Journal of Applied Ecology
0021-8901
1365-2664
Anh Quốc
Cơ quản chủ quản: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd , WILEY
Lĩnh vực:
Ecology
Phân tích ảnh hưởng
Thông tin về tạp chí
Journal of Applied Ecology publishes novel, high-impact papers on the interface between ecological science and the management of biological resources.The editors encourage contributions that use applied ecological problems to test and develop basic theory, although there must be clear potential for impact on the management of the environment.
Các bài báo tiêu biểu
Nursery‐propagated plants from seed: a novel tool to improve the effectiveness and sustainability of seagrass restoration Summary
Seagrasses and the valuable ecosystem services they provide are threatened world‐wide by impacts of human activity. Numerous revegetation efforts have attempted to restore seagrasses. Most restoration programmes use plants collected from the field because of limited seed availability, low seedling survival and difficulty in culturing plants. However, this practice risks damage to donor populations and has the potential to reduce genetic diversity, which may counteract the desired effects of restoration. A novel aquaculture system for producing plants (mother plants and cuttings) from a limited number of seeds was tested using Cymodocea nodosa as model species. The ability of transplanted cuttings to survive and grow in the natural habitat was also evaluated. Seed germination was high (48%) compared with field conditions, and most seedlings produced mother plants with up to 7·8 m of rhizome and 300 shoots within 4 years in culture. All cuttings from mother plants regenerated new plants. Up to 100 transplants were produced from two seeds, and most (85%) of them survived and initiated the colonization of substrate, 1 year after planting. Synthesis and applications . This study provides a robust protocol that can reduce plant and/or seed collection pressure on donor populations and produce a high number of transplants which show lower mortality rates during the early transplantation phases. This method can also help to preserve genetic diversity in restored populations, which should be one of the major goals of ecological restoration. This novel tool can be applied to other seagrass species with low or unpredictable reproductive success, therefore the development of nurseries should be incorporated in future restoration programmes. This is currently the only sustainable methodology to produce material for transplanting programmes for protected species.
Tập 49 Số 6 - Trang 1426-1435 - 2012
Modelling wildlife–human relationships for social species with mixed‐effects resource selection models Summary
Resource selection functions (RSF) have contributed to the conservation of species negatively affected by human activities. Despite these applications, two assumptions frequent many studies: the assumption of independence among groups in social species, and that selection is proportional to resource availability. This latter case is known as a functional response in resource selection, and may be especially important in human–wildlife relationships where there is a fitness cost of proximity to humans. Recent advances in generalized linear mixed models offer new ways to account for resource selection in social species and functional responses by accommodating correlations within hierarchical groups with random intercepts, and functional responses with random coefficients. We illustrate the application of mixed‐effects RSF models using a case study of resource selection by individual wolves Canis lupus living in packs as a function of human activity. In areas of low human activity, wolf resource selection was independent of proximity to humans. As human activity increased, wolves displayed a functional response selecting areas closer to human activity. With increasing human activity, however, wolves displayed spatio‐temporal avoidance of human activity during daylight. This could lead to behaviourally induced trophic cascades mediated by wolf avoidance of human activity, and fits within the framework of attractive sink habitats. Accounting for the hierarchical social structure of wolves clearly showed that the response of wolves to human disturbance was strongly correlated, but different, within packs, and that the correlation was strongest during winter and weakest during summer. Syntheses and applications . Failure to consider the social structure of wolves and the functional response to human activity would result in mistaken conclusions about wolf–human relationships. Our approach provides a unifying framework to understand the contradictory results of previous studies of wolf–human relationships and a template for future studies to evaluate effects of increasing human activity on wildlife.
Tập 45 Số 3 - Trang 834-844 - 2008
Species‐rich dung beetle communities buffer ecosystem services in perturbed agro‐ecosystems Summary Many studies document high levels of functional redundancy in ecosystems, suggesting that species extinctions will not be detrimental to ecosystem functions and services. However, apparently redundant taxa may prove critical for sustaining ecosystem functions and services in the context of environmental perturbations. Dung beetles (C oleoptera:S carabaeidae) provide a valuable ecosystem service in temperate agro‐ecosystems by increasing rates of dung decomposition and nutrient cycling. However, there is concern that these services may be negatively affected by changes in species richness and composition due to changes in pasture management and negative effects of anthelmintics used to control livestock parasites. We used a mesocosm experiment to investigate the functional importance of dung beetle species richness in a system perturbed by the anthelmintic, ivermectin. We varied dung beetle species richness within three functional groups in factorial combination with ivermectin treatment. In the short term (1–4 weeks), multi‐species dung beetle assemblages achieved higher decomposition rates than monocultures, but only in ivermectin‐treated dung. Varying species‐specific sensitivities to ivermectin meant that species‐rich assemblages sustained ecosystem functioning in the context of this anthropogenic perturbation. Over the longer term (36 weeks), there was a significant, positive effect of species richness on dung decomposition in both ivermectin‐treated and untreated dung, underlining the functional importance of maintaining a species‐rich dung processing community even in the absence of perturbations to the system. Synthesis and applications . The interacting effects of dung beetle species richness and ivermectin highlight the importance of maintaining diverse assemblages in the face of anthropogenic perturbations and suggest that apparent functional redundancy of species in agro‐ecosystems should be interpreted cautiously. Furthermore, different farm management practices (e.g. pesticide use and fragmentation of habitats) may have consequences for ecosystem functions and services that exceed the effects of each when considered in isolation.
Tập 49 Số 6 - Trang 1365-1372 - 2012
Iodine in the U.K. Environment with Particular Reference to Agriculture
Tập 16 Số 1 - Trang 269 - 1979
Growth of a Sitka Spruce Plantation: Analysis and Stochastic Description of the Development of the Branching Structure
Tập 15 Số 1 - Trang 227 - 1978
Model selection using information criteria, but is the “best” model any good? Abstract
Information criteria (IC s) are used widely for data summary and model building in ecology, especially in applied ecology and wildlife management. Although IC s are useful for distinguishing among rival candidate models, IC s do not necessarily indicate whether the “best” model (or a model‐averaged version) is a good representation of the data or whether the model has useful “explanatory” or “predictive” ability. As editors and reviewers, we have seen many submissions that did not evaluate whether the nominal “best” model(s) found using IC is a useful model in the above sense. We scrutinized six leading ecological journals for papers that used IC to compare models. More than half of papers using IC for model comparison did not evaluate the adequacy of the best model(s) in either “explaining” or “predicting” the data. Synthesis and applications . Authors need to evaluate the adequacy of the model identified as the “best” model by using information criteria methods to provide convincing evidence to readers and users that inferences from the best models are useful and reliable.
Tập 55 Số 3 - Trang 1441-1444 - 2018
When road‐kill hotspots do not indicate the best sites for road‐kill mitigation Summary
The effectiveness of measures installed to mitigate wildlife road‐kill depends on their placement along the road. Road‐kill hotspots are frequently used to identify priority locations for mitigation measures. However, in situations where previous road mortality has reduced population size, road‐kill hotspots may not indicate the best sites for mitigation. The purpose of this study was to identify circumstances in which road‐kill hotspots are not appropriate indicators for the selection of the best road‐kill mitigation sites. We predicted that: (i) road‐kill hotspots can move in time from high‐traffic road segments to low‐traffic segments, due to population depression near the high‐traffic segment caused by road mortality; (ii) this shift will occur earlier for more mobile species because they should interact more often with the road; (iii) this shift can occur even if the low‐traffic segment runs through lower quality habitat than the high‐traffic segment. To test these predictions, we simulated population size and road‐kill over time for two populations, one exposed to a road segment with high traffic and the other to a road segment with low traffic. Our simulation results supported Predictions 1 and 3, while Prediction 2 was not supported. Synthesis and applications . Our results indicate that, for new roads, road‐kill hotspots can be useful to indicate appropriate sites for mitigation. On older roads, road‐kill hotspots may not indicate the best sites for road mitigation due to population depression caused by road mortality. Direct measures of the road impact on the population, such as per capita mortality, are better indicators of appropriate mitigation sites than road‐kill hotspots.
Tập 54 Số 5 - Trang 1544-1551 - 2017
Vehicle traffic shapes grizzly bear behaviour on a multiple‐use landscape Summary
Roads cause functional habitat loss, alter movement patterns and can become ecological traps for wildlife. Many of the negative effects of roads are likely to be a function of the human use of roads, not the road itself. However, few studies have examined the effect of temporally and spatially varying traffic patterns on large mammals, which could lead to misinterpretations about the impact of roads on wildlife.
We developed models of traffic volume for an entire road network in south‐western A lberta, C anada, and documented for the first time the response of grizzly bears U rsus arctos L to a wide range of traffic levels.
Traffic patterns caused a clear behavioural shift in grizzly bears, with increased use of areas near roads and movement across roads during the night when traffic was low. Bears selected areas near roads travelled by fewer than 20 vehicles per day and were more likely to cross these roads. Bears avoided roads receiving moderate traffic (20–100 vehicles per day) and strongly avoided high‐use roads (>100 vehicles per day) at all times.
Synthesis and applications . Grizzly bear responses to traffic caused a departure from typical behavioural patterns, with bears in our study being largely nocturnal. In addition, bears selected private agricultural land, which had lower traffic levels, but higher road density, over multi‐use public land. These results improve our understanding of bear responses to roads and can be used to refine management practices. Future management plans should employ a multi‐pronged approach aimed at limiting both road density and traffic in core habitats. Access management will be critical in such plans and is an important tool for conserving threatened wildlife populations.
Tập 49 Số 5 - Trang 1159-1167 - 2012
The effect of a major road on bat activity and diversity Summary 1. It is well known that roads can have a significant impact, usually negative, on species and ecosystems. However, despite their protected status in many countries, little research has been done into the effects of roads on bats. With a view to making more informed management recommendations, we address the simple question: are bat activity and diversity (as measured with ultrasonic detectors) correlated with distance from a major road?2. Broadband acoustic surveys were conducted on 20 walked transects perpendicular to the M6, a major road in Cumbria (UK), with bat activity recorded at eight spot checks per transect at different distances from the road. Climatic and habitat variables were also recorded, and the relationships between bat activity and these variables were investigated using generalised estimated equations (GEE) and ordinal logistic regression.3. Total bat activity, the number of species and the activity of Pipistrellus pipistrellus (the most abundant species) were all positively correlated with distance from the road. Total activity increased more than threefold between 0 and 1600 m from the road. These effects were found to be consistent over 2 years.4. Synthesis and applications . This study is one of the first to show that roads have a major negative impact on bat foraging activity and diversity and is broadly applicable to insectivorous bat communities worldwide. Mitigation requires that roads are made more permeable to bats through the use of effective crossings, such as underpasses and overpasses, and that habitat is improved within 1 km of major roads. Because the effectiveness of current mitigation measures is unknown, well‐designed monitoring of mitigation is essential.
Tập 49 Số 1 - Trang 82-89 - 2012
Forest change on a steep mountain gradient after extended fire exclusion: San Francisco Peaks, Arizona, USA Summary
More than a century of forest management, including fire exclusion, livestock grazing and tree harvesting, may have affected forest structure and composition in south‐western USA. Dendroecological techniques were used to reconstruct an 1876 baseline against which modern conditions could be compared. We assessed the magnitude of changes on the San Francisco Peaks in five distinct forest types: ponderosa, mixed conifer, aspen, spruce–fir and bristlecone. We established a systematic grid of 135 plots, each 0·1 ha in size, over a 1117‐m altitudinal band. In the contemporary forest, density was greatest in spruce–fir and least in bristlecone whereas basal area was greatest in spruce–fir and lowest in ponderosa. In 1876, all forest types had significantly lower densities and basal areas. The period since 1876 was associated with increased forest density, a shift in species composition as a result of invasion of shade‐tolerant conifers, and a trend for mesic species to migrate to lower altitudes. Changes were least evident in the highest altitude forests. Climate and human‐caused and natural biotic disturbance factors probably all played a role in forest change, but we argue that the most prominent factor was probably exclusion of the thinning effect of fire, especially on fire‐susceptible mesic species. Synthesis and applications. Mesic species have encroached to lower altitudes and forest density has increased since 1876. These changes have created to conditions opposite to those suitable for warmer, drier future climates that will display increased fire risk, setting the stage for sudden and severe change. Management is complex because of heavy fuel loading, administrative constraints and high public visibility. However, ‘sky island’ landscapes such as the Peaks represent protected ecosystems of great importance in arid regions. Testing of wildland fire use and other management interventions to restore composition and fuel structures more resilient to warmer climate should proceed.
Tập 42 Số 5 - Trang 814-823 - 2005