Phenology varies with phylogeny but not by trophic level with climate change.

Shifts in phenology with climate change can lead to asynchrony between interacting species, with cascading impacts on ecosystem services. Previous meta-analyses have produced conflicting results on whether asynchrony has increased in recent decades, but the underlying data have also varied-including in species composition, interaction types and whether studies compared data grouped by trophic level or compared shifts in known interacting species pairs. Here, using updated data from previous studies and a Bayesian phylogenetic model, we found that species have advanced an average of 3.

Predicting age and mass at maturity from feeding behavior and diet in : An empirical test of a life history model.

Feeding for most animals involves bouts of active ingestion alternating with bouts of no ingestion. In insects, the temporal patterning of bouts varies widely with resource quality and is known to affect growth, development time, and fitness. However, the precise impacts of resource quality and feeding behavior on insect life history traits are poorly understood.

Initial abundance and stochasticity influence competitive outcome in communities.

Predicting competitive outcomes in communities frequently involves inferences based on deterministic population models since these provide clear criteria for exclusion (e.g. R* rule) or long-term coexistence (e.

Interspecific competition slows range expansion and shapes range boundaries.

Species expanding into new habitats as a result of climate change or human introductions will frequently encounter resident competitors. Theoretical models suggest that such interspecific competition can alter the speed of expansion and the shape of expanding range boundaries. However, competitive interactions are rarely considered when forecasting the success or speed of expansion, in part because there has been no direct experimental evidence that competition affects either expansion speed or boundary shape.

A Stochastic Model for Predicting Age and Mass at Maturity of Insects.

Variation in age and mass at maturity is commonly observed in populations, even among individuals with the same genetic and environmental backgrounds. Accounting for such individual variation with a stochastic model is important for estimating optimal evolutionary strategies and for understanding potential trade-offs among life-history traits. However, most studies employ stochastic models that are either phenomenological or account for variation in only one life-history trait.

Nonlinear effect of dispersal rate on spatial synchrony of predator-prey cycles.

Spatially-separated populations often exhibit positively correlated fluctuations in abundance and other population variables, a phenomenon known as spatial synchrony. Generation and maintenance of synchrony requires forces that rapidly restore synchrony in the face of desynchronizing forces such as demographic and environmental stochasticity. One such force is dispersal, which couples local populations together, thereby synchronizing them.