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 …
Applications of machine learning in ecology are rapidly expanding. Symbolic regression is gaining particular attention for its success in reverse-engineering human-readable …
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 …
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. …
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 …
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 …
The factors that determine why ecosystems exhibit abrupt shifts in state are of paramount importance for management, conservation, and restoration efforts. Kelp forests are …
While the use of networks to understand how complex systems respond to perturbations is pervasive across scientific disciplines, the uncertainty associated with estimates of …
How the direct and indirect effects of species interactions cascade to affect community struc- ture, functioning, and stability is a fundamental question in ecology. In temperate …
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 …
We consider the goal of predicting how complex networks respond to chronic (press) perturbations when characterizations of their network topology and interaction strengths are …
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 …
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 …
There is increasing awareness that human activities are altering the ways that natural systems operate and that local shifts in species composition and abundance can lead to …
Habitat loss, overexploitation, and numerous other stressors have caused global declines in apex predators. This “trophic downgrading” has generated widespread concern because of …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Many factors contribute to the nonrandom processes of extinctions and invasions that are changing the structure of ecological communities worldwide. These factors include the …
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 …
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 …