67 research outputs found
Novel community data in ecology-properties and prospects
New technologies for monitoring biodiversity such as environmental (e)DNA, passive acoustic monitoring, and optical sensors promise to generate automated spatiotemporal community observations at unprecedented scales and resolutions. Here, we introduce ânovel community dataâ as an umbrella term for these data. We review the emerging field around novel community data, focusing on new ecological questions that could be addressed; the analytical tools available or needed to make best use of these data; and the potential implications of these developments for policy and conservation. We conclude that novel community data offer many opportunities to advance our understanding of fundamental ecological processes, including community assembly, biotic interactions, micro- and macroevolution, and overall ecosystem functioning
Open access solutions for biodiversity journals : Do not replace one problem with another
Peer reviewe
ENM2020 : A FREE ONLINE COURSE AND SET OF RESOURCES ON MODELING SPECIES NICHES AND DISTRIBUTIONS
The field of distributional ecology has seen considerable recent attention, particularly surrounding the theory, protocols, and tools for Ecological Niche Modeling (ENM) or Species Distribution Modeling (SDM). Such analyses have grown steadily over the past two decades-including a maturation of relevant theory and key concepts-but methodological consensus has yet to be reached. In response, and following an online course taught in Spanish in 2018, we designed a comprehensive English-language course covering much of the underlying theory and methods currently applied in this broad field. Here, we summarize that course, ENM2020, and provide links by which resources produced for it can be accessed into the future. ENM2020 lasted 43 weeks, with presentations from 52 instructors, who engaged with >2500 participants globally through >14,000 hours of viewing and >90,000 views of instructional video and question-and-answer sessions. Each major topic was introduced by an "Overview" talk, followed by more detailed lectures on subtopics. The hierarchical and modular format of the course permits updates, corrections, or alternative viewpoints, and generally facilitates revision and reuse, including the use of only the Overview lectures for introductory courses. All course materials are free and openly accessible (CC-BY license) to ensure these resources remain available to all interested in distributional ecology.Peer reviewe
A standard protocol for reporting species distribution models
Species distribution models (SDMs) constitute the most common class of models
across ecology, evolution and conservation. The advent of ready-to-use software pack
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ages and increasing availability of digital geoinformation have considerably assisted
the application of SDMs in the past decade, greatly enabling their broader use for
informing conservation and management, and for quantifying impacts from global
change. However, models must be fit for purpose, with all important aspects of their
development and applications properly considered. Despite the widespread use of
SDMs, standardisation and documentation of modelling protocols remain limited,
which makes it hard to assess whether development steps are appropriate for end use.
To address these issues, we propose a standard protocol for reporting SDMs, with an
emphasis on describing how a studyâs objective is achieved through a series of model
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ing decisions. We call this the ODMAP (Overview, Data, Model, Assessment and
Prediction) protocol, as its components reflect the main steps involved in building
SDMs and other empirically-based biodiversity models. The ODMAP protocol serves
two main purposes. First, it provides a checklist for authors, detailing key steps for model building and analyses, and thus represents a quick guide and generic workflow for modern SDMs. Second, it introduces
a structured format for documenting and communicating the models, ensuring transparency and reproducibility, facilitating
peer review and expert evaluation of model quality, as well as meta-analyses. We detail all elements of ODMAP, and explain
how it can be used for different model objectives and applications, and how it complements efforts to store associated metadata
and define modelling standards. We illustrate its utility by revisiting nine previously published case studies, and provide an
interactive web-based application to facilitate its use. We plan to advance ODMAP by encouraging its further refinement and
adoption by the scientific community
ENM2020: A Free Online Course and Set of Resources on Modeling Species' Niches and Distributions
The field of distributional ecology has seen considerable recent attention, particularly surrounding the theory, protocols, and tools for Ecological Niche Modeling (ENM) or Species Distribution Modeling (SDM). Such analyses have grown steadily over the past two decades-including a maturation of relevant theory and key concepts-but methodological consensus has yet to be reached. In response, and following an online course taught in Spanish in 2018, we designed a comprehensive English-language course covering much of the underlying theory and methods currently applied in this broad field. Here, we summarize that course, ENM2020, and provide links by which resources produced for it can be accessed into the future. ENM2020 lasted 43 weeks, with presentations from 52 instructors, who engaged with >2500 participants globally through >14,000 hours of viewing and >90,000 views of instructional video and question-and-answer sessions. Each major topic was introduced by an "Overview" talk, followed by more detailed lectures on subtopics. The hierarchical and modular format of the course permits updates, corrections, or alternative viewpoints, and generally facilitates revision and reuse, including the use of only the Overview lectures for introductory courses. All course materials are free and openly accessible (CC-BY license) to ensure these resources remain available to all interested in distributional ecology
Dva zanimljiva terminoloĆĄka rjeÄnika
Authors thank United States Fleet Forces Command and Naval Facilities Engineering Command Atlantic for funding and support for the development of this gap analysis.Heterogeneous data collection in the marine environment has led to large gaps in our knowledge of marine species distributions. To fill these gaps, models calibrated on existing data may be used to predict species distributions in unsampled areas, given that available data are sufficiently representative. Our objective was to evaluate the feasibility of mapping cetacean densities across the entire Mediterranean Sea using models calibrated on available survey data and various environmental covariates. We aggregated 302,481âkm of line transect survey effort conducted in the Mediterranean Sea within the past 20 years by many organisations. Survey coverage was highly heterogeneous geographically and seasonally: large data gaps were present in the eastern and southern Mediterranean and in non-summer months. We mapped the extent of interpolation versus extrapolation and the proportion of data nearby in environmental space when models calibrated on existing survey data were used for prediction across the entire Mediterranean Sea. Using model predictions to map cetacean densities in the eastern and southern Mediterranean, characterised by warmer, less productive waters, and more intense eddy activity, would lead to potentially unreliable extrapolations. We stress the need for systematic surveys of cetaceans in these environmentally unique Mediterranean waters, particularly in non-summer months.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe
Frequency and intensity of facilitation reveal opposing patterns along a stress gradient
Disentangling the different processes structuring ecological communities is a long-standing challenge. In species-rich
ecosystems, most emphasis has so far been given to environmental filtering and competition processes, while facilitative interactions between species remain insufficiently studied. Here, we propose an analysis framework that not only allows for identifying pairs of facilitating and facilitated species, but also estimates the strength of facilitation and its variation along environmental gradients. Our framework combines the analysis of both co-occurrence
and co-abundance patterns using a moving window approach along environmental gradients to control for potentially confounding effects of environmental filtering in the co-abundance analysis. We first validate our new approach against community assembly simulations, and exemplify its potential on a large 1,134 plant community plots dataset. Our results
generally show that facilitation intensity was strongest under cold stress, whereas the
proportion of facilitating and facilitated species was higher under drought stress.
Moreover, the functional distance between individual facilitated species and their facilitating species significantly changed along the temperatureâmoisture gradient, and
seemed to influence facilitation intensity, although no general positive or general negative trend was discernible among species. The main advantages of our robust framework are as follows: It enables detecting facilitating and facilitated species in species-rich systems, and it allows identifying the directionality and intensity of facilitation in species pairs as well as its variation across long environmental gradients. It thus opens numerous opportunities for incorporating functional (and phylogenetic) information in the analysis of facilitation patterns. Our case study indicated high complexity in facilitative interactions across the stress gradient and revealed new evidence that facilitation, similarly to competition, can operate between functionally similar and
dissimilar species. Extending the analyses to other taxa and ecosystems will foster our
understanding how complex interspecific interactions promote biodiversity
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