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Full-Text Articles in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Specialization And Trade-Offs In Plant-Feeding Insects, Daniel Peterson
Specialization And Trade-Offs In Plant-Feeding Insects, Daniel Peterson
Doctoral Dissertations
The immense diversity of life on Earth has been attributed to the partitioning of available resources into ecological niches, but it is not obvious what determines the niche size of each species. For example, most plant-feeding insects consume only one or a few closely-related host-plant species despite the advantages of having a broader diet. Many researchers have therefore suggested that the evolution of broad diets in plant-feeding insects must be constrained by genetic trade-offs between adaptations to alternative host-plants. Despite its intuitive feel, however, little empirical evidence in support of the trade-off hypothesis has emerged from decades of experimental studies …
Effects Of Livestock Grazing On Rangeland Biodiversity: A Meta-Analysis Of Grouse Populations, Seth J. Dettenmaier, Terry A. Messmer, Torre J. Hovick, David K. Dahlgren
Effects Of Livestock Grazing On Rangeland Biodiversity: A Meta-Analysis Of Grouse Populations, Seth J. Dettenmaier, Terry A. Messmer, Torre J. Hovick, David K. Dahlgren
Wildland Resources Faculty Publications
Livestock grazing affects over 60% of the world’s agricultural lands and can influence rangeland ecosystem services and the quantity and quality of wildlife habitat, resulting in changes in biodiversity. Concomitantly, livestock grazing has the potential to be detrimental to some wildlife species while benefiting other rangeland organisms. Many imperiled grouse species require rangeland landscapes that exhibit diverse vegetation structure and composition to complete their life cycle. However, because of declining populations and reduced distributions, grouse are increasingly becoming a worldwide conservation concern. Grouse, as a suite of upland gamebirds, are often considered an umbrella species for other wildlife and thus …
Marine Reserves Promote Coral Reef Resilience By Mitigating Human Impacts Through The Restoration Of Parrotfish Populations, Increasing Their Reproductive Output And Seeding Neighboring Overfished Reefs, Brian L. Stockwell
Biological Sciences Theses & Dissertations
Coral reefs are some of the most productive ecosystems on the planet, providing fisheries resources for over a billion people with billions of dollars in revenue from tourism for developing nations. Coral reefs are under threat from overfishing and water pollution, resulting in less productive algae dominated reefs. Marine reserves are widely expected to promote the resilience of reefs by protecting and increasing the abundance of herbivorous fishes that can graze on algae, therefore directly or indirectly preventing coral to algal phase shifts. However, the ability of marine reserves to mitigate human impacts, restore herbivorous fish populations and seed nearby …
Natural Enemies Partially Compensate For Warming Induced Excess Herbivory In An Organic Growth System, Orsolya Beleznai, Jamin Dreyer, Zoltán Tóth, Ferenc Samu
Natural Enemies Partially Compensate For Warming Induced Excess Herbivory In An Organic Growth System, Orsolya Beleznai, Jamin Dreyer, Zoltán Tóth, Ferenc Samu
Entomology Faculty Publications
Predators can limit prey abundance and/or levels of activity. The magnitudes of these effects are contingent on predator and prey traits that may change with environmental conditions. Aberrant thermal regimes could disrupt pest suppression through asymmetric effects, e.g. heat-sensitive predator vs. heat-tolerant prey. To explore potential effects of warming on suppressing pests and controlling herbivory in a vegetable crop, we performed laboratory experiments exposing an important pest species to two spider predator species at different temperatures. Heat tolerance was characterised by the critical thermal maxima parameter (CTM50) of the cucumber beetle (Diabrotica undecimpunctata), wolf spider (Tigrosa helluo …
Green Sea Turtles (Chelonia Mydas) In Bermuda Exhibit An Ontogenetic Diet Shift Despite Overexploitation Of Resources In Their Developmental Habitat, Claire Margaret Burgett
Green Sea Turtles (Chelonia Mydas) In Bermuda Exhibit An Ontogenetic Diet Shift Despite Overexploitation Of Resources In Their Developmental Habitat, Claire Margaret Burgett
FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Green sea turtles in Bermuda are overgrazing the seagrasses on which later life stages are thought to specialize. I hypothesized that larger green turtles in Bermuda would display individual diet specializations during seagrass scarcity. Stable isotope methods were used to determine the diet composition of green sea turtles from the Bermuda Platform as a function of size class and in turtles captured in successive years. Individual turtles had a wide range of diets, however, the variation in diets was driven by differences among size class rather than within the size classes of larger turtles, indicating that green turtles undergo a …