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Long-Term Studies of Vertebrate Communities

Author: Martin L. Cody

Publisher: Academic Press

Published: 1996-10-24

Total Pages: 621

ISBN-13: 0080535623

This unique book synthesizes the ongoing long-term community ecology studies of fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. The studies have been conducted from deserts to rainforests as well as in terrestrial, freshwater, and marine habitats and provide valuable insight that can be obtained only through persistent, diligent, and year-after-year investigation. Long-Term Studies of Vertebrate Communities is ideal for faculty, researchers, graduate students, and undergraduates in vertebrate biology, ecology, and evolutionary biology, including ecology, natural history, and systematics. Provides unique perspectives of community stability and variation Details the influence of natural and other perturbations on community structure Includes synopses by well-known authors Presents results from a broad range of vertebrate taxa Studies were conducted at different latitudes and in different habitats

Predation in Vertebrate Communities

Author: Bogumila Jedrzejewska

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-11-11

Total Pages: 463

ISBN-13: 3662353644

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Predation, one of the most dramatic interactions in animals' lives, has long fascinated ecologists. This volume presents carnivores, raptors and their prey in the complicated net of interrelationships, and shows them against the background of their biotic and abiotic settings. It is based on long-term research conducted in the best preserved woodland of Europe's temperate zone. The role of predation, whether limiting or regulating prey (ungulate, rodent, shrew, bird, and amphibian) populations, is quantified and compared to parts played by other factors: climate, food resources for prey, and availability of other potential resources for predators.

Utilizing Vertebrates to Understand the Factors that Influence Terrestrial Ecosystem Structure

Author: Cory Redman

Publisher:

Published: 2012

Total Pages:

ISBN-13:

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Conserving biodiversity in the current global ecological crisis requires a robust understanding of a multitude of abiotic and biotic processes operating at spatial and temporal scales that are nearly impossible to study on a human timescale and are therefore poorly understood. However, fossil data preserve a vast archive of information on past ecosystems and how they have changed through time. My PhD research is composed of three studies that look at biogeogaphic distribution, ecosystem structure, and trends in richness and diversity. Identifying organisms to the species level is a common practice in ecology when conducting community analyses. However, when species-level identification is not feasible, higher level taxonomic identifications are used as surrogates. This study tests the validity of supraspecific identifications for vertebrates in regional biogeography studies, using the recorded occurrences of terrestrial and aquatic taxa from 16 national parks on the Colorado Plateau and culling the data set based on a series of taphonomic processes to generated fossil assemblages. Changes in community structure as a result of increased magnitude and/or frequency of perturbations have been well documented in terrestrial and marine ecosystems. Unfortunately, the long-term effects of sea-level rise on vertebrate communities in coastal habitats are poorly understood and difficult to study on a human time scale. This study examines the long term effects of relative sea-level change on coastal plain ecosystems of the Belly River Group (Campanian) in southern Alberta using microvertebrate fossils. Most Cretaceous freshwater deposits in North America produce only a couple of articulated fish skeletons. Because of this preservational bias many workers suggested that freshwater teleosts were largely absent from North America until the Eocene or later. Late Cretaceous fish assemblages are of particular interest, because these assemblages undergo a major compositional change. Pre-Cretaceous fish assemblages are dominated by non-teleosts, while Paleogene assemblages are dominated by teleosts that are members of extant families. This study provides a first approach in characterizing long-term trends in richness and the distribution of Late Cretaceous, nonmarine actinopterygians of the Western Interior of North America.

Stream Fish Community Dynamics

Author: William J. Matthews

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2017-05

Total Pages: 359

ISBN-13: 1421422026

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The most comprehensive synthesis of stream fish community research ever produced. Winner of the CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title of the Choice ACRL Ecologists have long struggled to understand community dynamics. In this groundbreaking book, leading fish ecologists William Matthews and Edie Marsh-Matthews apply long-term studies of stream fish communities to several enduring questions. This critical synthesis reaches to the heart of ecological theory, testing concepts against the four decades of data the authors have collected from numerous warm-water stream fish communities in the central and eastern United States. Stream Fish Community Dynamics draws together the work of a single research team to provide fresh analyses of the short- and long-term dynamics of numerous streams, each with multiple sampling sites. Conducting repeated surveys of fish communities at temporal scales from months to decades, the authors' research findings will fascinate anyone searching for a deeper understanding of community ecology. The study sites covered by this book range from small headwater creeks to large prairie rivers in Oklahoma and from Ozark and Ouachita mountain streams in Arkansas to the upland Roanoke River in Virginia. The book includes • A comparison of all global and local communities with respect to community composition at the species and family level, emergent community properties, and the relationship between those emergent properties and the environments of the study sites • Analyses of traits of individual species that are important to their distribution or success in harsh environments • A review of evidence for the importance of interactions—including competition and predation—in community dynamics of stream fishes • An assessment of disturbance effects in fish community dynamics • New analysis of the short- and long-term dynamics of variation in stream fish communities, illustrating the applicability and importance of the "loose equilibrium concept" • New analyses and comparisons of spatiotemporal variation in community dynamics and beta diversity partitioning • An overview of the effects of fish in ecosystems in the central and eastern United States The book ends with a summary chapter that places the authors' findings in broader contexts and describes how the "loose equilibrium concept"—which may be the most appropriate default assumption for dynamics of stream fishes in the changing climate of the future—applies to many kinds of stream fish communities.

USDA Forest Service Experimental Forests and Ranges

Author: Deborah C. Hayes

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2014-07-22

Total Pages: 666

ISBN-13: 1461418186

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USDA Forest Service Experimental Forests and Ranges (EFRs) are scientific treasures, providing secure, protected research sites where complex and diverse ecological processes are studied over the long term. This book offers several examples of the dynamic interactions among questions of public concern or policy, EFR research, and natural resource management practices and policies. Often, trends observed – or expected -- in the early years of a research program are contradicted or confounded as the research record extends over decades. The EFRs are among the few areas in the US where such long-term research has been carried out by teams of scientists. Changes in society’s needs and values can also redirect research programs. Each chapter of this book reflects the interplay between the ecological results that emerge from a long-term research project and the social forces that influence questions asked and resources invested in ecological research. While these stories include summaries and syntheses of traditional research results, they offer a distinctly new perspective, a larger and more complete picture than that provided by a more typical 5-year study. They also provide examples of long-term research on EFRs that have provided answers for questions not even imagined at the time the study was installed.

Experimental Ecology

Author: William J. Resetarits

Publisher:

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 492

ISBN-13: 9780195150421

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Experimentation is a dominant approach in contemporary ecological research, pervading studies at all levels of biological organization and across diverse taxa and habitats. Experimental Ecology assembles an eminent group of ecologists who synthesize insights from these varied sources into a cogent statement about experimentalism as an analytical paradigm, placing experimentation within the larger framework of ecological investigation. The book discusses diverse experimental approaches ranging from laboratory microcosms to manipulation of entire ecosystem, illustrating the myriad ways experiments strengthen ecological inference. Experimental ecologists critique their science to move the field forward on all fronts: from better designs, to better links between experiments and theory, to more realism in experiments targeted at specific systems and questions.

Primate Communities

Author: J. G. Fleagle

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1999-10-14

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 9780521629676

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Comprehensive and unique volume exploring the differences and similarities between primate communities worldwide.

Biodiversity Conservation in Costa Rica

Author: Gordon W. Frankie

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2004-02-06

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 0520937775

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The beautiful tropical dry forest of northwest Costa Rica, with its highly seasonal rainfall and diversely vegetated landscape, is disappearing even more rapidly than Costa Rica's better-known rain forest, primarily because it has been easier to convert to agriculture. This book, based on more than thirty years of study, offers the first comprehensive look at the ecology, biodiversity, and conservation status of this endangered and fragile region. The contributors, from Costa Rica, Britain, Mexico, and the United States, and representing the fields of ecology, environmental education, policy, and the law, examine the major plant and animal groups living in the dry forest and present the first technical evaluation of Costa Rica's conservation efforts. As they assess the status of their area of specialty in the dry forest, the contributors also look beyond this particular region to show how its plants and animals are ecologically and evolutionarily connected to other geographic areas in Costa Rica and Central America. Their chapters cover topics such as watershed and coastal management, plant phenology, pollination, insects, birds, mammals, amphibians, and reptiles. They also consider the socioeconomic, policy, legal, and political aspects of biodiversity conservation, giving the volume a wide-ranging perspective and making a unique contribution to our knowledge of the tropical dry forest. The book concludes with an important synthesis of the contributors' recommendations on future directions, policies, and actions that will better conserve biodiversity in Costa Rica and other neotropical forests as well.

The Ecology of Place

Author: Ian Billick

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2012-08-01

Total Pages: 479

ISBN-13: 0226050440

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Ecologists can spend a lifetime researching a small patch of the earth, studying the interactions between organisms and the environment, and exploring the roles those interactions play in determining distribution, abundance, and evolutionary change. With so few ecologists and so many systems to study, generalizations are essential. But how do you extrapolate knowledge about a well-studied area and apply it elsewhere? Through a range of original essays written by eminent ecologists and naturalists, The Ecology of Place explores how place-focused research yields exportable general knowledge as well as practical local knowledge, and how society can facilitate ecological understanding by investing in field sites, place-centered databases, interdisciplinary collaborations, and field-oriented education programs that emphasize natural history. This unique patchwork of case-study narratives, philosophical musings, and historical analyses is tied together with commentaries from editors Ian Billick and Mary Price that develop and synthesize common threads. The result is a unique volume rich with all-too-rare insights into how science is actually done, as told by scientists themselves.

50 Years of Bat Research

Author: Burton K. Lim

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-01-23

Total Pages: 375

ISBN-13: 3030547272

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With more than 1,400 species, bats are an incredibly diverse and successful group of mammals that can serve as model systems for many unique evolutionary adaptations. Flight has allowed them to master the sky, while echolocation enables them to navigate in the dark. Being small, secretive, nocturnal creatures has made bats a challenge to study, but over the past 50 years, innovative research has made it possible to dispel some of the mystery and myth surrounding them to give us a better understanding of the role these animals play in the ecosystem. The structure of the book is based on several broad themes across the biological sciences, including the evolution of bats, their ecology and behavior, and conservation of biodiversity. Within these themes are more specific topics on important aspects of bat research, such as morphology, molecular biology, echolocation, taxonomy, systematics, threats to bats, social structure, reproduction, movements, and feeding strategies. Given its scope, the book will appeal to the wider scientific community, environmental organizations, and government policymakers who are interested in the interdisciplinary aspects of biology and nature.