Global ecology and biogeography : a journal of macroecology, 2018
The BioTIME database contains raw data on species identities and abundances in ecological assembl... more The BioTIME database contains raw data on species identities and abundances in ecological assemblages through time. These data enable users to calculate temporal trends in biodiversity within and amongst assemblages using a broad range of metrics. BioTIME is being developed as a community-led open-source database of biodiversity time series. Our goal is to accelerate and facilitate quantitative analysis of temporal patterns of biodiversity in the Anthropocene. The database contains 8,777,413 species abundance records, from assemblages consistently sampled for a minimum of 2 years, which need not necessarily be consecutive. In addition, the database contains metadata relating to sampling methodology and contextual information about each record. BioTIME is a global database of 547,161 unique sampling locations spanning the marine, freshwater and terrestrial realms. Grain size varies across datasets from 0.0000000158 km (158 cm) to 100 km (1,000,000,000,000 cm). BioTIME records span fr...
CHAPTER 14 Potential effects of a keystone species on the dynamics of sylvatic plague Chris Ray a... more CHAPTER 14 Potential effects of a keystone species on the dynamics of sylvatic plague Chris Ray and Sharon K. Collinge 14.1 Background Of all zoonoses, plague has the most notorious record of emergence, being responsible for three human pandemics since the fifth ...
CHAPTER 1 Community epidemiology Sharon K. Collinge and Chris Ray 1.1 The raison d'être ... more CHAPTER 1 Community epidemiology Sharon K. Collinge and Chris Ray 1.1 The raison d'être of this book Many infectious diseases of recent concern have emerged from complex ecological communities, involving multiple hosts and associated parasites. Several of these ...
We report 2 cases of Sin Nombre virus (SNV) infection in field workers, possibly contracted throu... more We report 2 cases of Sin Nombre virus (SNV) infection in field workers, possibly contracted through rodent bites. Screening for antibodies to SNV in rodents trapped in 2 seasons showed that 9.77% were seropositive. Quantitative real-time PCR showed that 2 of 79 deer mice had detectable titers of SNV RNA.
Background/Question/Methods Ecological restoration presents unique opportunities to examine facto... more Background/Question/Methods Ecological restoration presents unique opportunities to examine factors that affect the formation, structure and stability of ecological communities. Restoration of natural communities can furnish insights into whether community composition is deterministic, following predictable trajectories; or if it depends significantly on variation in species arrivals that can drive community trajectories in different directions. Our long-term studies of the ecological dynamics of vernal pool plant communities in California focus on: 1) effects of dispersal limitation, order of colonization, and frequency of colonization on plant community composition; 2) invasion of vernal pools by non-native species, and 3) comparison of restored vernal pools to that of naturally-occurring pools. We initiated a field experiment in 1999 by constructing 250 vernal pool basins that received different seeding treatments to assess environmental constraints on plant community formation. ...
Background/Question/Methods California’s vernal pools are ephemeral wetlands that host numerous e... more Background/Question/Methods California’s vernal pools are ephemeral wetlands that host numerous endemic species, many of which are now rare and endangered because of extensive habitat loss from agriculture and development. This high incidence of habitat loss makes the construction of new pools and the restoration of existing pools critical to vernal pool recovery. One little-studied aspect of vernal pool ecology is the role of soil properties in hindering or facilitating restoration success. To gain a better understanding of these properties, we used a long-term vernal pool restoration experiment (Travis Air Force Base Solano Co.) with three functional pool types; 1) constructed for restoration, 2) naturally occurring pools dominated by native species and 3) naturally occurring pools dominated by invasive species. We then collected soil samples in the field, when aboveground biomass was at its peak, from the three different pool types (N=24). To account for both abiotic and biotic s...
Background/Question/Methods Long term dynamics of wetland plant communities are tied to multiple ... more Background/Question/Methods Long term dynamics of wetland plant communities are tied to multiple physical and ecological factors, including hydrological conditions, interspecific interactions, and species dispersal mediated by landscape connectivity. We have studied naturally occurring and restored vernal pools in California to trace the importance of these factors in determining temporal fluctuations in species composition. We initiated a field experiment in 1999 with the construction of 256 vernal pools at a site on Travis Air Force Base, California. Pool size and connectivity were varied to study spatial effects on community development, and seeding treatments were applied to support analyses of dispersal limitation and priority effects in five native species. Through annual sampling, we have followed community development in these constructed pools and in a set of naturally occurring pools within the study site. Because many of the pools declined dramatically in native species a...
Background/Question/Methods The soil seed bank can be a viable metric in understanding the potent... more Background/Question/Methods The soil seed bank can be a viable metric in understanding the potential future of a community as well as its history. Vernal pools, or ephemeral wetlands, are a system that builds up substantial seed banks through their annually dominated communities and highly variable climates. Our primary objectives in this study were to determine seed bank densities within vernal pools and their germination responses to different inundation treatments. We then used these results as a proxy for the potentialof the aboveground community to answer our primary question: Are constructed vernal pools in alternate states compared to naturally occurring pools? To answer this we used a long term vernal pool restoration experiment divided up into three pool types: 1) Constructed for restoration 2) Naturally occurring pools dominated by invasive species, 3) Naturally occurring pools dominated by native species. We then collected soil seed bank samples within each of these pool ...
The role of plant-pollinator interactions in influencing the success of ecological restoration pr... more The role of plant-pollinator interactions in influencing the success of ecological restoration projects is important and often overlooked. In our study, we examined floral visitation in an endangered vernal pool plant species, Contra Costa Goldfields (Lasthenia conjugens; Asteraceae). We observed Goldfields abundance and floral visitation in the early and late stages of an ecological vernal pool restoration project located in the Central Valley of California. After an initially high abundance at our study site in the early stages of restoration, we noted a sharp decline of this endangered species ten years later. Our floral visitor observations demonstrated that the abundance of gnats (Sciaridae) was high in the restored pools across the ten years, but was very low to nonexistent in the nearby naturally occurring pools. Solitary bee abundance was the inverse of that observed for gnats, with a very low instance of solitary bee pollinators in the restored pools, yet a higher abundance...
Global ecology and biogeography : a journal of macroecology, 2018
The BioTIME database contains raw data on species identities and abundances in ecological assembl... more The BioTIME database contains raw data on species identities and abundances in ecological assemblages through time. These data enable users to calculate temporal trends in biodiversity within and amongst assemblages using a broad range of metrics. BioTIME is being developed as a community-led open-source database of biodiversity time series. Our goal is to accelerate and facilitate quantitative analysis of temporal patterns of biodiversity in the Anthropocene. The database contains 8,777,413 species abundance records, from assemblages consistently sampled for a minimum of 2 years, which need not necessarily be consecutive. In addition, the database contains metadata relating to sampling methodology and contextual information about each record. BioTIME is a global database of 547,161 unique sampling locations spanning the marine, freshwater and terrestrial realms. Grain size varies across datasets from 0.0000000158 km (158 cm) to 100 km (1,000,000,000,000 cm). BioTIME records span fr...
CHAPTER 14 Potential effects of a keystone species on the dynamics of sylvatic plague Chris Ray a... more CHAPTER 14 Potential effects of a keystone species on the dynamics of sylvatic plague Chris Ray and Sharon K. Collinge 14.1 Background Of all zoonoses, plague has the most notorious record of emergence, being responsible for three human pandemics since the fifth ...
CHAPTER 1 Community epidemiology Sharon K. Collinge and Chris Ray 1.1 The raison d'être ... more CHAPTER 1 Community epidemiology Sharon K. Collinge and Chris Ray 1.1 The raison d'être of this book Many infectious diseases of recent concern have emerged from complex ecological communities, involving multiple hosts and associated parasites. Several of these ...
We report 2 cases of Sin Nombre virus (SNV) infection in field workers, possibly contracted throu... more We report 2 cases of Sin Nombre virus (SNV) infection in field workers, possibly contracted through rodent bites. Screening for antibodies to SNV in rodents trapped in 2 seasons showed that 9.77% were seropositive. Quantitative real-time PCR showed that 2 of 79 deer mice had detectable titers of SNV RNA.
Background/Question/Methods Ecological restoration presents unique opportunities to examine facto... more Background/Question/Methods Ecological restoration presents unique opportunities to examine factors that affect the formation, structure and stability of ecological communities. Restoration of natural communities can furnish insights into whether community composition is deterministic, following predictable trajectories; or if it depends significantly on variation in species arrivals that can drive community trajectories in different directions. Our long-term studies of the ecological dynamics of vernal pool plant communities in California focus on: 1) effects of dispersal limitation, order of colonization, and frequency of colonization on plant community composition; 2) invasion of vernal pools by non-native species, and 3) comparison of restored vernal pools to that of naturally-occurring pools. We initiated a field experiment in 1999 by constructing 250 vernal pool basins that received different seeding treatments to assess environmental constraints on plant community formation. ...
Background/Question/Methods California’s vernal pools are ephemeral wetlands that host numerous e... more Background/Question/Methods California’s vernal pools are ephemeral wetlands that host numerous endemic species, many of which are now rare and endangered because of extensive habitat loss from agriculture and development. This high incidence of habitat loss makes the construction of new pools and the restoration of existing pools critical to vernal pool recovery. One little-studied aspect of vernal pool ecology is the role of soil properties in hindering or facilitating restoration success. To gain a better understanding of these properties, we used a long-term vernal pool restoration experiment (Travis Air Force Base Solano Co.) with three functional pool types; 1) constructed for restoration, 2) naturally occurring pools dominated by native species and 3) naturally occurring pools dominated by invasive species. We then collected soil samples in the field, when aboveground biomass was at its peak, from the three different pool types (N=24). To account for both abiotic and biotic s...
Background/Question/Methods Long term dynamics of wetland plant communities are tied to multiple ... more Background/Question/Methods Long term dynamics of wetland plant communities are tied to multiple physical and ecological factors, including hydrological conditions, interspecific interactions, and species dispersal mediated by landscape connectivity. We have studied naturally occurring and restored vernal pools in California to trace the importance of these factors in determining temporal fluctuations in species composition. We initiated a field experiment in 1999 with the construction of 256 vernal pools at a site on Travis Air Force Base, California. Pool size and connectivity were varied to study spatial effects on community development, and seeding treatments were applied to support analyses of dispersal limitation and priority effects in five native species. Through annual sampling, we have followed community development in these constructed pools and in a set of naturally occurring pools within the study site. Because many of the pools declined dramatically in native species a...
Background/Question/Methods The soil seed bank can be a viable metric in understanding the potent... more Background/Question/Methods The soil seed bank can be a viable metric in understanding the potential future of a community as well as its history. Vernal pools, or ephemeral wetlands, are a system that builds up substantial seed banks through their annually dominated communities and highly variable climates. Our primary objectives in this study were to determine seed bank densities within vernal pools and their germination responses to different inundation treatments. We then used these results as a proxy for the potentialof the aboveground community to answer our primary question: Are constructed vernal pools in alternate states compared to naturally occurring pools? To answer this we used a long term vernal pool restoration experiment divided up into three pool types: 1) Constructed for restoration 2) Naturally occurring pools dominated by invasive species, 3) Naturally occurring pools dominated by native species. We then collected soil seed bank samples within each of these pool ...
The role of plant-pollinator interactions in influencing the success of ecological restoration pr... more The role of plant-pollinator interactions in influencing the success of ecological restoration projects is important and often overlooked. In our study, we examined floral visitation in an endangered vernal pool plant species, Contra Costa Goldfields (Lasthenia conjugens; Asteraceae). We observed Goldfields abundance and floral visitation in the early and late stages of an ecological vernal pool restoration project located in the Central Valley of California. After an initially high abundance at our study site in the early stages of restoration, we noted a sharp decline of this endangered species ten years later. Our floral visitor observations demonstrated that the abundance of gnats (Sciaridae) was high in the restored pools across the ten years, but was very low to nonexistent in the nearby naturally occurring pools. Solitary bee abundance was the inverse of that observed for gnats, with a very low instance of solitary bee pollinators in the restored pools, yet a higher abundance...
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