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39 results for “resource heterogeneity”
Data from: Topographic heterogeneity lengthens the duration of pollinator resources
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Data from: Amount or pattern? Grassland responses to the heterogeneity and availability of two key resources
Patterns of resource availability and heterogeneity shape the composition, productivity, and dynamics of plant assemblages in a wide variety of terrestrial ecosystems. Despite this, the responses of plant assemblages to simultaneous changes in the availability and heterogeneity of more than a single resource are virtually unknown. To fill this gap, microcosms consisting of assemblages formed by Lolium perenne, Plantago lanceolata, Anthoxantum odoratum, Holcus lanatus, and Trifolium repens were grown in a factorial experiment with the following treatments: nutrient availability (NA), water availability (WA), spatial nutrient heterogeneity (NH), and temporal water heterogeneity (WH). Assemblages exhibited precise root foraging patterns in response to nutrient heterogeneity, which were modified by NA and WA. A series of two- and three-way interactions involving the four factors evaluated determined biomass production, the belowground : aboveground biomass ratio, the patterns of root biomass allocation with depth, and the relative contribution to aboveground biomass of Lolium and Anthoxanthum. In all cases, these interactions explained significant amounts of the variation found in the data. Our study demonstrates that considering the interactions between resource availability and heterogeneity allows for a refinement of predictions that can detectably reduce the error associated with extrapolating from single factor analyses.
Resource availability and heterogeneity shape the self‐organisation of regular spatial patterning
<p>Explaining large-scale ordered patterns and their effects on ecosystem functioning is a fundamental and controversial challenge in ecology. Here, we coupled empirical and theoretical approaches to explore how competition and spatial heterogeneity govern the regularity of colony dispersion in fungus-farming termites. Individuals from different colonies fought fiercely, and inter-nest distances were greater when nests were large and resources scarce—as expected if competition is strong, large colonies require more resources, and foraging area scales with resource availability. Building these principles into a model of inter-colony competition showed that highly ordered patterns emerged under high resource availability and low resource heterogeneity. Analysis of this dynamical model provided novel insights into the mechanisms that modulate pattern regularity and the emergent effects of these patterns on system-wide productivity. Our results show how environmental context shapes pattern formation by social-insect ecosystem engineers, which offers one explanation for the marked variability observed across ecosystems.</p>
Data from: Resource heterogeneity but not inbreeding affects growth and grouping behaviour in socially foraging juvenile cichlid fish
<p>1. Spatial food distribution determines resource profitability, defensibility and encounter rate of foragers. Clumped food distribution can promote aggressiveness and resource monopolisation, in turn increasing within-group variation in food intake and growth. However, the effects of food distribution may depend on foraging strategies. Little is known about the impact of spatial food heterogeneity on growth and grouping behaviour in social foragers in the absence of monopolisation.</p> <p>2. Social foraging is present in many fishes, particularly at early juvenile life stages when fish are especially sensitive to environmental variation. Here, a heterogeneous food distribution may impair foraging success and growth and juveniles may increase sociability to attain social information about food resources.</p> <p>3. We examined the impact of the spatial distribution of food as well as inbreeding on growth and social behaviour in juveniles of the cichlid fish <i>Pelvicachromis pulcher. </i>Inbred individuals often show poorer performance than outbred individuals (inbreeding depression), but inbreeding effects can be environment-dependent. In the experiment, in- and outbred fish were reared in a split-clutch design either under homogeneously distributed or spatially clumped food conditions for eight weeks starting one week after juveniles could actively feed. We documented growth and performed a shoaling assay and a sociality test (choice between a large vs. a small shoal) after six weeks.</p> <p>4. Spatial food distribution did not affect within-group body length variation, but individuals reared under clumped food conditions were smaller. Shoals of the different feeding conditions differed in social behaviour. Shoals of the clumped treatment group showed higher variation in inter-individual distances compared to shoals of the homogeneous treatment group. Furthermore, focal fish of the clumped treatment adjusted their association preference to the position of the groups' largest individual. We did not find significant inbreeding or environment-dependent inbreeding effects regarding growth or social behaviour.</p> <p>5. Our study suggests that a clumped food distribution can impede localisation of food resources and thus growth in juvenile social foragers. Accordingly, in heterogeneous environments, the use of social information may be highly relevant to increase individuals' foraging success potentially explaining orientation on successful foragers, i.e. large individuals. Inter-individual variation in juvenile social behaviour may precede variation in food monopolisation capability and in growth emerging at later life stages.</p>
Heterogeneity in resource competition covaries with individual variation in long-term social relationships
<p>Resource competition among conspecifics is central to social evolution, as it serves as one of the primary selective pressures of group living. This is because the degree of competition for resources impacts the costs and benefits of social interactions. Despite this, how heterogeneity in resource competition drives variation in the type and quantity of long-term social relationships individuals foster has been overlooked. By measuring male mating competition and female foraging competition in a highly social, long-lived mammal, we demonstrate that individual variation in long-term intrasexual social relationships covaries with preferred habitat and experienced resource competition, and this effect differs based on the sex of the individual. Specifically, greater resource competition resulted in fewer social preferences, but the magnitude of the effect varied by both habitat and sex, whereas for social avoidances, both the directionality and magnitude of the effect of resource competition varied by habitat and sex. Together our work shows how fine-scale variation in individual socioecological niches (i.e., unique physical and social environments) can drive extensive variation in individual social behavior (here long-term relationships) within a population, thereby broadening current theories of social evolution.</p>
Data from: Is tropical montane forest heterogeneity promoted by a resource-driven feedback cycle? Evidence from nutrient relations, herbivory and litter decomposition along a topographical gradient
1. Ridges of tropical mountains often differ strikingly from neighbouring ravines in terms of forest structure, productivity, and species composition. This heterogeneity is poorly understood despite its critical role in biodiversity maintenance, carbon and nutrient budgets. 2. We examined measures of tree biomass and productivity, foliage and litter quality (nutrient concentrations, specific leaf mass, phenolics), herbivory and leaf litter decomposition in each six plots laid out in upper and lower slope position in a tropical montane moist forest in southeastern Ecuador. 3. Productivity, quality of foliage and litter and herbivory were significantly lower in upper slope position and closely correlated with soil nutrient concentrations and accumulated humus. The decomposition of upper slope leaf litter (decomposition rate k) was substantially lower than in litter from lower slope forest, whereas the site of decomposition (slope position) only had a marginal effect on the decomposition rate. 4. Our results suggest that the differences in stand structure, productivity, foliar quality, herbivory and decomposition between slope positions are ultimately due to stronger nutrient limitations in upper slope forest. We propose a general conceptual model that explains origin and maintenance of contrasting forest types along topographical gradients through down-slope fluxes of nutrients and water, and a nutrient-driven positive feedback cycle.
Data from: Consumer versus resource control and the importance of habitat heterogeneity for estuarine bivalves
The relative influence of consumers (top down) and resources (bottom up) on the distribution and abundance of organisms remains a key question in ecology. We examined the relationships between consumer and resource variables along a productivity gradient for a dominant predator–prey interaction in a marine soft-sediment system. We 1) quantified density and size of the clam Macoma balthica (prey species) in six replicate sites at each of four habitat types (shallow mud, deep mud, muddy sand and detrital mud) in the Rhode River, Chesapeake Bay. We selected one habitat type of high food availability and clam density (shallow mud) and another of low food availability and clam density (muddy sand) for manipulative experiments. Then, we 2) measured M. balthica survival and growth through transplants, 3) measured food availability as sedimentary organic carbon content, 4) quantified predator density, and 5) calculated predator foraging efficiency in the two habitat types. Clam density in the four habitat types differed and was related to sedimentary carbon availability and predator density. One of the habitats, detrital mud, appeared to be a population sink because it only held juvenile Macoma that never survived to reproductive age. Macoma size and growth, and predator (mainly blue crab Callinectes sapidus) densities were positively correlated with productivity and were higher in shallow mud than muddy sand. In contrast, Macoma mortality, local 'interaction strength', and predator foraging efficiency were lower in the productive habitat (shallow mud). Thus, predation intensity was inversely correlated with productivity (food availability); consumer and resource effects differed by habitat type; and, at a relatively small spatial scale, consumer and resource forces jointly determined population dynamics in this soft-sediment marine system.
Data from: Consumer versus resource control and the importance of habitat heterogeneity for estuarine bivalves
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Data from: Resource heterogeneity but not inbreeding affects growth and grouping behaviour in socially foraging juvenile cichlid fish
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Data from: Is tropical montane forest heterogeneity promoted by a resource-driven feedback cycle? Evidence from nutrient relations, herbivory and litter decomposition along a topographical gradient
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Data from: Amount or pattern? Grassland responses to the heterogeneity and availability of two key resources
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Heterogeneity in resource competition covaries with individual variation in long-term social relationships
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Data from:Open and closed economies as possible alternative strategies to resource heterogeneity in ants
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Resource availability and heterogeneity shape the self‐organisation of regular spatial patterning
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Data from: Resource heterogeneity, soil fertility, and species diversity: effects of clonal species on plant communities
Spatial heterogeneity in soil resources is widely thought to promote plant species coexistence, and this mechanism figures prominently in resource-ratio models of competition. However, most experimental studies have found that nutrient enhancements depress diversity regardless of whether nutrients are uniformly or heterogeneously applied. This mismatch between theory and empirical pattern is potentially due to an interaction between plant size and the scale of resource heterogeneity. Clonal plants that spread vegetatively via rhizomes or stolons can grow large and may integrate across resource patches, thus reducing the positive effect of small-scale resource heterogeneity on plant species richness. Many rhizomatous clonal species respond strongly to increased soil fertility, and they have been hypothesized to drive the descending arm of the hump-shaped productivity-diversity relationship in grasslands. We tested whether clonals reduce species richness in a grassland community by manipulating nutrient heterogeneity, soil fertility, and the presence of rhizomatous clonal species in a 6-year field experiment. We found strong and consistent negative effects of clonals on species richness. These effects were greatest at high fertility and when soil resources were applied at a scale at which rhizomatous clonals could integrate across resource patches. Thus, we find support for the hypothesis that plant size and resource heterogeneity interact to determine species diversity.
Data from: Linking resource availability and heterogeneity to understorey species diversity through succession in boreal forest of Canada
Understorey vegetation hosts the majority of species diversity and contributes greatly to ecosystem functioning in natural systems. Although patterns of understorey abundance, species diversity and composition associated with forest stand development are well researched, mechanisms driving these patterns remain largely speculative. We sampled fire origin stands of varying stand ages and overstorey compositions on mesic sites of the boreal forest of Canada and used structural equation modeling (SEM) to link time since fire (stand age), light availability and heterogeneity, substrate heterogeneity and soil nitrogen to understorey vegetation cover and species diversity. The most parsimonious model for total understorey cover showed a positive direct effect of stand age (r = 0.43) and an indirect effect via mean light level (0.18) and shrub cover (-0.11), with a positive total effect (0.50); the percent broadleaf canopy had a direct negative effect (-0.22) and an indirect effect via shrub cover (-0.11). The model for total understorey species richness showed an indirect effect of stand age via mean light (0.24), light heterogeneity (0.10), and substrate heterogeneity (0.07), with a positive total effect (0.52); percent broadleaf canopy had an indirect effect via light heterogeneity (0.09), and substrate heterogeneity (-0.10). Soil nitrogen did not significantly influence either understorey cover or species richness. The models for vascular plants followed similar trends to those for total understorey cover and species richness; however, there was an opposite indirect effect of light heterogeneity for both cover and species richness of non-vascular plants. Shrub cover had positive direct and negative direct and indirect effects on both vascular and non-vascular cover and species richness. Our findings indicate that understorey cover and species diversity are driven by time since disturbance, light availability as influenced by overstorey and shrub layers, but with important additional effects mediated by light and substrate heterogeneity. Non-vascular understorey vegetation is more strongly determined by time since disturbance than vascular vegetation, and negatively affected by broadleaf tree abundance. The overall results highlight the importance of colonization, light availability and heterogeneity, substrate specialization and growth dynamics in determining successional patterns of boreal forest understorey vegetation.
Data from: Demographic stochasticity and resource autocorrelation control biological invasions in heterogeneous landscapes
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Data from: Resource heterogeneity, soil fertility, and species diversity: effects of clonal species on plant communities
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Data from: Linking resource availability and heterogeneity to understorey species diversity through succession in boreal forest of Canada
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Allen Brain Atlas
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Annotated Behaviour and Observability Dataset (ABODe)
ABODe is a University of Edinburgh DataShare dataset for behavior classification in group-housed mice using home-cage video, identities, bounding boxes, ground-plate positions, and annotator labels.
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