Hasil untuk "Ecology"

R. Zann

K. McLauchlan, Philip E. Higuera, J. Miesel et al.

Fire is a powerful ecological and evolutionary force that regulates organismal traits, population sizes, species interactions, community composition, carbon and nutrient cycling and ecosystem function. It also presents a rapidly growing societal challenge, due to both increasingly destructive wildfires and fire exclusion in fire‐dependent ecosystems. As an ecological process, fire integrates complex feedbacks among biological, social and geophysical processes, requiring coordination across several fields and scales of study. Here, we describe the diversity of ways in which fire operates as a fundamental ecological and evolutionary process on Earth. We explore research priorities in six categories of fire ecology: (a) characteristics of fire regimes, (b) changing fire regimes, (c) fire effects on above‐ground ecology, (d) fire effects on below‐ground ecology, (e) fire behaviour and (f) fire ecology modelling. We identify three emergent themes: the need to study fire across temporal scales, to assess the mechanisms underlying a variety of ecological feedbacks involving fire and to improve representation of fire in a range of modelling contexts. Synthesis: As fire regimes and our relationships with fire continue to change, prioritizing these research areas will facilitate understanding of the ecological causes and consequences of future fires and rethinking fire management alternatives.

Hosokawa N, Tajima S, Kobayashi H et al.

Nitrogen (N) is a critical element for tree growth in forest ecosystems. As trees absorb inorganic N, the soil N mineralization process is a key process for their development. Although the spatial pattern of soil N mineralization is expected to relate to tree growth, the difference between the upper and lower positions within a small-scale slope is unclear. Therefore, we compared annual and seasonal soil N mineralization rates in Japanese cypress (Chamaecyparis obtusa [Siebold & Zucc.] Endl.), which stands at both the upper and lower positions on a slope. We used the resin-core method to estimate in situ soil N mineralization rates. Additionally, the litter decomposition rate and inorganic N passed through the litter layer, which are primary sources for soil N mineralization, were investigated using the litter bag and resin-core methods. Our findings revealed that the annual soil N mineralization rate at the lower position was 5 times higher than that at the upper position. Moreover, seasonal variations in soil N mineralization rate tended to be higher at the lower position than at the upper position. The temporal change in input ammonium passed through the litter layer was similar to that of the nitrification rate in the soil at the lower position, except for winter. Notably, high nitrification in winter at the lower position may be related to soil frost, which can accelerate the decomposition of organic matter. Despite these differences, the litter decomposition rate was similar between the slope positions. The higher soil N mineralization rate and substrate input may result in higher tree growth at the lower position on a slope.

Castillo-González, Humberto, Slot, Jason C., Yarwood, Stephanie et al.

Fungal endophytes play a pivotal role in tropical forest dynamics, influencing plant fitness through growth stimulation, disease suppression, stress tolerance, and nutrient mobilization. This study investigates the effects of region, leaf developmental stage, and tissue type on endophyte communities in tropical plants. Young and mature leaves were collected from 47 Rubiaceae species, and sapwood from 23 species, in old-growth forests of Golfito and Guanacaste, Costa Rica. Fungal diversity and composition were assessed through metabarcoding of the ITS2 nrDNA region. Most identified ASVs belonged to the phylum Ascomycota. The orders Botryosphaeriales and Glomerellales significantly contributed to endophytic assemblages, without detection of host-specific communities. We observed significant differences in species richness across regions, confirming distinct compositions through beta diversity. No statistically significant variances were found between mature and juvenile leaf tissues. In contrast, leaves exhibited richer and more diverse assemblages than sapwood. As plants experienced diverse environments over time and space, our results may be influenced by changing structural and chemical properties through ontogeny. Given the potential impact of these fungi on agricultural and forest ecosystems, ongoing research is crucial to discern the roles of hosts, endophytes, and other ecological mechanisms in apparent colonization patterns.

Zhaoxuan Lu, Lyuchao Liao, Xingang Xie et al.

In recent years, climate change and marine pollution have significantly degraded coral reefs, highlighting the urgent need for automated coral detection to monitor marine ecosystems. However, underwater coral detection presents unique challenges, including low image contrast, complex coral structures, and dense coral growth, which limit the effectiveness of general object detection algorithms. To address these challenges, we propose SCoralDet, a soft coral detection model based on the YOLO architecture. First, we introduce a Multi-Path Fusion Block (MPFB) to capture coral features across multiple scales, enhancing the model’s robustness to uneven lighting and image blurring. We further improve inference efficiency by applying reparameterization. Second, we integrate lightweight components such as GSConv and VoV-GSCSP to reduce computational overhead without sacrificing performance. Additionally, we develop an Adaptive Power Transformation label assignment strategy, which dynamically adjusts anchor alignment metrics. By incorporating soft labels and soft central region loss, our model is guided to prioritize high-quality, well-aligned predictions. We evaluate SCoralDet on the Soft-Coral dataset, achieving an inference latency of 9.52 ms and an mAP50 of 81.9. This surpasses the performance of YOLOv5 (79.9), YOLOv6 (79.4), YOLOv8 (79.5), YOLOv9 (78.3), and YOLOv10 (79.5). These results demonstrate the effectiveness and practicality of SCoralDet in underwater coral detection tasks.

Wei Zhang, Senyou Chai, Changhui Duan et al.

This paper mainly reviews the fate of microplastics, released from used face masks, in the water environment. Through previous experiments, the amount of fiber microplastics released from used face masks into aqueous environments was not negligible, with the maximum microplastics releasing amount reaching 10,000 piece·day⁻¹ for each mask. Microplastic derived from these masks often occurred in the shape of polymeric fibers that resulted from the breakage of the chemical bonds in the plastic fibers by the force of water flow. The potential contact forces between microplastics (originating from face masks) with other pollutants, primarily encompass hydrophobic and electrostatic interactions. This critical review paper briefly illustrates the fate of microplastics derived from disposable face masks, further devising effective strategies to mitigate the environmental impact of plastic particle release from the used personal protective equipment.

László Bozó, Yury Anisimov, Wieland Heim

Long-distance migratory birds often face major geographical barriers on their journey. While some species are able to cross them, others use longer routes to avoid such barriers. Little is known about the strategies of Siberian landbird migrants, which either cross or circumvent the deserts and mountain ranges of Central Asia en route to their non-breeding sites in Southeast Asia. Here we compare data on migration phenology and morphology from two bird ringing stations in eastern Russia, situated at similar latitudes but with a longitudinal difference of 1500 ​km, to hypothesise migration patterns. We found significant differences in timing between the two sites (birds migrated significantly earlier in spring and significantly later in autumn in the east), suggesting longitudinal migration as a result of migration detour. However, morphological differences show a less clear pattern. We argue that most Siberian landbirds might opt for a detour through the Russian Far East instead of a direct route in order to avoid unfavourable stop-over habitat in Central Asia. However, tracking studies will be necessary to prove this.

Tom Lindström, Göran Bergqvist

Harvest estimation is a central part of adaptive management of wildlife. In the absence of complete reporting, statishods are required to extrapolate from the available data. We developed a Hierarchical Bayesian framework tailored for partial reporting where hunting areas covered by reporting hunting teams are available. The framework accounts for autocorrelation at the national, county, and hunting management precinct levels. We derived and evaluated an approximation for the probability of harvest on non-reported areas under a non-linear relationship between harvest area per team and harvest rate. We applied the framework to reports of red fox (Vulpes vulpes), wild boar (Sus scrofa), common eider (Somateria mollissima), and grey partridge (Perdix perdix) harvest in Sweden from the hunting years 1997/1998–2019/2020. The approximation was evaluated and determined to be sufficiently accurate. We showed that accounting for autocorrelation in harvest reduced uncertainty and increased predictive accuracy, particularly for game hunted in low numbers and variably between teams. The analysis also revealed that hunting rate has a sub-linear relationship with a team’s area for all considered species. Further, the framework revealed substantial differences across regions in terms of parameters modeling the distribution of huntable land across teams as well as parameters modeling harvest rates. We conclude that the framework is useful to detect shifts in hunting rates and/or practices.

Carolin Scholz, Christian C. Voigt

Abstract Agricultural practice has led to landscape simplification and biodiversity decline, yet recently, energy‐producing infrastructures, such as wind turbines, have been added to these simplified agroecosystems, turning them into multi‐functional energy‐agroecosystems. Here, we studied the trophic interactions of bats killed at wind turbines using a DNA metabarcoding approach to shed light on how turbine‐related bat fatalities may possibly affect local habitats. Specifically, we identified insect DNA in the stomachs of common noctule bats (Nyctalus noctula) killed by wind turbines in Germany to infer in which habitats these bats hunted. Common noctule bats consumed a wide variety of insects from different habitats, ranging from aquatic to terrestrial ecosystems (e.g., wetlands, farmland, forests, and grasslands). Agricultural and silvicultural pest insects made up about 20% of insect species consumed by the studied bats. Our study suggests that the potential damage of wind energy production goes beyond the loss of bats and the decline of bat populations. Bat fatalities at wind turbines may lead to the loss of trophic interactions and ecosystem services provided by bats, which may add to the functional simplification and impaired crop production, respectively, in multi‐functional ecosystems.

هنگامه آخوندرادکانی, حسن سلطانلو, نجیب اله مازندرانی et al.

سابقه و هدف: بیماری بادزدگی سنبله ناشی از قارچL. Fusarium graminearum، یکی از مهمترین بیماری های گندم است که آسیب قابل توجهی به کیفیت و مقدار گندم تولید شده در سراسر جهان وارد می‌کند. منطقه شمال ایران به علت شرایط ویژه رطوبت و گرما مناسب نسبت به بیماری فوزاریوم سنبله گندم همه گیر است. یکی از روش‌های مقرون به صرفه برای کنترل این بیماری استفاده از مقاومت ژنتیکی است. غربالگری سالانه ارقام گیاهی می تواند اطلاعات مفیدی در مورد مقاومت ارقام به بیماری Fusarium در گونه‌های موجود در هر منطقه برای محققین به ارمغان آورد.مواد و روش‌‌ها: در این مطالعه 21 رقم گندم نان مشتمل بر ارقام آبی و دیم در حال کشت به همراه سه رقم استاندارد بسیار مقاوم و بسیار حساس با طرح بلوک کامل تصادفی در سه تکرار در دو شرایط محیطی در قالب طرح بلوک کامل در مزرعه آموزشی دانشگاه علوم کشاورزی گرگان در سال 1395 کشت شد. یک محیط دارای تنش بیماری و یک محیط فاقد تنش بیماری بود. در محیط دارای تنش بیماری، آلودگی مصنوعی با اسپورپاشی سنبله گندم با سوسپانسیون اسپور قارچ صورت گرفت و در محیط فاقد تنش از قارچ کش فالکون برای کنترل بیماری استفاده شد. هر رقم گندم بر روی یک خط چهار و نیم متری کشت شد. فاصله خطوط از همدیگر 20 سانتی متر و فاصله بذور پنج سانتی متر در نظر گرفته شد.در این آزمایش، از سوسپانسیون تازه قارچ با غلظت 108×1 ماکروکنیدی در هر میلی‌لیتر استفاده شد. اسپور پاشی سوسپانسیون اسپور قارچ فوزاریوم روی سنبله‌ها در اوایل مرحله گلدهی زمان در شروع بیرون آمدن بساک‌ها انجام گرفت. پس از اسپور پاشی شاخص های بیماری شامل درصد وقوع بیماری شدت بیماری و شاخص بیماری و پس از برداشت درصد دانه آلوده و شاخص های مربوط به عملکرد اندازه گیری شدند. یافته‌ها: بر اساس نتایج تجزیه واریانس، بین ارقام مورد آزمایش در سطح احتمال یک درصد برای میزان بروز، شدت بیماری و درصد دانه های آلوده تفاوت معنی داری وجود داشت. تحلیل داده‌های عملکرد با استفاده از تجزیه مرکب نشان داد که از بین ارقام دیم مورد بررسی به ترتیب رقم قابوس ،آفتاب و لاین17 و در بین ارقام آبی رقم مروارید بهترین ارقام در واکنش به بادزدگی فوزاریومی سنبله بودند. در بین ارقام مورد مطالعه رقم های قابوس و آفتاب کمترین خسارت عملکردی را داشتند و مناسب کشت در مناطق با اپیدمی‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌ بادزدگی فوزاریومی‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌سنبله است.نتیجه گیری: نتایج این مطالعه نشان داد که بروز یک تنش زنده مانند بیماری بادزدگی فوزاریومی سنبله اثر منفی بر عملکرد دانه دارد که ارقام مقاوم‌‌‌تر میزان خسارت عملکردی پایین تر است. نتایج این تحقیق می‌تواند به عنوان منبع ژنوتیپ‌های مقاوم برای انجام اقدامات اصلاحی مورد استفاده قرار گیرد . ارقام قابوس و آفتاب مناسب در مناطقی با خطر بالای بیماری Fusarium سنبله معرفی می شوند. رقم ‌احسان دانه درشت است و عملکرد خوبی در یک محیط بدون بیماری دارد شاید بتوان آن را مناسب برای کشت در مناطقی یافت که رطوبت کمتر باشد.

Narcís Prat

Reseña del libro Domínguez, E., Giorgi, A., Gómez N. (Compiladores). (2019). La bioindicación en el monitoreo y evaluación de los sistemas fluviales de la Argentina: bases para el análisis de la integridad ecológica. Eudeba, 98 pp.  Este es un libro fruto de la reflexión sobre el tema de los bioindicadores en cursos fluviales originado en un congreso de la Asociación Argentina de Limnología. En el prólogo los compiladores destacan que se trata de “dejar de hablar entre nosotros y comunicar con la comunidad” y hablan de “analfabetismo ecológico”. La reflexión ha sido amplia pues ha involucrado a 40 autores, 17 revisores y dos colaboradores, muchos de ellos con gran experiencia en el tema y numerosas publicaciones.

Hong-Bin Xie, Jonas Elm

Synergistic effects between different bases can greatly enhance atmospheric sulfuric acid (SA)-base cluster formation. However, only the synergy between two base components has previously been investigated. Here, we extend this concept to three bases by studying large atmospherically relevant (SA)<inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><msub><mrow></mrow><mn>3</mn></msub></semantics></math></inline-formula>(base)<inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><msub><mrow></mrow><mn>3</mn></msub></semantics></math></inline-formula> clusters, with the bases ammonia (A), methylamine (MA), dimethylamine (DMA), trimethylamine (TMA) and ethylenediamine (EDA). Using density functional theory—<inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mi>ω</mi></semantics></math></inline-formula>B97X-D/6-31++G(d,p)—we calculate the cluster structures and vibrational frequencies. The thermochemical parameters are calculated at 29,815 K and 1 atm, using the quasi-harmonic approximation. The binding energies of the clusters are calculated using high level DLPNO-CCSD(T<inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><msub><mrow></mrow><mn>0</mn></msub></semantics></math></inline-formula>)/aug-cc-pVTZ. We find that the cluster stability in general depends on the basicity of the constituent bases, with some noteworthy additional guidelines: DMA enhances the cluster stability, TMA decreases the cluster stability and there is high synergy between DMA and EDA. Based on our calculations, we find it highly likely that three, or potentially more, different bases, are involved in the growth pathways of sulfuric acid-base clusters.

Safonov M.A., Safonova T.I.

Agricultural lands occupy a special place in the structure of urban lands. There are horticultural and gardening associations on these lands. The “belts” of horticultural associations surround large cities and small settlements; dachas and vegetable gardens play the role of individual subsidiary farms and recreation areas. In Russia, the area of such lands is about 1.5 million hectares; in the Orenburg region - 18.7 thousand hectares. Studies show that horticultural ecosystems differ significantly from the adjacent urban and agricultural ecosystems in terms of the characteristics of soil and plant cover. The reason for this is private investment in the development of these territories, which needs to be managed. For the consistent development of these socio-ecological systems (SES), it is necessary to implement a soft management system. The purpose of creating and supporting of socio-ecological systems in the agricultural use zone and suburbs is the formation of a sustainable complex of natural and social conditions for gardening and recreation of residents; optimization of the belt of lands separating the city from agricultural land to reduce the impact of adverse environmental factors on urban ecosystems (wind restriction, fire safety, pests, etc.); use of these lands as carbon polygons for capturing and retaining of carbon dioxide.

Abinash Parida, Meesala Krishna Murthy, G.S. Solanki

In this study, we report the mating behavior of Yellow-throated Marten Martes_flavigula.  A pair was observed mating on a Sterculia villosa tree at the Tuilut anti-poaching camp situated near the core of Dampa Tiger Reserve at 05.35h on 25 November 2018.  Copulation between the pair was observed 14 times with successive coupling rhythms approximately four minutes apart.

João Filipe Riva Tonini, Diogo B. Provete, Natan M. Maciel et al.

Abstract Allometric constraint is a product of natural selection and physical laws, particularly with respect to body size and traits constrained by properties thereof, such as metabolism, longevity, and vocal frequency. Allometric relationships are often conserved across lineages, indicating that physical constraints dictate scaling patterns in deep time, despite substantial genetic and ecological divergence among organisms. In particular, acoustic allometry (sound frequency ~ body size) is conserved across frogs, in defiance of massive variation in both body size and frequency. Here, we ask how many instances of allometric escape have occurred across the frog tree of life using a Bayesian framework that estimates the location, number, and magnitude of shifts in the adaptive landscape of acoustic allometry. Moreover, we test whether ecology in terms of calling site could affect these relationships. We find that calling site has a major influence on acoustic allometry. Despite this, we identify only four major instances of allometric escape, potentially deriving from ecomorphological adaptations to new signal modalities. In these instances of allometric escape, the optima and strength of the scaling relationship are different than expected for most other frog species, representing new adaptive regimes of body size ~ call frequency. Allometric constraints on frog calls are highly conserved and have rarely allowed escape, despite frequent invasions of new adaptive regimes and dramatic ecomorphological divergence. Our results highlight the rare instances in which natural and sexual selection combined can overcome physical constraints on sound production.

K. Mellanby

Bryan A. Endress, Joshua P. Averett

These data support the research article: “Non-native species threaten the biotic integrity of the largest remnant Pacific Northwest Bunchgrass prairie in the United States” Endress et al. (2019) [1].The data were collected at the Zumwalt Prairie Preserve (Zumwalt), northeastern Oregon, USA, and include vascular plant species abundance matrices from 123 plots sampled in 2008 and 2009 and the estimated abundance of dominant species in community space. Keywords: Invasive species, Ventenata dubia, Grassland conservation, Plant community ecology

A. Underwood

J. L. Gittleman, P. Harvey

R. Ostfeld