Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment最新文献

Climate change is a well-documented driver and threat multiplier of infectious disease in wildlife populations. However, wildlife disease management and climate-change adaptation have largely operated in isolation. To improve conservation outcomes, we consider the role of climate adaptation in initiating or exacerbating the transmission and spread of wildlife disease and the deleterious effects thereof, as illustrated through several case studies. We offer insights into best practices for disease-smart adaptation, including a checklist of key factors for assessing disease risks early in the climate adaptation process. By assessing risk, incorporating uncertainty, planning for change, and monitoring outcomes, natural resource managers and conservation practitioners can better prepare for and respond to wildlife disease threats in a changing climate.

Wildflower plantings are an effective tool for mitigating floral resource scarcity, a major factor contributing to global declines in pollinator populations. However, the configuration of seed mixes for such plantings can encompass two different conservation goals: namely, the enhancement of a regulating ecosystem service (pollination) or the promotion of diverse pollinator communities, including rare or threatened species. According to which goal is prioritized, seed mixes consequently require different designs and implementation approaches. Here, we review common elements of wildflower seed mixes for native bees and highlight differences in application between the two conservation goals. Our focus on bees stems from agreement among different world regions to their functional value as pollinators and concern about recent global declines in their populations. We link the ecology of seed mixes with current challenges in US and EU policies supporting seed mix implementation. Finally, we advocate not only for clarity in goal setting, which will promote tailored seed mix design and application, but also for a reimagination of seed mix policies to increase their effectiveness for pollinator conservation.

Humans have an enormous impact on ecosystems, biodiversity, and the services that nature provides. For the past 30 years, the Ecological Society of America (ESA) has expanded its emphasis on fundamental ecology to include the human dimensions of environmental change, in response to its members’ growing interest in the key environmental issues that define our times. These efforts include implementing pedagogical innovations in undergraduate education, expanding the human-focused content of ESA publications, facilitating career development, addressing the social and cultural dimensions of environmental issues, and providing mentoring programs that enhance the Society's role in human–environment interactions.

Since its founding over 100 years ago, ESA has defined its values and focused on being a trusted and accessible source of scientific knowledge regarding biological diversity and ecological systems. More recently, ESA's members have expanded their research questions to include the scientific foundations for effective environmental action and have emphasized providing a diverse community of ecologists with a supportive home to advance their careers. Now, a new ESA journal, Earth Stewardship, will extend the Society's publications to social–ecological researchers engaged in community-based stewardship and biocultural initiatives that co-produce solutions-oriented environmental stewardship across scales, from local to global. Other titles among ESA's existing journal portfolio are facilitating collections of articles that center not only on the importance of integrating cultural perspectives and diversity into research, but also on curricula to develop a well-trained environmental workforce.

Recently, ESA has inaugurated several sections and a chapter that mutually lead in integrating cultural, social, and human diversity into ecological research, teaching, and practice. ESA has also introduced new mechanisms in its governance to help ensure a more effective and cohesive ESA Council. These changes have fostered greater discussion among members on how best to improve the ways in which ESA can support ecologists of all backgrounds in their careers.

In 2020, in response to the Black Lives Matter movement, ESA appointed a Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice (DEIJ) Task Force and then in 2021, a permanent, separate ESA Diversity Committee to help implement the Task Force's recommendations. The DEIJ Task Force developed several recommendations from which the ESA Excellence in Ecology (EEE) Scholarship program emerged, to support early- to mid-career Society members. The EEE Scholarship program seeks to create a network of diverse, action-oriented ecologists whose professional activities center on effectively addressing today's environmental challenges through problem-solving. Now in its third cycle, the EEE Scholarship program has produced three cohorts of scholars who link their research to meeting the environmental needs of b

When an animal is observed visiting a flower, we tend to think of it as a mutualistic interaction, in which both participants benefit to some degree. However, not all such interactions are mutualisms, as in instances where one partner (the animal) benefits at the expense of the other partner (the plant). In pollination ecology, the lopsided beneficiaries of interactions like these are called nectar “robbers” or “thieves”. This seems to be the case for the bananaquit (Coereba flaveola), a member of the tanager family, seen here in a backyard in the city of Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil, consuming nectar from immature non-native Ixora flowers. Although bananaquits occasionally pierce mature flowers from the side to rob nectar (Sci Rep 2022; doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-16237-9), the bird pictured here is mechanically opening a closed immature flower with its beak to access the nectar. Does the premature opening of a flower affect its development and the plant's reproductive success? Here, the bananaquit could be considered a nectar thief because of the temporal mismatch, given that the flower's pollen is unavailable or nonviable. Has this behavior spread through the local population of bananaquits, and how did it emerge? Is it a learned behavior by the bananaquit having observed a conspecific or else a different species? Is it a spontaneous behavior that arose independently in certain individuals? Physically opening an immature flower might represent a previously undocumented form of thieving. Further investigations are necessary to determine the relative gains and losses associated with this type of animal–plant interaction.

Natal dens can be a limiting resource for canids on the Arctic tundra, as frozen ground inhibits easy burrow excavation during the spring. Near Churchill, Canada, tundra dens created by Arctic foxes (Vulpes lagopus) have transformed into ecological hotspots (Sci Rep 2016; doi.org/10.1038/srep24020). However, while monitoring these dens for many years, we have observed that both red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) and gray wolves (Canis lupus) are also competing for these sites.

In spring 2021, one den became the site of a fierce canid competition. The den figuratively switched “paws” between both fox species, first being occupied by a pair of red foxes from March through mid-April, then by a pair of Arctic foxes in May. But the return of a red fox in early June led to antagonism between the two fox species, pictured here. Simultaneously, during the volatile period of occupation by one or the other fox species, wolves regularly visited this den, with at least seven visits documented from mid-May to mid-June. On the day that the wolf photograph was captured, all three canid species were observed on camera at the same den within 6 hours of each other. Eventually, the red fox was the last observed canid using the den, despite aggressive defenses from the Arctic fox pair.

Arctic fox abundance in this area has declined steadily for several decades, largely due to climate-induced changes in prey availability and abundance (Oecologia 2023; doi.org/10.1007/s00442-023-05418-6). As climate change progresses, what will be the long-term fate of these Arctic fox–created hotspots? Antagonistic interactions like those pictured here may foreshadow a slow turnover of Arctic fox dens toward occupation by larger, more dominant competitors typically associated with patches of boreal forest at the low-Arctic tundra border.