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24 Nov 2023
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Consistent individual positions within roosts in Spix's disc-winged bats

Consistent individual differences in habitat use in a tropical leaf roosting bat

Recommended by ORCID_LOGO based on reviews by Annemarie van der Marel and 2 anonymous reviewers

Consistent individual differences in habitat use are found across species and can play a role in who an individual mates with, their risk of predation, and their ability to compete with others (Stuber et al. 2022). However, the data informing such hypotheses come primarily from temperate regions (Stroud & Thompson 2019, Titley et al. 2017). This calls into question the generalizability of the conclusions from this research until further investigations can be conducted in tropical regions.

Giacomini and colleagues (2023) tackled this task in an investigation of consistent individual differences in habitat use in the Central American tropics. They explored whether Spix’s disc-winged bats form positional hierarchies in roosts, which is an excellent start to learning more about the social behavior of this species - a species that is difficult to directly observe. They found that individual bats use their roosting habitat in predictable ways by positioning themselves consistently either in the bottom, middle, or top of the roost leaf. Individuals chose the same positions across time and across different roost sites. They also found that age and sex play a role in which sections individuals are positioned in.

Their research shows that consistent individual differences in habitat use are present in a tropical system, and sets the stage for further investigations into social behavior in this species, particularly whether there is a dominance hierarchy among individuals and whether some positions in the roost are more protective and sought after than others.

References

Giacomini G, Chaves-Ramirez S, Hernandez-Pinson A, Barrantes JP, Chaverri G. (2023). Consistent individual positions within roosts in Spix's disc-winged bats. bioRxiv, https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.11.04.515223 

Stroud, J. T., & Thompson, M. E. (2019). Looking to the past to understand the future of tropical conservation: The importance of collecting basic data. Biotropica, 51(3), 293-299. https://doi.org/10.1111/btp.12665

Stuber, E. F., Carlson, B. S., & Jesmer, B. R. (2022). Spatial personalities: a meta-analysis of consistent individual differences in spatial behavior. Behavioral Ecology, 33(3), 477-486. https://doi.org/10.1093/beheco/arab147 

Titley, M. A., Snaddon, J. L., & Turner, E. C. (2017). Scientific research on animal biodiversity is systematically biased towards vertebrates and temperate regions. PloS one, 12(12), e0189577. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0189577

Consistent individual positions within roosts in Spix's disc-winged batsGiada Giacomini, Silvia Chaves-Ramirez, Andres Hernandez-Pinson, Jose Pablo Barrantes, Gloriana Chaverri<p style="text-align: justify;">Individuals within both moving and stationary groups arrange themselves in a predictable manner; for example, some individuals are consistently found at the front of the group or in the periphery and others in the c...Behaviour & Ethology, Social structure, ZoologyCorina Logan2022-11-05 17:39:35 View
29 Mar 2021
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Temperature predicts the maximum tree-species richness and water and frost shape the residual variation

New light on the baseline importance of temperature for the origin of geographic species richness gradients

Recommended by ORCID_LOGO based on reviews by Rafael Molina-Venegas and 2 anonymous reviewers

Whether environmental conditions –in particular energy and water availability– are sufficient to account for species richness gradients (e.g. Currie 1991), or the effects of other biotic and historical or regional factors need to be considered as well (e.g. Ricklefs 1987), was the subject of debate during the 1990s and 2000s (e.g. Francis & Currie 2003; Hawkins et al. 2003, 2006; Currie et al. 2004; Ricklefs 2004). The metabolic theory of ecology (Brown et al. 2004) provided a solid and well-rooted theoretical support for the preponderance of energy as the main driver for richness variations. As any good piece of theory, it provided testable predictions about the sign and shape (i.e. slope) of the relationship between temperature –a key aspect of ambient energy– and species richness. However, these predictions were not supported by empirical evaluations (e.g. Kreft & Jetz 2007; Algar et al. 2007; Hawkins et al. 2007a), as the effects of a myriad of other environmental gradients, regional factors and evolutionary processes result in a wide variety of richness–temperature responses across different groups and regions (Hawkins et al. 2007b; Hortal et al. 2008). So, in a textbook example of how good theoretical work helps advancing science even if proves to be (partially) wrong, the evaluation of this aspect of the metabolic theory of ecology led to current understanding that, while species richness does respond to current climatic conditions, many other ecological, evolutionary and historical factors do modify such response across scales (see, e.g., Ricklefs 2008; Hawkins 2008; D’Amen et al. 2017). And the kinetic model linking mean annual temperature and species richness (Allen et al. 2002; Brown et al. 2004) was put aside as being, perhaps, another piece of the puzzle of the origin of current diversity gradients.

Segovia (2021) puts together an elegant way of reinvigorating this part of the metabolic theory of ecology. He uses quantile regressions to model just the upper parts of the relationship between species richness and mean annual temperature, rather than modelling its central tendency through the classical linear regression family of methods –as was done in the past. This assumes that the baseline effect of ambient energy does produce the negative linear relationship between richness and temperature predicted by the kinetic model (Allen et al. 2002), but also that this effect only poses an upper limit for species richness, and the effects of other factors may result in lower levels of species co-occurrence, thus producing a triangular rather than linear relationship. The results of Segovia’s simple and elegant analytical design show unequivocally that the predictions of the kinetic model become progressively more explanatory towards the upper quartiles of the relationship between species richness and temperature along over 10,000 tree local inventories throughout the Americas, reaching over 70% of explanatory power for the upper 5% of the relationship (i.e. the 95% quantile). This confirms to a large extent his reformulation of the predictions of the kinetic model. 

Further, the neat study from Segovia (2021) also provides evidence confirming that the well-known spatial non-stationarity in the richness–temperature relationship (see Cassemiro et al. 2007) also applies to its upper-bound segment. Both the explanatory power and the slope of the relationship in the 95% upper quantile vary widely between biomes, reaching values similar to the predictions of the kinetic model only in cold temperate environments ­–precisely where temperature becomes more important than water availability as a constrain to plant life (O’Brien 1998; Hawkins et al. 2003). Part of these variations are indeed related with changes in water deficit and number of frost days along the XXth Century, as shown by the residuals of this paper (Segovia 2021) and a more detailed separate study (Segovia et al. 2020). This pinpoints the importance of the relative balance between water and energy as two of the main climatic factors constraining species diversity gradients, confirming the value of hypotheses that date back to Humboldt’s work (see Hawkins 2001, 2008). There is however a significant amount of unexplained variation in Segovia’s analyses, in particular in the progressive departure of the predictions of the kinetic model as we move towards the tropics, or downwards along the lower quantiles of the richness–temperature relationship. This calls for a deeper exploration of the factors that modify the baseline relationship between richness and energy, opening a new avenue for the macroecological investigation of how different forces and processes shape up geographical diversity gradients beyond the mere energetic constrains imposed by the basal limitations of multicellular life on Earth.

References

Algar, A.C., Kerr, J.T. and Currie, D.J. (2007) A test of Metabolic Theory as the mechanism underlying broad-scale species-richness gradients. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 16, 170-178. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1466-8238.2006.00275.x

Allen, A.P., Brown, J.H. and Gillooly, J.F. (2002) Global biodiversity, biochemical kinetics, and the energetic-equivalence rule. Science, 297, 1545-1548. doi: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1072380

Brown, J.H., Gillooly, J.F., Allen, A.P., Savage, V.M. and West, G.B. (2004) Toward a metabolic theory of ecology. Ecology, 85, 1771-1789. doi: https://doi.org/10.1890/03-9000

Cassemiro, F.A.d.S., Barreto, B.d.S., Rangel, T.F.L.V.B. and Diniz-Filho, J.A.F. (2007) Non-stationarity, diversity gradients and the metabolic theory of ecology. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 16, 820-822. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1466-8238.2007.00332.x

Currie, D.J. (1991) Energy and large-scale patterns of animal- and plant-species richness. The American Naturalist, 137, 27-49. doi: https://doi.org/10.1086/285144

Currie, D.J., Mittelbach, G.G., Cornell, H.V., Field, R., Guegan, J.-F., Hawkins, B.A., Kaufman, D.M., Kerr, J.T., Oberdorff, T., O'Brien, E. and Turner, J.R.G. (2004) Predictions and tests of climate-based hypotheses of broad-scale variation in taxonomic richness. Ecology Letters, 7, 1121-1134. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1461-0248.2004.00671.x

D'Amen, M., Rahbek, C., Zimmermann, N.E. and Guisan, A. (2017) Spatial predictions at the community level: from current approaches to future frameworks. Biological Reviews, 92, 169-187. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/brv.12222

Francis, A.P. and Currie, D.J. (2003) A globally consistent richness-climate relationship for Angiosperms. American Naturalist, 161, 523-536. doi: https://doi.org/10.1086/368223

Hawkins, B.A. (2001) Ecology's oldest pattern? Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 16, 470. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0169-5347(01)02197-8 

Hawkins, B.A. (2008) Recent progress toward understanding the global diversity gradient. IBS Newsletter, 6.1, 5-8. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8sr2k1dd

Hawkins, B.A., Field, R., Cornell, H.V., Currie, D.J., Guégan, J.-F., Kaufman, D.M., Kerr, J.T., Mittelbach, G.G., Oberdorff, T., O'Brien, E., Porter, E.E. and Turner, J.R.G. (2003) Energy, water, and broad-scale geographic patterns of species richness. Ecology, 84, 3105-3117. doi: https://doi.org/10.1890/03-8006

Hawkins, B.A., Diniz-Filho, J.A.F., Jaramillo, C.A. and Soeller, S.A. (2006) Post-Eocene climate change, niche conservatism, and the latitudinal diversity gradient of New World birds. Journal of Biogeography, 33, 770-780. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2699.2006.01452.x

Hawkins, B.A., Albuquerque, F.S., Araújo, M.B., Beck, J., Bini, L.M., Cabrero-Sañudo, F.J., Castro Parga, I., Diniz-Filho, J.A.F., Ferrer-Castán, D., Field, R., Gómez, J.F., Hortal, J., Kerr, J.T., Kitching, I.J., León-Cortés, J.L., et al. (2007a) A global evaluation of metabolic theory as an explanation for terrestrial species richness gradients. Ecology, 88, 1877-1888. doi:10.1890/06-1444.1. doi: https://doi.org/10.1890/06-1444.1

Hawkins, B.A., Diniz-Filho, J.A.F., Bini, L.M., Araújo, M.B., Field, R., Hortal, J., Kerr, J.T., Rahbek, C., Rodríguez, M.Á. and Sanders, N.J. (2007b) Metabolic theory and diversity gradients: Where do we go from here? Ecology, 88, 1898–1902. doi: https://doi.org/10.1890/06-2141.1

Hortal, J., Rodríguez, J., Nieto-Díaz, M. and Lobo, J.M. (2008) Regional and environmental effects on the species richness of mammal assemblages. Journal of Biogeography, 35, 1202–1214. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2699.2007.01850.x

Kreft, H. and Jetz, W. (2007) Global patterns and determinants of vascular plant diversity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 104, 5925-5930. doi: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0608361104

O'Brien, E. (1998) Water-energy dynamics, climate, and prediction of woody plant species richness: an interim general model. Journal of Biogeography, 25, 379-398. doi: https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2699.1998.252166.x

Ricklefs, R.E. (1987) Community diversity: Relative roles of local and regional processes. Science, 235, 167-171. doi: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.235.4785.167

Ricklefs, R.E. (2004) A comprehensive framework for global patterns in biodiversity. Ecology Letters, 7, 1-15. doi: https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1461-0248.2003.00554.x

Ricklefs, R.E. (2008) Disintegration of the ecological community. American Naturalist, 172, 741-750. doi: https://doi.org/10.1086/593002

Segovia, R.A. (2021) Temperature predicts the maximum tree-species richness and water and frost shape the residual variation. bioRxiv, 836338, ver. 4 peer-reviewed and recommended by Peer community in Ecology. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/836338

Segovia, R.A., Pennington, R.T., Baker, T.R., Coelho de Souza, F., Neves, D.M., Davis, C.C., Armesto, J.J., Olivera-Filho, A.T. and Dexter, K.G. (2020) Freezing and water availability structure the evolutionary diversity of trees across the Americas. Science Advances, 6, eaaz5373. doi: https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaz5373

Temperature predicts the maximum tree-species richness and water and frost shape the residual variationRicardo A. Segovia<p>The kinetic hypothesis of biodiversity proposes that temperature is the main driver of variation in species richness, given its exponential effect on biological activity and, potentially, on rates of diversification. However, limited support fo...Biodiversity, Biogeography, Botany, Macroecology, Species distributionsJoaquín Hortal2019-11-10 20:56:40 View
03 Mar 2022
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Artificial reefs geographical location matters more than its age and depth for sessile invertebrate colonization in the Gulf of Lion (NorthWestern Mediterranean Sea)

A longer-term view on benthic communities on artificial reefs: it’s all about location

Recommended by based on reviews by 2 anonymous reviewers

In this study by Blouet, Bramanti, and Guizen (2022), the authors aim to tackle a long-standing data gap regarding research on marine benthic communities found on artificial reefs. The study is well thought out, and should serve as an important reference on this topic going forward.
Artificial reefs (ARs) are increasingly deployed in coastal waters around the world in order to reduce pressure on fisheries or to enhance fisheries stocks, via providing a hard substrate and complex shapes that induce the development of benthic communities, which together with the shape of the ARs themselves can provide areas for fish species to live. Much research has documented the effects of ARs on fish abundance and diversity, and documented over the short-term the benthic communities that settle and grow on ARs. However, there is a clear data gap on longer-term (e.g. greater than 10 years) trends of benthic communities on ARs. As well, any study on ARs must also account for the shape(s) of the ARs themselves, as there are numerous designs deployed, and also consider the depth of the ARs, and the age of the ARs.
The authors used the extensive ARs deployed in the Gulf of Lion in the northwestern Mediterranean to examine the effects of AR shape, depth, age (time since deployment), and location, both at local and wider regional scales, specifically examining the presence and absence of five marine species; 2 gorgonian octocorals, 1 ascidian, 1 annelid, and 1 bryozoan. Results indicate that location influenced the benthic communities above all other factors, suggesting the importance of considering the geographic location in future AR deployment and management of communities. The authors theorize that larval supply processes are important in shaping the observed patterns.
I conclude that this is an important report on AR ecology for several reasons. Firstly, the authors collected data from a variety of benthic species, including species that are habitat-forming but unfortunately perhaps not as focused on as more commercially important species. Secondly, by utilizing ARs deployed from as far back as the mid-1980s, the authors have generated longer-term information on benthic communities on ARs than what is commonly seen in the literature. Finally, the authors should be commended for their clever and hard work to incorporate all of the various factors into their analyses, and elucidating the importance of location. In fairness, this last point represents the only true limitation of the paper, as some of the statistical analyses were limited due to the small numbers of ARs fitting certain categories, and thereby limiting some of the conclusions. Still, it is very rare that a marine experimental ecologist would be in charge of AR deployment designs for 40 years, and the authors cannot be faulted for this shortcoming over which they had no control. On the contrary, the fact that the authors have performed this important work in the face of potentially limited analyses should be recognized. Marine ecology is often strongly limited by a lack of past data. In order to move past this impediment, more excellent work like the current paper is needed, conducted in a wider variety of ecosystems. I hope Blouet et al. (2022) can serve as a template for future work on a wider scale.
 
Reference

Blouet S, Bramanti L, Guizien K (2022) Artificial reefs geographical location matters more than shape, age and depth for sessile invertebrate colonization in the Gulf of Lion (NorthWestern Mediterranean Sea). bioRxiv, 2021.10.08.463669, ver. 4 peer-reviewed and recommended by Peer Community in Ecology. https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.10.08.463669

Artificial reefs geographical location matters more than its age and depth for sessile invertebrate colonization in the Gulf of Lion (NorthWestern Mediterranean Sea)sylvain blouet, Katell Guizien, lorenzo Bramanti<p>Artificial reefs (ARs) have been used to support fishing activities. Sessile invertebrates are essential components of trophic networks within ARs, supporting fish productivity. However, colonization by sessile invertebrates is possible only af...Biodiversity, Biogeography, Colonization, Ecological successions, Life history, Marine ecologyJames Davis Reimer2021-10-11 10:21:36 View
10 Oct 2024
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Large-scale spatio-temporal variation in vital rates and population dynamics of an alpine bird

Do look up: building a comprehensive view of population dynamics from small scale observation through citizen science

Recommended by based on reviews by Todd Arnold and 1 anonymous reviewer

Population ecologists are in the business of decrypting the drivers of variation in the abundance of organisms across space and time (Begon et al. 1986). Comprehensive studies of wild vertebrate populations which provide the necessary information on variations in vital rates in relation to environmental conditions to construct informative models of large-scale population dynamics are rare, ostensibly because of the huge effort required to monitor individuals across ecological contexts and over generations. In this current aim, Nater et al. (2024) are leading the way forward by combining distance sampling data collected through a large-scale citizen science (Fraisl et al. 2022) programme in Norway with state-of-the-art modelling approaches to build a comprehensive overview of the population dynamics of willow ptarmigan. Their work enhances our fundamental understanding of this system and provides evidence-based tools to improve its management (Williams et al. 2002). Even better, they are working for the common good, by providing an open-source workflow that should enable ecologists and managers together to predict what will happen to their favourite model organism when the planet throws its next curve ball. In the case of the ptarmigan, for example, it seems that the impact of climate change on their population dynamics will differ across the species’ distributional range, with a slower pace of life (sensu Stearns 1983) at higher latitudes and altitudes. 

On a personal note, I have often mused whether citizen science, with its inherent limits and biases, was just another sticking plaster over the ever-deeper cuts in the research budgets to finance long-term ecological research. Here, Nater et al. are doing well to convince me that we would be foolish to ignore such opportunities, particularly when citizens are engaged, motivated, with an inherent capacity for the necessary discipline to employ common protocols in a standardised fashion. A key challenge for us professional ecologists is to inculcate the next generation of citizens with a sense of their opportunity to contribute to a better understanding of the natural world.

References

Begon, Michael, John L Harper, and Colin R Townsend. 1986. Ecology: individuals, populations and communities. Blackwell Science.

Fraisl, Dilek, Gerid Hager, Baptiste Bedessem, Margaret Gold, Pen-Yuan Hsing, Finn Danielsen, Colleen B Hitchcock, et al. 2022. Citizen Science in Environmental and Ecological Sciences. Nature Reviews Methods Primers 2 (1): 64. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43586-022-00144-4

Chloé R. Nater, Francesco Frassinelli, James A. Martin, Erlend B. Nilsen (2024) Large-scale spatio-temporal variation in vital rates and population dynamics of an alpine bird. EcoEvoRxiv, ver.4 peer-reviewed and recommended by PCI Ecology https://doi.org/10.32942/X2VP6J

Stearns, S.C. 1983. The influence of size and phylogeny of covariation among life-history traits in the mammals. Oikos, 41, 173–187. https://doi.org/10.2307/3544261

Williams, Byron K, James D Nichols, and Michael J Conroy. 2002. Analysis and Management of Animal Populations. Academic Press.

Large-scale spatio-temporal variation in vital rates and population dynamics of an alpine birdChloé R. Nater, Francesco Frassinelli, James A. Martin, Erlend B. Nilsen<p>Quantifying temporal and spatial variation in animal population size and demography is a central theme in ecological research and important for directing management and policy. However, this requires field sampling at large spatial extents and ...Biodiversity, Biogeography, Conservation biology, Demography, Euring Conference, Landscape ecology, Life history, Population ecology, Spatial ecology, Metacommunities & Metapopulations, Statistical ecology, Terrestrial ecologyAidan Jonathan Mark Hewison2024-02-02 08:54:06 View
30 Sep 2020
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How citizen science could improve Species Distribution Models and their independent assessment

Citizen science contributes to SDM validation

Recommended by based on reviews by Maria Angeles Perez-Navarro and 1 anonymous reviewer

Citizen science is becoming an important piece for the acquisition of scientific knowledge in the fields of natural sciences, and particularly in the inventory and monitoring of biodiversity (McKinley et al. 2017). The information generated with the collaboration of citizens has an evident importance in conservation, by providing information on the state of populations and habitats, helping in mitigation and restoration actions, and very importantly contributing to involve society in conservation (Brown and Williams 2019). An obvious advantage of these initiatives is the ability to mobilize human resources on a large territorial scale and in the medium term, which would otherwise be difficult to finance. The resulting increasing information then can be processed with advanced computational techniques (Hochachka et al 2012; Kelling et al. 2015), thus improving our interpretation of the distribution of species. Specifically, the ability to obtain information on a large territorial scale can be integrated into studies based on Species Distribution Models SDMs. One of the common problems with SDMs is that they often work from species occurrences that have been opportunistically recorded, either by professionals or amateurs. A great challenge for data obtained from non-professional citizens, however, remains to ensure its standardization and quality (Kosmala et al. 2016). This requires a clear and effective design, solid volunteer training, and a high level of coordination that turns out to be complex (Brown and Williams 2019). Finally, it is essential to perform a quality validation following scientifically recognized standards, since they are often conditioned by errors and biases in obtaining information (Bird et al. 2014). There are two basic approaches to obtain the necessary data for this validation: getting it from an external source (external validation), or allocating a part of the database itself (internal validation or cross-validation) to this function.
Matutini et al. (2020) in his work 'How citizen science could improve Species Distribution Models and their independent assessment' shows a novel application of the data generated by a citizen science initiative ('Un Dragon dans mon Jardin') by providing an external source for the validation of SDMs, as a tool to construct habitat suitability maps for nine species of amphibians in western France. Importantly, 'Un Dragon dans mon Jardin' contains standardized presence-absence data, the approximation recognized as the most robust (Guisan, et al. 2017). The SDMs to be validated, in turn, were based on opportunistic information obtained by citizens and professionals. The result shows the usefulness of this external data source by minimizing the overestimation of model accuracy that is obtained with cross-validation with the internal evaluation dataset. It also shows the importance of properly filtering the information obtained by citizens by determining the threshold of sampling effort.
The destiny of citizen science is to be integrated into the complex world of science. Supported by the increasing level of the formation of society, it is becoming a fundamental piece in the scientific system dedicated to the study of biodiversity and its conservation. After funding for scientists specialized in the recognition of biodiversity has been cut back, we are seeing a transformation of the activity of these scientists towards the design, coordination, training and verification of programs for the acquisition of field information obtained by citizens. A main goal is that a substantial part of this information will eventually get integrated into the scientific system, and rigorous verification process a fundamental element for such purpose, as shown by Matutini et al. (2020) work.

References

[1] Bird TJ et al. (2014) Statistical solutions for error and bias in global citizen science datasets. Biological Conservation 173: 144-154. doi: 10.1016/j.biocon.2013.07.037
[2] Brown ED and Williams BK (2019) The potential for citizen science to produce reliable and useful information in ecology. Conservation Biology 33: 561-569. doi: 10.1111/cobi.13223
[3] Guisan A, Thuiller W and Zimmermann N E (2017) Habitat Suitability and Distribution Models: With Applications in R. The University of Chicago Press. doi: 10.1017/9781139028271
[4] Hochachka WM, Fink D, Hutchinson RA, Sheldon D, Wong WK and Kelling S (2012) Data-intensive science applied to broad-scale citizen science. Trens Ecol Evol 27: 130-137. doi: 10.1016/j.tree.2011.11.006
[5] Kelling S, Fink D, La Sorte FA, Johnston A, Bruns NE and Hochachka WM (2015) Taking a ‘Big Data’ approach to data quality in a citizen science project. Ambio 44(Supple. 4):S601-S611. doi: 10.1007/s13280-015-0710-4
[6] Kosmala M, Wiggins A, Swanson A and Simmons B (2016) Assessing data quality in citizen science. Front Ecol Environ 14: 551–560. doi: 10.1002/fee.1436
[7] Matutini F, Baudry J, Pain G, Sineau M and Pithon J (2020) How citizen science could improve Species Distribution Models and their independent assessment. bioRxiv, 2020.06.02.129536, ver. 4 peer-reviewed and recommended by PCI Ecology. doi: 10.1101/2020.06.02.129536
[8] McKinley DC et al. (2017) Citizen science can improve conservation science, natural resource management, and environmental protection. Biological Conservation 208:15-28. doi: 10.1016/j.biocon.2016.05.015

How citizen science could improve Species Distribution Models and their independent assessmentFlorence Matutini, Jacques Baudry, Guillaume Pain, Morgane Sineau, Josephine Pithon<p>Species distribution models (SDM) have been increasingly developed in recent years but their validity is questioned. Their assessment can be improved by the use of independent data but this can be difficult to obtain and prohibitive to collect....Biodiversity, Biogeography, Conservation biology, Habitat selection, Spatial ecology, Metacommunities & Metapopulations, Species distributions, Statistical ecologyFrancisco Lloret2020-06-03 09:36:34 View
31 May 2023
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Conservation networks do not match the ecological requirements of amphibians

Amphibians under scrutiny - When human-dominated landscape mosaics are not in full compliance with their ecological requirements

Recommended by ORCID_LOGO based on reviews by Peter Vermeiren and 1 anonymous reviewer

Among vertebrates, amphibians are one of the most diverse groups with more than 7,000 known species. Amphibians occupy various ecosystems, including forests, wetlands, and freshwater habitats. Amphibians are known to be highly sensitive to changes in their environment, particularly to water quality and habitat degradation, so that monitoring abundance of amphibian populations can provide early warning signs of ecosystem disturbances that may also affect other organisms including humans (Bishop et al., 2012). Accordingly, efforts in habitat preservation and sustainable land and water management are necessary to safeguard amphibian populations.

In this context, Matutini et al. (2023) compared ecological requirements of amphibian species with the quality of agricultural landscape mosaics. Doing so, they identified critical gaps in existing conservation tools that include protected areas, green infrastructures, and inventoried sites. Matutini et al. (2023) focused on nine amphibian species in the Pays-de-la-Loire region where the landscape has been fashioned over the years by human activities. Three of the chosen amphibian species are living in a dense hedgerow mosaic landscape, while five others are more generalists.

Matutini et al. (2023) established multi-species habitat suitability maps, together with their levels of confidence, by combining single species maps with a probabilistic stacking method at 500-m resolution. From these maps, habitats were classified in five categories, from not suitable to highly suitable. Then, the circuit theory was used to map the potential connections between each highly suitable patch at the regional scale. Finally, comparing suitability maps with existing conservation tools, Matutini et al. (2023) were able to assess their coverage and efficiency.

Whatever their species status (endangered or not), Matutini et al. (2023) highlighted some discrepancies between the ecological requirements of amphibians in terms of habitat quality and the conservation tools of the landscape mosaic within which they are evolving. More specifically, Matutini et al. (2023) found that protected areas and inventoried sites covered only a small proportion of highly suitable habitats, while green infrastructures covered around 50% of the potential habitat for amphibian species. Such a lack of coverage and efficiency of protected areas brings to light that geographical sites with amphibian conservation challenges are known but not protected. Regarding the landscape fragmentation, Matutini et al. (2023) found that generalist amphibian species have a more homogeneous distribution of suitable habitats at the regional scale. They also identified two bottlenecks between two areas of suitable habitats, a situation that could prove critical to amphibian movements if amphibians were forced to change habitats to global change.

In conclusion, Matutini et al. (2023) bring convincing arguments in support of land-use species-conservation planning based on a better consideration of human-dominated landscape mosaics in full compliance with ecological requirements of the species that inhabit the regions concerned.

References

Bishop, P.J., Angulo, A., Lewis, J.P., Moore, R.D., Rabb, G.B., Moreno, G., 2012. The Amphibian Extinction Crisis - what will it take to put the action into the Amphibian Conservation Action Plan? Sapiens - Surveys and Perspectives Integrating Environment and Society 5, 1–16. http://journals.openedition.org/sapiens/1406

Matutini, F., Baudry, J., Fortin, M.-J., Pain, G., Pithon, J., 2023. Conservation networks do not match ecological requirements of amphibians. bioRxiv, ver. 3 peer-reviewed and recommended by Peer Community in Ecology. https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.07.18.500425

Conservation networks do not match the ecological requirements of amphibiansMatutini Florence, Jacques Baudry, Marie-Josée Fortin, Guillaume Pain, Joséphine Pithon<p style="text-align: justify;">1. Amphibians are among the most threatened taxa as they are highly sensitive to habitat degradation and fragmentation. They are considered as model species to evaluate habitats quality in agricultural landscapes. I...Biodiversity, Biogeography, Human impact, Landscape ecology, Macroecology, Spatial ecology, Metacommunities & Metapopulations, Species distributions, Terrestrial ecologySandrine Charles2022-09-20 14:40:03 View
12 Oct 2020
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Insect herbivory on urban trees: Complementary effects of tree neighbours and predation

Tree diversity is associated with reduced herbivory in urban forest

Recommended by and based on reviews by Ian Pearse and Freerk Molleman

Urban ecology, the study of ecological systems in our increasingly urbanized world, is crucial to planning and redesigning cities to enhance ecosystem services (Kremer et al. 2016), human health and well-being and further conservation goals (Dallimer et al. 2012). Urban trees are a crucial component of urban streets and parks that provide shade and cooling through evapotranspiration (Fung and Jim 2019), improve air quality (Lai and Kontokosta 2019), help control storm water (Johnson and Handel 2016), and conserve wildlife (Herrmann et al. 2012; de Andrade et al. 2020).
Ideally, management of urban forests strikes a balance between maintaining the health of urban trees while retaining those organisms, such as herbivores, that connect a tree to the urban ecosystem. Herbivory by arthropods can substantially affect tree growth and reproduction (Whittaker and Warrington 1985), and so understanding factors that influence herbivory in urban forests is important to effective management. At the same time, herbivorous arthropods are important as key components of urban bird diets (Airola and Greco 2019) and provide a backyard glimpse at forest ecosystems in an increasingly built environment (Pearse 2019). Maintenance of arthropod predators may be one way to retain arthropods in urban forests while keeping detrimental outbreaks of herbivores in check. In “Insect herbivory on urban trees: Complementary effects of tree neighbors and predation” Stemmelen and colleagues (Stemmelen et al. 2020) use a clever sampling design to show that insect herbivory decreases as the diversity of neighboring trees increased. By placing artificial larvae out on trees, they provide evidence that increased predation in higher diversity urban forest patches might drive patterns in herbivory. The paper also demonstrates the importance of tree species identity in determining leaf herbivory.
The implications of this research for urban foresters is that deliberately planting diverse urban forests will help manage insect herbivores and should thus improve tree health. Potential knock-on effects could be seen for the ecosystem services provided by urban forests. While it might be tempting to simply plant more of the species that are subject to low current rates of herbivory, other research on the long-term vulnerability of monocultures to attack by specialist pathogens and herbivores (Tooker and Frank 2012) cautions against such an approach. Furthermore, the importance of urban forest insects to birds, including migrating birds, argues for managing urban forests more holistically (Greco and Airola 2018).
Stemmelen et al. (2020) used an observational approach focused on urban forests in Montreal, Canada in their research. Their findings suggest follow-up research focused on a broader cross-section of urban forests across latitudes, as well as experimental research. Experiments could, for example, exclude avian predators with netting (e.g. (Marquis and Whelan 1994)) to evaluate the relative importance of birds to managing urban insects on trees, as well as the flip side of that equation, the important to birds of insects on urban trees.
In summary, Stemmelen and colleague’s manuscript illustrates clever sampling and use of observational data to infer broader ecological patterns. It is worth reading to better understand the role of diversity in driving plant-insect community interactions and given the implications of the findings for sustainable long-term management of urban forests.

References

Airola, D. and Greco, S. (2019). Birds and oaks in California’s urban forest. Int. Oaks, 30, 109–116.
de Andrade, A.C., Medeiros, S. and Chiarello, A.G. (2020). City sloths and marmosets in Atlantic forest fragments with contrasting levels of anthropogenic disturbance. Mammal Res., 65, 481–491. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13364-020-00492-0
Dallimer, M., Irvine, K.N., Skinner, A.M.J., Davies, Z.G., Rouquette, J.R., Maltby, L.L., et al. (2012). Biodiversity and the Feel-Good Factor: Understanding Associations between Self-Reported Human Well-being and Species Richness. Bioscience, 62, 47–55. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/bio.2012.62.1.9
Fung, C.K.W. and Jim, C.Y. (2019). Microclimatic resilience of subtropical woodlands and urban-forest benefits. Urban For. Urban Green., 42, 100–112. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ufug.2019.05.014
Greco, S.E. and Airola, D.A. (2018). The importance of native valley oaks (Quercus lobata) as stopover habitat for migratory songbirds in urban Sacramento, California, USA. Urban For. Urban Green., 29, 303–311. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ufug.2018.01.005
Herrmann, D.L., Pearse, I.S. and Baty, J.H. (2012). Drivers of specialist herbivore diversity across 10 cities. Landsc. Urban Plan., 108, 123–130. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2012.08.007
Johnson, L.R. and Handel, S.N. (2016). Restoration treatments in urban park forests drive long-term changes in vegetation trajectories. Ecol. Appl., 26, 940–956. doi: https://doi.org/10.1890/14-2063
Kremer, P., Hamstead, Z., Haase, D., McPhearson, T., Frantzeskaki, N., Andersson, E., et al. (2016). Key insights for the future of urban ecosystem services research. Ecol. Soc., 21: 29. doi: http://doi.org/10.5751/ES-08445-210229
Lai, Y. and Kontokosta, C.E. (2019). The impact of urban street tree species on air quality and respiratory illness: A spatial analysis of large-scale, high-resolution urban data. Heal. Place, 56, 80–87. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthplace.2019.01.016
Marquis, R.J. and Whelan, C.J. (1994). Insectivorous birds increase growth of white oak through consumption of leaf-chewing insects. Ecology, 75, 2007–2014. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/1941605
Pearse, I.S. (2019). Insect herbivores on urban native oak trees. Int. Oaks, 30, 101–108.
Stemmelen, A., Paquette, A., Benot, M.-L., Kadiri, Y., Jactel, H. and Castagneyrol, B. (2020) Insect herbivory on urban trees: Complementary effects of tree neighbours and predation. bioRxiv, 2020.04.15.042317, ver. 5 peer-reviewed and recommended by PCI Ecology. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.15.042317
Tooker, J. F., and Frank, S. D. (2012). Genotypically diverse cultivar mixtures for insect pest management and increased crop yields. J. Appl. Ecol., 49(5), 974-985. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2664.2012.02173.x
Whittaker, J.B. and Warrington, S. (1985). An experimental field study of different levels of insect herbivory induced By Formica rufa predation on Sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus) III. Effects on Tree Growth. J. Appl. Ecol., 22, 797. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/2403230

Insect herbivory on urban trees: Complementary effects of tree neighbours and predationAlex Stemmelen, Alain Paquette, Marie-Lise Benot, Yasmine Kadiri, Hervé Jactel, Bastien Castagneyrol<p>Insect herbivory is an important component of forest ecosystems functioning and can affect tree growth and survival. Tree diversity is known to influence insect herbivory in natural forest, with most studies reporting a decrease in herbivory wi...Biodiversity, Biological control, Community ecology, Ecosystem functioning, HerbivoryRuth Arabelle Hufbauer2020-04-20 13:49:36 View
14 Jan 2025
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Cool topoclimates promote cold-adapted plant diversity in temperate mountain forests.

Forest microclimate in mountains and its impact on plant community: Still a question of shade, but this time it’s not coming from the canopy

Recommended by based on reviews by Martin Macek and 2 anonymous reviewers

Recently, 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 ecologyRomain Bertrand2024-07-05 00:17:37 View
04 Sep 2024
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InsectChange: Comment

Why we need to clean the Augean stables of ecology – the case of InsectChange

Recommended by ORCID_LOGO based on reviews by Bradley Cardinale and 1 anonymous reviewer

As biodiversity has become a major global concern for a variety of stakeholders, and society in general, assessments of biodiversity trends at all spatial scales have flourished in the past decades. To assess trends, one needs data, and the more precise the data, the more precise the trend. Or, if precision is not perfect, uncertainty in the data must be acknowledged and accounted for. Such considerations have already been raised in ecology, most notably regarding the value of species distribution data to model the current and future distribution of species (Rocchini et al., 2011, Duputié et al., 2014, Tessarolo et al., 2021), leading to serious doubts regarding the value of public databases (Maldonado et al., 2015). And more recently similar issues have been raised regarding databases of species traits (Augustine et al., 2024), emphasizing the importance of good data practice and traceability.

Science is by nature a self-correcting human process, with many steps of the scientific activity prone to errors and misinterpretations. Collation of ecological data, sadly, is proof of this. Spurred by the astonishing results of Hallmann et al. (2017) regarding the decline of insect biomass, and to more precisely answer the question of biodiversity trends in insects and settle an ongoing debate (Cardinale et al., 2018), van Klink et al. (2020, 2021) established the InsectChange database. Several perceptive comments have already been made regarding the possible issues in the methods and interpretations of this study (Desquilbet et al., 2020, Jähnig et al., 2021, Duchenne et al., 2022). However, the biggest issue might have been finally unearthed by Gaume & Desquilbet (2024): with poorly curated data, the InsectChange database is unlikely to support most of the initial claims regarding insect biodiversity trends.

The compilation of errors and inconsistencies present in InsectChange and evinced by Gaume & Desquilbet (2024) is stunning to say the least, with a mix of field and experimental data combined without regard for experimental manipulation of environmental factors, non-standardised transformations of abundances, the use of non-insect taxa to compute insect trends, and inadequate geographical localizations of samplings. I strongly advise all colleagues interested in the study of biodiversity from global databases to consider the points raised by the authors, as it is quite likely that other databases might suffer from the same ailments as well. Reading this paper is also educating and humbling in its own way, since the publication of the original papers based on InsectChange seems to have proceeded without red flags from reviewers or editors. The need for publishing fast results that will make the next buzz, thus obeying the natural selection of bad science (Smaldino and McElreath, 2016), might be the systemic culprit. However, this might also be the opportunity ecology needs to consider the reviewing and curation of data as a crucial step of science quality assessment. To make final assessments, let us proceed with less haste.

References

Augustine, S. P., Bailey-Marren, I., Charton, K. T., Kiel, N. G. & Peyton, M. S. (2024) Improper data practices erode the quality of global ecological databases and impede the progress of ecological research. Global Change Biology, 30, e17116. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.17116

Cardinale, B. J., Gonzalez, A., Allington, G. R. H. & Loreau, M. (2018) Is local biodiversity declining or not? A summary of the debate over analysis of species richness time trends. Biological Conservation, 219, 175-183. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2017.12.021

Desquilbet, M., Gaume, L., Grippa, M., Céréghino, R., Humbert, J.-F., Bonmatin, J.-M., Cornillon, P.-A., Maes, D., Van Dyck, H. & Goulson, D. (2020) Comment on “Meta-analysis reveals declines in terrestrial but increases in freshwater insect abundances”. Science, 370, eabd8947. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abd8947

Duchenne, F., Porcher, E., Mihoub, J.-B., Loïs, G. & Fontaine, C. (2022) Controversy over the decline of arthropods: a matter of temporal baseline? Peer Community Journal, 2. https://doi.org/10.24072/pcjournal.131

Duputié, A., Zimmermann, N. E. & Chuine, I. (2014) Where are the wild things? Why we need better data on species distribution. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 23, 457-467. https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.12118

Gaume, L. & Desquilbet, M. (2024) InsectChange: Comment. biorXiv, ver.4 peer-reviewed and recommended by PCI Ecology https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.06.17.545310

Hallmann, C. A., Sorg, M., Jongejans, E., Siepel, H., Hofland, N., Schwan, H., Stenmans, W., Müller, A., Sumser, H., Hörren, T., Goulson, D. & de Kroon, H. (2017) More than 75 percent decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas. PLOS ONE, 12, e0185809. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0185809

Jähnig, S. C., Baranov, V., Altermatt, F., Cranston, P., Friedrichs-Manthey, M., Geist, J., He, F., Heino, J., Hering, D., Hölker, F., Jourdan, J., Kalinkat, G., Kiesel, J., Leese, F., Maasri, A., Monaghan, M. T., Schäfer, R. B., Tockner, K., Tonkin, J. D. & Domisch, S. (2021) Revisiting global trends in freshwater insect biodiversity. WIREs Water, 8, e1506. https://doi.org/10.1002/wat2.1506

Maldonado, C., Molina, C. I., Zizka, A., Persson, C., Taylor, C. M., Albán, J., Chilquillo, E., Rønsted, N. & Antonelli, A. (2015) Estimating species diversity and distribution in the era of Big Data: to what extent can we trust public databases? Global Ecology and Biogeography, 24, 973-984. https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.12326

Rocchini, D., Hortal, J., Lengyel, S., Lobo, J. M., Jiménez-Valverde, A., Ricotta, C., Bacaro, G. & Chiarucci, A. (2011) Accounting for uncertainty when mapping species distributions: The need for maps of ignorance. Progress in Physical Geography, 35, 211-226. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309133311399491

Smaldino, P. E. & McElreath, R. (2016) The natural selection of bad science. Royal Society Open Science, 3. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.160384

Tessarolo, G., Ladle, R. J., Lobo, J. M., Rangel, T. F. & Hortal, J. (2021) Using maps of biogeographical ignorance to reveal the uncertainty in distributional data hidden in species distribution models. Ecography, 44, 1743-1755. https://doi.org/10.1111/ecog.05793

van Klink, R., Bowler, D. E., Comay, O., Driessen, M. M., Ernest, S. K. M., Gentile, A., Gilbert, F., Gongalsky, K. B., Owen, J., Pe'er, G., Pe'er, I., Resh, V. H., Rochlin, I., Schuch, S., Swengel, A. B., Swengel, S. R., Valone, T. J., Vermeulen, R., Wepprich, T., Wiedmann, J. L. & Chase, J. M. (2021) InsectChange: a global database of temporal changes in insect and arachnid assemblages. Ecology, 102, e03354. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.3354

van Klink, R., Bowler, D. E., Gongalsky, K. B., Swengel, A. B., Gentile, A. & Chase, J. M. (2020) Meta-analysis reveals declines in terrestrial but increases in freshwater insect abundances. Science, 368, 417-420. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aax9931

InsectChange: CommentLaurence Gaume, Marion Desquilbet<p>The InsectChange database (van Klink et al. 2021) underlying the meta-analysis by van Klink et al. (2020a) compiles worldwide time series of the abundance and biomass of invertebrates reported as insects and arachnids, as well as ecological dat...Biodiversity, Climate change, Freshwater ecology, Landscape ecology, Meta-analyses, Species distributions, Terrestrial ecology, ZoologyFrancois Massol2024-01-04 18:57:01 View
26 May 2021
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Spatial distribution of local patch extinctions drives recovery dynamics in metacommunities

Unity makes strength: clustered extinctions have stronger, longer-lasting effects on metacommunities dynamics

Recommended by based on reviews by David Murray-Stoker and Frederik De Laender

In this article, Saade et al. (2021) investigate how the rate of local extinctions and their spatial distribution affect recolonization dynamics in metacommunities. They use an elegant combination of microcosm experiments with metacommunities of freshwater ciliates and mathematical modelling mirroring their experimental system. Their main findings are (i) that local patch extinctions increase both local (α-) and inter-patch (β-) diversity in a transient way during the recolonization process, (ii) that these effects depend more on the spatial distribution of extinctions (dispersed or clustered) than on their amount, and (iii) that they may spread regionally.
Microcosm experiments are already quite cool just by themselves and have contributed largely to conceptual advances in community ecology (see Fraser and Keddy 1997, or Jessup et al. 2004 for reviews on this topic), but they are here exploited to a whole further level by the fitting of a metapopulation dynamics model. The model allows both to identify the underlying mechanisms most likely to generate the patterns observed (here, competitive interactions) and to assess the robustness of these patterns when considering larger spatial or temporal scales. This release of experimental limitations allows here for the analysis of quantitative metrics of spatial structure, like the distance to the closest patch, which gives an interesting insight into the functional basis of the effect of the spatial distribution of extinctions.

A major strength of this study is that it highlights the importance of considering the spatial structure explicitly. Recent work on ecological networks has shown repeatedly that network structure affects the propagation of pathogens (Badham and Stocker 2010), invaders (Morel-Journel et al. 2019), or perturbation events (Gilarranz et al. 2017). Here, the spatial structure of the metacommunity is a regular grid of patches, but the distribution of extinction events may be either regularly dispersed (i.e., extinct patches are distributed evenly over the grid and are all surrounded by non-extinct patches only) or clustered (all extinct patches are neighbours). This has a direct effect on the neighbourhood of perturbed patches, and because perturbations have mostly local effects, their recovery dynamics are dominated by the composition of this immediate neighbourhood. In landscapes with dispersed extinctions, the neighbourhood of a perturbed patch is not affected by the amount of extinctions, and neither is its recovery time. In contrast, in landscapes with clustered extinctions, the amount of extinctions affects the depth of the perturbed area, which takes longer to recover when it is larger. Interestingly, the spatial distribution of extinctions here is functionally equivalent to differences in connectivity between perturbed and unperturbed patches, which results in contrasted “rescue recovery” and “mixing recovery” regimes as described by Zelnick et al. (2019).
 
Furthermore, this study focuses on local dynamics of competition and short-term, transient patterns that may have been overlooked by more classical, equilibrium-based approaches of dynamical systems of metacommunities. Indeed, in a metacommunity composed of several competitors, early theoretical work demonstrated that species coexistence is possible at the regional scale only, provided that spatial heterogeneity creates spatial variance in fitness or precludes the superior competitor from accessing certain habitat patches (Skellam 1951, Levins 1969). In the spatially homogeneous experimental system of Saade et al., one of the three ciliate species ends up dominating the community at equilibrium. However, following local, one-time extinction events, the community endures a recolonization process in which differences in dispersal may provide temporary spatial niches for inferior competitors. These transient patterns might prove essential to understand and anticipate the resilience of natural systems that are under increasing pressure, and enduring ever more frequent and intense perturbations (IPBES 2019). Spatial autocorrelation in extinction events was previously identified as a risk for stability and persistence of metacommunities (Ruokolainen 2013, Kahilainen et al. 2018). These new results show that autocorrelated perturbations also have longer-lasting effects, which is likely to increase their overall impact on metacommunity dynamics. As spatial and temporal autocorrelation of temperature and extreme climatic events are expected to increase (Di Cecco and Gouthier 2018), studies that investigate how metacommunities respond to the structure of the distribution of perturbations are more necessary than ever.
 
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Spatial distribution of local patch extinctions drives recovery dynamics in metacommunitiesCamille Saade, Sonia Kéfi, Claire Gougat-Barbera, Benjamin Rosenbaum, and Emanuel A. Fronhofer<p style="text-align: justify;">Human activities lead more and more to the disturbance of plant and animal communities with local extinctions as a consequence. While these negative effects are clearly visible at a local scale, it is less clear how...Biodiversity, Coexistence, Colonization, Community ecology, Competition, Dispersal & Migration, Experimental ecology, Landscape ecology, Spatial ecology, Metacommunities & MetapopulationsElodie Vercken2020-12-08 15:55:20 View