Stability and coexistence in a lawn community: experimental assessment of the stability of the actual community

Calculation of a community matrix for a lawn, based on pairwise competition experiments between lawn species, had predicted that the community would be unstable, but that it was close to the stability/instability boundary. To test for stability in the actual community, three types of 'pulse' perturbation were applied: shading for six weeks, mechanical perturbation (removal of vegetation) and a herbicide specific to grasses. Following shade and mechanical perturbation, the abundances of the species recovered towards that of the undisturbed community, although full recovery of the whole community was not realised. For the herbicide perturbation, recovery was still quite incomplete after 4.5 years, apparently because the compensatory growth of dicots made it difficult for the grasses to reinvade. Based on species presence/absence, the lawn fully recovered from all three perturbations. The overall pattern of recovery of the lawn was consistent with the prediction of marginal instability derived from the community matrix analysis. However, care must be taken in the interpretation of these results, as a pre-requisite for valid application of community matrix theory is that the community should be at equilibrium, but in the lawn this assumption was violated. A transitive hierarchy of competitive dominance was identified in the pairwise competition experiments; however, this hierarchy was unrelated to the rankings of the species in field abundance in the undisturbed community. The problems in applying community matrix theory to real communities are reviewed. It is concluded that whilst the theory may have biological relevance to at least simple communities, such as the lawn system used here, difficulties in its practical application, and more importantly, the restrictive assumptions on which the theory is based, will limit its relevance in most natural systems. These results call into question the generality of a large volume of theoretical studies based on these methods.     

Can multiple low-density immunoadsorbents and 'negative' distance matrices help predict the three-dimensional structure of any globular protein?

Chemical cross-linking of a protein immobilized on multiple, site-specific, monoclonal, chemically modified antibody matrices combined with analysis of data on a distance matrix is likely to yield sufficient positive and 'negative' long-range distance information to help predict the three dimensional structure of any single-chain globular protein.     

New synthetic indicators to assess community resilience and restoration success

The Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020 sets as an objective the restoration of 15% of degraded ecosystems by 2020. This challenge raises at least two major questions: (i) How to restore and (ii) how to measure restoration success of said ecosystems? Measurement of restoration success is necessary to assess objective achievement and to adjust management with regard to objectives. Numerous studies are being conducted to try to work out synthetic indices to assess ecosystem diversity or integrity in the context of global change. Nevertheless, at the community level, there is no index that allows the assessment of community integrity regarding its restoration or resilience, despite the fact that a lot of indicators are used such as species richness, Shannon diversity, multivariate analyses or similarity indices. We have therefore developed two new indices giving new insights on community states: the first index, coined as the Community Structure Integrity Index, measures the proportion of the species abundance in the reference community represented in the restored or degraded community, and the second index, coined as the Higher Abundance Index, measures the proportion of the species abundance in the restored or degraded community which is higher than in the reference community. We illustrate and discuss the use of these new indices with three examples: (i) fictitious communities, (ii) a recent restoration (2 years) of a Mediterranean temporary wetland (Camargue in France) in order to assess restoration efficiency, and (iii) a recently disturbed pseudo-steppe plant community (La Crau area in France) in order to assess natural resilience of the plant community. The indices provide summarized information on the success of restoration or on the resilience of the plant community, which both appear less positive than with standard indicators already used. The indices also provide additional insights useful for management purposes: the Community Structure Integrity Index can indicate whether the improving target species abundance is needed or not while the Higher Abundance Index can indicate whether controlling the high abundance of some species is needed in order to approach a reference ecosystem. These relatively simple indices developed on community composition and structure state can provide a base to further indices focusing on ecosystem functioning or services not only calculating values as a static point but also its temporal or spatial dynamic.     

Spatio-temporal variation in Markov chain models of subtidal community succession

In this paper we ask whether succession in a rocky subtidal community varies in space and time, and if so how much affect that variation has on predictions of community dynamics and structure. We describe succession by Markov chain models based on observed frequencies of species replacements. We use loglinear analysis to detect and quantify spatio‐temporal variation in the transition matrices describing succession. The analysis shows that space and time, but not their interaction, have highly significant effects on transition probabilities. To explore the ecological importance of the spatio‐temporal variability detected in this analysis, we compare the equilibria and the transient dynamics among three Markov chain models: a time‐averaged model that includes the effects of space on succession, a spatially averaged model that include the effects of time, and a constant matrix that averages over the effects of space and time. All three models predicted similar equilibrium composition and similar rates of convergence to equilibrium, as measured by the damping ratio or the subdominant Lyapunov exponent. The predicted equilibria from all three models were very similar to the observed community structure. Thus, although spatial and temporal variation is statistically significant, at least in this system this variation does not prevent homogeneous models from predicting community structure.     

广西大青山南亚热带森林植物群落的种间联结性

广西大青山地处广西西南部,对该地区的研究主要集中在人工林,而对其天然次生林植物群落种间联结性的研究尚未见有报道。该研究基于广西友谊关森林生态系统定位观测研究站1 km2固定样地的调查数据,用方差比率法( VR)和基于2×2联列表,通过χ2统计量检验、共同出现百分率( PC)、联结系数( AC),对广西大青山主要乔木层17个树种、灌木层8个树种、草本层12个树种的种间联结性进行了研究。方差分析结果表明,乔木层的总体种间联结性表现为显著正关联,灌木层的总体种间联结性表现为不显著负关联,草本层的总体种间联结性表现为不显著正关联。不同检验结果表明,该区域植物群落主要乔木树种间具有正联结性的种对较多,大多数乔木树种的种间联结性较紧密;主要灌木树种的种间联结性较松散,草本层主要种间表现为弱联结性。物种生态习性、群落演替阶段等因素可能是造成这一特性的主要原因。未来应加强对其自然环境的管理和保护,如果有必要,可适度人工干预,促进天然次生林的演替。该研究结果为进一步研究南亚热带天然次生林植物群落演替规律、维持和保护其物种多样性奠定基础,也可为该地区人工林的树种选择与配置提供数据支撑,进而对其人工林的近自然经营提供一定的理论参考。     

Qualitative permanence of Lotka–Volterra equations

In this paper, we consider permanence of Lotka-Volterra equations. We investigate the sign structure of the interaction matrix that guarantees the permanence of a Lotka-Volterra equation whenever it has a positive equilibrium point. An interaction matrix with this property is said to be qualitatively permanent. Our results provide both necessary and sufficient conditions for qualitative permanence.     

Co‐occurrence patterns in a diverse arboreal ant community are explained more by competition than habitat requirements

A major goal of community ecology is to identify the patterns of species associations and the processes that shape them. Arboreal ants are extremely diverse and abundant, making them an interesting and valuable group for tackling this issue. Numerous studies have used observational data of species co‐occurrence patterns to infer underlying assembly processes, but the complexity of these communities has resulted in few solid conclusions. This study takes advantage of an observational dataset that is unusually well‐structured with respect to habitat attributes (tree species, tree sizes, and vegetation structure), to disentangle different factors influencing community organization. In particular, this study assesses the potential role of interspecific competition and habitat selection on the distribution patterns of an arboreal ant community by incorporating habitat attributes into the co‐occurrence analyses. These findings are then contrasted against species traits, to explore functional explanations for the identified community patterns. We ran a suite of null models, first accounting only for the species incidence in the community and later incorporating habitat attributes in the null models. We performed analyses with all the species in the community and then with only the most common species using both a matrix‐level approach and a pairwise‐level approach. The co‐occurrence patterns did not differ from randomness in the matrix‐level approach accounting for all ant species in the community. However, a segregated pattern was detected for the most common ant species. Moreover, with the pairwise approach, we found a significant number of negative and positive pairs of species associations. Most of the segregated associations appear to be explained by competitive interactions between species, not habitat affiliations. This was supported by comparisons of species traits for significantly associated pairs. These results suggest that competition is the most important influence on the distribution patterns of arboreal ants within the focal community. Habitat attributes, in contrast, showed no significant influence on the matrix‐wide results and affected only a few associations. In addition, the segregated pairs shared more biological characteristic in common than the aggregated and random ones.     

The spatial variability of rare and common species in a gall-inhabiting Lepidoptera community

Determining the spatial variability in abundance structure of rare species is necessary to assess the validity of the often clarmed properties of rare species, I e as being both vulnerable to extinction and good indicators of environmental change The spatial concordance of the Lepidoptera species that inhabit a fungus-induced gall on Acacia karroo was examined across South Africa A positive relationship was found between species distribution and abundance The common and moderately common species in the community were highly concordant, although the rare species were diffusive As such, the vulnerability of the rare species in this community is difficult to assess and they are unlikely to make useful indicators of environmental change Although preliminary results suggest that the community is temporally concordant, establishing the level of temporal, in addition to spaual, concordance of rarity is necessary to determine the mechanisms responsible for the abundance structure of rare species in communities     

Matrix composition and community structure analysis of a novel bacterial pyrite leaching community

Here we describe a novel bacterial community that is embedded in a matrix of carbohydrates and bio/geochemical products of pyrite (FeS₂) oxidation. This community grows in stalactite-like structures – snottites – on the ceiling of an abandoned pyrite mine at pH values of 2.2–2.6. The aqueous phase in the matrix contains 200 mM of sulfate and total iron concentrations of 60 mM. Micro-X-ray diffraction analysis showed that jarosite [(K,Na,H₃O)Fe₃(SO₄)₂(OH)₆] is the major mineral embedded in the snottites. X-ray absorption near-edge structure experiments revealed three different sulfur species. The major signal can be ascribed to sulfate, and the other two features may correspond to thiols and sulfoxides. Arabinose was detected as the major sugar component in the extracellular polymeric substance. Via restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis, a community was found that mainly consists of iron oxidizing Leptospirillum and Ferrovum species but also of bacteria that could be involved in dissimilatory sulfate and dissimilatory iron reduction. Each snottite can be regarded as a complex, self-contained consortium of bacterial species fuelled by the decomposition of pyrite.     

Beta diversity as the variance of community data: dissimilarity coefficients and partitioning

Beta diversity can be measured in different ways. Among these, the total variance of the community data table Y can be used as an estimate of beta diversity. We show how the total variance of Y can be calculated either directly or through a dissimilarity matrix obtained using any dissimilarity index deemed appropriate for pairwise comparisons of community composition data. We addressed the question of which index to use by coding 16 indices using 14 properties that are necessary for beta assessment, comparability among data sets, sampling issues and ordination. Our comparison analysis classified the coefficients under study into five types, three of which are appropriate for beta diversity assessment. Our approach links the concept of beta diversity with the analysis of community data by commonly used methods like ordination and anova . Total beta can be partitioned into Species Contributions (SCBD: degree of variation of individual species across the study area) and Local Contributions (LCBD: comparative indicators of the ecological uniqueness of the sites) to Beta Diversity. Moreover, total beta can be broken up into within‐ and among‐group components by manova , into orthogonal axes by ordination, into spatial scales by eigenfunction analysis or among explanatory data sets by variation partitioning.     

The relative importance of positive and negative interactions for pollinator attraction in a plant community

Plant–pollinator interactions provide ideal frameworks for studying interactions in plant communities. Despite the large potential influence of such interactions on plant community structure, biodiversity and evolutionary processes, we know surprisingly little about the relative importance of positive and negative interactions among plant species for pollinator attraction. Therefore, we explored the relationships between conspecific and heterospecific floral densities and the flower visitation rates of nine plant species mainly visited by bumble bees, and six plant species mainly visited by flies, in a temperate grassland, through stepwise multiple regressions. Significant relationships were interpreted as interactions for pollinator attraction. Our results revealed that positive intra- and interspecific interactions for pollinator attraction were far more frequent than negative ones. Seventeen interspecific interactions were revealed of which 14 were significantly positive, whereas three of four significant intraspecific interactions were positive. Seven species experienced only positive interactions and two species experienced only negative interactions. The results presented here indicate that negative interactions are not necessarily the dominant ecological interaction for pollination among plants within a community, and the study represents a straightforward approach to study intra- and interspecific interactions among multiple species within a community. We discuss which mechanisms may drive the positive interactions for pollinator attraction and whether this may result in facilitative effects on reproductive success. Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

Reproduction of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Amorpha canescens</Emphasis> (Fabaceae) and diversity of its bee community in a fragmented landscape

Loss of insect pollinators due to habitat fragmentation often results in negative effects on plant reproduction, but few studies have simultaneously examined variation in the bee community, site characteristics and plant community characteristics to evaluate their relative effects on plant reproduction in a fragmented habitat. We examined the reproduction of a common tallgrass prairie forb, Amorpha canescens (Fabaceae), in large (>40 ha) and small (<2 ha) prairie remnants in Iowa and Minnesota in relation to the diversity and abundance of its bee visitors, plant population size, and species density of the forb flowering community. We found significant positive effects of the diversity of bees visiting A. canescens on percent fruit set at a site in both years of the study and in 2002 an additional significant positive effect of plant species density. Abundance of bees visiting A. canescens had a significant positive effect on percent fruit set in 2002, but was only marginally significant in 2003. In 2003 but not 2002, the plant species density at the sites had a significant negative effect on the diversity and abundance of bees visiting A. canescens, indicating community-level characteristics can influence the bee community visiting any one species. Site size, a common predictor of plant reproduction in fragmented habitats did not contribute to any models of fruit set and was only marginally related to bee diversity one year. Andrena quintilis, one of the three oligolectic bee species associated with A. canescens, was abundant at all sites, suggesting it has not been significantly affected by fragmentation. Our results show that the diversity of bees visiting A. canescens is important for maintaining fruit set and that bee visitation is still sufficient for at least some fruit set in all populations, suggesting these small remnants act as floral resource oases for bees in landscapes often dominated by agriculture.     

Induced defenses within food webs: The role of community trade-offs,delayed responses,and defense specificity

In nature, prey and predator species are embedded in complex networks of ecological interactions. As a consequence, organism level reactions such as predator-induced prey defenses will not only influence the dynamics of both the prey exhibiting the response and its inducer predator, but also that of a wider set of populations that interact directly or indirectly with them.In this work our aim is to determine the consequences of community-level side effects, defense specificity, and timing of inducible defenses for the stability of model ecological communities. We shall consider small webs of two and three trophic levels, containing one to three species per level. The model food webs include well-known community motifs that will be studied by means of qualitative analyses of the community matrix. Our results show that side effects that suppress non-focal interactions were able to decrease community stability, particularly when defensive responses were delayed. Conversely, side effects that increase the strength of non-focal interactions stabilized communities. This work also shows that as the defensive response became more specific, it is more likely to obtain a stable community. In general terms, our results revealed that delayed responses decrease the likelihood of system stability. Our results highlight the importance of the underlying biology of species interactions for the definition of the proper topology, and consequently dynamics, of complex ecological networks.     

森林群落波动的探讨

植物群落的波动是森林动态的一种表现形式,是指由于群落中复合生态因子逐年逐季的不同,引起群落在固有的季节性和逐年性变化上的差异.波动不改变群落的总体物种组成结构和群落性质.植物群落的波动具有可逆性和方向性.正向波动促使群落具更优化结构,负向波动则反之.本文组建了测度植物群落波动强度的公式:,并将森林群落波动的基本类型分为树木生长速度的波动、结实率以及幼苗多度的波动、叶量的波动和植物季节性发育周期的波动4种类型.     

A dynamic requirement for community interactions during Xenopus myogenesis

The community effect is an interaction among a group of many nearby cells that is necessary for them to maintain tissue-specific gene expression and differentiate co-ordinately. A community interaction is required for the muscle precursor cells of the Xenopus embryo to develop into terminally differentiated muscle, but exactly when and where the community effect acts during myogenesis has not been determined. Here, we ask whether dependence on the community effect varies with the developmental age of the muscle precursor cells. We find that dependence on the community signal changes with time through the muscle precursor cell population. During neurulation muscle precursor cells that are still in the vicinity of the blastopore and that are fated to form posterior muscle continue to require interactions with their neighbours, while differentiation of the anterior paraxial mesoderm,which gastrulated earlier, is independent of cell contact at this time. Thus the time during which a particular sub-population of muscle precursor cells requires a community interaction is related to their final destination along the anterior-posterior axis. In addition we show that this later acting community interaction around the blastopore involves FGF signalling.     

Variability in the macrozooplankton community off the Antarctic Peninsula

Summary This paper presents an analysis of zooplankton net sampling surveys carried out during four expeditions to the Antarctic Peninsula region. Cluster analysis documented two to three site groupings for the epipelagic zone and one mesopelagic site cluster below 200 to 300 m depth. Analysis of species dominance, constancy, diversity and evenness indices did not allow clear designation and separation of communities in terms of these parameters.Computation of a rank correlation matrix for each season allowed the characterization of species groups. There were no perfect indicator species in the very strict sense. The main differences in the composition of the zooplankton between the site clusters were due mainly to changes in abundance rather than to presence or absence of particular species. However, the interpretation of the complex species and site groupings led to the conclusion that we can define three distinct communities: an oceanic, a neritic, and a mesopelagic community beneath 200 to 300 m. A so-called transitional cluster represents a mixing zone created by frequent occurrence of species from both the oceanic and neritic community. The location of the described oceanic and neritic community sites seem to be relatively stable with minor latitudinal changes during the seasons, while occurrence and abundance of most species changes with the time of the year. The usefulness of particular species (e.g. Euphausia superba) as indicator species also change during the year     

森林群落波动的探讨

植物群落的波动是森林动态的一种表现形式,是指由于群落中复合生态因子逐年逐季的不同,引起群落在固有的季节性和逐年性变化上的差异.波动不改变群落的总体物种组成结构和群落性质.植物群落的波动具有可逆性和方向性.正向波动促使群落具更优化结构,负向波动则反之.本文组建了测度植物群落波动强度的公式:,并将森林群落波动的基本类型分为树木生长速度的波动、结实率以及幼苗多度的波动、叶量的波动和植物季节性发育周期的波动4种类型.     

eFGF and its mode of action in the community effect during Xenopus myogenesis

The community effect is an interaction among a group of many nearby precursor cells, necessary for them to maintain tissue-specific gene expression and differentiate co-ordinately. During Xenopus myogenesis, the muscle precursor cells must be in group contact throughout gastrulation in order to develop into terminally differentiated muscle. The molecular basis of this community interaction has not to date been elucidated. We have developed an assay for testing potential community factors, in which isolated muscle precursor cells are treated with a candidate protein and cultured in dispersion. We have tested a number of candidate factors and we find that only eFGF protein is able to mediate a community effect, stimulating stable muscle-specific gene expression in demonstrably single muscle precursor cells. In contrast, Xwnt8, bFGF, BMP4 and TGF(&bgr;)2 do not show this capacity. We show that eFGF is expressed in the muscle precursor cells at the right time to mediate the community effect. Moreover, the time when the muscle precursor cells are sensitive to eFGF corresponds to the period of the endogenous community effect. Finally, we demonstrate that FGF signalling is essential for endogenous community interactions. We conclude that eFGF is likely to mediate the community effect in Xenopus myogenesis.     

Trade-offs in community properties through time in a desert rodent community

Resource limitation represents an important constraint on ecological communities, which restricts the total abundance, biomass, and community energy flux a given community can support. However, the exact relationship among these three measures of biological activity remains unclear. Here we use a simple framework that links abundance and biomass with an energetic constraint. Under constant energetic availability, it is expected that changes in abundance and biomass can result from shifts in the distribution of individual masses. We test these predictions using long-term data from a desert rodent community. Total energy use for the community has not changed directionally for 25 years, but species composition has. As a result, the average body size has decreased by almost 50%, and average abundance has doubled. These results lend support to the idea of resource limitation on desert rodent communities and demonstrate that systems are able to maintain community energy flux in the face of environmental change, through changes in composition and structure.