Stochastic disturbance regimes alter patterns of ecosystem variability and recovery.

Altered ecosystem variability is an important ecological response to disturbance yet understanding of how various attributes of disturbance regimes affect ecosystem variability is limited. To improve the framework for understanding the disturbance regime attributes that affect ecosystem variability, we examine how the introduction of stochasticity to disturbance parameters (frequency, severity and extent) alters simulated recovery when compared to deterministic outcomes from a spatially explicit simulation model. We also examine the agreement between results from empirical studies and deterministic and stochastic configurations of the model.

The impacts of climate change on the abundance and distribution of the Spotted Wing Drosophila () in the United States and Canada.

is a relatively recent and destructive pest species to the North American soft-skinned fruit industry. Understanding this species' potential to shift in abundance and range due to changing climate is an important part of an effective mitigation and management strategy. We parameterized a temperature-driven population dynamics model using temperature data derived from several Global Circulation Models (CMIP5) with a range of relative concentration pathway (RCP) predictions.

Development, reproductive output and population growth of the fruit fly pest Drosophila suzukii (Diptera: Drosophilidae) on artificial diet.

Drosophila suzukii (Matsumura) (Diptera: Drosophilidae) is a fruit pest of Asian origin that invaded North America in 2008. Despite the widespread economic impact of this species, much of the biology and general life history of this pest remains largely unknown. Under optimal laboratory conditions (22 degrees C, approximately 25% relative humidity), we measured development, survival, fecundity, hatch rate, and sex ratio of a North American ecotype of D.

A model-based method for estimating effective dispersal distance in tropical plant populations.

Dispersal is a key mechanism to help populations propagate across space and thus is important in helping to understand spatial patterns. However, it is often difficult to quantify empirically as it requires intensive and detailed field study. Here we describe a method for estimating the effective dispersal distance of tropical plant populations.