9 documents found, page 1 of 1

Birds optimize fruit size consumed near their geographic range limits

Animals can adjust their diet to maximize energy or nutritional intake. For example, birds often target fruits that match their beak size because those fruits can be consumed more efficiently. We hypothesized that pressure to optimize diet-measured as matching between fruit and beak size-increases under stressful environments, such as those that determine species' range edges. Using fruit-consumption and trait ...

Global and regional ecological boundaries explain abrupt spatial discontinuitie...

Species interactions can propagate disturbances across space via direct and indirect effects, potentially connecting species at a global scale. However, ecological and biogeographic boundaries may mitigate this spread by demarcating the limits of ecological networks. We tested whether large-scale ecological boundaries (ecoregions and biomes) and human disturbance gradients increase dissimilarity among plant-fru...

AVONET : morphological, ecological and geographical data for all birds

Functional traits offer a rich quantitative framework for developing and testing theories in evolutionary biology, ecology and ecosystem science. However, the potential of functional traits to drive theoretical advances and refine models of global change can only be fully realised when species-level information is complete. Here we present the AVONET dataset containing comprehensive functional trait data for al...

The integration of alien plants in mutualistic plant-hummingbird networks acros...

Aim: To investigate the role of alien plants in mutualistic plant-hummingbird networks, assessing the importance of species traits, floral abundance and insularity on alien plant integration. Location: Mainland and insular Americas. Methods: We used species-level network indices to assess the role of alien plants in 21 quantitative plant-hummingbird networks where alien plants occur. We then evaluated whether p...

A global synthesis reveals biodiversity-mediated benefits for crop production

Human land use threatens global biodiversity and compromises multiple ecosystem functions critical to food production. Whether crop yield-related ecosystem services can be maintained by a few dominant species or rely on high richness remains unclear. Using a global database from 89 studies (with 1475 locations), we partition the relative importance of species richness, abundance, and dominance for pollination; ...

High proportion of smaller ranged hummingbird species coincides with ecological...

Ecological communities that experience stable climate conditions have been speculated to preserve more specialized interspecific associations and have higher proportions of smaller ranged species (SRS). Thus, areas with disproportionally large numbers of SRS are expected to coincide geographically with a high degree of community-level ecological specialization, but this suggestion remains poorly supported with ...

TRY plant trait database – enhanced coverage and open access

Made available in DSpace on 2020-12-12T01:00:51Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2020-01-01; AXA Research Fund; Max-Planck-Gesellschaft; Natural Environment Research Council; Plant traits—the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants—determine how plants respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, and influence ecosystem ...

Seed-dispersal networks are more specialized in the Neotropics than in the Afro...

A global synthesis reveals biodiversity-mediated benefits for crop production

Human land use threatens global biodiversity and compromises multiple ecosystem functions critical to food production. Whether crop yield–related ecosystem services can be maintained by a few dominant species or rely on high richness remains unclear. Using a global database from 89 studies (with 1475 locations), we partition the relative importance of species richness, abundance, and dominance for pollination; ...