Ecography
The degree to which plant individuals are aggregated or dispersed co‐determines how a species uses resources, how it is used as a resource, and how it reproduces. Quantifying such spatial patterns, however, presents several methodological issues that can be overcome by using spatial point pattern analyses (SPPA). We used SPPA to assess the distribution of P. bourgaeana adult trees and their seeds...
The altitudinal distribution of plants is restricted by various environmental factors, with climatic conditions being one of the primary constraints. Here, we investigate what limits the altitudinal range of the introduced species Erigeron annuus in the Swiss Alps. We planted offspring of E. annuus plants originating from different altitudes into two common gardens, one located at an altitude representing...
Several processes are hypothesised to mediate the relationship between local (microsite) plant species richness and the topographical heterogeneity of the surrounding landscape. In a topographically heterogeneous landscape with various habitats occurring close to each other, local species richness may be enriched by species from surrounding habitats due to the spatial mass effect (sink‐source dynamics)...
A commonly reported pattern in large herbivores is their propensity to irrupt and crash when colonizing new areas. However, the relative role of density‐dependence, climate, and cohort effects on demographic rates in accounting for the irruptive dynamics of large herbivores remains unclear. Using a 37‐yr time series of abundance in a mouflon Ovis aries population located on Haute Island, a sub‐Antarctic...
There are an increasing number of studies that are now focussing on the influence of climate change on species’ distributions. However, access to predictive climatic datasets for future scenarios is difficult due to their specific formats and/or the need to be geographically downscaled. The TYN dataset is freely available to users and provides a synthetic format with several climatic models and IPCC...
According to the geographic mosaic theory of coevolution (GMTC), clines of traits reflecting local co‐adaptation (including resistance genes) should be common between a host and its parasite and should persist across time. To test the GMTC‐assumption of persistent clinal patterns we compared the natural prevalence of two parasites on aspen Populus tremula trees: mining moths of the genus Phyllocnistis...
BioMove simulates plant species' geographic range shifts in response to climate, habitat structure and disturbance, at annual time steps. This spatially explicit approach integrates species' bioclimatic suitability and population‐level demographic rates with simulation of landscape‐level processes (dispersal, disturbance, species' response to dynamic dominant vegetation structure). Species population...
GeoPhylo is a scalable online service for developing 3‐dimensional geographic visualizations of phylogenetic trees in the keyhole markup language (KML). These geographic phylogenies, geophylogenies, can then be viewed in Google Earth or Nasa's World Wind. Advanced features provide users the ability to change many aspects such as scaling and coloring of branches. The GeoPhylo engine has been deployed...
It is often suggested that fire acts as an environmental filter that selects species and functional traits, and reduces trait variability within communities, affecting ecosystem function and underlying services. This may be particularly important in fire‐sensitive ecosystems, such as the central European Alps, where fires are scarce. According to climate and land use change scenarios in Europe, fire...
Predictable sources of food underpin lifetime reproductive output in long lived animals. The most important foraging areas of top marine predators are therefore likely to be related to environmental features that enhance productivity in predictable spatial and temporal patterns. Even so, although productive areas within the marine environment are distributed patchily in space and time, most studies...
The primary objective of this study was to determine whether total biodiversity (γ) is partitioned into within‐community (α) and among‐community (β) components differently for taxonomic and functional organization. I hypothesized that α diversity will contribute more to the functional organization of γ diversity and that β diversity will contribute more to the taxonomic organization of γ diversity...
The distribution of harbour porpoises in EU waters is poorly understood, and modelled predictions of their distributions could inform the strategic spatial planning of future exploitation of the marine environment to avoid potential conflicts. We analysed satellite telemetry data from 39 harbour porpoises Phocoena phocoena in inner Danish waters using a modelling tool rooted in maximum entropy: Maxent...
ModEco is a software package for ecological niche modeling. It integrates a range of niche modeling methods within a geographical information system. ModEco provides a user friendly platform that enables users to explore, analyze, and model species distribution data with relative ease. ModEco has several unique features: 1) it deals with different types of ecological observation data, such as presence...
Biodiverse is a tool for the spatial analysis of diversity using indices based on taxonomic, phylogenetic and matrix (e.g. genetic dissimilarity) relationships. The explosion in georeferenced biological specimen and survey data means there is an increasing need for such tools. Biodiverse supports four processes: 1) linked visualisation of data distributions in geographic, taxonomic, phylogenetic and...
Tsetse are the insect vectors of the African trypanosomiases. As with many diseases, transmission of trypanosomiasis varies through space and time. Capturing the variation of both vector and disease has, in the past, been attempted separately in the space and time dimensions, usually using deterministic techniques. Very few efforts have used space‐time covariation and have hence missed any correlations...
Planning of conservation priorities has often taken mapped forest types as surrogates for biological complementarity. In the Brazilian Amazon, these exercises have given equal weight to each forest type as if they were all equally distinct. Here, we examine floristic similarity between forest types to assess the reliability of vegetation maps as a surrogate for canopy tree‐community composition. We...
We assess the potential of different forms of variation partitioning to distinguish between environmental control and dispersal limitation in communities structured by combinations of niche and neutral processes. Simulation data reveal interactions between dispersal limitation, environmental control, and the spatial structure of environmental factors in the detected levels of variance fractions. The...
Species with extensive geographic ranges may interact with different species assemblages at distant locations, with the result that the nature of the interactions may vary spatially. Black‐tailed prairie dogs Cynomys ludovicianus occur from Canada to Mexico in grasslands of the western Great Plains of North America. Black‐tailed prairie dogs alter vegetation and dig extensive burrow systems that alter...
Tracking migratory movement of small animals with variable migration patterns is difficult with standard mark–recapture methods or genetic analysis. We used stable hydrogen isotope (δD) measurements of wings from European red admirals Vanessa atalanta to study several aspects of this species’ migration. In the central part of southern Europe we found large differences in δD values between red admirals...
The capacity of populations to respond adaptively to environmental change is essential for their persistence. Isolated populations often harbour reduced genetic variation, which is predicted to decrease adaptive potential, and can be detrimental under the current scenarios of global change. In this study, we examined climatic adaptation in larval life history traits in the pool frog Rana lessonae...