Field parameterization and experimental test of the neutral theory of biodiversity

Ecologists would like to explain general patterns observed across multi-species communities, such as species-area and abundance-frequency relationships, in terms of the fundamental processes of birth, death and migration underlying the dynamics of all constituent species. The unified neutral theory of biodiversity and related theories based on these fundamental population processes have successfully recreated general species-abundance patterns without accounting for either the variation among species and individuals or resource-releasing processes such as predation and disturbance, long emphasized in ecological theory. If ecological communities can be described adequately without estimating variation in species and their interactions, our understanding of ecological community organization and the predicted consequences of reduced biodiversity and environmental change would shift markedly. Here, I introduce a strong method to test the neutral theory that combines field parameterization of the underlying population dynamics with a field experiment, and apply it to a rocky intertidal community. Although the observed abundance-frequency distribution of the system follows that predicted by the neutral theory, the neutral theory predicts poorly the field experimental results, indicating an essential role for variation in species interactions.     

Experimental demonstration of chaos in a microbial food web

Discovering why natural population densities change over time and vary with location is a central goal of ecological and evolutional disciplines. The recognition that even simple ecological systems can undergo chaotic behaviour has made chaos a topic of considerable interest among theoretical ecologists. However, there is still a lack of experimental evidence that chaotic behaviour occurs in the real world of coexisting populations in multi-species systems. Here we study the dynamics of a defined predator-prey system consisting of a bacterivorous ciliate and two bacterial prey species. The bacterial species preferred by the ciliate was the superior competitor. Experimental conditions were kept constant with continuous cultivation in a one-stage chemostat. We show that the dynamic behaviour of such a two-prey, one-predator system includes chaotic behaviour, as well as stable limit cycles and coexistence at equilibrium. Changes in the population dynamics were triggered by changes in the dilution rates of the chemostat. The observed dynamics were verified by estimating the corresponding Lyapunov exponents. Such a defined microbial food web offers a new possibility for the experimental study of deterministic chaos in real biological systems.     

一族非线性映射及其浑沌抑制

给出了一族非线性映射,研究了优劣民用 非线性动力学系统的长期行为,揭示了该族非线性映射存在的两种运动行为：确定性运动和确定性浑沌,通过变换数值算法的途径改变局部映射,得到了一族抑制确定性浑沌产生的映射,该映射不仅保持了与原有映射相同的确定性运动,而且消除了原映射存在的确定性浑沌,将此方法应用到生物物种繁殖动力学中,可对一种生物物种的浑沌繁殖起到抑制作用。     

Coherent ecological dynamics induced by large-scale disturbance

Aggregate community-level response to disturbance is a principle concern in ecology because post-disturbance dynamics are integral to the ability of ecosystems to maintain function in an uncertain world. Community-level responses to disturbance can be arrayed along a spectrum ranging from synchronous oscillations where all species rise and fall together, to compensatory dynamics where total biomass remains relatively constant despite fluctuations in the densities of individual species. An important recent insight is that patterns of synchrony and compensation can vary with the timescale of analysis and that spectral time series methods can enable detection of coherent dynamics that would otherwise be obscured by opposing patterns occurring at different scales. Here I show that application of wavelet analysis to experimentally manipulated plankton communities reveals strong synchrony after disturbance. The result is paradoxical because it is well established that these communities contain both disturbance-sensitive and disturbance-tolerant species leading to compensation within functional groups. Theory predicts that compensatory substitution of functionally equivalent species should stabilize ecological communities, yet I found at the whole-community level a large increase in seasonal biomass variation. Resolution of the paradox hinges on patterns of seasonality among species. The compensatory shift in community composition after disturbance resulted in a loss of cold-season dominants, which before disturbance had served to stabilize biomass throughout the year. Species dominating the disturbed community peaked coherently during the warm season, explaining the observed synchrony and increase in seasonal biomass variation. These results suggest that theory relating compensatory dynamics to ecological stability needs to consider not only complementarity in species responses to environmental change, but also seasonal complementarity among disturbance-tolerant and disturbance-sensitive species.     

Consistent patterns and the idiosyncratic effects of biodiversity in marine ecosystems

Revealing the consequences of species extinctions for ecosystem function has been a chief research goal and has been accompanied by enthusiastic debate. Studies carried out predominantly in terrestrial grassland and soil ecosystems have demonstrated that as the number of species in assembled communities increases, so too do certain ecosystem processes, such as productivity, whereas others such as decomposition can remain unaffected. Diversity can influence aspects of ecosystem function, but questions remain as to how generic the patterns observed are, and whether they are the product of diversity, as such, or of the functional roles and traits that characterize species in ecological systems. Here we demonstrate variable diversity effects for species representative of marine coastal systems at both global and regional scales. We provide evidence for an increase in complementary resource use as diversity increases and show strong evidence for diversity effects in naturally assembled communities at a regional scale. The variability among individual species responses is consistent with a positive but idiosyncratic pattern of ecosystem function with increased diversity.     

水下缆索动力学理论模型

水下缆索建模是水下拖曳系统和系泊系统中一项关键工作，采用多体系统方法对缆索动力特性进行理论分析，建立了缆索多体动力学三维有限段模型。该模型将缆索视为一系列具有不同物理特性的铰接刚性缆段，系统包含多个开环分支或闭环分支，讨论了流体阻力、流体附加质量和流体静压力的影响，分析比较了附加质量与系统本身惯性的关系，对小尺度缆索进行动力学仿真，并与实验结果做了比较，吻合良好，该模型可用于水下缆索系统的动力学仿真。     

Biodiversity improves water quality through niche partitioning

Excessive nutrient loading of water bodies is a leading cause of water pollution worldwide, and controlling nutrient levels in watersheds is a primary objective of most environmental policy. Over the past two decades, much research has shown that ecosystems with more species are more efficient at removing nutrients from soil and water than are ecosystems with fewer species. This has led some to suggest that conservation of biodiversity might be a useful tool for managing nutrient uptake and storage, but this suggestion has been controversial, in part because the specific biological mechanisms by which species diversity influences nutrient uptake have not been identified. Here I use a model system of stream biofilms to show that niche partitioning among species of algae can increase the uptake and storage of nitrate, a nutrient pollutant of global concern. I manipulated the number of species of algae growing in the biofilms of 150 stream mesocosms that had been set up to mimic the variety of flow habitats and disturbance regimes that are typical of natural streams. Nitrogen uptake rates, as measured by using (15)N-labelled nitrate, increased linearly with species richness and were driven by niche differences among species. As different forms of algae came to dominate each unique habitat in a stream, the more diverse communities achieved a higher biomass and greater (15)N uptake. When these niche opportunities were experimentally removed by making all of the habitats in a stream uniform, diversity did not influence nitrogen uptake, and biofilms collapsed to a single dominant species. These results provide direct evidence that communities with more species take greater advantage of the niche opportunities in an environment, and this allows diverse systems to capture a greater proportion of biologically available resources such as nitrogen. One implication is that biodiversity may help to buffer natural ecosystems against the ecological impacts of nutrient pollution.     

Positive interactions among alpine plants increase with stress

Plants can have positive effects on each other. For example, the accumulation of nutrients, provision of shade, amelioration of disturbance, or protection from herbivores by some species can enhance the performance of neighbouring species. Thus the notion that the distributions and abundances of plant species are independent of other species may be inadequate as a theoretical underpinning for understanding species coexistence and diversity. But there have been no large-scale experiments designed to examine the generality of positive interactions in plant communities and their importance relative to competition. Here we show that the biomass, growth and reproduction of alpine plant species are higher when other plants are nearby. In an experiment conducted in subalpine and alpine plant communities with 115 species in 11 different mountain ranges, we find that competition generally, but not exclusively, dominates interactions at lower elevations where conditions are less physically stressful. In contrast, at high elevations where abiotic stress is high the interactions among plants are predominantly positive. Furthermore, across all high and low sites positive interactions are more important at sites with low temperatures in the early summer, but competition prevails at warmer sites.     

Experimental evidence for apparent competition in a tropical forest food web

The herbivorous insects of tropical forests constitute some of the most diverse communities of living organisms. For this reason it has been difficult to discover the degree to which these communities are structured, and by what processes. Interspecific competition for resources does occur, but its contemporary importance is limited because most pairs of potentially competing insects feed on different host plants. An alternative way in which species can interact is through shared natural enemies, a process called apparent competition. Despite extensive theoretical discussion there are few field demonstrations of apparent competition, and none in hyper-diverse tropical communities. Here, we experimentally removed two species of herbivore from a community of leaf-mining insects in a tropical forest. We predicted that other species that share natural enemies with the two removed species would experience lower parasitism and have higher population densities in treatment compared with control sites. In both cases (on removal of a dipteran and a coleopteran leaf-miner species) we found significantly lower parasitism, and in one case (removal of the dipteran) we found significantly higher abundance a year after the manipulation. Our results suggest that apparent competition may be important in structuring tropical insect communities.     

Rapid worldwide depletion of predatory fish communities

Serious concerns have been raised about the ecological effects of industrialized fishing, spurring a United Nations resolution on restoring fisheries and marine ecosystems to healthy levels. However, a prerequisite for restoration is a general understanding of the composition and abundance of unexploited fish communities, relative to contemporary ones. We constructed trajectories of community biomass and composition of large predatory fishes in four continental shelf and nine oceanic systems, using all available data from the beginning of exploitation. Industrialized fisheries typically reduced community biomass by 80% within 15 years of exploitation. Compensatory increases in fast-growing species were observed, but often reversed within a decade. Using a meta-analytic approach, we estimate that large predatory fish biomass today is only about 10% of pre-industrial levels. We conclude that declines of large predators in coastal regions have extended throughout the global ocean, with potentially serious consequences for ecosystems. Our analysis suggests that management based on recent data alone may be misleading, and provides minimum estimates for unexploited communities, which could serve as the 'missing baseline' needed for future restoration efforts.     

Competition and mutualism among the gut helminths of a mammalian host

Most animal species are infected with multiple parasite species; however, the role of interspecific parasite interactions in influencing parasite dynamics and shaping parasite communities has been unclear. Although laboratory studies have found evidence of cross-immunity, immunosuppression and competition, analyses of hosts in the field have generally concluded that parasite communities are little more than random assemblages. Here we present evidence of consistent interspecific interactions in a natural mammalian system, revealed through the analysis of parasite intensity data collected from a free-ranging rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) population, sampled monthly for a period of 23 yr. The wild rabbit plays host to a diverse gut helminth community that reflects the communities seen in other economically important domestic herbivores. These findings suggest that parasite interactions could have profound implications for the dynamics of parasite communities. The efficacy of parasite control programmes could be jeopardized if such interactions are not taken into account. In contrast, a clear understanding of such interactions may provide the basis for the development of more environmentally acceptable methods of parasite control.     

山西黄刺玫群落灌木层优势种种间关联性研究

通过野外调查,选取黄刺玫群落122个样方的20种优势物种,运用多物种方差比值（VR）,χ2检验,OI指数,AC值以及Pearson相关系数和Spearman秩相关系数对其进行了种间关联分析.结果表明：该群落内物种整体关联性表现为负关联不显著;负关联的种对数远大于正关联的种对数,呈显著关联和极显著关联的种对数所占比例较小.这说明黄刺玫群落不稳定,群落内存在激烈的竞争,群落处于演替的初期.20个物种种对关系表现出了不同的性质,这可能是群落内环境异质性所致.种间关联的研究可以反映出由物种生态特征所形成的有机联系,研究结果对黄刺玫群落的保护与利用有一定的指导意义.     

缙云山常绿阔叶林次生演替序列群落物种多样性动态研究

采用物种丰富度Ｓ和物种多样性香农指数Ｈ、物种均匀度指数Ｊ以多样性－面积曲线研究缙云山常绿阔叶林次生演替序列物种多样性近十年的变化,结果表明,１０年后,群落各层物种多样性指数均有下降趋势,草本层下降最为明显;群落及乔、灌木层的多样性指数（Ｓ,Ｈ,Ｊ）在演替中后期阶段均呈下降趋势,而演替前期的马尾松和林龄较短的混交林Ⅰ却有上升趋势;群落各层多样性最小面积按马尾松林、混交林到常绿阔叶林顺序增长,两个混交     

Fokker—Planck程序包的开发与应用

在已有基础上,考虑了各种不同类型的加热模式,增加了计算功能,开发适用于描述多份量等离子体中粒子的动力学过程的软件包;已用于磁约束环形装置等离子体辅助加热与电流驱动的数值模拟,数值结果与理论分析完全一致。     

煤炭企业安全投入动力系统分析及评价

从煤炭企业的内部系统和外部系统两个方面分析煤炭企业进行安全投入的驱动因素,利用系统动力学方法构建安全投入驱动机制模型,并对驱动机制进行分析。结果表明煤炭企业进行安全投入是多种因素共同作用的结果,有主导因素和辅助因素之分,煤炭企业是否愿意进行持续有效的安全投入,主要是看其主导因素是否具有持续的动力。在上述对驱动机制分析的基础上,构建安全投入动力系统评价指标体系,进而对煤矿企业安全投入驱动机制进行评价,以为煤矿企业提升安全投入驱动机制等级提供依据。     

Chaos in a long-term experiment with a plankton community

Mathematical models predict that species interactions such as competition and predation can generate chaos. However, experimental demonstrations of chaos in ecology are scarce, and have been limited to simple laboratory systems with a short duration and artificial species combinations. Here, we present the first experimental demonstration of chaos in a long-term experiment with a complex food web. Our food web was isolated from the Baltic Sea, and consisted of bacteria, several phytoplankton species, herbivorous and predatory zooplankton species, and detritivores. The food web was cultured in a laboratory mesocosm, and sampled twice a week for more than 2,300 days. Despite constant external conditions, the species abundances showed striking fluctuations over several orders of magnitude. These fluctuations displayed a variety of different periodicities, which could be attributed to different species interactions in the food web. The population dynamics were characterized by positive Lyapunov exponents of similar magnitude for each species. Predictability was limited to a time horizon of 15-30 days, only slightly longer than the local weather forecast. Hence, our results demonstrate that species interactions in food webs can generate chaos. This implies that stability is not required for the persistence of complex food webs, and that the long-term prediction of species abundances can be fundamentally impossible.     

The evolution of müllerian mimicry in multispecies communities

Prey species that are unprofitable to attack often share conspicuous colours and patterns with other coexisting defended species. This phenomenon, termed müllerian mimicry, has long been explained as a consequence of selection on defended prey to adopt a common way of advertising their unprofitability. However, studies using two unpalatable prey types have not always supported this theory. Here we show, using a system of humans hunting for computer-generated prey, that predators do not always generate strong selection for mimicry when there are two unprofitable prey types. By contrast, we demonstrate that when predators are faced with a range of different prey species, selection on unprofitable prey to resemble one another can be intense. Here the primary selective force is not one in which predators evaluate the profitabilities of distinct prey types independently, but one in which predators learn better to avoid unprofitable phenotypes that share traits distinguishing them from profitable prey. This need to simplify decision making readily facilitates the spread of imperfect mimetic forms from rarity, and suggests that müllerian mimicry is more likely to arise in multispecies communities.     

Effects of biodiversity on the functioning of trophic groups and ecosystems

Over the past decade, accelerating rates of species extinction have prompted an increasing number of studies to reduce species diversity experimentally and examine how this alters the efficiency by which communities capture resources and convert those into biomass. So far, the generality of patterns and processes observed in individual studies have been the subjects of considerable debate. Here we present a formal meta-analysis of studies that have experimentally manipulated species diversity to examine how it affects the functioning of numerous trophic groups in multiple types of ecosystem. We show that the average effect of decreasing species richness is to decrease the abundance or biomass of the focal trophic group, leading to less complete depletion of resources used by that group. At the same time, analyses reveal that the standing stock of, and resource depletion by, the most species-rich polyculture tends to be no different from that of the single most productive species used in an experiment. Of the known mechanisms that might explain these trends, results are most consistent with what is called the 'sampling effect', which occurs when diverse communities are more likely to contain and become dominated by the most productive species. Whether this mechanism is widespread in natural communities is currently controversial. Patterns we report are remarkably consistent for four different trophic groups (producers, herbivores, detritivores and predators) and two major ecosystem types (aquatic and terrestrial). Collectively, our analyses suggest that the average species loss does indeed affect the functioning of a wide variety of organisms and ecosystems, but the magnitude of these effects is ultimately determined by the identity of species that are going extinct.     

亚热带3个地点青钱柳群落特征比较

【目的】以亚热带3个区域青钱柳天然群落为研究对象,通过调查其物种组成、结构特征、种群结构以及更新状况,探究影响青钱柳种群更新的主要原因,为青钱柳野生资源的保护和可持续利用提供科学依据和技术支撑。【方法】采用典型样方调查的方法,对3个青钱柳群落[四川沐川(群落M)、广西金钟山(群落J)和湖北鹤峰(群落H)]进行样方调查,分析其物种组成、物种多样性特征和区系特征,并评价群落间的相似性。以径级代替年龄的方式分析种群结构和更新情况。【结果】四川沐川群落(群落M)、广西金钟山群落(群落J)和湖北鹤峰群落(群落H)分别有维管植物32科50属70种、50科79属96种和59科100属126种;3个群落区系特征差异不显著,均以亚热带和温带成分为主;物种多样性和物种丰富度变化趋势较为一致,表现为乔木层>灌木层>草本层。3个群落的物种多样性和丰富度总体表现为群落H>群落J>群落M;群落结构为中等不相似,相似度表现为群落M与群落J的较高,群落M与群落H的次之,群落J与群落H的较小。【结论】整体来看,不同地理分布的青钱柳群落物种组成差异明显,相似性水平低,但其结构特征具有一定的相似性;乔木层树种优势显著,导致林分郁闭,林下光照减少,影响种群更新;灌木层植物种类较多,分布较为均匀;草本层占据较少空间,以蕨类植物为主;青钱柳种群天然更新在径级结构上出现不同程度的残缺现象,导致更新不连续。从天然更新的角度看,适当开辟林窗,有利于促进林下青钱柳幼苗幼树的生长及均匀分布,完成种群更新,使群落向着长久稳定的方向发展。     

Oligocene mammals from Ethiopia and faunal exchange between Afro-Arabia and Eurasia

Afro-Arabian mammalian communities underwent a marked transition near the Oligocene/Miocene boundary at approximately 24 million years (Myr) ago. Although it is well documented that the endemic paenungulate taxa were replaced by migrants from the Northern Hemisphere, the timing and evolutionary dynamics of this transition have long been a mystery because faunas from about 32 to 24 Myr ago are largely unknown. Here we report a late Oligocene fossil assemblage from Ethiopia, which constrains the migration to postdate 27 Myr ago, and yields new insight into the indigenous faunal dynamics that preceded this event. The fauna is composed of large paenungulate herbivores and reveals not only which earlier taxa persisted into the late Oligocene epoch but also demonstrates that one group, the Proboscidea, underwent a marked diversification. When Eurasian immigrants entered Afro-Arabia, a pattern of winners and losers among the endemics emerged: less diverse taxa such as arsinoitheres became extinct, moderately species-rich groups such as hyracoids continued into the Miocene with reduced diversity, whereas the proboscideans successfully carried their adaptive radiation out of Afro-Arabia and across the world.