Publications
Below are publications associated with the Southwest Biological Science Center's research.
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Filter Total Items: 1519
Altered climate leads to positive density‐dependent feedbacks in a tropical wet forest Altered climate leads to positive density‐dependent feedbacks in a tropical wet forest
Climate change is predicted to result in warmer and drier Neotropical forests relative to current conditions. Negative density‐dependent feedbacks, mediated by natural enemies, are key to maintaining the high diversity of tree species found in the tropics, yet we have little understanding of how projected changes in climate are likely to affect these critical controls. Over 3 years, we...
Authors
Armando Barreto-Muñoz, Aura M. Alonso-Rodriguez, Laura Aldrich-Wolfe, Molly A. Cavaleri, Sasha C. Reed, Tana E. Wood
Soil water availability shapes species richness in mid-latitude shrub steppe plant communities Soil water availability shapes species richness in mid-latitude shrub steppe plant communities
Questions Ecological communities are controlled by multiple, interacting abiotic and biotic factors that influence the distribution, abundance, and diversity of species. These processes jointly determine resource availability, resource competition, and ultimately species richness. For many terrestrial ecosystems in dryland climates, soil water availability is the most frequent limiting...
Authors
Samuel E. Jordan, Kyle A. Palmquist, John B. Bradford, William K. Lauenroth
Soil biogeochemical responses of a tropical forest to warming and hurricane disturbance Soil biogeochemical responses of a tropical forest to warming and hurricane disturbance
Tropical forests represent 50% of the planets species and play a disproportionately large role in determining climate due to the vast amounts of carbon they store and exchange with the atmosphere. Currently, disturbance patterns in tropical ecosystems are changing due to factors such as increased land use pressure and an occurrence of hurricanes. At the same time, these regions are...
Authors
Sasha C. Reed, Robin H. Reibold, Molly A. Cavaleri, Aura M. Alonso-Rodriguez, Megan E. Berberich, Tana E. Wood
A primer of fishery studies in Grand Canyon: The nonnative fish removal story A primer of fishery studies in Grand Canyon: The nonnative fish removal story
Globally, rivers have become the most altered of ecosystems, chiefly due to pollution, water withdrawals, and dams that have modified their former function, and led to large and unforeseen impacts, particularly for fish populations. Extensive research is directed at studying impacts of dams because they sever migration routes and change the physical template (flow, temperature, and...
Authors
Michael D. Yard
The right trait in the right place at the right time: Matching traits to environment improves restoration outcomes The right trait in the right place at the right time: Matching traits to environment improves restoration outcomes
(Munson) The challenges of restoration in dryland ecosystems are growing due to a rise in anthropogenic disturbance and increasing aridity. Plant functional traits are often used to predict plant performance and can offer a window into the potential outcomes of restoration efforts across environmental gradients. We tracked 15 years of seeding outcomes across 150 sites on the Colorado...
Authors
Kathleen R. Balazs, Andrea T. Kramer, Seth M. Munson, Nora Talkington, Shannon Still, Bradley J. Butterfield
A need for speed in Bayesian population models: A practical guide to marginalizing and recovering discrete latent states A need for speed in Bayesian population models: A practical guide to marginalizing and recovering discrete latent states
Bayesian population models can be exceedingly slow due, in part, to the choice to simulate discrete latent states. Here, we discuss an alternative approach to discrete latent states, marginalization, that forms the basis of maximum likelihood population models and is much faster. Our manuscript has two goals: 1) to introduce readers unfamiliar with marginalization to the concept and...
Authors
Charles B. Yackulic, Michael J. Dodrill, Maria C. Dzul, Jamie S. Sanderlin, Janice A. Reid
Co-producing knowledge: The Integrated Ecosystem Model for resource management in Arctic Alaska Co-producing knowledge: The Integrated Ecosystem Model for resource management in Arctic Alaska
Assessments of climate-change effects on ecosystem processes and services in high-latitude regions are hindered by a lack of decision-support tools capable of forecasting possible future landscapes. We describe a collaborative effort to develop and apply the Integrated Ecosystem Model (IEM) for Alaska and northwestern Canada to explore how climate change influences interactions among...
Authors
Eugenie S. Euskirchen, Kristin Timm, Amy L. Breen, Stephen T. Gray, T. Scott Rupp, Philip Martin, Joel H. Reynolds, Amanda Sesser, Karen Murphy, Jeremy S. Littell, Alec Bennett, W. Robert Bolton, Tobey Carman, Helene Genet, Brad Griffith, Tom Kurkowski, Mark J. Lara, Sergei Marchenko, Dmitry Nicolsky, Panda Santosh, Vladimir Romanovsky, Ruth Rutter, Colin Tucker, A. David McGuire
Practices of biological soil crust rehabilitation in China: Experiences and challenges Practices of biological soil crust rehabilitation in China: Experiences and challenges
Biological soil crusts (biocrusts) are a central component of dryland ecosystems. However, they are highly vulnerable to disturbance and natural recovery may be slow. Therefore, finding ways to enhance the reestablishment of biocrusts after disturbance has been of great interest to researchers. This article provides a review of the laboratory cultivation and field inoculations of...
Authors
Xiaobing Zhou, Yunge Zhao, Jayne Belnap, Bingchang Zhang, Chongfeng Bu, Yuanming Zhang
Assessment of population genetics and climatic variability can refine climate‐informed seed transfer guidelines Assessment of population genetics and climatic variability can refine climate‐informed seed transfer guidelines
Restoration guidelines increasingly recognize the importance of genetic attributes in translocating native plant materials (NPMs). However, when species‐specific genetic information is unavailable, seed transfer guidelines use climate‐informed seed transfer zones (CSTZs) as an approximation. While CSTZs may improve how NPMs are developed and/or matched to restoration sites, they overlook...
Authors
Robert Massatti, Robert K. Shriver, Daniel E. Winkler, Bryce A. Richardson, John B. Bradford
Bridging the research-management gap: Landscape ecology in practice on public lands in the western United States Bridging the research-management gap: Landscape ecology in practice on public lands in the western United States
The field of landscape ecology has grown and matured in recent decades, but incorporating landscape science into land management decisions remains challenging. Many lands in the western United States are federally owned and managed for multiple uses, including recreation, conservation, and energy development. We argue for stronger integration of landscape science into the management of...
Authors
Sarah K. Carter, David S. Pilliod, Travis S. Haby, Karen L. Prentice, Cameron L. Aldridge, Patrick J. Anderson, Zachary H. Bowen, John B. Bradford, Samuel A. Cushman, Joseph C. DeVivo, Michael C. Duniway, Ryan S. Hathaway, Lisa Nelson, Courtney A. Schultz, Rudy Schuster, E. Jamie Trammell, Jake Weltzin
What's in the hump of the humpback chub? What's in the hump of the humpback chub?
The function of the nuchal hump on adult humpback chub (Gila cypha) has been the subject of longtime conjecture. Hypotheses about the purpose of the hump range from it being a feature that confers hydrodynamic advantages in swift water to speculation about how the hump may have reduced predation vulnerability to Colorado pikeminnows (Ptychocheilus lucius). We used comparative histology...
Authors
David Ward, Michael B. Ward
Multiple elements of soil biodiversity drive ecosystem functions across biomes Multiple elements of soil biodiversity drive ecosystem functions across biomes
The role of soil biodiversity in regulating multiple ecosystem functions is poorly understood, limiting our ability to predict how soil biodiversity loss might affect human wellbeing and ecosystem sustainability. Here, combining a global observational study with an experimental microcosm study, we provide evidence that soil biodiversity (bacteria, fungi, protists and invertebrates) is
Authors
Manuel Delgado-Baquerizo, Peter B. Reich, Mandar Trivedi, David J. Eldridge, Sebastian Abades, Fernando D. Alfaro, Felipe Bastida, Asmeret A. Berhe, Nick A. Cutler, Antonio Gallardo, Laura Garcia-Velazquez, Stephen C. Hart, Patrick E. Hayes, Ji-Zheng He, Zeng-Yei Hseu, Hang-Wei Hu, Martin Kirchmair, Sigrid Neuhauser, Cecilia A. Perez, Sasha C. Reed, Fernanda Santos, Benjamin W. Sullivan, Pankaj Trivedi, Jun-Tao Wang, Luis Weber-Grullon, Mark Williams, Brajesh K. Singh