Charting the Spread of Disease Ecology
Image Credit: Davian Ho, Maya Peters Kostman, and Philippa Steinberg for the Innovative Genomics Institute, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, Image Cropped
Farewell to the Stats Corner
Image Credit: angela n., CC BY 2.0, Image Cropped
The time has come for the Stats Corner to wrap up as Ecology for the Masses closes. I want to thank Sam Perrin for bringing me on board, carving out a place for statistics on the site, and supporting my writing for the past two years. He was always generous with his time helping me brainstorm topics when I was out of ideas and providing helpful feedback to make the posts more engaging and accessible. We all have Sam to thank for the fun pictures that kick off each post as well. 🙂
Read moreMedia Misconduct, Public Paranoia, and the Vanishing of the Adder
Image Credit: Thomas Brown, CC BY 2.0, Image Cropped
A couple of months ago, on a drive into town, my mum and I were listening to the radio. A particular segment, on adders in the UK, caught my attention. The guest, one Nicholas Milton, author of “The Secret Life of the Adder: The Vanishing Viper”, spoke passionately and informatively about the plight of the adder in Britain. He specifically noted how negative public perception of the UK’s only native venomous snake, egged on by media sensationalism and fearmongering, played into the difficulties in protecting and campaigning for the adder.
Read moreSpooky Scary Wildlife Diseases
When you think about contagious diseases, the image that’s conjured is probably not a romantic one. Spanish flu, polio, the Black Death – while they’ve all shaped our history, they’re not exactly prime fodder for light-hearted musicals or sitcoms. And while many of these diseases we’ve successfully conquered as a society, we still see many diseases that do not have a cure yet.
Read moreGiant Invertebrates: Scientists Deadliest Accidents or Competitive Superiority Through Evolution?
Image credit: Movie poster advertisement for Tarantula (1955), Public Domain, Image Cropped
In the mid twentieth century, movies like ‘Tarantula’ and ‘Them!’ set the scene for what life would be like if giant bugs existed. Scenes filled with nightmares arisen from experiments gone wrong, children-stealing ants, great taglines like “Science’s Deadliest Accident”, and some unbelievably outdated special effects.
Luckily, giant bugs don’t exist… Anymore.
Read moreCan Newly Arrived Lizards Survive Housewarming Party In The Form Of A Massive Drought?
Climate anomalies and competition reduce establishment success during island colonization (2022) Nicholson et al., Ecology and Evolution, https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.9402
The Crux
The colonisation of islands by species on the move has given rise to some of the most fascinating ecosystems around the world. Think the marsupials of Australia, Papua New Guinea’s Birds of paradise, or the multitudes of weird and wonderful creatures that pop up in tiny unexpected landmasses around the globe. On the flipside, invasive species arriving on islands can hit like veritable hurricanes, with similar (though admittedly slightly slower-moving) effects. Yet for these phenomena to take place, a species first has to make it to an island from the mainland. This isn’t always super easy, seeing as islands may be tiny and hard to find, or way out in the middle of nowhere.
But even if they do arrive, whether or not a species is able to persist depends a lot on circumstance. If a large storm or drought hits (increasingly likely with climate change upping the frequency of extreme weather events) just after a species arrives on an island, it might wipe them out before they’ve even gotten started. A competitor already having set up shop there could decrease a species’ survival chances too. Today’s authors were lucky enough to have introduced a new species to a series of islands with and without competitors, all of which were hit by a drought just after one of the introductions. Let’s see how the populations fared.
Read moreRay-dar
I don’t know about y’all but underwater sound communication from mere fish was not something I would’ve thought is a thing. Sure, we have some species (such as dolphins or whales) that use echolocation, or sharks that use their tingly shark-y senses to navigate their underwater world, but it turns out stingrays are out there making actual sounds! Goofy cute stingrays having gossip circles – what’s not to love??
Read more: Evidence of sound production in wild stingrays
Stingrays (much like their close cousins sharks) are known to respond to sounds in their environment, such as by moving away from a potential foe or moving towards struggling prey. But there has been no evidence that they actively produce sound in the wild – until now. To be clear, this isn’t just sounds associated with tummy rumbles or eating noises but seem to be intentional noises in the form of clicks. Although it isn’t super clear (yet) what the stingrays are communication it might be related to alerting their buddies of potential threats lurking about.
This of course begs the bigger question: what does the stingray say?
*Okay having just written this I realise this is complete whale (and the other 990 species of bony fish) erasure but like still!
Tanya Strydom is a PhD candidate at the Université de Montréal, mostly focusing on how we can use machine learning and artificial intelligence in ecology. Current research interests include (but are not limited to) predicting ecological networks, the role species traits and scale in ecological networks, general computer (and maths) geekiness, and a (seemingly) ever growing list of side projects. Tweets (sometimes related to actual science) can be found @TanyaS_08.
The Water of Life
Image credit: Muséum de Toulouse, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Top-down response to spatial variation in productivity and bottom-up response to temporal variation in productivity in a long-term study of desert ants (2022) Gibb et al., Biology Letters, https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2022.0314
The Crux
Ecosystem productivity can tell us a lot about how an ecosystem functions. The more productive an ecosystem is, the more life it can support. But productivity doesn’t just affect the diversity or number of species within an ecosystem, it affects how those species interact, from the large carnivores you find at the upper levels, to the plants and bacteria down the ‘bottom’.
Within ecosystems, the strength of a top-down process (something influencing those upper levels) vs. a bottom-up process (something influencing the lower levels) depends on how much primary productivity there is. Primary production occurs when a species makes its own energy instead of eating something else, and when there is a lot of it going around, it often allows the carnivores at the upper trophic levels to suppress the population numbers of herbivores. That means that while a bottom-up process may end up affecting the herbivores, a top-down process (like the hunting of carnivores) might impact the entire ecosystem.
On the other side of the spectrum, when there is little primary productivity, there aren’t usually as many carnivores suppressing the herbivore populations. A bottom-up process will increase herbivore numbers, making these bottom-up processes more important in these low-productivity systems. This is known as the Exploitation Ecosystem Hypothesis (EEH).
Read moreBy The Bower of Greyskull
Turns out humans aren’t the only species that like to express their individual tastes and styles. Bowerbirds are well known for their extravagant nest building and decorating techniques used to find a potential mate. They go to extreme lengths to decorate their bowers (the characteristic stick-built structures) with brightly coloured ornaments or, as shown by twitter user @dnatimelord below, they can deviate from the script and go a bit more gothic with a collection of bones. Just in time for spooky season!
This design decision might be a reflection of what type of décor the local singles prefer and different regions will have different decorating styles – even for the same species. This is similar to another comic where we looked at how whale song choice varies across regions. Although instead of the Billboard Top 100 its more like a décor’s A-list!
Tanya Strydom is a PhD candidate at the Université de Montréal, mostly focusing on how we can use machine learning and artificial intelligence in ecology. Current research interests include (but are not limited to) predicting ecological networks, the role species traits and scale in ecological networks, general computer (and maths) geekiness, and a (seemingly) ever growing list of side projects. Tweets (sometimes related to actual science) can be found @TanyaS_08.
Invasive Snails and Their Hippo Victims
Image credit: Muhammad Mahdi Karim, CC BY-SA 4.0, Image Cropped
Invasive snails, parasite spillback, and potential parasite spillover drive parasitic diseases of Hippopotamus amphibius in artificial lakes of Zimbabwe (2021) Schols et al., BMC Biology, https://doi.org/10.1186/s12915-021-01093-2
The Crux
Artificial lakes can be a huge plus for the regions where they are constructed. People come to hang out at them, they can serve as habitat for local or migrating species, and they can also improve water accessibility. In fact, the majority of the research that I did for my PhD took place in artificial, human-made lakes (see here and here). Yet, these artificial lakes can also wreak havoc by destroying local ecosystems and introducing invasive species. Furthermore, because humans build communities around these lakes there is a risk of increased transmission of parasites to livestock and humans alike.
One group of common invasive species in these artificial lakes are snails, which serve as intermediate hosts for many parasites (see Did You Know?). Introduced water plants (like hyacinth) often harbor invasive species like the snails, and dams built to make artificial lakes often block snail predators from accessing the lakes, which means that the snails increase in number due to the release from predation pressure. Today’s authors wanted to understand how invasive snails modified parasite transmission within an artificial lake.
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Ecology for the Masses 
