Puntos de inflexión en los gradientes de composición de las comunidades de plantas acuáticas de diferentes continentes

Unravelling patterns and mechanisms of biogeographical transitions is crucial if we are to understand compositional gradients at large spatial extents, but no studies have thus far examined breakpoints in community composition of freshwater plants across continents. Using a dataset of almost 500 observations of lake plant community composition from six continents, we examined, for the first time, if such breakpoints in geographical space exist for freshwater plants and how well a suite of ecological factors (including climatic and local environmental variables) can explain transitions in community composition from the subtropics to the poles. Our combination of multivariate regression tree (MRT) analysis and k-means partitioning suggests that the most abrupt breakpoint exists between temperate to boreal regions on the one hand and freshwater plant communities harbouring mainly subtropical or Mediterranean assemblages on the other. The spatially structured variation in current climatic conditions is the most likely candidate for controlling these latitudinal patterns, although one cannot rule out joint effects of eco-evolutionary constraints in the harsher high-latitude environments and post-glacial migration lags after Pleistocene Ice Ages. Overall, our study supports the foundations of global regionalisation for freshwater plants and anticipates further biogeographical research on freshwater plant communities once datasets have been harmonised for conducting large-scale spatial analyses.publishedVersio

Protected areas: A focus on Brazilian freshwater biodiversity

Brazil has a variety of aquatic ecosystems and rich freshwater biodiversity, but these components have been constantly damaged by the expansion of unsustainable activities. An array of different conservation strategies is needed, especially the creation of protected areas (PAs, hereafter). However, Brazil's PAs are biased towards terrestrial ecosystems and we argue that current PAs have limited efficacy in the protection of freshwater biodiversity. New PAs should better consider aquatic environments, covering entire basins, rivers and other freshwater habitats. We recommend ways to implement these PAs and provide guidance to avoid social impacts. Freshwater systems in Brazil provide essential goods and services but these ecosystems are being rapidly degraded and will be lost if not adequately protected. © 2018 The Authors. Diversity and Distributions Published by John Wiley & Sons Lt

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear un derstanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5–7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8–11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world’s most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepre sented in biodiversity databases.13–15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may elim inate pieces of the Amazon’s biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological com munities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple or ganism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region’s vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most ne glected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lostinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear understanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5,6,7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8,9,10,11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world's most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepresented in biodiversity databases.13,14,15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may eliminate pieces of the Amazon's biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological communities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple organism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region's vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most neglected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lost

Correction: Incorrect Citations Give Unfair Credit to Review Authors in Ecology Journals.

The number of citations that papers receive has become significant in measuring researchers ’ scientific productivity, and such measurements are important when one seeks career opportunities and research funding. Skewed citation practices can thus have profound effects on academic careers. We investigated (i) how frequently authors misinterpret original information and (ii) how frequently authors inappropriately cite reviews instead of the articles upon which the reviews are based. To reach this aim, we carried a survey of ecology journals indexed in the Web of Science and assessed the appropriateness of citations of review papers. Reviews were significantly more often cited than regular articles. In addition, 22 % of citations were inaccurate, and another 15 % unfairly gave credit to the review authors for other scientists ’ ideas. These practices should be stopped, mainly through more open discussion among mentors, researchers and students

Compositional breakpoints of freshwater plant communities across continents

Unravelling patterns and mechanisms of biogeographical transitions is crucial if we are to understand compositional gradients at large spatial extents, but no studies have thus far examined breakpoints in community composition of freshwater plants across continents. Using a dataset of almost 500 observations of lake plant community composition from six continents, we examined, for the first time, if such breakpoints in geographical space exist for freshwater plants and how well a suite of ecological factors (including climatic and local environmental variables) can explain transitions in community composition from the subtropics to the poles. Our combination of multivariate regression tree (MRT) analysis and k-means partitioning suggests that the most abrupt breakpoint exists between temperate to boreal regions on the one hand and freshwater plant communities harbouring mainly subtropical or Mediterranean assemblages on the other. The spatially structured variation in current climatic conditions is the most likely candidate for controlling these latitudinal patterns, although one cannot rule out joint effects of eco-evolutiona-ry constraints in the harsher high-latitude environments and post-glacial migration lags after Pleistocene Ice Ages. Overall, our study supports the foundations of global regionalisation for freshwater plants and anticipates further biogeographical research on freshwater plant communities once datasets have been harmonised for conducting large-scale spatial analyses

Results of the logistic regression using the presence of misinterpreted and lazy citations as dependent variables and the journal impact factor (IF) as the predictor.

<p>² estimates the proportion of variation explained by a logistic regression model. McFaddens' rho</p><p> The odds ratio tests the odds of misinterpreted and lazy citations occurrence according to journal impact factor.</p

Mean number of citations per paper for reviews and articles of journals in the areas of ecology, limnology and marine and freshwater biology (A) and for authors of the analyzed reviews (B).

<p>Annual Review of Ecology Evolution and Systematics (AREE; n_ART = 0; n_REV = 33); Ecological Applications (EAPP; n_ART = 194; n_REV = 8); Ecology Letters (ELET; n_ART = 90; n_REV = 14); Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment (FEEN; n_ART = 35; n_REV = 19); Global Ecology & Biogeography (GEBI; n_ART = 74; n_REV = 3); ISME Journal (ISME; n_ART = 63; n_REV = 3); Molecular Ecology (MECO; n_ART = 372; n_REV = 23); Proceedings of the Royal Society B-Biological Sciences (PRSB; n_ART = 361; n_REV = 9); Trends in Ecology & Evolution (TREE; n_ART = 19; n_REV = 70); Limnology & Oceanography (LOCE; n_ART = 236; n_REV = 3); Aquatic Sciences (ASCI; n_ART = 46; n_REV = 1); Journal of Paleolimnology (JPAL; n_ART = 67; n_REV = 5); Water Resources Research (WRRE; n_ART = 406; n_REV = 6); Aquatic Toxicology (ATOX; n_ART = 164; n_REV = 3); Biofouling (BIOF; n_ART = 36; n_REV = 4); Coral Reefs (CREE; n_ART = 84; n_REV = 5); Fish & Shellfish Immunology (FSIM; n_ART = 190; n_REV = 3); Freshwater Biology (FBIO; n_ART = 184; n_REV = 4); Journal of the North American Benthological Society (JNAB; n_ART = 61; n_REV = 1); Marine Ecology Progress Series (MEPS; n_ART = 628; n_REV = 10); Marine Biotechnology (MBIO; n_ART = 60; n_REV = 8); Microbial Ecology (MECO; n_ART = 140; n_REV = 2).</p