Oikos
Environmental conditions experienced early in the ontogeny can have a strong impact on individual fitness and performance later in life. Organisms may counteract the negative effects of poor developmental conditions by developing compensatory responses in growth and development. However, previous studies on compensatory responses have largely ignored the effects that poor embryonic conditions could...
The metacommunity framework is a powerful platform for evaluating patterns of species distribution in geographic or environmental space. Idealized patterns (checkerboard, Clementsian, evenly spaced, Gleasonian and nested distributions) give the framework shape. Each pattern represents an area in a multidimensional continuum of metacommunity structures; however, the current approach to analysis of...
Over the past decades a growing body of literature has presented proof of the possible interactions between foliar and root herbivores. These effects can be positive, negative or neutral in either direction, depending on the species and the involved mechanism. Most of these studies however concern experiments under controlled conditions. Whether these interactions affect the distribution of herbivores...
We investigated the role of carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus as limiting factors of microorganisms and microbial grazers (testate amoebae) in a montane tropical rain forest in southern Ecuador. Carbon (as glucose), nitrogen (as NH4NO3) and phosphorus (as NaH2PO4) were added separately and in combination bimonthly to experimental plots for 20 months. By adding glucose and nutrients we expected to increase...
Migration is a widespread phenomenon among birds and is likely to be subject to strong selective pressures. Birds' annual routines and behaviors might be expected to change during their different life history stages, resulting in different, age‐related migration patterns. However, although migration has been the subject of many publications, age‐related differences in migration have received little...
As a consequence of environmental change, it is expected that shifts in temperature and precipitation patterns will influence parasite communities and their hosts with unpredictable impact. Parasites play a vital role in ecosystems but there is only limited quantitative data which describe the effects of environmental parameters under natural conditions. We investigated the influence of rainfall,...
Individuals in wild populations face risks associated with both intrinsic (i.e. aging) and external (i.e. environmental) sources of mortality. Condition‐dependent mortality occurs when there is an interaction between such factors; however, few studies have clearly demonstrated condition‐dependent mortality and some have even argued that condition‐dependent mortality does not occur in wild avian populations...
Following disturbance events vegetation can either be resilient and return to its original state, or there can be shifts in vegetation composition and abundance patterns that may indicate alternative equilibiria. We conducted a long‐term field experiment that simulated impact by aerially transported volcanic ejecta (tephra) in a Sphagnum‐dominated plant community in order to test the effects of this...
Bird communities in tropical forests are strongly affected by both patch area and habitat edges. The fact that both effects are intrinsically confounded in space raises questions about how these two widely reported ecological patterns interact, and whether they are independent or simply different spatial manifestations of the same phenomenon. Moreover, do small patches of secondary forest, in landscapes...
Recent climate change has caused comparatively rapid shifts in the phenology and geographic distributions of many plants and animals. However, there is debate over the degree to which populations can meet the challenges of climate change with evolutionary or phenotypic responses in life history and morphology. We report that migrating birds captured at a banding station in western Pennsylvania, USA,...
Hybridization between native and non‐native species has consequences for survival and growth rates of hybrid offspring, but the influences on their functional roles such as habitat use are little studied and poorly understood. The Japanese native common carp Cyprinus carpio coexist and hybridize with non‐native domesticated carp in natural Japanese lakes. We have combined stable isotope and molecular...
Modelling habitat of species necessitates robust identification of relevant environmental variables linked to species distribution. To achieve this, we connect hierarchical patch theory and habitat modelling at multiple scales. We suggest discriminating between ‘circumstancial variables’ and ‘process variables’ on the basis of temporal evolution of the spatial links between species distribution and...
The loss of natural enemies is thought to explain why certain invasive species are so spectacularly successful in their introduced range. However, if losing natural enemies leads to unregulated population growth, this implies that native species are themselves normally subject to natural enemy regulation. One possible widespread mechanism of natural enemy regulation is negative soil feedbacks, in...
The preference–performance hypothesis predicts that when female herbivorous insects determine where to position offspring of low mobility, they will select sites that maximize development and survival of those offspring. How this critical relationship responds to variation in climatic and habitat conditions remains untested, however, despite its important consequences for population and evolutionary...
Our understanding of the dynamics of predator–prey systems has relied heavily on the use of models based on the standard Lotka–Volterra (LV) framework, dating back over 80 years. Although these models have been repeatedly analysed and refined since their initial inception, the way they describe the predator's growth rate has received surprisingly little attention; typically it is simply assumed that...
Quantitative scaling relationships among body mass, temperature and metabolic rate of organisms are still controversial, while resolution may be further complicated through the use of different and possibly inappropriate approaches to statistical analysis. We propose the application of a modelling strategy based on the theoretical approach of Akaike's information criteria and non‐linear model fitting...
Droop's model was originally designed to describe the growth of unicellular phytoplankton species in chemostats but it is now commonly used for a variety of organisms in models of trophic interactions, ecosystem functioning, and evolution. Despite its ubiquitous use, Droop's model is still limited by several simplifying assumptions. For example, the assumption of equal theoretical maximum growth rates...
Interrelated causes of plant invasion have been gaining increasing recognition. However, research on this subject has mainly focused around conceptual models. Here we explore whether plant–soil biota feedbacks and disturbance, two major factors capable of facilitating invasive plants in introduced ranges, interact to preferentially benefit exotics compared to native plants. We investigated the influence...
Agricultural intensification in Europe has affected farmland bird populations negatively, both during summer and winter. Although the migratory period poses separate challenges on birds than breeding and wintering, the consequences of farming practices for birds during migration remain poorly investigated. We monitored abundance and species richness of migratory birds in autumn at matched pairs of...