Tag Archives: Flump

FLUMP – Ancient ecologial networks, climatic niche evolution, functional diversity

Leave a reply

A Lion and an Antelope Play a Board Game in an ancient Egyptian papyrus (c.1100 BC)

It’s Friday and that means that it’s time for our Friday link dump, where we highlight some recent papers (and other stuff) that we found interesting but didn’t have the time to write an entire post about. If you think there’s something we missed, or have something to say, please share in the comments section!

The latest issue of the PNAS features a very interesting study, led by Justin Yeakel, “Collapse of an ecological network in Ancient Egypt”. The Authors studied the ecological effects of the extinction of mammalian species in  Egypt, taking a very creative and remarkable approach in order to gather the data; they used artistic records found in tombs and in decorative objects produced over the past 6,000 years by the Egyptians in order to infer species extinctions and ecological dynamics. Their findings suggest that mammalian extinctions were non random and that large changes in the organization of these ecological systems coincide with periods of extreme drought and with the densification of the Egyptian population. Moreover, the decrease of diversity has led to an increase in the fragility of these ecological systems due to the loss of functional redundancy.

Adam M. Lawson and Jason T. Weir tested  whether the rate of climatic-niche evolution  of bird species varies with latitude, in a new preprint in Ecology Letters titled “Latitudinal gradients in climatic-niche evolution accelerate trait evolution at high latitudes“. The authors found a positive relationship between  latitude and the rates of climatic-niche evolution and that climatic differentiation is often associated with divergence in traits indicative of ecological differentiation and reproductive isolation.

 At last, I am happy to announce a new article, I co-authored with Jon Lefcheck and John Griffin, titled “Choosing and using multiple traits in functional diversity research”. In this commentary, we provide a brief discussion on choosing and using functional traits and some recommendations for best practice. We also explored, superficially, the behavior of some of the most used functional diversity indices, in terms of trait correlation, number of traits and species richness. If you are interested, check out the appendices to see the complete result of our simulation study and the R code for implementing it.

– Vinicius Bastazini.

September 11, 2014

Flump side of the moon

Leave a reply

3puffins

It’s Friday and that means that it’s time for our Friday link dump, where we highlight some recent papers (and other stuff) that we found interesting but didn’t have the time to write an entire post about. If you think there’s something we missed, or have something to say, please share in the comments section!

An article published in PLOS ONE on Wednesday describes a new genus (Dendrogramma) of benthic organisms that, based on preliminary morphological data, have been classified at Metazoa incertae sedis.  This basically means we know they’re animals, but we couldn’t tell you which phyla they belong to.  The fact that we can’t find a taxonomic place for these critters, along with the absence of available genetic data, let’s me think that we haven’t heard the last of Dendrogramma.

National Geographic released a troubling story last week detailing the decline of Icelandic seabird colonies and what that means for their respective global populations.

A study in Science, representing the work of researchers from across the U.S., documents the genetic composition of the microbiomes associated with human homes.  Major findings include that humans tend to be the “primary bacterial vector,” and that we should be paying much less in rent based on the amount of additional bacterial occupants within our own private domicile. – Nate Johnson

September 5, 2014

Flump – Whale shark populations, porpoise protection, art & science and fancy data analyses

Leave a reply

397px-Whale_Shark_A_deFrias_1

It’s Friday and that means that it’s time for our Friday link dump, where we highlight some recent papers (and other stuff) that we found interesting but didn’t have the time to write an entire post about. If you think there’s something we missed, or have something to say, please share in the comments section!

A study in Molecular Ecology gives evidence for population structure between Atlantic and Indo-Pacific whale sharks.  The genetic data suggests that, despite their classification as a highly migratory species and a “single global metapopulation”, whale sharks from these two regions rarely interbreed.  Typically, distinct populations are a species are managed independently, though it remains to be seen if regulations regarding these animals will change based on the paper’s conclusions.

A focus article in Science brings attention to the vaquita, a species of porpoise found in the Gulf of California, whose numbers are estimated at 150.  Check it out here, and help protect their extinction here. – Nate Johnson

Corridors can facilitate movement of invasive species between habitat patches, according to Resasco et al. in Ecology, and consequently result in a loss of native species in the habitats that humans are trying to protect.

Also in Ecology, Russell et al. take advantage of the fact that rats are everywhere, and demonstrate that tenure as reigning invasive rat is not necessarily a lifetime gig. Seemingly equivalent rats can displace resident invaders. – Emily Grason

“Are your analyses too fancy?” Methods in Ecology and Evolution has an interesting series of interviews and tutorials in Youtube. In their latest video, David Warton interviewed Professor Ben Bolker and Mark Brewer, a  Scottish consultant, about the tendency that Ecologist have of developing and using  fancy and complex analyses that are, in some situations, uncalled for. Here is the link to the interview.

Every year, the Princeton University runs an contest called “Art of Science“, which explores the interplay between science and art, with images that are produced during the course of scientific research. Here is the list of competitors and winners of this year contest.  – Vinicius Bastazini

August 8, 2014