Publications
160 results found
Banks-Leite C, Betts MG, Ewers RM, et al., 2022, The macroecology of landscape ecology, Trends in Ecology and Evolution, Vol: 37, ISSN: 0169-5347
One of landscape ecology's main goals is to unveil how biodiversity is impacted by habitat transformation. However, the discipline suffers from significant context dependency in observed spatial and temporal trends, hindering progress towards understanding the mechanisms driving species declines and preventing the development of accurate estimates of future biodiversity change. Here, we discuss recent evidence that populations' and species' responses to habitat change at the landscape scale are modulated by factors and processes occurring at macroecological scales, such as historical disturbance rates, distance to geographic range edges, and climatic suitability. We suggest that placing landscape ecology studies in a macroecological lens will help to explain seemingly inconsistent results and will ultimately create better predictive models to help mitigate the biodiversity crisis.
Deere NJ, Bicknell JE, Mitchell SL, et al., 2022, Riparian buffers can help mitigate biodiversity declines in oil palm agriculture, FRONTIERS IN ECOLOGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT, Vol: 20, Pages: 459-466, ISSN: 1540-9295
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- Citations: 2
Aguirre-Gutierrez J, Berenguer E, Menor IO, et al., 2022, Functional susceptibility of tropical forests to climate change, NATURE ECOLOGY & EVOLUTION, Vol: 6, Pages: 878-+, ISSN: 2397-334X
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- Citations: 2
Gregory N, Ewers RM, Chung AYC, et al., 2022, Oil palm expansion increases the vectorial capacity of dengue vectors in Malaysian Borneo, PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, Vol: 16, ISSN: 1935-2727
Changes in land-use and the associated shifts in environmental conditions can have large effects on the transmission and emergence of mosquito-borne disease. Mosquito-borne disease are particularly sensitive to these changes because mosquito growth, reproduction, survival and susceptibility to infection are all thermally sensitive traits, and land use change dramatically alters local microclimate. Predicting disease transmission under environmental change is increasingly critical for targeting mosquito-borne disease control and for identifying hotspots of disease emergence. Mechanistic models offer a powerful tool for improving these predictions. However, these approaches are limited by the quality and scale of temperature data and the thermal response curves that underlie predictions. Here, we used fine-scale temperature monitoring and a combination of empirical, laboratory and temperature-dependent estimates to estimate the vectorial capacity of Aedes albopictus mosquitoes across a tropical forest-oil palm plantation conversion gradient in Malaysian Borneo. We found that fine-scale differences in temperature between logged forest and oil palm plantation sites were not sufficient to produce differences in temperature-dependent demographic trait estimates using published thermal performance curves. However, when measured under field conditions a key parameter, adult abundance, differed significantly between land-use types, resulting in estimates of vectorial capacity that were 1.5 times higher in plantations than in forests. The prediction that oil palm plantations would support mosquito populations with higher vectorial capacity was robust to uncertainties in our adult survival estimates. These results provide a mechanistic basis for understanding the effects of forest conversion to agriculture on mosquito-borne disease risk, and a framework for interpreting emergent relationships between land-use and disease transmission. As the burden of Ae. albopictus-vectored d
Lembrechts JJ, van den Hoogen J, Aalto J, et al., 2022, Global maps of soil temperature, GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY, Vol: 28, Pages: 3110-3144, ISSN: 1354-1013
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- Citations: 27
Lyons-White J, Yobo CM, Ewers RM, et al., 2022, Understanding zero deforestation and the High Carbon Stock Approach in a highly forested tropical country, LAND USE POLICY, Vol: 112, ISSN: 0264-8377
Bowler E, Lefebvre VA, Pfeifer M, et al., 2022, Optimising sampling designs for habitat fragmentation studies, Methods in Ecology and Evolution, Vol: 13, Pages: 217-229, ISSN: 2041-210X
Habitat fragmentation has become one of the largest areas of research in conservation biology. Empirical studies into habitat fragmentation impacts typically measure ecological responses to metrics describing fragmentation processes, for example ‘distance to the nearest forest edge’, ‘forest fragment area’ and ‘landscape habitat amount’. However, these studies often fail to sample across representative ranges of fragmentation metrics characterising the study region. They therefore lack the data to account for correlation among multiple fragmentation metrics and for spatial autocorrelation among sample sites, which reduces the strength of derived predictive models.Here, we draw on approaches used in the mining and soil science industry to develop standardised and repeatable protocols for designing optimised sampling schemes of biodiversity in fragmented landscapes that meet three criteria: the distance between sample sites is maximised to reduce spatial autocorrelation, the full range of values of the metrics of interest are sampled and the confounding effects of correlated metrics are minimised.We show that our computational methods can optimise the placement of sample sites in fragmented landscapes to minimise, and in some cases to entirely avoid, over- or under-sampling of fragmentation metrics. Our method is flexible enough to cater for any continuous (e.g. maps of percentage tree cover) or categorical (e.g. habitat and land use types) fragmentation metric, and to simultaneously handle combinations of multiple fragmentation metrics and habitat types. We implement our methods as open-source code which includes options to mask invalid or inaccessible regions, update designs to adapt to unforeseen constraints in the field and suggest optimal numbers of sample sites for given design criteria.Using a case study landscape, we demonstrate how the approach improves on manually generated sampling designs. We also show that the methods a
Lyons-White J, Mikolo Yobo C, Ewers RM, et al., 2022, Understanding zero deforestation and the High Carbon Stock Approach in a highly forested tropical country, Land Use Policy, Vol: 112, Pages: 1-12, ISSN: 0264-8377
“Zero deforestation” commitments are pledges by companies to avoid deforestation when producing palm oil. Zero deforestation can be implemented using the High Carbon Stock Approach (HCSA), a tool that distinguishes forests from degraded land which can be developed. In highly forested countries like Gabon, zero deforestation may conflict with national economic goals involving palm oil and other agricultural commodities. We investigated perspectives of stakeholders in Gabon about zero deforestation and the HCSA using Critical Systems Heuristics, a systems thinking methodology. In 25 interviews with government, NGOs, companies, and research institutions, and two focus groups with rural communities, we identified three contrasting perspectives on forest conservation and agro industrial development: international, national, and local. Zero deforestation represents an international perspective that marginalises issues from a national perspective. This may produce unintended consequences that undermine the legitimacy of zero deforestation, including conversion of Gabon’s savannahs and disincentives for sustainable business. From a local perspective, zero deforestation is embedded in an agro-industrial vision that may marginalise value judgments concerning forests and traditional livelihoods. Gabon’s National Land Use Plan could help reconcile the three perspectives but requires recognition by international standards. Adapting the HCSA to Gabon’s context should also be considered to promote legitimacy. Research is required to ensure proposed institutional arrangements deliver equitable multi-stakeholder participation in land-use planning. Gabon’s case shows the applicability of zero deforestation to all highly forested countries cannot be assumed. Improved international understanding of national contexts, and flexibility in applying “zero deforestation”, is important for designing effective and equitable international standard
Fornace K, Manin BO, Matthiopoulos J, et al., 2022, A protocol for a longitudinal, observational cohort study of infection and exposure to zoonotic and vector-borne diseases across a land-use gradient in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo: a socio-ecological systems approach., Wellcome Open Res, Vol: 7, ISSN: 2398-502X
Introduction. Landscape changes disrupt environmental, social and biological systems, altering pathogen spillover and transmission risks. This study aims to quantify the impact of specific land management practices on spillover and transmission rates of zoonotic and vector-borne diseases within Malaysian Borneo. This protocol describes a cohort study with integrated ecological sampling to assess how deforestation and agricultural practices impact pathogen flow from wildlife and vector populations to human infection and detection by health facilities. This will focus on malaria, dengue and emerging arboviruses (Chikungunya and Zika), vector-borne diseases with varying contributions of simian reservoirs within this setting. Methods. A prospective longitudinal observational cohort study will be established in communities residing or working within the vicinity of the Stability of Altered Forest Ecosystems (SAFE) Project, a landscape gradient within Malaysian Borneo encompassing different plantation and forest types. The primary outcome of this study will be transmission intensity of selected zoonotic and vector-borne diseases, as quantified by changes in pathogen-specific antibody levels. Exposure will be measured using paired population-based serological surveys conducted at the beginning and end of the two-year cohort study. Secondary outcomes will include the distribution and infection rates of Aedes and Anopheles mosquito vectors, human risk behaviours and clinical cases reported to health facilities. Longitudinal data on human behaviour, contact with wildlife and GPS tracking of mobility patterns will be collected throughout the study period. This will be integrated with entomological surveillance to monitor densities and pathogen infection rates of Aedes and Anopheles mosquitoes relative to land cover. Within surrounding health clinics, continuous health facility surveillance will be used to monitor reported infections and febrile illnesses. Models will be develo
Sethi SS, Ewers RM, Jones NS, et al., 2021, Soundscapes predict species occurrence in tropical forests, OIKOS, Vol: 2022, Pages: 1-9, ISSN: 0030-1299
Accurate occurrence data is necessary for the conservation of keystone or endangered species, but acquiring it is usually slow, laborious and costly. Automated acoustic monitoring offers a scalable alternative to manual surveys but identifying species vocalisations requires large manually annotated training datasets, and is not always possible (e.g. for lesser studied or silent species). A new approach is needed that rapidly predicts species occurrence using smaller and more coarsely labelled audio datasets. We investigated whether local soundscapes could be used to infer the presence of 32 avifaunal and seven herpetofaunal species in 20 min recordings across a tropical forest degradation gradient in Sabah, Malaysia. Using acoustic features derived from a convolutional neural network (CNN), we characterised species indicative soundscapes by training our models on a temporally coarse labelled point-count dataset. Soundscapes successfully predicted the occurrence of 34 out of the 39 species across the two taxonomic groups, with area under the curve (AUC) metrics from 0.53 up to 0.87. The highest accuracies were achieved for species with strong temporal occurrence patterns. Soundscapes were a better predictor of species occurrence than above-ground carbon density – a metric often used to quantify habitat quality across forest degradation gradients. Our results demonstrate that soundscapes can be used to efficiently predict the occurrence of a wide variety of species and provide a new direction for data driven large-scale assessments of habitat suitability.
Heath R, Orme DS, Sethi CSL, et al., 2021, How index selection, compression, and recording schedule impact the description of ecological soundscapes, Evolutionary Ecology, Vol: 11, Pages: 13206-13217, ISSN: 0269-7653
Acoustic indices derived from environmental soundscape recordings are being used to monitor ecosystem health and vocal animal biodiversity. Soundscape data can quickly become very expensive and difficult to manage, so data compression or temporal down-sampling are sometimes employed to reduce data storage and transmission costs. These parameters vary widely between experiments, with the consequences of this variation remaining mostly unknown.We analyse field recordings from North-Eastern Borneo across a gradient of historical land use. We quantify the impact of experimental parameters (MP3 compression, recording length and temporal subsetting) on soundscape descriptors (Analytical Indices and a convolutional neural net derived AudioSet Fingerprint). Both descriptor types were tested for their robustness to parameter alteration and their usability in a soundscape classification task.We find that compression and recording length both drive considerable variation in calculated index values. However, we find that the effects of this variation and temporal subsetting on the performance of classification models is minor: performance is much more strongly determined by acoustic index choice, with Audioset fingerprinting offering substantially greater (12%–16%) levels of classifier accuracy, precision and recall.We advise using the AudioSet Fingerprint in soundscape analysis, finding superior and consistent performance even on small pools of data. If data storage is a bottleneck to a study, we recommend Variable Bit Rate encoded compression (quality = 0) to reduce file size to 23% file size without affecting most Analytical Index values. The AudioSet Fingerprint can be compressed further to a Constant Bit Rate encoding of 64 kb/s (8% file size) without any detectable effect. These recommendations allow the efficient use of restricted data storage whilst permitting comparability of results between different studies.
Milodowski DT, Coomes DA, Swinfield T, et al., 2021, The impact of logging on vertical canopy structure across a gradient of tropical forest degradation intensity in Borneo, JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY, Vol: 58, Pages: 1764-1775, ISSN: 0021-8901
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- Citations: 12
Huaraca Huasco W, Riutta T, Girardin CAJ, et al., 2021, Fine root dynamics across pantropical rainforest ecosystems, Global Change Biology, Vol: 27, Pages: 3657-3680, ISSN: 1354-1013
Fine roots constitute a significant component of the net primary productivity (NPP) of forest ecosystems but are much less studied than aboveground NPP. Comparisons across sites and regions are also hampered by inconsistent methodologies, especially in tropical areas. Here, we present a novel dataset of fine root biomass, productivity, residence time, and allocation in tropical old-growth rainforest sites worldwide, measured using consistent methods, and examine how these variables are related to consistently determined soil and climatic characteristics. Our pantropical dataset spans intensive monitoring plots in lowland (wet, semi-deciduous, and deciduous) and montane tropical forests in South America, Africa, and Southeast Asia (n = 47). Large spatial variation in fine root dynamics was observed across montane and lowland forest types. In lowland forests, we found a strong positive linear relationship between fine root productivity and sand content, this relationship was even stronger when we considered the fractional allocation of total NPP to fine roots, demonstrating that understanding allocation adds explanatory power to understanding fine root productivity and total NPP. Fine root residence time was a function of multiple factors: soil sand content, soil pH, and maximum water deficit, with longest residence times in acidic, sandy, and water-stressed soils. In tropical montane forests, on the other hand, a different set of relationships prevailed, highlighting the very different nature of montane and lowland forest biomes. Root productivity was a strong positive linear function of mean annual temperature, root residence time was a strong positive function of soil nitrogen content in montane forests, and lastly decreasing soil P content increased allocation of productivity to fine roots. In contrast to the lowlands, environmental conditions were a better predictor for fine root productivity than for fractional allocation of total NPP to fine roots, suggesting t
Ewers RM, Nathan SKSS, Lee PAK, 2021, African swine fever ravaging Borneo's wild pigs, NATURE, Vol: 593, Pages: 37-37, ISSN: 0028-0836
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- Citations: 1
Boyle MJW, Bishop TR, Luke SH, et al., 2021, Localised climate change defines ant communities in human-modified tropical landscapes, Functional Ecology, Vol: 35, Pages: 1094-1108, ISSN: 0269-8463
Logging and habitat conversion create hotter microclimates in tropical forest landscapes, representing a powerful form of localised anthropogenic climate change. It is widely believed that these emergent conditions are responsible for driving changes in communities of organisms found in modified tropical forests, although the empirical evidence base for this is lacking.Here we investigated how interactions between the physiological traits of genera and the environmental temperatures they experience lead to functional and compositional changes in communities of ants, a key organism in tropical forest ecosystems.We found that the abundance and activity of ant genera along a gradient of forest disturbance in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, was defined by an interaction between their thermal tolerance (CTmax) and environmental temperature. In more disturbed, warmer habitats, genera with high CTmax had increased relative abundance and functional activity, and those with low CTmax had decreased relative abundance and functional activity.This interaction determined abundance changes between primary and logged forest that differed in daily maximum temperature by a modest 1.1°C, and strengthened as the change in microclimate increased with disturbance. Between habitats that differed by 5.6°C (primary forest to oil palm) and 4.5°C (logged forest to oil palm), a 1°C difference in CTmax among genera led to a 23% and 16% change in relative abundance, and a 22% and 17% difference in functional activity. CTmax was negatively correlated with body size and trophic position, with ants becoming significantly smaller and less predatory as microclimate temperatures increased.Our results provide evidence to support the widely held, but never directly tested, assumption that physiological tolerances underpin the influence of disturbance‐induced microclimate change on the abundance and function of invertebrates in tropical landscapes.
Nunes MH, Jucker T, Riutta T, et al., 2021, Recovery of logged forest fragments in a human-modified tropical landscape during the 2015-16 El Nino, Nature Communications, Vol: 12, Pages: 1-11, ISSN: 2041-1723
The past 40 years in Southeast Asia have seen about 50% of lowland rainforests converted to oil palm and other plantations, and much of the remaining forest heavily logged. Little is known about how fragmentation influences recovery and whether climate change will hamper restoration. Here, we use repeat airborne LiDAR surveys spanning the hot and dry 2015-16 El Niño Southern Oscillation event to measure canopy height growth across 3,300 ha of regenerating tropical forests spanning a logging intensity gradient in Malaysian Borneo. We show that the drought led to increased leaf shedding and branch fall. Short forest, regenerating after heavy logging, continued to grow despite higher evaporative demand, except when it was located close to oil palm plantations. Edge effects from the plantations extended over 300 metres into the forests. Forest growth on hilltops and slopes was particularly impacted by the combination of fragmentation and drought, but even riparian forests located within 40 m of oil palm plantations lost canopy height during the drought. Our results suggest that small patches of logged forest within plantation landscapes will be slow to recover, particularly as ENSO events are becoming more frequent.
Gray REJ, Ewers RM, 2021, Monitoring forest phenology in a changing world, Forests, Vol: 12, Pages: 1-24, ISSN: 1999-4907
Plant phenology is strongly interlinked with ecosystem processes and biodiversity. Like many other aspects of ecosystem functioning, it is affected by habitat and climate change, with both global change drivers altering the timings and frequency of phenological events. As such, there has been an increased focus in recent years to monitor phenology in different biomes. A range of approaches for monitoring phenology have been developed to increase our understanding on its role in ecosystems, ranging from the use of satellites and drones to collection traps, each with their own merits and limitations. Here, we outline the trade-offs between methods (spatial resolution, temporal resolution, cost, data processing), and discuss how their use can be optimised in different environments and for different goals. We also emphasise emerging technologies that will be the focus of monitoring in the years to follow and the challenges of monitoring phenology that still need to be addressed. We conclude that there is a need to integrate studies that incorporate multiple monitoring methods, allowing the strengths of one to compensate for the weaknesses of another, with a view to developing robust methods for upscaling phenological observations from point locations to biome and global scales and reconciling data from varied sources and environments. Such developments are needed if we are to accurately quantify the impacts of a changing world on plant phenology.
Aguirre-Gutierrez J, Rifal S, Shenkin A, et al., 2021, Pantropical modelling of canopy functional traits using Sentinel-2 remote sensing data, REMOTE SENSING OF ENVIRONMENT, Vol: 252, ISSN: 0034-4257
Banks-Leite C, Ewers R, Folkard-Tapp H, et al., 2020, Countering the effects of habitat loss, fragmentation, and degradation through habitat restoration, One Earth, Vol: 3, Pages: 672-676, ISSN: 2590-3322
Habitat loss, fragmentation and degradation impacts are the most direct threat to global biodiversity. In this Primer, we discuss how these three forms of habitat transformation are inextricably intertwined, and how their effects on biodiversity and ecosystems are often context-specific. We draw on recent analyses that have explored this context-dependence directly, to discuss how local-scale impacts of habitat transformation are mediated by biogeographic-scale variation in evolutionary histories and species’ geographic ranges. We also discuss how changes to ecosystem functions and services in modified habitats can be just as context-dependent – and how these changes are further obscured by high levels of ecological redundancy in species functions, which can confer resilience to habitat transformation. To avoid the impending extinction of millions of species, it is crucial that the impacts of habitat transformation are mitigated through a combination of preventing further habitat loss while simultaneously extending and repairing the habitats that remain.
Sethi S, Ewers R, Jones N, et al., 2020, SAFE Acoustics: an open-source, real-time eco-acoustic monitoring network in the tropical rainforests of Borneo, Methods in Ecology and Evolution, Vol: 11, Pages: 1182-1185, ISSN: 2041-210X
1. Automated monitoring approaches offer an avenue to unlocking large‐scale insight into how ecosystems respond to human pressures. However, since data collection and data analyses are often treated independently, there are currently no open‐source examples of end‐to‐end, real‐time ecological monitoring networks. 2. Here, we present the complete implementation of an autonomous acoustic monitoring network deployed in the tropical rainforests of Borneo. Real‐time audio is uploaded remotely from the field, indexed by a central database, and delivered via an API to a public‐facing website.3. We provide the open‐source code and design of our monitoring devices, the central web2py database, and the ReactJS website. Furthermore, we demonstrate an extension of this infrastructure to deliver real‐time analyses of the eco‐acoustic data. 4. By detailing a fully functional, open source, and extensively tested design, our work will accelerate the rate at which fully autonomous monitoring networks mature from technological curiosities, and towards genuinely impactful tools in ecology.
Sethi SS, Ewers RM, Jones NS, et al., 2020, Soundscapes predict species occurrence in tropical forests, Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Accurate occurrence data is necessary for the conservation of keystone or endangered species, but acquiring it is usually slow, laborious, and costly. Automated acoustic monitoring offers a scalable alternative to manual surveys, but identifying species vocalisations requires large manually annotated training datasets, and is not always possible (e.g., for silent species). A new, intermediate approach is needed that rapidly predicts species occurrence without requiring extensive labelled data.We investigated whether local soundscapes could be used to infer the presence of 32 avifaunal and seven herpetofaunal species across a tropical forest degradation gradient in Sabah, Malaysia. We developed a machine-learning based approach to characterise species indicative soundscapes, training our models on a coarsely labelled manual point-count dataset.Soundscapes successfully predicted the occurrence of 34 out of the 39 species across the two taxonomic groups, with area under the curve (AUC) metrics of up to 0.87 (Bold-striped Tit-babbler Macronus bornensis). The highest accuracies were achieved for common species with strong temporal occurrence patterns.Soundscapes were a better predictor of species occurrence than above-ground biomass – a metric often used to quantify habitat quality across forest degradation gradients.Synthesis and applications: Our results demonstrate that soundscapes can be used to efficiently predict the occurrence of a wide variety of species. This provides a new direction for audio data to deliver large-scale, accurate assessments of habitat suitability using cheap and easily obtained field datasets.
Wilkinson CL, Chua KWJ, Fiala R, et al., 2020, Forest conversion to oil palm compresses food chain length in tropical streams., Ecology, Vol: 102, Pages: 1-10, ISSN: 0012-9658
In Southeast Asia, biodiversity-rich forests are being extensively logged and converted to oil palm monocultures. Although the impacts of these changes on biodiversity are largely well documented, we know little about how these large-scale impacts affect freshwater trophic ecology. We used stable isotope analyses (SIA) to determine the impacts of land-use changes on the relative contribution of allochthonous and autochthonous basal resources in 19 stream food webs. We also applied compound-specific SIA and bulk-SIA to determine the trophic position of fish apex predators and meso-predators (invertivores and omnivores). There was no difference in the contribution of autochthonous resources in either consumer group (70-82%) among streams with different land-use type. There was no change in trophic position for meso-predators, but trophic position decreased significantly for apex predators in oil palm plantation streams compared to forest streams. This change in maximum food chain length was due to turnover in identity of the apex predator among land-use types. Disruption of aquatic trophic ecology, through reduction in food chain length and shift in basal resources, may cause significant changes in biodiversity as well as ecosystem functions and services. Understanding this change can help develop more focused priorities for mediating the negative impacts of human activities on freshwater ecosystems.
Wiederkehr F, Wilkinson CL, Zeng Y, et al., 2020, Urbanisation affects ecosystem functioning more than structure in tropical streams, Biological Conservation, Vol: 249, Pages: 1-19, ISSN: 0006-3207
Urbanisation poses a clear threat to tropical freshwater streams, yet fundamental knowledge gaps hinder our ability to effectively conserve stream biodiversity and preserve ecosystem functioning. Here, we studied the impact of urbanisation on structural and functional ecosystem responses in low-order streams in Singapore, a tropical city with a mosaic landscape of protected natural forests, managed buffer zones (between forest and open-country habitats), and built-up urban areas. We quantified an urbanisation gradient based on landscape, in-stream, and riparian conditions, and found an association between urbanisation and pollution-tolerant macroinvertebrates (e.g. freshwater snail and worm species) in litter bags. We also found greater macroinvertebrate abundance (mean individuals bag−1; forest: 30.3, buffer: 70.1, urban: 109.0) and richness (mean taxa bag−1; forest: 4.53, buffer: 4.75, urban: 7.50) in urban streams, but similar diversity across habitats. Higher levels of primary productivity (measured from algal accrual on ceramic tiles) and microbial decomposition (measured from litter-mass loss in mesh bags) at urban sites indicate rapid microbial activity at higher light, temperature, and nutrient levels. We found that urbanisation affected function 32% more than structure in the studied tropical streams, likely driven by greater algal growth in urban streams. These changes in ecological processes (i.e. ecosystem functioning) possibly lead to a loss of ecosystem services, which would negatively affect ecology, society, and economy. Our results point to possible management strategies (e.g. increasing vegetation density through buffer park creation) to reduce the impacts of urbanisation, restore vital ecosystem functions in tropical streams, and create habitat niches for native species.
Muscarella R, Emilio T, Phillips OL, et al., 2020, The global abundance of tree palms, Global Ecology and Biogeography, Vol: 29, Pages: 1495-1514, ISSN: 1466-822X
AimPalms are an iconic, diverse and often abundant component of tropical ecosystems that provide many ecosystem services. Being monocots, tree palms are evolutionarily, morphologically and physiologically distinct from other trees, and these differences have important consequences for ecosystem services (e.g., carbon sequestration and storage) and in terms of responses to climate change. We quantified global patterns of tree palm relative abundance to help improve understanding of tropical forests and reduce uncertainty about these ecosystems under climate change.LocationTropical and subtropical moist forests.Time periodCurrent.Major taxa studiedPalms (Arecaceae).MethodsWe assembled a pantropical dataset of 2,548 forest plots (covering 1,191 ha) and quantified tree palm (i.e., ≥10 cm diameter at breast height) abundance relative to co‐occurring non‐palm trees. We compared the relative abundance of tree palms across biogeographical realms and tested for associations with palaeoclimate stability, current climate, edaphic conditions and metrics of forest structure.ResultsOn average, the relative abundance of tree palms was more than five times larger between Neotropical locations and other biogeographical realms. Tree palms were absent in most locations outside the Neotropics but present in >80% of Neotropical locations. The relative abundance of tree palms was more strongly associated with local conditions (e.g., higher mean annual precipitation, lower soil fertility, shallower water table and lower plot mean wood density) than metrics of long‐term climate stability. Life‐form diversity also influenced the patterns; palm assemblages outside the Neotropics comprise many non‐tree (e.g., climbing) palms. Finally, we show that tree palms can influence estimates of above‐ground biomass, but the magnitude and direction of the effect require additional work.ConclusionsTree palms are not only quintessentially tropical, but they are also overwhelmingly Neotropical. Futur
Sethi S, Jones NS, Fulcher B, et al., 2020, Characterising soundscapes across diverse ecosystems using a universal acoustic feature set, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of USA, Vol: 117, Pages: 17049-17055, ISSN: 0027-8424
Natural habitats are being impacted by human pressures at an alarming rate. Monitoring these ecosystem-level changes often requires labor-intensive surveys that are unable to detect rapid or unanticipated environmental changes. Here we have developed a generalizable, data-driven solution to this challenge using eco-acoustic data. We exploited a convolutional neural network to embed soundscapes from a variety of ecosystems into a common acoustic space. In both supervised and unsupervised modes, this allowed us to accurately quantify variation in habitat quality across space and in biodiversity through time. On the scale of seconds, we learned a typical soundscape model that allowed automatic identification of anomalous sounds in playback experiments, providing a potential route for real-time automated detection of irregular environmental behavior including illegal logging and hunting. Our highly generalizable approach, and the common set of features, will enable scientists to unlock previously hidden insights from acoustic data and offers promise as a backbone technology for global collaborative autonomous ecosystem monitoring efforts.
Gregory N, 2020, Vectorial capacity across an environmental gradient
Disease transmitted by mosquitoes present some of the most pressing challenges facing human health today. Land-use change is a key driver of disease emergence, however the mechanisms linking environmental covariates of change, such as temperature, to the transmission potential of mosquitoes is poorly understood. Studies exploring these relationships have largely been correlative in nature, and thus have limited capacity to predict dynamics through space and time. Mechanistic approaches provide a valuable framework for understanding the processes underlying transmission, however they suffer from a dearth of field data on fundamental mosquito ecology. In both approaches, the environmental data used is typically coarse in scale and interpolated from weather stations located in open areas. In reality, local climatic conditions can vary considerably over fine spatial and temporal scales, particularly in dynamic working landscapes. Wild mosquitoes experience and respond to this highly dynamic environment, and failing to account for this variation may have significant implications for the accuracy of epidemiological models. This thesis uses an established epidemiological framework to explore the effects of tropical forest conversion to oil palm plantation on the potential for Ae. albopictus mosquitoes to transmit disease. Using field-derived microclimate data and published thermal responses of mosquito traits, I first examine how the scale of environmental data affects predictions of mosquito demography under land-use change. Next, I conduct field experiments to investigate whether microclimate heterogeneity across a land-use gradient drives variation in the rates of larval development. By pairing fine-scale microclimate data with temperature-dependent trait estimates, I find that forest conversion significantly increases the potential of Ae. albopictus to transmit disease. Together, these findings advance our understanding of Ae. albopictus ecology, and highlight the impo
Gregory N, 2020, Vectorial capacity across an environmental gradient
Disease transmitted by mosquitoes present some of the most pressing challenges facing human health today. Land-use change is a key driver of disease emergence, however the mechanisms linking environmental covariates of change, such as temperature, to the transmission potential of mosquitoes is poorly understood. Studies exploring these relationships have largely been correlative in nature, and thus have limited capacity to predict dynamics through space and time. Mechanistic approaches provide a valuable framework for understanding the processes underlying transmission, however they suffer from a dearth of field data on fundamental mosquito ecology. In both approaches, the environmental data used is typically coarse in scale and interpolated from weather stations located in open areas. In reality, local climatic conditions can vary considerably over fine spatial and temporal scales, particularly in dynamic working landscapes. Wild mosquitoes experience and respond to this highly dynamic environment, and failing to account for this variation may have significant implications for the accuracy of epidemiological models. This thesis uses an established epidemiological framework to explore the effects of tropical forest conversion to oil palm plantation on the potential for Ae. albopictus mosquitoes to transmit disease. Using field-derived microclimate data and published thermal responses of mosquito traits, I first examine how the scale of environmental data affects predictions of mosquito demography under land-use change. Next, I conduct field experiments to investigate whether microclimate heterogeneity across a land-use gradient drives variation in the rates of larval development. By pairing fine-scale microclimate data with temperature-dependent trait estimates, I find that forest conversion significantly increases the potential of Ae. albopictus to transmit disease. Together, these findings advance our understanding of Ae. albopictus ecology, and highlight the impo
Swinfield T, Both S, Riutta T, et al., 2019, Imaging spectroscopy reveals the effects of topography and logging on the leaf chemistry of tropical forest canopy trees, Global Change Biology, Vol: 26, Pages: 989-1002, ISSN: 1354-1013
Logging, pervasive across the lowland tropics, affects millions of hectares of forest, yet its influence on nutrient cycling remains poorly understood. One hypothesis is that logging influences phosphorus (P) cycling, because this scarce nutrient is removed in extracted timber and eroded soil, leading to shifts in ecosystem functioning and community composition. However, testing this is challenging because P varies within landscapes as a function of geology, topography and climate. Superimposed upon these trends are compositional changes in logged forests, with species with more acquisitive traits, characterized by higher foliar P concentrations, more dominant. It is difficult to resolve these patterns using traditional field approaches alone. Here, we use airborne light detection and ranging‐guided hyperspectral imagery to map foliar nutrient (i.e. P, nitrogen [N]) concentrations, calibrated using field measured traits, over 400 km2 of northeastern Borneo, including a landscape‐level disturbance gradient spanning old‐growth to repeatedly logged forests. The maps reveal that canopy foliar P and N concentrations decrease with elevation. These relationships were not identified using traditional field measurements of leaf and soil nutrients. After controlling for topography, canopy foliar nutrient concentrations were lower in logged forest than in old‐growth areas, reflecting decreased nutrient availability. However, foliar nutrient concentrations and specific leaf area were greatest in relatively short patches in logged areas, reflecting a shift in composition to pioneer species with acquisitive traits. N:P ratio increased in logged forest, suggesting reduced soil P availability through disturbance. Through the first landscape scale assessment of how functional leaf traits change in response to logging, we find that differences from old‐growth forest become more pronounced as logged forests increase in stature over time, suggesting exacerbated phosphorus limitation as
Betts MG, Wolf C, Pfeifer M, et al., 2019, Extinction filters mediate the global effects of habitat fragmentation on animals, Science, Vol: 366, Pages: 1236-1239, ISSN: 0036-8075
Habitat loss is the primary driver of biodiversity decline worldwide, but the effects of fragmentation (the spatial arrangement of remaining habitat) are debated. We tested the hypothesis that forest fragmentation sensitivity-affected by avoidance of habitat edges-should be driven by historical exposure to, and therefore species' evolutionary responses to disturbance. Using a database containing 73 datasets collected worldwide (encompassing 4489 animal species), we found that the proportion of fragmentation-sensitive species was nearly three times as high in regions with low rates of historical disturbance compared with regions with high rates of disturbance (i.e., fires, glaciation, hurricanes, and deforestation). These disturbances coincide with a latitudinal gradient in which sensitivity increases sixfold at low versus high latitudes. We conclude that conservation efforts to limit edges created by fragmentation will be most important in the world's tropical forests.
Sethi S, Jones N, Fulcher B, et al., 2019, Combining machine learning and a universal acoustic feature-set yields efficient automated monitoring of ecosystems, Publisher: bioRxiv
Natural habitats are being impacted by human pressures at an alarming rate. Monitoring these ecosystem-level changes often requires labour-intensive surveys that are unable to detect rapid or unanticipated environmental changes. Here we developed a generalisable, data-driven solution to this challenge using eco-acoustic data. We exploited a convolutional neural network to embed ecosystem soundscapes from a wide variety of biomes into a common acoustic space. In both supervised and unsupervised modes, this allowed us to accurately quantify variation in habitat quality across space and in biodiversity through time. On the scale of seconds, we learned a typical soundscape model that allowed automatic identification of anomalous sounds in playback experiments, paving the way for real-time detection of irregular environmental behaviour including illegal activity. Our highly generalisable approach, and the common set of features, will enable scientists to unlock previously hidden insights from eco-acoustic data and offers promise as a backbone technology for global collaborative autonomous ecosystem monitoring efforts.
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