Spatial patterns of seed removal by harvester ants in a seed tray experiment.

Using a selection of native grass and forb seeds commonly seeded in local restoration projects, we conducted a field experiment to evaluate the effects of seed species, distance of seed patches from nests, and distance between patches on patterns of seed removal by Owyhee harvester ants, Pogonomyrmex salinus (Olsen) (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). To provide context for ants' seed preferences, we evaluated differences in handling time among seed species. In addition, we assessed the influences of cheatgrass, Bromus tectorum (L.

Spatial models can improve the experimental design of field-based transplant gardens by preventing bias due to neighborhood crowding.

Field-based transplant gardens, including common and reciprocal garden experiments, are a powerful tool for studying genetic variation and gene-by-environment interactions. These experiments assume that individuals within the garden represent independent replicates growing in a homogenous environment. Plant neighborhood interactions are pervasive across plant populations and could violate assumptions of transplant garden experiments.

Post-fire seed dispersal of a wind-dispersed shrub declined with distance to seed source, yet had high levels of unexplained variation.

Plant-population recovery across large disturbance areas is often seed-limited. An understanding of seed dispersal patterns is fundamental for determining natural-regeneration potential. However, forecasting seed dispersal rates across heterogeneous landscapes remains a challenge.

Detecting gold mining impacts on insect biodiversity in a tropical mining frontier with SmallSat imagery.

Gold mining is a major driver of Amazonian forest loss and degradation. As mining activity encroaches on primary forest in remote and inaccessible areas, satellite imagery provides crucial data for monitoring mining-related deforestation. High-resolution imagery, in particular, has shown promise for detecting artisanal gold mining at the forest frontier.

Species-level tree crown maps improve predictions of tree recruit abundance in a tropical landscape.

Predicting forest recovery at landscape scales will aid forest restoration efforts. The first step in successful forest recovery is tree recruitment. Forecasts of tree recruit abundance, derived from the landscape-scale distribution of seed sources (i.

Habitat fragmentation alters the distance of abiotic seed dispersal through edge effects and direction of dispersal.

Habitat loss and fragmentation are leading causes of species declines, driven in part by reduced dispersal. Isolating the effects of fragmentation on dispersal, however, is daunting because the consequences of fragmentation are typically intertwined, such as reduced connectivity and increased prevalence of edge effects. We used a large-scale landscape experiment to separate consequences of fragmentation on seed dispersal, considering both distance and direction of local dispersal.

Intraspecific variation mediates density dependence in a genetically diverse plant species.

Interactions between neighboring plants are critical for biodiversity maintenance in plant populations and communities. Intraspecific trait variation and genome duplication are common in plant species and can drive eco-evolutionary dynamics through genotype-mediated plant-plant interactions. However, few studies have examined how species-wide intraspecific variation may alter interactions between neighboring plants.

Long-distance natal dispersal is relatively frequent and correlated with environmental factors in a widespread raptor.

Dispersal is a critical process influencing population dynamics and responses to global change. Long-distance dispersal (LDD) can be especially important for gene flow and adaptability, although little is known about the factors influencing LDD because studying large-scale movements is challenging and LDD tends to be observed less frequently than shorter-distance dispersal (SDD). We sought to understand patterns of natal dispersal at a large scale, specifically aiming to understand the relative frequency of LDD compared to SDD and correlates of dispersal distances.

Monitoring tropical forest succession at landscape scales despite uncertainty in Landsat time series.

Forecasting rates of forest succession at landscape scales will aid global efforts to restore tree cover to millions of hectares of degraded land. While optical satellite remote sensing can detect regional land cover change, quantifying forest structural change is challenging. We developed a state-space modeling framework that applies Landsat satellite data to estimate variability in rates of natural regeneration between sites in a tropical landscape.

Integrating anthropogenic factors into regional-scale species distribution models-A novel application in the imperiled sagebrush biome.

Species distribution models (SDMs) that rely on regional-scale environmental variables will play a key role in forecasting species occurrence in the face of climate change. However, in the Anthropocene, a number of local-scale anthropogenic variables, including wildfire history, land-use change, invasive species, and ecological restoration practices can override regional-scale variables to drive patterns of species distribution. Incorporating these human-induced factors into SDMs remains a major research challenge, in part because spatial variability in these factors occurs at fine scales, rendering prediction over regional extents problematic.

Review: Using physiologically based models to predict population responses to phytochemicals by wild vertebrate herbivores.

To understand how foraging decisions impact individual fitness of herbivores, nutritional ecologists must consider the complex in vivo dynamics of nutrient-nutrient interactions and nutrient-toxin interactions associated with foraging. Mathematical modeling has long been used to make foraging predictions (e.g.

Trade-offs between carbon stocks and timber recovery in tropical forests are mediated by logging intensity.

Forest degradation accounts for ~70% of total carbon losses from tropical forests. Substantial emissions are from selective logging, a land-use activity that decreases forest carbon density. To maintain carbon values in selectively logged forests, climate change mitigation policies and government agencies promote the adoption of reduced-impact logging (RIL) practices.

Multi-decadal time series of remotely sensed vegetation improves prediction of soil carbon in a subtropical grassland.

Soil carbon sequestration in agroecosystems could play a key role in climate change mitigation but will require accurate predictions of soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks over spatial scales relevant to land management. Spatial variation in underlying drivers of SOC, such as plant productivity and soil mineralogy, complicates these predictions. Recent advances in the availability of remotely sensed data make it practical to generate multidecadal time series of vegetation indices with high spatial resolution and coverage.

A hyperspectral image can predict tropical tree growth rates in single-species stands.

Remote sensing is increasingly needed to meet the critical demand for estimates of forest structure and composition at landscape to continental scales. Hyperspectral images can detect tree canopy properties, including species identity, leaf chemistry and disease. Tree growth rates are related to these measurable canopy properties but whether growth can be directly predicted from hyperspectral data remains unknown.

When does seed limitation matter for scaling up reforestation from patches to landscapes?

Restoring forest to hundreds of millions of hectares of degraded land has become a centerpiece of international plans to sequester carbon and conserve biodiversity. Forest landscape restoration will require scaling up ecological knowledge of secondary succession from small-scale field studies to predict forest recovery rates in heterogeneous landscapes. However, ecological field studies reveal widely divergent times to forest recovery, in part due to landscape features that are difficult to replicate in empirical studies.

Disentangling fragmentation effects on herbivory in understory plants of longleaf pine savanna.

Habitat fragmentation affects species and their interactions through intertwined mechanisms that include changes to fragment area, shape, connectivity and distance to edge. Disentangling these pathways is a fundamental challenge of landscape ecology and will help identify ecological processes important for management of rare species or restoration of fragmented habitats. In a landscape experiment that manipulated connectivity, fragment shape, and distance to edge while holding fragment area constant, we examined how fragmentation impacts herbivory and growth of nine plant species in longleaf pine savanna.

Identifying Malaria Transmission Foci for Elimination Using Human Mobility Data.

Humans move frequently and tend to carry parasites among areas with endemic malaria and into areas where local transmission is unsustainable. Human-mediated parasite mobility can thus sustain parasite populations in areas where they would otherwise be absent. Data describing human mobility and malaria epidemiology can help classify landscapes into parasite demographic sources and sinks, ecological concepts that have parallels in malaria control discussions of transmission foci.

Combining mesocosm and field experiments to predict invasive plant performance: a hierarchical Bayesian approach.

Invasive plant fecundity underlies propagule pressure and ultimately range expansion. Predicting fecundity across large spatial scales, from regions to landscapes, is critical for understanding invasion dynamics and optimizing management. However, to accurately predict fecundity and other demographic processes, improved models that scale individual plant responses to abiotic drivers across heterogeneous environments are needed.

Spatial heterogeneity, host movement and mosquito-borne disease transmission.

Mosquito-borne diseases are a global health priority disproportionately affecting low-income populations in tropical and sub-tropical countries. These pathogens live in mosquitoes and hosts that interact in spatially heterogeneous environments where hosts move between regions of varying transmission intensity. Although there is increasing interest in the implications of spatial processes for mosquito-borne disease dynamics, most of our understanding derives from models that assume spatially homogeneous transmission.

Loss of animal seed dispersal increases extinction risk in a tropical tree species due to pervasive negative density dependence across life stages.

Overhunting in tropical forests reduces populations of vertebrate seed dispersers. If reduced seed dispersal has a negative impact on tree population viability, overhunting could lead to altered forest structure and dynamics, including decreased biodiversity. However, empirical data showing decreased animal-dispersed tree abundance in overhunted forests contradict demographic models which predict minimal sensitivity of tree population growth rate to early life stages.

The importance of long-distance seed dispersal for the demography and distribution of a canopy tree species.

Long-distance seed dispersal (LDD) is considered a crucial determinant of tree distributions, but its effects depend on demographic processes that enable seeds to establish into adults and that remain poorly understood at large spatial scales. We estimated rates of seed arrival, germination, and survival and growth for a canopy tree species (Miliusa horsfieldii), in a landscape ranging from evergreen forest, where the species' abundance is high, to deciduous forest, where it is extremely low. We then used an individual-based model (IBM) to predict sapling establishment and to compare the relative importance of seed arrival and establishment in explaining the observed distribution of seedlings.

Place-based attributes predict community membership in a mobile phone communication network.

Social networks can be organized into communities of closely connected nodes, a property known as modularity. Because diseases, information, and behaviors spread faster within communities than between communities, understanding modularity has broad implications for public policy, epidemiology and the social sciences. Explanations for community formation in social networks often incorporate the attributes of individual people, such as gender, ethnicity or shared activities.

Urbanized landscapes favored by fig-eating birds increase invasive but not native juvenile strangler fig abundance.

Propagule pressure can determine the success or failure of invasive plant range expansion. Range expansion takes place at large spatial scales, often encompassing many types of land cover, yet the effect of landscape context on propagule pressure remains largely unknown. Many studies have reported a positive correlation between invasive plant abundance and human land use; increased propagule pressure in these landscapes may be responsible for this correlation.