陕西红碱淖白喉林莺繁殖生态

2012~2013年每年的4~7月,在陕西神木县红碱淖(39°04'21″~39°04'43″N,109°53'12″~109°53'40″E)对白喉林莺(Sylvia curruca)的繁殖生态进行了研究。结果表明,白喉林莺4月末迁来繁殖,5月初开始营巢于油蒿(Artemisia ordosia)、臭柏(Sabina vulgaris)和沙棘(Hippophae rhamnoides)灌丛中,巢口向上呈深杯状,巢由柳絮、枯枝和干草编织而成。对33个巢的参数进行了测量,巢外径(9.62±0.227)cm,巢内径(5.21±0.084)cm,巢深(5.05±0.160)cm,巢高(9.03±0.185)cm,巢距地面高度(24.91±1.084)cm,巢约位于植株高度的1/3处(由下而上)。营巢成功率为77.1%(n=35),窝卵数4~5枚(n=27),卵重(7.49±0.021)g,卵长径(17.27±0.057)mm,卵短径(12.86±0.080)mm(n=130)。孵化期为11~13 d,孵化率为93.1%,雏鸟出飞为90.9%。雏鸟的形态参数生长符合Logistic曲线方程拟合。植被高度、植被盖度和单株植物冠径是制约白喉林莺巢址选择的主要因素,同时恶劣天气和人为干扰是影响繁殖成效的主要原因。     

Diversity of plant evolutionary lineages promotes arthropod diversity

Large‐scale habitat destruction and climate change result in the non‐random loss of evolutionary lineages, reducing the amount of evolutionary history represented in ecological communities. Yet, we have limited understanding of the consequences of evolutionary history on the structure of food webs and the services provided by biological communities. Drawing on 11 years of data from a long‐term plant diversity experiment, we show that evolutionary history of plant communities – measured as phylogenetic diversity – strongly predicts diversity and abundance of herbivorous and predatory arthropods. Effects of plant species richness on arthropods become stronger when phylogenetic diversity is high. Plant phylogenetic diversity explains predator and parasitoid richness as strongly as it does herbivore richness. Our findings indicate that accounting for evolutionary relationships is critical to understanding the severity of species loss for food webs and ecosystems, and for developing conservation and restoration policies.     

Agricultural intensification increases deforestation fire activity in Amazonia

Fire-driven deforestation is the major source of carbon emissions from Amazonia. Recent expansion of mechanized agriculture in forested regions of Amazonia has increased the average size of deforested areas, but related changes in fire dynamics remain poorly characterized. We estimated the contribution of fires from the deforestation process to total fire activity based on the local frequency of active fire detections from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensors. High-confidence fire detections at the same ground location on 2 or more days per year are most common in areas of active deforestation, where trunks, branches, and stumps can be piled and burned many times before woody fuels are depleted. Across Amazonia, high-frequency fires typical of deforestation accounted for more than 40% of the MODIS fire detections during 2003–2007. Active deforestation frontiers in Bolivia and the Brazilian states of Mato Grosso, Pará, and Rondônia contributed 84% of these high-frequency fires during this period. Among deforested areas, the frequency and timing of fire activity vary according to postclearing land use. Fire usage for expansion of mechanized crop production in Mato Grosso is more intense and more evenly distributed throughout the dry season than forest clearing for cattle ranching (4.6 vs. 1.7 fire days per deforested area, respectively), even for clearings >200 ha in size. Fires for deforestation may continue for several years, increasing the combustion completeness of cropland deforestation to nearly 100% and pasture deforestation to 50–90% over 1–3-year timescales typical of forest conversion. Our results demonstrate that there is no uniform relation between satellite-based fire detections and carbon emissions. Improved understanding of deforestation carbon losses in Amazonia will require models that capture interannual variation in the deforested area that contributes to fire activity and variable combustion completeness of individual clearings as a function of fire frequency or other evidence of postclearing land use.     

Is xenodontine snake reproduction shaped by ancestry,more than by ecology?

One of the current challenges of evolutionary ecology is to understand the effects of phylogenetic history (PH) and/or ecological factors (EF) on the life‐history traits of the species. Here, the effects of environment and phylogeny are tested for the first time on the reproductive biology of South American xenodontine snakes. We studied 60% of the tribes of this endemic and most representative clade in a temperate region of South America. A comparative method (canonical phylogenetic ordination—CPO) was used to find the relative contributions of EF and PH upon life‐history aspects of snakes, comparing the reproductive mode, mean fecundity, reproductive potential, and frequency of nearly 1,000 specimens. CPO analysis showed that PH or ancestry explained most of the variation in reproduction, whereas EF explained little of this variation. The reproductive traits under study are suggested to have a strong phylogenetic signal in this clade, the ancestry playing a big role in reproduction. The EF also influenced the reproduction of South American xenodontines, although to a lesser extent. Our finding provides new evidence of how the evolutionary history is embodied in the traits of living species.     

Vegetation,fire and soil feedbacks of dynamic boundaries between rainforest,savanna and grassland

At fine spatial scales, savanna‐rainforest‐grassland boundary dynamics are thought to be mediated by the interplay between fire, vegetation and soil feedbacks. These processes were investigated by quantifying tree species composition, the light environment, quantities and flammability of fuels, bark thickness, and soil conditions across stable and dynamic rainforest boundaries that adjoin grassland and eucalypt savanna in the highlands of the Bunya Mountains, southeast Queensland, Australia. The size class distribution of savanna and rainforest stems was indicative of the encroachment of rainforest species into savanna and grassland. Increasing dominance of rainforest trees corresponds to an increase in woody canopy cover, the dominance of litter fuels (woody debris and leaf), and decline in grass occurrence. There is marked difference in litter and grass fuel flammability and this result is largely an influence of strongly dissimilar fuel bulk densities. Relative bark thickness, a measure of stem fire resistance, was found to be generally greater in savanna species when compared to that of rainforest species, with notable exceptions being the conifers Araucaria bidwillii and Araucaria cunninghamii. A transect study of soil nutrients across one dynamic rainforest – grassland boundary indicated the mass of carbon and nitrogen, but not phosphorus, increased across the successional gradient. Soil carbon turnover time is shortest in stable rainforest, intermediate in dynamic rainforest and longest in grassland highlighting nutrient cycling differentiation. We conclude that the general absence of fire in the Bunya Mountains, due to a divergence from traditional Aboriginal burning practices, has allowed for the encroachment of fire‐sensitive rainforest species into the flammable biomes of this landscape. Rainforest invasion is likely to have reduced fire risk via changes to fuel composition and microclimatic conditions, and this feedback will be reinforced by altered nutrient cycling. The mechanics of the feedbacks here identified are discussed in terms of landscape change theory.     

Some Crustacea Copepoda from Venezuela

The study of 38 samples of aquatic fauna from Venezuela increased the number of known species here from 28 to 66. Fifteen new species for science are described. A list of Copepoda known from the other regions of South America is presented. From this list, it can be said that only 50% of the inland water Copepoda living actually in Venezuela are known.     

Ecophysiology and distribution of the endemic leafless spurgeEuphorbia aphylla and the introducedE. tirucalli (Euphorbiaceae,Euphorbia sect.Tirucalli) in the Canary Islands

The leafless spurgeEuphorbia aphylla (Euphorbiaceae), an endemic species restricted to several of the Canary Islands where it inhabits coastal and arid localities, expresses Crassulacean Acid Metabolism (CAM) when it is subjected to summer drought. A flexible CAM is consistent with the general ecology of the species. It is the only member of sect.Tirucalli native to the Canary Islands and is at the north-western edge of the section's biogeographical range. The other members of the section have a paleotropic distribution and are found throughout Africa. Many of them are regarded as obligate CAM plants, includingE. tirucalli which was used as a comparison in ecophysiological experiments examining the response ofE. aphylla to drought and temperature.     

火烧强度对中亚热带人工造林初期土壤呼吸的影响

在热带和亚热带森林中,火烧是一种清理采伐迹地的有效管理措施。尽管许多研究表明,火烧刺激了土壤的碳排放,但对亚热带火强度对土壤呼吸的影响还缺乏了解。在中亚热带米槠常绿阔叶次生林采伐迹地上,设置高火烧强度（HF）、低火烧强度（LF）炼山造林处理,利用LI-8100对造林初期（2012年3月-2012年12月）土壤呼吸进行测定,同时监测观测期土壤温度、含水量以及降雨量等气象因子,分析不同火烧强度对中亚热带造林初期土壤呼吸及排放量的影响,同时探讨影响土壤呼吸变化的主要因素。结果表明：（1）观测期间不同火烧强度对土壤呼吸的影响呈现出明显的时间变化特征：与对照（CT）相比,土壤呼吸在火烧后2个月以内显著增加（P<0.05）,HF和LF分别增加76.3%和55.3%;在火烧后2-5个月内三种处理间没有显著差异（P>0.05）;但之后,火烧处理土壤呼吸显著低于CT （P<0.05）,HF和LF分别降低40%和32.6%;在观测期间火烧处理没有导致土壤CO₂累计排放量的增加。（2）火烧处理下,仅HF处理中土壤呼吸与土壤温度显著相关（P<0.05）,但拟合决定系数较低。（3）单次降水事件会导致火烧处理下土壤呼吸的增加,而对照无明显增加;但连续性降水事件中,降雨早期促进土壤呼吸,而后期呈现出抑制作用。     

On choice of substrate and habitat in brachionid rotifers

Information on the distribution of 28 rotifers of the family Brachionidae from diverse waters in south and central Sweden was analyzed to reveal their relationships to substrate and habitat. Some brachionids are preferably planktic, others periphytic and/or benthic. Some non-planktic habitats are utilized more than others, but there is no evidence of a chemical attraction from any substrate. Instead, some substrates seem to be avoided, possibly depending on a poorer flora of periphytic algae. Besides substrate type, the following factors are found to be important for creating separate ecological niches in the brachionid family: temperature, oxygen content, trophic degree, chemical environment, food choice and sensitivity to predation. It is possible to delineate separate ecological niches for all brachionid rotifers, implying that Hutchinson's ideas about the plankton paradox are contradicted. Some species are specialists, other are generalists, the latter being characterized by a great morphological variation. The species are adapted in different ways to their preferential habitats, as regards foot, egg-carrying, protrusions and other lorical structures etc. Longer spines, for instance, are generally found in more transparent water, being a supposed protection against visual predators.