Climatic seasonality, resource bottlenecks, and abundance of rainforest birds: implications for global climate change

We demonstrate that within-year climatic variability, particularly rainfall seasonality, is the most significant variable explaining spatial patterns of bird abundance in Australian tropical rainforest. The likely mechanism causing this pattern is a resource bottleneck (insects, nectar, and fruit) during the dry season that limits the population size of many species. The patterns support both the diversity–climatic–stability hypothesis and the species–energy hypothesis but clearly show that seasonality in energy availability may be a more significant factor than annual totals or means. An index of dry season severity is proposed that quantifies the combined effect of the degree of dryness and the duration of the dry season. We suggest that the predicted increases in seasonality due to global climate change could produce significant declines in bird abundance, further exacerbating the impacts of decreased range size, increased fragmentation, and decreased population size likely to occur as a result of increasing temperature. We suggest that increasing climatic seasonality due to global climate change has the potential to have significant negative impacts on tropical biodiversity.     

Environmental factors affecting the distribution of aquatic invertebrates in temporary ponds in Mammoth Cave National Park,Kentucky, USA

Despite a recent surge of interest in temporary lentic systems, a strong theory linking the biota to its environment has not emerged. Using data from 10 temporary ponds at Mammoth Cave National Park, Kentucky, USA, we investigated how invertebrate communities were structured along environmental gradients, both between and within ponds. Samples were collected with a benthic corer in winter and spring, and a sweep net in spring. Six between-pond and two within-pond datasets were created. Between-pond analyses yielded significant CCA’s with only one of the six data sets. The ranges of environmental variables (EV’s) within ponds were often similar to the ranges of EV’s when averaged and compared between ponds. Some taxa were aggregated in a single pond, and richness increased with pond area. The theory that richness increases with hydroperiod did not apply to these systems. Within-pond analyses yielded more consistent relationships, with both CCA’s being significant. Sample depth was the best predictor of invertebrate richness and abundance, with most taxa preferring shallow habitats. Richness and abundance were higher in both shallow ponds and shallow areas of deep ponds than in deep areas of deep ponds. Standardizing sample depth may be an effective way to remove this gradient as a confounding variable in future research. The presence of within-pond gradients, possibly coupled with the limited dispersal and random colonization of tolerant taxa, makes between-pond comparisons difficult. Electronic supplementary material Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at and is accessible for authorised users. Handling editor: S. Declerck     

Land use and climate influences on waterbirds in the Prairie Potholes

Aim We examined the influences of regional climate and land‐use variables on mallard (Anas platyrhynchos), blue‐winged teal (Anas discors), ruddy duck (Oxyura jamaicensis) and pied‐billed grebe (Podilymbus podiceps) abundances to inform conservation planning in the Prairie Pothole Region of the United States. Location The US portion of Bird Conservation Region 11 (US‐BCR11, the Prairie Potholes), which encompasses six states within the United States: Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota and Iowa. Methods We used data from the North American Breeding Bird Survey (NABBS), the National Land Cover Data Set, and the National Climatic Data Center to model the effects of environmental variables on waterbird abundance. We evaluated land‐use covariates at three logarithmically related spatial scales (1000, 10,000 and 100,000 ha), and constructed hierarchical spatial count models a priori using information from published habitat associations. Model fitting was performed using a hierarchical modelling approach within a Bayesian framework. Results Models with the same variables expressed at different scales were often in the best model subset, indicating that the influence of spatial scale was small. Both land‐use and climate variables contributed strongly to predicting waterbird abundance in US‐BCR11. The strongest positive influences on waterbird abundance were the percentage of wetland area across all three spatial scales, herbaceous vegetation and precipitation variables. Other variables that we included in our models did not appear to influence waterbirds in this study. Main conclusions Understanding the relationships of waterbird abundance to climate and land use may allow us to make predictions of future distribution and abundance as environmental factors change. Additionally, results from this study can suggest locations where conservation and management efforts should be focused.     

Quantitative evaluation of temporal similarity in abundance of animal species

Summary A quantitative method is suggested for measuring the similarity of seasonal abundance patterns of different animal species. The method was applied to two sets of field data and produced biologically meaningful and interesting results.     

Microbial ecosystems are dominated by specialist taxa

Abundance and specificity are two key characteristics of species distribution and biodiversity. Theories of species assembly aim to reproduce the empirical joint patterns of specificity and abundance, with the goal to explain patterns of biodiversity across habitats. The specialist‐generalist paradigm predicts that specialists should have a local advantage over generalists and thus be more abundant. We developed a specificity index to analyse abundance–specificity relationships in microbial ecosystems. By analysing microbiota spanning 23 habitats from three very different data sets covering a wide range of sequencing depths and environmental conditions, we find that habitats are consistently dominated by specialist taxa, resulting in a strong, positive correlation between abundance and specificity. This finding is consistent over several levels of taxonomic aggregation and robust to errors in abundance measures. The relationship explains why shallow sequencing captures similar β‐diversity as deep sequencing, and can be sufficient to capture the habitat‐specific functions of microbial communities.     

氨氧化古菌及其对氮循环贡献的研究进展

硝化作用先将氨氮氧化为亚硝酸盐氮并进一步氧化为硝酸盐氮,这一过程是氮进行全球生物化学循环的重要环节。随着氨氧化古菌(Ammonia-oxidizing archaea,AOA)基因组序列中氨单加氧酶编码基因(amoA)的发现以及AOA在实验室条件下的成功培养(包括分离纯化和富集培养),基于分子生物学的研究表明AOA在各种环境广泛存在,且多数生境中它的数量远远超过氨氧化细菌(Ammonia-oxidizing bacteria,AOB)。AOA相对于AOB在氮循环中的贡献也引起了多方面的论证和争论。本文就氨氧化古菌的生态分布、系统进化、生境存在丰度及参与硝化作用等进行综述,指出不同生境AOA的活性及其对氮循环的重要性仍需做进一步的研究。     

Contrasting genetic diversity and population structure among three sympatric Madagascan shorebirds: parallels with rarity,endemism, and dispersal

Understanding the relative contributions of intrinsic and extrinsic factors to population structure and genetic diversity is a central goal of conservation and evolutionary genetics. One way to achieve this is through comparative population genetic analysis of sympatric sister taxa, which allows evaluation of intrinsic factors such as population demography and life history while controlling for phylogenetic relatedness and geography. We used ten conserved microsatellites to explore the population structure and genetic diversity of three sympatric and closely related plover species in southwestern Madagascar: Kittlitz's plover (Charadrius pecuarius), white‐fronted plover (C. marginatus), and Madagascar plover (C. thoracicus). Bayesian clustering revealed strong population structure in the rare and endemic Madagascar plover, intermediate population structure in the white‐fronted plover, and no detectable population structure in the geographically widespread Kittlitz's plover. In contrast, allelic richness and heterozygosity were highest for the Kittlitz's plover, intermediate for the white‐fronted plover and lowest for the Madagascar plover. No evidence was found in support of the “watershed mechanism” proposed to facilitate vicariant divergence of Madagascan lemurs and reptiles, which we attribute to the vagility of birds. However, we found a significant pattern of genetic isolation by distance among populations of the Madagascar plover, but not for the other two species. These findings suggest that interspecific variation in rarity, endemism, and dispersal propensity may influence genetic structure and diversity, even in highly vagile species.