The Infona portal uses cookies, i.e. strings of text saved by a browser on the user's device. The portal can access those files and use them to remember the user's data, such as their chosen settings (screen view, interface language, etc.), or their login data. By using the Infona portal the user accepts automatic saving and using this information for portal operation purposes. More information on the subject can be found in the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. By closing this window the user confirms that they have read the information on cookie usage, and they accept the privacy policy and the way cookies are used by the portal. You can change the cookie settings in your browser.
Phytoplanktonic communities maintain a high diversity in a seemingly homogeneous environment, competing for the same set of resources. Many theories have been proposed to explain this coexistence despite likely competition, such as contrasted responses to temporal environmental variation. However, theory has developed at a faster pace than empirical evaluation using field data, which requires inferring...
In nature species react to a variety of endogenous and exogenous ecological factors. Understanding the mechanisms by which these factors interact and drive population dynamics is a need for understanding and managing ecosystems. In this study we assess, using laboratory experiments, the effects that the combinations of two exogenous factors exert on the endogenous structure of the population dynamics...
Populations are formed of their constituent interacting individuals, each with their own respective within‐host biological processes. Infection not only spreads within the host organism but also spreads between individuals. Here we propose and study a multilevel model which links the within‐host statuses of immunity and parasite density to population epidemiology under sublethal and lethal toxicant...
The persistence of plant populations depends on the ability of individuals to cope with the conditions provided by the community. So far, it is not known whether differences in the diversity and composition of plant communities affect the age structure of plant populations or the expression of stem anatomical traits reflecting investment into plant growth and storage. We analyzed annual growth rings...
Anticipating ecological changes is paramount if we are to manage biodiversity and the services they provide to humanity. When forecasting population abundances, studies have shown that simple statistical models often have better forecast performance than complex models. These studies have evaluated forecasts of models fitted separately to data from single sites (single‐site approach). Here, we aim...
Phenological shifts, changes in the seasonal timing of life cycle events, are among the best documented responses of species to climate change. However, the consequences of these phenological shifts for population dynamics remain unclear. Population growth could be enhanced if species that advance their phenology benefit from longer growing seasons and gain a pre‐emptive advantage in resource competition...
Different modelling approaches have been used to relate the structure of mutualistic interactions with the stability of communities. However, inconsistencies arise when we compare modelling outcomes with the patterns of interactions observed in empirical studies. To shed light on these inconsistencies, we explored the network structure–stability relationship by incorporating the cost of mutualistic...
Global climate change is altering the timing of life history events for species living in seasonal environments. These shifts in phenology can lead to the disruption of interspecific relationships with implications for individual fitness. Predicting phenological change and its population level consequences can provide insights into population persistence. Achieving this is challenging for labile traits...
Climate change has strong effects on traits such as phenology and physiology. Studies typically assume that climate‐induced trait changes will have consequences for population dynamics, but explicit tests are rare. Body condition reflects energy storage and may directly affect how much can be invested in reproduction and survival. However, the causal pathway by which decreased body condition impacts...
Organisms across a wide range of taxa use migration as a strategy to avoid, reduce or recover from parasitic infection. Previous work has identified three different processes by which migration can help reduce infection risk and/or costs: migratory escape from infection, migratory culling of infected individuals and migratory recovery from infection. However, most theoretical modelling of host migration...
Understanding how predators affect prey populations is a fundamental goal for ecologists and wildlife managers. A well‐known example of regulation by predators is the predator pit, where two alternative stable states exist and prey can be held at a low density equilibrium by predation if they are unable to pass the threshold needed to attain a high density equilibrium. While empirical evidence for...
A major challenge in ecology is to understand how populations are affected by increased climate variability. Here, we assessed the effects of observed climate variability on different organismal groups (amphibians, insects, mammals, herbaceous plants and reptiles) by estimating the extent to which interannual variation in the annual population growth rates (CVλ) and the absolute value of the long‐term...
Temperature and precipitation are two major factors determining arthropod population densities, but the effects from these climate variables are seldom evaluated in the same study system and in combination with inter‐ and intraspecific density dependence. In this study, I used a 19 year time series on plant variables (shoot height and flowering incidence) and insect density in order to understand...
Estimating population abundance is central to population ecology. With increasing concern over declining insect populations, estimating trends in abundance has become even more urgent. At the same time, there is an emerging interest in quantifying phenological patterns, in part because phenological shifts are one of the most conspicuous signs of climate change. Existing techniques to fit activity...
Traditional approaches to guiding decisions about harvesting bushmeat often employ single‐species population dynamic models, which require species‐ and location‐specific data, are missing ecological processes such as multi‐trophic interactions, cannot represent multi‐species harvesting and cannot predict the broader ecosystem impacts of harvesting. In order to explore an alternative approach to devising...
Recruitment and dispersal are important demographic rates and studying their determinants is particularly important in the current context of global anthropogenic perturbations. In birds, and especially for migratory species, assessing these rates is challenging because of the difficulties involved in tracking individuals beyond fledging. Here we assessed the determinants of nest box local recruitment...
The long‐standing ecological interest in how environmental variability interacts with population dynamics to determine population variability and extinction risk has led to significant recent progress, but still lacks a direct connection to the role of a species' life history. Not only is environmental variability expected to increase with climate change, but the spectrum of environmental variability...
The Anthropocene is characterized by complex, primarily human‐generated, disturbance regimes that include combinations of long‐term press (e.g. climate change, pollution) and episodic pulse (e.g. cyclonic storms, floods, wildfires, land use change) disturbances. Within any regime, disturbances occur at multiple spatial and temporal scales, creating complex and varied interactions that influence spatiotemporal...
Individual biology influences environment‐dependent population dynamics through life history. Population models that consider individual physiology are therefore popular for modelling dynamics under various environments. In recent years, a quantitative framework integrating metabolic theory (dynamic energy budget theory) into individual‐based models (DEB‐IBMs) has emerged to investigate the link from...
Set the date range to filter the displayed results. You can set a starting date, ending date or both. You can enter the dates manually or choose them from the calendar.