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Article Reference Body-size shifts in aquatic and terrestrial urban communities
Body size is intrinsically linked to metabolic rate and life-history traits, and is a crucial determinant of food webs and community dynamics1,2. The increased temperatures associated with the urban-heat-island effect result in increased metabolic costs and are expected to drive shifts to smaller body sizes3. Urban environments are, however, also characterized by substantial habitat fragmentation4, which favours mobile species. Here, using a replicated, spatially nested sampling design across ten animal taxonomic groups, we show that urban communities generally consist of smaller species. In addition, although we show urban warming for three habitat types and associated reduced community-weighted mean body sizes for four taxa, three taxa display a shift to larger species along the urbanization gradients. Our results show that the general trend towards smaller-sized species is overruled by filtering for larger species when there is positive covariation between size and dispersal, a process that can mitigate the low connectivity of ecological resources in urban settings5. We thus demonstrate that the urban-heat-island effect and urban habitat fragmentation are associated with contrasting community-level shifts in body size that critically depend on the association between body size and dispersal. Because body size determines the structure and dynamics of ecological networks1, such shifts may affect urban ecosystem function.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2018
Article Reference Constraints on the functional trait space of aquatic invertebrates in bromeliads
Functional traits are commonly used in predictive models that link environmental drivers and community structure to ecosystem functioning. A prerequisite is to identify robust sets of continuous axes of trait variation, and to understand the ecological and evolutionary constraints that result in the functional trait space occupied by interacting species. Despite their diversity and role in ecosystem functioning, little is known of the constraints on the functional trait space of invertebrate biotas of entire biogeographic regions. We examined the ecological strategies and constraints underlying the realized trait space of aquatic invertebrates, using data on 12 functional traits of 852 taxa collected in tank bromeliads from Mexico to Argentina. Principal Component Analysis was used to reduce trait dimensionality to significant axes of trait variation, and the proportion of potential trait space that is actually occupied by all taxa was compared to null model expectations. Permutational Analyses of Variance were used to test whether trait combinations were clade‐dependent. The major axes of trait variation represented life‐history strategies optimizing resource use and antipredator adaptations. There was evidence for trophic, habitat, defence and life‐history niche axes. Bromeliad invertebrates only occupied 16%–23% of the potential space within these dimensions, due to greater concentrations than predicted under uniform or normal distributions. Thus, despite high taxonomic diversity, invertebrates only utilized a small number of successful ecological strategies. Empty areas in trait space represented gaps between major phyla that arose from biological innovations, and trait combinations that are unviable in the bromeliad ecosystem. Only a few phylogenetically distant genera were neighbouring in trait space. Trait combinations aggregated taxa by family and then by order, suggesting that niche conservatism was a widespread mechanism in the diversification of ecological strategies.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2018
Article Reference Toward a Harmonization for Using in situ Nutrient Sensors in the Marine Environment
Improved comparability of nutrient concentrations in seawater is required to enhance the quality and utility of measurements reported to global databases. Significant progress has been made over recent decades in improving the analysis and data quality for traditional laboratory measurements of nutrients. Similar efforts are required to establish high-quality data outputs from in situ nutrient sensors, which are rapidly becoming integral components of ocean observing systems. This paper suggests using the good practices routine established for laboratory reference methods to propose a harmonized set of deployment protocols and of quality control procedures for nutrient measurements obtained from in situ sensors. These procedures are intended to establish a framework to standardize the technical and analytical controls carried out on the three main types of in situ nutrient sensors currently available (wet chemical analyzers, ultraviolet optical sensors, electrochemical sensors) for their deployments on all kinds of platform. The routine reference controls that can be applied to the sensors are listed for each step of sensor use: initial qualification under controlled conditions in the laboratory, preparation of the sensor before deployment, field deployment and finally the sensor recovery. The fundamental principles applied to the laboratory reference method are then reviewed in terms of the calibration protocol, instrumental interferences, environmental interferences, external controls, and method performance assessment. Data corrections (linearity, sensitivity, drifts, interferences and outliers) are finally identified along with the concepts and calculations for qualification for both real time and time delayed data. This paper emphasizes the necessity of future collaborations between research groups, reference-accredited laboratories, and technology developers, to maintain comparability of the concentrations reported for the various nutrient parameters measured by in situ sensors.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2020
Article Reference État de l’invasion de Trichoferus campestris (Faldermann, 1835) au plan international et réflexion sur sa première interception en Belgique
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2022 OA
Article Reference The initial response of females towards congeneric males matches the propensity to hybridise in Ophthalmotilapia
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2022 OA
Article Reference Further notes on H. cinerea (Born, 1778) and H. stylata (Hinds, 1844) (Conoidea: Terebridae), with the description of a new species from the Dominican Republic
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2022 OA
Article Reference Notes on some Japanese and East China Sea Duplicaria (Gastropoda: Conoidea) with the description of a new species
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2022
Article Reference Notes on Terebridae Part I, with the description of two new species
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2022
Article Reference 'Cleaning the Egyptian sphinx with a toothbrush': one of the largest Neoterebra (Gastropoda: Conoidea) from the Caribbean Sea needs a name
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2022
Article Reference Hastula strigilata revisited: Part II. Tropical Indo-Pacific, first preliminary results, evaluation of types and synonymy, with the description of nine new species (Gastropoda: Conoidea: Terebridae)
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2022