Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Biodiversity Scale-Dependence And Opposing Multi-Level Correlations Underlie Differences Among Taxonomic, Phylogenetic And Functional Diversity, Nadejda A. Mirochnitchenko, Erica F. Stuber, Joseph J. Fontaine

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

Aim: Biodiversity is a multidimensional property of biological communities that represents different information depending on how it is measured, but how dimensions relate to one another and under what conditions is not well understood. We explore how taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional diversity can differ in scale-of-effect dependence and habitat-biodiversity relationships, and subsequently how spatial differences among biodiversity dimensions may arise. Location: Nebraska, United States. Taxon: Birds. Methods: Across 2016 and 2017, we conducted 2,641 point counts at 781 sites. We modeled the occupancy of 141 species using Bayesian Bernoulli-Bernoulli hierarchical logistic regressions. We calculated species richness (SR), phylogenetic diversity (PD), …

Predictors Of Regional Establishment Success And Spread Of Introduced Non-Indigenous Vertebrates, Criag R. Allen, Kristine T. Nemec, Donald A. Wardwell, Justin D. Hoffman, Mathew L. Brust, Karie L. Decker, Daniel Fogell, Jennifer Hogue, Aaron Lotz, Thaddeus Miller, Marcy Pummill, Luis E. Ramirez-Yañez, Daniel R. Uden

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

Aim To provide the first analysis of predictors of both establishment and spread, both within and across taxa, for all vertebrate taxa within a region.We used Florida, USA, as our study system because it has a well-documented history of introduction and invasion, and is a hotspot for biological invasions.

Location Florida, USA.

Methods We analysed non-indigenous species (NIS) data from peninsular Florida – which included both successful and unsuccessful introductions from all vertebrate classes – to determine the best predictors of both establishment and spread for fish (65 species), herpetofauna (63 species), birds (71 species) and mammals (25 species). We …

Life-History And Ecological Correlates Of Geographic Variation In Egg And Clutch Mass Among Passerine Species, Thomas E. Martin, R. D. Bassar, S. K. Bassar, J. J. Fontaine, P. Lloyd, H. A. Mathewson, A. M. Niklison, A. Chalfoun

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

Broad geographic patterns in egg and clutch mass are poorly described, and potential causes of variation remain largely unexamined. We describe interspecific variation in avian egg and clutch mass within and among diverse geographic regions and explore hypotheses related to allometry, clutch size, nest predation, adult mortality, and parental care as correlates and possible explanations of variation. We studied 74 species of Passeriformes at four latitudes on three continents: the north temperate United States, tropical Venezuela, subtropical Argentina, and south temperate South Africa. Egg and clutch mass increased with adult body mass in all locations, but differed among locations for …

Multimodel Inference And The Understanding Of Complexity, Discontinuity, And Normadism, Craig R. Allen, Denis A. Saunders

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

Nomadism has received surprisingly little attention in the ecological literature, and further work in this area is needed. The results of Woinarski’s reanalysis of our research findings are broadly similar to our own, and they support our original interpretation. However, his presentation is confusing and difficult to interpret.We used an information-theoretic approach to multimodel selection. We a priori defined plausible candidate models relating the variables described in our original paper or Woinarski’s reanalysis to the phenomenon of nomadism. We tested models that investigate nomadism as a function of nectivory, granivory, diet diversity, mixed diet, distance to body mass aggregation edge, …

Variability Between Scales: Predictors Of Nomadism In Birds Of An Australian Mediterraneanclimate Ecosystem, Craig R. Allen, Denis A. Saunders

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

Nomadism in animals is a response to resource distributions that are highly variable in time and space. Using the avian fauna of the Mediterranean-climate region of southcentral Australia, we tested a number of variables to determine if they predicted nomadism. These variables were species body mass, the distance in body mass terms to the edge of a body mass aggregation, and diet (for example, seeds, invertebrates, nectar, or plants). We utilized two different classifications of the avifauna that diverged in their definition of nomadic to build two different predictive models. Using both classifications, distance to the edge of a body …