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

Freshwater biodiversity is the over-riding conservation priority during the International Decade for Action - 'Water for Life' - 2005 to 2015. Fresh water makes up only 0.01% of the World's water and approximately 0.8% of the Earth's surface, yet this tiny fraction of global water supports at least 100000 species out of approximately 1.8 million - almost 6% of all described species. Inland waters and freshwater biodiversity constitute a valuable natural resource, in economic, cultural, aesthetic, scientific and educational terms. Their conservation and management are critical to the interests of all humans, nations and governments. Yet this precious heritage is in crisis. Fresh waters are experiencing declines in biodiversity far greater than those in the most affected terrestrial ecosystems, and if trends in human demands for water remain unaltered and species losses continue at current rates, the opportunity to conserve much of the remaining biodiversity in fresh water will vanish before the 'Water for Life' decade ends in 2015. Why is this so, and what is being done about it? This article explores the special features of freshwater habitats and the biodiversity they support that makes them especially vulnerable to human activities. We document threats to global freshwater biodiversity under five headings: overexploitation; water pollution; flow modification; destruction or degradation of habitat; and invasion by exotic species. Their combined and interacting influences have resulted in population declines and range reduction of freshwater biodiversity worldwide. Conservation of biodiversity is complicated by the landscape position of rivers and wetlands as 'receivers' of land-use effluents, and the problems posed by endemism and thus non-substitutability. In addition, in many parts of the world, fresh water is subject to severe competition among multiple human stakeholders. Protection of freshwater biodiversity is perhaps the ultimate conservation challenge because it is influenced by the upstream drainage network, the surrounding land, the riparian zone, and - in the case of migrating aquatic fauna - downstream reaches. Such prerequisites are hardly ever met. Immediate action is needed where opportunities exist to set aside intact lake and river ecosystems within large protected areas. For most of the global land surface, trade-offs between conservation of freshwater biodiversity and human use of ecosystem goods and services are necessary. We advocate continuing attempts to check species loss but, in many situations, urge adoption of a compromise position of management for biodiversity conservation, ecosystem functioning and resilience, and human livelihoods in order to provide a viable long-term basis for freshwater conservation. Recognition of this need will require adoption of a new paradigm for biodiversity protection and freshwater ecosystem management - one that has been appropriately termed 'reconciliation ecology'.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/96AA265E3D88C95FB802E7A73CCB4332/S1464793105006950a.pdf/div-class-title-freshwater-biodiversity-importance-threats-status-and-conservation-challenges-div.pdf

Freshwater biodiversity: importance, threats, status and conservation challenges

Humans continue to transform the global nitrogen cycle at a record pace, reflecting an increased combustion of fossil fuels, growing demand for nitrogen in agriculture and industry, and pervasive inefficiencies in its use. Much anthropogenic nitrogen is lost to air, water, and land to cause a cascade of environmental and human health problems. Simultaneously, food production in some parts of the world is nitrogen-deficient, highlighting inequities in the distribution of nitrogen-containing fertilizers. Optimizing the need for a key human resource while minimizing its negative consequences requires an integrated interdisciplinary approach and the development of strategies to decrease nitrogen-containing waste.

/pdf/transformation-of-the-nitrogen-cycle-recent-trends-questions-3hakfwkgng.pdf

Transformation of the Nitrogen Cycle: Recent Trends, Questions, and Potential Solutions

On 13 October 1908, Fritz Haber filed his patent on the "synthesis of ammonia from its elements" for which he was later awarded the 1918 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. A hundred years on we live in a world transformed by and highly dependent upon Haber–Bosch nitrogen.

How a century of ammonia synthesis changed the world

With humans having an increasing impact on the planet, the interactions between the nitrogen cycle, the carbon cycle and climate are expected to become an increasingly important determinant of the Earth system.

/pdf/an-earth-system-perspective-of-the-global-nitrogen-cycle-51ivqz6w55.pdf

An Earth-system perspective of the global nitrogen cycle.

A credit assignment approach to decision-based classifier fusion is developed and applied to the problem of land-cover classification from multiseason airborne hyperspectral imagery. For each input sample, the new method uses a smoothed estimated reliability measure (SERM) in the output domain of the classifiers. SERM requires no additional training beyond that needed to optimize the constituent classifiers in the pool, and its generalization (test) accuracy exceeds that of a number of other extant methods for classifier fusion. Hyperspectral imagery from HyMAP and PROBE2 acquired at three points in the growing season over Smith Island, VA, a barrier island in the Nature Conservancy's Virginia Coast Reserve, serves as the basis for comparing SERM with other approaches.

A credit assignment approach to fusing classifiers of multiseason hyperspectral imagery

https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1890/0012-9623-91.1.14

A Brief History of Data Sharing in the U.S. Long Term Ecological Research Network

The niche overlap hypothesis states that "maximal tolerable overlap should vary inversely with the intensity of competition." Rigorous testing of this hypothesis has been complicated by problems of measurement and by the difficulty of formulating operational definitions of "maximal tolerable overlap" and "intensity of competition." We test this hypothesis with direct estimates of niche overlap and competition for the species of a diverse insular small mammal fauna. We recorded multiple captures of six species during 9296 trapnights at 1162 trap stations on Assateague Island (Maryland, USA) during the summer of 1978. To describe the structural niche (microhabitat) of each species, we measured nine habitat variables at each trap station where an animal was captured. Using data on population densities and microhabitats, we estimate pairwise niche overlap and competition with discriminant analysis and multiple linear regression analysis, respectively. We report a positive correlation between niche overlap and competition, rather than the negative relationship predicted by the hypothesis. The negative correlation between niche overlap and species diversity reported for previous tests of the hypothesis may reflect a decrease in the average strength of interaction between species as diversity increases, rather than a competition-mediated decrease in niche overlap.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/3544489.pdf

Niche overlap and competition in an insular small mammal fauna: a test of the niche overlap hypothesis

The high-water-shoreline positions in 1852, 1871, 1910, 1919, 1943, 1955, 1967, 1980, and 1990 for Hog Island, a barrier island located at the eastern shore of Virginia, were determined with the NOS T-sheets and aerial photographs. Shrub thicket distributions for northern Hog Island were extracted from black/white and infrared color aerial photographs for the years of 1949, 1962, 1974, and 1989. The overlay operations between shrub age and land age data layers indicated that shrub coverage on Hog Island was closely related with shoreline changes. By examining 138-year shoreline changes on 50-m-interval transects of Hog Island, it was found that the sine function could describe shoreline change patterns better than earlier used simple models. The overlay between old NOS T-sheets and 1993 TM  satellite image suggested that there would be at least three types of shoreline changes for different barrier islands. All these three types of shoreline change patterns could be interpreted with the sine function model. The potential distribution of shrub thickets on Hog Island was simulated based on the shoreline change model. The shrub line and shoreline positions were closely related with each other, but there were time lags between shrub thicket expansion and shoreline accretion.

/pdf/an-integration-of-remote-sensing-and-gis-to-examine-the-17ry1k83ky.pdf

An Integration of Remote Sensing and GIS to Examine the Responses of Shrub Thicket Distributions to Shoreline Changes on Virginia Barrier Islands

The International Long Term Ecological Research (ILTER) Network was established in 1993 and is now composed of thirty-eight national networks representing a diversity of ecosystems around the globe. Data generated by the ILTER Network are valuable for scientists addressing broad spatial and temporal scale research questions, but only if these data can be easily discovered, accessed, and understood. Challenges to publishing ILTER data have included unequal distribution among networks of information management expertise, user-friendly tools, and resources. Language and translation have also been issues. Despite these significant obstacles, ILTER information managers have formed grassroots partnerships and collaborated to provide information management training, adopt a common metadata standard, develop information management tools useful throughout the network, and organize scientist/information manager workshops that encourage scientists to share and integrate data. Throughout this article, we share lessons learned from the successes of these grassroots international partnerships to inform others who wish to collaborate internationally on projects that depend on data sharing entailing similar management challenges.

https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1890/ES14-00281.1

John H. Porter

Papers

A credit assignment approach to fusing classifiers of multiseason hyperspectral imagery

A Brief History of Data Sharing in the U.S. Long Term Ecological Research Network

Niche overlap and competition in an insular small mammal fauna: a test of the niche overlap hypothesis

An Integration of Remote Sensing and GIS to Examine the Responses of Shrub Thicket Distributions to Shoreline Changes on Virginia Barrier Islands

Fostering ecological data sharing: collaborations in the International Long Term Ecological Research Network