23 results — topic: Paleontology & Paleoecology

Article

The effects of phenological mismatches on demography

Climate change is altering the phenology of species across the world, but what are the consequences of these phenological changes for the demography and population dynamics of species? Time-sensitive relationships, such as migration, breeding and predation, may be disrupted or altered, which may in

2010Phil Trans Royal Society BDOI: 10.1098/rstb.2010.0148Cited 622 times
Article

Suture-zones of hybrid interaction between recently joined biotas

From a study of the geographic occurrences of contemporary hybridization among North American animals, it has become apparent that most of the hybrids are produced in a few relatively localized zones, with little hybridizing in the vast areas between these zones of mixing.

1968Evolutionary BiologyDOI: 10.1007/978-1-4684-8094-8_8Cited 577 times
Article

A meta-analysis of 1,119 manipulative experiments on terrestrial carbon-cycling responses to global change

There is an urgent need to explore the interactions among multiple global change drivers in underrepresented regions such as semi-arid ecosystems, forests in the tropics and subtropics, and Arctic tundra when forecasting future terrestrial carbon-climate feedback.

2019Nature Ecology & EvolutiionDOI: 10.1038/s41559-019-0958-3Cited 570 times
Article

Complex life cycles and the responses of insects to climate change

Many organisms have complex life cycles with distinct life stages that experience different environmental conditions. How does the complexity of life cycles affect the ecological and evolutionary responses of organisms to climate change? We address this question by exploring several recent case stud

2011Integrative & Comparitive BiologyDOI: 10.1093/icb/icr015Cited 559 times
Article

Phenotypic plasticity and adaptive evolution contribute to advancing flowering phenology in response to climate change

Anthropogenic climate change has already altered the timing of major life-history transitions, such as the initiation of reproduction. Both phenotypic plasticity and adaptive evolution can underlie rapid phenological shifts in response to climate change, but their relative contributions are poorly u

2012Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological SciencesDOI: 10.1098/rspb.2012.1051Cited 547 times
Article

Forest responses to increasing aridity and warmth in the southwestern United States

In recent decades, intense droughts, insect outbreaks, and wildfires have led to decreasing tree growth and increasing mortality in many temperate forests. We compared annual tree-ring width data from 1,097 populations in the coterminous United States to climate data and evaluated site-specific tree

2010Proceedings of the National Academy of SciencesDOI: 10.1073/pnas.0914211107Cited 544 times
Article

The terminology of floral larceny

1980EcologyDOI: 10.2307/1936841Cited 528 times
Article

Scientists’ warning on climate change and insects

Abstract Climate warming is considered to be among the most serious of anthropogenic stresses to the environment, because it not only has direct effects on biodiversity, but it also exacerbates the harmful effects of other human‐mediated threats. The associated consequences are potentially severe, p

2023Ecological MonographsDOI: 10.1002/ecm.1553Cited 521 times
Article

Evolutionary options for maximizing pollen dispersal of animal-pollinated plants

On the average, nectar-collecting bumble bees deposited 0.6% of the pollen removed from the flowers of Erythronium grandiflorum (Liliaceae) onto the stigmas of subsequently visited flowers. Because the proportion deposited declined as the amount removed increased, an individual plant would maximize

1989American NaturalistDOI: 10.1086/284922Cited 517 times
Article

Evolutionary options for maximizing pollen dispersal of animal-pollinated plants.

On the average, nectar-collecting bumble bees deposited 0.6% of the pollen removed from the flowers of Erythronium grandiflorum (Liliaceae) onto the stigmas of subsequently visited flowers. Because the proportion deposited declined as the amount removed increased, an individual plant would maximize

1989American NaturalistDOI: 10.1086/284922Cited 517 times
Article

Competition for hummingbird pollination and sequential flowering in two Colorado wildflowers

The simultaneous flowering of co—occurring plant species with similar pollinator affinities may result in interspecific pollen transfer and consequent fecundity reductions due to wastage of pollen, stigma surfaces, and effective pollinator visits. In such cases competition for pollination occurs and

1978EcologyDOI: 10.2307/1938545Cited 514 times
Article

Temperature response of soil respiration largely unaltered with experimental warming

Significance One of the greatest challenges in projecting future shifts in the global climate is understanding how soil respiration rates will change with warming. Multiple experimental warming studies have explored this response, but no consensus has been reached. Based on a global synthesis of 27

2016Proceedings of the National Academy of SciencesDOI: 10.1073/pnas.1605365113Cited 502 times
Article

Developing an evolutionary ecology of fear: how life history and natural history traits affect disturbance tolerance in birds

It is suggested that body size and age of first reproduction are important in explaining variation in disturbance tolerance in birds, and that species that capture live prey and those that are highly social are relatively wary.

2006Animal BehaviourDOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2005.05.010Cited 489 times
Article

Pollen dispersal and optimal outcrossing in Delphinium nelsoni

It is suggested that outbreeding depression will often occur on a much finer scale than previously recognised, especially in plants subject to restricted pollen and seed dispersal, and a short outcrossing distance is optimal for Delphinium nelsoni Greene.

1979NatureDOI: 10.1038/277294a0Cited 477 times
Article

A global test of the pollination syndrome hypothesis

The pollination syndrome hypothesis as usually articulated does not successfully describe the diversity of floral phenotypes or predict the pollinators of most plant species. Caution is suggested when using pollination syndromes for organizing floral diversity, or for inferring agents of floral adap

2009Annals of BotanyDOI: 10.1093/aob/mcp031Cited 472 times
Article

Optimal foraging: movement patterns of bumblebees between inflorescences

Nectar-collecting bumblebees are hypothesized to employ rules of movement which result in the maximum net rate of energy gain (i.e., are optimal), and predicted patterns of movement are compared with field observations to support the hypothesis.

1978Theoretical Population BiologyDOI: 10.1016/0040-5809(78)90036-9Cited 466 times
Article

Which is a better predictor of plant traits: temperature or precipitation?

AbstractQuestionAre plant traits more closely correlated with mean annual temperature, or with mean annual precipitation?LocationGlobal.MethodsWe quantified the strength of the relationships between temperature and precipitation and 21 plant traits from 447,961 species‐site combinations worldwide. W

2014Journal of Vegetation ScienceDOI: 10.1111/jvs.12190Cited 464 times
Article

Evolutionary genetics of plant adaptation

The importance of field studies for understanding the evolutionary dynamics of model and nonmodel systems are emphasized, a key life history trait (flowering time) is highlighted and emerging conservation issues are discussed.

2011Trends in GeneticsDOI: 10.1016/j.tig.2011.04.001Cited 460 times
Article

Zooplankton competition and predation: an experimental test of the size-efficiency hypothesis

Twelve 42—liter plankton cages were used in an alpine Colorado pond to test a size—efficiency hypothesis: to determine why small herbivorous zooplankton species tend not to coexist with large species. The size—efficiency hypothesis, that large species exclude the smaller ones through competition for

1974EcologyDOI: 10.2307/1935150Cited 459 times
Article

Subalpine meadow flowering phenology responses to climate change: integrating experimental and gradient methods

We integrated experimental and natural gradient field methods to investigate effects of climate change and variability on flowering phenology of 11 subalpine meadow shrub, forb, and graminoid species in Gunnison County, Colorado (USA). At a subalpine meadow site, overhead electric radiant heaters ad

2003Ecological MonographsDOI: 10.1890/0012-9615(2003)073[0069:smfprt]2.0.co;2Cited 455 times