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37 results for “vertical stratification”
Vertical stratification of leaf physical traits exerts bottom-up pressures on insect herbivory in a sugar maple temperate forest
<p>Do vertical gradients in temperate forest structure insect herbivore communities? We tested the hypothesis that the increase in light intensity from understory to forest canopy level drives differences in leaf physical traits and budburst phenology that impact insect herbivores and thus play a role in structuring both herbivore communities and the leaf damages they cause. Twelve sugar maple <em>(Acer saccharum)</em> sites were monitored in southern Quebec, examining insect herbivore patterns from understory to the shaded and sun canopy over the summers of 2020, 2021, and 2022. Additionally, we recorded leaf physical traits, temperature, humidity, and sun exposure. Our findings revealed that leaf thickness increased along the vertical gradient in 2021, making leaves less favorable to herbivores in the canopy level. Accordingly, we recorded a consistent decrease in insect herbivory damage rates from the understory to the shaded canopy and sun canopy in 2020 and 2021, driven by leaf cutters, skeletonizers, stipplers, and leaf miners. These results support our hypothesis that variation in plant physical traits due to sun exposure contributes to the vertical stratification of insect damage. In 2022, the gradient of insect herbivore abundance corroborated the observed damage trends from the previous years. Moreover, we calculated an average annual herbivory rate of 9.1% of the leaf surface in our study site, suggesting limited evidence supporting a significant contribution of background herbivory to the decline of sugar maple forests. Overall, our study highlights the importance of vertical gradients in structuring insect herbivore communities and emphasizes the role of leaf traits in mediating these interactions.</p>
Thermal stratification and fish thermal preference explain vertical eDNA distributions in lakes
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Vertical stratification of leaf physical traits exerts bottom-up pressures on insect herbivory in a sugar maple temperate forest
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Data from: Changes in vertical stratification of neotropical nymphalid butterflies at forest edges are not directly caused by light and temperature conditions
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Vertical stratification collapses under seasonal shifts in climate
<p><b>Aim: </b>Tropical forests are vertically complex, and offer unique niche opportunities in the form of climate-, habitat-, and resource-gradients from ground to canopy. Rainforest species organize within this vertical spatial gradient and recent macro-ecological research suggests that the highest levels of vertical stratification occur in structurally complex and climatically stable tropical rainforests. Yet, patterns of verticality are typically derived across latitude, linking annual precipitation regimes to canopy utilization and vertical stratification of communities in space. However, although the tropics are not thermally variable, they do have strong seasonality in rainfall—a temporal component that is missed in macro-scale studies. We hypothesise that verticality of ecological communities responds to seasonality in climate, particularly rainfall.</p> <p><b>Location: </b>Sierra Llorona, Colón Province, Panama.</p> <p><b>Taxon: </b>Amphibians.</p> <p><b>Methods: </b>We performed 121 ground-to-canopy surveys across the wet and dry seasons for amphibians. We calculated species specific and community wide vertical height and abundance shifts between seasons, and separately test the importance of vertical height and season on the vertical distribution of species. </p> <p><b>Results: </b>Our results show a clear downward shift of 5 m in height in amphibian communities from the wet season to dry season. We also observe significant changes in species composition across vertical strata in both seasons, driven by nestedness in the dry season (loss of species over height), and genuine turnover in the wet season (loss and addition of species over height).</p> <p><b>Main Conclusions: </b>The exploitation of canopy microhabitats and resources in the wet season resulted in complex patterns of stratification, whereas drying flattened the distribution and simplified the composition of arboreal communities. As such, pattern and process in the vertical dimension is not static in time but rather exists as a dichotomy with inverse patterns between wet and dry seasons. Complex, multidimensional distributions of diverse rainforest communities can be simplified by climatic constraints—an important consideration as anthropogenic climate change increases the magnitude of seasonal swings in temperature and precipitation.</p>
Data from: Coevolution between flight morphology, vertical stratification and sexual dimorphism: what can we learn from tropical butterflies?
Occurrence patterns are partly shaped by the affinity of species with habitat conditions. For winged organisms, flight-related attributes are vital for ecological performance. However, due to the different reproductive roles of each sex, we expect divergence in flight energy budget, and consequently different selection responses between sexes. We used tropical frugivorous butterflies as models to investigate coevolution between flight morphology, sex dimorphism and vertical stratification. We studied 94 species of Amazonian fruit-feeing butterflies sampled in seven sites across 3341 ha. We used wing-thorax ratio as a proxy for flight capacity and hierarchical Bayesian modeling to estimate stratum preference. We detected a strong phylogenetic signal in wing-thorax ratio in both sexes. Stouter fast-flying species preferred the canopy, while more slender slow-flying species preferred the understorey. However, this relationship was stronger in females than in males, suggesting that female phenotype associates more intimately with habitat conditions. Within species, males were stouter than females and sexual dimorphism was sharper in understorey species. Because trait-habitat relationships were independent from phylogeny, the matching between flight morphology and stratum preference is more likely to reflect adaptive radiation than shared ancestry. This study sheds light on the impact of flight and sexual dimorphism on the evolution and ecological adaptation of flying organisms.
Data from: Vertical canopy gradient shaping the stratification of leaf-chewer-parasitoid interactions in a temperate forest
Knowledge about herbivores and their parasitoids in forest canopies remains limited, despite their diversity and ecological importance. Thus, it is important to understand the factors that shape the herbivore–parasitoid community structure, particularly the effect of vertical gradient. We investigated a quantitative community dataset of exposed and semiconcealed leaf‐chewing larvae and their parasitoids along a vertical canopy gradient in a temperate forest. We sampled target insects using an elevated work platform in a 0.2 ha broadleaf deciduous forest plot in the Czech Republic. We analyzed the effect of vertical position among three canopy levels (first [lowest], second [middle], and third [highest]) and tree species on community descriptors (density, diversity, and parasitism rate) and food web structure. We also analyzed vertical patterns in density and parasitism rate between exposed and semiconcealed hosts, and the vertical preference of the most abundant parasitoid taxa in relation to their host specificity. Tree species was an important determinant of all community descriptors and food web structure. Insect density and diversity varied with the vertical gradient, but was only significant for hosts. Both host guilds were most abundant in the second level, but only the density of exposed hosts declined in the third level. Parasitism rate decreased from the first to third level. The overall parasitism rate did not differ between guilds, but semiconcealed hosts suffered lower parasitism in the third level. Less host‐specific taxa (Ichneumonidae, Braconidae) operated more frequently lower in the canopy, whereas more host‐specific Tachinidae followed their host distribution. The most host‐specific Chalcidoidea preferred the third level. Vertical stratification of insect density, diversity, and parasitism rate was most pronounced in the tallest tree species. Therefore, our study contradicts the general paradigm of weak arthropod stratification in temperate forest canopies. However, in the network structure, vertical variation might be superseded by variation among tree species.
Data from: What shapes cerambycid beetle communities in a tropical forest mosaic? Assessing the effects of host tree identity, forest structure, and vertical stratification
Due to anthropogenic activities, tropical rain forests face many challenges in sustaining biodiversity and maintaining global climates. This study explores how forest successional stage, tree composition, and stratum affect communities of saproxylic cerambycid beetles—concealed feeders that play important roles in forest nutrient cycling. Forty trees in five families (Fabaceae, Lecythidaceae, Malvaceae, Moraceae, and Sapotaceae) were sampled in a mosaic of old-growth and secondary forest on the Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica. Bait branches yielded 3549 cerambycid individuals in 49 species. Species richness was almost identical in old-growth and secondary forest, and both yielded specialists, but abundance was higher in old-growth forest. Overall community structure was most strongly influenced by host plant species; within most plant families it was also impacted by forest successional status. Moraceae was the exception, presumably because the focal tree species was abundant in both old-growth and secondary forest. Several host and old-growth specialist species reached high densities within patches of old-growth forest, but seldom colonized apparently suitable trees within secondary forest. This suggests that even small areas of old-growth forest can act as refuges, but that secondary forest may act as a barrier to dispersal. The vulnerability of specialized saproxylic insects to land use change will be linked to the ability of their preferred hosts to disperse to and persist in successional habitats; rearing studies may provide the most accurate method to monitor community changes over time.
Data from: Vertical distribution of marine invertebrate larvae in response to thermal stratification in the laboratory
We investigated the effect of the presence of an experimentally generated thermocline on the vertical distribution of larval Strongylocentrotus droebachiensis, Asterias rubens and Argopecten irradians. Vertical distributions were recorded over 90 min in rectangular plexiglass thermocline chambers designed to regulate the temperature of a central observation compartment to the desired values. The temperature in the bottom water layer (B) and the temperature difference between layers (ΔT) were manipulated in an orthogonal design. We used, for S. droebachiensis: 4 levels of ΔT (0, 3, 6 and 12 °C) and 3 levels of B (3, 6 and 9 °C); for A. rubens: 3 levels ΔT (0, 6 and 12 °C) and 2 levels of B (6 and 12 °C); and for A. irradians: 3 levels of ΔT (0, 5 and 11 °C) and 2 levels of B (5 and 11 °C). The difference in temperature between water layers did not affect the vertical distribution of echinoderms consistently, while the distribution of A. irradians was limited to the bottom layer when any thermal stratification was present regardless of strength. Our results suggest that the vertical position of larvae of S. droebachiensis and A. rubens is related to the temperatures of the surface layer and that the presence alone or the steepness of the thermocline has less influence on their distribution. Consequently, in the field, echinoderm larvae would aggregate at the surface unless temperature extremes were encountered. In contrast, the position of A. irradians was limited to the bottom layer in the presence of a thermocline of at least 5 °C (the shallowest used in our study). Such thermoclines are common in a natural setting and could affect the vertical distribution and horizontal dispersal of larvae by acting as a barrier to vertical migration.
Data from: Vertical distribution of marine invertebrate larvae in response to thermal stratification in the laboratory
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Distribution patterns of fungal taxa and inferred functional traits reflect the non-uniform vertical stratification of soil microhabitats in a coastal pine forest
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Data from: Coevolution between flight morphology, vertical stratification and sexual dimorphism: what can we learn from tropical butterflies?
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Vertical stratification collapses under seasonal shifts in climate
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Data from: Vertical canopy gradient shaping the stratification of leaf-chewer-parasitoid interactions in a temperate forest
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Data from: Tropical nematode diversity: vertical stratification of nematode communities in a Costa Rican humid lowland rainforest
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Data from: What shapes cerambycid beetle communities in a tropical forest mosaic? Assessing the effects of host tree identity, forest structure, and vertical stratification
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Data from: Fine-scale vertical stratification and guild composition of saproxylic beetles in lowland and montane forests: similar patterns despite low faunal overlap
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International Brain Laboratory public data
The International Brain Laboratory public data releases expose standardized mouse decision-making experiments, including Neuropixels recordings, widefield calcium imaging, behavior, and session metadata accessed through the ONE API.
OpenNeuro
OpenNeuro is a free, open platform for sharing neuroimaging datasets, with public search, dataset pages, and download paths for web, S3, DataLad, and the OpenNeuro CLI.