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Everything ecology and evolutionary biology
Marc Cadotte
35 posts
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- July 27, 2010
- 10:11 AM
- 66 views
Enhanced biodiversity-ecosystem function relationships in polluted systems
by Marc Cadotte in The EEB and flow
*note: this text was adapted from an Editor's Choice I wrote for the Journal of Applied Ecology.In this era of species loss and habitat degradation, understanding the link between biodiversity and functioning of species assemblages is a critically important area of research. Two decades of research has shown that communities with more species or functional types results in higher levels of ecosystem functioning, such as nutrient processing rates, carbon sequestration and productivity, among........ Read more »
Li, J., Duan, H., Li, S., Kuang, J., Zeng, Y., & Shu, W. (2010) Cadmium pollution triggers a positive biodiversity-productivity relationship: evidence from a laboratory microcosm experiment. Journal of Applied Ecology, 47(4), 890-898. DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2664.2010.01818.x
- July 7, 2010
- 11:02 AM
- 88 views
Organic farming and natural enemy evenness
by Marc Cadotte in The EEB and flow
The basic reality of agricultural activity is that it reduces biological diversity, and these reductions in diversity potentially impact ecosystem services. But do some agricultural practices impact these services less than others? In a recent paper in Nature by David Crowder and colleagues, the question of how organic versus conventional farming affects predator and herbivore pathogen diversity and how this cascades to pest suppression. They show through a meta-analysis, that organic farms tend........ Read more »
Crowder, D., Northfield, T., Strand, M., & Snyder, W. (2010) Organic agriculture promotes evenness and natural pest control. Nature, 466(7302), 109-112. DOI: 10.1038/nature09183
- June 1, 2010
- 10:00 PM
- 136 views
Experimental test of Darwin's naturalization hypothesis
by Marc Cadotte in The EEB and flow
Among the numerous and still informative ecological predictions made by Darwin, one posits that when species are introduced into regions where they were not formerly found, the most successful tend to not have close relatives already occupying the region. This is known as Darwin's Naturalization Hypothesis, and his logic was that among close relatives, where ecological requirements should be most similar, the struggle for existence is most severe. Thus the modern formulation is that invader succ........ Read more »
Jiang, L., Tan, J., & Pu, Z. (2010) An Experimental Test of Darwin’s Naturalization Hypothesis. The American Naturalist, 175(4), 415-423. DOI: 10.1086/650720
- May 11, 2010
- 09:37 AM
- 152 views
Picante's coming out party
by Marc Cadotte in The EEB and flow
This past decade has seen a rapid expansion of the use of evolutionary phylogenies in ecological studies. This expansion is largely due to the increased availability of phylogenies, but has resulted in new types of hypotheses and statistics aimed to test the phylogenetic patterns underpinning ecological communities. The main computational tool used has been phylocom, created by Cam Webb, David Ackerly and Steve Kembel, which has its own binaries to be installed on one’s computer. However, a ne........ Read more »
Kembel, S., Cowan, P., Helmus, M., Cornwell, W., Morlon, H., Ackerly, D., Blomberg, S., & Webb, C. (2010) Picante: R tools for integrating phylogenies and ecology. Bioinformatics. DOI: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btq166
- April 14, 2010
- 01:28 PM
- 225 views
Teaching a quoll that cane toads are bad
by Marc Cadotte in The EEB and flow
Often, species become endangered because of multiple stressors, with habitat destruction taking the prize as the most egregious. However, often what pushes a species into extinction is not the main driver of endangerment. For example, passenger pigeon numbers were decimated by unabated hunting, but the proximate cause of extinction was likely an inability to thrive in low densities. Yet, seldom is the case where a known single species interaction is the primary cause of engangerment and maybe ex........ Read more »
O’Donnell, S., Webb, J., & Shine, R. (2010) Conditioned taste aversion enhances the survival of an endangered predator imperilled by a toxic invader. Journal of Applied Ecology. DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2664.2010.01802.x
- April 8, 2010
- 10:26 PM
- 223 views
Plant rarity: environemtal or dispersal limited?
by Marc Cadotte in The EEB and flow
In order to promote the persistence and possible spread of extremely rare plant species, ecologists need to know why a species is rare in the first place. In 1986, Deborah Rabinowitz identified seven forms of rarity, where rarity could mean several things depending on range size, habitat specificity and population sizes. When considering rarity, it often feels intuitive to look for environmental causes for these different forms of rarity. Habitat alteration is an obvious environmental change tha........ Read more »
Seifert, B., & Fischer, M. (2010) Experimental establishment of a declining dry-grassland flagship species in relation to seed origin and target environment. Biological Conservation. DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2010.02.028
- March 22, 2010
- 09:25 PM
- 232 views
Predicting endangered carnivores: the role of environment, space and phylogeny
by Marc Cadotte in The EEB and flow
For conservation biology, there are several research thrusts that are of critical importance, and one of these is to find predictors of species' extinction risk. Oft-cited is the particular susceptibility of large-bodied organisms, with their large ranges and slow reproductive rates. But there should be other predictors too, especially within larger mammals. In a forthcoming paper in Global Ecology and Biogeography, Safi and Pettorelli use just a few variables to predict extinction risk in carni........ Read more »
Safi, K., & Pettorelli, N. (2010) Phylogenetic, spatial and environmental components of extinction risk in carnivores. Global Ecology and Biogeography. DOI: 10.1111/j.1466-8238.2010.00523.x
- March 9, 2010
- 09:44 AM
- 253 views
Ecology and industry: bridging the gap between economics and the environment
by Marc Cadotte in The EEB and flow
Applied ecology is the science of minimizing human impacts and of supporting ecological systems in an economic landscape. Often though, applied ecologists work in isolation from those economic forces shaping biological landscapes, not really knowing what businesses would like to accomplish for habitat protection or sustainability. At the same businesses are seldom aware of the knowledge, tools and insight provided by ecologists. And perhaps, greater interaction could help turn ecology into a sci........ Read more »
Armsworth, P., Armsworth, A., Compton, N., Cottle, P., Davies, I., Emmett, B., Fandrich, V., Foote, M., Gaston, K., Gardiner, P.... (2010) The ecological research needs of business. Journal of Applied Ecology, 47(2), 235-243. DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2664.2010.01792.x
- February 22, 2010
- 06:30 PM
- 260 views
How can evolution inform conservation decisions?
by Marc Cadotte in The EEB and flow
First of all, let me apologize for the lack of blog posts over the past 2 weeks, I've been busy visiting the Olympics and reading a couple of hundred blog, judging them for the Research Blogging awards.
The conservation of biological diversity is a major imperative for biologists. International agreements such as the Convention on Biological Diversity and intergovernmental exercises, such as the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, call upon scientists to provide evidence on the current state of bi........ Read more »
Hendry, A., Lohmann, L., Conti, E., Cracraft, J., Crandall, K., Faith, D., Häuser, C., Joly, C., Kogure, K., Larigauderie, A.... (2010) EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY IN BIODIVERSITY SCIENCE, CONSERVATION, AND POLICY: A CALL TO ACTION. Evolution. DOI: 10.1111/j.1558-5646.2010.00947.x
- February 3, 2010
- 09:38 PM
- 334 views
The evolution of a symbiont
by Marc Cadotte in The EEB and flow
The evolution of negative interactions seems like a logical consequence of natural selection. Organisms compete for resources or view one another as a resource, thus finding ways to more efficiently find and consume prey. However, to me, the natural selection of symbiotic or mutualistic interactions has never seemed as straight forward (expect maybe the case where one species provides protection for the other, such as in ant-plant mutualisms). A specific example is the rise of nitrogen-fixing pl........ Read more »
Marchetti, M., Capela, D., Glew, M., Cruveiller, S., Chane-Woon-Ming, B., Gris, C., Timmers, T., Poinsot, V., Gilbert, L., Heeb, P.... (2010) Experimental Evolution of a Plant Pathogen into a Legume Symbiont. PLoS Biology, 8(1). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1000280
- January 19, 2010
- 09:47 PM
- 235 views
Timing is everything: global warming and the timing of species interactions
by Marc Cadotte in The EEB and flow
While an obvious affect of climate change will be changes in the distributions or range sizes of species, more insidious and likely more consequential will be how species interactions are affected by changes in the timing of growth and reproduction. These changes in an organism's life cycle, or phenology, can create mismatches between an organism's need and resource availability or the readiness of coevolved partners -such as plants and pollinators.In an 'Idea and Perspective' paper in Ecology L........ Read more »
Yang, L., & Rudolf, V. (2010) Phenology, ontogeny and the effects of climate change on the timing of species interactions. Ecology Letters, 13(1), 1-10. DOI: 10.1111/j.1461-0248.2009.01402.x
- January 14, 2010
- 10:28 PM
- 361 views
Plant genotypic diversity supports pollinator diversity
by Marc Cadotte in The EEB and flow
Research over the past 20 years has shown that plant communities with greater diversity maintain higher productivity, greater stability and support more diverse arthropod assemblages. More recently, several experiments have shown that interspecific diversity (namely genotypic differences) also affects community functioning. Pollination is often considered an essential function, and does plant genotypic diversity affect pollinator diversity and frequency?In a recent paper in PLoS ONE, Genung and ........ Read more »
Genung, M., Lessard, J., Brown, C., Bunn, W., Cregger, M., Reynolds, W., Felker-Quinn, E., Stevenson, M., Hartley, A., Crutsinger, G.... (2010) Non-Additive Effects of Genotypic Diversity Increase Floral Abundance and Abundance of Floral Visitors. PLoS ONE, 5(1). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0008711
- January 5, 2010
- 12:50 PM
- 313 views
Predicting invader success requires integrating ecological and land use patterns.
by Marc Cadotte in The EEB and flow
Disclaimer, this was modified from an editorial I wrote for the Journal of Applied Ecology.In the quest to understand species invasions, we often try to link the abundance and distribution of invaders to underlying ecological processes. For example, oft-studied are the links between exotic diversity and native richness or environmental heterogeneity. Seemingly independently, research into how specific land use or management activities affect invasion dynamics is also fairly common. While both re........ Read more »
Diez, J., Buckley, H., Case, B., Harsch, M., Sciligo, A., Wangen, S., & Duncan, R. (2009) Interacting effects of management and environmental variability at multiple scales on invasive species distributions. Journal of Applied Ecology. DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2664.2009.01725.x
- December 16, 2009
- 09:51 PM
- 384 views
Parastie competition enhances host survival
by Marc Cadotte in The EEB and flow
Contracting a parasite is bad. But is getting colonized by multiple parasitic species worse? This is an interesting and important question. The host is a resource, which can support a limited number of parasitic individuals, and so how does competition affect parasitic species and host mortality?This was the premise of a recent paper by Oliver Balmer and colleagues, studying trypanosome infection of mice hosts. They engineered two transgeneic strains of the protozoan parasite, Trypanosoma brucei........ Read more »
Balmer, O., Stearns, S., Schötzau, A., & Brun, R. (2009) Intraspecific competition between co-infecting parasite strains enhances host survival in African trypanosomes. Ecology, 90(12), 3367-3378. DOI: 10.1890/08-2291.1
- November 25, 2009
- 10:13 PM
- 500 views
Taking below-ground processes seriously: plant coexistence and soil depth
by Marc Cadotte in The EEB and flow
Some of the earliest ecologists, like Eugen Warming and Christen Raunkiaer, were enthralled with the minutia of the differences in plant life forms and how these differences determined where plants lived. They realized that differences in plant growth forms corresponded to how different plants made their way in the world. Since this early era, understanding the mechanisms of plant competition is one of the most widely-studied aspects of ecology. This is such an important aspect of ecology becaus........ Read more »
Dornbush, M., & Wilsey, B. (2009) Experimental manipulation of soil depth alters species richness and co-occurrence in restored tallgrass prairie. Journal of Ecology. DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2745.2009.01605.x
Bartelheimer, M., Gowing, D., & Silvertown, J. (2009) Explaining hydrological niches: the decisive role of below-ground competition in two closely related species . Journal of Ecology. DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2745.2009.01598.x
Cramer, M., van Cauter, A., & Bond, W. (2009) Growth of N -fixing African savanna species is constrained by below-ground competition with grass . Journal of Ecology. DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2745.2009.01594.x
Meier, C., Keyserling, K., & Bowman, W. (2009) Fine root inputs to soil reduce growth of a neighbouring plant via distinct mechanisms dependent on root carbon chemistry. Journal of Ecology, 97(5), 941-949. DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2745.2009.01537.x
- November 9, 2009
- 10:14 AM
- 401 views
Emergent linkages in seemingly unconnected food chains
by Marc Cadotte in The EEB and flow
Food webs are notoriously complex, and a difficult aspect of ecology is to offer a priori model-derived predictions of food web processes. There are some ecologists, such Neo Martinez and Jordi Bascompte, who have advanced our understanding of the general mechanisms of food web properties and dynamics through tools such as network theory. Such advanced approaches rely on direct interactions among species, or at least indirect interactions that are mediated through changes in abundance of differe........ Read more »
Prasad, R., & Snyder, W. (2009) A non-trophic interaction chain links predators in different spatial niches. Oecologia. DOI: 10.1007/s00442-009-1486-7
- October 21, 2009
- 05:04 PM
- 446 views
Adaptation and dispersal = (mal)adapted
by Marc Cadotte in The EEB and flow
Ever since Darwin, we often think of organisms as being in a constant battle against other organisms and local environments. Thus natural selection and the resulting arms race results in organisms highly adapted to local conditions and against local antagonists. At the same time, and especially driven by theoretical advances in the 1990's, researchers began to ask how dispersal -that is, the flow of genetic material from elsewhere, can disrupt local adaptation. On the one hand it may provide gen........ Read more »
Anderson, J., & Geber, M. (2009) DEMOGRAPHIC SOURCE-SINK DYNAMICS RESTRICT LOCAL ADAPTATION IN ELLIOTT'S BLUEBERRY ( ) . Evolution. DOI: 10.1111/j.1558-5646.2009.00825.x
- October 7, 2009
- 11:38 AM
- 499 views
Exotic plants integrate into plant-pollinator networks
by Marc Cadotte in The EEB and flow
At almost any spot on the globe, there are species present that are not native to that locale, having been transported by human activities. Whether and how exotic species impact communities is a multifaceted problem that requires understanding the multitude of direct and indirect species interactions that occur. In a paper published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, B, Montserrat Vila and colleagues asked if exotic plants where integrated into plant-pollinator networks, and whether this i........ Read more »
Vila, M., Bartomeus, I., Dietzsch, A., Petanidou, T., Steffan-Dewenter, I., Stout, J., & Tscheulin, T. (2009) Invasive plant integration into native plant-pollinator networks across Europe. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 276(1674), 3887-3893. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2009.1076
- September 25, 2009
- 10:09 PM
- 594 views
Global warming and shifts in food web strucutre
by Marc Cadotte in The EEB and flow
Predicting the effects of global warming on biological systems is of critical importance for informing proactive policy decisions. Most research so far has been on trying to predict shifts in species distributions and changes in interactions within local habitats. But what many of these studies assume is that the basic biological processes and requirements of the individual species will not change -that is their biology is fixed and they simply need to find the place that best suits them. Not so........ Read more »
O'Connor, M., Piehler, M., Leech, D., Anton, A., & Bruno, J. (2009) Warming and Resource Availability Shift Food Web Structure and Metabolism. PLoS Biology, 7(8). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1000178
- September 21, 2009
- 09:06 PM
- 499 views
Everything but extinct: invasion impacts on native diversity
by Marc Cadotte in The EEB and flow
There has been a persistent debate in the plant invasions literature about whether exotic plant invasions are a major threat to native plant persistence. While there are clear examples of animal invasions resulting in large scale extinction -e.g., the brown tree snake or Nile perch, evidence has been ambiguous for plants. Most ecologists are not so sanguine as to actually conclude that plant invasions are not a threat, and I think most believe that plant invader effects are an issue of temporal ........ Read more »
Jäger, H., Kowarik, I., & Tye, A. (2009) Destruction without extinction: long-term impacts of an invasive tree species on Galápagos highland vegetation. Journal of Ecology. DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2745.2009.01578.x
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