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| Open AccessChemotactic behaviour of Escherichia coli at high cell density
Swimming bacteria perform collective motion at high cell density, yet it is unclear how this behaviour affects their ability to follow substance gradients in the environment. Here, Colin et al. address this question by studying motion of Escherichia coli in controlled chemical gradients.
- Remy Colin
- , Knut Drescher
- & Victor Sourjik
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Article
| Open AccessClimate-induced phenology shifts linked to range expansions in species with multiple reproductive cycles per year
Many species’ life cycles have moved earlier in the year because of climate change, but we do not know the consequences for range expansions. The authors show that these advances promote range expansions in species with multiple reproductive cycles per year, but not in species with only one.
- Callum J. Macgregor
- , Chris D. Thomas
- & Jane K. Hill
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Article
| Open AccessThe composition of British bird communities is associated with long-term garden bird feeding
Garden bird feeding is a prolific human activity that provides a reliable foraging opportunity to wild birds. Here the authors use a 40-year data set to show that large-scale restructuring of garden bird communities and growth in urban bird populations can be linked to changing feeding practices.
- Kate E. Plummer
- , Kate Risely
- & Gavin M. Siriwardena
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Article
| Open AccessMortality causes universal changes in microbial community composition
Environmental stress can affect the outcome of ecological competition. Here, the authors use theory and experiments with a synthetic microbial community to show that a tradeoff between growth rate and competitive ability determines which species prevails when the population faces variable mortality rates.
- Clare I. Abreu
- , Jonathan Friedman
- & Jeff Gore
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Article
| Open AccessEarly warning signals of recovery in complex systems
While several studies have documented early warning signals of population collapse, the use of such signals as indicators of population recovery has not been investigated. Here the authors use models and empirical fisheries data to show that there are statistical indicators preceding recovery of cod populations.
- Christopher F. Clements
- , Michael A. McCarthy
- & Julia L. Blanchard
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Article
| Open AccessMore frequent extreme climate events stabilize reindeer population dynamics
Extreme climate events can cause population crashes and may threaten population persistence. Here, the authors model reindeer population dynamics and find that more frequent extremely icy winters can actually reduce extinction risk due to density dependence and a demographic shift to resilient ages.
- Brage B. Hansen
- , Marlène Gamelon
- & Vidar Grøtan
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Article
| Open AccessPopulation reconstructions for humans and megafauna suggest mixed causes for North American Pleistocene extinctions
Much of the North American megafauna went extinct in the late Pleistocene, but the causes are debated. Here the authors analyze human and megafaunal population dynamics in Pleistocene North America and find variation among taxa and region in whether hunting, climate or both best predict extinction.
- Jack M. Broughton
- & Elic M. Weitzel
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Article
| Open AccessMigration alters oscillatory dynamics and promotes survival in connected bacterial populations
Migration can increase survival of a metapopulation by enabling recolonization after local extinction. Here, Gokhale et al. use both microbial experiments and mechanistic modeling to show that moderate levels of migration can increase survival by altering oscillatory population dynamics.
- Shreyas Gokhale
- , Arolyn Conwill
- & Jeff Gore
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Article
| Open AccessTradeoffs in demographic mechanisms underlie differences in species abundance and stability
Protection of rare species requires advanced understanding of the reasons for their rarity. Here, Hallett et al. show that potential growth rate and density dependence together predict rarity vs. abundance, and that the stability of species of similar sizes depends on the relative strength of these two mechanisms.
- Lauren M. Hallett
- , Emily C. Farrer
- & Richard J. Hobbs
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Article
| Open AccessSystematic review of indoor residual spray efficacy and effectiveness against Plasmodium falciparum in Africa
Indoor residual spraying is a commonly used method for mosquito, and malaria, control and there are a number of available insecticides that are available for this. Here, the authors evaluate the efficacy of widely-used and novel insecticides against pyrethroid-resistant mosquitoes.
- Ellie Sherrard-Smith
- , Jamie T. Griffin
- & Thomas S. Churcher
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Article
| Open AccessFuelling conditions at staging sites can mitigate Arctic warming effects in a migratory bird
Advancing phenological timing is a risk for migratory birds, particularly in the Arctic where change is most rapid. Here, the authors show that bar-tailed godwits can adjust for phenological shifts by fuelling faster at staging areas to arrive at breeding sites in time.
- Eldar Rakhimberdiev
- , Sjoerd Duijns
- & Theunis Piersma
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Correspondence
| Open AccessPremature alarm on the impacts of climate change on Arctic Char in Lake Hazen
- Jean-Sébastien Moore
- , Jacqueline M. Chapman
- & Eric B. Taylor
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Article
| Open AccessQuantifying climate sensitivity and climate-driven change in North American amphibian communities
Amphibians have seen large population declines, but the key drivers are hard to establish. Here, Miller et al. investigate trends of occupancy for 81 species of amphibians across North America and find greater sensitivity to water availability during breeding and winter conditions than mean climate.
- David A. W. Miller
- , Evan H. Campbell Grant
- & Brent H. Sigafus
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Article
| Open AccessDensity-functional fluctuation theory of crowds
Tools from statistical physics can be used to investigate a large variety of fields ranging from economics to biology. Here the authors first adapt density-functional theory to predict the distributions of crowds in new environments and then validate their approach using groups of fruit flies.
- J. Felipe Méndez-Valderrama
- , Yunus A. Kinkhabwala
- & T. A. Arias
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Article
| Open AccessGrowth tradeoffs produce complex microbial communities on a single limiting resource
Higher-order interactions occur when one species mediates the interaction between two others. Here, the authors model microbial growth and competition to show that higher-order interactions can arise from tradeoffs in growth traits, leading to neutral coexistence and other complex dynamics.
- Michael Manhart
- & Eugene I. Shakhnovich
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Article
| Open AccessAsymmetric migration decreases stability but increases resilience in a heterogeneous metapopulation
Asymmetrical movement among patches could affect the stability of ecological metapopulations, but this is difficult to test empirically. Here, Limdi et al. use experimental yeast metapopulations to show that asymmetric migration decreases stability but increases resilience to transient shocks.
- Anurag Limdi
- , Alfonso Pérez-Escudero
- & Jeff Gore
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Article
| Open AccessAbrupt events and population synchrony in the dynamics of Bovine Tuberculosis
The disease dynamics of bovine tuberculosis have been of interest given the pathogen’s effect on wild animal and livestock health. Here, the authors show that a brief cessation of testing for bovine tuberculosis in 2001 altered the population synchrony of the disease dynamics across regions of Great Britain.
- Aristides Moustakas
- , Matthew R. Evans
- & Yannis Markonis
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Article
| Open AccessOcean acidification conditions increase resilience of marine diatoms
Diatoms account for 40% of marine primary production and their sensitivity to ocean acidification could have ecosystem-wide consequences. Here, the authors developed and applied a stress test, demonstrating that resilience of diatoms increases significantly in ocean acidification conditions.
- Jacob J. Valenzuela
- , Adrián López García de Lomana
- & Nitin S. Baliga
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Article
| Open AccessDemographic causes of adult sex ratio variation and their consequences for parental cooperation
Biases in adult sex ratio (ASR) are common, yet their causes and consequences are not well understood. Here, the authors analyse data from >6000 individuals of five shorebird species, showing that sex differences in juvenile survival drive ASR variation and biased ASR is associated with uniparental care.
- Luke J. Eberhart-Phillips
- , Clemens Küpper
- & Oliver Krüger
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Article
| Open AccessVariation in Wolbachia effects on Aedes mosquitoes as a determinant of invasiveness and vectorial capacity
Wolbachia infection in mosquitoes reduces dengue virus spread under specific lab conditions, prompting its use in disease control. Here, King et al. show that Wolbachia increases mean and variance in mosquito susceptibility and explain how this affects Wolbachia invasion and dengue transmission.
- Jessica G. King
- , Caetano Souto-Maior
- & M. Gabriela M. Gomes
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Article
| Open AccessHunting regulation favors slow life histories in a large carnivore
Hunting and harvesting are generally expected to select for faster life histories in the exploited species. Here, the authors analyse data from a hunted population of brown bears in Sweden and show that regulations protecting females with dependent young lead hunting to favor prolonged maternal care.
- Joanie Van de Walle
- , Gabriel Pigeon
- & Fanie Pelletier
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Article
| Open AccessDynamics of starvation and recovery predict extinction risk and both Damuth’s law and Cope’s rule
Energetic constraints produce a fundamental tradeoff in starvation and recovery rates, impacting eco-evolutionary dynamics. Here, Yeakel et al. develop a nutritional state-structured model that predicts population size as a function of body mass known as Damuth’s law, and a mechanism for Cope’s rule, the evolutionary trend towards larger body mass.
- Justin D. Yeakel
- , Christopher P. Kempes
- & Sidney Redner
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Article
| Open AccessFloats with bio-optical sensors reveal what processes trigger the North Atlantic bloom
The drivers of North Atlantic phytoplankton bloom have been debated for decades, partially owing to incomplete sub-surface observations. Here, Mignot et al. use robotic sensors to provide detailed observations of developing blooms and to explore the drivers of different phases of plankton growth.
- A. Mignot
- , R. Ferrari
- & H. Claustre
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Article
| Open AccessMapping the ecological networks of microbial communities
Understanding ecological interactions in microbial communities is limited by lack of informative longitudinal abundance data necessary for reliable inference. Here, Xiao et al. develop a method to infer the interactions between microbes based on their abundances in steady-state samples.
- Yandong Xiao
- , Marco Tulio Angulo
- & Yang-Yu Liu
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Article
| Open AccessSumatran tiger survival threatened by deforestation despite increasing densities in parks
Determining the conservation status and populations trends for elusive predators has been impeded by discrepancies in how densities are calculated. Here, Luskin et al. introduce a means to standardize previous density estimates and assess the threats to the Sumatran tiger.
- Matthew Scott Luskin
- , Wido Rizki Albert
- & Mathias W. Tobler
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Article
| Open AccessPan-Antarctic analysis aggregating spatial estimates of Adélie penguin abundance reveals robust dynamics despite stochastic noise
Adélie penguins are a key Antarctic indicator species, but data patchiness has challenged efforts to link population dynamics to key drivers. Che-Castaldo et al. resolve this issue using a pan-Antarctic Bayesian model to infer missing data, and show that spatial aggregation leads to more robust inference regarding dynamics.
- Christian Che-Castaldo
- , Stephanie Jenouvrier
- & Heather J. Lynch
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Article
| Open AccessTop predators constrain mesopredator distributions
Top predators can reduce local mesopredator abundance either through direct predation or behavioural changes. Here, Newsome and colleagues demonstrate at a landscape scale across three continents that mesopredator populations are suppressed at the core, but less so on the periphery, of top predators’ ranges.
- Thomas M. Newsome
- , Aaron C. Greenville
- & Aaron J. Wirsing
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Article
| Open AccessAn invariability-area relationship sheds new light on the spatial scaling of ecological stability
Just as species distribution patterns scale with area, so might the degree of variability in ecological properties. Here, Wanget al. develop a model invariability–area relationship and demonstrate the application of this theory to empirical data on plant primary production and bird biomass.
- Shaopeng Wang
- , Michel Loreau
- & Claire de Mazancourt
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Article
| Open AccessExtended fisheries recovery timelines in a changing environment
Many estimates of fisheries recovery time currently assume that the environment and associated fish population dynamics are fixed. Brittenet al. use Bayesian models incorporating variation in productivity and carrying capacity to provide revised estimates of recovery timelines for depleted fish stocks worldwide.
- Gregory L. Britten
- , Michael Dowd
- & Boris Worm
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Article
| Open AccessRapid population decline in migratory shorebirds relying on Yellow Sea tidal mudflats as stopover sites
Stopover sites are crucial to migratory birds, but the influence of this habitat on population dynamics has not been quantified. Here, Studds et al. show that, among ten migratory species, the degree of reliance on disappearing stopover habitat in the Yellow Sea tidal flats predicts the extent of recent population declines.
- Colin E. Studds
- , Bruce E. Kendall
- & Richard A. Fuller
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Article
| Open AccessWinter temperatures limit population growth rate of a migratory songbird
Population dynamics of migratory animals can be driven by direct, indirect, and potentially opposing effects at wintering and breeding grounds. Here, Woodworthet al. show that migratory sparrow population growth rate is balanced by temperature at wintering grounds and density-dependence at breeding grounds.
- Bradley K. Woodworth
- , Nathaniel T. Wheelwright
- & D. Ryan Norris
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Article
| Open AccessRapid evolution of dispersal ability makes biological invasions faster and more variable
Theory suggests that spatial sorting by dispersal ability can generate evolutionarily accelerated range expansions. Using the bean beetleCallosobruchus maculatus, this study shows that evolution not only increases the speed of range expansion, as predicted, but also increases variability.
- Brad M. Ochocki
- & Tom E. X. Miller
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Article
| Open AccessRapid trait evolution drives increased speed and variance in experimental range expansions
Spatial structure provides unique opportunities for evolution during range expansions. Here, the authors show experimentally using the red flour beetle,Tribolium castaneum, that dispersal and growth can evolve through spatial processes, increasing expansion speed and its variance.
- Christopher Weiss-Lehman
- , Ruth A Hufbauer
- & Brett A Melbourne
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Article
| Open AccessRapid adaptive phenotypic change following colonization of a newly restored habitat
Rapid local adaptation could potentially facilitate the recolonization of restored habitats. Here, the authors show that reed warblers have undergone substantial adaptive change in body mass in only 19 years after colonizing a restored wetland in Malta.
- Camilla Lo Cascio Sætre
- , Charles Coleiro
- & Fabrice Eroukhmanoff
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Article
| Open AccessAnthropogenic impacts on mosquito populations in North America over the past century
Insect populations have fluctuated enormously over the past century, with many changes being attributed to anthropogenic climate change. Rochlinet al. show that the pesticide DDT and increasing urbanization are more strongly associated with changes in the number and diversity of mosquitoes on both coasts of North America.
- Ilia Rochlin
- , Ary Faraji
- & A. Marm Kilpatrick
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Article
| Open AccessAbsolute abundance of southern bluefin tuna estimated by close-kin mark-recapture
Accurate determination of population size for highly-mobile marine animals is often prohibitively difficult. Here, Bravingtonet al.estimate the abundance of southern bluefin tuna using a method based on the number of parent-offspring pairs detected genetically in samples from the catch.
- Mark V. Bravington
- , Peter M. Grewe
- & Campbell R. Davies
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Article
| Open AccessWildlife population trends in protected areas predicted by national socio-economic metrics and body size
Protected areas are intended to safeguard wildlife, but their effectiveness has at times been questioned. Barnes, Craigie, and colleagues show that protected areas do offer refuge—maintaining their bird and mammal abundances—but with greater success for larger-bodied species and in more developed nations.
- Megan D. Barnes
- , Ian D. Craigie
- & Stephen Woodley
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Article
| Open AccessApparent competition drives community-wide parasitism rates and changes in host abundance across ecosystem boundaries
Species sharing a common enemy such as a parasitoid or predator can indirectly affect one another. Here, Frost et al. use quantitative food-web data from communities of caterpillar hosts to show experimentally that apparent competition is important in predicting food-web structure across habitats.
- Carol M. Frost
- , Guadalupe Peralta
- & Jason M. Tylianakis
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Article
| Open AccessImpacts of neonicotinoid use on long-term population changes in wild bees in England
Neonicotinoid as insecticide on oilseed rape can reduce bee colony density, but its effect at a large geographical scale is unclear. This study describes 18-year long wild bee tracking data in England and show neonicotinoid use is correlated with wild bee population declines at real landscape scales.
- Ben A. Woodcock
- , Nicholas J. B. Isaac
- & Richard F. Pywell
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Article
| Open AccessPopulation decline is linked to migration route in the Common Cuckoo
Whether conditions experienced on long-distance migrations affect breeding populations is not clear. Here, the authors tracked migrating Common Cuckoos from the UK to Africa and show that route choices affect mortality during migration, and population decline in this nocturnally migrating bird.
- Chris M. Hewson
- , Kasper Thorup
- & Philip W. Atkinson
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Article
| Open AccessModularity and stability in ecological communities
Modularity in food webs can be caused by spatial and temporal mismatches in interactions. Here, Jacopo Grilli, Tim Rogers and Stefano Allesina show that modularity, contrary to expectations, does not generally help stabilizing ecological communities.
- Jacopo Grilli
- , Tim Rogers
- & Stefano Allesina
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Article
| Open AccessDemographic routes to variability and regulation in bird populations
Why does population variability differ? Sæther et al. show that the magnitude of temporal variation of avian population fluctuations is mainly determined by environmental fluctuations affecting recruitment, whereas regulation of mean population size occurs through density-dependent mortality.
- Bernt-Erik Sæther
- , Vidar Grøtan
- & Henri Weimerskirch
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Article
| Open AccessIncluding trait-based early warning signals helps predict population collapse
Predicting population collapse by monitoring key early warning signals in time-series data may highlight when interventions are needed. Here, the authors show that including information on phenotypic traits like body size can more accurately predict critical transitions than abundance data alone.
- Christopher F. Clements
- & Arpat Ozgul
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Article
| Open AccessAnthropogenic noise increases fish mortality by predation
Little evidence exists on whether human-generated noise directly affects survival of wildlife. Here, Simpson et al. show that damselfish exposed to motorboat noise have elevated metabolic rates, reduced responses to predatory attacks, and suffer increased predation compared to fish in ambient conditions.
- Stephen D. Simpson
- , Andrew N. Radford
- & Mark G. Meekan
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Article
| Open AccessBiological invasion and biological control select for different life histories
Understanding how biological invaders displace native species is challenging. Here, the authors compare the evolution of life-history strategies in the harlequin ladybird under laboratory conditions and show that invaders reproduce earlier and allocate more resources to reproduction than natives.
- Ashraf Tayeh
- , Ruth A. Hufbauer
- & Benoit Facon
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Article
| Open AccessEmergent long-range synchronization of oscillating ecological populations without external forcing described by Ising universality
Long-range synchronization of ecological populations separated by distances greater than their dispersal range is thought only to occur via environmental correlations. Here, Noble et al.show that synchronization can also occur beyond these distances, and is described by the Ising universality class.
- Andrew E. Noble
- , Jonathan Machta
- & Alan Hastings
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Article
| Open AccessOntogenetic asymmetry modulates population biomass production and response to harvest
The effect of intraspecific body size variation on the efficiency with which energy is transferred between trophic levels is not well understood. Here, Reichstein et al. show that biasing resource delivery toward less efficient consumer life stages can lead to a doubling of consumer biomass.
- Birte Reichstein
- , Lennart Persson
- & André M. De Roos
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Biophysical mechanisms that maintain biodiversity through trade-offs
Trade-offs between life history traits are key to understanding biodiversity. Here, the authors use population genetics models and experimental microbial evolution to show that trade-off geometry can be deduced from fundamental biological principles, and used to predict biodiversity stability.
- Justin R. Meyer
- , Ivana Gudelj
- & Robert Beardmore
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Enhanced Moran effect by spatial variation in environmental autocorrelation
Spatially separate populations may exhibit synchronised dynamics as a result of correlated environmental influences. Here, Massie et al. show that this phenomenon, known as the Moran effect, can be enhanced if the environmental signals experienced by two populations differ in their noise colour.
- Thomas M. Massie
- , Guntram Weithoff
- & Bernd Blasius