Find research datasets worth reusing

Search datasets from major research repositories and use ShareScore to quickly assess how well each record supports discovery, access, and reuse.

151

datasets available to search

ShareScore release 0.7.1

Dataset results

151 results for “Ecological scales”

Learn how ShareScore rates datasets ↗

dryad32/100

Data from: Environmental filtering improves ecological niche models across multiple scales

1. A clear challenge for ecological niche modeling is determining how to best mitigate the effects of sampling bias from commonly collected biodiversity data. Recent approaches have focused on filtering occurrences in overrepresented regions based on geographic or environmental proximity. 2. We tested the efficacy of filtering in geographic and environmental space using occurrence data from four species. Our evaluation strategies examined 14 distance measures in geographic and environmental spaces and eight combinations of environmental variables and their ordinations. This resulted in 78 datasets for each species, which we evaluated using area under the curve (AUC), the difference between training and testing AUC, omission rate, the true skill statistic, and Schoener's D to examine the effects of different filtering schemes. 3. The degree of change produced by filtering on predicted suitability and evaluation statistics increased with increasing range size. Environmental filtering resulted in higher model fit at larger extents and retained more occurrences than geographic filtering. 4. Our results indicate that models should be evaluated using multiple evaluation statistics at multiple thresholds. The use of bin sizes when filtering in environmental space allows for simple comparison between species and filter types and makes for an easily reportable and repeatable distance metric. We specifically recommend that ecological niche models using natural history collection data filter in environmental space with variables derived from permutation importance or the first few axes of a principal components ordination.

opencc-zeroDec 2018View details →

zenodo32/100

Data for : Ecological associations distribution modelling of marine plankton at global scale

Git repository : https://gitlab.univ-nantes.fr/combi-ls2n/adm

opencc-by-4.0Oct 2023View details →

dryad32/100

Ecological network complexity scales with area

Larger geographical areas contain more species–an observation raised to a law in ecology. Less explored is whether biodiversity changes are accompanied by a modification of interaction networks. We use data from 32 spatial interaction networks from different ecosystems to analyse how network structure changes with area. We find that basic community structure descriptors (number of species, links, and links per species) increase with area following a power-law. Yet, the distribution of links per species varies little with area, indicating that the fundamental organization of interactions within networks is conserved. Our null model analyses suggest that the spatial scaling of network structure is determined by factors beyond species richness and the number of links. We demonstrate that biodiversity–area relationships can be extended from species counts to higher levels of network complexity. Therefore, the consequences of anthropogenic habitat destruction may extend from species loss to wider simplification of natural communities.

opencc-zeroDec 2021View details →

dryad32/100

Fine-scale ecological and anthropogenic variables predict the habitat use and detectability of sloth bears in the Churia habitat of east Nepal

Once widespread throughout the tropical forests of the Indian Subcontinent, the sloth bears have suffered a rapid range collapse and local extirpations in the recent decades. A significant portion of their current distribution range is situated outside of the protected areas (PAs). These unprotected sloth bear populations are under tremendous human pressures, but little is known about the patterns and determinants of their occurrence in most of these regions. The situation is more prevalent in Nepal where virtually no systematic information is available for sloth bears living outside of the PAs. We undertook a sign survey-based single-season occupancy study intending to overcome this information gap for the sloth bear populations residing in the Trijuga forest of southeast Nepal. Sloth bear sign detection histories and field-based covariates data were collected between 2nd October to 3rd December 2020 at the 74 randomly chosen 4-km^2 grid cells using a varying number of 400m long transects in each grid cell. From our results, the model-averaged estimate of site use probability (ψ ± SE) was estimated to be 0.432 ± 0.039, which is a 13% increase from the naïve estimate (0.297) not accounting for imperfect detections of sloth bear signs. The presence of termite mound and the distance to the nearest water source were the most important variables affecting the habitat use probability of sloth bears. The average site-level detectability (p ± SE) of sloth bear signs was estimated to be 0.195 ± 0.003 and was significantly determined by the index of human disturbances. We recommend considering the importance of fine-scale ecological and anthropogenic factors in predicting the sloth bear-habitat relationships across their range in the Churia habitat of Nepal, and more specifically in the unprotected areas.

opencc-zeroDec 2022View details →

dryad32/100

Traits and ecological space availability predict avian densities at the country scale of the Czech Republic

Species geographical distributions and abundances are a central focus of current ecological research. Although multiple studies have been conducted on their elucidation, some important information are still missing. One of them is the knowledge of ecological traits of species responsible for the population density variations across geographical (i.e. total physical area) and ecological spaces (i.e. suitable habitat area). This is crucial for understanding how ecological specialisation shapes the geographical distribution of species, and provides key knowledge about the sensitivity of species to current environmental challenges. Here, we precisely describe habitat availability for individual species using fine-scale field data collected across the entire Czech Republic. In the next step, we used this information to test the relationships between bird traits and country-scale estimates of population densities assessed in both geographical and ecological space. We did not find any effect of habitat specialisation on avian density in geographical space. But when we recalculated densities for ecological space available, we found a positive correlation with habitat specialization. Specialists occur at higher densities in suitable habitats. Moreover, birds with arboreal and hole-nesting strategies showed higher densities in both geographical and ecological spaces. However, we found no significant effects of morphological (body mass, structural body size) and reproductive (position along the slow-fast life-history continuum) traits on avian densities in either geographical or ecological space. Our findings suggest that ecological space availability is a strong determinant of avian abundance and highlight the importance of precise knowledge of species-specific habitat requirements. Revival of this classical but challenging ecological topic of habitat-specific densities is needed for both proper understanding of pure ecological issues and practical steps in the conservation of nature.

opencc-zeroJun 2022View details →

dryad32/100

Data from: Links across ecological scales: Plant biomass responses to elevated CO2

Despite the wide agreement that increased plant biomass accumulation under elevated CO2 concentrations (e[CO2]) might play a key role in climate change, the effect of e[CO2] on plant biomass levels remains a major uncertainty in climate models. In the review associated with this dataset, we discuss the evidence for increased biomass levels under e[CO2] across multiple levels of ecological organization, scaling from physiological responses to changes in population-, community-, ecosystem-, and global-scale dynamics. We find that evidence for a sustained biomass response to e[CO2] varies across ecological scales, leading to diverging conclusions about the responses of individuals, populations, communities, and ecosystems. We identify key research gaps in our understanding of the effect of e[CO2] on plant biomass and highlight the need to integrate knowledge across scales of ecological organization so that large-scale modeling can represent the finer-scale mechanisms needed to constrain our understanding of future terrestrial C storage.

opencc-zeroJul 2022View details →

zenodo32/100

Knowledge needed for large-scale landscape restoration projects: scientific and experiential. 13.2B Session, Society for Ecological Restoration Conference 2024, Room Hurt, 16:30 -18:00, Thursday, 29th August

Disclaimer: The DOI of this video does not apply to the content of the slides of the contributors' presentations during this session. The authors of each communication maintain their copyright on the content of the presentations' slides. The creators' roles were as follows: I. V. A., chair, session coordinator, and presenter; B. S., session coordinator; E. P. M., session coordinator, and presenter; H. J., presenter; F. S., presenter; W. E., presenter; G. M., presenter; and P. I., presenter. Session description This session aimed to explore the critical capacities and functions relevant to the large-scale ecosystem restoration (LER) economy and point out the complementarity of scientific and experiential knowledge and the key role of case studies in increasing this resilience. The restoration economy can be defined as “the market consisting of a network of businesses, investors, consumers, and government initiatives engaging in or driving the economic activity related to ecological restoration.” Its segment dealing with LER can be delimited by the large complexity of the system related to the natural, legislative, institutional, funding, project structure, and organizational network to implement the project, as well as of the economic sectors involved in implementing the projects. Success or failure depends on the interplay between the variables describing the environment of the project, its structure, and its functioning. For success, the uptake of scientific information is as important as the experiential (tacit) knowledge of practitioners, stakeholders, and policymakers. Scientific knowledge can be delivered to the LER economy by structures (models) and data (variables and measurements/estimations of their values). Still, in practice, it is often not a limiting resource. Experiential knowledge can be transferred to some extent by narratives (stories, opinions, examples in common language). The role of case studies for LER is to provide hints about what worked and did not work in other situations and, on this basis, to prepare the adaptive management and increase the resilience of each new project. The session provided opportunities for scientists to interact with practitioners about the problem of LER adaptive management and illustrate the issues with examples of scientific knowledge transfer to current or potential projects and case studies. The session was conceived as crosscutting the missions of the LER and European sections of the Society of Ecological Restoration. It is relevant for the development of the restoration economy in the EU through the implementation of the future European Nature Restoration Law, its effectiveness, and its efficiency.   Session report Three key elements emerged from the session: ·       Even though there is a widespread need for this kind of knowledge in all phases of project and program cycle development, the role of experiential knowledge/ know-how in ecological restoration is not explicitly treated. ·       The proprietary know-how can be included in portfolios of patents for technologies and services needed in landscape restoration, which are open-access or undisclosed by practitioners. These types are functionally complementary in the restoration industry and appropriate for specific circumstances. ·       One can test hypotheses about the role of experiential knowledge in the success of landscape restoration through changes in human resources and human resource formation practice by including people or practices that increase the role of experiential knowledge in the overall knowledge capital available in the social ecosystem implementing the restoration programs and projects.   Narrative of the session: The session showed exciting complementarity between various restoration project phases and provided solid arguments about the importance of experiential knowledge [1]. In the first communication, Jeoelen showed us social science research about what factors positively and negatively control cooperation in the restoration ecosystem of individuals, private organizations, NGOs, and public institutions. Then, she provided information about guidelines for practitioners about how to build trustful relations. She was asked what solutions one has when there are people in the team with undesirable traits, and the answer was to avoid such persons from the very beginning or, if one needs that in the team for other qualities, to discuss with them explicitly the problems. The second speaker, Sebastian, contributed with a complex process-based socio-ecological model presentation and its use in decision-making. His question was about the possibility of including details of cost-benefit analysis in the models of stakeholders' decisions, and the answer was that, in principle, it is possible. However, one must also consider the model's optimal complexity in terms of incertitude propagation. In the third presentation, Pal and Erik presented the practical approach to peatland restoration in catchments from Norway. In their context, it seemed feasible because of data available for hydrological modeling from other state monitoring systems and the fact that most restoration projects occurred on public land. Several examples demonstrated the approach's success in a catchment near Oslo, where the public's interest in recreation is high, and there is support for restoration. The question from the audience related their work to the first presentation of the session topic, namely human resources and trust building with stakeholders. In their context, the usual interactions and roundtables with stakeholders before the start of the projects, as well as continuous formal and informal communication in the implementation phase, were enough to build the needed social capital for a successful restoration outcome. In the first online presentation, Martina provided details about non-formal education projects in marine areas that need restoration ecology. The target group was children, but the projects also engaged adults and environmental professionals from the local socio-ecological systems, thus propagating the informed trust building to the whole community. Her details pointed out the experiential approach in education. Iulia from WWF Romania underlined the importance of case studies in communicating restoration's positive and negative aspects to practitioners. She touched on critical points of experiential knowledge related to the genuine national-scale social interest in restoration, despite the significant interest of local users and local authorities and even the existence of funding for restoration. The lack of cooperation between institutions is a limiting factor for up-scaling the restoration to the full Lower Danube River scale. Even in these conditions, WWF-Romania managed to implement many restoration projects on the Danube River and built a solid relationship with the local people by putting an equal accent on nature and people in the design and implementation phase of the projects. Iulia was asked what they do when there are problems with environmental management (such as illegal garbage disposal) that are not formally relevant to the restoration project but occur in the communities they work with. The answer was that they adopted a proactive and solution-oriented approach and started discussions with the people to identify potential solutions and even develop new projects in cooperation that targeted those problems. Finally, Virgil referred to the audience to the content of this supplementary material, as available on the WhatsApp group of the conference in its preliminary form, and communicated about the cross-cutting session 13.0 from Friday as a framework for further discussion of the issues and disentangling opportunities and challenges in landscape restoration.  His presentation showed the relationship between scientific knowledge and experiential one (know-how) in the technology readiness level system. It illustrated this notion by developing a TRL6 environmental service for the cumulative impact assessment of multiple active management actions in contaminated river basins, including restoration of buffer zones and control of mining point sources by remediation projects [2].   Operational concept of experiential knowledge: ·       Experiential knowledge is undiscursive knowledge needed for practical activities, particularly ecological restoration. ·       Related terms: know-how, tacit knowledge. ·       We acquire it by working with experienced people, and the chains of transfer lead to practical traditions. ·       It can be transferred to some extent by narratives, films, etc, formally communicated by case studies in professional societies, but personal interactions are decisive for the successful transfer. ·       It complements scientific knowledge, forming the knowledge capital needed for ecological restoration. ·       It can be proprietary, non-proprietary, disclosed, and undisclosed. ·       Its availability geographically and in specific phases of the restoration programs and project cycles limits the success of the restoration. ·       Due to its complexity, large-scale ecosystem/landscape restoration is highly sensitive to the impact of a lack of experiential knowledge. ·       Experiential knowledge is needed at the first level in all phases of the program and project cycles and in all themes associated with landscape restoration (at general objectives formulation, implementation/monitoring, financing, and supporting the local economies). Appendix 1 of the full report [1] shows a potential distribution of the contributions to landscape restoration sessions and workshops by these themes, referring in several cases to experiential knowledge). ·       An extra level of experiential knowledge is needed to successfully transfer first-level know-how/ experiential knowledge. ·      Despite its unstructured and informal/unprocedural reality, one can test hypotheses about the role of experiential knowledge in the success of landscape restoration through changes in human resources and human resource formation practice by including people or practices that increase the role of experiential knowledge in the overall knowledge capital available in the social ecosystem implementing the restoration programs and projects. This complements the challenge of hypotheses testing at scientific standards of active measures in restoring ecological networks (large-scale ecosystems, landscapes). Notes [1] For the place of the contributions of this session in the general landscape of the conference, one can download the full report here: <a href="https://virgiliordache.com/2024/08/31/scientific-vs-experiential-knowledge-13-2b-session-report-sere-2024-tartu-estonia/">https://virgiliordache.com/2024/08/31/scientific-vs-experiential-knowledge-13-2b-session-report-sere-2024-tartu-estonia/</a> [2] The pdf of his presentation is available for download at <a href="https://virgiliordache.com/2024/08/24/grounding-the-landscape-scale-restoration-for-biogeochemical-services-on-cumulative-impact-assessment-a-process-based-approach/">https://virgiliordache.com/2024/08/24/grounding-the-landscape-scale-restoration-for-biogeochemical-services-on-cumulative-impact-assessment-a-process-based-approach/</a> Acknowledgments We thank the organizers of the SERE 2024 conference and the technical team involved in broadcasting and registering this video. We also thank to the persons from the audience who contributed with questions and comments.

opencc-by-4.0Oct 2024View details →

dryad32/100

Individual flowering phenology shapes plant-pollinator interactions across ecological scales affecting plant reproduction

1. The balance of pollination competition and facilitation amongst co-flowering plants and abiotic resource availability can modify plant species and individual reproduction. Floral resource succession and spatial heterogeneity modulate plant-pollinator interactions across ecological scales (individual plant, local assemblage, interaction network of agroecological infrastructure across the farm). Intraspecific variation in flowering phenology can modulate the precise level of spatio-temporal heterogeneity in floral resources, pollen donor density and pollinator interactions that a plant individual is exposed to, thereby affecting reproduction. 2. We tested how abiotic resources and multi-scale plant-pollinator interactions affected individual plant seed set, modulated by intraspecific variation in flowering phenology and spatio-temporal floral heterogeneity arising from agroecological infrastructure. We transplanted two focal insect-pollinated plant species (Cyanus segetum and Centaurea jacea, n = 288) into agroecological infrastructure (10 sown wildflower, 6 legume-grass strips) across a farm-scale experiment (125 ha). 3. We applied an individual-based phenologically explicit approach to match precisely the flowering period of plant individuals to the concomitant level of spatio-temporal heterogeneity in plant-pollinator interactions, potential pollen donors, floral resources and abiotic conditions (temperature, water, nitrogen). 4. Individual plant attractiveness, assemblage floral density and conspecific pollen donor density (C. jacea) improved seed set. Network linkage density increased focal species' seed set and modified the effect of local assemblage richness and abundance on C. segetum. Mutual dependence on pollinators in networks increased C. segetum seed set, while C. jacea seed set was greatest where both specialization on pollinators and mutual dependence was high. Abiotic conditions were of little or no importance to seed set. 5. Intra- and interspecific plant-pollinator interactions respond to spatio-temporal heterogeneity arising from agroecological management affecting wild plant species reproduction. The interplay of pollinator interactions within and between ecological scales affecting seed set implies a co-occurrence of pollinator-mediated facilitative and competitive interactions among plant species and individuals.

opencc-zeroDec 2022View details →

dryad32/100