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29 Aug 2024
Flexible reproductive seasonality in Africa-dwelling papionins is associated with low environmental productivity and high climatic unpredictabilityJules Dezeure, Julie Dagorrette, Lugdiwine Burtschell, Shahrina Chowdhury, Dieter Lukas, Larissa Swedell, Elise Huchard https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.05.01.591991Reproductive flexibility shapes primate survival in a changing climate driven by environmental unpredictabilityRecommended by Cédric SueurAs seasonal cycles become increasingly disrupted, our understanding of the ecology and evolution of reproductive seasonality in tropical vertebrates remains limited (Bronson 2009). To predict how changes in seasonality might impact these animals, it is crucial to identify which elements of their varied reproductive patterns are connected to the equally varied patterns of rainfall seasonality (within-year fluctuations) or the significant climatic unpredictability (year-to-year variations) characteristic of the intertropical region. Dezeure et al. (2024) provide a comprehensive examination of reproductive seasonality in papionin monkeys across diverse African environments. By investigating the ecological and evolutionary determinants of reproductive timing, the authors offer novel insights into how climatic factors, particularly environmental unpredictability, shape reproductive strategies in these primates. This study stands out not only for its methodological rigour but also for its contribution to our understanding of how primates adapt their reproductive behaviours to varying environmental pressures. The findings have broad implications, particularly in the context of ongoing climate change, which is expected to increase environmental unpredictability globally. The innovative approach of this paper lies in its multifaceted examination of reproductive seasonality, which integrates data from 21 wild populations of 11 papionin species. The study employs a robust statistical framework, incorporating Bayesian phylogenetic generalised linear mixed models to control for phylogenetic relatedness among species. This methodological choice is crucial because it allows the authors to disentangle the effects of environmental variables from evolutionary history, providing a more accurate picture of how current ecological factors influence reproductive strategies. The study’s focus on environmental unpredictability as a determinant of reproductive seasonality is particularly noteworthy. While previous research has established the importance of environmental seasonality (Janson and Verdolin 2005), this paper breaks new ground by showing that the magnitude of year-to-year variation in rainfall – rather than just the seasonal distribution of rainfall – plays a critical role in determining the intensity of reproductive seasonality. This finding is supported by the significant negative correlation between reproductive seasonality and environmental unpredictability, which the authors demonstrate across multiple populations and species. The results of this study are important for several reasons. First, they challenge the traditional view that reproductive seasonality is primarily driven by within-year environmental fluctuations. By showing that inter-annual variability in rainfall is a stronger predictor of reproductive timing than intra-annual variability, the authors suggest that primates, like papionins, have evolved flexible reproductive strategies to cope with the unpredictable availability of resources. This flexibility is likely an adaptive response to the highly variable environments that many African primates inhabit, where food availability can vary dramatically not just within a year but from year to year. Second, the study highlights the role of reproductive flexibility in the evolutionary success of papionins. The authors provide compelling evidence that species within the Papio genus, for example, exhibit significant variability in reproductive timing both within and between populations. This variability suggests that these species possess a remarkable ability to adjust their reproductive strategies in response to local environmental conditions, which may have contributed to their widespread distribution across diverse habitats in Africa. This finding aligns with the work of Brockman and Schaik (2005), who argued that reproductive flexibility is a key factor in the success of primates in unpredictable environments. The study also contributes to our understanding of the evolutionary transition from seasonal to non-seasonal breeding in primates. The authors propose that the loss of strict reproductive seasonality in some papionin species may represent an adaptive shift toward greater reproductive flexibility. This shift could be driven by the need to maximise reproductive success in environments where the timing of resource peaks is difficult to predict. The authors’ findings support this hypothesis, as they show that populations living in more unpredictable environments tend to have lower reproductive seasonality. The broader implications of this study (Dezeure et al. 2024) extend beyond the specific case of papionin monkeys. The findings have relevance for the study of reproductive strategies in other long-lived, tropical mammals that face similar environmental challenges. As climate change is expected to increase the frequency and intensity of environmental unpredictability, understanding how species have historically adapted to such conditions can provide valuable insights into their potential resilience or vulnerability to future changes. Many primate species are already facing significant threats from habitat loss, hunting, and climate change. By identifying the environmental factors that influence reproductive success, Dezeure et al. (2024) study can help inform conservation strategies aimed at protecting the most vulnerable populations. For example, conservation efforts could focus on maintaining or restoring habitat features that promote reproductive flexibility, such as access to a variety of food resources that peak at different times of the year (Chapman et al.). References Brockman D, Schaik C (2005) Seasonality in Primates: Studies of Living and Extinct Human and Non-Human Primates. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511542343 Bronson FH (2009) Climate change and seasonal reproduction in mammals. Philos Trans R Soc B Biol Sci 364:3331–3340. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2009.0140 Chapman CA, Gogarten JF, Golooba M, et al Fifty+ years of primate research illustrates complex drivers of abundance and increasing primate numbers. Am J Primatol n/a:e23577. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajp.23577 Jules Dezeure, Julie Dagorrette, Lugdiwine Burtschell, Shahrina Chowdhury, Dieter Lukas, Larissa Swedell, Elise Huchard (2024) Flexible reproductive seasonality in Africa-dwelling papionins is associated with low environmental productivity and high climatic unpredictability. bioRxiv, ver.2 peer-reviewed and recommended by PCI Ecology https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.05.01.591991 Janson C, Verdolin J (2005) Seasonality of primate births in relation to climate. In: Schaik CP van, Brockman DK (eds) Seasonality in Primates: Studies of Living and Extinct Human and Non-Human Primates. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 307–350 https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511542343.012 | Flexible reproductive seasonality in Africa-dwelling papionins is associated with low environmental productivity and high climatic unpredictability | Jules Dezeure, Julie Dagorrette, Lugdiwine Burtschell, Shahrina Chowdhury, Dieter Lukas, Larissa Swedell, Elise Huchard | <p style="text-align: justify;">At a time when seasonal cycles are increasingly disrupted, the ecology and evolution of reproductive seasonality in tropical vertebrates remains poorly understood. In order to predict how changes in seasonality migh... | Behaviour & Ethology, Evolutionary ecology, Zoology | Cédric Sueur | 2024-05-04 18:57:25 | View | ||
06 Jan 2025
![]() Using informative priors to account for identifiability issues in occupancy models with identification errorsCélian Monchy, Marie-Pierre Etienne, Olivier Gimenez https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.05.07.592917Accounting for false positives and negatives in monitoring data from sensor networks and eDNARecommended by Damaris Zurell based on reviews by Saoirse Kelleher, Jonathan Rose and 2 anonymous reviewersBiodiversity monitoring increasingly relies on modern technologies such as sensor networks and environmental DNA. These high-throughput methods allow biodiversity assessments with unprecedented detail and are especially useful to detect rare and secretive species that are otherwise difficult to observe with traditional survey-based methods. False negatives through imperfect detection are a typical problem in survey data and depend on intrinsic characteristics of the species, site characteristics of the survey site as well as survey characteristics (Guillera 2017). While imperfect detection might be reduced in modern sensor data and eDNA data, also these types of data are by no means error-free and may bare other challenges. In particular, the bioinformatics and image classification approaches used for species identification from these data can induce a higher rate of false positives than would be expected in expert-based survey data (Hartig et al. 2024). Occupancy models (or occupancy-detection models) have been widely used to map species distributions by fitting a hierarchical model that estimates the paramaters of both the species-environment relationship and an observation submodel. They account for false negatives by inferring detectability from the detection history of a survey location, for example from replicate visits or multiple observers (Guillera 2017). These basic occupancy-detection models assume no false positive errors in the data. Other authors have proposed extensions for false positives that typically rely on unambiguous (known truth) information for some sites or observations (Chambert et al. 2015). In their preprint, Monchy et al. (2024) propose an extension of classic occupancy models that considers a two-step observation process modelling the detection probability at occupied sites and the associated identification probability, separated into the true positive identification rate and the true negative identification rate. Using a simulation approach, the authors compare the effectiveness of a frequentist (maximum likelihood-based) and Bayesian approach for parameter estimation and identifiability, and additionally test the effectiveness of different priors (from non-informative to highly informative). Results of the maximum-likelihood approach indicated biased parameter estimates and identifiability problems. In the Bayesian approach, inclusion of prior information greatly reduces biases in parameter estimates, especially in detection and positive identification rate. Importantly, informative priors for the identification process are a by-product of the classifiers that are developed for processing the eDNA data or sensor data. For example, species identification from acoustic sensors is based on image classifiers trained on labelled bird song spectrograms (Kahl et al. 2021) and as part of the evaluation of the classifier, the true positive rate (sensitivity) is routinely being estimated and could thus be readily used in occupancy models accounting for false positives. Thus, the approach proposed by Monchy et al. (2024) is not only highly relevant for biodiversity assessments based on novel sensor and eDNA data but also provides very practical solutions that do not require additional unambiguous data but recycle data that are already available in the processing pipeline. Applying their framework to real-world data will help reducing biases in biodiversity assessments and through improved understanding of the detection process it could also help optimising the design of sensor networks. References Thierry Chambert, David A. W. Miller, James D. Nichols (2015), Modeling false positive detections in species occurrence data under different study designs. Ecology, 96: 332-339. https://doi.org/10.1890/14-1507.1 Gurutzeta Guillera-Arroita (2017) Modelling of species distributions, range dynamics and communities under imperfect detection: advances, challenges and opportunities. Ecography, 40: 281-295. https://doi.org/10.1111/ecog.02445 Florian Hartig, Nerea Abrego, Alex Bush, Jonathan M. Chase, Gurutzeta Guillera-Arroita, Mathew A. Leibold, Otso Ovaskainen, Loïc Pellissier, Maximilian Pichler, Giovanni Poggiato, Laura Pollock, Sara Si-Moussi, Wilfried Thuiller, Duarte S. Viana, David I. Warton, Damaris Zurell D, Douglas W. Yu (2024) Novel community data in ecology - properties and prospects. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 39: 280-293. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2023.09.017 Stefan Kahl, Connor M. Wood, Maximilian Eibl, Holger Klinck (2021) BirdNET: A deep learning solution for avian diversity monitoring. Ecological Informatics, 61: 101236. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoinf.2021.101236 Célian Monchy, Marie-Pierre Etienne, Olivier Gimenez (2024) Using informative priors to account for identifiability issues in occupancy models with identification errors. bioRxiv, ver.3 peer-reviewed and recommended by PCI Ecology https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.05.07.592917 | Using informative priors to account for identifiability issues in occupancy models with identification errors | Célian Monchy, Marie-Pierre Etienne, Olivier Gimenez | <p> Non-invasive monitoring techniques like camera traps, autonomous recording units and environmental DNA are increasingly used to collect data for understanding species distribution. These methods have prompted the development of statistica... | ![]() | Statistical ecology | Damaris Zurell | 2024-05-11 12:04:10 | View | |
Yesterday
![]() Evolutionary rescue in a mixed beech-fir forest: insights from a quantitative-genetics approach in a process-based modelLouis Devresse, Freya Way, Tanguy Postic, François de Coligny, Xavier Morin https://hal.science/hal-04575070Integrating evolution and ecology in forests: insights from a multi species demogenetic modelRecommended by Sylvie Oddou-MuratorioThe study of eco-evolutionary dynamics, i.e. of the inter-twinning between ecological and evolutionary processes when they occur at comparable time scales, is of growing interest in the current context of global change (Carroll, Hendry, Reznick, & Fox, 2007; Govaert et al., 2019). Demo-genetic agent-based models (DG-ABMs) have gained popularity to address this issue because of their abilities to consider feedback loops between ecological and evolutionary processes and to track populations of interacting individuals with adaptive traits variations (Berzaghi et al., 2019; Lamarins et al., 2022). This type of individual- and process-based simulation modelling where interindividual variation in fitness and hence opportunities for selection emerge from demography, which in turn affects the genetic composition of the population over successive generations (feedback loop), is only beginning to be applied to forest trees (Oddou-Muratorio, Hendrik, & Lefèvre, 2020). Examples include studies investigating the dispersal capacity of transgenes in forest landscapes using spatially explicit DG-ABMs with different demographic rates for transgenic and wild-type trees (DiFazio, Slavov, Burczyk, Leonardi, & Strauss, 2004; Kuparinen & Schurr, 2007), the effect of assortative mating and selection on genetic and plastic differentiation along environmental gradients (Soularue et al., 2023) or the interactions and feedback between tree thinning, genetic evolution, and forest stand dynamics, eventually in the context of drought-induced disturbances (Fririon, Davi, Oddou‐Muratorio, Ligot, & Lefèvre, 2024; Godineau et al., 2023). In this study, Devresse et al. (2025) extend the current DG-ABM framework for forest trees by incorporating interspecific interactions within diverse, uneven-aged forests. To this end, they adapted an existing multi-species, process-based forest dynamics model—ForCEEPS (Morin et al., 2021)—enabling the evolution of selected tree functional traits across generations. Their work focuses on three quantitative traits: drought tolerance, shade tolerance, and maximal growth rate. Using this enhanced DG-ABM, the authors investigate the conditions under which evolutionary rescue might occur in a mixed beech-fir forest facing climate change. Their results demonstrate that greater trait variability and higher heritability can mitigate short-term (century-scale) forest cover loss under climate warming. The study also shows that assisted gene flow facilitates species adaptation to climate change, while the introduction of pre-adapted species (assisted migration) may enhance post-disturbance recovery but simultaneously constrain the evolutionary rescue of local species. This work represents a major interdisciplinary advancement in forest ecology and nicely illustrates how integrating evolutionary processes into ecology-focused models can offer novel insights into forest dynamics. The implementation of genetic variability and inheritance via the infinitesimal model of quantitative genetics, along with its limitations, is described in detail, and the various research questions explored using the coupled DG‑ABM are presented as proof of concept for this successful integration. Beyond its methodological contribution, the study highlights the importance of more integrated approaches to understanding forest responses to climate change—approaches that account for both within- and between-species diversity and that promote nature-based solutions. It also underscores the urgent need for experimental studies exploring the genetic variation and architecture of adaptive traits in forest species to better anticipate and support their adaptive potential in a rapidly changing environment.
References Berzaghi, F., Wright, I. J., Kramer, K., Oddou-Muratorio, S., Bohn, F. J., Reyer, C. P. O., … Hartig, F. (2019). Towards a new generation of trait-flexible vegetation models. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 35(3), 191–205. doi: 10.1016/j.tree.2019.11.006 Carroll, S. P., Hendry, A. P., Reznick, D. N., & Fox, C. W. (2007). Evolution on ecological time-scales. Functional Ecology, 21(3), 387–393. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2435.2007.01289.x Devresse, L., Way, F., Postic, T., de Coligny, F. & Morin, X. (2025) Evolutionary rescue in a mixed beech-fir forest: insights from a quantitative-genetics approach in a process-based model. HAL, ver.4 peer-reviewed and recommended by PCI Ecology https://hal.science/hal-04575070 DiFazio, S. P., Slavov, G. T., Burczyk, J., Leonardi, S., & Strauss, S. H. (2004). Gene flow from tree plantations and implications for transgenic risk assessment. In Plantation Forest Biotechnology for the 21st Century (pp. 405–422). doi: DOI 10.1016/j.diagmicrobio.2009.10.017 Fririon, V., Davi, H., Oddou‐Muratorio, S., Ligot, G., & Lefèvre, F. (2024). Can Thinning Foster Forest Genetic Adaptation to Drought? A Demo‐Genetic Modelling Approach With Disturbance Regimes. Evolutionary Applications, 17(12). doi: 10.1111/eva.70051 Godineau, C., Fririon, V., Beudez, N., de Coligny, F., Courbet, F., Ligot, G., … Lefèvre, F. (2023). A demo-genetic model shows how silviculture reduces natural density-dependent selection in tree populations. Evolutionary Applications, (March), 1–15. doi: 10.1111/eva.13606 Govaert, L., Fronhofer, E. A., Lion, S., Eizaguirre, C., Bonte, D., Egas, M., … Matthews, B. (2019). Eco-evolutionary feedbacks—Theoretical models and perspectives. Functional Ecology, 33(1), 13–30. doi: 10.1111/1365-2435.13241 Kuparinen, A., & Schurr, F. M. (2007). A flexible modelling framework linking the spatio-temporal dynamics of plant genotypes and populations: Application to gene flow from transgenic forests. Ecological Modelling, 202(3–4), 476–486. doi: 10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2006.11.015 Lamarins, A., Fririon, V., Folio, D., Vernier, C., Daupagne, L., Labonne, J., … Oddou-Muratorio, S. (2022). Importance of interindividual interactions in eco-evolutionary population dynamics: The rise of demo-genetic agent-based models. Evolutionary Applications, 15(12), 1988–2001. doi: 10.1111/eva.13508 Morin, X., Bugmann, H., de Coligny, F., Martin-StPaul, N., Cailleret, M., Limousin, J. M., … Guillemot, J. (2021). Beyond forest succession: A gap model to study ecosystem functioning and tree community composition under climate change. Functional Ecology, 35(4), 955–975. doi: 10.1111/1365-2435.13760 Oddou-Muratorio, S., Hendrik, D., & Lefèvre, F. (2020). Integrating evolutionary, demographic and ecophysiological processes to predict the adaptive dynamics of forest tree populations under global change. Tree Genetics & Genomes, 16(5), 1–22. Soularue, J. P., Firmat, C., Caignard, T., Thöni, A., Arnoux, L., Delzon, S., … Kremer, A. (2023). Antagonistic Effects of Assortative Mating on the Evolution of Phenotypic Plasticity along Environmental Gradients. American Naturalist, 202(1), 18–39. doi: 10.1086/724579
| Evolutionary rescue in a mixed beech-fir forest: insights from a quantitative-genetics approach in a process-based model | Louis Devresse, Freya Way, Tanguy Postic, François de Coligny, Xavier Morin | <p>Questions have been raised about the ability of long-lived organisms, such as trees, to adapt to rapid climate change, and to what extent forest management actions influence the evolutionary responses of tree species. Given the life history of ... | ![]() | Community ecology, Competition, Eco-evolutionary dynamics, Ecosystem functioning, Evolutionary ecology, Theoretical ecology | Sylvie Oddou-Muratorio | 2024-05-17 19:33:41 | View | |
07 Feb 2025
![]() In defense of the original Type I functional response: The frequency and population-dynamic effects of feeding on multiple prey at a timeMark Novak, Kyle Edward Coblentz, John P DeLong https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.05.14.594210Revising behavioural assumptions leads to a new appreciation of an old functional response modelRecommended by Frédéric BarraquandThe functional response, describing the relation between predator intake rate and prey density, is a pivotal concept to understand foraging behaviour and its consequences for community dynamics. Holling (1959a) introduced three types of functional responses according to their shapes, labelled I, II and III. The type II, also known as the disc equation (Holling 1959b), has become popular among empiricists and theoreticians alike, due to its ability to describe predator intake saturation. The type III is often used to represent predator switching to other prey species when main prey density is low. Although theoretical works identify the linear functional response used in Lotka-Volterra models as a type I, Holling (1959a)’s type I model actually envisioned that at some threshold prey density, the linear increase in predator intake with prey density would give way to an upper predator intake limit, so that Holling’s type I has a rectilinear shape, with an angle joining straight lines. Ecology students can actually see this rectilinear shape reproduced in some texbooks, although not in textbook dynamical models, as they usually transition from Lotka-Volterra models to models with type II response. To many, the rectilinear shape of the original type I looks like a historical curiosity: the type II functional response accounts for intake rate saturation with a more convenient smooth function. Novak et al. (2025) turn this preconception on its head by first pedagogically showing that Holling’s original type I model can be obtained as a limit case of a variant of the celebrated type II model. The derivation follows up earlier work by Sjöberg (1980), which might be unfamiliar to readers outside aquatic ecology. The often untold assumption of the type II functional response model is that searching and handling prey are two exclusive behavioural processes, with predators that can only handle one prey item at a time. Allowing for several prey items to be handled at once while searching, until the predator reaches n prey items, the original type I functional response emerges as a limit case of the « multiprey » functional response as n goes to infinity. Interestingly, the multiprey response looks a lot like the original type I for large yet doable n. Novak et al. (2025) then proceed to look for the prevalence of such multiprey functional response shapes in a large database of functional responses (Uiterwaal et al. 2022). Combining linear type I and multiprey models (the asymptote may not always be visible), they find support for this revised type I hypothesis in about one-third of the cases. Although the type II and III models are still well supported by data, the results do suggest that linearity at low prey density may well be more frequent than one thinks. They complement this analysis by showing that larger predators relative to their prey tend to have larger n in the multiprey response. It is consistent with the hypothesis that the bigger you are relative to your prey, the more prey items you can handle at once. Finally, Novak et al. (2025) investigate the consequences of the multiprey model for community dynamics. They find overall a richer dynamical behaviour than the Lotka-Volterra type I and common parameterizations of the type II, suggesting that observed linearity in some range of prey density does not necessarily translate in simpler dynamical behaviour. Novak et al. (2025) provide here a convincing and pedagogical study showing how seemingly benign behavioural assumptions can in fact profoundly alter the perceived relevance of community dynamics models. As they conclude, their analyses have lessons for future empirical functional response work, which should not necessarily dismiss the type I model and consider perhaps variants to the classical type II and III, as well as for future theoretical analyses, which could generalize this model to multiple prey species, or relax other behavioural assumptions. References Holling, C. S. (1959a). The components of predation as revealed by a study of small-mammal predation of the European Pine Sawfly. The Canadian Entomologist, 91(5), 293-320. https://doi.org/10.4039/Ent91293-5 Holling, C. S. (1959b). Some characteristics of simple types of predation and parasitism. The Canadian Entomologist, 91(7), 385-398. https://doi.org/10.4039/Ent91385-7 Novak, M., Coblentz, K. E., & DeLong, J. P (2025). In defense of the original Type I functional response: The frequency and population-dynamic effects of feeding on multiple prey at a time. bioRxiv, ver.4 peer-reviewed and recommended by PCI Ecology https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.05.14.594210 Sjöberg, S. (1980). Zooplankton feeding and queueing theory. Ecological Modelling, 10(3-4), 215-225. https://doi.org/10.1016/0304-3800(80)90060-5 Uiterwaal, S. F., Lagerstrom, I. T., Lyon, S. R., & DeLong, J. P. (2022). FoRAGE database: A compilation of functional responses for consumers and parasitoids. Ecology, 103(7), e3706. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.3706 | In defense of the original Type I functional response: The frequency and population-dynamic effects of feeding on multiple prey at a time | Mark Novak, Kyle Edward Coblentz, John P DeLong | <p>Ecologists differ in the degree to which they consider the linear Type I functional response to be an unrealistic versus sufficient representation of predator feeding rates. Empiricists tend to consider it unsuitably non-mechanistic and theoret... | ![]() | Coexistence, Community ecology, Food webs, Foraging, Population ecology, Theoretical ecology | Frédéric Barraquand | 2024-05-21 03:44:00 | View | |
14 Jan 2025
![]() Delayed dichromatism in waterfowl as a convenient tool for assessing vital ratesAdrien Tableau, Iain Henderson, Sébastien Reeber, Matthieu Guillemain, Jean-François Maillard, Alain Caizergues https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.06.04.597326A cost-effective and non-invasive approach to estimating population dynamics in waterfowlRecommended by Huihuang ChenThis article highlights a novel non-invasive method based on the "apparent sex ratios" that exploits delayed sexual importance in waterfowl populations. Unlike traditional capture-mark-recapture (CMR) technique, which is costly, invasive, and may disturb the target species, this method infers key population dynamics, such as adult survival rate and recruitment rate, by monitoring sex ratios in counts conducted during winter. Juvenile males that resemble adult females before molting provide a unique opportunity to estimate these vital rates. This method is cost-effective, minimizes disturbance to the species, and is particularly suitable for studying protected or invasive species. References Adrien Tableau, Iain Henderson, Sébastien Reeber, Matthieu Guillemain, Jean-François Maillard, Alain Caizergues (2024) Delayed dichromatism in waterfowl as a convenient tool for assessing vital rates. bioRxiv, ver.3 peer-reviewed and recommended by PCI Ecology https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.06.04.597326 | Delayed dichromatism in waterfowl as a convenient tool for assessing vital rates | Adrien Tableau, Iain Henderson, Sébastien Reeber, Matthieu Guillemain, Jean-François Maillard, Alain Caizergues | <p>Monitoring the number of individuals is by far the most popular strategy for studying the environmental factors that determine population dynamics and for measuring the effectiveness of management actions aimed at population recovery, control o... | ![]() | Biological control, Conservation biology, Demography, Life history, Population ecology, Statistical ecology | Huihuang Chen | 2024-06-07 17:39:34 | View | |
24 Feb 2025
![]() Drivers of plant-associated invertebrate community structure in West-European coastal dunesRuben Van De Walle, Maxime Dahirel, Ward Langeraert, Dries Benoit, Pieter Vantieghem, Martijn L. Vandegehuchte, François Massol and Dries Bonte https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.06.24.600350Combining Joint Species Distribution Models and multivariate techniques allows understanding biogeographical and micro-habitat community responsesRecommended by Joaquín HortalCommunity structure is determined by the regional species pool – which for simplicity can be assumed to be filtered through dispersal limitations, abiotic conditions, and species coexistence mechanisms (Cornell & Harrison 2014). This filtering involves macroecological constraints, such as energy and space availability, and assembly rules that determine species composition (Diamond 1975; Weiher & Keddy 1995; Guisan & Rahbek 2011; Hortal et al. 2012). But also by a series of processes that determine species distributions across scales, including biogeographical and stochastic processes (e.g., large-scale dispersal and occupancy dynamics within the landscape) and deterministic niche-based responses to abiotic and biotic conditions, which interact across scales (Soberón 2010; Hortal et al. 2010; Brousseau et al. 2018). These processes collectively determine the persistence of species assemblages within communities. It follows that, to understand the processes determining the structure of these communities it is necessary to combine methods analyse the effects of drivers acting on both species distributions and community responses. Van de Walle et al. (2025) take this integrative approach. The final revised version of their work combines multivariate techniques (in this case a RDA) and Joint SDMs to model the small-scale distribution and structure of the invertebrate communities inhabiting a series of coastal dunes in Southern England, France, Belgium and the Netherlands. The paper builds upon well-designed stratified field surveys, which allow them to identify variations at different scales, from geographical to local. These high-quality field data, together with the combination of different modelling techniques, allows them to identify both a clear biogeographical zonation in the structure of these communities, and the existence of a series of neat responses of species to the spatial structure and vigour of the tussocks created by the marram grass fixing the sand dunes. Their models also include the body size, feeding guild and phylogenetic relationships between co-occurring species, although their effects are smaller compared to those of biogeographical differences –which, arguably, are determined by differences in the species pool of each dune system, and species responses to the microhabitat conditions created by the tussocks. They can however identify a trade-off between generalist and specialist species within each community. Note that here I'm using model in the sense of tools for understanding and explaining complex ecological systems, as advocated by Levins (1966). Which is precisely what Van de Walle et al. (2025) do here. By combining techniques tailored to model species distributions and community-level responses, they (we) gain a much improved understanding of how both species pools and the spatial structure of habitats determine the composition of ecological communities. Importantly, Van de Walle et al. (2025) use this knowledge to obtain key insights about how to manage and restore these endangered habitats, thereby proving the value of this kind of integrative approaches. References Brousseau, P.-M., Gravel, D., & Handa, I. T. (2018). On the development of a predictive functional trait approach for studying terrestrial arthropods. Journal of Animal Ecology, 87(5), 1209–1220. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.12834 Cornell, H. V., & Harrison, S. P. (2014). What are species pools and when are they important? Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics, 45(1), 45–67. http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev-ecolsys-120213-091759 Diamond, J. M. (1975). Assembly of species communities. In M. L. Cody & J. M. Diamond (Eds.), Ecology and Evolution of Communities (pp. 342–444). Harvard University Press. Guisan, A., & Rahbek, C. (2011). SESAM – a new framework integrating macroecological and species distribution models for predicting spatio-temporal patterns of species assemblages. Journal of Biogeography, 38(8), 1433–1444. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2699.2011.02550.x Hortal, J., Roura-Pascual, N., Sanders, N. J., & Rahbek, C. (2010). Understanding (insect) species distributions across spatial scales. Ecography, 33(1). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0587.2009.06428.x Hortal, J., de Marco, P., Santos, A. M. C., & Diniz-Filho, J. A. F. (2012). Integrating biogeographical processes and local community assembly. Journal of Biogeography, 39(4). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2699.2012.02684.x Levins, R. (1966). The strategy of model building in population biology. American Scientist, 54, 421–431. Soberón, J. (2010). Niche and area of distribution modeling: A population ecology perspective. Ecography, 33(1), 159–167. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0587.2009.06074.x van de Walle, R., Dahirel, M., Langeraert, W., Benoit, D., Vantieghem, P., Vandegehuchte, M. L., Massol, F., & Bonte, D. (2025). Drivers of plant-associated invertebrate community structure in West-European coastal dunes. BioRxiv, 2024.06.24.600350, ver.3 peer-reviewed and recommended by PCI Ecology https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.06.24.600350 Weiher, E., & Keddy, P. A. (1995). Assembly rules, null models, and trait dispersion: New questions from old patterns. Oikos, 74(1), 159–164. https://doi.org/10.2307/3545686
| Drivers of plant-associated invertebrate community structure in West-European coastal dunes | Ruben Van De Walle, Maxime Dahirel, Ward Langeraert, Dries Benoit, Pieter Vantieghem, Martijn L. Vandegehuchte, François Massol and Dries Bonte | <p>The organisation of species assemblages is affected by environmental factors acting at different spatial scales. To understand the drivers behind the community structure of invertebrates associated with marram grass -the dominant dune-building ... | ![]() | Biodiversity, Biogeography, Spatial ecology, Metacommunities & Metapopulations, Species distributions | Joaquín Hortal | 2024-06-28 10:19:36 | View | |
09 Apr 2025
![]() Bird population trend analyses for a monitoring scheme with a highly structured sampling designMirjam R. Rieger, Christoph Grueneberg, Michael Oberhaus, Sven Trautmann, Madalin Parepa, Nils Anthes https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.06.30.601382Discarding data or dealing with bias?Recommended by Matthieu PaquetObtaining accurate estimates of population trends is crucial to assess populations’ status and make more informed decisions, notably for conservation measures. However, analyzing data we have at hand, including data from systematic monitoring programs, typically induces some bias one way or another (Buckland and Johnston 2017). For example, sampling can be biased towards some types of environments (sometimes historically, before being realized and corrected), and observer identity and experience can vary through time (e.g., an increase in observed experience, if ignored, would cause bias towards positive trends). One way to deal with such biases can be to discard some data, for example, from some overrepresented habitats or from first years surveys to minimize observer bias. However, this may lead to sample sizes becoming too small to detect any trends of interest, especially for surveys with already small temporal resolution (e.g., if time series are too short or with too many missing years). In this study, Rieger et al. (2025) analyzed data from bird surveys from the Ecological Area Sampling in the German federal state North Rhine-Westphalia in order to assess population trends. This survey uses a ‘rolling’ design, meaning that each site is only visited one year within a multi-year rotation (here six), but this allows to cover a high number of sites. To deal with spatial bias, they analyzed trends per natural region. To control for observer effects, they used a correction factor as an explanatory variable (based on the ratio between the total abundance of all species per site per survey year and the mean total abundance on the same site across all survey years). To deal with the fact that count data for some species but not others may be zero inflated and/or over dispersed, they performed species-specific optimization regarding data distribution (and also regarding inclusion of continuous and categorical covariates). Finally, they deal with the many missing values per year per site (due to the rolling design) by using generalized additive mixed models with site identity as a random intercept. Importantly, the authors assess how accounting for these biases affects estimates (quite strongly so for some species) and study the consistency of the results with trends estimated from the German Common Bird Monitoring scheme using the software TRIM (Pannekoek and van Strien 2001). I appreciated their cautious interpretation of their results and of the generalizability of their approach to other datasets. I also recommend that the readers read the review history of the preprint (and I take the opportunity to thank the reviewers and the authors again for the very constructive exchange). References Buckland, S., and A. Johnston. 2017. Monitoring the biodiversity of regions: Key principles and possible pitfalls. Biological Conservation 214: 23-34. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2017.07.034 Pannekoek, J., van Strienand, A. J. 2001. TRIM 3 manual (Trends & Indices for Monitoring Data). CBS Statistics Netherlands, Voorburg, The Netherlands. Rieger, M. R., Grüneberg, C., Oberhaus, M., Trautmann, S., Parepa, M., Anthes, N., 2025. Bird population trend analyses for a monitoring scheme with a highly structured sampling design. BioRxiv, ver.3 peer-reviewed and recommended by PCI Ecology https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.06.30.601382 | Bird population trend analyses for a monitoring scheme with a highly structured sampling design | Mirjam R. Rieger, Christoph Grueneberg, Michael Oberhaus, Sven Trautmann, Madalin Parepa, Nils Anthes | <p>Population trends derived from systematic monitoring programmes are essential to identify species of conservation concern and to evaluate conservation measures. However, monitoring data pose several challenges for statistical analysis, includin... | ![]() | Biodiversity, Statistical ecology | Matthieu Paquet | 2024-07-04 15:08:03 | View | |
14 Jan 2025
![]() Cool topoclimates promote cold-adapted plant diversity in temperate mountain forests.Jeremy Borderieux, Emiel De Lombaerde, Karen De Pauw, Pieter Sanczuk, Pieter Vangansbeke, Thomas Vanneste, Pieter De Frenne, Jean-Claude Gégout, Josep M. Serra- Diaz https://doi.org/10.32942/X2XC8TForest microclimate in mountains and its impact on plant community: Still a question of shade, but this time it’s not coming from the canopyRecommended by Romain Bertrand based on reviews by Martin Macek and 2 anonymous reviewersRecently, microclimate has gained significant momentum [1], as evidenced by the increasing number of studies and the emergence of a dedicated scientific community coordinating research efforts [2]. Several factors underpin this trend, including advances in technology that have made microclimate monitoring [3] and ecological contextualization [4] more accessible, as well as improvements in computational methods that facilitate modeling at unprecedented scales [5]. But the growing emphasis on microclimate is primarily driven by their ecological relevance, as microclimate represent the actual climate conditions experienced by organisms [1]. This makes them more suitable than macroclimate data for understanding and predicting biodiversity responses to climate change [6]. While macroclimate data remain a common tool in ecology, they often represent generalized climatic conditions over large spatial scales. These data are typically derived from statistical models calibrated on observations collected at meteorological stations [7], which are usually located at 2 meters above the ground in open areas and at elevations compatible with human activities. Such characteristics limit the applicability of macroclimate data for understanding biodiversity responses, particularly at finer spatial scales. This is especially true in forest ecosystems, where microclimate results from the filtering of macroclimate conditions by forest habitats [8]. A simple walk in a forest during summer highlights this filtering, with the cooling effect of canopy shading and tree packing being clearly perceptible. If humans can sense these variations, they likely influence forest biodiversity. In fact, microclimates are crucial for defining the thermal niches of understory plant species [9] and understanding plant community reshuffling in response to climate warming [10]. In mountainous areas, topography adds further complexity to microclimates. The drop in temperature with elevation, known as the elevation-temperature lapse rate, is familiar, but topography also drives fine-scale variations [11]. Solar radiation hitting forest varies with aspect and hillshade, creating localized temperature differences. For example, equator-facing slopes receive more sunlight, while west-facing slopes are sunlit during the warmest part of the day. Consequently, in the northern hemisphere, southwest-facing slopes generally exhibit warmer temperatures, longer growing seasons, and shorter snow cover durations [12]. Thus, both topography and forest canopy shape the understory microclimate experienced by organisms in temperate mountainous forests. Is biodiversity more influenced by topography- or canopy-induced temperature buffering? While this question may not seem particularly interesting at first glance, understanding the underlying mechanisms of microclimate is crucial for guiding biodiversity conservation decisions in the face of climate change [13]. Poleward-facing slopes, valley bottoms, and dense canopies buffer warm episodes by creating cooler, more humid habitats that can serve as refugia for biodiversity [12]. Both buffering processes are valuable for conservation, but topography-induced buffering is generally more stable over the long term [14]. In contrast, canopy buffering is more vulnerable to human management, disturbances, and the ongoing acceleration of climate change, which is expected to drive tree mortality and lead to canopy opening [15]. Identifying the dominant buffering process in a given area is essential for mapping biodiversity refugia and fully integrating microclimate into conservation strategies. This approach can improve decision-making and actions aimed at promoting biodiversity sustainability in a warming world. The work of Borderieux and colleagues [16] offers new insights into this question through an innovative approach. They focus on temperate forests in a watershed in the Vosges Mountains, where they monitor understory temperature and inventory forest plant communities in separate samplings. Aiming to disentangle the effects of topography and forest canopy on understory temperature and its impact on plant communities, the authors deployed a network of temperature sensors using stratified sampling, balanced according to topography (elevation, aspect, and slope) and canopy cover. They then correlated mean annual temperatures (daily mean and maximum) with topographic factors and canopy cover, considering their potential interactions in a linear model. The contribution of each microclimate component was computed, and their effects on temperatures were mapped. These predictions were then confronted to floristic inventories to test whether topography- and canopy-induced temperature variations explained plant diversity and assemblages. First, the authors demonstrated that local topographic variations, which determine the amount of solar radiation reaching forests in mountainous areas, outweigh the contribution of canopy shading to understory temperatures. This result is surprising, as many previous studies have emphasized the importance of canopy buffering in shaping forest microclimate conditions [8]. However, these studies mostly focused on lowland areas or large scales, where terrain roughness has less influence. It is also unexpected because the authors observed that canopy cover varies at a smaller scale than aspect or topographic position in their study area, creating habitat heterogeneity that could reasonably drive local temperature variations. Nevertheless, the authors found that aspect, heat load, and topographic position induced more variation in microclimate than canopy filtering, significantly allowing deviations from the expected elevation-temperature lapse rate. Second, the topographic effect on understory temperature propagated to biodiversity. The authors found that topography-induced temperature offset explained plant diversity and composition, while canopy-induced temperature offset did not. Specifically, cold topoclimates harbored 30% more species than the average species richness across the inventoried plots. This increase in species richness was primarily due to an increase in cold-adapted species, highlighting the role of cold topoclimates as refugia. It is difficult to assess the extent to which these results are influenced by the specific forest context of the study area chosen by the authors, as there is no clear consensus in previous research regarding the role of topoclimate. For example, Macek et al. (2019) [17] highlighted the predominance of topography in controlling temperature and, consequently, forest community structure in the Czech Republic, while Vandewiele et al. (2023) [18] demonstrated the dominance of canopy control in the German Alps. The forest conditions investigated by Borderieux et al. (2025) were narrow, as they focused mainly on closed forests (more than 80% of the study area and sampling sites exhibiting canopy cover greater than 79%). Given that the canopy buffering effect on temperature increases with canopy cover until plateauing at around 80% [19], this may explain why the authors did not find a strong contribution from the canopy. Nevertheless, the methodology and case presented in their study are both innovative and applicable to other mountainous regions. The work of Borderieux et al. (2025) deserves attention for highlighting a frequently overlooked component of forest microclimate, as canopy filtering is typically regarded as the dominant driver. Topoclimate is a critical factor to consider when protecting cold-adapted forest species in the context of global warming, especially since topographic features are less subject to change than canopy cover. Future research should aim to test this hypothesis across a broader range of forest and topography conditions to identify general patterns, as well as assess the long-term effectiveness of these topographic refugia for biodiversity. It remains unclear whether the cooling effect provided by topoclimate will be sufficient to stabilize climate conditions despite the expected acceleration of climate warming in the coming decades, and whether it will be able to preserve cold-adapted species, which are among the most unique but threatened components of mountain biodiversity. References [1] Kemppinen, J. et al. Microclimate, an important part of ecology and biogeography. Global Ecology and Biogeography 33, e13834 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.13834 [2] Lembrechts, J. J. et al. SoilTemp: A global database of near-surface temperature. Global Change Biology 26, 6616–6629 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.15123 [3] Wild, J. et al. Climate at ecologically relevant scales: A new temperature and soil moisture logger for long-term microclimate measurement. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 268, 40–47 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2018.12.018 [4] Zellweger, F., Frenne, P. D., Lenoir, J., Rocchini, D. & Coomes, D. Advances in Microclimate Ecology Arising from Remote Sensing. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 34, 327–341 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2018.12.012 [5] Haesen, S. et al. ForestTemp – Sub-canopy microclimate temperatures of European forests. Global Change Biology 27, 6307–6319 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.15892 [6] Lembrechts, J. J. et al. Comparing temperature data sources for use in species distribution models: From in-situ logging to remote sensing. Global Ecology and Biogeography 28, 1578–1596 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.12974 [7] Fick, S. E. & Hijmans, R. J. WorldClim 2: new 1-km spatial resolution climate surfaces for global land areas. International Journal of Climatology 37, 4302–4315 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.5086 [8] De Frenne, P. et al. Global buffering of temperatures under forest canopies. Nat Ecol Evol 3, 744–749 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-019-0842-1 [9] Haesen, S. et al. Microclimate reveals the true thermal niche of forest plant species. Ecology Letters 26, 2043–2055 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.14312 [10] Zellweger, F. et al. Forest microclimate dynamics drive plant responses to warming. Science 368, 772–775 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aba6880 [11] Rolland, C. Spatial and Seasonal Variations of Air Temperature Lapse Rates in Alpine Regions. Journal of climate, 16(7), 1032-1046 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0442(2003)016%3C1032:SASVOA%3E2.0.CO;2 [12] Rita, A. et al. Topography modulates near-ground microclimate in the Mediterranean Fagus sylvatica treeline. Sci Rep 11, 1–14 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-87661-6 [13] Bertrand, R., Aubret, F., Grenouillet, G., Ribéron, A. & Blanchet, S. Comment on “Forest microclimate dynamics drive plant responses to warming”. Science 370, eabd3850 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abd3850 [14] Hylander, K., Greiser, C., Christiansen, D. M. & Koelemeijer, I. A. Climate adaptation of biodiversity conservation in managed forest landscapes. Conservation Biology 36, e13847 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.13847 [15] McDowell, N. G. & Allen, C. D. Darcy’s law predicts widespread forest mortality under climate warming. Nature Clim Change 5, 669–672 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2641 [16] Borderieux, J. et al. Cool topoclimates promote cold-adapted plant diversity in temperate mountain forests. Ecoevorxiv, ver. 3( 2024). Peer-reviewed and recommended by PCI Ecology https://doi.org/10.32942/X2XC8T [17] Macek, M., Kopecký, M. & Wild, J. Maximum air temperature controlled by landscape topography affects plant species composition in temperate forests. Landscape Ecol 34, 2541–2556 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-019-00903-x [18] Vandewiele, M. et al. Mapping spatial microclimate patterns in mountain forests from LiDAR. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 341, 109662 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2023.109662 [19] Zellweger, F. et al. Seasonal drivers of understorey temperature buffering in temperate deciduous forests across Europe. Global Ecology and Biogeography 28, 1774–1786 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.12991
| Cool topoclimates promote cold-adapted plant diversity in temperate mountain forests. | Jeremy Borderieux, Emiel De Lombaerde, Karen De Pauw, Pieter Sanczuk, Pieter Vangansbeke, Thomas Vanneste, Pieter De Frenne, Jean-Claude Gégout, Josep M. Serra- Diaz | <p>Climate strongly influences the composition and diversity of forest plant communities. Recent studies have highlighted the role of tree canopies in shaping understory thermal conditions at small spatial scales (i.e. microclimate), especially in... | ![]() | Biodiversity, Climate change, Community ecology, Spatial ecology, Metacommunities & Metapopulations, Terrestrial ecology | Romain Bertrand | 2024-07-05 00:17:37 | View | |
06 Apr 2025
![]() Scales of marine endemism in oceanic islands and the Provincial-Island endemismHudson T. Pinheiro, Luiz A. Rocha, Juan P. Quimbayo https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.07.12.603346Provincial-island endemism adds to our understanding of the geographical distribution of speciesRecommended by Werner UlrichMany ecological, evolutionary, biogeographic studies on animals and plants have focused on endemism (e.g. (Crisp et al., 2001; Kier et al., 2009; Matthews et al., 2024, 2022; Qian et al., 2024). Ecological hotspots were first defined on endemic species (Myers et al., 2000). Nevertheless, despite the fact that the concept of endemism is crucial in biogeography and also in palaeontology there is still no stringent definition of endemism and very different concepts of endemism are used. It is another example of a concept that tries to define the undefinable (Darwin, 1859). ‘Definitions’ are either based on geographic and genetic isolation (Myers et al., 2000; Qian et al., 2024) or founded in geometric approaches that define restricted range sizes (Kinzig and Harte, 2000). Often, an ad hoc concept is used to cover taxon specificity and the habitats studied. Pinheiro et al. (2025) focus on species restricted to oceanic islands and rightly remark that these work as cradles for species origination and also as museums that contribute to lineages persistence. However, they also notice that in the case of islands any definition of endemism from species occurring only on single islands would be too narrow. Rather, endemism shows a spatial scaling with an increasing number of species occurring of multiple islands. In this respect they introduce the concept of provincial-island endemism and study the importance of single and multiple-island endemic species to island biodiversity Pinheiro et al. (2025) use data from 7,289 fish species associated with reef environments of 87 oceanic islands and 189 coastal reefs around the world. A strong negative correlation appeared between the number of endemic species and the number of islands they occur. This relationship directly translates into our assessment of whether an archipelago is rich or poor in endemics. Pinheiro et al. (2025) explicitly demonstrate this with the examples of the Hawaiian Islands and Rapa Nui. They conclude that biogeographers need to clarify whether they deal with single-island or multiple island endemics. We can adapt this distinction to terrestrial and freshwater habitats and differentiate between single and multiple restricted areas and water bodies, for instance rivers, lakes, alpine valleys, mountains, or deserts. Of course, the idea that endemism patterns are scale dependent is not new. Daru et al. (2020), Graham et al. (2018), or Keil et al. (2015) already noticed the importance of spatial scale and Townsend Peterson and Watson (1998) introduced the partly equivalent concepts of weighted spatial and phylogenetic endemism that also contain the scaling component. Pinheiro et al. (2025) add to this by providing a sound analysis of the strength of the scaling component. They argue that fish endangerment categories and fishery limits might change when considering multiple island endemics. References Crisp, M.D., Laffan, S., Linder, H.P., Monro, A., 2001. Endemism in the Australian flora. J. Biogeogr. 28, 183–198. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2699.2001.00524.x Daru, B.H., Farooq, H., Antonelli, A., Faurby, S., 2020. Endemism patterns are scale dependent. Nat. Commun. 11, 2115. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-15921-6 Darwin, C., 1859. On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. John Murray, London. Graham, C.H., Storch, D., Machac, A., 2018. Phylogenetic scale in ecology and evolution. Glob. Ecol. Biogeogr. 27, 175–187. https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.12686 Keil, P., Storch, D., Jetz, W., 2015. On the decline of biodiversity due to area loss. Nat. Commun. 6, 8837. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms9837 Kier, G., Kreft, H., Lee, T.M., Jetz, W., Ibisch, P.L., Nowicki, C., Mutke, J., Barthlott, W., 2009. A global assessment of endemism and species richness across island and mainland regions. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 106, 9322–9327. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0810306106 Kinzig, A.P., Harte, J., 2000. Implications of Endemics–Area Relationships for Estimates of Species Extinctions. Ecology 81, 3305–3311. https://doi.org/10.1890/0012-9658(2000)081[3305:IOEARF]2.0.CO;2 Matthews, T.J., Triantis, K.A., Wayman, J.P., Martin, T.E., Hume, J.P., Cardoso, P., Faurby, S., Mendenhall, C.D., Dufour, P., Rigal, F., Cooke, R., Whittaker, R.J., Pigot, A.L., Thébaud, C., Jørgensen, M.W., Benavides, E., Soares, F.C., Ulrich, W., Kubota, Y., Sadler, J.P., Tobias, J.A., Sayol, F., 2024. The global loss of avian functional and phylogenetic diversity from anthropogenic extinctions. Science 386, 55–60. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adk7898 Matthews, T.J., Wayman, J.P., Cardoso, P., Sayol, F., Hume, J.P., Ulrich, W., Tobias, J.A., Soares, F.C., Thébaud, C., Martin, T.E., Triantis, K.A., 2022. Threatened and extinct island endemic birds of the world: Distribution, threats and functional diversity. J. Biogeogr. 49, 1920–1940. https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.14474 Myers, N., Mittermeier, R.A., Mittermeier, C.G., da Fonseca, G.A.B., Kent, J., 2000. Biodiversity hotspots for conservation priorities. Nature 403, 853–858. https://doi.org/10.1038/35002501 Pinheiro, H.T., Rocha, L.A., Quimbayo, J.P 2025. Scales of marine endemism in oceanic islands and the Provincial-Island endemism. bioRxiv, ver.2 peer-reviewed and recommended by PCI Ecology https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.07.12.603346 Qian, H., Mishler, B.D., Zhang, J., Qian, S., 2024. Global patterns and ecological drivers of taxonomic and phylogenetic endemism in angiosperm genera. Plant Divers. 46, 149–157. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pld.2023.11.004 Townsend Peterson, A., Watson, D.M., 1998. Problems with areal definitions of endemism: the effects of spatial scaling. Divers. Distrib. 4, 189–194. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1472-4642.1998.00021.x | Scales of marine endemism in oceanic islands and the Provincial-Island endemism | Hudson T. Pinheiro, Luiz A. Rocha, Juan P. Quimbayo | <p>Oceanic islands are remote environments commonly harboring endemic species, which often are unique lineages originated and maintained by a variety of ecological, biogeographical and evolutionary processes. Endemic species are found mostly in a ... | ![]() | Biodiversity, Biogeography, Macroecology, Species distributions | Werner Ulrich | 2024-07-13 02:55:05 | View | |
24 Jan 2025
![]() Crop productivity of Central European Permaculture is within the range of organic and conventional agriculture.Julius Reiff, Hermann F. Jungkunst, Nicole Antes, Martin H. Entling https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.09.09.611985Permaculture, a promising alternative to conventional agricultureRecommended by Aleksandra Walczyńska based on reviews by Julia Astegiano, Paulina Kramarz, Leda Lorenzo Montero and 1 anonymous reviewerAs mankind develops increasingly efficient and productive methods of agriculture and food production, we have reached a point where intensive agriculture threatens several aspects of life on Earth, negatively affecting biodiversity, carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus cycles and water reservoirs, while producing considerable amounts of greenhouse gases (Krebs and Bach, 2018). There was a need to develop farming methods that were friendly to both nature and people, producing good quality, healthy food without destroying the environment. The idea of permaculture, a concept of sustainable agriculture based on methods learned directly from nature, originated in the 1960s, invented and developed by Bruce Charles Mollison and David Holmgren (Mollison and Holmgren 1979, Mollison et al. 1991, Holmgren 2002). Although the idea of permaculture has attracted scientific interest, the representation in published studies is unbalanced in favour of positive ecological and sociological effects, with much less presence of rigorous experimental testing (Ferguson and Lovell 2014, Reiff et al. 2024a). Reiff et al. (2024b) provided the first large-scale empirical evidence of permaculture production outcomes for Central Europe. Based on results from 11 commercial permaculture sites, situated mostly in Germany but also in Switzerland and Luxembourg, the authors found that food production from permaculture sites was on average comparable to that from conventional and organic agriculture. The authors were very thorough in pointing out the issues that could potentially affect their results and which need further testing. Among these, the authors highlight the considerable variability between the 11 sites studied, which may suggest that different permacultures should differ in details according to their specificity - an interesting issue that definitely requires further study. The other factor that the authors point out that could have influenced the results and led to an underestimation of the real potential is the age of the permaculture sites. The sites from the study were relatively young, and their potential can be expected to increase with time. It is important to note that the results are mostly applicable to vegetables, as vegetable production accounted for 94% of production in the permaculture sites (followed by tree crops, 6%, and soft fruit production, 0.5%). There is therefore a need to include other types of crops produced in further studies of this type. To date, the results informing permaculture food production are urgently needed and should cover the potentially wide range of geographical regions and crops produced. The results of Reiff et al. (2025) show that rigorous testing of this issue is demanding, but the authors provide a very sound "road map" of further steps.
Literature: Ferguson R. S. and Lovell S. T. 2014. Permaculture for agroecology: design, movement, practice, and worldview. A review. Agronomy for Sustainable Development 34, 251-274. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-013-0181-6 Holmgren D. 2002. Permaculture: Principles & Pathways Beyond Sustainability. Holmgren Design Services, pp. 320. Krebs J. and Bach S. 2018. Permaculture – scientific evidence of principles for the agroecological design of farming systems. Sustainability 10, 3218, https://doi.org/10.3390/su10093218 Mollison B. C. and Holmgren D. 1979. Permaculture One: A Perennial Agricultural System for Human Settlements. Tagari Publications, pp. 136. Mollison B. C., Slay, R. M. and Jeeves A. 1991. Introduction to permaculture. Tagari Publications, pp. 198. Reiff J., Jungkunst H. F., Mauser K. M., Kampel S., Regending S., Rösch V., Zaller J. G. and Entling M. H. 2024a. Permaculture enhances carbon stocks, soil quality and biodiversity in Central Europe. Communications Earth & Environment 5, 305. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-024-01405-8 Reiff J., Jungkunst H. F., Antes N. and Entling M. H. 2024b. Crop productivity of Central European Permaculture is within the range of organic and conventional agriculture. bioRxiv, ver.2 peer-reviewed and recommended by PCI Ecology. https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.09.09.611985
| Crop productivity of Central European Permaculture is within the range of organic and conventional agriculture. | Julius Reiff, Hermann F. Jungkunst, Nicole Antes, Martin H. Entling | <p>Permaculture is a promising framework to design and manage sustainable food production systems based on mimicking ecosystems. However, there is still a lack of scientific evidence especially on the crop productivity of permaculture systems. In ... | ![]() | Agroecology | Aleksandra Walczyńska | 2024-09-09 13:37:04 | View |
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