Citizen Science and Biodiversity: Thoughts From a Meeting With the European Citizen Science Association
Image Credit: NPS Photo, CC BY-SA 2.0, Image Cropped
Tag Archives: community
Brexit and Ecology
Image Credit: Max Pixel, CC0 1.0, Image Cropped
The last three years have seen some serious political upheaval in the European region, Brexit being perhaps the pinnacle of that. It’s an issue on which everyone has an opinion and which no one seems to have any answers to. So I thought that this week I’d try to put together a synthesis of sorts on how Brexit will possibly affect the ecological science community. Below are a series of links to articles that describe the affect of Brexit on, and responses by, the ecological community.
Mapping Species Distribution with Citizen Science
Community, or citizen, science is a huge, often untapped data source for ecologists. So what are the pitfalls of using it? (Image Credit: Jacob W. Frank, NPS, Public Domain Mark 1.0, Image Cropped)
Occupancy models for citizen-science data (2018) Altwegg & Nichols, Advances in Modelling Demographic Processes, 10, p. 8-21
The Crux
Species distributions maps are great. I remember rifling through animal encyclopedias as a kid, checking out the distributions of my favourite animals, just assuming that people knew exactly where to find all these organisms. But the reality is that figuring out exactly where species live is extremely difficult.
It’s made easier, however, by the use of citizen (or community) science. This occurs when volunteers involve themselves in projects in which they observe and report the presence or absence of a species in a given area, which is then used to determine a species’ distribution. This data is obviously incredibly useful to any ecologist, but it comes with some drawbacks. This paper attempts to summarise those drawbacks and outline ways to work around them.
The Root of Disease
Fields full of herbaceous plants such as these can be incredibly diverse and complicated ecosystems, and the multitudes of species that inhabit them can influence the magnitude of disease that the organisms that inhabit it may encounter (Image Credit: LudwigSebastianMicheler, CC BY-SA 4.0, Image Cropped)
Past is prologue: host community assembly and the risk of infectious disease over time (2018) Halliday, F.W. et al., Ecology Letters, 22, https://dx.doi/10.1111/ele.13176
The Crux
Everything in ecology is based around the environment that a focal organism inhabits, including the interactions it has with other organisms and the non-living aspects of the habitat itself (temperature, water pH, etc.). That being said, it’s no surprise that disease dynamics are likely to depend on the environment that a host inhabits, and that the environment itself is a product of what came before. That is to say, the group of organisms that originally populate a given ecosystem can have an effect on how that ecosystem will look in the future (lakes with freshwater mussels will have clearer water than those without).
The scientific literature is full of experiments, observations, and hypotheses about which environmental conditions lead to fluctuations in disease dynamics. As such, it is difficult to come to a consensus with a “one-size-fits-all” rule for disease dynamics and community structure. The authors of today’s study used a long-term experiment to determine what exactly moderates disease over time. Read more
Celine Frere: Working With Charismatic Species
Charismatic species like the bottlenose dolphin are generally easier to find funding for. So what’s it like to work with them as a scientist. I spoke to evolutionary biologist Celine Frere to find out (Image Credit: Jason Pratt, CC BY 2.0, Image Cropped)
We’ve talked at length about charismatic species on Ecology for the Masses. They’re the ones that draw in the public, whether they’re cute and fluffy, majestic, or dangerous. They’re generally easier to procure funding for. So what’s it like to work with them?
During a recent visit to the University of the Sunshine Coast, I sat down with Doctor Celine Frere to find out. Celine works with two of Australia’s most charismatic species, the koala and the bottlenose dolphin. We talked about the pros and cons of charismatic species, getting the public interested in them, and the future of global conservation.
Shannon McCauley: The Rise of Community Ecology
Image Credit: Shannon McCauley, CC BY-SA 2.0, Image Cropped
Community ecology is one of the more recent ecological disciplines, and has enjoyed a rise in popularity in the last decade. Yet it’s often been criticised as a little obscure, and has had difficulties integrating with other branches of ecology like evolution and population dynamics.
With this in mind, I sat down with Doctor Shannon McCauley of the University of Toronto during her recent visit to the University of Arkansas. Shannon is a community ecologist at the University of Toronto-Mississauga who uses dragonflies and other aquatic insects to answer questions about dispersal, community connectivity, and the effects of climate change. We attempted to put a little more context behind community ecology, and highlighted its relevance in the coming years.
Species Associations in a Changing World
Species associations will change as the climate rises. So how can we attempt to predict these changes (Image Credit: Charles J Sharp, CC BY-SA 4.0, Image Cropped)
Using joint species distribution models for evaluating how species-to-species associations depend on the environmental context (2017) Tikhonov et al, Methods in Ecology and Evolution, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-210X.12723
The Crux
Statistical modelling is a crucial part of ecology. Being able to provide an (admittedly simplified) mathematical description of the relationship between species abundance, range or density and the surrounding environment is a huge help in taking proactive steps to manage an ecosystem, or predicting species numbers in other areas.
Historically models have used environmental variables to explain population or evolutionary developments in species. When modelling a single species, many ecologists have taken into account that the presence of other species (for example competitors or predators) may influence the presence of this single species. This has led to the rise of joint species distribution models (JSDMs), which take into account environmental variables, as well as the interactions between certain species. These models have become increasingly useful, and with environmental change now being the norm in many ecosystems, this week’s authors produced one such model that accounts for changes in species interactions in the face of changing environmental factors.
Matt von Konrat: Harnessing Community Science
Image Credit: Matt von Konrat, Chicago Field Museum, CC BY-SA 2.0, Image Cropped
Ecology for the Masses 