Matching the forecast horizon with the relevant spatial and temporal processes and data sources

Most phenomenological, statistical models used to generate ecological forecasts take either a time-series approach, based on long-term data from one location, or a space-for-time approach, based on data describing spatial patterns across environmental gradients. However, the magnitude and even the sign of environment–response relationships detected using these two approaches often differs, leading to contrasting predictions about responses to future environmental change. Here we consider how the forecast horizon determines whether more accurate predictions come from the time-series approach, the space-for-time approach or a combination of the two. As proof of concept, we use simulated case studies to show that forecasts for short and long forecast horizons need to focus on different ecological processes, which are reflected in different kinds of data. First, we simulated population or community dynamics under stationary temperature using two simple, mechanistic models. Second, we fit statistical models to the simulated data using a time-series approach, a space-for-time approach or a weighted average. We then forecast the response to a temperature increase using the statistical models, and compared these forecasts to temperature effects simulated by the mechanistic models. We found that the time-series approach made accurate short-term predictions because it captured initial conditions and effects of fast processes such as birth and death. The space-for-time approach made more accurate long-term predictions because it better captured the influence of slower processes such as evolutionary and ecological selection. The weighted average made accurate predictions at all time scales, including intermediate time-scales where the other two approaches performed poorly. A weighted average of time-series and space-for-time approaches shows promise, but making this weighted model operational will require new research to predict the rate at which slow processes begin to influence dynamics.     

近40年青藏高原生态格局演变及其驱动因素

20世纪80年代至今近40年间,青藏高原自然与人工生态系统发生了广泛而深刻的变化,作为我国重要的生态屏障,亟需对其生态系统格局演变过程及其驱动因素进行系统定量的解析。本研究利用1980年至2018年间8期遥感解译土地利用与覆被数据,将青藏高原9类主要生态系统类型,森林、灌丛、草地、农田、城镇、水体与湿地、冰川、裸地、荒漠,依其主要构成组分,划分为以植被为主体的自然生态系统（森林、灌丛、草地）、以无机环境为主体的自然生态系统（水体与湿地、冰川、裸地、荒漠）,以及人工生态系统（农田、城镇）共三大类。统计分析表明1980至2018年的近40年来,青藏高原以植被为主的自然生态系统面积约占61.9%,其中草地生态系统变化率较大,局部年际变化逾30%/10a,草地灌丛面积扩张明显,最高可达约7%/10a。此外,青藏高原喜马拉雅山脉附近的冰川消减较快,下降速率约达25%/10a。青藏高原东缘向西城镇扩张明显,城镇面积占比增加约40%。研究还对气温和降水计算其变化速率,量化驱动生态系统演变的外部气候环境的时空动态特征,结合地理环境变量、人类活动强度、土壤侵蚀度、生物丰度等综合的驱动因素指标,建立多层级结构方程模型。研究发现,以植被为主的自然生态系统变化速率与气温、降水的变化速率呈现显著负相关,以无机环境要素为主的自然生态系统与气候因子的变化速率呈现显著正相关,人工生态系统则与外部环境因素耦合关系不强,结果表明青藏高原森林、灌丛、草地一类自然植被生态系统与环境变化之间呈现负反馈的保守性耦合关系,相比较水体与湿地、冰川、裸地和荒漠生态系统来讲,具有更强的韧性,因此保护区域自然植被将有利于维护青藏高原整体的生态屏障功能。     

Patterns and ecological determinants of woody plant height in eastern Eurasia and its relation to primary productivity

Aims Plant height is a key functional trait related to aboveground biomass, leaf photosynthesis and plant fitness. However, large-scale geographical patterns in community-average plant height (CAPH) of woody species and drivers of these patterns across different life forms remain hotly debated. Moreover, whether CAPH could be used as a predictor of ecosystem primary productivity is unknown.     

Bioclimatic transect networks: Powerful observatories of ecological change

Transects that traverse substantial climate gradients are important tools for climate change research and allow questions on the extent to which phenotypic variation associates with climate, the link between climate and species distributions, and variation in sensitivity to climate change among biomes to be addressed. However, the potential limitations of individual transect studies have recently been highlighted. Here, we argue that replicating and networking transects, along with the introduction of experimental treatments, addresses these concerns. Transect networks provide cost‐effective and robust insights into ecological and evolutionary adaptation and improve forecasting of ecosystem change. We draw on the experience and research facilitated by the Australian Transect Network to demonstrate our case, with examples, to clarify how population‐ and community‐level studies can be integrated with observations from multiple transects, manipulative experiments, genomics, and ecological modeling to gain novel insights into how species and systems respond to climate change. This integration can provide a spatiotemporal understanding of past and future climate‐induced changes, which will inform effective management actions for promoting biodiversity resilience.     

Anthropogenic transformation of the biomes, 1700 to 2000

Aim To map and characterize anthropogenic transformation of the terrestrial biosphere before and during the Industrial Revolution, from 1700 to 2000. Location Global. Methods Anthropogenic biomes (anthromes) were mapped for 1700, 1800, 1900 and 2000 using a rule‐based anthrome classification model applied to gridded global data for human population density and land use. Anthropogenic transformation of terrestrial biomes was then characterized by map comparisons at century intervals. Results In 1700, nearly half of the terrestrial biosphere was wild, without human settlements or substantial land use. Most of the remainder was in a seminatural state (45%) having only minor use for agriculture and settlements. By 2000, the opposite was true, with the majority of the biosphere in agricultural and settled anthromes, less than 20% seminatural and only a quarter left wild. Anthropogenic transformation of the biosphere during the Industrial Revolution resulted about equally from land‐use expansion into wildlands and intensification of land use within seminatural anthromes. Transformation pathways differed strongly between biomes and regions, with some remaining mostly wild but with the majority almost completely transformed into rangelands, croplands and villages. In the process of transforming almost 39% of earth's total ice‐free surface into agricultural land and settlements, an additional 37% of global land without such use has become embedded within agricultural and settled anthromes. Main conclusions Between 1700 and 2000, the terrestrial biosphere made the critical transition from mostly wild to mostly anthropogenic, passing the 50% mark early in the 20th century. At present, and ever more in the future, the form and process of terrestrial ecosystems in most biomes will be predominantly anthropogenic, the product of land use and other direct human interactions with ecosystems. Ecological research and conservation efforts in all but a few biomes would benefit from a primary focus on the novel remnant, recovering and managed ecosystems embedded within used lands.     

The rise of research on futures in ecology: rebalancing scenarios and predictions

Concern about the ecological consequences of global change has increasingly stimulated ecologists to examine the futures of ecological systems. Studying futures is not only a crucial element of the interaction between science, management and decision making , but also a critical research challenge per se , especially because futures cannot be observed or experimented on. In addition, researchers can encounter methodological and theoretical difficulties, which make interpretations and predictions problematic. In the literature which deals with futures of ecological systems two main lines of research can be distinguished: a predictive approach, which dominates the literature, can be contrasted with a rarer number of studies that elaborate potential scenarios for ecological systems. Scenario approaches currently concern mainly contacts with stakeholders or decision makers, or the use of climate scenarios to derive projections about ecological futures. We argue that a new direction for ecological futures research could be explored by using ecological scenarios in combination with predictive models to further fundamental ecological research, in addition to enhancing its applied value.     

Use of an individual-based model to forecast the effect of climate change on the dynamics, abundance and geographical range of the pest slug Deroceras reticulatum in the UK

Slugs are serious agricultural pests and their activity is strongly driven by ambient temperature and soil moisture. The strength of this relationship has been shown through the development of a deterministic model, based upon temperature and soil moisture conditions alone, which accurately describes the population dynamics and abundance of Deroceras reticulatum . Because of this strong climatic dependence, slug abundance and dynamics are likely to be affected by climate change. We used a validated individual-based model (IbM) of D. reticulatum , to assess the effects of climate change on the abundance of this species in the UK. Climatic scenarios were based on the UKCIP02 predictions and constructed using the LARS-WG stochastic weather generator. The IbM of slugs predicted population dynamics at three time slices (2020s, 2050s and 2080s), and two scenarios of greenhouse gas emissions. The maximum generation number, the number of population peaks, the number of slug-days in each season, the percentage of years when the population passes over a threshold for damage and the percentage of years in which populations go extinct were investigated. Currently, the south-west of the UK has the best conditions for D. reticulatum to thrive, with the north-east of Scotland having the most adverse. By 2080 under both low- and high-emissions scenarios, the north and west of Scotland will have the most favourable conditions for the survival of this species and the east of the UK and Scotland will have the harshest. By 2080 the climate in the north-west of Scotland will become more like the current climate in south-east England, which explains the shift in the pattern of abundance. The north-west of Scotland will have increased slug damage and south-west England and west-Wales will have decreased slug damage with some changes becoming evident by 2020.     

叶附生苔植物物种多样性分布格局及生态成因

叶附生苔植物(以下简称叶附生苔)是一类附生在维管植物叶片表面的、一般只出现在热带雨林和常绿阔叶林中的苔类植物。它们具有重要的生态功能, 如影响碳、氮、水循环, 对气候变化和森林破碎化反应敏感, 可用作环境变化的指示植物。该文对叶附生苔的形态特性、物种多样性的研究历史和进展、地理分布格局, 以及对环境的要求(附主和生境的特性)等进行了综述, 探讨了叶附生苔多样性分布格局形成的可能原因, 即环境(空气湿度高、林冠层发育好、干扰少)和适应特征(无性繁殖、形体微小)的选择。根据全球叶附生苔研究进展状况及所存在的问题提出未来可开展的研究方向, 如叶附生苔的形成原因、与附主间的物质交换和能量流动机制、在森林生态系统中的生态功能、气候变化指示作用研究等, 大尺度上的研究也值得关注。     

Spatio-temporal variation in the elemental compositions of otoliths of southern bluefin tuna Thunnus maccoyii in the Indian Ocean and its ecological implication

The elements Na, Mg, Mn, Ca, Sr and Ba in otoliths of southern bluefin tuna Thunnus maccoyii , collected from their feeding ground in the central Indian Ocean and spawning ground between southern Java and north-western Australia were measured by laser-ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICPMS) and compared among sampling locations and developmental stages. The Na, Mg and Mn to Ca concentration ratios were significantly higher at the larval stage than at the adult stage, and the ratio reached a peak at the first inflection point of the otolith, mean ± s.d. 43·3 ± 4·9 days after hatching and decreased sharply to a low level thereafter. The temporal change of the elements:Ca ratios in the first inflection point corresponded to the life stage transition from larva to juvenile, indicating that the uptake rate of elements from ambient waters was significantly influenced by the ontogenetic change in the fish. The elemental composition at the otolith edge differed significantly in sub-adults on the feeding grounds and adults on the spawning grounds. Thus, the otolith elemental composition can be used as a biological tracer to study the time of the ontogenetic shift and to reconstruct the past migratory environmental history of T. maccoyii . In addition, the elemental composition of the otolith core of the adult was similar between feeding and spawning grounds, indicating that the fish in the Indian Ocean had the same larval origin, which is consistent with the single spawning population hypothesis.     

东亚飞蝗发生的生态因素辨识及监测预测

基于前人研究成果,对中国东亚飞蝗发生的孕灾环境及其主要影响生态因素进行辨识.结果表明:蝗灾的动态变化与气候变化关系密切;飞蝗分布界限受气候带的影响;发生基地具有类似的孕灾环境特征;飞蝗发生发展与水文、气候、土壤和植被等主要生态因素的一定指标阈值有密切关系;传统的飞蝗预测研究多着重分析各生态因子与飞蝗消长的数理统计相关关系,近年多在大尺度气候背景下探讨适宜中长期的预测方法,国内外利用遥感等多种现代化手段对蝗灾进行大范围监测.     

The predictability of a lake phytoplankton community,over time‐scales of hours to years

Forecasting changes to ecological communities is one of the central challenges in ecology. However, nonlinear dependencies, biotic interactions and data limitations have limited our ability to assess how predictable communities are. Here, we used a machine learning approach and environmental monitoring data (biological, physical and chemical) to assess the predictability of phytoplankton cell density in one lake across an unprecedented range of time‐scales. Communities were highly predictable over hours to months: model R² decreased from 0.89 at 4 hours to 0.74 at 1 month, and in a long‐term dataset lacking fine spatial resolution, from 0.46 at 1 month to 0.32 at 10 years. When cyanobacterial and eukaryotic algal cell densities were examined separately, model‐inferred environmental growth dependencies matched laboratory studies, and suggested novel trade‐offs governing their competition. High‐frequency monitoring and machine learning can set prediction targets for process‐based models and help elucidate the mechanisms underlying ecological dynamics.     

Variation in the mating system of oribi and its ecological determinants

Flexibility (varying from monogamy in South Africa to polygyny in East Africa) has been documented in the mating system of the oribi ( Ourebia ourebi ) by several authors. To investigate this, a population was studied in Northern KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa). The adult sex ratio was one male to 1.38 females and the mean group size was 2.1 (n = 13). Although monogamous and polygynous groups occurred in the study population, the polygynous groups were unstable and depended on seasonal food abundance. Comparison of oribi populations across Africa suggests that variation in the mating system is determined mainly by predation risk and altitude (most likely through its effect on graze quality). In areas of high predation risk, oribi can survive only when resource quality permits females to forage in groups, thereby allowing males to be polygynous.     

The ecological consequences of environmentally induced phenotypic changes

Population dynamics and species persistence are often mediated by species traits. Yet many important traits, like body size, can be set by resource availability and predation risk. Environmentally induced changes in resource levels or predation risk may thus have downstream ecological consequences. Here, we assess whether quantity and type of resources affect the phenotype, the population dynamics, and the susceptibility to predation of a mixotrophic protist through experiments and a model. We show that cell shape, but not size, changes with resource levels and type, and is linked to carrying capacity, thus affecting population dynamics. Also, these changes lead to differential susceptibility to predation, with direct consequences for predator‐prey dynamics. We describe important links between environmental changes, traits, population dynamics and ecological interactions, that underscore the need to further understand how trait‐mediated interactions may respond to environmental shifts in resource levels in an increasingly changing world.     

黑龙江省玉米气候生产力演变及其对气候变化的响应

在气候变化背景下,深入揭示玉米气候生产力的变化趋势及其空间差异、明晰玉米气候资源利用规律,可为黑龙江省农业生产宏观决策提供科学依据.基于黑龙江省72个气象站1981—2014年的气象资料和对应的产量资料,采用逐步订正、空间插值、线性趋势分析等方法,研究玉米的光合、光温、气候生产力的时空变化特征、主要影响因素和增产潜力,并对未来不同气候情景下玉米气候生产力进行评估.结果表明: 研究期间,黑龙江省玉米光合、光温和气候生产力平均值分别为26558、19953和18742 kg·hm^-2;在空间分布上均表现为平原高山地低、由西南向东北逐渐减少;光合、光温、气候生产力均表现为显著增加趋势,其增幅分别为378、723和560 kg·hm^-2·(10 a)^-1,且辐射量和气温的增加对黑龙江省玉米生产具有正效应;玉米气候生产力对气候变化响应明显,松嫩平原西部因光能资源的减少导致玉米光合生产力降低,气温升高则在一定程度上弥补了光照带来的负面效应,玉米光温生产力下降趋势有所减缓,北部和东部对气候变暖的响应表现尤为明显,玉米光温生产力表现为明显上升趋势,而松嫩平原西南部及三江平原易旱区则对降水变化反映敏感;玉米实际单产与其气候生产力比率的平均值仅为24.1%,仍有75.9%的潜力有待开发;未来“暖湿型”气候对提高玉米气候生产力有利,而“冷干型”气候则不利于玉米气候生产力的提高.     

The effects of climate change on a mega‐diverse country: predicted shifts in mammalian species richness and turnover in continental Ecuador

Ecuador has some of the greatest biodiversity in the world, sheltering global biodiversity hotspots in lowland and mountain regions. Climate change will likely have a major effect on these regions, but the consequences for faunal diversity and conservation remain unclear. To address this issue, we used an ensemble of eight species distribution models to predict future shifts and identify areas of high changes in species richness and species turnover for 201 mammals. We projected the distributions using two different climate change scenarios at the 2050 horizon and contrasted two extreme dispersal scenarios (no dispersal vs. full dispersal). Our results showed extended distributional shifts all over the country. For most groups, our results predicted that the current diversity of mammals in Ecuador would decrease significantly under all climate change scenarios and dispersal assumptions. The Northern Andes and the Amazonian region would remain diversity hotspots but with a significant decrease in the number of species. All predictions, including the most conservative scenarios in terms of dispersal and climate change, predicted major changes in the distribution of mammalian species diversity in Ecuador. Primates might be the most severely affected because they would have fewer suitable areas, compared with other mammals. Our work emphasizes the need for sound conservation strategies in Ecuador to mitigate the effects of climate change     

陆地生态系统环境控制实验的研究方法及技术体系

生物及生态系统与环境变化间的反馈关系及其过程机制是生态学研究的重要内容.不同类型的生物环境因素控制实验以及大尺度的联网野外控制实验被认为是认识生态系统响应和适应环境变化过程机制、精细定量表达的有效手段及认知过程的加速器.近年来发展了大型野外物理模拟实验装置网络(如ECOTRON)、生态系统分析与实验平台(AnaEE)、...     

The uses,local perceptions and ecological status of 16 woody species of Gadumire Sub-county,Uganda

Populations of naturally growing woody species valued for their contribution to human livelihoods are threatened with extinction. Most at risk are those existing in human inhabited areas outside protected areas that are subjected to high population pressure and to a variety of land use demands. The sustainable utilization of these plants requires as a first step knowledge, including, their ecology and an understanding of the peoples attitudes to conservation. This study was conducted to generate data that would contribute to the management for conservation and sustainable use of woody resources. The study objectives were to document local knowledge covering the uses, status, threats, habitats and management solutions of woody species; determine the abundances, distribution and population structure of 16 woody species, and assess the conservation status of the selected woody species. The study was carried out in Gadumire Sub-county, Uganda using both an ethnobotanical approach and quantitative ecological methods. The species are multipurpose and are exploited to satisfy different subsistence needs. They had population densities ranging between 3.6 and 2630 individuals ha⁻¹, and distributions ranging between 0.3 and 39.5%. The species Acacia hockii, Albizia zygia, Acacia seyal, Markhamia lutea and Albizia coriaria had a good conservation status. The remainder of the species appear threatened either because they had low densities, frequencies or less steep size class distribution (SCD) slopes. Securidaca longipedunculata Fres. was not encountered at all in the study plots. Community perceptions collaborated the measured population dynamics. The major threats believed to be impacting the species by the community are the growing human population, expanding crop agriculture, poor harvesting methods and over-exploitation of the species.