Jay Stachowicz - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Jay Stachowicz
Ideas in Ecology and Evolution, 2012
The impacts of climate change have been observed both globally and on regional scales, such as in... more The impacts of climate change have been observed both globally and on regional scales, such as in the North-central California coast and ocean, a region that extends from Point Arena to Point Ano Nuevo and includes the Pacific coastline of the San Francisco Bay Area. Because of the high economic and ecological value of the region’s marine environment, Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary (GFNMS) and other agencies and organizations have recognized the need to evaluate and plan for climate change impacts. Climate change indicators provide information about the presence and potential impacts of climate change. While climate change indicators exist for the nation and for the state of California as a whole, no system of ocean climate indicators exist that specifically consider the unique characteristics of the North-central California coast and ocean region. To that end, GFNMS collaborated with over 50 federal, state, and regional natural resource managers, research scientis...
Camouflage is one of the most common anti-predator strategies in the animal kingdom, and many exa... more Camouflage is one of the most common anti-predator strategies in the animal kingdom, and many examples of camouflage have become classic case studies of adaptation and natural selection (Cott 1940; Kettlewell 1955; Stevens and Merilaita, 2009). Although most examples of animal camouflage involve body coloration or patterning, decorator crabs in the brachyuran superfamily Majoidea (majoids) are a large and diverse group of crabs best known for a distinctive form of ‘decoration’ camouflage, in which they attach materials from the environment to specialised hooked setae on their body. This unique form of camouflage is dependent both on crab morphology and behaviour, and makes decorator crabs an ideal group in which to study the adaptive consequences and mechanistic bases of camouflage. Decorator crabs are also fairly unusual among camouflaged animals in that the adaptive anti-predatory consequences of decoration camouflage have in many cases been directly tested in the field (Stachowic...
Ma in Goa l of Study Why mobes? Edge Effects and Seagrass Microbiome Diversity Cassandra Ettinger... more Ma in Goa l of Study Why mobes? Edge Effects and Seagrass Microbiome Diversity Cassandra Ettinger1; Jenna Morgan-Lang1; Sofietje Voerman2; Jay Stachowicz3; Jonathan Eisen1,3,4 1Genome Center, University of California, Davis, CA, USA 2University of Technology, Sydney, Australia 3Department of Evolution and Ecology, University of California, Davis, CA, USA 4Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of California, Davis, CA, USA
Ecology letters, Jan 17, 2015
Nutrient pollution and reduced grazing each can stimulate algal blooms as shown by numerous exper... more Nutrient pollution and reduced grazing each can stimulate algal blooms as shown by numerous experiments. But because experiments rarely incorporate natural variation in environmental factors and biodiversity, conditions determining the relative strength of bottom-up and top-down forcing remain unresolved. We factorially added nutrients and reduced grazing at 15 sites across the range of the marine foundation species eelgrass (Zostera marina) to quantify how top-down and bottom-up control interact with natural gradients in biodiversity and environmental forcing. Experiments confirmed modest top-down control of algae, whereas fertilisation had no general effect. Unexpectedly, grazer and algal biomass were better predicted by cross-site variation in grazer and eelgrass diversity than by global environmental gradients. Moreover, these large-scale patterns corresponded strikingly with prior small-scale experiments. Our results link global and local evidence that biodiversity and top-down...
Marine Ecology-progress Series, 2008
BioScience, 2006
BioOne Complete (complete.BioOne.org) is a full-text database of 200 subscribed and open-access t... more BioOne Complete (complete.BioOne.org) is a full-text database of 200 subscribed and open-access titles in the biological, ecological, and environmental sciences published by nonprofit societies, associations, museums, institutions, and presses.
Seagrass ecosystems worldwide depend on the mutualistic relationship between habitat-forming orga... more Seagrass ecosystems worldwide depend on the mutualistic relationship between habitat-forming organisms and epiphyte-consuming grazers. A diverse assemblage of grazers appears to better control epiphyte growth, but grazer diversity varies widely among beds and it is not clear what factors allow the coexistence of many grazer species. While recent studies have focused on the influence of abiotic gradients and habitat structure on this group of invertebrates, species-specific microhabitat preferences, predator-avoidance and habitat competition could affect coexistence among grazers. To address this, we compared the habitat preferences of 8 seagrass mesograzer species from Bodega Harbor, CA and tested how these preferences varied with the presence of (a) predators and (b) competitors that are either similar or dissimilar in habitat selection and traits. We found significant differences in habitat preferences among species, with some consistently choosing Ulva, eelgrass, or open habitat....
Field studies of community assembly patterns increasingly use phylogenetic relatedness as a surro... more Field studies of community assembly patterns increasingly use phylogenetic relatedness as a surrogate for traits. Recent experiments appear to validate this approach by showing effects of correlated trait and phylogenetic distances on coexistence. However, traits governing resource use in animals are often labile. To test whether feeding trait or phylogenetic diversity can predict competition and production in communities of grazing amphipods, we manipulated both types of diversity independently in mesocosms. We found that increasing the feeding trait diversity of the community increased the number of species coexisting, reduced dominance and changed food availability. In contrast, phylogenetic diversity had no effect, suggesting that whatever additional ecological information it represents was not relevant in this context. Although community phylogenetic structure in the field may result from multiple traits with potential for phylogenetic signal, phylogenetic effects on species interactions in controlled experiments may depend on the lability of fewer key traits.
Ecology, 2014
The study of community assembly processes currently involves (a) longstanding questions about the... more The study of community assembly processes currently involves (a) longstanding questions about the relative importance of environmental filtering vs. niche partitioning in a wide range of ecosystems, and (b) more recent questions about methodology. The rapidly growing field of community phylogenetics has generated debate about the choice between functional traits and phylogenetic relationships for understanding species similarities, and has raised additional questions about the contribution of experimental vs. observational approaches to understanding evolutionary constraints on community assembly. In this study, we use traits, a phylogeny, and field surveys to identify the forces structuring communities of herbivorous marine amphipods and isopods living in adjacent seagrass and macroalgae. In addition, we compare our field results to a recently published mesocosm experiment that tested the effects of both trait and phylogenetic diversity on coexistence using the same species and system. With respect to community assembly processes, we found that environmental filtering was the dominant process in macroalgae habitats, that niche partitioning was the dominant process in seagrass habitats, and that the strength of these assembly mechanisms varied with seasonal fluctuations in environmental conditions and resource availability. These patterns are indicated by both phylogenetic relationships and trait distances, but the type of resources being partitioned in seagrass habitats can only be deciphered using trait data. Species coexisting in seagrass in the field differed not in their feeding niche but in traits related to microhabitat use, providing novel evidence of the relative importance of competition for food vs. habitat in structuring communities of phytophagous invertebrates. With respect to methodology, the results for seagrass habitats conflict with those obtained in mesocosms, where feeding trait diversity did promote coexistence and phylogenetic diversity had no effect. This contrast arises because a greater range of traits (some of which have much stronger phylogenetic signal than feeding traits) contribute to community assembly in the field. This highlights a mismatch between the processes that drive community assembly in the field and the processes we isolated in experimental tests, and illustrates that using phylogeny as a single proxy in both contexts may impede the synthesis of observational and experimental results.
Marine Ecology Progress Series, 2010
Despite experimental evidence for effects of primary producer diversity and consumer species dive... more Despite experimental evidence for effects of primary producer diversity and consumer species diversity on population and community processes, little is known about how diversity at these multiple trophic levels may interact. We conducted a mesocosm experiment to examine the independent and interactive effects of seagrass Zostera marina genotypic diversity and grazer species diversity on seagrass, epiphyte, and grazer responses. There were no interactions between seagrass genotypic diversity and grazer species diversity, per se; however, the effects of seagrass genotypic diversity on both seagrass and grazer biomass depended on grazer species identity. In particular, seagrass biomass was higher in polyculture than in monoculture, but only when the sea hare Phyllaplysia taylori was the only grazer present. This enhanced growth was due to complementarity among genotypes in the presence of P. taylori. Seagrass genotypic diversity effects on grazer biomass and fecundity were small and/or idiosyncratic, yet grazer species composition had a large impact on grazer reproductive effort. Only grazer species identity, and not seagrass genotypic diversity or grazer species diversity, affected epiphyte biomass, consistent with other findings of the importance of species identity. Our results confirm the effects of seagrass genetic diversity on the plant itself as well as the grazer species that utilize it for both food and habitat. Furthermore, they emphasize the importance of grazers for controlling epiphyte and seagrass biomass.
PLoS ONE, 2013
Increasingly, studies of community assembly and ecosystem function combine trait data and phyloge... more Increasingly, studies of community assembly and ecosystem function combine trait data and phylogenetic relationships to gain novel insight into the ecological and evolutionary constraints on community dynamics. However, the key to interpreting these two types of information is an understanding of the extent to which traits are phylogenetically conserved. In this study, we develop the necessary framework for community phylogenetics approaches in a system of marine crustacean herbivores that play an important role in the ecosystem functioning of seagrass systems worldwide. For 16 species of amphipods and isopods, we (1) reconstructed phylogenetic relationships using COI, 16S, and 18S sequences and Bayesian analyses, (2) measured traits that are potentially important for assembling species between and within habitats, and (3) compared the degree to which each of these traits are evolutionarily conserved. Despite poor phylogenetic resolution for the order Amphipoda as a whole, we resolved almost all of the topology for the species in our system, and used a sampling of ultrametric trees from the posterior distribution to account for remaining uncertainty in topology and branch lengths. We found that traits varied widely in their degree of phylogenetic signal. Body mass, fecundity, and tube building showed very strong phylogenetic signal, and temperature tolerance and feeding traits showed much less. As such, the degree of signal was not predictable based on whether the trait is related to environmental filtering or to resource partitioning. Further, we found that even with strong phylogenetic signal in body size, (which may have large impacts on ecosystem function), the predictive relationship between phylogenetic diversity and ecosystem function is not straightforward. We show that patterns of phylogenetic diversity in communities of seagrass mesograzers could lead to a variety of interpretations and predictions, and that detailed study of trait similarities and differences will be necessary to interpret these patterns.
Ecology, 2014
Considerable research has examined the influence of herbivores on the maintenance of plant divers... more Considerable research has examined the influence of herbivores on the maintenance of plant diversity, but fewer studies have examined the reciprocal effect of plant diversity on the animals that use the plant community for food and shelter, particularly in marine systems. Several mechanisms could underlie such effects. Animal diversity and abundance could be increased by complementary use of different plants by different animals, or by an indirect effect of plant diversity on plant production that results in more total plant biomass in high plant-diversity communities. Alternatively, plant species identity could play a dominant role leading to sampling effects or no effect of diversity at all. We conducted a six-year field manipulation of the richness of rocky shore seaweeds in northern California and measured the effects of algal richness and identity on the invertebrate community, from meiofauna to macrofauna. We found that diverse algal communities hosted more species of both lar...
Ecology Letters, 2010
A rapidly accumulating body of research has shown that species diversity consistently affects the... more A rapidly accumulating body of research has shown that species diversity consistently affects the functioning of ecosystems. The incorporation of trophic complexity and the extension of this research to larger scales and natural ranges in species diversity remain as important challenges for understanding the true magnitude of these effects in natural systems. Here, we test whether the diversity of prey communities affects the magnitude of aggregate consumer effects. We conducted a meta-analysis of 57 consumer removal field experiments from a range of intertidal and subtidal hard substrate marine communities. We found that the richness of the prey community was the strongest predictor of the magnitude of consumer effects while controlling for habitat type, taxonomic composition, and other variables. Consumer removal increased aggregate prey abundance on average by 1200% at the lower limit of prey diversity (two species), but only 200% at the upper limit of 37 species. Importantly, compositional change was substantial at both high and low prey diversity, suggesting predation intensity did not vary with prey richness. Rather diverse prey communities appear to be more capable of maintaining abundance via compensatory responses, by containing prey species that are resistant to (or tolerant of) predators. These results suggest that the effects of species diversity on trophic interactions may scale consistently from small-scale manipulations to cross-community comparisons.
Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 2007
E cology is concerned with understanding the abundance, diversity, and distribution of organisms ... more E cology is concerned with understanding the abundance, diversity, and distribution of organisms in nature, the interactions among organisms and between organisms and their environment, and the movement and flux of energy and nutrients in the environment. Along with an understanding of the principles that shape funda-We propose research to fill key gaps in the areas of population and community ecology, based on a National Science Foundation workshop identifying funding priorities for the next 5-10 years. Our vision for the near future of ecology focuses on three core areas: predicting the strength and context-dependence of species interactions across multiple scales; identifying the importance of feedbacks from individual interactions to ecosystem dynamics; and linking pattern with process to understand species coexistence. We outline a combination of theory development and explicit, realistic tests of hypotheses needed to advance population and community ecology.
Science, 2007
We show that globally declining fisheries catch trends cannot be explained by random processes an... more We show that globally declining fisheries catch trends cannot be explained by random processes and are consistent with declining stock abundance trends. Future projections are inherently uncertain but may provide a benchmark against which to assess the effectiveness of conservation measures. Marine reserves and fisheries closures are among those measures and can be equally effective in tropical and temperate areas-but must be combined with catch-, effort-, and gear restrictions to meet global conservation objectives.
Ideas in Ecology and Evolution, 2012
The impacts of climate change have been observed both globally and on regional scales, such as in... more The impacts of climate change have been observed both globally and on regional scales, such as in the North-central California coast and ocean, a region that extends from Point Arena to Point Ano Nuevo and includes the Pacific coastline of the San Francisco Bay Area. Because of the high economic and ecological value of the region’s marine environment, Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary (GFNMS) and other agencies and organizations have recognized the need to evaluate and plan for climate change impacts. Climate change indicators provide information about the presence and potential impacts of climate change. While climate change indicators exist for the nation and for the state of California as a whole, no system of ocean climate indicators exist that specifically consider the unique characteristics of the North-central California coast and ocean region. To that end, GFNMS collaborated with over 50 federal, state, and regional natural resource managers, research scientis...
Camouflage is one of the most common anti-predator strategies in the animal kingdom, and many exa... more Camouflage is one of the most common anti-predator strategies in the animal kingdom, and many examples of camouflage have become classic case studies of adaptation and natural selection (Cott 1940; Kettlewell 1955; Stevens and Merilaita, 2009). Although most examples of animal camouflage involve body coloration or patterning, decorator crabs in the brachyuran superfamily Majoidea (majoids) are a large and diverse group of crabs best known for a distinctive form of ‘decoration’ camouflage, in which they attach materials from the environment to specialised hooked setae on their body. This unique form of camouflage is dependent both on crab morphology and behaviour, and makes decorator crabs an ideal group in which to study the adaptive consequences and mechanistic bases of camouflage. Decorator crabs are also fairly unusual among camouflaged animals in that the adaptive anti-predatory consequences of decoration camouflage have in many cases been directly tested in the field (Stachowic...
Ma in Goa l of Study Why mobes? Edge Effects and Seagrass Microbiome Diversity Cassandra Ettinger... more Ma in Goa l of Study Why mobes? Edge Effects and Seagrass Microbiome Diversity Cassandra Ettinger1; Jenna Morgan-Lang1; Sofietje Voerman2; Jay Stachowicz3; Jonathan Eisen1,3,4 1Genome Center, University of California, Davis, CA, USA 2University of Technology, Sydney, Australia 3Department of Evolution and Ecology, University of California, Davis, CA, USA 4Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of California, Davis, CA, USA
Ecology letters, Jan 17, 2015
Nutrient pollution and reduced grazing each can stimulate algal blooms as shown by numerous exper... more Nutrient pollution and reduced grazing each can stimulate algal blooms as shown by numerous experiments. But because experiments rarely incorporate natural variation in environmental factors and biodiversity, conditions determining the relative strength of bottom-up and top-down forcing remain unresolved. We factorially added nutrients and reduced grazing at 15 sites across the range of the marine foundation species eelgrass (Zostera marina) to quantify how top-down and bottom-up control interact with natural gradients in biodiversity and environmental forcing. Experiments confirmed modest top-down control of algae, whereas fertilisation had no general effect. Unexpectedly, grazer and algal biomass were better predicted by cross-site variation in grazer and eelgrass diversity than by global environmental gradients. Moreover, these large-scale patterns corresponded strikingly with prior small-scale experiments. Our results link global and local evidence that biodiversity and top-down...
Marine Ecology-progress Series, 2008
BioScience, 2006
BioOne Complete (complete.BioOne.org) is a full-text database of 200 subscribed and open-access t... more BioOne Complete (complete.BioOne.org) is a full-text database of 200 subscribed and open-access titles in the biological, ecological, and environmental sciences published by nonprofit societies, associations, museums, institutions, and presses.
Seagrass ecosystems worldwide depend on the mutualistic relationship between habitat-forming orga... more Seagrass ecosystems worldwide depend on the mutualistic relationship between habitat-forming organisms and epiphyte-consuming grazers. A diverse assemblage of grazers appears to better control epiphyte growth, but grazer diversity varies widely among beds and it is not clear what factors allow the coexistence of many grazer species. While recent studies have focused on the influence of abiotic gradients and habitat structure on this group of invertebrates, species-specific microhabitat preferences, predator-avoidance and habitat competition could affect coexistence among grazers. To address this, we compared the habitat preferences of 8 seagrass mesograzer species from Bodega Harbor, CA and tested how these preferences varied with the presence of (a) predators and (b) competitors that are either similar or dissimilar in habitat selection and traits. We found significant differences in habitat preferences among species, with some consistently choosing Ulva, eelgrass, or open habitat....
Field studies of community assembly patterns increasingly use phylogenetic relatedness as a surro... more Field studies of community assembly patterns increasingly use phylogenetic relatedness as a surrogate for traits. Recent experiments appear to validate this approach by showing effects of correlated trait and phylogenetic distances on coexistence. However, traits governing resource use in animals are often labile. To test whether feeding trait or phylogenetic diversity can predict competition and production in communities of grazing amphipods, we manipulated both types of diversity independently in mesocosms. We found that increasing the feeding trait diversity of the community increased the number of species coexisting, reduced dominance and changed food availability. In contrast, phylogenetic diversity had no effect, suggesting that whatever additional ecological information it represents was not relevant in this context. Although community phylogenetic structure in the field may result from multiple traits with potential for phylogenetic signal, phylogenetic effects on species interactions in controlled experiments may depend on the lability of fewer key traits.
Ecology, 2014
The study of community assembly processes currently involves (a) longstanding questions about the... more The study of community assembly processes currently involves (a) longstanding questions about the relative importance of environmental filtering vs. niche partitioning in a wide range of ecosystems, and (b) more recent questions about methodology. The rapidly growing field of community phylogenetics has generated debate about the choice between functional traits and phylogenetic relationships for understanding species similarities, and has raised additional questions about the contribution of experimental vs. observational approaches to understanding evolutionary constraints on community assembly. In this study, we use traits, a phylogeny, and field surveys to identify the forces structuring communities of herbivorous marine amphipods and isopods living in adjacent seagrass and macroalgae. In addition, we compare our field results to a recently published mesocosm experiment that tested the effects of both trait and phylogenetic diversity on coexistence using the same species and system. With respect to community assembly processes, we found that environmental filtering was the dominant process in macroalgae habitats, that niche partitioning was the dominant process in seagrass habitats, and that the strength of these assembly mechanisms varied with seasonal fluctuations in environmental conditions and resource availability. These patterns are indicated by both phylogenetic relationships and trait distances, but the type of resources being partitioned in seagrass habitats can only be deciphered using trait data. Species coexisting in seagrass in the field differed not in their feeding niche but in traits related to microhabitat use, providing novel evidence of the relative importance of competition for food vs. habitat in structuring communities of phytophagous invertebrates. With respect to methodology, the results for seagrass habitats conflict with those obtained in mesocosms, where feeding trait diversity did promote coexistence and phylogenetic diversity had no effect. This contrast arises because a greater range of traits (some of which have much stronger phylogenetic signal than feeding traits) contribute to community assembly in the field. This highlights a mismatch between the processes that drive community assembly in the field and the processes we isolated in experimental tests, and illustrates that using phylogeny as a single proxy in both contexts may impede the synthesis of observational and experimental results.
Marine Ecology Progress Series, 2010
Despite experimental evidence for effects of primary producer diversity and consumer species dive... more Despite experimental evidence for effects of primary producer diversity and consumer species diversity on population and community processes, little is known about how diversity at these multiple trophic levels may interact. We conducted a mesocosm experiment to examine the independent and interactive effects of seagrass Zostera marina genotypic diversity and grazer species diversity on seagrass, epiphyte, and grazer responses. There were no interactions between seagrass genotypic diversity and grazer species diversity, per se; however, the effects of seagrass genotypic diversity on both seagrass and grazer biomass depended on grazer species identity. In particular, seagrass biomass was higher in polyculture than in monoculture, but only when the sea hare Phyllaplysia taylori was the only grazer present. This enhanced growth was due to complementarity among genotypes in the presence of P. taylori. Seagrass genotypic diversity effects on grazer biomass and fecundity were small and/or idiosyncratic, yet grazer species composition had a large impact on grazer reproductive effort. Only grazer species identity, and not seagrass genotypic diversity or grazer species diversity, affected epiphyte biomass, consistent with other findings of the importance of species identity. Our results confirm the effects of seagrass genetic diversity on the plant itself as well as the grazer species that utilize it for both food and habitat. Furthermore, they emphasize the importance of grazers for controlling epiphyte and seagrass biomass.
PLoS ONE, 2013
Increasingly, studies of community assembly and ecosystem function combine trait data and phyloge... more Increasingly, studies of community assembly and ecosystem function combine trait data and phylogenetic relationships to gain novel insight into the ecological and evolutionary constraints on community dynamics. However, the key to interpreting these two types of information is an understanding of the extent to which traits are phylogenetically conserved. In this study, we develop the necessary framework for community phylogenetics approaches in a system of marine crustacean herbivores that play an important role in the ecosystem functioning of seagrass systems worldwide. For 16 species of amphipods and isopods, we (1) reconstructed phylogenetic relationships using COI, 16S, and 18S sequences and Bayesian analyses, (2) measured traits that are potentially important for assembling species between and within habitats, and (3) compared the degree to which each of these traits are evolutionarily conserved. Despite poor phylogenetic resolution for the order Amphipoda as a whole, we resolved almost all of the topology for the species in our system, and used a sampling of ultrametric trees from the posterior distribution to account for remaining uncertainty in topology and branch lengths. We found that traits varied widely in their degree of phylogenetic signal. Body mass, fecundity, and tube building showed very strong phylogenetic signal, and temperature tolerance and feeding traits showed much less. As such, the degree of signal was not predictable based on whether the trait is related to environmental filtering or to resource partitioning. Further, we found that even with strong phylogenetic signal in body size, (which may have large impacts on ecosystem function), the predictive relationship between phylogenetic diversity and ecosystem function is not straightforward. We show that patterns of phylogenetic diversity in communities of seagrass mesograzers could lead to a variety of interpretations and predictions, and that detailed study of trait similarities and differences will be necessary to interpret these patterns.
Ecology, 2014
Considerable research has examined the influence of herbivores on the maintenance of plant divers... more Considerable research has examined the influence of herbivores on the maintenance of plant diversity, but fewer studies have examined the reciprocal effect of plant diversity on the animals that use the plant community for food and shelter, particularly in marine systems. Several mechanisms could underlie such effects. Animal diversity and abundance could be increased by complementary use of different plants by different animals, or by an indirect effect of plant diversity on plant production that results in more total plant biomass in high plant-diversity communities. Alternatively, plant species identity could play a dominant role leading to sampling effects or no effect of diversity at all. We conducted a six-year field manipulation of the richness of rocky shore seaweeds in northern California and measured the effects of algal richness and identity on the invertebrate community, from meiofauna to macrofauna. We found that diverse algal communities hosted more species of both lar...
Ecology Letters, 2010
A rapidly accumulating body of research has shown that species diversity consistently affects the... more A rapidly accumulating body of research has shown that species diversity consistently affects the functioning of ecosystems. The incorporation of trophic complexity and the extension of this research to larger scales and natural ranges in species diversity remain as important challenges for understanding the true magnitude of these effects in natural systems. Here, we test whether the diversity of prey communities affects the magnitude of aggregate consumer effects. We conducted a meta-analysis of 57 consumer removal field experiments from a range of intertidal and subtidal hard substrate marine communities. We found that the richness of the prey community was the strongest predictor of the magnitude of consumer effects while controlling for habitat type, taxonomic composition, and other variables. Consumer removal increased aggregate prey abundance on average by 1200% at the lower limit of prey diversity (two species), but only 200% at the upper limit of 37 species. Importantly, compositional change was substantial at both high and low prey diversity, suggesting predation intensity did not vary with prey richness. Rather diverse prey communities appear to be more capable of maintaining abundance via compensatory responses, by containing prey species that are resistant to (or tolerant of) predators. These results suggest that the effects of species diversity on trophic interactions may scale consistently from small-scale manipulations to cross-community comparisons.
Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 2007
E cology is concerned with understanding the abundance, diversity, and distribution of organisms ... more E cology is concerned with understanding the abundance, diversity, and distribution of organisms in nature, the interactions among organisms and between organisms and their environment, and the movement and flux of energy and nutrients in the environment. Along with an understanding of the principles that shape funda-We propose research to fill key gaps in the areas of population and community ecology, based on a National Science Foundation workshop identifying funding priorities for the next 5-10 years. Our vision for the near future of ecology focuses on three core areas: predicting the strength and context-dependence of species interactions across multiple scales; identifying the importance of feedbacks from individual interactions to ecosystem dynamics; and linking pattern with process to understand species coexistence. We outline a combination of theory development and explicit, realistic tests of hypotheses needed to advance population and community ecology.
Science, 2007
We show that globally declining fisheries catch trends cannot be explained by random processes an... more We show that globally declining fisheries catch trends cannot be explained by random processes and are consistent with declining stock abundance trends. Future projections are inherently uncertain but may provide a benchmark against which to assess the effectiveness of conservation measures. Marine reserves and fisheries closures are among those measures and can be equally effective in tropical and temperate areas-but must be combined with catch-, effort-, and gear restrictions to meet global conservation objectives.