Search results for "Trait"
showing 10 items of 1361 documents
Determination of fatty acids content, global antioxidant activity and energy value of weed seeds from agricultural fields in France.
2016
18 pages; International audience; The ecological consequences of seed size variation have been studied extensively in plants. Curiously, little attention has been paid to the qualitative and quantitative variation of the seed-stored molecules and on their ecological significance. Here, we analysed the oil content and oil composition of ca. 200 weed seed species from agricultural fields in France based on single seed accessions, concentrating on interspecies differences and ignoring within-species variation. The relationships between seed weight, oil %, fatty acids (FAs) and the energetic value of the seed and its antioxidant properties were also investigated. The antioxidant activity could …
Intraspecific social information use in the selection of nest site characteristics
2012
Animals commonly acquire information about the environment by monitoring how others interact with it. The importance of social information use probably varies among species. In particular, many migratory birds breeding in northern latitudes rely on social information provided by resident tits when making important decisions and are able to copy or reject selectively the decisions of tits exhibiting good or bad fitness correlates, respectively. However, little is known about the role of social information use among resident tits. In a field experiment we tested whether great tits, Parus major, given a choice between two novel alternative features on adjacent nest sites, copy or reject conspe…
Length of activity season drives geographic variation in body size of a widely distributed lizard
2013
Understanding the factors that drive geographic variation in life history is an important challenge in evolutionary ecology. Here, we analyze what predicts geographic variation in life-history traits of the common lizard, Zootoca vivipara, which has the globally largest distribution range of all terrestrial reptile species. Variation in body size was predicted by differences in the length of activity season, while we found no effects of environmental temperature per se. Females experiencing relatively short activity season mature at a larger size and remain larger on average than females in populations with relatively long activity seasons. Interpopulation variation in fecundity was largely…
Traits mediate niches and co‐occurrences of forest beetles in ways that differ among bioclimatic regions
2021
Aim The aim of this study was to investigate the role of traits in beetle community assembly and test for consistency in these effects among several bioclimatic regions. We asked (1) whether traits predicted species’ responses to environmental gradients (i.e. their niches), (2) whether these same traits could predict co-occurrence patterns and (3) how consistent were niches and the role of traits among study regions. Location Boreal forests in Norway and Finland, temperate forests in Germany. Taxon Wood-living (saproxylic) beetles. Methods We compiled capture records of 468 wood-living beetle species from the three regions, along with nine morphological and ecological species traits. Eight …
Response and effect traits of arable weeds in agro-ecosystems: a review of current knowledge.
2017
25 pages; International audience; Integrating principles of ecological intensification into weed management strategies requires an understanding of the many relationships among weeds, crops and other organisms of agro-ecosystems in a changing context. Extensively used during the last two decades in weed science, trait-based approaches have provided general insights into weed community response to agricultural practices, and recently to understanding the effect of weeds on agro-ecosystem functioning. In this review, we provide a holistic synthesis of the current knowledge on weed response and effect functional traits. Based on the literature and recent advances in weed science, we review cur…
Beta diversity of stream insects differs between boreal and subtropical regions, but land use does not generally cause biotic homogenization
2021
Made available in DSpace on 2021-06-25T10:17:36Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2021-03-01 Previous studies have found mixed results regarding the relationship between beta diversity and latitude. In addition, by influencing local environmental heterogeneity, land use maymodify spatial taxonomic and functional variability among communities causing biotic differentiation or homogenization. We tested 1) whether taxonomic and functional beta diversities among streams within watersheds differ between subtropical and boreal regions and 2) whether land use is related to taxonomic and functional beta diversities in both regions.Wesampled aquatic insects in 100 subtropical (Brazil…
sPlotOpen – An environmentally balanced, open‐access, global dataset of vegetation plots
2021
Datos disponibles en https://github.com/fmsabatini/sPlotOpen_Code
Impacts of agricultural intensification on bird communities: New insights from a multi-level and multi-facet approach of biodiversity
2016
International audience; Following the multiplicity of studies dealing with the effects of agricultural intensification on bird diversity, one of the lessons drawn is that these effects depend on both the taxonomic group, the component of diversity, the aspect of intensification, and the spatial scale. This often leads to disparate results among studies suggesting that the investigation of agriculture-biodiversity relationships suffers from scale-dependence, information redundancy, non-linearity problems, and thus, unpredictability.Here, we propose a multi-scale and multi-facet approach to clarify the impacts of agricultural intensification on biodiversity and possible mitigating actions. Ou…
Interactions between ecological traits and host plant type explain distribution change in noctuid moths.
2009
The ecological traits of species determine how well a species can withstand threats to which it is exposed. If these predisposing traits can be identified, species that are most at risk of decline can be identified and an understanding of the processes behind the declines can be gained. We sought to determine how body size, specificity of larval host plant, overwintering stage, type of host plant, and the interactions of these traits are related to the distribution change in noctuid moths. We used data derived from the literature and analyzed the effects of traits both separately and simultaneously in the same model. When we analyzed the traits separately, it seemed the most important deter…
Multiple‐batch spawning as a bet‐hedging strategy in highly stochastic environments: An exploratory analysis of Atlantic cod
2021
Stochastic environments shape life‐history traits and can promote selection for risk‐spreading strategies, such as bet‐hedging. Although the strategy has often been hypothesised to exist for various species, empirical tests providing firm evidence have been rare, mainly due to the challenge in tracking fitness across generations. Here, we take a ‘proof of principle’ approach to explore whether the reproductive strategy of multiple‐batch spawning constitutes a bet‐hedging. We used Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) as the study species and parameterised an eco‐evolutionary model, using empirical data on size‐related reproductive and survival traits. To evaluate the fitness benefits of multiple‐batc…