Subdiscipline Of Ecology Research Articles

‘Seeing it as a whole’: A research agenda for the sociology of sport and climate change

Climate change poses an existential, if varied, threat to sport. Equally, sporting activity is having a substantial impact on the natural environment, an impact to which sporting bodies have been slow to quantify and mitigate. Despite this bidirectional threat, social science research on the relationship between sport and climate change is underdeveloped. Much of the existing research is generated by scholars within sport management and the nascent sub-discipline of sport ecology, both of which tend to focus on organisations’ and managerial responses to climate change. By contrast, climate change and the natural environment have been understudied within the sociology of sport. In this paper, I argue that the limited contribution of sociological perspectives to the debate has restricted the ability to critically examine the social context within which sport and climate change intersect. In response, I advocate for the value of a sociological approach and propose a research agenda for examining climate change within the sociology of sport.

The changes in zoological publication rates and focal subdisciplines between 1960 and 2022.

Since ancient times, zoology, as the branch of biology dealing with animals, has been a cornerstone of natural science and has developed substantially over the last century. We conducted a bibliometric analysis using structural topic modeling (STM) to determine changes in the representation of principal zoological subdisciplines in the literature between 1960 and 2022. We collated a corpus of 217414 articles from 88 top-ranked zoology journals and identified three main fields: (i) ecology, (ii) evolution, and (iii) applied research. Within these, we identified 10 major subdisciplines. The number of studies published per year grew from 118 in 1960 to 6635 in 2022. Macroscale-related subdisciplines increased while classical and traditional subdisciplines decreased. Mammals (34.4%) and insects (18.1%) were the dominant taxa covered, followed by birds (15.2%) and fish (8.0%). Research on mammals, insects, and fish involved a broad range of subdisciplines, whereas studies of birds focused on ecological subdisciplines. Most publications were from the United States, followed by the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, Australia, China, and Japan, with two developing countries, China and South Africa among the top 15 countries. There were different subdiscipline biases between countries, and the gross domestic product of each country correlated positively with its publication output (R2 = 0.681). We discuss our findings in the context of advances in technological innovations and computing power, as well as the emergence of ecology as a formal sister discipline, driven by changing environmental pressures and societal values. We caution that valuable publications from traditional zoological fields must not be completely supplanted by more contemporary topics and increasingly sophisticated analyses.

Three-dimensional reconstruction of high latitude bamboo coral via X-ray microfocus Computed Tomography

The skeletons of long-lived bamboo coral (Family Keratoisididae) are promising archives for deep-water palaeoceanographic reconstructions as they can record environmental variation at sub-decadal resolution in locations where in-situ measurements lack temporal coverage. Yet, detailed three dimensional (3D) characterisations of bamboo coral skeletal architecture are not routinely available and non-destructive investigations into microscale variations in calcification are rare. Here, we provide high-resolution micro-focus computed tomography (µCT) data of skeletal density for two species of bamboo coral (Acanella arbuscula: 5 specimens, voxel size, 15 µm (central branch scans) and 50 µm (complete structure scan); Keratoisis sp.: 4 specimens, voxel size, 15 µm) collected from the Labrador Sea and Baffin Bay deep-water basins, Eastern Canadian Arctic. These data provide reference models useful for developing methods to assess structural integrity and other fine-scale complexities in many biological, geological, and industrial systems. This will be of wider value to those investigating structural composition, arrangement and/or composition of complex architecture within the fields and subdisciplines of biology, ecology, medicine, environmental geology, and structural engineering.

A century of statistical Ecology.

As data and computing power have surged in recent decades, statistical modeling has become an important tool for understanding ecological patterns and processes. Statistical modeling in ecology faces two major challenges. First, ecological data may not conform to traditional methods, and second, professional ecologists often do not receive extensive statistical training. In response to these challenges, the journal Ecology has published many innovative statistical ecology papers that introduced novel modeling methods and provided accessible guides to statistical best practices. In this paper, we reflect on Ecology's history and its role in the emergence of the subdiscipline of statistical ecology, which we define as the study of ecological systems using mathematical equations, probability, and empirical data. We showcase 36 influential statistical ecology papers that have been published in Ecology over the last century and, in so doing, comment on the evolution of the field. As data and computing power continue to increase, we anticipate continued growth in statistical ecology to tackle complex analyses and an expanding role for Ecology to publish innovative and influential papers, advancing the discipline and guiding practicing ecologists.

Physiological and molecular insights into the allelopathic effects on agroecosystems under changing environmental conditions.

Allelopathy is a natural phenomenon of competing and interfering with other plants or microbial growth by synthesizing and releasing the bioactive compounds of plant or microbial origin known as allelochemicals. This is a sub-discipline of chemical ecology concerned with the effects of bioactive compounds produced by plants or microorganisms on the growth, development and distribution of other plants and microorganisms in natural communities or agricultural systems. Allelochemicals have a direct or indirect harmful effect on one plant by others, especially on the development, survivability, growth, and reproduction of species through the production of chemical inhibitors released into the environment. Cultivation systems that take advantage of allelopathic plants' stimulatory/inhibitory effects on plant growth and development while avoiding allelopathic autotoxicity is critical for long-term agricultural development. Allelopathy is one element that defines plant relationships and is involved in weed management, crop protection, and microbial contact. Besides, the allelopathic phenomenon has also been reported in the forest ecosystem; however, its presence depends on the forest type and the surrounding environment. In the present article, major aspects addressed are (1) literature review on the impacts of allelopathy in agroecosystems and underpinning the research gaps, (2) chemical, physiological, and ecological mechanisms of allelopathy, (3) genetic manipulations, plant defense, economic benefits, fate, prospects and challenges of allelopathy. The literature search and consolidation efforts in this article shall pave the way for future research on the potential application of allelopathic interactions across various ecosystems.

Shipwreck ecology: Understanding the function and processes from microbes to megafauna.

An estimated three million shipwrecks exist worldwide and are recognized as cultural resources and foci of archaeological investigations. Shipwrecks also support ecological resources by providing underwater habitats that can be colonized by diverse organisms ranging from microbes to megafauna. In the present article, we review the emerging ecological subdiscipline of shipwreck ecology, which aims to understand ecological functions and processes that occur on shipwrecks. We synthesize how shipwrecks create habitat for biota across multiple trophic levels and then describe how fundamental ecological functions and processes, including succession, zonation, connectivity, energy flow, disturbance, and habitat degradation, manifest on shipwrecks. We highlight future directions in shipwreck ecology that are ripe for exploration, placing a particular emphasis on how shipwrecks may serve as experimental networks to address long-standing ecological questions.

The Entropy of Entropy: Are We Talking about the Same Thing?

In the last few decades, the number of published papers that include search terms such as thermodynamics, entropy, ecology, and ecosystems has grown rapidly. Recently, background research carried out during the development of a paper on "thermodynamics in ecology" revealed huge variation in the understanding of the meaning and the use of some of the central terms in this field-in particular, entropy. This variation seems to be based primarily on the differing educational and scientific backgrounds of the researchers responsible for contributions to this field. Secondly, some ecological subdisciplines also seem to be better suited and applicable to certain interpretations of the concept than others. The most well-known seems to be the use of the Boltzmann-Gibbs equation in the guise of the Shannon-Weaver/Wiener index when applied to the estimation of biodiversity in ecology. Thirdly, this tendency also revealed that the use of entropy-like functions could be diverted into an area of statistical and distributional analyses as opposed to real thermodynamic approaches, which explicitly aim to describe and account for the energy fluxes and dissipations in the systems. Fourthly, these different ways of usage contribute to an increased confusion in discussions about efficiency and possible telos in nature, whether at the developmental level of the organism, a population, or an entire ecosystem. All the papers, in general, suffer from a lack of clear definitions of the thermodynamic functions used, and we, therefore, recommend that future publications in this area endeavor to achieve a more precise use of language. Only by increasing such efforts it is possible to understand and resolve some of the significant and possibly misleading discussions in this area.

Assessing opportunities and inequities in undergraduate ecological forecasting education.

Conducting ecological research in a way that addresses complex, real-world problems requires a diverse, interdisciplinary and quantitatively trained ecology and environmental science workforce. This begins with equitably training students in ecology, interdisciplinary science, and quantitative skills at the undergraduate level. Understanding the current undergraduate curriculum landscape in ecology and environmental sciences allows for targeted interventions to improve equitable educational opportunities. Ecological forecasting is a sub-discipline of ecology with roots in interdisciplinary and quantitative science. We use ecological forecasting to show how ecology and environmental science undergraduate curriculum could be evaluated and ultimately restructured to address the needs of the 21st century workforce. To characterize the current state of ecological forecasting education, we compiled existing resources for teaching and learning ecological forecasting at three curriculum levels: online resources; US university courses on ecological forecasting; and US university courses on topics related to ecological forecasting. We found persistent patterns (1) in what topics are taught to US undergraduate students at each of the curriculum levels; and (2) in the accessibility of resources, in terms of course availability at higher education institutions in the United States. We developed and implemented programs to increase the accessibility and comprehensiveness of ecological forecasting undergraduate education, including initiatives to engage specifically with Native American undergraduates and online resources for learning quantitative concepts at the undergraduate level. Such steps enhance the capacity of ecological forecasting to be more inclusive to undergraduate students from diverse backgrounds and expose more students to quantitative training.

The geneology of ecology term in first period of Turkey Turkish

Türkiye Türkçesinde ekoloji kavramı ilk defa Bahâ Tevfik ile Ahmed Nebîl tarafından Vahdet-i Mevcȗd Bir Tabî'at Âliminin Dini adıyla tercüme etmiş oldukları metinde 1911 yılında kullanılmıştır. Türkiye Türkçesinde ekoloji sözcüğünün girdiği 1911 yılından ilk kitabın yazıldığı 1965 yılına kadar olan süre ilk dönem olarak tanımlanmıştır. Ekoloji alanında ilk doktora Almanya'da Asaf Irmak tarafından yapılmıştır. Türkçede ilk ekoloji ders notu Asaf Irmak tarafından 1934 yılında hazırlanan Orman Ekolojisi ders notudur. Yükseköğretim kurumlarında Toprak İlmi ve Ekoloji dersi 1934 yılında Orman Fakültesi ders programında yer almıştır. Ekoloji ile ilgili ilk akademik birim 1943 yılında Toprak İlmi ve Ekoloji Anabilim Dalı olarak Orman Fakültesinde kurulmuştur. Aynı kurumda 1950 yılında ise Orman Ekolojisi dersi olarak bağımsız bir ders niteliğine kavuşmuştur. Yazılan ilk kitabın da Akif Kansu tarafından 1965 yılında yazılan Böcek Ökoloji ve Epidemiyolojisi isimli eserin olduğu tahmin edilmektedir. 1911 yılında Türkçeye giren ekoloji kavramı, 1930'lu yıllardan sonra sınırlı bilim alanında kullanılmaya başlanmış ve 1950'den sonra ekoloji terimleri ve kavramlarının kullanımı yaygınlaşmıştır. 1911-1965 yılları arasında ekolojinin temel terim ve kavramlarına, ekolojinin alt dallarına ve ekosistemin çeşitlerine yönelik bilgilerin Türkçeye çevrilmesine yönelik bilimsel çalışmaların olduğu görülmektedir. Böylece bu dönemde daha sonraki yıllarda yapılacak olan ekoloji çalışmalarının terim ve kavram altlığı oluşturulmuştur.

The plastic-scape: Applying seascape ecology to marine plastic pollution

Marine plastic pollution (MPP) has emerged as a global sustainability challenge with environmental, social, and economic consequences. This has inspired action at every scale of governance—from the local level to international institutions. However, policy and management efforts have been reactive and ad hoc, resulting in concerns about their efficacy, cost, and unintended consequences. To adequately address MPP and its global impacts, a systematic, evidence-based approach is needed. Seascape ecology, a subdiscipline of landscape ecology, is an interdisciplinary system science focused on the reciprocal relationship between the patterns and processes that shape seascapes. In this paper, we define the plastic-scape as all the social-ecological systems that interact with plastic (as a product and pollutant), the drivers and pathways of MPP, and the natural and human environments impacted by MPP. We then demonstrate the ways in which principles, methods, tools, and transdisciplinary research approaches from seascape ecology can be applied to better understand the plastic-scape, inform future MPP research and improve management strategies.

Detecting Thresholds of Ecological Change in the Anthropocene

Ecological thresholds comprise relatively fast changes in ecological conditions, with respect to time or external drivers, and are an attractive concept in both scientific and policy arenas. However, there is considerable debate concerning the existence, underlying mechanisms, and generalizability of ecological thresholds across a range of ecological subdisciplines. Here, we usethe general concept of scale as a unifying framework with which to systematically navigate the variability within ecological threshold research. We review the literature to show how the observational scale adopted in any one study, defined by its organizational level, spatiotemporal grain and extent, and analytical method, can influence threshold detection and magnitude. We highlight a need for nuance in synthetic studies of thresholds, which could improve our predictive understanding of thresholds. Nuance is also needed when translating threshold concepts into policies, including threshold contingencies and uncertainties.

Integrating terrestrial scavenging ecology into contemporary wildlife conservation and management.

Scavenging plays a vital role in maintaining ecosystem health and contributing to ecological functions; however, research in this sub‐discipline of ecology is underutilized in developing and implementing wildlife conservation and management strategies. We provide an examination of the literature and recommend priorities for research where improved understanding of scavenging dynamics can facilitate the development and refinement of applied wildlife conservation and management strategies. Due to the application of scavenging research broadly within ecology, scavenging studies should be implemented for informing management decisions. In particular, a more direct link should be established between scavenging dynamics and applied management programs related to informing pharmaceutical delivery and population control through bait uptake for scavenging species, prevention of unintentional poisoning of nontarget scavenging species, the epidemiological role that scavenging species play in disease dynamics, estimating wildlife mortalities, nutrient transfer facilitated by scavenging activity, and conservation of imperiled facultative scavenging species. This commentary is intended to provide information on the paucity of data in scavenging research and present recommendations for further studies that can inform decisions in wildlife conservation and management. Additionally, we provide a framework for decision‐making when determining how to apply scavenging ecology research for management practices and policies. Due to the implications that scavenging species have on ecosystem health, and their overall global decline as a result of anthropic activities, it is imperative to advance studies in the field of scavenging ecology that can inform applied conservation and management programs.

Climate-Induced Expansion of Consumers in Seagrass Ecosystems: Lessons From Invasion Ecology

A warming climate is driving the poleward expansion of tropical, subtropical, and temperate plant and animal distributions. These changes have and continue to lead to the colonization of novel organisms into areas beyond their historical ranges. While the full scope of ecological impacts remains unclear, these expansions could alter density-dependent interactions, habitat occupancy patterns, and food web dynamics– similar to exotic species impacts in invaded ecosystems. Seagrasses are habitats of particular interest, given their widespread distribution and ecosystem services. While multiple recent studies report on the effects of the return of larger tropical herbivores in seagrass beds in warming subtropical waters, less is known about the addition of mid-trophic level consumers. These consumers are often key determinants of energy and nutrient transfers from basal resources to higher order predators. Here, we discuss the potential impacts of these distribution changes on temperate and subtropical seagrass communities using information derived from invasive species studies. Notably, we outline several scenarios and generate predictions about how their establishment might occur and speculate on impacts of warmer water consumers as they move poleward. We also discuss potential confounding factors of detecting changes in these consumer distributions. Following the invasive species literature, we offer a framework for generating hypotheses and predicting effects from these range-expanding organisms. Given that climates are predicted to continue to warm into the future, thus facilitating additional species expansions, our goal is to guide future research efforts and provide information for rapid dissemination and utility for this growing subdiscipline of marine ecology.

Movement with meaning: integrating information into meta‐ecology

Fluxes of matter, energy and information over space and time contribute to ecosystems' functioning and stability. The meta‐ecosystem framework addresses the dynamics of ecosystems linked by these fluxes but, to date, has focused solely on energy and matter. Here, we synthesize existing knowledge of information's effects on local and connected ecosystems and demonstrate how new hypotheses emerge from the integration of ecological information into meta‐ecosystem theory. We begin by defining information and reviewing how it flows among ecosystems to affect connectivity, local ecosystem function and meta‐ecosystem dynamics. We focus on the role of semiotic information: that which can reduce an individual's – or a group's – uncertainty about the state of the world. Semiotic information elicits behavioral, developmental and life history responses from organisms, potentially leading to fitness consequences. Organisms' responses to information can ripple through trophic interactions to influence ecosystem processes, their local and regional dynamics, and the spatiotemporal flows of energy and matter, therefore information should affect meta‐ecosystem dynamics such as stability and productivity. While specific subdisciplines of ecology currently consider different types of information (e.g. social and cultural information, natural and artificial light or sound, body condition, genotype and phenotype), many ecological models currently account for neither the spatio–temporal distribution of information nor its perception by organisms. We identify the empirical, theoretical and philosophical challenges in developing a robust information meta‐ecology and offer ways to overcome them. Finally, we present new hypotheses for how accounting for realistic information perception and responses by organisms could impact processes such as home range formation and spatial insurance, and thus our understanding of ecological dynamics across spatial and temporal scales. Accounting for information will be essential to understanding how dynamics such as fitness, organismal movement and trophic interactions influence meta‐ecosystem functioning, and predicting how ecosystem processes are affected by anthropogenic pressures.

Island Biogeography Revisited: Museomics Reveals Affinities of Shelf Island Birds Determined by Bathymetry and Paleo-Rivers, Not by Distance to Mainland.

Island biogeography is one of the most powerful subdisciplines of ecology: its mathematical predictions that island size and distance to mainland determine diversity have withstood the test of time. A key question is whether these predictions follow at a population-genomic level. Using rigorous ancient-DNA protocols, we retrieved approximately 1,000 genomic markers from approximately 100 historic specimens of two Southeast Asian songbird complexes from across the Sunda Shelf archipelago collected 1893–1957. We show that the genetic affinities of populations on small shelf islands defy the predictions of geographic distance and appear governed by Earth-historic factors including the position of terrestrial barriers (paleo-rivers) and persistence of corridors (Quaternary land bridges). Our analyses suggest that classic island-biogeographic predictors may not hold well for population-genomic dynamics on the thousands of shelf islands across the globe, which are exposed to dynamic changes in land distribution during Quaternary climate change.

A starting guide to root ecology: strengthening ecological concepts and standardising root classification, sampling, processing and trait measurements.

SummaryIn the context of a recent massive increase in research on plant root functions and their impact on the environment, root ecologists currently face many important challenges to keep on generating cutting‐edge, meaningful and integrated knowledge. Consideration of the below‐ground components in plant and ecosystem studies has been consistently called for in recent decades, but methodology is disparate and sometimes inappropriate. This handbook, based on the collective effort of a large team of experts, will improve trait comparisons across studies and integration of information across databases by providing standardised methods and controlled vocabularies. It is meant to be used not only as starting point by students and scientists who desire working on below‐ground ecosystems, but also by experts for consolidating and broadening their views on multiple aspects of root ecology. Beyond the classical compilation of measurement protocols, we have synthesised recommendations from the literature to provide key background knowledge useful for: (1) defining below‐ground plant entities and giving keys for their meaningful dissection, classification and naming beyond the classical fine‐root vs coarse‐root approach; (2) considering the specificity of root research to produce sound laboratory and field data; (3) describing typical, but overlooked steps for studying roots (e.g. root handling, cleaning and storage); and (4) gathering metadata necessary for the interpretation of results and their reuse. Most importantly, all root traits have been introduced with some degree of ecological context that will be a foundation for understanding their ecological meaning, their typical use and uncertainties, and some methodological and conceptual perspectives for future research. Considering all of this, we urge readers not to solely extract protocol recommendations for trait measurements from this work, but to take a moment to read and reflect on the extensive information contained in this broader guide to root ecology, including sections I–VII and the many introductions to each section and root trait description. Finally, it is critical to understand that a major aim of this guide is to help break down barriers between the many subdisciplines of root ecology and ecophysiology, broaden researchers’ views on the multiple aspects of root study and create favourable conditions for the inception of comprehensive experiments on the role of roots in plant and ecosystem functioning.

Reconciling resilience across ecological systems, species and subdisciplines

Abstract Resilience has emerged as a key concept in ecology and conservation biology to understand and predict ecosystem responses to global change. In its broadest sense, resilience describes the ability of an ecosystem to resist, and recover from, a disturbance. However, the application of such a concept in different subdisciplines of ecology and in different study systems has resulted in a wide disparity of definitions and ways of quantifying resilience. This Special Feature, which spans the Journal of Ecology, Journal of Animal Ecology and Functional Ecology, provides an overview of how ecologists define, quantify, compare and predict resilience across different study systems. The 29 contributions to this Special Feature show the broad range of approaches used by ecologists to study resilience. Almost half of the contributions (48%) study resilience at the community level, with a 30% of them studying resilience at multiple levels of biological organisation. A large proportion of these articles are observational (42%), experimental (14%) or a combination of both (17%) while a 17% utilise theoretical or computational approaches. Although 38%, 21% and 14% of the studies were based solely on plants, animals or micro‐organisms, respectively, 17% of them incorporated these multiple trophic levels. Synthesis. A unified ecological understanding of resilience across systems and taxa requires a trans‐disciplinary consensus on what resilience actually is and how to best measure it. Here, we provide an overview of how ecologists define, quantify, compare and predict resilience across different ecological systems and subdisciplines, with reference to the diverse approaches used by contributions to this Special Feature. We identify four key recommendations to harmonise future efforts in resilience research: (a) define resilience using existing theoretical frameworks; (b) use common and comparable metrics to measure resilience; (c) clearly contextualise and define the pre‐ and post‐disturbance state of the ecological system and (d) consider explicitly the disturbance type and regime impacting the system.

Deep learning for supervised classification of temporal data in ecology

Temporal data is ubiquitous in ecology and ecologists often face the challenge of accurately differentiating these data into predefined classes, such as biological entities or ecological states. The usual approach consists of transforming the time series into user-defined features and then using these features as predictors in conventional statistical or machine learning models. Here we suggest the use of deep learning models as an alternative to this approach. Recent deep learning techniques can perform the classification directly from the time series, eliminating subjective and resource-consuming data transformation steps, and potentially improving classification results. We describe some of the deep learning architectures relevant for time series classification and show how these architectures and their hyper-parameters can be tested and used for the classification problems at hand. We illustrate the approach using three case studies from distinct ecological subdisciplines: i) insect species identification from wingbeat spectrograms; ii) species distribution modelling from climate time series and iii) the classification of phenological phases from continuous meteorological data. The deep learning approach delivered ecologically sensible and accurate classifications demonstrating its potential for wide applicability across subfields of ecology.

Macrosystems revisited: challenges and successes in a new subdiscipline of ecology

Macrosystems biology research has expanded and evolved over the past decade as the scientific community grapples with ecological issues at regional to continental scales relevant to human interactions within the biosphere. Macrosystems biology builds on established fields of study like population and community ecology, biogeography, and global biogeochemistry, and has the potential to develop into a unique and important subdiscipline. If we achieve this outcome, macrosystems research will likely have increasing relevance to ecological science and its practical application, and could potentially transform large‐scale ecological understanding. Both previous studies and the articles included in this Special Issue document the development of a broad spectrum of macrosystems approaches, how ecological researchers have accommodated the sociological aspects of collaboration among diverse individuals and groups, and how new methods are being applied to deal with the large and diverse types of data used by macrosystems biologists.

Allometric Trophic Networks From Individuals to Socio-Ecosystems: Consumer–Resource Theory of the Ecological Elephant in the Room

A well-known parable is that of the blind men studying an elephant each of which assert the elephant is the part they first hold in their hands e.g., “rope!” says the tail holder while the leg holder asserts “tree!” The various subdisciplines of ecology appear similar in that we each engage in our enthusiastic but at least somewhat myopic study with a remarkably limited agreement or even discussion about the overall system which we all study. Allometric trophic network (ATN) theory offers a path out of this dilemma by integrating across scales, taxa, habitats and organizational levels from physiology to ecosystems based on consumer-resource interactions among co-existing organisms. The network architecture and the metabolic and behavioral processes that determine the structure and dynamics of these interactions form the first principles of ATN theory, which in turn provides a synthetic overview and powerfully predictive framework for ecology from organisms to ecosystems. Beyond ecology, ATN theory also synthesizes eco-evolutionary and socio-ecological research still largely based on consumer-resource mechanisms but respectively integrated with processes including natural selection and market mechanisms. This paper briefly describes foundations, advances, and future directions of ATN theory including predicting an ecosystem’s phenotype from its community’s genotype in order to accelerate more predictive and unified understanding of the complex systems studied by ecologists and other environmental scientists.