Journal highlights

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Articles highlighted by the Editors or readers of the journal

Cohort variation, climate effects and population dynamics in a short-lived lizard  In EarlyView
Authors: Jean François Le Galliard, Olivier Marquis, Manuel Massot
Published Online: Jul 22 2010 5:00AM  DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2656.2010.01732.x
Cohort variation has substantial effects on the population dynamics of long-lived vertebrates but has been poorly investigated in short-lived species. Le Galliard et al. provide a comprehensive study of cohort variation due to rainfall and temperature on a natural population of the European common lizards.

Does size matter? An investigation of habitat use across a carnivore assemblage in the Serengeti, Tanzania   In EarlyView
Authors; Sarah M. Durant, Meggan E. Craft, Charles Foley, Katie Hampson, Alex L. Lobora, Maurus Msuha, Ernest Eblate, John Bukombe, John Mchetto, Nathalie Pettorelli
Published Online: Jul 14 2010 5:51AM
DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2656.2010.01717.x

In a huge study covering 18 species of predator Durant et al. test macroecological predictions about relationships between habitat use and body size. The study also represents the first detailed analysis of spatial distribution for many of the species investigated.  It provides a compelling example for use of Ecological Niche Factor Analysis and sheds light on the relationship between body size and ecological niche breadth that will be valuable to researchers from a variety of disciplines, studying a variety of taxa

Highly recommended Review paper:-
Maximal heat dissipation capacity and hyperthermia risk: neglected key factors in the ecology of endotherms
Authors; John R. Speakman and Elżbieta Król
J Anim Ecol Vol 79 Iss 4 (pp 724-746) DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2656.2010.01689.x

In their review Speakman and Krol suggest that capacity to dissipate heat is a major constraint on endotherm maximal metabolic rates and hence their ecology

Excellent long term study of patterns of reproduction in chimpanzees -  in EarlyView
Phenotypic quality influences fertility in Gombe chimpanzees - DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2656.2010.01687.x
Authors; James Holland Jones, Michael L. Wilson, Carson Murray, Anne Pusey

James H Jones and colleagues examine patterns of reproduction using individual-based life history data from our closest cousins – chimpanzees. Like humans, chimps differ from one another. Some are long-lived, other not, and some produce offspring faster than others. The remarkable Gombe chimp study, started by Jane Goodall in 1960, has provided a rich insight into the behaviour and ecology of our closest living relative. However, it is only relatively recently that sufficient data on complete life histories has existed to permit detailed demographic studies. Jones et al. document considerable individual variation in the timing and frequencies of births, attributing some of this variation to the dominance rank of the mother. However, in addition to rank there was substantial unexplained variation in life histories. Such variation in phenotypic quality has been reported in several non-primate species, but this is the first thorough study of individual quality in a non-human ape. Hopefully these insights will spur further demographic analyses of primate demographic data.

An article highlighted in the F1000 top ten as recommended is:-
Experimental demonstration of population extinction due to a predator-driven Allee effect 
Authors; Andrew M. Kramer, John M. Drake
J Anim Ecol Vol 79 Issue 3 (pp 633-639) - DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2656.2009.01657.x
The ubiquity of predator–prey interactions and saturating functional responses suggests predator-driven Allee effects are potentially important in determining extinction risk of a large number of species

Forum Article
Animal movement, search strategies and behavioural ecology: a cross-disciplinary way forward
Authors; Luca Giuggioli, Frederic Bartumeus
DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2656.2010.01682.x - J Anim Ecol Volume 79 Issue 4 (pp 906-909)
This Forum discusses how new technologies, tools and experimental approaches can help with understanding animal trajectories, search strategies and behavioural (foraging) ecology. We hope it will help foster greater collaboration between disciplines by clearly stating where we are and to highlight some of the avenues we could productively follow in the future.

Special 'How to.......' Paper
An Ecologist's guide to the animal model
Authors; Alastair J. Wilson, Denis Réale, Michelle N. Clements, Michael M. Morrissey, Erik Postma, Craig A. Walling, Loeske E. B. Kruuk, Daniel H. Nussey
Published on line: December 11 2009 11.26am - J Anim Ecol Vol 79 Iss 1 (pp 13 - 26) - DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2656.2009.01639.x

In one of our first 'how to' papers Wilson and colleagues provide a user's guide for researchers planning on using the Animal Model. We hope that in the future we will publish several more 'How to' papers.
 

Trematode infection causes malformations and population effects in a declining New Zealand fish
Authors; David W. Kelly, Harriet Thomas, David W. Thieltges, Robert Poulin, Daniel M. Tompkins -
J Anim Ecol Volume 79 Issue 2 (pp 445-452) - DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2656.2009.01636.x

Freshwater ecosystems are increasingly threatened by pollution, water abstraction and disease, and these risks are often gauged by monitoring the health of animal populations. Our new research showed that parasitic worm infections were responsible for an extremely high proportion (over 60%) of spinal deformities in juvenile fish. This research linked infection-induced deformities and mortality to a dramatic crash in the fish population, but found that the main population impact was very early in the fish’s life (7-8 weeks of age), when individuals were highly susceptible.
This is the first study to show that parasite-induced deformities can have important impacts on threatened animal populations. Our work is important because parasite infection levels, and susceptibility to infection, are predicted to increase in tandem with other aquatic stressors.

Parabiotic associations between tropical ants: equal partnership or parasitic exploitation?
Authors; F. Menzel, N. Blüthgen - J Anim Ecol Vol 79 Iss 1 (pp 71 - 81)
Published Online: November 5 2009 DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2656.2009.01628.x

The majority of interactions between individuals of different species involve aggression – either they try to eat one another, or compete with them for a resource. For example, interactions between species can be parasitic with one species exploiting another. Occasionally, observations are made where mutualism occurs. In such cases individuals from differing species help one another and both benefit. A rare type of mutualism, found only in Asian and South American tropical rainforests, is known as ‘parabiosis’ where two different species of ant share a nest. It has not been well studied until now. Nico Bluthgen and Florian Menzel, in EarlyView, report an elegant study of two Borneo ant species that amicably share a nest. Their results suggest that the smaller species benefits from protection provided by the more aggressive larger species, while the larger species benefits from the superior foraging abilities of the smaller species. The research begs more questions – why do so few species show such behaviour, and how does such behaviour get started? I am sure that further studies of this remarkable system will help answer these questions.

Can compensatory culling offset undesirable evolutionary consequences of trophy hunting?
Authors; Atle Mysterud and Richard Bischof - J Anim Ecol Vol 79 Iss 1 (pp 148 - 160)
Published online: October 14 2009 DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2656.2009.01621.x

Species where the largest individuals are actively selected by hunters, or fishermen, are getting smaller, with examples ranging from bighorn sheep, cod and pike. Because hunters like large trophy animals, this has raised concern in some quarters: ‘I just caught a one pound salmon’ holds little kudos. Various management strategies have been proposed as a way to prevent trophy shrinkage, and in this paper Mysterud et al. examine the likely consequences of a strategy where hunting-induced mortality is designed to mimic patterns of natural mortality. Using an elegant optimization approach they conclude that this approach could help maintain large-antlered deer, while keeping hunters happy.

Testing a biological mechanism of the insurance hypothesis in experimental aquatic communities
Authors; Daniel J. Leary and Owen L. Petchey - J Anim Ecol Vol 78 Iss 6 (pp 1143-1151)
Published online: July 06 2009 DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2656.2009.01586.x

Is high species diversity important for community stability? One hypothesis, which argues it is, is the “insurance hypothesis”. This states that the more species within a community, the more stable community size should be because as some species decline in number, other increase. Such negative correlations could be driven by differences in the way species respond to environmental variation. Leary and Petchey provide a test of this mechanism by first examining how single-species populations of four protist species respond to changes in temperature. They then use these results to set up communities consisting of pairs of species before testing how these communities responded to a change in temperature. Although results did to some extent depend on the species combination, as expected those species that responded in contrasting ways to temperature tended to form more stable communities. Their results suggest that richer communities will be more stable in variable environments.
 

Great tits lay increasingly smaller clutches than selected for: a study of climate- and density-related changes in reproductive traits
Authors; Markus P. Ahola, Toni Laaksonen, Tapio Eeva and Esa Lehikoinen - J Anim Ecol Vol 78 Iss 6 (pp 1298-1306)
Published online: July 22 2009 DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2656.2009.01596.x

It is tempting to think that climate change is always bad. However, although many species suffer as the climate change, there are some that benefit. One species that benefits from less severe winters is the great tit of South-western Finland. As weather has become less harsh survival has increased, and this has led to an increase in population density. As density has increased lower quality territories are occupied, and birds breeding in these territories often fail to produce larger clutches. This effect means that although conditions have improved, and population size has increased, a consequence of our changing climate has been a decrease in clutch size. There are a growing number of cases, from insects, reptiles, fish, birds and mammals, that the effects of climatic variation can be remarkably complex. More studies like this one are required if biologists stand any chance of predicting consequences of climate change before they are observed.
 

Test of life-history theories of immune defence in two ecotypes of the garter snake, Thamnophis elegans
Authors; Amanda Marie Sparkman and Maria Gabriela Palacios - J Anim Ecol Vol 78 Iss 6 (pp 1242-1248)
Published online: July 20 2009 DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2656.2009.01587.x

If you live fast and are likely to die young then you shouldn’t waste resources on complex immunity – you should invest in more in cheap and cheerful immune defences. In contrast, if you have a slower life history, and have a good chance of making to a great age, then investing a greater proportion of resources in your immune system may be sensible. In this paper Sparkman and Palacios test this hypothesis by comparing measures of immune response between fast- and slow-living garter snakes. As predicted, those snakes from habitats where a fast life history is observed, invested more in resource-cheap immune responses compared to those snakes from a habitat where they live longer. This is an elegant paper because it nicely demonstrates an important life history trade-off in a free-living system.
 

Comparison of social networks derived from ecological data: implications for inferring infectious disease dynamics
Authors; Sarah E. Perkins, Francesca Cagnacci, Anna Stradiotto, Daniele Arnoldi, Peter J. Hudson - J Anim Ecol Vol 78 Iss 5 (pp 1015 - 1022)
Published Online: May 21 2009 5:13AM DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2656.2009.01557.x

Currently the world is waiting to see whether swine flu will develop into a pandemic. A key factor in understanding the spread of flu, and any disease, is the network of contacts an infectious individual has. Reducing contact between infectious and susceptible individuals has been shown to reduce the rate of spread of disease, which is why schools are shut when a swine flu case is confirmed in a pupil.
Characterising social networks for people is easier than it is for animals. However, in order to predict the spread of economically important livestock and wildlife diseases, like foot-and-mouth, or diseases posing public health threats, like bird flu, characterising social networks among animals is extremely helpful. In this elegant paper Perkins et al. show how commonly collected ecological data can be used to describe social networks and improve understanding of the spread of wildlife diseases. This is an important paper as it helps show wildlife disease researchers how best to describe social networks in disease vectors. Papers like this add to the armoury of tools wildlife epidemiologists have to understand and predict the consequences of wildlife diseases of serious concern to the global human population.

Effect of genetic variance in plant quality on the population dynamics of a herbivorous insect
Nora Underwood Published Online: Mar 27 2009 12:02PM
DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2656.2009.01540.x published J Anim Ecol Vol 78 Iss 4 (pp 839-847)

 In these health conscious days as the thin get thinner and the big get bigger it is impossible to escape the dictum ‘we are what we eat’. In food limited populations it has long been known that population growth is dependent on how much food is available, but is it possible to detect population level consequences of the quality of food? Underwood shows it is – at least for aphids feeding on strawberry plants. Using a clever experimental design where populations of strawberry plants with different genotypic diversities were constructed, Underwood demonstrated how the distribution of different quality genotypes influenced the performance of aphids in a way that can be detected at the population level. This powerful empirical test of theory provides further weight to the growing consensus that a detailed understanding of population’s dynamics cannot be acquired without an understanding of the details of the underlying biology of a system.

Family legacies: short- and long-term fitness consequences of early life conditions in female European rabbits.
Heiko G Rodel et al Published Online: Mar 9 2009 12:26PM  published J Anim Ecol Vol 78 Iss 4 (pp 789-797)

You can't choose your mother, but if you could, what attributes should you go for? In European rabbits young have a greater chance of surviving to maturity if their mother is elderly and gives birth to an average sized litter early in the year.  Young mums producing large or small litters late in the year are much less likely to produce surviving kittens.  These effects early in life not only influence whether or not young survive to sexual maturity, but also influence how many offspring those young produce over the lifespan.  This is because conditions early in life substantially influence an individual’s life history.
This elegant paper clearly shows that having the right mother is important. 

This population article appeared on the Biology F1000 Hidden Jewels as Recommended - evaluated by Barry Brook

Predicting population survival under future climate change: density dependence, drought and extraction in an insular bighorn sheep
Authors: Fernando Colchero et al. J Anim Ecol Vol 78 Iss 3 (pp 666 - 673)

Our Editors also say, "Many ecological data sets contain occasional estimates of the number of individuals in a population. Population ecologists often turn up their noses at such data, arguing that little can be done with them. Colchero et al. take a different approach. Using a data set consisting of a handful of population estimates of bighorn sheep living on an island off Mexico they use state-of-the-art Bayesian statistics to elucidate the role of a range of processes on the population dynamics; their conclusions are very plausible. Although there is no substitute for large amounts of high quality data, for many populations it is impossible to accumulate such information. Colchero provide an elegant approach to analysing data that is typical of many populations, yet are also honest in how their insights should be interpreted. This paper is a must read for any researcher who has ever contemplated analysing a time series of population counts"

This population article appeared on the Biology F1000 Hidden Jewels as Recommended - evaluated by Anne Magurran

Undersampling bias: the null hypothesis for singleton species in tropical arthropod surveys
Authors: Jonathan A. Coddington et al. J Anim Ecol Vol 78 Iss 3 (p 573-584)

The review article below appeared in the F1000 top ten Hidden Jewels as a ‘must read’ – evaluated by Robert Paine

Cascading top-down effects of changing oceanic predator abundances
Authors: Julia K. Baum & Boris Worm - J Anim Ecol Vol 78 Iss 4 (pp 699 - 714)

 

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