Environmental variability alters the relationship between richness and variability of community abundances in aquatic rock pool microcosms

Ecoscience ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamara N. Romanuk ◽  
Jurek Kolasa
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Variability ◽  
Rock Pool ◽  
The Relationship

scholarly journals Theoretical and Methodological Approaches to Ecological Changes, Social Behaviour and Human Intergroup Tolerance 300,000 to 30,000 BP

2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Penny Spikins ◽  
Jennifer C. French ◽  
Seren John-Wood ◽  
Calvin Dytham
Keyword(s):  
Social Behaviour ◽  
Environmental Variability ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
Resource Exploitation ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Ecological Changes ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Social Behaviours

AbstractArchaeological evidence suggests that important shifts were taking place in the character of human social behaviours 300,000 to 30,000 years ago. New artefact types appear and are disseminated with greater frequency. Transfers of both raw materials and finished artefacts take place over increasing distances, implying larger scales of regional mobility and more frequent and friendlier interactions between different communities. Whilst these changes occur during a period of increasing environmental variability, the relationship between ecological changes and transformations in social behaviours is elusive. Here, we explore a possible theoretical approach and methodology for understanding how ecological contexts can influence selection pressures acting on intergroup social behaviours. We focus on the relative advantages and disadvantages of intergroup tolerance in different ecological contexts using agent-based modelling (ABM). We assess the relative costs and benefits of different ‘tolerance’ levels in between-group interactions on survival and resource exploitation in different environments. The results enable us to infer a potential relationship between ecological changes and proposed changes in between-group behavioural dynamics. We conclude that increasingly harsh environments may have driven changes in hormonal and emotional responses in humans leading to increasing intergroup tolerance, i.e. transformations in social behaviour associated with ‘self-domestication’. We argue that changes in intergroup tolerance is a more parsimonious explanation for the emergence of what has been seen as ‘modern human behaviour’ than changes in hard aspects of cognition or other factors such as cognitive adaptability or population size.

scholarly journals Monitoring studies should consider temporal variability to reveal relations between cyanobacterial abundance and environmental variables

2015 ◽  
Vol 87 (3) ◽  
pp. 1717-1726 ◽  
Author(s):  
JULIANA WOJCIECHOWSKI ◽  
ANDRÉ A. PADIAL
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Variability ◽  
Environmental Variables ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Environmental Variability ◽  
Time Lag ◽  
Cyanobacteria Blooms ◽  
Environment Variables ◽  
Sampling Points ◽  
The Relationship

One of the main goals of monitoring cyanobacteria blooms in aquatic environments is to reveal the relationship between cyanobacterial abundance and environmental variables. Studies typically correlate data that were simultaneously sampled. However, samplings occur sparsely over time and may not reveal the short-term responses of cyanobacterial abundance to environmental changes. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that stronger cyanobacteria x environment relationships in monitoring are found when the temporal variability of sampling points is incorporated in the statistical analyses. To this end, we investigated relationships between cyanobacteria and seven environmental variables that were sampled twice yearly for three years across 11 reservoirs, and data from an intensive monitoring in one of these reservoirs. Poor correlations were obtained when correlating data simultaneously sampled. In fact, the 'highly recurrent' role of phosphorus in cyanobacteria blooms is not properly observed in all sampling periods. On the other hand, the strongest correlation values for the total phosphorus x cyanobacteria relationship were observed when we used the variation of sampling points. We have also shown that environment variables better explain cyanobacteria when a time lag is considered. We conclude that, in cyanobacteria monitoring, the best approach to reveal determinants of cyanobacteria blooms is to consider environmental variability.

scholarly journals On the Relationship between Holocene Environmental Variability and the Diatom Composition in the Peña Lagoon, Se Uruguay

Ameghiniana ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 423-436 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolina Cuña-Rodríguez ◽  
Eduardo Piovano ◽  
Laura Del Puerto ◽  
Hugo Inda ◽  
Felipe García-Rodríguez
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Variability ◽  
The Relationship

Shifts of Sexual Reproductive and Vegetative Growth Allocation in Stipa grandis along a Climate Gradient in Inner Mongolia Steppe

2013 ◽  
Vol 726-731 ◽  
pp. 4431-4435 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hui Gao ◽  
Yu Bao Gao ◽  
An Zhi Ren ◽  
Wei Bin Ruan
Keyword(s):  
Resource Allocation ◽  
Sexual Reproduction ◽  
Biomass Allocation ◽  
Vegetative Growth ◽  
Environmental Variability ◽  
Adaptive Strategy ◽  
Percentage Increase ◽  
Growth Allocation ◽  
Allocation Patterns ◽  
The Relationship

Trade-off between vegetative growth and reproduction is an important plant adaptive strategy to environmental variability. The study investigated the Stipa grandis resource allocation and the relationship between its sexual reproduction and climate factors among three sites located along a typical environmental gradient in the Inner Mongolian Plateau. The results show that different climatic characteristics among three habitats cause the growth differentiation of S. grandis. S. grandis exhibits a prominent change on the resource allocation patterns. The number of reproductive tillers and panicles biomass allocation are significantly increased along the gradient of water availability and temperature whereas the number of vegetative tillers and root biomass allocation are reduced. The rate of the percentage increase is prominently reduced although the foliage allocation increased. It suggests that under the environments with drought and high temperature, S. grandis allocates more resources to sexual reproduction but reduces the investment in vegetative growth and asexual reproduction. Moreover, the amount of precipitation in April and May are significantly correlated with the sexual reproductive allocation of S. grandis.

scholarly journals The relationship between species richness and ecosystem variability is shaped by the mechanism of coexistence

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew T. Tredennick ◽  
Peter B. Adler ◽  
Frederick R. Adler
Keyword(s):  
Species Richness ◽  
Species Coexistence ◽  
Environmental Variability ◽  
Storage Effect ◽  
Natural Gradient ◽  
Species Pools ◽  
Coexistence Mechanisms ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
General Explanation ◽  
Consumer Resource

AbstractTheory relating species richness to ecosystem variability typically ignores the potential for environmental variability to promote species coexistence. Failure to account for fluctuation-dependent coexistence mechanisms may explain observed deviations from the expected negative diversity–ecosystem variability relationship, and limits our ability to predict the consequences of future increases in environmental variability. We use a consumer-resource model to explore how coexistence via the temporal storage effect and relative nonlinearity affects ecosystem variability. We show that a positive, rather than negative, diversity–ecosystem variability relationship is possible when ecosystem function is sampled across a natural gradient in environmental variability and diversity. We also show how fluctuation-dependent coexistence can buffer ecosystem functioning against increasing environmental variability by promoting species richness and portfolio effects. Our work provides a general explanation for variation in observed diversity–ecosystem variability relationships and highlights the importance of conserving regional species pools to help buffer ecosystems against predicted increases in environmental variability.

The ecology of sponges in Lough Hyne Marine Nature Reserve (south-west Ireland): past, present and future perspectives

2007 ◽  
Vol 87 (6) ◽  
pp. 1655-1668 ◽  
Author(s):  
James J. Bell
Keyword(s):  
Nature Reserve ◽  
Environmental Variability ◽  
Morphological Variability ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Physical Factors ◽  
Research Areas ◽  
Sponge Diversity ◽  
Morphological Species ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Lough Hyne

Lough Hyne was Europe's first Marine Nature Reserve and is a well known biodiversity hotspot that supports extensive sponge assemblages. The unusual, but predictable, flow and sedimentation regimes have important impacts on the sponge assemblages at the species and assemblage levels. Here I present a review of recent sponge research at Lough Hyne, which covers: (1) a description of the sponge-dominated habitats; (2) the biological and physical factors controlling sponge biodiversity and abundance; (3) sponge species and assemblage level morphological variability; and (4) the relationship between sponge morphological, species and functional diversity. It appears that physical factors are primarily responsible for the sponge diversity and abundance patterns found in Lough Hyne, although the importance of intra- and interphyletic (particularly with algae) competitive interactions requires further investigation. Although our knowledge of how sponges respond and adapt to environmental variability has increased substantially because of the research conducted at Lough Hyne, I have highlighted a number of future research areas in the context of Lough Hyne sponge assemblages, which are relevant to understanding structuring processes across the globe.

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