIC and BIC has become routine among functional-response studies, reflecting trends in the broader …
Trematode parasites exceed aquatic insect biomass in Oregon stream food webs
Although parasites are increasingly recognized for their ecosystem roles, it is often assumed that free-living organisms dominate animal biomass in most ecosystems and therefore …
Systematic bias in studies of consumer functional responses
Functional responses are a cornerstone to our understanding of consumer-resource interactions, so how to best describe them using models has been actively debated. Here we focus on …
Quantifying the effects of intraspecific variation on predator feeding rates through nonlinear averaging
Theory suggests that intraspecific trait variation will alter species interaction strengths through nonlinear averaging when interaction strengths are nonlinear functions of …
Hidden layers of density dependence in consumer feeding rates
Functional responses relate a consumer's feeding rates to variation in its abiotic and biotic environment, providing insight into consumer behaviour and fitness, and underpinning …
daniel-stouffer
Temporal shifts in intraspecific and interspecific diet variation among 3 stream predators
Intraspecific variation is increasingly recognized as an important factor in ecological interactions that can exceed the role of interspecific variation. Few studies, however, …
The intrinsic predictability of ecological time series and its potential to guide forecasting
Successfully predicting the future states of systems that are complex, stochastic, and potentially chaotic is a major challenge. Model forecasting error (FE) is the usual measure …
frank-pennekamp
Planning for Change: Assessing the Potential Role of Marine Protected Areas and Fisheries Management Approaches for Resilience Management in a Changing Ocean
Despite progressive policies and continued advances in ocean management, numerous shifts associated with global changes have been observed in marine ecosystems in recent years, …
kristy-kroeker
PISCO: Advances Made Through the Formation of a Large-Scale, Long-Term Consortium for Integrated Understanding of Coastal Ecosystem Dynamics
To support conservation practices, societal demand for understanding fundamental coastal ocean ecosystem mechanisms has grown in recent decades. Globally, these regions are among …
bruce-menge
Integrating Coastal Oceanic and Benthic Ecological Approaches for Understanding Large-Scale Meta-Ecosystem Dynamics
As the reality of climate change became obvious during the late 1900s, the need for understanding ecosystem pattern and dynamics at large scales and for long periods became …
bruce-menge
Food-web interaction strength distributions are conserved by greater variation between than within predator--prey pairs
Species interactions in food webs are usually recognized as dynamic, varying across species, space, and time because of biotic and abiotic drivers. Yet food webs also show …
Community Responses to Climate-Related Variability and Disease: The Critical Importance of Long-Term Research
A major goal of the Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans (PISCO) has been to understand the impacts of climate change and variability on the coastal …
bruce-menge
What drives interaction strengths in complex food webs? A test with feeding rates of a generalist stream predator
Describing the mechanisms that drive variation in species interaction strengths is central to understanding, predicting, and managing community dynamics. Multiple factors have been …
Exact probabilities for the indeterminacy of complex networks as perceived through press perturbations
We consider the goal of predicting how complex networks respond to chronic (press) perturbations when characterizations of their network topology and interaction strengths are …
david-koslicki
Using Survival Models to Estimate Invertebrate Prey Identification Times in a Generalist Stream Fish
Estimates of predator feeding rates are important for understanding trophic dynamics. One common method for quantifying feeding rates in fishes combines mass‐based diet data with …
The application of Bayesian hierarchical models to quantify individual diet specialization
Intraspecific variation in ecologically relevant traits is widespread. In generalist predators in particular, individual diet specialization is likely to have important …
Rapid and direct recoveries of predators and prey through synchronized ecosystem management
One of the twenty-first century’s greatest environmental challenges is to recover and restore species, habitats and ecosystems. The decision about how to initiate restoration is …
jameal-samhouri
Quantifying predator dependence in the functional response of generalist predators
A long‐standing debate concerns how functional responses are best described. Theory suggests that ratio dependence is consistent with many food web patterns left unexplained by …
Long-Term Studies Contribute Disproportionately to Ecology and Policy
As the contribution for long-term ecological and environmental studies (LTEES) to our understanding of how species and ecosystems respond to a changing global climate becomes more …
brent-hughes
Experimental demonstration of a trophic cascade in the Galápagos rocky subtidal: Effects of consumer identity and behavior
In diverse tropical webs, trophic cascades are presumed to be rare, as species interactions may dampen top-down control and reduce their prevalence. To test this hypothesis, we …
jon-witman
Bayesian characterization of uncertainty in species interaction strengths
Considerable effort has been devoted to the estimation of species interaction strengths. This effort has focused primarily on statistical significance testing and obtaining point …
Global patterns of kelp forest change over the past half-century
Kelp forests (Order Laminariales) form key biogenic habitats in coastal regions of temperate and Arctic seas worldwide, providing ecosystem services valued in the range of …
kira-krumhansl
Ecosystem context and historical contingency in apex predator recoveries
Habitat loss, overexploitation, and numerous other stressors have caused global declines in apex predators. This “trophic downgrading” has generated widespread concern because of …
adrian-stier
Complexity increases predictability in allometrically constrained food webs
All ecosystems are subjected to chronic disturbances, such as harvest, pollution, and climate change. The capacity to forecast how species respond to such press perturbations is …
Characterizing species interactions to understand press perturbations: What is the community matrix?
The community matrix is among ecology's most important mathematical abstractions, formally encapsulating the interconnected network of effects that species have on one another's …
Where does the time go?: Mixing and the depth-dependent distribution of fossil ages
Knowing how time is distributed within a fossil record is fundamental to paleobiology. Many efforts to quantify temporal resolution have estimated rates of specimen decay from the …
rebecca-terry
Timescales alter the inferred strength and temporal consistency of intraspecific diet specialization
Many populations consist of individuals that differ substantially in their diets. Quantification of the magnitude and temporal consistency of such intraspecific diet variation is …
Selection on stability across ecological scales
Much of the focus in evolutionary biology has been on the adaptive differentiation among organisms. It is equally important to understand the processes that result in similarities …
jonathan-borrelli
An Online Database for Informing Ecological Network Models: http://kelpforest.ucsc.edu
Ecological network models and analyses are recognized as valuable tools for understanding the dynamics and resiliency of ecosystems, and for informing ecosystem-based approaches …
rodrigo-beas-luna
Trophic omnivory across a productivity gradient: intraguild predation theory and the structure and strength of species interactions
Intraguild predation theory centres on two predictions: (i) for an omnivore and an intermediate predator (IG-prey) to coexist on shared resources, the IG-prey must be the superior …
A multi-decade time series of kelp forest community structure at San Nicolas Island, California (USA)
San Nicolas Island is surrounded by broad areas of shallow subtidal habitat, characterized by dynamic kelp forest communities that undergo dramatic and abrupt shifts in community …
mike-kenner
Using the functional response of a consumer to predict biotic resistance to invasive prey
Predators sometimes provide biotic resistance against invasions by nonnative prey. Understanding and predicting the strength of biotic resistance remains a key challenge in …
laura-twardochleb
Structure and mechanism of diet specialisation: testing models of individual variation in resource use with sea otters
Studies of consumer‐resource interactions suggest that individual diet specialisation is empirically widespread and theoretically important to the organisation and dynamics of …
tim-tinker
Probabilistic patterns of interaction: the effects of link-strength variability on food web structure
Patterns of species interactions affect the dynamics of food webs. An important component of species interactions that is rarely considered with respect to food webs is the …
justin-yeakel
Why intraspecific trait variation matters in community ecology
Natural populations consist of phenotypically diverse individuals that exhibit variation in their demographic parameters and intra- and inter-specific interactions. Recent …
dan-bolnick
The Effect of Travel Loss on Evolutionarily Stable Distributions of Populations in Space
A key assumption of the ideal free distribution (IFD) is that there are no costs in moving between habitat patches. However, because many populations exhibit more or less …
donald-deangelis
Predicting community responses to perturbations in the face of imperfect knowledge and network complexity
How best to predict the effects of perturbations to ecological communities has been a long‐standing goal for both applied and basic ecology. This quest has recently been revived …
Nestedness patterns and the dual nature of community reassembly in California streams: a multivariate permutation-based approach
Many factors contribute to the nonrandom processes of extinctions and invasions that are changing the structure of ecological communities worldwide. These factors include the …
Merging Resource Availability with Isotope Mixing Models: The Role of Neutral Interaction Assumptions
Bayesian mixing models have allowed for the inclusion of uncertainty and prior information in the analysis of trophic interactions using stable isotopes. Formulating prior …
justin-yeakel
Generalized modeling of ecological population dynamics
Over the past 7 years, several authors have used the approach of generalized modeling to study the dynamics of food chains and food webs. Generalized models come close to the …
justin-yeakel
Using experimental indices to quantify the strength of species interactions
Few methods for demonstrating the effects of species interactions rival that of the manipulative experiment (Kareiva and Levin 2002). The now commonly performed removal or …
Estimating interaction strengths in nature: experimental support for an observational approach
The complexity of food webs poses a significant hurdle for our growing understanding of the structure and dynamics of ecological communities. Empirical methods that measure the …
Understanding and predicting ecological dynamics: are major surprises inevitable
Ecological surprises, substantial and unanticipated changes in the abundance of one or more species that result from previously unsuspected processes, are a common outcome of both …
dan-doak
Estimating nonlinear interaction strengths: an observation-based method for species-rich food webs
Efforts to estimate the strength of species interactions in species‐rich, reticulate food webs have been hampered by the multitude of direct and indirect interactions such systems …
Diurnal activity in a group of Gulf of Maine decapods
The patterns of diel activity of four large decapod species in the shallow subtidal of the Isles of Shoals, Gulf of Maine, U.S.A. were investigated. During the summer of 1999 the …