Coupling in goshawk and grouse population dynamics in Finland.

Different prey species can vary in their significance to a particular predator. In the simplest case, the total available density or biomass of a guild of several prey species might be most relevant to the predator, but behavioural and ecological traits of different prey species can alter the picture. We studied the population dynamics of a predator-prey setting in Finland by fitting first-order log-linear vector autoregressive models to long-term count data from active breeding sites of the northern goshawk (Accipiter gentilis; 1986-2009), and to three of its main prey species (1983-2010): hazel grouse (Bonasa bonasia), black grouse (Tetrao tetrix) and capercaillie (T.

Species dynamics alter community diversity-biomass stability relationships.

The relationship between community diversity and biomass variability remains a crucial ecological topic, with positive, negative and neutral diversity-stability relationships reported from empirical studies. Theory highlights the relative importance of Species-Species or Species-Environment interactions in driving diversity-stability patterns. Much previous work is based on an assumption of identical (stable) species-level dynamics.

Impact of climate change and prey abundance on nesting success of a top predator, the goshawk.

Contemporary research has documented a large number of shifts in spring phenology and changes in distribution range although the average spring temperatures have increased by only 0.3-0.6 °C over the past 100 years.

Challenging claims in the study of migratory birds and climate change.

Recent shifts in phenology in response to climate change are well established but often poorly understood. Many animals integrate climate change across a spatially and temporally dispersed annual life cycle, and effects are modulated by ecological interactions, evolutionary change and endogenous control mechanisms. Here we assess and discuss key statements emerging from the rapidly developing study of changing spring phenology in migratory birds.

The impact of climate and cyclic food abundance on the timing of breeding and brood size in four boreal owl species.

The ongoing climate change has improved our understanding of how climate affects the reproduction of animals. However, the interaction between food availability and climate on breeding has rarely been examined. While it has been shown that breeding of boreal birds of prey is first and foremost determined by prey abundance, little information exists on how climatic conditions influence this relationship.

Community stability under different correlation structures of species' environmental responses.

The outcome of species interactions in a variable environment is expected to depend on how similarly different species react to variation in environmental conditions. We study community stability (evenness and species diversity) in competitive communities that are either closed or subjected to random migration, under different regimes of environmental forcing. Community members respond to environmental variation: (i) independently (IR), (ii) in a positively correlated way (CR), or (iii) hierarchically, according to niche differences (HR).

When can we distinguish between neutral and non-neutral processes in community dynamics under ecological drift?

Determining whether the composition of ecological communities (species presence and abundance), can be predicted from species demographic traits, rather than being a result of neutral drift, is a key ecological question. Here we compare the similarity of community composition, from different community assembly models run under identical environmental conditions, where interspecific competition is assumed to be either neutral or niche-based. In both cases, species colonize a focal patch from a network of neighbouring patches in a metacommunity.

Quantitative trait evolution and environmental change.

Background: Given the recent changes in climate, there is an urgent need to understand the evolutionary ability of populations to respond to these changes.

Methodology/principal Findings: We performed individual-based simulations with different shapes of the fitness curve, different heritabilities, different levels of density compensation, and different autocorrelation of environmental noise imposed on an environmental trend to study the ability of a population to adapt to changing conditions. The main finding is that when there is a positive autocorrelation of environmental noise, the outcome of the evolutionary process is much more unpredictable compared to when the noise has no autocorrelation.

Population synchrony in small-world networks.

Network topography ranges from regular graphs (linkage between nearest neighbours only) via small-world graphs (some random connections between nodes) to completely random graphs. Small-world linkage is seen as a revolutionary architecture for a wide range of social, physical and biological networks, and has been shown to increase synchrony between oscillating subunits. We study small-world topographies in a novel context: dispersal linkage between spatially structured populations across a range of population models.

Comment on "Stability via asynchrony in Drosophila metapopulations with low migration rates".

Dey and Joshi (Reports, 21 April 2006, p. 434) studied replicate laboratory populations of Drosophila and reported that low migration led to asynchrony among subpopulations. We argue that this unexpected outcome may be due to variation in the initial size of the subpopulations and uncontrolled stochasticity in the experiments.

The impacts of different management strategies and environmental forcing in ecological communities.

Understanding the effects of population management on the community a target species belongs to is of key importance for successful management. It is known that the removal or extinction of a single species in a community may lead to extinctions of other community members. In our study, we assess the impacts of population management on competitive communities, studying the response of both locally stable and unstable communities of varying size (between four and 10 species) to three different management strategies; harvesting of a target species, harvesting with non-targeted catch, and stocking of the target species.

Aggressiveness is associated with genetic diversity in landlocked salmon (Salmo salar).

The amount of intraindividual genetic variation has often been found to have profound effects on life history traits. However, studies concerning the relationship between behaviour and genetic diversity are scarce. Aggressiveness is an important component of competitive ability in juvenile salmonids affecting their later performance and survival.

Seed bank in annuals: competition between banker and non-banker morphs.

Seed bank is a plant life history strategy against the unpredictability of the biotic and the abiotic environment. We simulated competition between a seed banking and a non-banking morph of an annual plant. A constant fraction of the banker morph seeds was allocated to the seed bank, where they had a constant mortality and germination rate.

Sexually transmitted disease and the evolution of mating systems.

Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) have been shown to increase the costs of multiple mating and therefore favor relatively monogamous mating strategies. We examine another way in which STDs can influence mating systems in species in which female choice is important. Because more popular males are more likely to become infected, STDs can counteract any selective pressure that generates strong mating skews.

The irreducible uncertainty of the demography-environment interaction in ecology.

The interpretation of ecological data has been greatly improved by bridging the gap between ecological and statistical models. The major challenge is to separate competing hypotheses concerning demography, or other ecological relationships, and environmental variability (noise). In this paper we demonstrate that this may be an arduous, if not impossible, task.

Prey to predator size ratio influences foraging efficiency of larval Aeshna juncea dragonflies.

We investigated foraging behaviour of larval dragonflies Aeshna juncea in order to examine the significance of prey density and body size in predator-prey dynamics. A. juncea were offered separately three size-classes of Daphnia magna at low and high densities.

Gregariousness versus solitude: another look at parasite faunal richness in Canadian freshwater fishes.

Recently Poulin (1991), using published data on Canadian freshwater fishes (60 species, three families), concluded that there is no difference in parasite species numbers between solitary and social species. Nor could he associate parasite diversity to host size, age or range of distribution. Analysing Poulin's data with somewhat differing methods I reached different conclusions.