Characterizing insect communities within thin-soil environments

Natural thin-soil environments are those which have little to no soil accumulation atop hard substrates. Many of these natural thin-soil environments, such as alvars, rocky lakeshores or glades, cliffs and cliff bluffs, and barrens, are found in the Great Lakes Region of North America. Due to their ubiquity and ecosystem services they provide, characterizing insects in sensitive environments such as these is important. This study monitored insects in nine thin-soil sites, within three regions, on a 630 km latitudinal gradient in the Southeastern Great Lakes Region of North America from June - August 2019. Over 22,000 insect specimens collected were identified to order or family, and bee specimens were identified to genus or species. We found that overall insect community composition and biodiversity characteristics were similar between the three regions examined. However, the central region had higher taxonomic richness than the southern region. Although unique bee taxa were observed in each region, diversity metrics and community composition of bees were similar among sites. This study provides taxonomic information about the insect, particularly bees, and plant communities in thin-soil environments in this region, which could support conservation and management efforts

Long-term ecological research and the COVID-19 anthropause: A window to understanding social-ecological disturbance

The period of disrupted human activity caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, coined the anthropause, altered the nature of interactions between humans and ecosystems. It is uncertain how the anthropause has changed ecosystem states, functions, and feedback to human systems through shifts in ecosystem services. Here, we used an existing disturbance framework to propose new investigation pathways for coordinated studies of distributed, long-term social-ecological research to capture effects of the anthropause. Although it is still too early to comprehensively evaluate effects due to pandemic-related delays in data availability and ecological response lags, we detail three case studies that show how long-term data can be used to document and interpret changes in air and water quality and wildlife populations and behavior coinciding with the anthropause. These early findings may guide interpretations of effects of the anthropause as it interacts with other ongoing environmental changes in the future, particularly highlighting the importance of long-term data in separating disturbance impacts from natural variation and long-term trends. Effects of this global disturbance have local to global effects on ecosystems with feedback to social systems that may be detectable at spatial scales captured by nationally to globally distributed research networks

Priorities for synthesis research in ecology and environmental science

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We thank the National Science Foundation grant #1940692 for financial support for this workshop, and the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) and its staff for logistical support.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Priorities for synthesis research in ecology and environmental science

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We thank the National Science Foundation grant #1940692 for financial support for this workshop, and the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) and its staff for logistical support.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Fostering a people\u27s forest: using Citizen Science-driven biodiversity monitoring to understand restoration processes

Ecosystem restoration takes place over a longer time scale than the typical ecological study, particularly when the ecosystem includes slow-growing taxa, such as trees. Yet, humans take strong interest in ecosystem restoration- both as a process to participate in (i.e. contributing to tree planting and Citizen Science), and as a process to measure (i.e. asking “is our restoration activity working?”). This project examines both of these facets through restoration activities within former surface mine sites at Cuyahoga Valley National Park. We use the lens of beetle communities observed through participatory models of data collection to examine how functional groups of organisms can give information on how an ecosystem is operating. With the help of community members, we will conduct “bio-blitzes” and systematic sampling to document Coleoptera communities within 5 sites undergoing restoration, and their surrounding forest at CVNP. We will then use these communities to describe the functional ‘health’ of their surrounding landscape. This project will also examine how effectively citizen scientists contribute to ecological research within a national park and what implications this may have on future ecological research. We will combine these data with observations from public databases (iNaturalist) and use these data to effectively map the ‘health’ of mature and restored forest within CVNP– with respect to beetle community composition - providing a means to assess the effectiveness of Citizen Science on supporting ecological research

Using Crowdsourced Data to Analyze Patterns in Odonate Phenology

The influence of long-term climate change on phenology for insects of the order Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies) has been well documented in several parts of the world, showing a negative correlation between emergence date and temperature. Likewise, previous studies have shown that spring-emerging species, with an overwintering diapause, are more susceptible to climate change than those species emerging later in the summer. This study analyzed the responsiveness of local odonates by utilizing data gathered from a recently established, ongoing biodiversity inventory of Odonata residing on the campus of UVA-Wise in Wise, VA. Odonates collected in Spring 2015 experienced a much colder winter than the specimens collected in 2017 which allowed for the testing of links between any earlier emergences and warmer temperatures. If winter temperatures increased, then it would be expected that adult odonate emergences will occur earlier in the year. First capture dates for 24 species of spring-emerging odonates were compared for 2015 and 2017 and these first capture dates served as a proxy for emergence dates. The statistical analyses revealed that the 2017 first capture dates are significantly earlier than the 2015 dates (p = 0.036) for just the damselflies. This link observed here between temperatures and earlier emergences for damselflies, but not with dragonflies, is for a very limited scope and time frame, but is consistent with other research linking the effects of climate to larger-scale patterns specifically just for damselflies

Using Crowdsourced Data to Analyze Patterns in Odonate Phenology

https://kent-islandora.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/node/10074/10193-thumbnail.jpgIn a changing world, it is essential to understand how species ranges and phenologies are altered in order to plan for future conservation efforts. Odonates (dragonflies and damselflies) have become popular study organisms for such insect-based climate studies, partly because of an extensive link between their life history and their environment, and partly because their charismatic nature has resulted in a large hobbyist following. While formal scientific records of this taxa may be limited, hobbyist participation offers unprecedented coverage over time and space, making dynamic monitoring more feasible. While citizen science databases, like iNaturalist, can be quite extensive, concerns regarding the accuracy and thoroughness of these public endeavors have arisen. Certain anomalies in the public data, most noticeably a large data gap centered around the central Appalachians, imply that public datasets may be misrepresentative of the ‘true’ presence in that area. To test the accuracy and representativeness of these citizen endeavors, we did extensive ground-truthing across four states in the 2019 summer season. Our results found that citizen records were largely consistent with Odonate patterns recorded in citizen science databases, suggesting these databases were indeed capturing real biological questions, and raising further questions about the observed data gaps.</p

Built by Nature: Community and Function in Natural and Structurally Analogous Urban Systems

https://kent-islandora.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/node/10092/10207-thumbnail.jpgHuman-managed and occupied ecosystems may mimic naturally occurring habitats, either spontaneously or by design. Understanding how communities of organisms assemble and use these novel spaces provides a key opportunity to understand, and potentially shape, the ecosystem functions and services delivered in human-dominated landscapes. For example, green roofs are a type of living architecture in which plants are intentionally grown on top of a human-built structure. Structurally analogous natural ecosystems are relatively rare, but some thin-soil environments can be found here in the Great Lakes Basin. As the natural habitats provide vital ecosystem functions, green roofs have the potential to provide urban areas with many services. Insects are the ideal focal taxa to examine for this project: in addition to their ubiquity, facilitating large scale data collection, insects play a variety of critical roles in ecosystem function and service, making them ideal sentinel organisms. The project focuses on characterizing insect communities and vegetation in green roof and natural thin soil environments to examine and quantify the services those insects provide (i.e. pollination, pest control, and decomposition). Characterizing the function and worth of insect services in natural and urban ecosystems is critical to supporting conservation decision-making in these human-managed ecosystems.</p