Populations Of Particular Species Research Articles

The Populations and Habitat Preferences of Three Elm Species in Conditions Prevailing on Plains of Poland

From among the 35–40 elm species existing around the world, three are native to Europe: the wych elm (Ulmus glabra Huds.), the European white elm, (Ulmus laevis Pall.), and the field elm (Ulmus minor Mill.). The populations of these trees have been greatly reduced as a result of a decrease in the total area of riparian forests. Furthermore, for nearly 100 years, they have been destroyed by Dutch elm disease (DED). The main research problems of this study are: what are the habitat preferences of elms growing in a given area; and whether the occurrence of DED depends on the species of elm and the habitat in which it occurs. The results presented here are based on field studies and observations have been supplemented with data from forest inventories. All of the examined elms are definitely more abundant in habitats that are fertile or very fertile and moist, with a neutral or slightly alkaline soil pH. The preference for moist sites is the most evident in the case of U. laevis and the least evident in the case of U. glabra. A slight shift in habitat preferences of the field elm, compared to the white elm, towards less humid conditions was observed. The predominant species of elm in the studied area is currently U. laevis, which was rarely cultivated in forests in the past. In the examined area, the field elm population is clearly on the decline mainly due to the long-term presence of Dutch elm disease. U. glabra is the rarest species in the examined area and most often found on slopes. The current proportions of individual species should be maintained. This paper discusses factors, including ones not connected with DED, that may be responsible for the current state of populations of particular species of elm in forests of Central Europe.

Carabid beetles of the environs of Lake Elton: fauna, population dynamics, demography.

The present paper includes the results of a year-round pitfall trapping survey of ground beetles in the region of Lake Elton, Volgograd Area, Russia. The main objectives of the project lie in studying the local fauna of Carabidae in the Lake Elton region, as well as their demographic structure and dispersal potential of the local populations of particular carabid species. A total of ten model habitats: six zonal (characteristic of that particular biogeographic area) and four azonal (present in a variety of biogeographical areas) were studied. In each model habitat, ten pitfall traps were set from 10 May 2006 until 10 May 2007 and were checked at 10-day intervals except for the period with negative temperatures (from 1 November 2006 until 31 March 2007). During the period of observation, 51,314 specimens of Carabidae, belonging to 149 species, were trapped. The resulting sampling-event dataset includes 24,291 plot-based observations (= sampling events), some of them containing zero records of particular species in a certain habitat and time. This is the first sampling-event dataset of a year-round pitfall trapping survey (from May 2006 until May 2007) of ground-beetle communities and the demographic structure of local populations of particular species in the Lake Elton region, Volgograd Area, Russia.

Factors influencing the occurrence of the Southern Long‐nosed Bandicoot (Perameles nasuta Geoffroy) during a population irruption and decline

AbstractModelling the occupancy of species is a key part of the discipline of ecology, with particular efforts often focused on identifying which environmental, vegetation and other factors influence why a given species occurs where it does. Here, based on data gathered between 2003 and 2016, we developed models of the environmental, terrain and vegetation factors associated with site occupancy of the Southern Long‐nosed Bandicoot (Perameles nasuta Geoffroy) at Booderee National Park in the Jervis Bay Territory, south‐eastern Australia. The Long‐nosed Bandicoot is a nocturnal omnivorous marsupial which feeds primarily on subterranean invertebrates and fungi. The species has undergone a major reduction in abundance and site occupancy following a peak irruption in 2006 with the percentage of the sites at which the species was present declining from 74.3% of sites trapped in 2006 to 10.5% of sites trapped in 2016. We found the Long‐nosed Bandicoot was distributed widely across Booderee National Park and occurred in all six broad vegetation types in the reserve (forest, heathland, woodland, shrubland, sedgeland and rainforest). Detection‐occupancy modelling revealed that the persistence and colonisation of sites by the species were negatively associated with the per cent cover of leaf litter, irrespective of broad vegetation type. Occupancy models are an important tool in identifying parts of landscapes most likely to support populations of particular species, such as the Long‐nosed Bandicoot over time, and they may assist management of protected areas to prioritise resources to manage the habitat of those areas.

ACCESS TO PUBLIC INFORMATION IN THE CONTEXT OF THE HUNTING LAW

Hunting in Poland is experiencing a kind of renaissance today and is undoubtedly a public matter. The purpose of hunting is a public goal, because it is: protection, preservation of diversity and management of populations of game animals; protection and shaping the natural environment for the improvement of living conditions of animals; obtaining the highest possible personal condition and quality of trophies and the appropriate number of populations of particular species of animals while maintaining the balance of the natural environment; meeting social needs in the field of hunting, cultivating tradition and propagating ethics and hunting culture.This article presents considerations regarding access to public information in the context of hunting law. It indicates the public administration bodies obliged to provide it, as well as entities that can apply for it. In addition, the competences of the above mentioned bodies and the resulting public tasks in the area of broadly understood hunting were defined.

Bombs, fire and biodiversity: Vertebrate fauna occurrence in areas subject to military training

Military training areas (MTAs) cover 6% of the earth's land surface, but the impact on biodiversity of weapons use in MTAs remains largely unknown. We quantified the effects of military training on vertebrates in a 5-year study at Beecroft Weapons Range in south-eastern Australia by contrasting the occurrence of birds, mammals and reptiles between 24 sites within an area subject to repeated weapons use and a matched set of non-impacted sites.Species richness of mammals and reptiles was similar within versus outside the impact area, although many individual species responded to fire, which occurred more frequently in impacted sites. Bird species richness, the occurrence of larger-bodied and migratory bird species, and the occurrence of most individual bird species, was reduced within the impact area. Many bird species that displayed low prevalence in impacted sites also declined over time across the whole study area. Differences in biota between the impact and non-impact areas were detectable after controlling for the effects of recent fire, suggesting that weapons use impacted vertebrates through mechanisms additional to altered fire regimes.Overall, our data indicated that Beecroft Weapons Range maintained considerable biodiversity value despite prolonged military use. Hence, MTAs have the potential to make a substantial contribution to conservation outside the formal protected area network. However, managers of MTAs need to explicitly state their environmental objectives. This is because management practices may be different if the aim is to maximize species richness rather than to secure populations of particular species.

Taxonomic revision of the Malagasy Nesomyrmex madecassus species-group using a quantitative morphometric approach.

Here we reveal the diversity of the next fragment of the Malagasy elements of the ant genus Nesomyrmex using a combination of advanced exploratory analyses on quantitative morphological data. The diversity of the Nesomyrmex madecassus species-group was assessed via hypothesis-free nest centroid clustering combined with recursive partitioning to estimate the number of clusters and determine the most probable boundaries between them. This combination of methods provides a highly automated species delineation protocol based on continuous morphometric data, and thereby it obviates the need of subjective interpretation of morphological patterns. Delimitations of clusters recognized by these exploratory analyses were tested via confirmatory Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA). Our results suggest the existence of four morphologically distinct species, Nesomyrmex flavus sp. n., Nesomyrmex gibber, Nesomyrmex madecassus and Nesomyrmex nitidus sp. n.; all are described here and an identification key for their worker castes using morphometric data is given. Two members of the newly outlined madecasus species-group, Nesomyrmex flavus sp. n. and Nesomyrmex nitidus sp. n., represent true cryptic species. Geographic maps depicting species distributions and elevational information for the sites where populations of particular species were collected are also provided.

Orchard aphids (Hemiptera: Sternorrhyncha, Aphidoidea) of Lithuania: a century of research

Abstract The current state of knowledge on the composition of aphid species inhabiting horticultural crops in Lithuania is summarized, with notes on their taxonomy and the biological peculiarities of Lithuanian populations of particular species.

Very Large Protected Areas and Their Contribution to Terrestrial Biological Conservation

A high proportion of global coverage by protected areas is composed of relatively few very large protected areas (vLPAs); it is therefore important to understand their contribution to biological conservation. Here, using fresh analyses and a review of literature, we examine five particular contentions about existing terrestrial vLPAs: that they (1) are highly biased in environmental coverage, (2) contain low numbers of overall and rare species, (3) make limited contributions toward meeting global conservation prioritization schemes, (4) contain substantial areas of wilderness, and (5) are relatively immune to threatening processes. These contentions are generally supported. The principal contribution of vLPAs is substantial global coverage of wilderness, and more broadly, of areas where human influence is much reduced. There is also some evidence that individual vLPAs can retain unusually intact species assemblages and significant populations of particular species of regional or global conservation concer...

Correlates of vulnerability among arthropod species threatened by invasive ants

Invasive species are causing population declines and extinctions of native species worldwide. Correlates of species vulnerability, which help identify at-risk taxa, are not well developed for arthropods, particularly with respect to threats from invasive species. At five sites undergoing invasion by ants in the Hawaiian Islands, we assessed body size, population density, trophic role and provenance (introduced or endemic to the Hawaiian Islands) as potential correlates of vulnerability for 300 arthropod species. Among rare species, prove- nance was the most important factor associated with absence from invaded plots, with endemic species much more commonly absent. Trophic role was also important, but only when interacting with provenance: endemic carnivores were by far the most vulnerable group, followed by endemic detritivores. For non-rare species, Hawaii endemics were sig- nificantly more reduced in invaded plots compared to introduced species. In addition, species that occurred at lower population densities were more vulnerable than those occurring at higher densities. Body size did not correlate with vulnerability for either rare or non-rare species. Despite these trends, there was relatively high variability in responses to invasion among species in many taxonomic orders, as well as among populations of particular species at different sites. While the consideration of additional intrinsic traits might increase pre- dictive ability to some degree (e.g., intrinsic traits only explained 21% of the variation in impact among non-rare species), community-specific extrinsic factors appear to play a large role in influencing outcomes for many species, making prediction substantially more difficult.

Primary productivity and the carrying capacity for herring in NE Pacific marine ecosystems

The carrying capacity for Pacific herring ( Clupea pallasi) and its relationship to primary productivity was examined for eight populations in the NE Pacific and eastern Bering Sea. Data on biomass (ages 3 and older) and catches of herring in British Columbia (Georgia Strait, west coast Vancouver Island, Central Coast, Queen Charlotte Islands, Prince Rupert) and Alaska (Sitka, Prince William Sound, eastern Bering Sea) during the second half of the 20th Century derived from analytical stock assessments were used to calculate annual surplus production of herring. There was considerable interannual variability in herring productivity among all populations, however, only three (Georgia Strait, Prince Rupert, Prince William Sound) showed significant differences in mean productivity on decadal time scales (productivity regimes). Carrying capacity for the most recent productivity regime for each population was estimated using the Schaefer surplus production model. Mean annual primary productivity was estimated from remotely-sensed (SeaWiFS) chlorophyll data for British Columbia and Sitka ecosystems, and from in situ chlorophyll data for Prince William Sound and the eastern Bering Sea. The carrying capacity for herring populations in the NE Pacific ranged from 28,000 to 250,000 tonnes, and to 325,000 tonnes in the eastern Bering Sea. When considered on the basis of their distributional area, the west coast of Vancouver Island and Georgia Strait populations had the highest carrying capacity per unit area (9.3–13.8 tonnes km −2) and the eastern Bering Sea had the lowest (0.7 tonnes km −2). There is a significant positive linear relationship between the productivity of herring populations at carrying capacity and primary productivity on a per unit area basis. Although similar direct relationships have been observed between phytoplankton standing stock (as chlorophyll biomass) and total catches of resident fish populations from these regions, such a direct relationship was unexpected between primary productivity and herring carrying capacity because of multiple trophic pathways and other factors (e.g. spawning habitat) which should limit the carrying capacity for individual populations of particular species of fish. These results may be used to forecast potential responses of herring in NE Pacific ecosystems to global changes in ocean productivity.

Body size evolution in insular vertebrates: generality of the island rule

AbstractAim My goals here are to (1) assess the generality of the island rule – the graded trend from gigantism in small species to dwarfism in larger species – for mammals and other terrestrial vertebrates on islands and island‐like ecosystems; (2) explore some related patterns of body size variation in insular vertebrates, in particular variation in body size as a function of island area and isolation; (3) offer causal explanations for these patterns; and (4) identify promising areas for future studies on body size evolution in insular vertebrates.Location Oceanic and near‐shore archipelagos, and island‐like ecosystems world‐wide.Methods Body size measurements of insular vertebrates (non‐volant mammals, bats, birds, snakes and turtles) were obtained from the literature, and then regression analyses were conducted to test whether body size of insular populations varies as a function of body size of the species on the mainland (the island rule) and with characteristics of the islands (i.e. island isolation and area).Results The island rule appears to be a general phenomenon both with mammalian orders (and to some degree within families and particular subfamilies) as well as across the species groups studied, including non‐volant mammals, bats, passerine birds, snakes and turtles. In addition, body size of numerous species in these classes of vertebrates varies significantly with island isolation and island area.Main conclusions The patterns observed here – the island rule and the tendency for body size among populations of particular species to vary with characteristics of the islands – are actually distinct and scale‐dependent phenomena. Patterns within archipelagos reflect the influence of island isolation and area on selective pressures (immigration filters, resource limitation, and intra‐ and interspecific interactions) within particular species. These patterns contribute to variation about the general trend referred to as the island rule, not the signal for that more general, large‐scale pattern. The island rule itself is an emergent pattern resulting from a combination of selective forces whose importance and influence on insular populations vary in a predictable manner along a gradient from relatively small to large species. As a result, body size of insular species tends to converge on a size that is optimal, or fundamental, for a particular bau plan and ecological strategy.