Scaling in Ecology with a Model System

✍ Scribed by Aaron M. Ellison, Nicholas J. Gotelli

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2021
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 339
• Series: Monographs in Population Biology, 118
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

A groundbreaking approach to scale and scaling in ecological theory and practice

Scale is one of the most important concepts in ecology, yet researchers often find it difficult to find ecological systems that lend themselves to its study. Scaling in Ecology with a Model System synthesizes nearly three decades of research on the ecology of Sarracenia purpurea―the northern pitcher plant―showing how this carnivorous plant and its associated food web of microbes and macrobes can inform the challenging question of scaling in ecology.

Drawing on a wealth of findings from their pioneering lab and field experiments, Aaron Ellison and Nicholas Gotelli reveal how the Sarracenia microecosystem has emerged as a model system for experimental ecology. Ellison and Gotelli examine Sarracenia at a hierarchy of spatial scales―individual pitchers within plants, plants within bogs, and bogs within landscapes―and demonstrate how pitcher plants can serve as replicate miniature ecosystems that can be studied in wetlands throughout the United States and Canada. They show how research on the Sarracenia microecosystem proceeds much more rapidly than studies of larger, more slowly changing ecosystems such as forests, grasslands, lakes, or streams, which are more difficult to replicate and experimentally manipulate.

Scaling in Ecology with a Model System offers new insights into ecophysiology and stoichiometry, demography, extinction risk and species distribution models, food webs and trophic dynamics, and tipping points and regime shifts.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Scaling in Ecology with a Model System
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Preface
Abbreviations
1. Introduction: Why Scale?
1.1 Time and Space
1.2 Genes to Ecosystems
1.3 Modeling: Metabolic Theory and Macroecology
1.4 Mechanisms at Scales
1.5 Organisms as Model Systems
1.6 Summary
Part I Ecophysiology, Nutrient Limitation, and Stoichiometry
2. Context: Nutrient Limitation, the Evolution of Botanical Carnivory, and Environmental Change
2.1 Background
2.1.1 Nutrient Acquisition, Plant Traits, and the Evolution of Botanical Carnivory
2.1.2 Anthropogenic Activities Alter Resource Availability and Fluxes
2.2 Next Steps
3. The Small World: Stoichiometry and Nutrient Limitation in Pitcher Plants and Other Phytotelmata
3.1 Stoichiometric Manipulations of Sarracenia
3.1.1 Effects of Soluble N from Atmospheric Sources
3.1.2 Effects of Nutrient Inputs from Supplemental Prey
3.1.3 Synthesis of Supplemental Feeding Experiments
3.2 Nutrient Additions in Other Phytotelmata
3.3 Summary
4. Scaling Up: Stoichiometry, Traits, and the Place of Sarracenia in Global Spectra of Plant Traits
4.1 Global Plant Trait Spectra
4.1.1 Traits
4.1.2 Trait Data
4.2 Carnivorous Plants in Global Trait Spectra
4.2.1 Nutrient Concentrations
4.2.2 Nutrient Stoichiometry
4.2.3 Stoichiometric Effects of Supplemental Prey on Carnivorous Plants
4.2.4 Stoichiometric Effects of Adding Inorganic Nutrients to Carnivorous Plants
4.2.5 Photosynthesis and Construction Costs
4.3 Synthesis
Part II Demography, Global Change, and Species Distribution Models
5. Context: Demography, Global Change, and the Changing Distributions of Species
5.1 Background
5.2 SDMs, Demography, and Anthropogenic Drivers: Moving Beyond Temperature
5.2.1 Weak Responses to Temperature
5.2.2 Nutrient Enrichment as Another Global-Change Driver
5.2.3 The Importance of Demographic Effects
5.3 Next Steps
6. The Small World: Demography of a Long-Lived Perennial Carnivorous Plant
6.1 Demographic Models of Sarracenia purpurea
6.1.1 A Deterministic, Stage-Based Demographic Model for Sarracenia purpurea
6.1.2 Stochastic Stage-Based Models
6.2 Experimental Demography
6.3 Demography in a Changing World
6.3.1 Forecasting Nitrogen Deposition
6.3.2 Linking N-Deposition Rates to Stage-Transition Matrices
6.3.3 Modeling Population Growth
6.3.4 The Future Is Now: Nitrogen Deposition and Extinction Risk in 2020
6.4 Summary
7. Scaling Up: Incorporating Demography and Extinction Risk into Species Distribution Models
7.1 Available Data
7.1.1 Sarracenia purupurea Occurrence Data
7.1.2 Environmental and Climatic Data
7.2 Continental Scaling of Demographic Models
7.2.1 Challenges and Simplifying Assumptions
7.2.2 Including P Introduced Additional Complexity
7.2.3 Continental Forecasts for S. purpurea Persistence
7.3 Forecasting the Future Distribution of Sarracenia purpurea
7.3.1 A MaxEnt Model for Sarracenia purpurea
7.3.2 Comparison of Forecasts of Demographic and MaxEnt Models
7.4 Additional Forecasting Scenarios, Past and Future
7.5 Synthesis
Part III Ecology of the Sarracenia Community
8. Context: Community Ecology, Community Ecologies, and Communities of Ecologists
8.1 Background
8.1.1 What Is an Ecological Community?
8.1.2 Substituting Space for Time, and Vice Versa
8.1.3 The Importance of Networks
8.2 Next Steps
9. The Small World: Structure and Dynamics of Inquiline Food Webs in Sarracenia purpurea
9.1 Composition and Structure of the Sarracenia purpurea Food Web
9.1.1 The Inquilines
9.1.2 Network Structure of the Sarracenia purpurea Food Web
9.2 Co-occurrence Analysis of Sarracenia purpurea Inquilines
9.2.1 Quantifying and Testing Inquiline Co-occurrence
9.3 Succession of the Inquiline Food Web
9.4 Dynamics of the Sarracenia purpurea Food Web
9.4.1 Temporal Changes in Food-Web Structure
9.4.2 A Model of Food-Web Temporal Dynamics
9.5 Summary
10. Scaling Up: The Generality of the Sarracenia Food Web and Its Value as a Model Experimental System
10.1 The Sarracenia Food Web and Other Container Webs Are “Normal” Food Webs
10.1.1 Food-Web Data
10.1.2 Food-Web Structure
10.2 Spatial Scaling of the Sarracenia purpurea Food Web
10.3 The Sarracenia purpurea Food Web as a Model Experimental System for Understanding and Managing Food Webs
10.3.1 Fishing Down the Sarracenia Food Web
10.3.2 Is Wyeomyia smithii a Keystone Predator?
10.3.3 Dynamic Food Webs in Dynamic Habitats
10.4 Synthesis
Part IV Tempests in Teapots
11. Context: Tipping Points and Regime Shifts
11.1 Background
11.1.1 Examples of Regime Shifts and Alternative States
11.1.2 Linking Empirical Data with Mathematical Models of Alternative States
11.2 A Potential Need for Interventions
11.3 Next Steps
12. The Small World: Tipping Points and Regime Shifts in the Sarracenia Microecosystem
12.1 State Changes in the Sarracenia Microecosystem
12.1.1 Temporal Dynamics of Aerobic and Anaerobic Conditions in Sarracenia purpurea Pitchers
12.1.2 An Alternative Approach
12.2 Summary
13. Scaling Up: Using omics to Identify Ecosystem States and Transitions
13.1 Protein Surveys of the Sarracenia Microecosystem
13.2 Proteomics of Sarracenia Fed Supplemental Prey
13.3 The Cybernetics and Information Content of the S. purpurea Proteome
13.4 Early Warning Indicators, Hysteresis, and the Twisted Path of Funded Research
13.4.1 Hysteresis, Environmental Tracking, and Anti-hysteresis in the Sarracenia Microecosystem
13.5 Synthesis
14. Conclusion: Whither Sarracenia?
14.1 Resources, Nutrients, and Stoichiometry
14.2 Demography and Species Distributions
14.3 Food Webs and Other Networks
14.4 Tipping Points, Regime Shifts, and Alternative States
Appendices
Appendix A: The Natural History of Sarracenia and Its Microecosystem
Appendix B: The Basics of Resource Limitation
Appendix C: Deterministic Stage-Based Models
Appendix D: The Basics of Species Distribution Models
Appendix E: A Brief History and Précis of Methods for Analyzing Ecological Communities
Appendix F: On Tipping Points and Regime Shifts
Appendix G: On Biodiversity, Ecosystem Function, and omics
Notes
References
Subject Index
Taxonomic Index