Temporal variation of patch connectivity determines biodiversity recovery from recurrent disturbances

Understanding the capacity of ecological systems to withstand and recover from disturbances is a major challenge for ecological research in the context of environmental change. Disturbances have multi-scale effects: they can cause species extinctions locally and alter connectivity between habitat patches at the metacommunity level. Yet, our understanding of how disturbances influence landscape connectivity remains limited. To fill this gap, we develop a novel connectivity index that integrates the temporal variation of patch connectivity induced by disturbances, which can be applied to any spatially-structured habitat. We then combine this index with a metacommunity model to specifically investigate biodiversity recovery from drying events in river network metacommunities. We demonstrate that patch connectivity explains variations of species richness between groups of organisms with contrasting dispersal modes and captures the effect of drying intensity (i.e., fraction of patches that dry-up) and drying location on community recovery. As a general rule, loss of patch connectivity decreases community recovery, regardless of patch location in the river network, dispersal mode, or drying intensity. Local communities of flying organisms maintained higher patch connectivity in drying river networks compared to organisms with strictly aquatic dispersal, which explained the higher recovery capacity of this group from drying events. The general relationship between patch connectivity and community recovery we found can be applied to any spatial network subject to temporal variation of connectivity, thus providing a powerful tool for biodiversity management in dynamic landscapes.

Functional Intricacy and Symmetry of Long Non-Coding RNAs in Parasitic Infections

RNAs are a class of molecules and the majority in eukaryotes are arbitrarily termed non- coding transcripts which are broadly classified as short and long non-coding RNAs. Recently, knowledge of the identification and functions of long non-coding RNAs have continued to accumulate and they are being recognized as important molecules that regulate parasite-host interface, parasite differentiation, host responses, and disease progression. Herein, we present and integrate the functions of host and parasite long non-coding RNAs during infections within the context of epigenetic re-programming and molecular crosstalk in the course of host-parasite interactions. Also, the modular range of parasite and host long non-coding RNAs in coordinated parasite developmental changes and host immune dynamic landscapes are discussed. We equally canvass the prospects of long non-coding RNAs in disease diagnosis and prognosis. Hindsight and suggestions are offered with the aim that it will bolster our understanding for future works on host and parasite long non-coding RNAs.

Causes, Consequences, and Conservation of Ungulate Migration

Our understanding of ungulate migration is advancing rapidly due to innovations in modern animal tracking. Herein, we review and synthesize nearly seven decades of work on migration and other long-distance movements of wild ungulates. Although it has long been appreciated that ungulates migrate to enhance access to forage, recent contributions demonstrate that their movements are fine tuned to dynamic landscapes where forage, snow, and drought change seasonally. Researchers are beginning to understand how ungulates navigate migrations, with the emerging view that animals blend gradient tracking with spatial memory, some of which is socially learned. Although migration often promotes abundant populations—with broad effects on ecosystems—many migrations around the world have been lost or are currently threatened by habitat fragmentation, climate change, and barriers to movement. Fortunately, new efforts that use empirical tracking data to map migrations in detail are facilitating effective conservation measures to maintain ungulate migration. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics, Volume 52 is November 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

GEOSITES AND GEOSYSTEMS IN QUATERNARY AND DYNAMIC LANDSCAPES – CASE STUDIES FROM A CRATONIC SETTING AND THEIR WIDER SIGNIFICANCE

The rapidly expanding literature on the related subjects of geodiversity, geosites and their place in understanding and conserving our geoheritage has produced several proposed protocols for defining and valuing key sites and landscapes. Distinctions between geosites as well-defined features of our geological heritage and geodiversity sites as landscapes or geomorphosites have been proposed, while many subdivisions of the criteria for geosite recognition are also recognised. This paper uses two areas in central Africa to illustrate the realities of many landscapes, termed geosystems in this study. Largely Quaternary and present-day dynamic geosystems are considered as essential components of geodiversity and equally aspects of our geoheritage. To understand these geosystems requires detailed fieldwork including their relationships to ecology, rural land use and sensitivity to environmental change.

gen3sis: A general engine for eco-evolutionary simulations of the processes that shape Earth’s biodiversity

Understanding the origins of biodiversity has been an aspiration since the days of early naturalists. The immense complexity of ecological, evolutionary, and spatial processes, however, has made this goal elusive to this day. Computer models serve progress in many scientific fields, but in the fields of macroecology and macroevolution, eco-evolutionary models are comparatively less developed. We present a general, spatially explicit, eco-evolutionary engine with a modular implementation that enables the modeling of multiple macroecological and macroevolutionary processes and feedbacks across representative spatiotemporally dynamic landscapes. Modeled processes can include species’ abiotic tolerances, biotic interactions, dispersal, speciation, and evolution of ecological traits. Commonly observed biodiversity patterns, such as α, β, and γ diversity, species ranges, ecological traits, and phylogenies, emerge as simulations proceed. As an illustration, we examine alternative hypotheses expected to have shaped the latitudinal diversity gradient (LDG) during the Earth’s Cenozoic era. Our exploratory simulations simultaneously produce multiple realistic biodiversity patterns, such as the LDG, current species richness, and range size frequencies, as well as phylogenetic metrics. The model engine is open source and available as an R package, enabling future exploration of various landscapes and biological processes, while outputs can be linked with a variety of empirical biodiversity patterns. This work represents a key toward a numeric, interdisciplinary, and mechanistic understanding of the physical and biological processes that shape Earth’s biodiversity.

NEW RELATIONAL UNDERSTANDINGS OF CITY BUILDING: READING THE CITY THROUGH DYNAMIC LANDSCAPES OF SPATIAL GOVERNANCE

In this think piece I will take you on a journey to share my approach to reading contemporary city building, which is increasingly chaotic, fragmented, and complex. Spatial governance, in my understanding, refers to the collective efforts to coordinate and structure the dynamic institutional activities of a variety of actors that aim to organise the built environment. Urban planning is one of these efforts, though not the only one. Therefore, in this article, I will visualise spatial governance as a dynamic landscape which accommodates multi-actor, multi-scalar, multi-loci and multi-temporal regulatory activities related to the uncertainties, opportunities, and crises of the market. Reading dynamic landscapes of spatial governance requires an understanding of regulatory efforts as they refer to the relational behaviour of state, market, and community actors. This approach, to linking regulatory efforts to relational behaviour, in my view, gives us new opportunities to provide comprehensive understandings of how cities develop under market-driven conditions.

Clustering Residents’ Intention to Engage in Water Conservation Initiative: Evidence from the Upstream of West Java, Indonesia

Kawasan hulu daerah aliran sungai telah lama dianggap memainkan peran strategis dalam konservasi air pada lanskap yang kompleks dan dinamis. Sementara banyak studi telah meneliti pentingnya upaya konservasi air, studi yang berfokus pada pengelompokan niat penduduk untuk terlibat dalam inisiatif konservasi air di hulu daerah aliran sungai masih belum banyak dipelajari. Untuk memahami bagaimana warga mengelompok, kami mengklasifikasikan warga di dua desa (Cibeusi dan Sanca) berdasarkan pendapat mereka yang khas terhadap variabel Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), yaitu sikap, norma subjektif, kontrol perilaku yang dipersepsikan, niat perilaku, dan perilaku terhadap inisiatif konservasi air. Secara total, 200 kuesioner yang dapat digunakan dalam analisis telah diambil. Hasil penelitian menemukan bahwa warga dapat dikelompokkan menjadi dua kluster yaitu “pendukung konservasi air” dan “pendukung pasif”. Pendukung konservasi air dicirikan dengan kesepakatan yang tinggi pada semua variabel TPB, sedangkan pendukung pasif adalah sebaliknya. Temuan ini menegaskan bahwa persepsi masyarakat tidak homogen, tetapi merupakan kelompok individu yang memiliki pemikiran berbeda. Lebih lanjut, studi saat ini berimplikasi bahwa pengelola sumber daya air harus menyadari fakta bahwa masyarakat dapat dikelompokkan ke dalam kelompok yang berbeda berdasar pendapat dan kepentingannya masing-masing. Rancangan kebijakan, strategi, dan intervensi yang efektif harus dirancang sesuai dengan kelompok yang berbeda tersebut. ABSTRACTUpstream areas have long been considered to play strategic roles in the water conservation of complex and dynamic landscapes. While earlier studies have examined the importance of water conservation efforts, studies that focused on clustering residents’ intention to engage in water conservation initiatives in the upstream areas remain understudied. To understand how residents are clustered, we classify residents in two villages (Cibeusi and Sanca) based on their distinctive opinions of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) variables, i.e., attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, behavioral intention, and behavior toward water conservation initiatives. In total, 200 usable questionnaires were retrieved. The study finds that residents are clustered into two clusters named water conservation supporters and passive supporters. Water conservation supporters are characterized by high agreement on all the TPB variables, while passive supporters are the opposite. These findings confirm that communities are not homogenous but constitute a distinctive group of like-minded individuals. Furthermore, the current study implies that water resource managers should be aware of the fact that residents are clustered into distinct groups with their own opinions and interests. The design of effective policies, strategies, and interventions must be arranged according to those different groups.

Network ecology in dynamic landscapes

Network ecology is an emerging field that allows researchers to conceptualize and analyse ecological networks and their dynamics. Here, we focus on the dynamics of ecological networks in response to environmental changes. Specifically, we formalize how network topologies constrain the dynamics of ecological systems into a unifying framework in network ecology that we refer to as the ‘ecological network dynamics framework’. This framework stresses that the interplay between species interaction networks and the spatial layout of habitat patches is key to identifying which network properties (number and weights of nodes and links) and trade-offs among them are needed to maintain species interactions in dynamic landscapes. We conclude that to be functional, ecological networks should be scaled according to species dispersal abilities in response to landscape heterogeneity. Determining how such effective ecological networks change through space and time can help reveal their complex dynamics in a changing world.