Catalogue Search | MBRL
Are you sure you want to remove the book from the shelf?
{{itemTitle}}
7,576
result(s) for
"interaction web"
Sort by:
Evaluating sampling completeness in a desert plant-pollinator network
1. The study of plant-pollinator interactions in a network context is receiving increasing attention. This approach has helped to identify several emerging network patterns such as nestedness and modularity. However, most studies are based only on qualitative information, and some ecosystems, such as deserts and tropical forests, are underrepresented in these data sets. 2. We present an exhaustive analysis of the structure of a 4-year plant-pollinator network from the Monte desert in Argentina using qualitative and quantitative tools. We describe the structure of this network and evaluate sampling completeness using asymptotic species richness estimators. Our goal is to assess the extent to which the realized sampling effort allows for an accurate description of species interactions and to estimate the minimum number of additional censuses required to detect 90% of the interactions. We evaluated completeness of detection of the community-wide pollinator fauna, of the pollinator fauna associated with each plant species and of the plant-pollinator interactions. We also evaluated whether sampling completeness was influenced by plant characteristics, such as flower abundance, flower life span, number of interspecific links (degree) and selectiveness in the identity of their flower visitors, as well as sampling effort. 3. We found that this desert plant-pollinator network has a nested structure and that it exhibits modularity and high network-level generalization. 4. In spite of our high sampling effort, and although we sampled 80% of the pollinator fauna, we recorded only 55% of the interactions. Furthermore, although a 64% increase in sampling effort would suffice to detect 90% of the pollinator species, a fivefold increase in sampling effort would be necessary to detect 90% of the interactions. 5. Detection of interactions was incomplete for most plant species, particularly specialists with a long flowering season and high flower abundance, or generalists with short flowering span and scant flowers. Our results suggest that sampling of a network with the same effort for all plant species is inadequate to sample interactions. 6. Sampling the diversity of interactions is labour intensive, and most plant-pollinator networks published to date are likely to be undersampled. Our analysis allowed estimating the completeness of our sampling, the additional effort needed to detect most interactions and the plant traits that influence the detection of their interactions.
Journal Article
Characterization of the Omnivorous Lygus lineolaris Diet in a Strawberry Field by Metataxonomy
Lygus lineolaris is a highly polyphagous pest that impacts key crops such as strawberries, making an understanding of its feeding behavior critical for developing effective management strategies. Using metataxonomy, this study examined the dietary breadth of L. lineolaris in a commercial strawberry field in Quebec, revealing an extensive and diverse omnivorous diet. The multiprimer approach, combined with validation samples, ensured high taxonomic resolution and accuracy. We expanded the documented list of L. lineolaris host taxa to 475, including 441 plants and 34 prey species, with 51 taxa unique to this research, comprising eight new plant hosts and five prey species. Molecular evidence confirmed active ingestion, underscoring its omnivorous behavior with a predominantly herbivorous tendency. Notably, 70% of individuals fed exclusively on plants, 20% exhibited omnivory, and only 4% were strictly zoophagous. To quantify the level of phytozoophagy in omnivorous species, we propose a novel coefficient of omnivory (CO), calculated as CO = P /( P + Z), where P and Z represent the number of individuals with molecular evidence of phytophagy and zoophagy, respectively. With a CO of 0.833 (95% CI: 0.77–0.90), L. lineolaris demonstrates a strong bias toward plant feeding. Diet composition varied seasonally and between sexes, with females showing increased zoophagy during reproductive periods. These findings highlight L. lineolaris 's dietary flexibility and resilience, providing critical insights into its feeding ecology and food web interactions to inform targeted integrated pest management strategies tailored to its omnivorous nature.
Journal Article
Researching UX : user research
How well do you really know your users? With properly conducted user research, you can discover what really makes your audience tick. This practical guide will show you, step-by-step decisions on solid evidence. You'll not only learn the different methodologies that you can employ in user research, but also gain insight into important set-up activities, such as recruiting and make the most of the data you've gathered. And finally, you'll learn how to communicate findings and deploy evidence, to boost your design rationale and persuade skeptical colleagues.
Book
The food web perspective on aquatic biofilms
Biofilms, the complex communities of microbiota that live in association with aquatic interfaces, are considered to be hotspots of microbial life in many aquatic ecosystems. Although the importance of attached algae and bacteria is widely recognized, the role of the highly abundant biofilm-dwelling micrograzers (i.e., heterotrophic protists and small metazoans) is poorly understood. Studies often highlight the resistance of bacterial biofilms to grazing within the microbial food web and therefore argue that the micrograzers have a modulating role (i.e., have effects on biofilm phenotype) rather than a direct trophic role within biofilms. In the present review, we show that this view comes too short, and we establish a conceptual framework of biofilm food webs consisting of three major elements. (1) Energy pathways and subsidization from plankton. As inhabitants of interfaces, biofilm-dwelling grazers potentially access both planktonic organisms and surface-associated organisms. They can play an important role in importing planktonic production into the biofilm food web and thus in the coupling of the planktonic and benthic food webs. Nevertheless, specialized grazers are also able to utilize significant amounts of autochthonous biofilm production. (2) Horizontal complexity of the basal food web. While bacteria and algae within biofilms are edible in general, food quality and accessibility of both bacteria and algae can differ considerably between different prey phenotypes occurring during biofilm formation with respect to morphology, chemical defense, and nutrient stoichiometry. Instead of considering bacteria and algae within biofilms to be generally resistant to feeding by micrograzers, we suggest considering a horizontal food-quality axis to be at the base of biofilm food webs. This food quality gradient is probably associated with increasing costs for the micrograzers. (3) Vertical food web complexity and food chain length. In addition to the consumption of bacteria and algae, many predatory micrograzers exist within biofilm food webs. With the help of video microscopy, we were able to demonstrate the existence of a complex food web with several trophic levels within biofilms. Our conceptual framework should assist in integrating food web concepts and processes into whole-biofilm budgets and in understanding food-web-related interactions within biofilms.
Journal Article
Social engineering : the art of human hacking
Examines what social engineering is, the methods used by hackers to gather information, and ways to prevent social engineering threats.
Book
Analysing eco-evolutionary dynamics—The challenging complexity of the real world
The field of eco‐evolutionary dynamics is developing rapidly, with a growing number of well‐designed experiments quantifying the impact of evolution on ecological processes and patterns, ranging from population demography to community composition and ecosystem functioning. The key challenge remains to transfer the insights of these proof‐of‐principle experiments to natural settings, where multiple species interact and the dynamics are far more complex than those studied in most experiments. Here, we discuss potential pitfalls of building a framework on eco‐evolutionary dynamics that is based on data on single species studied in isolation from interspecific interactions, which can lead to both under‐ and overestimation of the impact of evolution on ecological processes. Underestimation of evolution‐driven ecological changes could occur in a single‐species approach when the focal species is involved in co‐evolutionary dynamics, whereas overestimation might occur due to increased rates of evolution following ecological release of the focal species. In order to develop a multi‐species perspective on eco‐evolutionary dynamics, we discuss the need for a broad‐sense definition of “eco‐evolutionary feedbacks” that includes any reciprocal interaction between ecological and evolutionary processes, next to a narrow‐sense definition that refers to interactions that directly feed back on the interactor that evolves. We discuss the challenges and opportunities of using more natural settings in eco‐evolutionary studies by gradually adding complexity: (a) multiple interacting species within a guild, (b) food web interactions and (c) evolving metacommunities in multiple habitat patches in a landscape. A literature survey indicated that only a few studies on microbial systems so far developed a truly multi‐species approach in their analysis of eco‐evolutionary dynamics, and mostly so in artificially constructed communities. Finally, we provide a road map of methods to study eco‐evolutionary dynamics in more natural settings. Eco‐evolutionary studies involving multiple species are necessarily demanding and might require intensive collaboration among research teams, but are highly needed. A plain language summary is available for this article. Plain Language Summary
Journal Article
Geographic Patterns in Plant-Pollinator Mutualistic Networks
Recent reviews of plant-pollinator mutualistic networks showed that generalization is a common pattern in this type of interaction. Here we examine the ecological correlates of generalization patterns in plant-pollinator networks, especially how interaction patterns covary with latitude, elevation, and insularity. We review the few published analyses of whole networks and include unpublished material, analyzing 29 complete plant-pollinator networks that encompass arctic, alpine, temperate, Mediterranean, and subtropical-tropical areas. The number of interactions observed (I) was a linear function of network size (M) the maximum number of interactions: In I = 0.575 + 0.61 In M; R2 = 0.946. The connectance (C), the fraction of observed interactions relative to the total possible, decreased exponentially with species richness, the sum of animal and plant species in each community (A + P): C = 13.83 exp[ -0.003(A + P)]. After controlling for species richness, the residual connectance was significantly lower in highland (>1500 m elevation) than in lowland networks and differed marginally among biogeographic regions, with both alpine and tropical networks showing a trend for lower residual connectance. The two Mediterranean networks showed the highest residual connectance. After correcting for variation in network size, plant species were shown to be more generalized at higher latitude and lowland habitats, but showed increased specialization on islands. Oceanic island networks showed an impoverishment of potential animal pollinators (lower ratio of animal to plant species, A : P, compared to mainland networks) associated with this trend of increased specialization. Plants, but not their flower-visiting animals, supported the often-repeated statements about higher specificity in the tropics than at higher latitudes. The pattern of interaction build-up as diversity increases in pollination networks does not differ appreciably from other mutualisms, such as plant-seed disperser networks or more complex food webs.
Journal Article