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Diversity, Volume 11, Issue 5

2019 May - 18 articles

Cover Story: Land use and landcover change alter the ability of habitat networks to maintain viable populations of threatened species. This also applies to predators that prey on such species. We found that avian predator assemblages are affected by land use intensity linked to socio-economic contexts in Europe’s West and East. Corvid birds were associated with the number of anthropogenic food resources and fine-grained open landcovers. Corvid bird abundance and their resources increased with increasing land use intensity. Raptors were less abundant than corvid birds, and were most common in coarse-grained landcovers with fewer anthropogenic resources. The number of raptor species increased with decreasing land use intensity. We conclude that avian predator assemblages must be considered in order to maintain functional habitat networks. View this paper.
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Articles (18)

  • Review
  • Open Access
54 Citations
8,915 Views
20 Pages

26 May 2019

Stable isotope-based methods have proved to be immensely valuable for ecological studies ranging in focus from animal movements to species interactions and community structure. Nevertheless, the use of these methods is dependent on assumptions about...

  • Article
  • Open Access
6 Citations
5,726 Views
18 Pages

25 May 2019

Fragmentation threatens biodiversity and forest-dwelling animals can be especially vulnerable. Neotropical primates inhabit forests and play ecological roles in maintaining forest biodiversity. Currently, many primate communities are restricted to fo...

  • Article
  • Open Access
63 Citations
7,971 Views
16 Pages

Species-Specific Functional Morphology of Four US Atlantic Coast Dune Grasses: Biogeographic Implications for Dune Shape and Coastal Protection

  • Sally D. Hacker,
  • Katya R. Jay,
  • Nicholas Cohn,
  • Evan B. Goldstein,
  • Paige A. Hovenga,
  • Michael Itzkin,
  • Laura J. Moore,
  • Rebecca S. Mostow,
  • Elsemarie V. Mullins and
  • Peter Ruggiero

24 May 2019

Coastal dunes arise from feedbacks between vegetation and sediment supply. Species-specific differences in plant functional morphology affect sand capture and dune shape. In this study, we build on research showing a relationship between dune grass s...

  • Review
  • Open Access
72 Citations
12,202 Views
19 Pages

A Review of the Impacts of Roads on Wildlife in Semi-Arid Regions

  • W. Richard J. Dean,
  • Colleen L. Seymour,
  • Grant S. Joseph and
  • Stefan H. Foord

19 May 2019

Roads now penetrate even the most remote parts of much of the world, but the majority of research on the effects of roads on biota has been in less remote temperate environments. The impacts of roads in semi-arid and arid areas may differ from these...

  • Article
  • Open Access
11 Citations
6,340 Views
26 Pages

The Influence of Canopy Cover on the Ecological Function of A Key Autogenic Ecosystem Engineer

  • Jacqueline B. Pocklington,
  • Michael J. Keough,
  • Tim D. O’Hara and
  • Alecia Bellgrove

17 May 2019

Intertidal fucoid algae can function as ecosystem engineers across temperate marine regions. In this investigation, we assessed the function of the alga dominating rocky reefs in temperate Australia and New Zealand, Hormosira banksii. Invertebrate an...

  • Article
  • Open Access
5 Citations
4,939 Views
21 Pages

17 May 2019

Facilitation by foundation species commonly structures terrestrial and marine communities. Intraspecific variation in individual properties of these strong facilitators can affect the whole suite of the dependent taxa. Marine macroalgae often act as...

  • Article
  • Open Access
16 Citations
6,737 Views
14 Pages

15 May 2019

Timing of nesting affects fitness of oviparous animals living in seasonal environments, and females may cue on environmental factors for their nesting behavior, but these relationships are understudied in tropical turtles. Here, the timing and synchr...

  • Article
  • Open Access
14 Citations
4,659 Views
19 Pages

Impacts of Elevated CO2 Levels on the Soil Bacterial Community in a Natural CO2-Enhanced Oil Recovery Area

  • Jing Ma,
  • Zhanbin Luo,
  • Fu Chen,
  • Run Chen,
  • Qianlin Zhu and
  • Shaoliang Zhang

11 May 2019

Knowledge of the interactions among different microorganisms is important to understand how ecological function transformation is affected by elevated CO2 levels in CO2-enhanced oil recovery (CO2-EOR) sites. Molecular ecological networks were establi...

  • Article
  • Open Access
6 Citations
4,439 Views
11 Pages

Evaluation of Gonadal Tissue to Validate Size at Reproductive Maturity in Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtles Found Stranded in Texas, USA

  • Kathryn Stephenson Craven,
  • Jay York Seabright Hodgson,
  • Donna Jill Shaver,
  • Jennifer Shelby Walker,
  • Martha Ramona Villalba-Guerra and
  • David William Owens

9 May 2019

The Kemp’s ridley, Lepidochelys kempii, is the most endangered sea turtle in the world. Anthropogenic mortality of Kemp’s ridleys has been well documented in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM), USA. We evaluated the reproductive maturity of 75 Kemp...

  • Article
  • Open Access
18 Citations
6,891 Views
13 Pages

Biogeographical Patterns of Endolithic Infestation in an Invasive and an Indigenous Intertidal Marine Ecosystem Engineer

  • Aldwin Ndhlovu,
  • Christopher D. McQuaid,
  • Katy Nicastro,
  • Nathalie Marquet,
  • Marcos Gektidis,
  • Cristián J. Monaco and
  • Gerardo Zardi

7 May 2019

By altering the phenotypic properties of their hosts, endolithic parasites can modulate the engineering processes of marine ecosystem engineers. Here, we assessed the biogeographical patterns of species assemblages, prevalence and impact of endolithi...

  • Article
  • Open Access
27 Citations
5,825 Views
16 Pages

Comparative Analysis of Mollusc Assemblages from Different Hard Bottom Habitats in the Central Tyrrhenian Sea

  • Edoardo Casoli,
  • Andrea Bonifazi,
  • Giandomenico Ardizzone,
  • Maria Flavia Gravina,
  • Giovanni Fulvio Russo,
  • Roberto Sandulli and
  • Luigia Donnarumma

6 May 2019

Composition, trophic structure, and species-substrate relationships of molluscan assemblages inhabiting different hard bottom habitats (Sabellaria alveolata reef, photophilic bottoms, Phyllophora crispa sciaphilic assemblage, and coralligenous biocon...

  • Article
  • Open Access
29 Citations
6,671 Views
15 Pages

Lichen Responses to Disturbance: Clues for Biomonitoring Land-use Effects on Riparian Andean Ecosystems

  • Leiddy Chuquimarca,
  • Fernando P. Gaona,
  • Carlos Iñiguez-Armijos and
  • Ángel Benítez

5 May 2019

The transformation of natural ecosystems due to anthropogenic land use is considered one of the main causes of biodiversity loss. Lichens, due to their poikilohydric nature, are very sensitive to natural and anthropogenic disturbances. Therefore, lic...

  • Article
  • Open Access
20 Citations
6,650 Views
13 Pages

2 May 2019

Turtles are particularly susceptible to the negative impacts of urbanization due to low mobility and a life history strategy emphasizing long generation times and high adult survival. In addition to declines directly through habitat loss, urbanizatio...

  • Article
  • Open Access
13 Citations
6,039 Views
19 Pages

29 April 2019

Land use and landcover change alter the ability of habitat networks to maintain viable species populations. While their effects on the quality, amount and patterns of landcover patches are commonly studied, how they affect ecological processes, such...

  • Article
  • Open Access
11 Citations
4,789 Views
15 Pages

Utility of Condition Indices as Predictors of Lipid Content in Slimy Sculpin (Cottus cognatus)

  • Adrian R. Hards,
  • Michelle A. Gray,
  • Sophia C. Noël and
  • Rick A. Cunjak

29 April 2019

Slimy sculpin (Cottus cognatus) are increasingly being used as indicator species. This has primarily entailed measuring their condition, the assumption being that condition can be used as a surrogate for lipid content. While there is evidence to sugg...

  • Article
  • Open Access
23 Citations
6,199 Views
12 Pages

28 April 2019

Home range (HR) studies are a particularly common approach to investigations of animal habitat use, resource availability, and response to management manipulation such as relocations. Terrapene carolina (Eastern box turtle) and its sister taxon T. or...

  • Article
  • Open Access
23 Citations
7,329 Views
12 Pages

The Polyextreme Ecosystem, Salar de Huasco at the Chilean Altiplano of the Atacama Desert Houses Diverse Streptomyces spp. with Promising Pharmaceutical Potentials

  • Carlos Cortés-Albayay,
  • Johanna Silber,
  • Johannes F. Imhoff,
  • Juan A. Asenjo,
  • Barbara Andrews,
  • Imen Nouioui and
  • Cristina Dorador

28 April 2019

Salar de Huasco at the Chilean Altiplano of the Atacama Desert is considered a polyextreme environment, where solar radiation, salinity and aridity are extremely high and occur simultaneously. In this study, a total of 76 bacterial isolates were disc...

  • Article
  • Open Access
12 Citations
4,759 Views
19 Pages

26 April 2019

Patterns of age and growth of a sedentary damsel fish Acanthochromis polyacanthus were tested over a latitudinal range of approximately 10 degrees (1200 km) on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR), Australia. Within latitudes, these patterns were also compar...

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Diversity - ISSN 1424-2818