Articles

Structural development of vegetation on rehabilitated North Stradbroke Island: Above/belowground feedback may facilitate alternative ecological outcomes

This study depicts broad-scale revegetation patterns following sand mining on North Stradbroke Island, south-eastern Queensland, Australia.

Authors: Patrick Audet, Amanda Gravina, Vanessa Glenn, Phill McKenna, Helen Vickers, Melina Gillespie and David Mulligan

Is thirty-seven years sufficient for full return of the ant biota following restoration?

An assessment of whether rehabilitated mine sites have resulted in natural or novel ecosystems requires monitoring over considerable periods of time or the use of space-for-time substitution (chronosequence) a...

Authors: Jonathan D Majer, Brian Heterick, Thomas Gohr, Elliot Hughes, Lewis Mounsher and Andrew Grigg

Incorporating novelty and novel ecosystems into restoration planning and practice in the 21st century

Novelty pervades the biosphere. In some cases, potentially irreversible abiotic and/or biotic changes have led to the crossing of thresholds and thus the formation of “novel ecosystems.” Their widespread emerg...

Authors: Michael P Perring, Rachel J Standish and Richard J Hobbs

Why we gather: traditional gathering in native Northwest California and the future of bio-cultural sovereignty

The concept of bio-cultural sovereignty is drawn from Native American Studies scholar Stefano Varese who explores the daily forms of biological and cultural resistance and adaptation in South America. This art...

Authors: Cutcha Risling Baldy

Denitrification from nitrogen-fixing biologically crusted soils in a cool desert environment, southeast Utah, USA

Nitrogen fixation by microorganisms within biological soil crust (“biocrust”) communities provides an important pathway for N inputs in cool desert environments where soil nutrients are low and symbiotic N-fix...

Authors: Nichole N Barger, Sarah C Castle and Gavin N Dean

Novel ecosystems in the restoration of cultural landscapes of Tl’chés, West Chatham Island, British Columbia, Canada

The small archipelago of Tl’chés, in coastal British Columbia, has gone through drastic social-ecological change culminating in the decline of traditional management practices, invasion of exotic plant species an...

Authors: Thiago C Gomes

Root-derived organic matter confines sponge community composition in mangrove ecosystems

Caribbean mangrove-associated sponge communities are very distinct from sponge communities living on nearby reefs, but the mechanisms that underlie this distinction remain uncertain. It has been hypothesized t...

Authors: Ellard R Hunting, Selma M Ubels, Michiel HS Kraak and Harm G van der Geest

The structure of natural microbial enemy-victim networks

The persistence of generalists and specialists is a topical question in community ecology and results from both ecological and evolutionary processes. At fine taxonomical scales, ecological specialisation, i.e...

Authors: Timothée Poisot, Manon Lounnas and Michael E Hochberg

Indigenous marine resource management on the Northwest Coast of North America

There is increasing recognition among anthropologists that indigenous peoples of the Northwest Coast actively managed their terrestrial and marine resources and ecosystems. Such management practices ensured th...

Authors: Dana Lepofsky and Megan Caldwell

Biological soil crusts as an integral component of desert environments

Authors: Jayne Belnap and Bettina Weber

Wind farm potential is higher in prime habitat for uncommon soil crust lichens

Biotic soil crust communities contribute valuable ecosystem services and biodiversity in steppe ecosystems. The uncommon crust lichens Acarospora schleicheri, Fuscopannaria cyanolepra, Rhizocarpon diploschistidin...

Authors: Heather T Root, Myrica McCune and Bruce McCune

Ammonia-oxidizing archaea and bacteria are structured by geography in biological soil crusts across North American arid lands

Biological soil crusts (BSCs) can dominate surface cover in dry lands worldwide, playing an integral role in arid land biogeochemistry, particularly in N fertilization through fixation and cycling. Nitrificati...

Authors: Yevgeniy Marusenko, Scott T Bates, Ian Anderson, Shannon L Johnson, Tanya Soule and Ferran Garcia-Pichel

Ecological characterization of soil-inhabiting and hypolithic soil crusts within the Knersvlakte, South Africa

Within the Knersvlakte, cyanobacteria occur hypolithically underneath translucent quartz stones in areas with quartz pavement and, outside pavement areas, they are soil-inhabiting within the uppermost millimet...

Authors: Bettina Weber, Dirk CJ Wessels, Kirstin Deutschewitz, Stephanie Dojani, Hans Reichenberger and Burkhard Büdel

On the role of traditional ecological knowledge as a collaborative concept: a philosophical study

The concept of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), along with synonymous or closely related terms like indigenous knowledge and native science, has some of its origins in literatures on international devel...

Authors: Kyle Powys Whyte

Lichen species dominance and the resulting photosynthetic behavior of Sonoran Desert soil crust types (Baja California, Mexico)

Lichen dominated biological soil crusts (BSCs) occur over large areas in the Sonoran Desert of the southwestern USA and northwest Mexico. In Baja California BSCs show a distinct patchiness and several types ca...

Authors: Burkhard Büdel, Mercedes Vivas and Otto L Lange

Long-term changes in biological soil crust cover and composition

Communities change over time due to disturbances, variations in climate, and species invasions. Biological soil crust communities are important because they contribute to erosion control and nutrient cycling. ...

Authors: Eva Dettweiler-Robinson, Jeanne M Ponzetti and Jonathan D Bakker

Cultural and health implications of fish advisories in a Native American community

Fish advisories are issued in an effort to protect human health from exposure to contaminants, but Native American communities may suffer unintended health, social, and cultural consequences as a result of war...

Authors: Elizabeth Hoover

Fluxes of water, sediments, and biogeochemical compounds in salt marshes

Tidal oscillations systematically flood salt marshes, transporting water, sediments, organic matter, and biogeochemical elements such as silica. Here we present a review of recent studies on these fluxes and t...

Authors: Sergio Fagherazzi, Patricia L Wiberg, Stijn Temmerman, Eric Struyf, Yong Zhao and Peter A Raymond

Regional-scale relationship among biological soil crusts, invasive annual grasses, and disturbance

Sagebrush ecosystems in western North America are being replaced by the invasion of annual grasses, particularly Bromus tectorum. In experimental situations and in localized landscapes, prior studies have documen...

Authors: Eric B Peterson

Early life on land and the first terrestrial ecosystems

Terrestrial ecosystems have been largely regarded as plant-dominated land surfaces, with the earliest records appearing in the early Phanerozoic (<550 Ma). Yet the presence of biological components in pre-Phan...

Authors: Hugo Beraldi-Campesi

Terrestrial denitrification: challenges and opportunities

Denitrification is a process of great environmental importance but is difficult to study in terrestrial ecosystems. Methods for quantifying the process are problematic, variability in activity is high, and tem...

Authors: Peter M Groffman

A spatially distributed, deterministic approach to modeling Typha domingensis (cattail) in an Everglades wetland

The emergent wetland species Typha domingensis (cattail) is a native Florida Everglades monocotyledonous macrophyte. It has become invasive due to anthropogenic disturbances and is out-competing other vegetation ...

Authors: Gareth Lagerwall, Gregory Kiker, Rafael Muñoz-Carpena, Matteo Convertino, Andrew James and Naiming Wang

Shorebird patches as fingerprints of fractal coastline fluctuations due to climate change

The Florida coast is one of the most species-rich ecosystems in the world. This paper focuses on the sensitivity of the habitat of threatened and endangered shorebirds to sea level rise induced by climate chan...

Authors: Matteo Convertino, Adam Bockelie, Gregory A Kiker, Rafael Muñoz-Carpena and Igor Linkov

Impacts of fire and phosphorus on sawgrass and cattails in an altered landscape of the Florida Everglades

Although fire as a critical ecological process shapes the Florida Everglades landscape, researchers lack landscape-based approach for fire management. The interactive effect of fire, nutrients, water depth, an...

Authors: Yegang Wu, Ken Rutchey, Susan Newman, Shili Miao, Naiming Wang, Fred H Sklar and William H Orem

Stable isotope enrichment in muscle, liver, and whole fish tissues of brown-marbled groupers (Epinephelus fuscoguttatus)

The purpose of this study was to assess enrichments in stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes (δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N) in brown-marbled groupers (Epinephelus fuscoguttatus), a marine fish that has been widely used in aquacul...

Authors: Gang Chen, Hui Zhou, Duoliang Ji and Binhe Gu

C:N:P stoichiometry and nutrient limitation of the soil microbial biomass in a grazed grassland site under experimental P limitation or excess

The availability of essential nutrients, such as nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P), can feedback on soil carbon (C) and the soil microbial biomass. Natural cycles can be supplemented by agricultural fertiliser a...

Authors: Bryan S Griffiths, Annette Spilles and Michael Bonkowski

Bacterial microcosms obey Taylor's law: effects of abiotic and biotic stress and genetics on mean and variance of population density

According to the empirical regularity called Taylor's law, the variance of population density in samples of populations is a power of the mean population density. The exponent is often between 1 and 2. Our exp...

Authors: Oliver Kaltz, Patricia Escobar-Páramo, Michael E Hochberg and Joel E Cohen

Landscape features and weather influence nest survival of a ground-nesting bird of conservation concern, the greater sage-grouse, in human-altered environments

Ground-nesting birds experience high levels of nest predation. However, birds can make selection decisions related to nest site location and characteristics that may result in physical, visual, and olfactory i...

Authors: Stephen L Webb, Chad V Olson, Matthew R Dzialak, Seth M Harju, Jeffrey B Winstead and Dusty Lockman

Refining spatial neighbourhoods to capture terrain effects

Spatially explicit ecological research has increased substantially in the past 20 years. Most spatial approaches require the definition of a spatial neighbourhood or the region over which spatial relationships...

Authors: Trisalyn A Nelson and Colin Robertson

Downscaling future climate scenarios to fine scales for hydrologic and ecological modeling and analysis

Evaluating the environmental impacts of climate change on water resources and biological components of the landscape is an integral part of hydrologic and ecological investigations, and the resultant land and ...

Authors: Lorraine E Flint and Alan L Flint

Ecology and eScience

Authors: Christian Mulder