Two alternate states: shrub, bird and mammal assemblages differ on either side of the Dingo Barrier Fence

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte H. Mills ◽  
Baptiste Wijas ◽  
Christopher E. Gordon ◽  
Mitchell Lyons ◽  
Anna Feit ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bird Species ◽  
Camera Trap ◽  
Ecological Role ◽  
Top Predator ◽  
Mammal Species ◽  
Control Programs ◽  
Terrestrial Predator ◽  
Alternate States ◽  
Mammal Assemblages

ABSTRACT The 5500 km long dingo barrier fence (DBF) is a boundary at which the goal of dingo control programs shifts from management to elimination. Since 1980 ecologists have used the discrepancies in dingo densities across the DBF to study the ecological role of Australia’s largest terrestrial predator. We used drone imagery, ground based shrub and tree counts, and camera trap footage to test our hypothesis that there are alternate states in plant, bird and mammal assemblages on either side of the DBF. We found that shrubs and trees were twice as dense where dingoes were rare, and 28 % of shrub and tree species, 78 % of mammal species, and 14 % of bird species recorded were significantly more likely to occur on one side of the DBF than the other. We provide the first comprehensive snapshot of how flora and fauna assemblages differ across the DBF. This study adds to literature demonstrating that the removal of the dingo has led to profound shifts in the shrub, mammal and bird assemblages in arid Australia. Any expansion of dingo control in arid Australia must be considered against the far-reaching consequences for ecosystem assembly associated with the removal of a top predator.

scholarly journals Preliminary study on bird and mammal diversity at ecosystem restored areas in the Gunung Gede Pangrango National Park, West Java, Indonesia

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 34-42
Author(s):  
Anton Ario ◽  
Iip Latipah Syaepulloh ◽  
Dede Rahmatulloh ◽  
Irvan Maulana ◽  
Supian Supian ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sus Scrofa ◽  
National Park ◽  
Macaca Fascicularis ◽  
Bird Species ◽  
Camera Trap ◽  
Panthera Pardus ◽  
Species Trees ◽  
Mammal Species ◽  
Preliminary Study ◽  
Prionailurus Bengalensis

Since 2008, Conservation International Indonesia (CI Indonesia) has been working together with Gunung Gede Pangrango National Park (GGPNP) develop ecosystem restoration program in extended critical land area of National Park. More than 120,000 trees of 8 native species trees planted in an area of 300 hectares. Now the ecosystem has been restored and provides multiple benefits including become a new habitat for wildlife. The preliminary study on birds and mammals diversity in restored area was conducted in 2 months from April to May 2018 in Nagrak resort, GPPNP. The aim of this study is to assess the diversity on mammals and bird within ecosystem restored in the GGPNP. Birds were surveyed using point counts method, and mammals using camera trap. The results shows a total of 33 bird species of 22 families with the total number recorded 1,881 individuals. A total of 10 mammal species of 7 families were captured in the study area with a total of 623 trap days produced 113 independent photos of mammals. The species of mammals consist of Javan leopard (Panthera pardus melas), Leopard cat (Prionailurus bengalensis), Common palm-civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus), Small indian-civet (Viverricula indica), Javan gold-spotted mongoose (Hervestes javanicus), Muntjac (Muntiacus muntjac), Long-tiled macaque (Macaca fascicularis), Javan porcupine (Hystrix javanicus), Wild boar (Sus scrofa), and Malayan field rat (Rattus tiomanicus). The results obtained are evidence that restoring ecosystems is important not only for social and economic aspects but ecology for wildlife. The data gathered in this study will provide an important basis for future research and conservation management, and also provide support for biodiversity monitoring.Sejak tahun 2008, Conservation International Indonesia (CI Indonesia) bersama Taman Nasional Gunung Gede Pangrango (TNGGP) mengembangkan program pemulihan ekosistem di area perluasan taman nasional. Lebih dari 120.000 dari 8 jenis pohon jenis asli taman nasional telah ditanam di luasan 300 hektar. Kini kondisi area telah menjadi hutan kembali dan menyediakan berbagai jasa ekosistem termasuk menjadi habitat satwa liar. Studi pendahuluan tentang keanekaragaman jenis burung dan mamalia di area restorasi dilakukan selama 2 bulan yaitu dari bulan April hingga Mei 2018 di Resot Nagrak TNGGP. Survei burung menggunakan metode point count, sedangkan mamalia dengan menggunakan camera trap. Hasil menunjukkan sebanyak 33 jenis burung dari 22 famili dengan jumlah total tercatat 1.881 individu. Terdeteksi 10 jenis mamalia dari 7 famili di area penelitian dengan total 623 hari rekam dan menghasilkan 113 foto independen mamalia. Jenis  mamalia tersebut yaitu Macan tutul jawa (Panthera pardus melas), Kucing hutan (Prionailurus bengalensis), Musang luwak (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus), Musang rase (Viverricula indica), Garangan jawa (Hervestes javanicus), Kijang (Muntiacus muntjac), Monyet ekor panjang (Macaca fascicularis), Landak jawa (Hystrix javanicus), Babi hutan (Sus scrofa), dan Tikus belukar (Rattus tiomanicus). Hasil yang diperoleh menjadi bukti bahwa memulihkan ekosistem penting tidak hanya dalam aspek sosial dan ekonomi namun juga ekologi bagi satwa liar. Data yang dikumpulkan dalam penelitian ini akan memberikan dasar penting untuk penelitian masa depan dan manajemen konservasi, dan juga menyediakan dukungan untuk pemantauan keanekaragaman hayati.

Testing ecological release as a compensating mechanism for mass mortality in a keystone predator

2020 ◽  
Vol 637 ◽  
pp. 59-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
J Sullivan-Stack ◽  
BA Menge
Keyword(s):  
Community Dynamics ◽  
Limiting Factor ◽  
Sea Star ◽  
Top Predator ◽  
Oregon Coast ◽  
Ecological Release ◽  
Keystone Predator ◽  
Pisaster Ochraceus ◽  
Wasting Syndrome

Top predator decline has been ubiquitous across systems over the past decades and centuries, and predicting changes in resultant community dynamics is a major challenge for ecologists and managers. Ecological release predicts that loss of a limiting factor, such as a dominant competitor or predator, can release a species from control, thus allowing increases in its size, density, and/or distribution. The 2014 sea star wasting syndrome (SSWS) outbreak decimated populations of the keystone predator Pisaster ochraceus along the Oregon coast, USA. This event provided an opportunity to test the predictions of ecological release across a broad spatial scale and determine the role of competitive dynamics in top predator recovery. We hypothesized that after P. ochraceus loss, populations of the subordinate sea star Leptasterias sp. would grow larger, more abundant, and move downshore. We based these predictions on prior research in Washington State showing that Leptasterias sp. competed with P. ochraceus for food. Further, we predicted that ecological release of Leptasterias sp. could provide a bottleneck to P. ochraceus recovery. Using field surveys, we found no clear change in density or distribution in Leptasterias sp. populations post-SSWS, and decreases in body size. In a field experiment, we found no evidence of competition between similar-sized Leptasterias sp. and P. ochraceus. Thus, the mechanisms underlying our predictions were not in effect along the Oregon coast, which we attribute to differences in habitat overlap and food availability between the 2 regions. Our results suggest that response to the loss of a dominant competitor can be unpredictable even when based in theory and previous research.

Ecological Role of Exopolysaccharides of Bacillariophyta: A Review

2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. I. Shnyukova ◽  
E. K. Zolotareva
Keyword(s):  
Ecological Role

EPIZOOTOLOGICAL FEATURES OF MODERN CATTLE LEUKEMIA

1970 ◽  
pp. 53-58
Author(s):  
V. V. Makarov ◽  
D. A. Lozovoy
Keyword(s):  
Dairy Cattle ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Control Programs ◽  
Foreign Countries ◽  
Negative Order ◽  
Dairy Cattle Breeding ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Epizootic Process ◽  
National Programs

  Enzootic bovine leucosis (EBL) has been known for more than a century and a half. Its occurrence and registration may have historically been associated with intensive breeding of dairy cattle in Western Europe to increase target productivity. It is known that any limiting intervention in the nature of the animal organism is always accompanied by an uncontrolled and unpredictable change in the genotype of a wider range than the required, particularly negative order. In particular, a decrease in the resistance to macroorganisms and the possibility of the new diseases emergence, including infectious ones (for example, immunodeficiencies such as BLAD syndrome of black-motley cattle and stress syndrome in pigs, the occurrence of scrapie and other slow sheep infections). In the last two decades of the last century, in many disadvantaged countries, primarily Western European, national programs for the eradication of EBL have been developed and subsequently successfully implemented. First of all the motivation was the economy of dairy cattle breeding (mainly the extension of productive age, as well as the tightening of requirements in international trade in cattle and bull products, breeding, pricing, etc.). In an analytical article are reviewed the elements of epizootology of EBL in the foreign countries with special attention to the situation in the USA, scenarios of various control programs, and promising methods for assessing the role of infected animals in the epizootic process. A critical assessment of the problem of EBL in the Russian Federation is given, the reasons for the ineffectiveness of against leucosis measures are discussed.

scholarly journals Evaluating the role of contracting and expanding rainforest in initiating cycles of speciation across the Isthmus of Panama

2012 ◽  
Vol 279 (1742) ◽  
pp. 3520-3526 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Tilston Smith ◽  
Amei Amei ◽  
John Klicka
Keyword(s):  
Bird Species ◽  
Tropical Regions ◽  
Isthmus Of Panama ◽  
Species Pairs ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
High Species Richness ◽  
The Rich ◽  
The Tropics ◽  
The Impact

Climatic and geological changes across time are presumed to have shaped the rich biodiversity of tropical regions. However, the impact climatic drying and subsequent tropical rainforest contraction had on speciation has been controversial because of inconsistent palaeoecological and genetic data. Despite the strong interest in examining the role of climatic change on speciation in the Neotropics there has been few comparative studies, particularly, those that include non-rainforest taxa. We used bird species that inhabit humid or dry habitats that dispersed across the Panamanian Isthmus to characterize temporal and spatial patterns of speciation across this barrier. Here, we show that these two assemblages of birds exhibit temporally different speciation time patterns that supports multiple cycles of speciation. Evidence for these cycles is further corroborated by the finding that both assemblages consist of ‘young’ and ‘old’ species, despite dry habitat species pairs being geographically more distant than pairs of humid habitat species. The matrix of humid and dry habitats in the tropics not only allows for the maintenance of high species richness, but additionally this study suggests that these environments may have promoted speciation. We conclude that differentially expanding and contracting distributions of dry and humid habitats was probably an important contributor to speciation in the tropics.

An inter-dependence of flood and drought: disentangling amphibian beta diversity in seasonal floodplains

2017 ◽  
Vol 68 (11) ◽  
pp. 2115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonardo F. B. Moreira ◽  
Tainá F. Dorado-Rodrigues ◽  
Vanda L. Ferreira ◽  
Christine Strüssmann
Keyword(s):  
Community Structure ◽  
Environmental Factors ◽  
Quantitative Data ◽  
Explanatory Variable ◽  
Biotic Interactions ◽  
Ecological Role ◽  
Β Diversity ◽  
Amphibian Community ◽  
Dry Seasons

Species composition in floodplains is often affected by different structuring factors. Although floods play a key ecological role, habitat selection in the dry periods may blur patterns of biodiversity distribution. Here, we employed a partitioning framework to investigate the contribution of turnover and nestedness to β-diversity patterns in non-arboreal amphibians from southern Pantanal ecoregion. We investigated whether components of β-diversity change by spatial and environmental factors. We sampled grasslands and dense arboreal savannas distributed in 12 sampling sites across rainy and dry seasons, and analysed species dissimilarities using quantitative data. In the savannas, both turnover and nestedness contributed similarly to β diversity. However, we found that β diversity is driven essentially by turnover, in the grasslands. In the rainy season, balanced variation in abundance was more related to altitude and factors that induce spatial patterns, whereas dissimilarities were not related to any explanatory variable during dry season. In the Pantanal ecoregion, amphibian assemblages are influenced by a variety of seasonal constraints on terrestrial movements and biotic interactions. Our findings highlighted the role of guild-specific patterns and indicated that mass effects are important mechanisms creating amphibian community structure in the Pantanal.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document