Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Institution
Articles 1 - 5 of 5
Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
Changes In Reef Fish Community Structure Following The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, Justin P. Lewis, Joseph H. Tarnecki, Steven B. Garner, David D. Chagaris, William F. Patterson Iii
Changes In Reef Fish Community Structure Following The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, Justin P. Lewis, Joseph H. Tarnecki, Steven B. Garner, David D. Chagaris, William F. Patterson Iii
C-IMAGE Publications
Large-scale anthropogenic disturbances can have direct and indirect effects on marine communities, with direct effects often taking the form of widespread injury or mortality and indirect effects manifesting as changes in food web structure. Here, we report a time series that captures both direct and indirect effects of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill (DWH) on northern Gulf of Mexico (nGoM) reef fish communities. We observed significant changes in community structure immediately following the DWH, with a 38% decline in species richness and 26% decline in Shannon-Weiner diversity. Initial shifts were driven by widespread declines across a range of trophic guilds, …
Context-Dependent Dynamics Lead To The Assembly Of Functionally Distinct Microbial Communities, Leonora S. Bittleston, Matti Gralka, Gabriel E. Levanthal, Itzhak Mizrahi, Otto X. Cordero
Context-Dependent Dynamics Lead To The Assembly Of Functionally Distinct Microbial Communities, Leonora S. Bittleston, Matti Gralka, Gabriel E. Levanthal, Itzhak Mizrahi, Otto X. Cordero
Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations
Niche construction through interspecific interactions can condition future community states on past ones. However, the extent to which such history dependency can steer communities towards functionally different states remains a subject of active debate. Using bacterial communities collected from wild pitchers of the carnivorous pitcher plant, Sarracenia purpurea, we test the effects of history on composition and function across communities assembled in synthetic pitcher plant microcosms. We find that the diversity of assembled communities is determined by the diversity of the system at early, pre-assembly stages. Species composition is also contingent on early community states, not only because of …
Predictor Species: Improving Assessments Of Rare Species Occurrence By Modeling Environmental Co-Responses, Peter R. Thompson, William F. Fagan, Phillip P. A. Staniczenko
Predictor Species: Improving Assessments Of Rare Species Occurrence By Modeling Environmental Co-Responses, Peter R. Thompson, William F. Fagan, Phillip P. A. Staniczenko
Publications and Research
Designing an effective conservation strategy requires understanding where rare species are located. Because rare species can be difficult to find, ecologists often identify other species called conservation surrogates that can help inform the distribution of rare species. Species distribution models typically rely on environmental data when predicting the occurrence of species, neglecting the effect of species' co-occurrences and biotic interactions. Here, we present a new approach that uses Bayesian networks to improve predictions by modeling environmental co-responses among species. For species from a European peat bog community, our approach consistently performs better than single-species models and better than conventional multi-species …
Stoichiometric And Stable Isotope Ratios Of Wild Lizards In An Urban Landscape Vary With Reproduction, Physiology, Space And Time, Andrew M. Durso, Geoffrey David Smith, Spencer B. Hudson, Susannah S. French
Stoichiometric And Stable Isotope Ratios Of Wild Lizards In An Urban Landscape Vary With Reproduction, Physiology, Space And Time, Andrew M. Durso, Geoffrey David Smith, Spencer B. Hudson, Susannah S. French
Ecology Center Publications
Spatial and temporal variation in stoichiometric and stable isotope ratios of animals contains ecological information that we are just beginning to understand. In both field and lab studies, stoichiometric or isotopic ratios are related to physiological mechanisms underlying nutrition or stress. Conservation and ecosystem ecology may be informed by isotopic data that can be rapidly and non-lethally collected from wild animals, especially where human activity leaves an isotopic signature (e.g. via introduction of chemical fertilizers, ornamental or other non-native plants or organic detritus). We examined spatial and temporal variation in stoichiometric and stable isotope ratios of the toes of Uta …
Environmental Dna Reveals Seasonal Shifts And Potential Interactions In A Marine Community, Anni Djurhuus, Collin J. Closek, Ryan P. Kelly, Kathleen J. Pitz, Reiko P. Michisaki, Hilary A. Starks, Kristine R. Walz, Elizabeth A. Andruszkiewicz, Emily Olesin, Katherine Hubbard, Enrique Montes, Daniel Otis, Frank E. Muller-Karger, Francisco P. Chavez, Alexandria B. Boehm, Mya Breitbart
Environmental Dna Reveals Seasonal Shifts And Potential Interactions In A Marine Community, Anni Djurhuus, Collin J. Closek, Ryan P. Kelly, Kathleen J. Pitz, Reiko P. Michisaki, Hilary A. Starks, Kristine R. Walz, Elizabeth A. Andruszkiewicz, Emily Olesin, Katherine Hubbard, Enrique Montes, Daniel Otis, Frank E. Muller-Karger, Francisco P. Chavez, Alexandria B. Boehm, Mya Breitbart
Marine Science Faculty Publications
Environmental DNA (eDNA) analysis allows the simultaneous examination of organisms across multiple trophic levels and domains of life, providing critical information about the complex biotic interactions related to ecosystem change. Here we used multilocus amplicon sequencing of eDNA to survey biodiversity from an eighteen-month (2015–2016) time-series of seawater samples from Monterey Bay, California. The resulting dataset encompasses 663 taxonomic groups (at Family or higher taxonomic rank) ranging from microorganisms to mammals. We inferred changes in the composition of communities, revealing putative interactions among taxa and identifying correlations between these communities and environmental properties over time. Community network analysis provided evidence …