Ecology Podcast

How best can international journals support applied ecologists in emerging economies

Workshop held at INTECOL congress in London, 20th August 2013 organised by E.J. Milner-Gulland and Jos Barlow, sponsored by Journal of Applied Ecology

As the world’s emerging economies (including Brazil, China, India and Russia) continue to develop, there is increasing concern about the likely ecological cost, both at home and internationally. There is an acute and urgent need for influential and effective applied ecologists in these countries, but international ecological discourse is still dominated by science from Europe and the rich, English-speaking world. As a global community of ecologists, we need to be proactive to ensure that we are engaging with the myriad challenges of this new world order. In this workshop we aim to explore the ways in which international journals, their publishers, and ecologists worldwide can support applied ecology in countries with emerging economies. The speakers and organisers bring a diverse range of expertise and perspectives to the workshop, ensuring a lively debate and innovative ideas.

Music credit:

+ Artist: Twenty-One: Twenty-Four http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Twenty-One_Twenty-Four/

+ Song: Five Cinco (Instrumental) http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Twenty-One_Twenty-Four/Spanglish_XE/06_-_Five_Cinco_Instrumental

Read "Climatic stress mediates the impacts of herbivory on plant population structure and components of individual fitness" by Louthan et al. via http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2745.12090/abstract.

Music credit: "Silence in Sunshine (Feel The Heat Remix)"

http://freemusicarchive.org/music/The_Scallions/Wrecked_by_mGee/06_-_Silence_in_Sunshine_Feel_The_Heat_Remix_Instrumental by The Scallions http://freemusicarchive.org/music/The_Scallions/

As part of our new Mechanisms of Plant Competition Special Feature, Susan Schwinning talks to Alan Knapp about plant competition in water-limited environments.

Water is the primary factor limiting the growth and productivity of land plants, and fluctuations in plant-available water are ubiquitous in most terrestrial environments, due to variable and unpredictable rainfall. Evolution has produced numerous strategies of compromise between the conflicting goals of maximizing growth and reproduction when water is available and minimizing the risk of mortality when it is not. Because no species is able to pre-empt all opportunities for water and nutrient uptake, many plant species can coexist. However, the mechanisms responsible for making this stable, competitive coexistence possible are often hidden and difficult to study experimentally.

Understanding and predicting how plant communities will respond to contemporary climate change remains a challenge to science, but one that can be guided by addressing the fundamental ways in which fluctuations in plant-available water interact with competition, between either adults or seedlings.

Schwinning, S., Kelly, C. K. (2013), Plant competition, temporal niches and implications for productivity and adaptability to climate change in water-limited environments. Functional Ecology, 27: 886–897. doi: 10.1111/1365-2435.12115

For more on this, check out our Special Feature page: http://www.functionalecology.org/view/0/specialfeatures.html

Ken Thompson, senior editor for Functional Ecology, discusses Simon Pierce's new paper, "Implications for biodiversity conservation of the lack of consensus regarding the humped-back model of species richness and biomass production"

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2435.12147/abstract

Music credit:

-Song "Silence in Sunshine (Feel The Heat Remix)"

http://freemusicarchive.org/music/The_Scallions/Wrecked_by_mGee/06_-_Silence_in_Sunshine_Feel_The_Heat_Remix_Instrumental

-Artist The Scallions http://freemusicarchive.org/music/The_Scallions/

Music credit:

-Artist: Gillicudy (http://freemusicarchive.org/music/gillicuddy/)

-Song: Jupiter the Blue (http://freemusicarchive.org/music/gillicuddy/Plays_Guitar/01-jupiter-the-blue)

In this podcast, David Hawke from the Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology, discusses his recently published paper "Closing the circle: how ecologists can prepare their own quality control material to increase confidence in stable isotope data".

Read the article: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/2041-210X.12087/abstract

Music credit: "The Old Country" by Plusplus (http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Plusplus/Game_Over/07_Plusplus_-_The_Old_Country)

Robbie Wilson interviews David Jachowski on his work "Unravelling complex associations between physiological state and movement in African elephants."

Understanding animal movements involves a complex association of factors. In addition to anatomical constraints and factors like the surrounding environment, more cryptic factors can play a role-- such as an animal's internal, physiological state, or navigational capacity. Complex movement models have been constructed in an attempt to infer an animal's internal state based on movement behaviours, but direct studies of the effect of an individual’s internal state on movement behaviour have been lacking.

African elephants are known to alter their behaviour in response to their physiological state, with elevated stress hormone concentrations being associated with reclusive behaviour and aggression towards humans. A better understanding of the link between internal, physiological state and the use of space in relation to the proximity of environmental features and refugia is important in mitigating human-elephant conflict.

Read the lay summary here: http://bit.ly/11KoGeb

Read the paper here: http://bit.ly/126B33e