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Invasive species, disease vectors, and pathogens affect biodiversity, ecosystem function and services, and human health. Climate change, land use, and transport vectors interact in complex ways to determine the spread of native and non-native invasive species, pathogens, and their effects on ecosystem dynamics. Early detection and in-depth understanding of invasive species and infectious diseases will require an integrated network of research platforms and information exchange to identify hotspots of invasion or disease emergence. Partnerships with state and federal agencies that monitor the spread and impacts of invasive species and pathogens will be critical in developing a national data and research network that can facilitate a full understanding of the resulting effects on ecosystems and society. Citizen science can also play a role; individuals can report new invasions, record phenological changes associated with invasions or disease outbreaks, and can participate in efforts such as the Breeding Bird Survey, which may reveal long-term biotic change following species invasions and disease spread. The ecological and societal impacts of invasive species and pathogens differ across gradients of climate and land use, and in the presence of global climate change may exacerbate both their propagation and impacts. Understanding the interactions of invasive species, disease vectors, and pathogens with other drivers of ecosystem change is critical to human health and economic well-being.

Prey can alter their behavior when detecting predator cues. Little is known about which sensory channel, number of channels, or the interaction among channels that shrimp species use to evaluate the threat from predators. The amphidromous shrimp has an induced defense, an elongated rostrum, where predatory fishes are present. We sought to test if kairomones or visual cues when presented singly from fish either eating flakes or shrimp, had more effect on altering the temporal feeding and refuge use patterns of long-rostrum (LR) . We were also interested in elucidating potential interactions among cues when presented simultaneously in different combinations (kairomones + visual + mechanosensory, kairomones + alarm + visual, kairomones + alarm, kairomones + visual) on the same response variables. We expected that when presented alone kairomones will significantly increase refuge use and decrease foraging, particularly late at night, in comparison to visual cues alone, and that multiple cues when presented simultaneously will further increase refuge use and decrease foraging at night. We exposed shrimp to individual or multiple cues from the predatory fish mountain mullet, . We examined shrimp behavior with respect to refuge use and foraging activity during four time periods (after sunset, nighttime, sunrise, and sunset) in a 24-hour period. Shrimp presented fish visual and chemical cues singly did not differ from one another but differed from control shrimp (no cues) with respect to refuge use or foraging. The number of shrimp using refuge in the treatment with most cues (KVM: kairomones+ visual + mechanosensory) was higher than in all the treatments with less cues. A significant decline in foraging was observed when multiple cues were presented simultaneously. The highest number of shrimp foraged one hour after sunset and at nighttime. A significant interaction was observed between cue treatments and time periods, with shrimp in the KVM treatment foraging less and using more refuge late at night and at sunrise than shrimp in other treatments or time periods. The observation that fish chemical and visual cues when presented singly produced similar refuge use and foraging patterns was contrary to expectation and suggests that visual and chemical cues, when presented alone, provide redundant information to with regards to predation threat. The significant increase in refuge use and reduction in foraging observed in the KVM treatment suggest multimodal signal enhancement in the perception of threat. This makes evolutionary sense in \"noisy\" environments, such as streams, where detection, localization, and intention of predators is much improved when cues are received through multiple sensory channels.

Predators can induce a suite of evolutionary responses, such as changes in behavior, life-history traits or morphology, from their prey. Our work adds to the growing number of studies of kairomone-mediated aquatic predator—prey interactions that significantly affect prey morphology. Individuals of the amphidromous shrimp Xiphocaris elongata have elongated rostrums below geomorphic barriers where predatory fishes are present and short rostrums in stream reaches above geomorphic barriers where predatory fishes are absent. Our objective was to test whether the elongated rostrum in X. elongata is a phenotypic modification induced by kairomones from predatory fish or alarm cues from conspecifics. We cut the rostrums of juvenile, longrostrum adult, and short-rostrum adult X. elongata and exposed the shrimp to predatory fish fed flakes, predatory fish fed X. elongata, predatory fish fed Atya, the nonpredatory fish S. plumieri, no fish with filtered water, and no fish with stream water. We measured the carapace length and the post-orbital carapace length (to obtain the rostrum length) of every shrimp every 2 wk for a total of 10 times/shrimp. Rostrums of X. elongata exposed to predatory fish fed flakes, predatory fish fed X. elongata, and predatory fish fed Atya shrimp grew longer than X. elongata exposed to the nonpredatory fish, filtered water, or stream water. Rostrums of juveniles grew faster than those of adults independent of treatment. Rostrum growth was not affected by the treatment × phenotype interaction. These results demonstrate that the elongated rostrum in the amphidromous X. elongata is a phenotypic response induced by kairomones from predatory fish.

Little is known about ecosystem-level responses to multiple, climatic disturbance events. In the subtropical forests of Puerto Rico, the major natural disturbances are hurricanes and droughts. We tested the ecosystem-level effects of these disturbances in sites with different land use histories. From 1989 to 1992, data were collected to determine the effects of Hurricane Hugo and two droughts on litterfall inputs, fine-root biomass, and decomposition rates in three topographic locations (stream, riparian, upslope) within two watersheds. From 1994 to 1998, we added a third watershed and an experiment in which coarse-wood levels were manipulated to simulate hurricane inputs. Data were collected on tree and palm growth rates, litterfall inputs, fine-root biomass, and decomposition rates. From 1994 to 1998, four hurricanes and three droughts were recorded. Measured parameters had unique responses and recovery rates to hurricanes and droughts. Litterfall inputs returned to long-term mean rates within one month following droughts and small-to-moderate hurricanes but required five years to recover after an intense hurricane. In contrast, fine-root biomass recovered seven months after an intense hurricane but failed to recover after five years following a severe drought. Despite the dramatic effects of these weather events on some ecosystem parameters, we found that aboveground measures of tree and palm growth were more affected by preexisting site conditions (e.g., nitrogen availability due to past land use activities) than hurricanes or droughts. The addition of coarse woody debris increased tree and palm growth, fine-root biomass, and litter production; however, in the case of tree and palm growth, this effect was least measurable in the sites with the highest productivity. We found that decomposition rates were more controlled by litter quality than weather conditions. In conclusion, we found that certain ecosystem structures (e.g., canopy structure and fine-root biomass) generally recovered more slowly from disturbance events than certain ecosystem processes (e.g., plant growth rates, decomposition rates). We also found that past land use activities and disturbance legacies were important in determining the responses and recovery rates of the ecosystem to disturbance.

The principles representing the broadest conceptual domains within ecology, which encompasses extremely broad spatial and temporal scales, have been identified in recent work. These broad scales present challenges to maintaining conceptual and theoretical clarity; however, theory development requires a clear understanding of theoretical components. Although researchers often test hypotheses using existing theories, many endeavors could benefit from a formal structure for examining the theoretical underpinnings of the researchers' work. We present a graphical model to organize the theoretical components underlying any particular research effort. We provide an example and suggest that scientists use this framework to present their research in a robust theoretical context. The benefits of this approach include accurately defining the theoretical components used in research; identifying novel questions while avoiding redundancy; and explicitly linking constituent theories, thereby facilitating integration. Many scientists aspire to have an impact on existing theory, and using this approach provides a succinct framework to identify how an individual's research affects ecological theory.

Urbanization influences a range of factors related to stream health, including the hydrologic regime, water quality, and riparian conditions that lead to negative effects on terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. However, impacts on freshwater decapods from urbanization of tropical streams have not been reported. We hypothesized that changes in decapod communities in watersheds with different levels of urbanization are related to changes in physical stream habitats caused by different land uses and their effects on water discharge. The impacts of land use on the physico-chemical characteristics of streams and freshwater decapod communities were evaluated in three watersheds characterized by low, moderate and high-intensities of urbanization in Puerto Rico. For the low and moderately developed urban watersheds, decapod species richness ranged from 10 to 11 species; the highly urbanized watershed only had 4 species. Macrobrachium faustinum and Xiphocaris elongata were the most ubiquitously species and were found in all watersheds. Multivariable analysis of physical characteristics and densities of the decapod families resulted in one axis that explained 80 % of the total variation among the watersheds and was correlated with stream discharge. The effect of discharge is likely a result of frequent high flows that sustain habitats with high concentrations of dissolved oxygen and low concentrations of pollutants. An increase in physico-chemical parameters were observed from the LUW to the HUW. These results indicate that the decapod communities were most likely influenced by land use and environmental conditions that affected erosional aspects related to water discharge and water quality in the highly impacted watersheds.

In this paper, we report on a whole-pool manipulation of leaf litter decomposition in a tropical stream following a hurricane. The study was designed to distinguish how decapod species comprising two functional feeding guilds alter rates and magnitudes of leaf litter processing and nutrient release linking the detrital food web with the overall producer-consumer food web. Streams of the Luquillo Experimental Forest, Puerto Rico, are dominated numerically by two freshwater shrimp species (Atya lanipes and Xiphocaris elongata). To determine how these shrimp affected detrital processing following large leaf inputs associated with a hurricane, we manipulated the presence or absence of two species of shrimp in six fenced pools of a headwater stream with hurricane levels of Cecropia leaf litter over a 23-d period. The experiment was designed to determine how the two different shrimp affected: (1) the rate and amount of size fractionation of leaf material; (2) the localized nutrient concentrations in the pools; and (3) the rate of particulate export from the pools. Both shrimp species influenced detrital processing, but in fundamentally different ways. Xiphocaris shred intact, large leaves and converted them into fine, medium, and coarse particulates. Through this conversion process Xiphocaris increased the concentration and rate of downstream transport of suspended particulate organic matter. Xiphocaris also significantly increased the concentration of both total dissolved nitrogen and dissolved organic carbon, likely by changing the surface area to volume ratio of organic particles. Atya, a scraper/filter feeder, caused a slight increase in rates of leaf breakdown as compared to controls at the end of the experiment but filtered out fine organic particulates, resulting in less downstream export. Both decapod species affected detrital processing, but in fundamentally different ways, illustrating the potential importance guild diversity may have in altering both particulate and nutrient availability to the rest of the food web. In addition, these results suggest that the presence of both feeding guilds can significantly influence ecosystem responses to severe, large-scale disturbance events.

The amphidromous shrimp Xiphocaris elongata (Guérin-Méneville, 1855) has a long rostrum in the presence of predatory fishes and a short rostrum above steep waterfalls where predatory fishes are absent, i.e., typically above waterfalls. Prior experiments showed that elongated rostrum in X. elongata is induced by chemical signals from the predatory fish Agonostomus monticola. We tested the hypothesis that in addition to rostrum length there are other morphometric differences between long-rostrum (LR) and short-rostrum (SR) X. elongata. We measured the post-orbital carapace length and pleon length of LR and SR shrimp and weighed both shrimp morphs. LR shrimp have significantly longer and heavier pleons than the SR shrimp. These allometric differences may affect the behavior of X. elongata shrimp in ways that, in turn, affect their interactions with predators and the environment. Our study demonstrates the importance of taking pleon measurements when studying crustaceans given that these measurements have been mostly overlooked, and may provide insight of environmental influences on crustacean morphology and behavior. This research provides data of the differences between prey phenotypes, which may alter their life-histories and interactions with the environment.

There are few well-documented, general ecological principles that can be applied to pressing environmental issues. When they discuss them at all, ecologists often disagree about the relative importance of different aspects of the science's original and still important issues. It may be that the sum of ecological science is not open to universal statements because of the wide range of organizational, spatial, and temporal phenomena, as well as the sheer number of possible interactions. We believe, however, that the search for general principles has been inadequate to establish the extent to which generalities are possible. We suggest that ecologists may need to reconsider how we view our science. This article lists 10 suggestions for ecology, recognizing the many impediments to finding generalizations in this field, imposed in part by the complexity of the subject and in part by limits to funding for the study of ecology.