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2,603 results for “Ecological data”
Data from: Species-habitat relationships and ecological correlates of butterfly abundance in a transformed tropical landscape
Tropical butterfly conservation strategies often focus on total and/or common species richness to assess the conservation value of a patch or habitat. However, such a strategy overlooks the unique dynamics of rare species. We evaluated the species-habitat relationships of 209 common, intermediate, and rare butterfly species (including morphospecies) across four habitat types (mature, degraded, or fragmented forest, and urban parks) and two patch sizes (<400 ha, ≥400 ha) in Singapore. Common species richness was consistent across habitat types. Intermediate species richness declined by more than 50 percent in urban parks (relative to all forest habitats), and rare species richness was reduced by 50 percent in degraded and fragmented forest and by 90 percent in urban parks (relative to mature forest). Large patches had comparable overall richness to small patches, but they supported more rare species and three times as many habitat-restricted species over a similar area. Importantly, a number of rare species were confined to single small patches. Mixed-effects regression models were constructed to identify habitat and ecological/life history variables associated with butterfly abundance. These models revealed that species with greater habitat specialization, rare larval host plants, few larval host plant genera, and narrow global geographic ranges were more likely to be rare species. Overall, these results demonstrate that the richness of habitat-restricted and rare species do not follow the same spatial distribution patterns as common species. Therefore, while conserving mature forests is key, effective butterfly conservation in a transformed landscape should take into account rare and habitat-restricted species.
Data from: Ecological and social drivers of neighbor recognition and the dear enemy effect in a poison frog
<p>Navigating social relationships frequently rests on the ability to recognize familiar individuals using phenotypic characteristics. Across diverse taxa, animals vary in their capacities for social recognition but the ecological and social sources of selection for recognition are often unclear. In a comparative study of two closely related species of poison frogs, we identified a species difference in social recognition of territory neighbors and investigated potential sources of selection underlying this difference. In response to acoustic playbacks, male golden rocket frogs (<i>Anomaloglossus beebei</i>) recognized the calls of neighbors and displayed a "dear enemy effect" by responding less aggressively to neighbors' calls than strangers' calls. In contrast, male Kai rocket frogs (<i>Anomaloglossus kaiei</i>) were equally aggressive to the calls of neighbors and strangers. This species difference in behavior is associated with key differences in reproductive ecology and characteristics of territories. Golden rocket frogs defend reproductive resources in the form of bromeliads, which is expected to create a threat asymmetry between neighbors and strangers favoring decreased aggression to neighbors. In contrast, Kai rocket frogs do not defend reproductive resources. Further, compared with Kai rocket frog territories, golden rocket frog territories occur at higher densities and are defended for longer periods of time, creating a more complex social environment with more opportunities for repeated but unnecessary aggression between neighbors, which should favor the ability to recognize and exhibit less aggression towards neighbors. These results suggest that differences in reproductive ecology can drive changes in social structure that select for social recognition.</p>
Data from - Ecological insights from three decades of animal movement tracking across a changing Arctic
<p>We provide here the data used in analysis of 3 test cases, presented in the manuscript "Ecological insights from three decades of animal movement tracking across a changing Arctic". We utilized the new Arctic Animal Movement Archive (AAMA), a growing collection of 201 standardized terrestrial and marine animal tracking studies from 1991–present. The AAMA supports public data discovery, preserves fundamental baseline data for the future, and facilitates efficient, collaborative data analysis. With three AAMA-based case studies, we document climatic influences on the migration phenology of eagles, geographic differences in adaptive response of caribou reproductive phenology to climate change, and species-specific changes in terrestrial mammal movement rates in response to increasing temperature. </p>
Data from: The ecological stage changes benefits of mate choice and drives preference divergence
<p>Preference divergence is thought to contribute to reproductive isolation. Ecology can alter the way selection acts on female preferences, making them most likely to diverge when ecological conditions vary among populations. We present a novel mechanism for ecologically dependent sexual selection, termed 'the ecological stage' to highlight its ecological dependence. Our hypothesized mechanism emphasizes that males and females interact over mating in a specific ecological context, and different ecological conditions change the costs and benefits of mating interactions, selecting for different preferences in distinct environments and different male traits, especially when traits are condition dependent. We test key predictions of this mechanism in a sympatric threespine stickleback species pair. We used a maternal half-sib split-clutch design for both species, mating females to attractive and unattractive males, and raising progeny on alternate diets that mimic the specialized diets of the species in nature. We estimated the benefits of mate choice for an indicator trait (male nuptial color) by measuring many fitness components across the lifetimes of both sons and daughters from these crosses. We analyzed fitness data using a combination of aster and mixed models. We found that many benefits of mating with high color males depended on both species and diet. These results support the ecological stage hypothesis for stickleback. Finally, we discuss the potential role of this mechanism for other taxa and highlight its ability to enhance reproductive isolation as speciation proceeds, thus facilitating the evolution of strong reproductive isolation.</p>
Data from: Gender diversity of editorial boards and gender differences in the peer review process at six journals of ecology and evolution.
<p>Despite substantial progress for women in science, women remain underrepresented in many aspects of the scholarly publication process. We examined how the gender diversity of editors and reviewers changed over time for six journals in ecology and evolution (2003-2015 for four journals, 2007-2015 or 2009-2015 for the other two), and how several aspects of the peer review process differed between female and male editors and reviewers. We found that, for five of the six journals, women were either absent or very poorly represented as handling editors at the beginning of our dataset. The representation of women among handling editors increased gradually and consistently, with women making up 29% of the handling editors (averaged across journals) in 2015, similar to the representation of women as last authors on ecology papers (23% in 2015) but lower than the proportion of women among all authors (31%) and among members of the societies that own the journals (37-40%). The proportion of women among reviewers has also gradually but consistently increased over time, reaching 27% by 2015. Female editors invited more female reviewers than did male editors, and this difference increased with age of the editor. Men and women who were invited to review did not differ in whether they responded to the review invitation, but, of those that responded, women were slightly more likely to agree to review. In contrast, women were less likely than men to accept invitations to serve on journal editorial boards. Our analyses indicate that there has been progress in the representation of women as reviewers and editors in ecology and evolutionary biology, but women are still underrepresented among the gatekeepers of scholarly publishing relative to their representation among researchers.</p>
Data sets supporting "Report on EU socio-ecological systems" (MAGIC Deliverable 4.2)
<p>Description: Report on EU socio-ecological systems (Deliverable 4.2; WP4; EU H2020 MAGIC Project)</p> <p>Subject and Keywords: nexus (i.e. food, water, energy, land use, climate and environment); quantitative story telling (QST); metabolic pattern; robustness of narratives; EU’ sustainability strategy</p> <p>Abstract: The sustainability agenda builds on key components (i.e. food, water, energy, land use, climate and environment) that are inherently interconnected in a Nexus. MAGIC uses an innovative approach to test the robustness of narratives about the Nexus in Europe and focuses on the EU sustainable strategy. The aim of this deliverable is to operationalize and test a tool-kit to structure the quantitative analysis of the metabolic pattern of social-ecological systems in relation to their sustainability and the Nexus, at different levels of aggregation and spatial scales (EU, country or regional level). We use “quantitative story telling” as an alternative approach to use scientific information generated and better inform policy-makers. This deliverable build on the methodological approach and the basic features of the theoretical framework of accounting called Multi-Scale Integrated Analysis of Societal and Ecosystem Metabolism (MuSIASEM). The application of the tool-kit in this deliverable has the only goal of illustrating the potentiality of the approach. In a series of chapters we i) present the theoretical background and features of the tool-kit used to characterize the state-of-the-play (diagnostic analysis) with regard to the sustainability of SES; ii) provide an overview of the results obtained in the analysis of 8 EU countries (i.e. France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Romania, Spain, Sweden and United Kingdom); iii) demonstrate the capability of the toolkit to perform the analysis at different scales (in this case, at a lower aggregated level -NUTS2-); and iv) highlight the methodological breakthrough provided by relational analysis and its relevance for policy making with regard to the water-energy-food-environment Nexus</p> <p>Publisher: MAGIC</p> <p>Contributors: 18 co-authors from 4 organisations</p> <p>Citation: Ripoll-Bosch and Giampietro (Editors). 2019. Report on EU socio-ecological systems. MAGIC (H2020–GA 689669) Project Deliverable 4.2, Revision</p> <p>Date: March/18</p> <p>Language: English</p> <p>Rights Management: The access is open</p>
Data from: Connecting the data landscape of long-term ecological studies: the SPI-Birds data hub
<p>1. The integration and synthesis of the data in different areas of science is drastically slowed and hindered by a lack of standards and networking programmes. Long-term studies of individually marked animals are not an exception. These studies are especially important as instrumental for understanding evolutionary and ecological processes in the wild. Further, their number and global distribution provides a unique opportunity to assess the generality of patterns and to address broad-scale global issues (e.g. climate change).</p> <p>2. To solve data integration issues and enable a new scale of ecological and evolutionary research based on long-term studies of birds, we have created the SPI-Birds Network and Database (www.spibirds.org) – a large-scale initiative that connects data from, and researchers working on, studies of wild populations of individually recognizable (usually ringed) birds. Within year and a half since the establishment, SPI-Birds has recruited over 120 members, and currently hosts data on almost 1.5 million individual birds collected in 80 populations over 2000 cumulative years, and counting.</p> <p>3. SPI-Birds acts as a data hub and a catalogue of studied populations. It prevents data loss, secures easy data finding, use and integration, and thus facilitates collaboration and synthesis. We provide community-derived data and meta-data standards and improve data integrity guided by the principles of Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR), and aligned with the existing metadata languages (e.g. ecological meta-data language).</p> <p>4. The encouraging community involvement stems from SPI-Bird's decentralized approach: research groups retain full control over data use and their way of data management, while SPI-Birds creates tailored pipelines to convert each unique data format into a standard format. We outline the lessons learned, so that other communities (e.g. those working on other taxa) can adapt our successful model. Creating community-specific hubs (such as ours, COMADRE for animal demography, etc.) will aid much-needed large-scale ecological data integration.</p>
Data from: Visualizing connectivity of ecological and evolutionary concepts – an exploration of research on plant species rarity
<p>Understanding the ecological and evolutionary factors that influence species rarity has important theoretical and applied implications, yet the reasons why some species are rare while others are common remain unresolved. As a novel exploration of scientific knowledge, we used network analysis conceptually to visualize the foci of a comprehensive base of >800 studies on plant species rarity within the context of ecology and evolution. In doing so, we highlight existing research strengths that could substantiate novel syntheses and gaps that could inspire new research. Our results reveal strong integrated foci on population dynamics with other ecological concepts. In contrast, despite the potential for ecological and evolutionary processes to interact, few studies explored the interplay of environmental factors and microevolutionary patterns. The cellular and molecular biology, physiology, and plasticity of rare plant species within both ecological and evolutionary contexts similarly provide avenues for impactful future investigations.</p>
Data from: Physical and ecological isolation contribute to maintain genetic differentiation between fire salamander subspecies
<p>Landscape features shape patterns of gene flow among populations, ultimately determining where taxa lay along the continuum between panmixia to complete reproductive isolation. Gene flow can be restricted leading to population differentiation in two non-exclusive ways: "physical isolation", in which geographic distance in combination with the landscape features restricts movement of individuals promoting genetic drift, and "ecological isolation", in which adaptive mechanisms constrain gene flow between different environments via divergent natural selection. In central Iberia, two fire salamander subspecies occur in parapatry across elevation gradients along the Iberian Central System mountains, while in adjacent Mountains of Toledo Region only one of them occurs. By integrating population and landscape genetic analyses, we show a ubiquitous role of physical isolation between and within mountain ranges, with unsuitable landscapes increasing differentiation between populations. However, across the Iberian Central System, we found strong support for a significant contribution of ecological isolation, with low genetic differentiation in environmentally homogeneous areas, but high differentiation across sharp transitions in precipitation seasonality. These patterns are consistent with a significant contribution of ecological isolation in restricting gene flow among subspecies. Overall, our results suggest that ecological divergence contributes to reduce genetic admixture, creating an opportunity for lineages to follow distinct evolutionary trajectories.</p>
Data from: Changes in soil microbial communities in post mine ecological restoration: implications for monitoring using high throughput DNA sequencing
<p>The ecological restoration of ecosystem services and biodiversity is a key intervention used to reverse the impacts of anthropogenic activities such as mining. Assessment of the performance of restoration against completion criteria relies on biodiversity monitoring. However, monitoring usually overlooks soil microbial communities (SMC), despite increased awareness of their pivotal role in many ecological functions. Recent advances in cost, scalability and technology has led to DNA sequencing being considered as a cost-effective biological monitoring tool, particularly for otherwise difficult to survey groups such as microbes. However, such approaches for monitoring complex restoration sites such as post-mined landscapes have not yet been tested. Here we examine bacterial and fungal communities across chronosequences of mine site restoration at three locations in Western Australia to determine if there are consistent changes in SMC diversity, community composition and functional capacity. Although we detected directional changes in community composition indicative of microbial recovery, these were inconsistent between locations and microbial taxa (bacteria or fungi). Assessing functional diversity provided greater understanding of changes in site conditions and microbial recovery than could be determined through assessment of community composition alone. These results demonstrate that <span>high-throughput amplicon sequencing of environmental DNA (eDNA)</span> is an effective approach for monitoring the complex changes in SMC following restoration. Future monitoring of mine site restoration using eDNA should consider archiving samples to provide improved understanding of changes in communities over time. Expansion to include other biological groups (e.g. soil fauna) and substrates would also provide a more holistic understanding of biodiversity recovery. </p>
Data from: Finding the best management policy to eradicate invasive species from spatial ecological networks with simultaneous actions
1. Spatial management of invasive species is more likely to be successful when multiple locations are treated simultaneously. However, selecting the best locations to act is difficult due to the many options available at any time. 2. We design a near-optimal policy for applying multiple actions simultaneously for faster invasive species control within a network. Our method uses a recent optimisation tool, the Graph-based Markov decision process (GMDP). Since the policy can be difficult to interpret, we extracted a simpler policy using classification trees. We applied our approach to the eradication of invasive mosquitofish (Gambusia holbrooki) from the habitat of the red-finned blue-eye (Scaturiginichthys vermeilipinnis), a critically endangered fish with a global population that is restricted to seven artesian springs in Queensland, Australia. 3. The policy returned by the GMDP was to manage springs occupied by mosquitofish and their connected neighbours, unless the neighbours were occupied by red-finned blue-eyes. 4. Simultaneous management resulted in rapid declines in simulated mosquitofish occupancy even if eradication effectiveness was low; however the cost of simultaneous eradication was high and sustained eradication effort was necessary to maintain low mosquitofish occupancy. 5. Synthesis and applications. Our paper finds a near-optimal, multi-action control policy to remove an invasive species from a multi-species spatial network. We introduce the Graph-based Markov decision process (GMDP) and apply it to a real case study – eradication of invasive mosquitofish from the habitat of the red-finned blue-eye. We find that the GMDP can generate policies for networks with extremely large state spaces, however it works best when nodes have fewer than five neighbours. We conclude that simultaneous eradications are effective for rapid control of invasive species; however, managers should consider the cost and time required for an effective eradication program.
Data from: Impacts of selective logging on inbreeding and gene flow in two Amazonian timber species with contrasting ecological and reproductive characteristics
Selective logging in Brazil allows for the removal of up to 90% of trees above 50 cm diameter of a given timber species, independent of a species' life history characteristics or how quickly it will recover. The genetic and demographic effects of selective logging on two Amazonian timber species (Dipteryx odorata Leguminosae, Jacaranda copaia Bignoniaceae) with contrasting ecological and reproductive characteristics were assessed in the same forest. Genetic diversity and gene flow were characterized by genotyping adults and seed sampled before and after logging, using hypervariable microsatellite markers. Overall, there were no short term genetic impacts on the J. copaia population, with commercial application of current Brazilian forest management regulations. In contrast, for D. odorata selective logging showed a range of genetic impacts, with a 10% loss of alleles, and reductions in siring by pollen from trees within the 546 ha study area (23% to 11%) and in the number of pollen donors per progeny array (2.8 to 1.6), illustrating the importance of the surrounding landscape. Asynchrony in flowering between D. odorata trees led to trees with no breeding partners, which could limit the species reproduction and regeneration under current regulations. The results are summarised with other published studies from the same site and the implications for forest management discussed. The different types and levels of impacts associated with each species support the idea that ecological and genetic information by species, ecological guild or reproductive group are essential in helping to derive sustainable logging guidelines for tropical forests.
Data from: Ecological effects on metabolic scaling amphipod responses to fish predators in freshwater springs
Metabolic rate is commonly thought to scale with body mass to the 3/4-power as a result of universal body-design constraints. However, recent comparative work has shown that the metabolic scaling slope may vary significantly among species and higher taxa, apparently in response to different lifestyles and ecological conditions, though the precise mechanisms involved are not well understood. To better understand these under-appreciated ecological effects and their causes, it is important to control for extraneous phylogenetic and environmental influences. We demonstrate how this may be done by comparing the ontogenetic scaling of resting metabolic rate among populations of the same species (the amphipod Gammarus minus) in mid-Appalachian freshwater springs with similar, relatively constant environmental conditions, except for the varying presence of the predatory fish Cottus cognatus. We found that populations of G. minus exhibit significantly lower metabolic scaling slopes (0.54 to 0.62) in three freshwater springs with C. cognatus than in two springs without these fish (0.76 to 0.77). We tested multiple hypothetical causes for these population differences. Our results best supported the hypothesis that metabolic scaling was influenced by the effects of size-selective predation on the ontogeny of growth, a metabolically expensive process. The body-size scaling of growth is significantly less steep in the populations inhabiting springs with versus without fish, thus paralleling the interpopulation differences in metabolic scaling. Prematurational growth of G. minus is as high or higher in the fish springs, whereas postmaturational growth is significantly lower, often approaching zero. Similarly the amphipods in the fish springs tend to have higher metabolic rates at small sizes, but lower metabolic rates at large sizes, compared to those in the fishless springs. Our results do not support other hypothetical causes of the interpopulation variation in metabolic scaling, including differential scaling of cell size or low-metabolism body components (fat and mineralized exoskeleton), or possible effects of other environmental factors associated with the presence of fish. However, fish-induced population differences in adult behavioral activity may influence metabolic scaling in G. minus, a possibility under current study. We conclude that ecological factors may significantly influence metabolic scaling, contrary to common belief.
Data from: Dead before detection: addressing the effects of left truncation on survival estimation and ecological inference for neonates
1. Neonate survival is a key life history trait, yet remains challenging to measure in wild populations because neonates can be difficult to capture at birth. Estimates of survival from neonates that are opportunistically captured might be inaccurate because some individuals die before sampling, resulting in data that are left truncated. The resulting overestimation of survival rates can further affect ecological inference through biased estimates of covariate effects in survival models, yet is not addressed in most studies of animal survival. Here, we quantify the effects of left truncation on survival estimates and subsequent ecological inference. 2. Vaginal implant transmitters (VITs) enable capture of ungulates at birth, yielding data without left truncation. The effects of left truncation on survival estimation were quantified using age-dependent survival models for VIT and opportunistically captured neonatal deer. Differences in daily survival rates (DSRs) and cumulative survival probability were calculated for the first 70 days of life. In addition, left truncation was simulated by removing fawns that died during the first 1 or 2 days of life from the VIT-caught sample, isolating the effect of left truncation. 3. Cumulative probability of survival during the first 70 days of life was overestimated by 7–23% for fawns caught opportunistically compared with those caught by VIT, depending on model design. Differences in DSRs were large at age 1 day, but had converged by age 30 days. Simulated left truncation resulted in overestimates of survival of up to 31%. Model selection and covariate coefficients were strongly affected by left truncation, producing spurious ecological inference, including changes to sign and/or magnitude of inferred effects of all covariates. 4. We recommend (i) every effort be made to capture neonates; (ii) consistent capture methods, using at least in part non-truncating techniques, be implemented across years and study areas; and (iii) exclusion of left-truncated data from survival estimates until DSRs converge with those calculated from non-truncated data. This work emphasizes the importance of accounting for left truncation in survival estimation for any species with strong age-dependent survival in order to prevent biased conclusions produced by sampling method rather than true ecological effects.
Data from: Linking landscape-scale differences in forage to ungulate nutritional ecology
Understanding how habitat and nutritional condition affect ungulate populations is necessary for informing management, particularly in areas experiencing carnivore recovery and declining ungulate population trends. Variations in forage species availability, plant phenological stage, and the abundance of forage make it challenging to understand landscape-level effects of nutrition on ungulates. We developed an integrated spatial modeling approach to estimate landscape-level elk (Cervus elaphus) nutritional resources in two adjacent study areas that differed in coarse measures of habitat quality and related the consequences of differences in nutritional resources to elk body condition and pregnancy rates. We found no support for differences in dry matter digestibility between plant samples or in phenological stage based on ground sampling plots in the two study areas. Our index of nutritional resources, measured as digestible forage biomass, varied among landcover types and between study areas. We found that altered plant composition following fires was the biggest driver of differences in nutritional resources, suggesting that maintaining a mosaic of fire history and distribution will likely benefit ungulate populations. Study area, lactation status and year affected fall body fat of adult female elk. Elk in the study area exposed to lower summer range nutritional resources had lower nutritional condition entering winter. These differences in nutritional condition resulted in differences in pregnancy rate, with average pregnancy rates of 89% for elk exposed to higher nutritional resources and 72% for elk exposed to lower nutritional resources. Summer range nutritional resources have the potential to limit elk pregnancy rate and calf production, and these nutritional limitations may predispose elk to be more sensitive to the effects of harvest or predation. Wildlife managers should identify ungulate populations that are nutritionally limited and recognize that these populations may be more impacted by recovering carnivores or harvest than populations inhabiting more productive summer habitats.
Data from: Behavioral adaptations imply a direct link between ecological specialization and reproductive isolation in a sympatrically diverging ground beetle
Adaptation to a previously unoccupied niche within a single population is one of the most contentious topics in evolutionary biology as it assumes the simultaneous evolution of ecologically selected and preference traits. Here, we demonstrate behavioral adaptation to contrasting hydrological regimes in a sympatric mosaic of Pogonus chalceus beetle populations, and argue that this adaptation may result in nonrandom gene flow. When exposed to experimental inundations, individuals from tidal marshes, which are naturally subjected to frequent but short floods, showed a higher propensity to remain submerged compared to individuals from seasonal marshes that are inundated for several months. This adaptive behavior is expected to decrease the probability that individuals will settle in the alternative habitat, resulting in spatial sorting and reproductive isolation of both ecotypes. Additionally, we show that this difference in behavior is induced by the environmental conditions experienced by the beetles during their nondispersive larval stages. Hence, accidental or forced ovipositioning in the alternative habitat may induce both an increased performance and preference to the natal habitat type. Such plastic traits could play an important role in the most incipient stages of divergence with gene flow.
Data from: Temporal scale of environmental correlations affects ecological synchrony
Population densities of a species, measured in different locations are often correlated over time, a phenomenon referred to as synchrony. Synchrony results from dispersal of individuals among locations and spatially correlated environmental variation, among other causes. Synchrony is often measured by a correlation coefficient. However, synchrony can vary with timescale. We demonstrate theoretically and experimentally that the timescale-specificity of environmental correlation affects the overall magnitude and timescale-specificity of synchrony, and that these effects are modified by population dispersal. Our laboratory experiments linked populations of flour beetles by changes in habitat size and dispersal. Linear filter theory, applied to a metapopulation model for the experimental system, predicted the observed timescale-specific effects. The timescales at which environmental covariation occurs can affect the population dynamics of species in fragmented habitats.
Data from "Removal of grazers alters the response of tundra soil carbon to warming and enhanced nitrogen availability", Ecological Monograps in October 2019
<p>Here we present the data used in the manuscript "<em>Removal of grazers alters the response of tundra soil carbon to warming and enhanced nitrogen availability</em>", Ecological Monograps, Early view in October 2019 by H. Ylänne, E. Kaarlejärvi, M. Väisänen, M. K. Männistö, S. H. K. Ahonen, J. Olofsson & S. Stark. In this paper we studied, how five years of experimental warming and increased soil nitrogen availability interact with both long- and short-term differences in grazing intensity in shaping ecosystem carbon stocks and the processes underlying the changes. We used an over 50-year-old reindeer fence that separates a lightly grazed shrub-dominated tundra from a heavily grazed graminoid-dominated tundra, where the different grazing histories on the two sides of the fences have created different ecosystem states. In addition to the long-term grazing difference, we also established short-term grazer exclosures on the heavily grazed side of the fence to account for the effect of a sudden grazing cessation.</p> <p>This file includes data of ecosystem carbon stocks, soil properties, and fungal and bacterial copy numbers. It also provides data on development of the vegetation through the course of the experiment (2010-2014) and presents the activities of six extracellular enzymes measured on three occasions in 2013.</p>
Data from: The present and future effects of land use on ecological assemblages in tropical grasslands and savannas in Africa
The world is currently experiencing a period of rapid, human-driven biodiversity loss. Over the past decade, numerous metrics for biodiversity have been used to create indicators to track change in biodiversity. However, our ability to predict future changes has been limited. In this study, we use two very different models to predict the status and possible futures for the composition and diversity of ecological assemblages in African tropical grasslands and savannas under land-use change. We show that ecological assemblages are affected more by land use in African grasslands and savannas than in other biomes. We estimate that average losses of assemblage composition and diversity are already between 9.7 and 42.0%, depending on the model and measure used. If current socio-economic trajectories continue ('business-as-usual'), the likely associated land-use changes are predicted to lead to a further 5.6–12.3% loss of assemblage composition and diversity. In contrast, a scenario that assumes more efficient use of agricultural areas (thus requiring a smaller total area) could be associated with a partial reversal ‒ of as much as 3.2% ‒ of past losses. While the agriculture that causes the majority of land-use change is an important source of economic growth, projections of the effects of land use on ecological assemblages can allow for more informed decisions.
Data from: On the causes of rapid diversification in the Páramos: Isolation by ecology and genomic divergence in Espeletia
How diversity arises and what is the relative role of allopatric and ecological divergence are among the most persistent questions in evolution and ecology. Here, we assessed whether ecological divergence has enhanced the diversification of the Neotropical alpine plant complex Espeletia, also known as frailejones. This genus has one of the highest diversification rates ever reported and is distributed in the world's fastest evolving biodiversity hotspot, the Páramo (Neotropical alpine grasslands at elevations of c. 2800–4700 m). Our goal was to determine whether ecology plays a role in divergence within the Espeletia complex by quantifying genome-wide patterns of ecological divergence. We characterized 162 samples of the three most common and contrasting ecotypes (distinct morphotypes occupying particular habitats) co-occurring in six localities in the northern Andes using Genotyping by Sequencing. Contrasting ecotypes were caulescent cloud forest populations, caulescent populations from wind-sheltered and well-irrigated depressions and acaulescent populations from wind-exposed drier slopes. We found high polymorphism with a total of 1,273 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that defined the relationships among nine genetic clusters. We quantified allelic associations of these markers with localities and habitats using 18 different general and mixed-effects statistical models that accounted for phylogenetic distance. Despite that these models always yielded more SNPs associated with the localities, markers associated with the habitat types were recovered too. We found strong evidence for isolation-by-distance (IBD) across populations despite rampant gene flow, as expected for plant groups with limited seed dispersal. Contrasts between populations of different habitat types showed that an isolation-by-environment (IBE) trend emerged and masked the IBD signal. Maximum likelihood estimation of the number of migrants per generation (Nem) among ecotypes confirmed the IBE pattern. This result illustrates the importance of mountains' environmental variation at a local scale in generating rapid morphological radiations and maintaining multiple adaptations in a fast-evolving ecosystem like the Páramo.
ScienceDex guides
Understand access before you commit
These curated guides explain access requirements, typical timelines, costs, and reuse considerations for widely used research datasets.
Allen Brain Atlas
Allen Brain Atlas is an Allen Institute collection of brain map atlases, datasets, APIs, and analysis tools covering mouse, human, and non-human primate brain resources.
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.
DANDI Archive for NWB datasets
DANDI is a BRAIN Initiative archive for publishing and sharing neurophysiology data, including electrophysiology, optophysiology, and behavioral data packaged as NWB and related standards.
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.