Species' borders: a unifying theme in ecology

Biologists have long been fascinated by species' borders, and with good reason. Understanding the ecological and evolutionary dynamics of species' borders may prove to be the key that unlocks new understanding across a wide range of biological phenomena. After all, geographic range limits are a point of entry into understanding the ecological niche and threshold responses to environmental change. Elucidating patterns of gene flow to, and returning from, peripheral populations can provide important insights into the nature of adaptation, speciation and coevolution. Species' borders form natural laboratories for the study of the spatial structure of species interactions. Comparative studies from the center to the margin of species' ranges allow us to explore species' demographic responses along gradients of increasing environmental stress. Range dynamics further permit investigation into invasion dynamics and represent bellwethers for a changing climate. This set of papers explores ecological and evolutionary dynamics of species' borders from diverse empirical and theoretical perspectives.     

Biodiversity: towards a unifying theme for river ecology

1. A broadened concept of biodiversity, encompassing spatio‐temporal heterogeneity, functional processes and species diversity, could provide a unifying theme for river ecology. 2. The theoretical foundations of stream ecology often do not reflect fully the crucial roles of spatial complexity and fluvial dynamics in natural river ecosystems, which has hindered conceptual advances and the effectiveness of efforts at conservation and restoration. 3. Inclusion of surface waters (lotic and lentic), subsurface waters (hyporheic and phreatic), riparian systems (in both constrained and floodplain reaches), and the ecotones between them (e.g. springs) as interacting components contributing to total biodiversity, is crucial for developing a holistic framework of rivers as ecosystems. 4. Measures of species diversity, including alpha, beta and gamma diversity, are a result of disturbance history, resource partitioning, habitat fragmentation and successional phenomena across the riverine landscape. A hierarchical approach to diversity in natural and altered river‐floodplain ecosystems will enhance understanding of ecological phenomena operating at different scales along multidimensional environmental gradients. 5. Re‐establishing functional diversity (e.g. hydrologic and successional processes) across the active corridor could serve as the focus of river conservation initiatives. Once functional processes have been reconstituted, habitat heterogeneity will increase, followed by corresponding increases in species diversity of aquatic and riparian biota.     

Marine and terrestrial ecology: unifying concepts, revealing differences

The extent to which similar ecological processes operate on land and in the sea has been much debated, with apparently 'fundamental' differences often disappearing when appropriate comparisons are made. However, marine and terrestrial ecology have developed as largely separate intellectual endeavours, which has hampered the search for general patterns and mechanisms. Here, I argue that marine-terrestrial comparative studies can be extremely useful at uncovering mechanisms when they explicitly consider those facets of the environment that are important to a particular hypothesis. Furthermore, the binary 'marine-terrestrial' division misses many opportunities for more interesting comparisons, several of which I highlight here. Increasing the flow of concepts, hypotheses, and data between marine and terrestrial ecologists is essential to reveal those differences that really are important.     

Parasites, predators and the duration of developmental periods

Nest predation has been suggested to be the most important environmental factor determining the evolution of incubation and nestling periods in birds. This paradigm is based on a number of comparative analyses that have shown correlations between rates of nest predation and the relative duration of the nestling period. A second important natural selection pressure on reproduction is caused by parasitism. Here, I investigated the independent effects of daily nest predation rates and daily nest mortality rates due to parasites to assess the relative importance of these two environmental factors as determinants of the relative duration of incubation and nestling periods in birds, using the 43 species for which information on parasite-induced nestling mortality was available. The relative duration of the incubation period was negatively related to daily mortality rate due to parasitism, while nest predation had no significant effect. The relative duration of the nestling period was not significantly related to daily rate of mortality due to parasitism or nest predation. Daily nest predation rate was significantly negatively correlated with daily mortality rate due to parasitism in the subsample of species, for which some mortality due to parasitism was recorded. These findings are mainly based on hole nesters and colonially breeding species, because estimates of parasite-induced mortality generally is unavailable from open nesting and solitarily breeding species, precluding any generalizations to these species. However, the conclusions did not change after statistically controlling for nest site and sociality. These results suggest that developmental rates may be more influenced by the effects of parasites rather than nest predators, and that parasites constitute a neglected selective force affecting developmental rates.     

Trait-based plant ecology: moving towards a unifying species coexistence theory

Functional traits are the center of recent attempts to unify key ecological theories on species coexistence and assembling in populations and communities. While the plethora of studies on the role of functional traits to explain patterns and dynamics of communities has rendered a complex picture due to the idiosyncrasies of each study system and approach, there is increasing evidence on their actual relevance when aspects such as different spatial scales, intraspecific variability and demography are considered.     

Evolutionary ecology of movement by predators and prey

An essential key to explaining the mechanistic basis of ecological patterns lies in understanding the consequences of adaptive behavior for distributions and abundances of organisms. We developed a model that simultaneously incorporates (a) ecological dynamics across three trophic levels and (b) evolution of behaviors via the processes of mutation, selection, and drift in populations of variable, unique individuals. Using this model to study adaptive movements of predators and prey in a spatially explicit environment produced a number of unexpected results. First, even though predators and prey had limited information and sometimes moved in the “wrong” direction, evolved movement mechanisms allowed them to achieve average spatial distributions approximating optimal, ideal free distributions. Second, predators’ demographic parameters had marked, nonlinear effects on the evolution of movement mechanisms in the prey: As the predator mortality rate was increased past a critical point, prey abruptly shifted from making very frequent movements away from predators to making infrequent movements mainly in response to resources. Third, time series analyses revealed that adaptive, conditional movements coupled ecological dynamics across species and space. Our results provide general predictions, heretofore lacking, about how predators and prey should respond to one another on both ecological and evolutionary time scales.     

Foraging ecology of aphidophagous predators against Aphis punicae Passerini

Foraging behaviour of three aphidophagous predators, viz., Cheilomenes sexmaculata (Fabricius), Scymnus sp. (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) and Paragus serratus (Fabricius) (Diptera: Syrphidae) on prey Aphis punicae Passerini (Homoptera: Aphididae) was studied in the laboratory at Indian Institute of Horticultural Research, Bangalore (12 degrees 58' N; 77 degrees 35'E) during 2002-03 to understand the predation dynamics. The foraging studies of grubs of C. sexmaculata and Scymnus sp. on A. punicae revealed that the distance travelled to reach the food (aphids) was negatively correlated with the feeding time of prey (r = -0.434 and -0.743, respectively). The time taken for second encounter was positively correlated with feeding time in case of both C. sexmaculata (r = 0.715) and P.serratus (r = 0.641). The time taken for first encounter of prey by Scymnus sp. showed negative correlation with the feeding time (r = -0.9491) and positive correlation with the distance traveled by the predator to reach the food (r = 0.620). The foraging behavioural studies of syrphid, P. serratus on A. punicae showed that the time taken for first encounter of prey was positively correlated with both the feeding time (r = 0.467) and the distance travelled by the syrphid to reach the food (r = 0.485). The time taken for first encounter of prey also showed significant positive correlation with the search time of the prey (r = 0.384).     

Parasites,info-disruption,and the ecology of fear

There is growing interest in the ecological consequences of fear, as evidenced by the numerous studies on the nonconsumptive, trait-mediated effects of predators. Parasitism, however, has yet to be fully integrated into research on the ecology of fear, despite it having direct negative and often lethal effects on hosts and being the most common life history strategy on the planet. This might at least be partly due to the traditional, but untested, assumption that anti-parasite responses are weak relative to anti-predator responses. To test this hypothesis, we quantified the activity and location responses of Bufo americanus tadpoles to one of six chemical cues: water; cercariae of Echinostoma trivolvis, a trematode which infects and can kill amphibians; a snail releasing E. trivolvis cercariae; an uninfected snail; food; or conspecific alarm chemicals signaling predation. There is also literature encouraging research on the context dependency and pollution-induced disruption of fear responses. Consequently, before quantifying responses to the chemical cues, half of the B. americanus were exposed to the herbicide atrazine (201 μg/l for 4 days), a reported inhibitor of fear responses in fish. Tadpoles were attracted to food, were indifferent to an uninfected snail, avoided alarm chemicals, and exhibited avoidance and elevated activity in response to a snail shedding cercariae and cercariae alone. Atrazine had no detectable effects on B. americanus’ responses to the tested cues despite the use of a higher concentration and longer exposure duration than has been repeatedly shown to inhibit chemical cue detection in fish. The magnitude of anti-parasite and anti-predator responses were qualitatively similar, suggesting that the fear of disease and its ecological consequences could be comparable to that of predation. Consequently, we call for a greater integration of parasites into research on the ecology of fear and trait-mediated indirect effects.     

引进天敌莲草直胸跳甲的遗传多样性

我国从美国引进天敌昆虫莲草直胸跳甲防治喜旱莲子草已有20多年历史.本研究采用随机引物扩增多态性DNA(RAPD)分析方法,对引入我国的4个莲草直胸跳甲地理种群(广州、重庆、昆明、福州)的遗传多样性情况进行分析,并以美国佛罗里达种群为参照,从分子水平上揭示其种群的遗传分化及其与环境之间的关系.从111条随机引物中选取13条条带清晰、重复性好的引物对5个种群的25个样本进行扩增.结果表明:总多态位点百分率为42.0％,其中美国佛罗里达种群的多态位点百分率显著高于我国的4个地理种群;25.5％遗传分化发生在4个群体间;对各地理种群间的遗传距离采用非加权配对算术平均法( UPGMA)进行聚类分析发现,遗传距离与种群空间分布距离呈正相关.     

Parasites and host life-history traits: implications for community ecology and species co-existence

Most of the evidence for a key role of parasites in structuring communities is based on the idea of a differential susceptibility of host species to infection and its consequences. Recent advances in community ecology suggest that life-history traits of free-living species can be an important determinant of their co-existence within communities. On the other hand, parasites have the potential to indirectly alter the life-history traits of their hosts, such as developmental time or dispersal. We discuss the idea that these indirect effects could influence the structure of free-living and parasite communities. We explore this idea in relation to related concepts including 'parasitic arbitration' and engineering processes.     

The multiple decrement life table: a unifying framework for cause-of-death analysis in ecology

Summary The multiple decrement life table is used widely in the human actuarial literature and provides statistical expressions for mortality in three different forms: i) the life table from all causes-of-death combined; ii) the life table disaggregated into selected cause-of-death categories; and iii) the life table with particular causes and combinations of causes eliminated. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the multiple decrement life table to the ecological literature by applying the methods to published death-by-cause information on Rhagoletis pomonella. Interrelations between the current approach and conventional tools used in basic and applied ecology are discussed including the conventional life table, Key Factor Analysis and Abbott's Correction used in toxicological bioassay.     

入侵种喜旱莲子草天敌——莲草直胸跳甲的生物学特性

喜旱莲子草(Alternanthera philoxeroides(Mart.)Griseb.)是一种水陆两栖的重要外来入侵种,是中国国家环保局公布的首批9种重要外来入侵植物之一。莲草直胸跳甲Agasicles hygrophila Selma&Vogt是目前控制喜旱莲子草最有效的天敌昆虫。对该虫的形态特征和行为习性作了描述。卵块成"八"字形,孵化需要高湿度的保持;幼虫有趋嫩性,幼龄幼虫一般取食叶片的下表皮,2、3龄幼虫取食量很大;老熟幼虫在茎秆上咬一个圆形的洞,进入茎秆中化蛹,并咀嚼咬下的植物组织,吐出后塞住洞口;成虫羽化6d后交尾,雌虫产卵于顶叶的背面。     

Intra-guild predation relaxes natural enemy impacts on herbivore populations

Abstract. 1. To investigate the role of intra-guild predation in mediating the impact of the natural enemy complex on herbivore populations, a manipulative field experiment was conducted using uncaged plots (islets of Spartina cordgrass) on a North American salt marsh. The densities (moderate or low) of two invertebrate predators, the generalist wolf spider Pardosa littoralis and the specialist mirid bug Tytthus vagus , were manipulated in a 2 × 2 factorial design, and the resulting treatment effects on the population growth of their herbivorous prey, Prokelisia planthoppers, were assessed.
2. The abundance of wolf spiders on experimental islets was unaffected by the presence of mirid bugs, however the density of mirid bugs was influenced very negatively by the presence of the wolf spider.
3. The negative effect of the wolf spider on mirid bugs most probably resulted from the intra-guild predation of mirids by spiders because planthopper limitation by the wolf spider alone was significantly greater than when both predators were present.
4. As a result of intra-guild predation, planthopper population growth was positive in the presence of both predators, despite the fact that each predator alone promoted a decrease in planthopper population growth.
5. Notably, the occurrence of intra-guild predation diminished top-down impacts on planthopper populations in a relatively simple food web where strong top-down effects were expected. This result, however, was limited to habitats on the marsh with simply structured vegetation lacking leaf litter.