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Linking populations to landscapes: richness scenarios resulting from changes in the dynamics of an ecosystem engineer.

Publication ,  Journal Article
Wright, JP
Published in: Ecology
December 2009

Predicting the effects of the loss of individual species on diversity represents one of the primary challenges facing community ecology. One pathway by which organisms of one species affect the distribution of species is ecosystem engineering. Changes in the dynamics of ecosystem engineers that lead to changes in the distribution of the patches of altered habitat are likely to lead to changes in diversity. I link data on the distribution of plant species found in the riparian zone of the Adirondacks (New York, USA) in patches modified by beaver and in unmodified forest patches to a model connecting the dynamics of ecosystem engineers to the dynamics of the patches that they create. These analyses demonstrate that changes in key parameters of the model, such as decreases in beaver colonization rates and rate of patch abandonment, lead to changes in species richness of up to 45% at the landscape scale, and that these changes are likely to occur over long time scales. This general approach of linking the population dynamics or behavior of a single species to changes in species richness at the landscape scale provides a means for both testing the importance of ecosystem engineering in different systems and developing scenarios to predict how changes in the dynamics of a single species are likely to affect species richness.

Duke Scholars

Published In

Ecology

DOI

EISSN

1939-9170

ISSN

1939-9170

Publication Date

December 2009

Volume

90

Issue

12

Start / End Page

3418 / 3429

Related Subject Headings

  • Species Specificity
  • Rodentia
  • Population Dynamics
  • Plant Physiological Phenomena
  • Plant Development
  • Ecosystem
  • Ecology
  • Biodiversity
  • Animals
  • 4102 Ecological applications
 

Citation

APA
Chicago
ICMJE
MLA
NLM
Wright, J. P. (2009). Linking populations to landscapes: richness scenarios resulting from changes in the dynamics of an ecosystem engineer. Ecology, 90(12), 3418–3429. https://doi.org/10.1890/08-1885.1
Wright, Justin P. “Linking populations to landscapes: richness scenarios resulting from changes in the dynamics of an ecosystem engineer.Ecology 90, no. 12 (December 2009): 3418–29. https://doi.org/10.1890/08-1885.1.
Wright, Justin P. “Linking populations to landscapes: richness scenarios resulting from changes in the dynamics of an ecosystem engineer.Ecology, vol. 90, no. 12, Dec. 2009, pp. 3418–29. Epmc, doi:10.1890/08-1885.1.
Journal cover image

Published In

Ecology

DOI

EISSN

1939-9170

ISSN

1939-9170

Publication Date

December 2009

Volume

90

Issue

12

Start / End Page

3418 / 3429

Related Subject Headings

  • Species Specificity
  • Rodentia
  • Population Dynamics
  • Plant Physiological Phenomena
  • Plant Development
  • Ecosystem
  • Ecology
  • Biodiversity
  • Animals
  • 4102 Ecological applications