Preface to the Princeton Landmarks in Biology Edition vii Preface xi Symbols Used xiii 1. The Importance of Islands 3 2. Area and Number of Speicies 8 3. Further Explanations of the Area-Diversity Pattern 19 4. The Strategy of Colonization 68 5. Invasibility and the Variable Niche 94 6. Stepping Stones and Biotic Exchange 123 7. Evolutionary Changes Following Colonization 145 8. Prospect 181 Glossary 185 References 193 Index 201

The Theory of Island Biogeography

Establishing relationships between species distributions and environmental characteristics is a major goal in the search for forces driving species distributions. Canonical ordinations such as redundancy analysis and canonical correspondence analysis are invaluable tools for modeling communities through environmental predictors. They provide the means for conducting direct explanatory analysis in which the association among species can be studied according to their common and unique relationships with the environmental variables and other sets of predictors of interest, such as spatial variables. Variation partitioning can then be used to test and determine the likelihood of these sets of predictors in explaining patterns in community structure. Although variation partitioning in canonical analysis is routinely used in ecological analysis, no effort has been reported in the literature to consider appropriate estimators so that comparisons between fractions or, eventually, between different canonical models are meaningful. In this paper, we show that variation partitioning as currently applied in canonical analysis is biased. We present appropriate unbiased estimators. In addition, we outline a statistical test to compare fractions in canonical analysis. The question addressed by the test is whether two fractions of variation are significantly different from each other. Such assessment provides an important step toward attaining an understanding of the factors patterning community structure. The test is shown to have correct Type I error rates and good power for both redundancy analysis and canonical correspondence analysis.

http://adn.biol.umontreal.ca/~numericalecology/Reprints/Peres-Neto_et_al_2006_with_app.pdf

Variation partitioning of species data matrices: estimation and comparison of fractions

Water of sufficient quality and quantity is critical to all life. Increasing human population and growth of technology require human society to devote more and more attention to protection of adequate supplies of water. Although perception of biological degradation stimulated current state and federal legislation on the quality of water resources, that biological focus was lost in the search for easily measured physical and chemical surrogates. The "fishable and swimmable" goal of the Water Pollution Control Act of 1972 (PL 92-500) and its charge to "restore and maintain" biotic integrity illustrate that law's biological underpinning. Further, the need for operational definitions of terms like "biological integrity" and "unreasonable degradation" and for ecologically sound tools to measure divergence from societal goals have increased interest in biological monitoring. Assessment of water resource quality by sampling biological communities in the field (ambient biological monitoring) is a promising approach that requires expanded use of ecological expertise. One such approach, the Index of Biotic Integrity (IBI), provides a broadly based, multiparameter tool for the assessment of biotic integrity in running waters. IBI based on fish community attributes has now been applied widely in North America. The success of IBI has stimulated the development of similar approaches using other aquatic taxa. Expanded use of ecological expertise in ambient biological monitoring is essential to the protection of water resources. Ecologists have the expertise to contribute significantly to those programs.

/pdf/biological-integrity-a-long-neglected-aspect-of-water-4poxwmnj7d.pdf

Biological Integrity: A Long-Neglected Aspect of Water Resource Management

Predicting ecosystem responses to global change is a major challenge in ecology. A critical step in that challenge is to understand how changing environmental conditions influence processes across levels of ecological organization. While direct scaling from individual to ecosystem dynamics can lead to robust and mechanistic predictions, new approaches are needed to appropriately translate questions through the community level. Species invasion, loss, and turnover all necessitate this scaling through community processes, but predicting how such changes may influence ecosystem function is notoriously difficult. We suggest that community-level dynamics can be incorporated into scaling predictions using a trait-based response-effect framework that differentiates the community response to environmental change (predicted by response traits) and the effect of that change on ecosystem processes (predicted by effect traits). We develop a response-and-effect functional framework, concentrating on how the relationships among species' response, effect, and abundance can lead to general predictions concerning the magnitude and direction of the influence of environmental change on function. We then detail several key research directions needed to better scale the effects of environmental change through the community level. These include (1) effect and response trait characterization, (2) linkages between response-and-effect traits, (3) the importance of species interactions on trait expression, and (4) incorporation of feedbacks across multiple temporal scales. Increasing rates of extinction and invasion that are modifying communities worldwide make such a research agenda imperative.

https://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/pubs/journals/pnw_2008_suding001.pdf

Scaling environmental change through the community-level: a trait-based response-and-effect framework for plants

Community assembly provides a conceptual foundation for understanding the processes that determine which and how many species live in a particular locality. Evidence suggests that community assembly often leads to a single stable equilibrium, such that the conditions of the environment and interspecific interactions determine which species will exist there. In such cases, regions of local communities with similar environmental conditions should have similar community composition. Other evidence suggests that community assembly can lead to multiple stable equilibria. Thus, the resulting community depends on the assembly history, even when all species have access to the community. In these cases, a region of local communities with similar environmental conditions can be very dissimilar in their community composition. Both regional and local factors should determine the patterns by which communities assemble, and the resultant degree of similarity or dissimilarity among localities with similar environments. A single equilibrium in more likely to be realized in systems with small regional species pools, high rates of connectance, low productivity and high disturbance. Multiple stable equilibria are more likely in systems with large regional species pools, low rates of connectance, high productivity and low disturbance. I illustrate preliminary evidence for these predictions from an observational study of small pond communities, and show important effects on community similarity, as well as on local and regional species richness.

Community assembly: when should history matter?

Biological monitoring part IV—Toxicity testing

McCune and Allen (1985) asked the question “Will similar forests develop on similar sites?” and concluded that dissimilar old-growth forests had developed on similar sites due to historical factors (colonization, disturbance, etc.). We asked “Do similar zooplankton communities develop in similar ponds?” We compared zooplankton community structure and function in 12 newly constructed experimental ponds during 1 yr of natural colonization and analyzed a suite of physical–chemical variables to evaluate the assumption of environmental similarity among ponds.

Ponds were similar for the measured environmental variables. However, zooplankton communities were structurally different, as indicated by analyses of species presence/absence, colonization and species accrual curves, and taxa (rotifer, copepod, cladoceran, and Chaoborus) density and biomass. Species varied widely in their colonization abilities. Zooplankton communities also differed in productivity of some taxa and community-level respiration rates.

Scale was important in detecting structure and function differences among zooplankton communities. Species- and taxa-level analyses showed clear differences among communities, but community-level analyses of structure (species richness, total density and biomass) and function (productivity, respiration, and ammonia regeneration rates) could not identify distinct sets of communities. Community structure and function may be comparable in sensitivity for detecting change but need to be compared at equivalent scales.

Dispersal (as evidenced by colonization history) was a regulator of new zooplankton communities, because it did not occur rapidly or uniformly among similar ponds. All zooplankton do not disperse readily. The extent to which dispersal limits older zooplankton communities is unknown, but genetic studies indicate low dispersal rates among established populations. Dispersal also regulates assemblages of organisms expected to be less vagile than zooplankton and in various ecosystems, indicating that “supply-side” and metapopchulation concepts are valuable for community ecology.

Priority effects may have lasting influence on subsequent community structure, depending on colonization rates and sequences. We propose explicit recognition (and careful examination) of a commonly assumed but rarely tested “quorum effect”: local abiotic and biotic processes regulate communities and arrival processes do not, because potential members have already arrived. Given either priority or quorum effects, dispersal may be an important, often-overlooked process regulating community structure and function, especially when it is not rapid.

/pdf/do-similar-communities-develop-in-similar-sites-a-test-with-2jgpw2h631.pdf

Do similar communities develop in similar sites? A test with zooplankton structure and function

Phenolics in aquatic ecosystems: A selected review of recent literature

Biological monitoring: Part IIA—receiving system functional methods, relationships and indices

This research evaluates the effect of temperature on the sensitivity of food web organisms to selected chemicals. Test organisms included planktonic algae, zooplankton, microbenthos, macrobenthos, and fishes. The chemicals used were copper, zinc, chromate, chlorine, cyanide, and phenol. The sensitivity of the test organisms to these chemicals was studied over a temperature range of 5 to 35C. The specific temperatures studied varied with each species. Results indicate considerable variation in the sensitivity of each species, depending on the chemical and the test temperature. Generally, the algal responses to the temperature and chemicals varied depending on the thermal sensitivity of the algal species in question. The invertebrates usually exhibited the classic response of increased sensitivity to chemicals at higher temperatures.

Arthur L. Buikema

Papers

Biological monitoring part IV—Toxicity testing

Do similar communities develop in similar sites? A test with zooplankton structure and function

Phenolics in aquatic ecosystems: A selected review of recent literature

Biological monitoring: Part IIA—receiving system functional methods, relationships and indices

Effects of temperature on aquatic organism sensitivity to selected chemicals