Research news from the Ecological Society of America’s journals

Ecological Society of America

 

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A new study in Ecosphere suggests that marine animals called zoanthids, seen here blanketing dead coral, can deter reef-eroding urchins (visible at lower right).

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Credit: Patrick Saldaña

The Ecological Society of America (ESA) presents a roundup of four research articles recently published across its esteemed journals. Widely recognized for fostering innovation and advancing ecological knowledge, ESA’s journals consistently feature illuminating and impactful studies. This compilation of papers explores the unique bai ecosystems of central Africa, a potential strategy for managing forests in a more flammable world, the protection of dead corals by secondary reef colonizers and a new approach to examining cause-and-effect relationships in ecology.

 

From Ecology:

Building a baseline for Africa’s bai ecosystems
Author contact: Evan G. Hockridge (evanhockridge@g.harvard.edu)  

Clearings known as “bais” dot the enormous expanse of rainforest extending across central Africa. Although they offer critical habitat for forest elephants, lowland gorillas and a host of other iconic African species, little is known about these canopy gaps. Remote sensing, field surveys and camera traps enabled researchers to document the distribution, abundance and physical properties of these ecosystems in the Congolese Odzala-Kokoua National Park, as well as the plants and animals that frequent them. While more numerous than expected, bais were also generally found to be small, highly clustered and restricted to low-lying areas, thus constituting a rare and unusual forest habitat. Moreover, two different types were identified based on distinguishing features like distinctive soil properties and ecological communities. Given their importance to the biodiversity of the dense forests of Central Africa, these unique ecosystems should be considered areas of high conservation priority, contend the authors.

Read the article: Spatial ecology, biodiversity, and abiotic determinants of Congo’s bai ecosystem

 

From Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment:

Defueling forests may help mitigate future fire
Author contact: Matthew D. Hurteau (mhurteau@unm.edu)  

More frequent applications of prescribed burns could help reduce the growing threat of fire for conifer forests in the western U.S. under a warmer and dryer climate, propose the authors of this study. A legacy of fire exclusion has left many western forests with denser stands than would have occurred historically. Moreover, climate change, pests and pathogens are killing trees in huge numbers, resulting in forests with increasing numbers of dead and stressed trees — woody material that can fuel intense wildfires. Analysis of data collected from prescribed burns in California’s Teakettle Experimental Forest following a 4-year drought suggested that boosting burn rates might help to alleviate the increasing flammability of forests by reducing the volume of accumulated dead fuels. The authors note that prescribed burns are not a silver bullet for forest managers, who will face additional challenges as the climate continues to warm. But the approach has global relevance for the management of forests experiencing similar changes in environmental conditions.

Read the article: Managing fire-prone forests in a time of decreasing carbon carrying capacity

 

From Ecosphere:

Living zoanthid blankets protect dead corals
Author contact: Patrick H. Saldaña (psaldana@ufl.edu)

Dead corals may not be as extravagantly vibrant as live corals, but these ghostly structures still benefit tropical reef inhabitants by serving as physical habitat for other organisms. Yet dead reefs are at greater risk of damage by grazers, including booming populations of urchins. Experiments conducted on reefs off Panama’s Caribbean coast suggested that mats of a species of zoanthid — relatives of sea anemones — can form a protective coating over dead reefs, shielding them from further urchin-induced ruin. Moreover, so effective are these zoanthids “carpets” at deterring urchins that erosion of dead reefs was reduced by up to 50% over a 2-year period in areas where they occurred. The results of their experiments lead the authors to conclude that, by helping to preserve the physical integrity of dead coral structures, coral-associated colonizers like zoanthids may play critical yet largely unrecognized roles in coral reef renewal and recovery.    

Read the article: Friend of the dead: Zoanthids enhance the persistence of dead coral reef framework under high consumer pressure

 

From Ecological Monographs:

A new framework for investigating cause-and-effect in ecological systems
Author contact: James B. Grace (gracej@usgs.gov)

Correlation does not imply causation, as the saying goes, and this is a particular problem in ecology. In many scientific disciplines, cause-and-effect is explored experimentally — alter a variable and see what happens. But when it comes to answering some ecological questions, such as temperature’s role in shaping a plant’s distribution across a continent, controlled manipulations can be impractical or even impossible. In these cases, ecologists often rely on data collected through observation. As the author of this study notes, however, conventional analytical methods are relatively ineffective in teasing out causality from observational data. To address this shortcoming, a novel framework is introduced that rigorously incorporates mechanistic understanding — for instance, the intensity of cold snaps and how much a hard freeze damages a tree’s leaves — to determine causality. The author proposes that adopting a multi-pronged approach to investigating cause-and-effect relationships will greatly enhance understanding of how ecological systems work.

Read the article: An integrative paradigm for building causal knowledge

 

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The Ecological Society of America, founded in 1915, is the world’s largest community of professional ecologists and a trusted source of ecological knowledge, committed to advancing the understanding of life on Earth. The 8,000 member Society publishes seven journals including a membership bulletin and broadly shares ecological information through policy, media outreach and education initiatives. Visit the ESA website at https://www.esa.org

 

The Society’s Annual Meeting attracts 4,000 attendees and features the most recent advances in ecological science. The program and recorded content from last month’s 2024 Meeting in Long Beach, California are available for viewing until summer 2025; members of the press and institutional press officers are invited to contact Public Affairs Manager Mayda Nathan mayda@esa.org for free access.

 

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