Brian Reed Silliman

Journal Article Ecological Monographs · November 1, 2024 Parasites can alter the traits or densities of mutualistic partners, potentially destabilizing mutualistic associations that underpin the structure, functioning, and stability of entire ecosystems. Despite the potentially wide-ranging consequences of such ... Full text Cite

Role of low-impact-factor journals in conservation implementation.

Journal Article Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology · October 2024 Academic review, promotion, and tenure processes place a premium on frequent publication in high-impact factor (IF) journals. However, conservation often relies on species-specific information that is unlikely to have the broad appeal needed for high-IF jo ... Full text Cite

Mesopredator release moderates trophic control of plant biomass in a Georgia salt marsh.

Journal Article Ecology · October 2024 Predators regulate communities through top-down control in many ecosystems. Because most studies of top-down control last less than a year and focus on only a subset of the community, they may miss predator effects that manifest at longer timescales or acr ... Full text Cite

Long-term data reveal that grazer density mediates climatic stress in salt marshes.

Journal Article Ecology · July 2024 Understanding how climate and local stressors interact is paramount for predicting future ecosystem structure. The effects of multiple stressors are often examined in small-scale and short-term field experiments, limiting understanding of the spatial and t ... Full text Cite

PREVALENCE OF THE BOPYRID ISOPOD PROBOPYRUS PANDALICOLA IN DAGGERBLADE GRASS SHRIMP FROM SALT MARSH CREEKS AND PANNES OF CAPE COD, MASSACHUSETTS.

Journal Article The Journal of parasitology · July 2024 In salt marsh ecosystems, daggerblade grass shrimp, Palaemon (Palaemonetes) pugio, play a crucial role in food webs and serve as the definitive host for the bopyrid isopod Probopyrus pandalicola. These ectoparasites infest the branchial chambers of grass s ... Full text Cite

Harnessing ecological theory to enhance ecosystem restoration.

Journal Article Current biology : CB · May 2024 Ecosystem restoration can increase the health and resilience of nature and humanity. As a result, the international community is championing habitat restoration as a primary solution to address the dual climate and biodiversity crises. Yet most ecosystem r ... Full text Cite

Enhanced but highly variable biodiversity outcomes from coastal restoration: A global synthesis

Journal Article One Earth · April 19, 2024 Coastal ecosystems are being restored to combat environmental degradation and biodiversity loss. Colonization of restored sites by non-habitat-forming animals improves outcomes for ecosystems and society, yet there has been no review of how animals respond ... Full text Cite

Sediment carbon storage differs in native and non-native Caribbean seagrass beds.

Journal Article Marine environmental research · February 2024 Non-native species are expanding globally and can alter ecosystem functions, including food web dynamics, community structure and carbon storage. Seagrass are foundation species that contribute a variety of ecosystem services in near-shore coastal ecosyste ... Full text Cite

Top-predator recovery abates geomorphic decline of a coastal ecosystem.

Journal Article Nature · February 2024 Featured Publication The recovery of top predators is thought to have cascading effects on vegetated ecosystems and their geomorphology1,2, but the evidence for this remains correlational and intensely debated3,4. Here we combine observational and experim ... Full text Cite

Impacts of Climate Change on Marine Foundation Species.

Journal Article Annual review of marine science · January 2024 Marine foundation species are the biotic basis for many of the world's coastal ecosystems, providing structural habitat, food, and protection for myriad plants and animals as well as many ecosystem services. However, climate change poses a significant thre ... Full text Cite

Nature-Based Coastal Defenses: Can Biodiversity Help?

Chapter · January 1, 2024 The rapid degradation of ecosystems jeopardizes the services they provide. Among the most valuable of these services is protection of coastlines by shoreline ecological communities, such as coral reefs, mangroves and salt marshes. Currently, coastal protec ... Full text Cite

Shorebirds-driven trophic cascade helps restore coastal wetland multifunctionality.

Journal Article Nature communications · December 2023 Ecosystem restoration has traditionally focused on re-establishing vegetation and other foundation species at basal trophic levels, with mixed outcomes. Here, we show that threatened shorebirds could be important to restoring coastal wetland multifunctiona ... Full text Cite

Top ten priorities for global saltmarsh restoration, conservation and ecosystem service research.

Journal Article The Science of the total environment · November 2023 Coastal saltmarshes provide globally important ecosystem services including 'blue carbon' sequestration, flood protection, pollutant remediation, habitat provision and cultural value. Large portions of marshes have been lost or fragmented as a result of la ... Full text Cite

Herbivory limits success of vegetation restoration globally.

Journal Article Science (New York, N.Y.) · November 2023 Featured Publication Restoring vegetation in degraded ecosystems is an increasingly common practice for promoting biodiversity and ecological function, but successful implementation is hampered by an incomplete understanding of the processes that limit restoration success. By ... Full text Cite

Grazer host density mediates the ability of parasites to protect foundational plants from overgrazing

Journal Article Oikos · September 1, 2023 Like many top consumers, parasites can regulate feeding of their prey via trait-mediated means. If parasites modify the feeding behavior of ecologically important grazers, they may have cascading effects on the structure and functioning of whole plant comm ... Full text Cite

A wide megafauna gap undermines China's expanding coastal ecosystem conservation.

Journal Article Science advances · August 2023 To fulfill sustainable development goals, many countries are expanding efforts to conserve ecologically and societally critical coastal ecosystems. Although megafauna profoundly affect the functioning of ecosystems, they are neglected as a key component in ... Full text Cite

To restore coastal marine areas, we need to work across multiple habitats simultaneously.

Journal Article Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · June 2023 Full text Cite

What evidence exists on the performance of nature-based solutions interventions for coastal protection in biogenic, shallow ecosystems? A systematic map protocol.

Journal Article Environmental evidence · May 2023 BackgroundAnthropogenic pressures and climate change threaten the capacity of ecosystems to deliver a variety of services, including protecting coastal communities from hazards like flooding and erosion. Human interventions aim to buffer against o ... Full text Cite

Macrozoobenthos as an indicator of habitat suitability for intertidal seagrass

Journal Article Ecological Indicators · March 1, 2023 Seagrass meadows form the foundation of many coastal ecosystems, but are rapidly declining on a global scale. To conserve and restore these key-ecosystems, improved understanding of drivers behind seagrass presence and recovery is needed. Many animals are ... Full text Cite

Variable responses to top-down and bottom-up control on multiple traits in the foundational plant, Spartina alterniflora.

Journal Article PloS one · January 2023 While the effects of top-down and bottom-up forces on aboveground plant growth have been extensively examined, less is known about the relative impacts of these factors on other aspects of plant life history. In a fully-factorial, field experiment in a sal ... Full text Cite

Editorial: Marine ecosystem restoration (MER) – a call for a more inclusive paradigm

Journal Article Frontiers in Marine Science · January 1, 2023 Featured Publication Full text Cite

Greater Consideration of Animals Will Enhance Coastal Restoration Outcomes.

Journal Article Bioscience · November 2022 As efforts to restore coastal habitats accelerate, it is critical that investments are targeted to most effectively mitigate and reverse habitat loss and its impacts on biodiversity. One likely but largely overlooked impediment to effective restoration of ... Full text Cite

Recovering wetland biogeomorphic feedbacks to restore the world's biotic carbon hotspots.

Journal Article Science (New York, N.Y.) · May 2022 Featured Publication Biogeomorphic wetlands cover 1% of Earth's surface but store 20% of ecosystem organic carbon. This disproportional share is fueled by high carbon sequestration rates and effective storage in peatlands, mangroves, salt marshes, and seagrass meadows, which g ... Full text Cite

Data from: Top-down and bottom-up control of Spartina alterniflora characteristics beyond standing biomass

Dataset · April 13, 2022 While the effects of top-down and bottom-up forces on aboveground plant growth have been extensively examined, less is known about the relative impacts of these factors on other aspects of plant life history, including belowground characteristics, litter p ... Full text Cite

The role of predators in coral disease dynamics

Journal Article Coral Reefs · April 1, 2022 Coral disease is becoming increasingly problematic on reefs worldwide. However, most coral disease research has focused on the abiotic drivers of disease, potentially overlooking the role of species interactions in disease dynamics. Coral predators in part ... Full text Cite

Publisher Correction: Heterogeneity within and among co-occurring foundation species increases biodiversity.

Journal Article Nature communications · March 2022 Full text Cite

Feral hogs control brackish marsh plant communities over time.

Journal Article Ecology · February 2022 Feral hogs modify ecosystems by consuming native species and altering habitat structure. These invasions can generate fundamentally different post-invasion habitats when disturbance changes community structure, ecosystem function, or recovery dynamics. Her ... Full text Cite

Invertebrate Grazing on Live Turtlegrass (Thalassia testudinum): A Common Interaction That May Facilitate Fungal Growth

Journal Article Frontiers in Marine Science · January 12, 2022 In coastal wetlands and tropical reefs, snails can regulate foundation species by feeding on marsh grasses and hard corals. In many cases, their impacts are amplified because they facilitate microbial infection in grazer-induced wounds. Whether snails comm ... Full text Cite

Meta-analysis of salt marsh vegetation impacts and recovery: a synthesis following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Journal Article Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America · January 2022 Marine oil spills continue to be a global issue, heightened by spill events such as the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the largest marine oil spill in US waters and among the largest worldwide, affecting over 1,000 km of sensitive wetl ... Full text Cite

Heterogeneity within and among co-occurring foundation species increases biodiversity.

Journal Article Nature communications · January 2022 Habitat heterogeneity is considered a primary causal driver underpinning patterns of diversity, yet the universal role of heterogeneity in structuring biodiversity is unclear due to a lack of coordinated experiments testing its effects across geographic sc ... Full text Cite

A large invasive consumer reduces coastal ecosystem resilience by disabling positive species interactions.

Journal Article Nature communications · November 2021 Invasive consumers can cause extensive ecological damage to native communities but effects on ecosystem resilience are less understood. Here, we use drone surveys, manipulative experiments, and mathematical models to show how feral hogs reduce resilience i ... Full text Cite

Infrastructure investment must incorporate Nature's lessons in a rapidly changing world

Journal Article One Earth · October 22, 2021 Infrastructure must become more resilient as the global climate changes and also more affordable in the economic and political context of a post-COVID world. We can solve this dual challenge and drive global infrastructure investment into a more sustainabl ... Full text Cite

Flood-stimulated herbivory drives range retraction of a plant ecosystem

Journal Article Journal of Ecology · October 1, 2021 Climate change is generating extreme climate events, affecting ecosystem integrity and function directly through increases in abiotic stress and disturbance and indirectly through changes in the strength of biotic interactions. As consumers play an essenti ... Full text Cite

A survey of benthic invertebrate communities in native and non-native seagrass beds in St. John, USVI

Journal Article Aquatic Botany · October 1, 2021 Halophila stipulacea, a seagrass native to the Indian Ocean, spread to the Caribbean in 2002. Few studies have explored the spatiotemporal distribution of H. stipulacea throughout the Caribbean and whether native invertebrates utilize this non-native seagr ... Full text Cite

An invasive species erodes the performance of coastal wetland protected areas.

Journal Article Science advances · October 2021 The world has increasingly relied on protected areas (PAs) to rescue highly valued ecosystems from human activities, but whether PAs will fare well with bioinvasions remains unknown. By analyzing three decades of seven of the largest coastal PAs in China, ... Full text Cite

Genetic analysis of red lionfish Pterois volitans from Florida, USA, leads to alternative North Atlantic introduction scenarios

Journal Article Marine Ecology Progress Series · September 30, 2021 The red lionfish Pterois volitans is a successful invasive predator across the western North Atlantic, Caribbean, and Gulf of Mexico. The southeast coast of Florida (USA) has been identified as the original introduction location, but genetic analyses inclu ... Full text Cite

Rebuilding relationships on coral reefs: Coral bleaching knowledge-sharing to aid adaptation planning for reef users: Bleaching emergence on reefs demonstrates the need to consider reef scale and accessibility when preparing for, and responding to, coral bleaching.

Journal Article BioEssays : news and reviews in molecular, cellular and developmental biology · September 2021 Coral bleaching has impacted reefs worldwide and the predictions of near-annual bleaching from over two decades ago have now been realized. While technology currently provides the means to predict large-scale bleaching, predicting reef-scale and within-ree ... Full text Cite

Long-term study reveals top-down effect of crabs on a California salt marsh

Journal Article Ecosphere · August 1, 2021 Consumers can structure plant communities and may function as keystone species or ecosystem engineers. In salt marshes, the prevailing paradigm has shifted in recent decades from nearly complete focus on bottom-up processes to inclusion of top-down effects ... Full text Cite

Top-down control of foundation species recovery during coastal wetland restoration.

Journal Article The Science of the total environment · May 2021 Restoration has been increasingly adopted to halt trends in coastal wetland loss globally. Existing restoration often assumes that once abiotic stress is relieved, disturbances are prevented, and invasive species are eradicated, coastal wetlands will recov ... Full text Cite

Inclusion of Intra- and Interspecific Facilitation Expands the Theoretical Framework for Seagrass Restoration

Journal Article Frontiers in Marine Science · April 22, 2021 Restoration is increasingly utilized as a strategy to stymie the loss of coastal habitats. Coastal habitat restoration has predominantly emphasized designs that minimize physical stress and competition. As evidence of the pervasiveness of this approach, we ... Full text Cite

Ecology and the science of small-scale fisheries: A synthetic review of research effort for the Anthropocene

Journal Article Biological Conservation · February 1, 2021 Human-driven changes to aquatic environments threaten small-scale fisheries (SSFs). Ensuring a livable future for SSFs in the Anthropocene requires incorporating ecological knowledge of these diverse multi-species systems beyond the long-standing reliance ... Full text Open Access Cite

Optimal Planting Distance in a Simple Model of Habitat Restoration With an Allee Effect

Journal Article Frontiers in Marine Science · January 22, 2021 Ecological restoration is emerging as an important strategy to improve the recovery of degraded lands and to combat habitat and biodiversity loss worldwide. One central unresolved question revolves around the optimal spatial design for outplanted propagule ... Full text Cite

Increasing grazer density leads to linear decreases in Spartina alterniflora biomass and exponential increases in grazing pressure across a barrier island

Journal Article Marine Ecology Progress Series · January 1, 2021 Researchers now recognize that top-down as well as bottom-up forces regulate salt marsh primary production. However, how top-down forces vary with grazer density is still poorly resolved. To begin to address this void, we (1) surveyed grazing intensity in ... Full text Cite

Consumer regulation of the carbon cycle in coastal wetland ecosystems.

Journal Article Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · December 2020 Despite escalating anthropogenic alteration of food webs, how the carbon cycle in ecosystems is regulated by food web processes remains poorly understood. We quantitatively synthesize the effects of consumers (herbivores, omnivores and carnivores) on the c ... Full text Cite

Bright Spots in Coastal Marine Ecosystem Restoration.

Journal Article Current biology : CB · December 2020 The United Nations General Assembly calls for ecosystem restoration to be a primary intervention strategy used to counter the continued loss of natural habitats worldwide, while supporting human health and wellbeing globally. Restoration of coastal marine ... Full text Cite

Megafauna in Salt Marshes

Journal Article Frontiers in Marine Science · November 13, 2020 Megafauna shape ecosystems globally through trophic interactions, ecology of fear, and ecosystem engineering. Highly productive salt marshes at the interface of terrestrial and marine systems have the potential to support megafauna species, but a recent gl ... Full text Open Access Cite

Challenges for Restoration of Coastal Marine Ecosystems in the Anthropocene

Journal Article Frontiers in Marine Science · November 4, 2020 Coastal marine ecosystems provide critical goods and services to humanity but many are experiencing rapid degradation. The need for effective restoration tools capable of promoting large-scale recovery of coastal ecosystems in the face of intensifying clim ... Full text Cite

Climate drives the geography of marine consumption by changing predator communities

Journal Article Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · October 26, 2020 The global distribution of primary production and consumption by humans (fisheries) is well-documented, but we have no map linking the central ecological process of consumption within food webs to temperature and other ecological drivers. Using sta ... Full text Open Access Cite

Relationships between a common Caribbean corallivorous snail and protected area status, coral cover, and predator abundance.

Journal Article Scientific reports · October 2020 As coral populations decline across the Caribbean, it is becoming increasingly important to understand the forces that inhibit coral survivorship and recovery. Predation by corallivores, such as the short coral snail Coralliophila abbreviata, are one such ... Full text Cite

Facilitating Better Outcomes: How Positive Species Interactions Can Improve Oyster Reef Restoration

Journal Article Frontiers in Marine Science · September 3, 2020 Over 85% of the world's oyster reefs have been lost in the past two centuries, triggering a global effort to restore shellfish reef ecosystems and the ecosystem services they provide. While there has been considerable success in re-establishing oyster reef ... Full text Cite

Short-term changes in reef fish community metrics correlate with variability in large shark occurrence

Journal Article Food Webs · September 1, 2020 Large predators exert control on lower trophic levels, often influencing long-term changes in community structure. Many large predators are highly mobile and occur in habitats along a continuum of presence and absence. In many natural systems, the movement ... Full text Cite

Positive Interactions in the Coral Macro and Microbiome.

Journal Article Trends in microbiology · August 2020 Researchers now recognize the importance of the coral microbiome, but they often overlook other species that live on corals and influence coral-microbe interactions. These 'interstitial associates' should be incorporated into the metaorganism concept for i ... Full text Cite

Playing to the Positives: Using Synergies to Enhance Kelp Forest Restoration

Journal Article Frontiers in Marine Science · July 10, 2020 Kelp forests are highly productive foundation species along much of the world’s coastline. As a result, kelp are crucial to the ecological, social, and economic well-being of coastal communities. Yet, due to a combination of acute and chronic stressors, ke ... Full text Cite

Mimicry of emergent traits amplifies coastal restoration success.

Journal Article Nature communications · July 2020 Restoration is becoming a vital tool to counteract coastal ecosystem degradation. Modifying transplant designs of habitat-forming organisms from dispersed to clumped can amplify coastal restoration yields as it generates self-facilitation from emergent tra ... Full text Cite

Social and ecological outcomes of conservation interventions in tropical coastal marine ecosystems: A systematic map protocol

Journal Article Environmental Evidence · May 13, 2020 Background: Tropical coastal marine ecosystems (TCMEs) are rich in biodiversity and provide many ecosystem services, including carbon storage, shoreline protection, and food. Coastal areas are home to increasing numbers of people and population growth is e ... Full text Cite

Positive Ecological Interactions and the Success of Seagrass Restoration

Journal Article Frontiers in Marine Science · February 20, 2020 Seagrasses provide multiple ecosystem services including nursery habitat, improved water quality, coastal protection, and carbon sequestration. However, seagrasses are in crisis as global coverage is declining at an accelerating rate. With increased focus ... Full text Cite

Correction: Phylogenetic, genomic, and biogeographic characterization of a novel and ubiquitous marine invertebrate-associated Rickettsiales parasite, Candidatus Aquarickettsia rohweri, gen. nov., sp. nov.

Journal Article The ISME journal · January 2020 An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper. ... Full text Cite

Parasites enhance resistance to drought in a coastal ecosystem.

Journal Article Ecology · January 2020 Parasites are more diverse and numerous than their hosts and commonly control population dynamics. Whether parasites also regulate key ecosystem processes, such as resistance to climate stress, is unclear. In southern U.S. salt marshes, drought interacts s ... Full text Cite

Coming to terms with living shorelines: A scoping review of novel restoration strategies for shoreline protection

Journal Article Frontiers in Marine Science · January 1, 2020 In an era of rapid coastal population expansion and habitat degradation, restoration is becoming an increasingly important strategy for combating coastal habitat loss and maintaining ecosystem services. In particular, techniques that use habitat restoratio ... Full text Cite

Artificial habitats host elevated densities of large reef-associated predators.

Journal Article PloS one · January 2020 Large predators play important ecological roles, yet many are disproportionately imperiled. In marine systems, artificial reefs are often deployed to restore degraded reefs or supplement existing reefs, but it remains unknown whether these interventions be ... Full text Cite

Phylogenetic, genomic, and biogeographic characterization of a novel and ubiquitous marine invertebrate-associated Rickettsiales parasite, Candidatus Aquarickettsia rohweri, gen. nov., sp. nov.

Journal Article The ISME journal · December 2019 Bacterial symbionts are integral to the health and homeostasis of invertebrate hosts. Notably, members of the Rickettsiales genus Wolbachia influence several aspects of the fitness and evolution of their terrestrial hosts, but few analogous partnerships ha ... Full text Cite

Supporting Spartina: Interdisciplinary perspective shows Spartina as a distinct solid genus.

Journal Article Ecology · November 2019 In 2014, a DNA-based phylogenetic study confirming the paraphyly of the grass subtribe Sporobolinae proposed the creation of a large monophyletic genus Sporobolus, including (among others) species previously included in the genera Spartina, Calamovilfa, an ... Full text Cite

Author Correction: The future of Blue Carbon science.

Journal Article Nature communications · November 2019 An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper. ... Full text Cite

Climate Change, Human Impacts, and Coastal Ecosystems in the Anthropocene.

Journal Article Current biology : CB · October 2019 Coastal zones, the world's most densely populated regions, are increasingly threatened by climate change stressors - rising and warming seas, intensifying storms and droughts, and acidifying oceans. Although coastal zones have been affected by local human ... Full text Cite

The future of Blue Carbon science.

Journal Article Nature communications · September 2019 The term Blue Carbon (BC) was first coined a decade ago to describe the disproportionately large contribution of coastal vegetated ecosystems to global carbon sequestration. The role of BC in climate change mitigation and adaptation has now reached interna ... Full text Cite

Citizen science reveals female sand tiger sharks (Carcharias taurus) exhibit signs of site fidelity on shipwrecks.

Journal Article Ecology · August 2019 Full text Cite

Field Experiments and Meta-analysis Reveal Wetland Vegetation as a Crucial Element in the Coastal Protection Paradigm.

Journal Article Current biology : CB · June 2019 Increasing rates of sea-level rise and wave action threaten coastal populations. Defense of shorelines by protection and restoration of wetlands has been invoked as a win-win strategy for humans and nature, yet evidence from field experiments supporting th ... Full text Cite

Artificial reefs facilitate tropical fish at their range edge.

Journal Article Communications biology · May 6, 2019 Spatial planning increasingly incorporates theoretical predictions that artificial habitats assist species movement at or beyond range edges, yet evidence for this is uncommon. We conducted surveys of highly mobile fauna (fishes) on artificial habitats (re ... Full text Cite

A seaweed increases ecosystem multifunctionality when invading bare mudflats

Journal Article Biological Invasions · January 15, 2019 Full text Cite

Weather fluctuations affect the impact of consumers on vegetation recovery following a catastrophic die-off.

Journal Article Ecology · January 2019 Prolonged droughts exacerbated by climate change have been widely documented to interact with consumers to decimate vegetation in many ecosystems. Although climate change is increasing within-year variation in precipitation and temperature, how weather flu ... Full text Cite

A facilitation cascade enhances local biodiversity in seagrass beds

Journal Article Diversity · January 1, 2019 Invertebrate diversity can be a key driver of ecosystem functioning, yet understanding what factors influence local biodiversity remains uncertain. In many marine and terrestrial systems, facilitation cascades where primary foundation and/or autogenic ecos ... Full text Cite

Harnessing positive species interactions to enhance coastal wetland restoration

Journal Article Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution · January 1, 2019 Coastal wetlands are among the most productive ecosystems in the world. They generate critical services for humans including shoreline protection, carbon storage, pollution mitigation, and fisheries production. Restoration of coastal wetlands has historica ... Full text Cite

Species recovery and recolonization of past habitats: lessons for science and conservation from sea otters in estuaries.

Journal Article PeerJ · January 2019 Recovering species are often limited to much smaller areas than they historically occupied. Conservation planning for the recovering species is often based on this limited range, which may simply be an artifact of where the surviving population persisted. ... Full text Cite

Predator size-structure and species identity determine cascading effects in a coastal ecosystem.

Journal Article Ecology and evolution · December 2018 Cascading consequences of predator extinctions are well documented, but impacts of perturbations to predator size-structure and how these vary across species remain unclear. Body size is hypothesized to be a key trait governing individual predators' impact ... Full text Cite

Physical Stress, Consumer Control, and New Theory in Ecology.

Journal Article Trends in ecology & evolution · July 2018 Consumer-prey interactions form the foundation of food webs and are affected by the physical environment. Multiple foundational theories in ecology [e.g., the environmental stress model (ESM), the stress-gradient hypothesis (SGH), and ecosystem resilience ... Full text Cite

Local management actions can increase coral resilience to thermally-induced bleaching.

Journal Article Nature ecology & evolution · July 2018 Recent large-scale analyses suggest that local management actions may not protect coral reefs from climate change, yet most local threat-reduction strategies have not been tested experimentally. We show that removing coral predators is a common local actio ... Full text Cite

Publisher Correction: Local management actions can increase coral resilience to thermally-induced bleaching.

Journal Article Nature ecology & evolution · July 2018 In the version of this Brief Communication originally published, the two instances of 'natural-to-high' in the sixth and seventh paragraphs were incorrect; they should have read 'naturally high'. ... Full text Cite

Nitrogen enrichment suppresses other environmental drivers and homogenizes salt marsh leaf microbiome.

Journal Article Ecology · June 2018 Microbial community assembly is affected by a combination of forces that act simultaneously, but the mechanisms underpinning their relative influences remain elusive. This gap strongly limits our ability to predict human impacts on microbial communities an ... Full text Cite

The importance of an underestimated grazer under climate change: how crab density, consumer competition, and physical stress affect salt marsh resilience.

Journal Article Oecologia · May 2018 Climate change and consumer outbreaks are driving ecosystem collapse worldwide. Although much research has demonstrated that these factors can interact, how heterogeneity in top-down control intensity and physical forcing modulates ecosystem resilience to ... Full text Cite

Are the ghosts of nature's past haunting ecology today?

Journal Article Current biology : CB · May 2018 Humans have decimated populations of large-bodied consumers and their functions in most of the world's ecosystems. It is less clear how human activities have affected the diversity of habitats these consumers occupy. Rebounding populations of some predator ... Full text Open Access Cite

Secondary foundation species enhance biodiversity.

Journal Article Nature ecology & evolution · April 2018 It has long been recognized that primary foundation species (FS), such as trees and seagrasses, enhance biodiversity. Among the species facilitated are secondary FS, including mistletoes and epiphytes. Case studies have demonstrated that secondary FS can f ... Full text Cite

A global synthesis reveals gaps in coastal habitat restoration research

Journal Article Sustainability (Switzerland) · April 1, 2018 Coastal ecosystems have drastically declined in coverage and condition across the globe. To combat these losses, marine conservation has recently employed habitat restoration as a strategy to enhance depleted coastal ecosystems. For restoration to be a suc ... Full text Cite

Mutualistic interactions amplify saltmarsh restoration success

Journal Article Journal of Applied Ecology · January 1, 2018 Mounting evidence shows that the functioning and stability of coastal ecosystems often depends critically on habitat-forming foundation species such as seagrasses, mangroves and saltmarsh grasses that engage in facultative mutualistic interactions. However ... Full text Cite

Biogeography of salt marsh plant zonation on the Pacific coast of South America

Journal Article Journal of Biogeography · January 1, 2018 Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate the biogeography of plant zonation in salt marshes on the Pacific coast of South America; to examine whether salt marsh plant zonation varies with latitude; and to explore the relative importance of climatic, t ... Full text Cite

Abiotic factors influence the dynamics of marine habitat use by a highly mobile “freshwater” top predator

Journal Article Hydrobiologia · November 1, 2017 Cross-ecosystem movements of mobile consumers are a primary mechanism by which energy and nutrients are exchanged between disparate ecosystems. While factors influencing variation in bottom–up subsidies between ecosystems have been well studied, much less ... Full text Cite

Five years of Deepwater Horizon oil spill effects on marsh periwinkles Littoraria irrorata

Journal Article Marine Ecology Progress Series · August 3, 2017 The Deepwater Horizon spill (2010) was the largest marine oil spill in US waters to date and one of the largest worldwide. To examine effects of the oil spill on an important salt marsh species over time, we conducted a meta-analysis on marsh periwinkles L ... Full text Cite

Incorporating thresholds into understanding salinity tolerance: A study using salt-tolerant plants in salt marshes.

Journal Article Ecology and evolution · August 2017 Although salinity in many ecosystems such as salt marshes can be extremely high, an asymmetry in salinity range between experimental studies (relatively narrow) and field conditions (potentially broad) has strongly affected current understanding of plant s ... Full text Cite

An invasive foundation species enhances multifunctionality in a coastal ecosystem.

Journal Article Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · August 2017 While invasive species often threaten biodiversity and human well-being, their potential to enhance functioning by offsetting the loss of native habitat has rarely been considered. We manipulated the abundance of the nonnative, habitat-forming seaweed G ... Full text Cite

Behavioral self-organization underlies the resilience of a coastal ecosystem.

Journal Article Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · July 2017 Self-organized spatial patterns occur in many terrestrial, aquatic, and marine ecosystems. Theoretical models and observational studies suggest self-organization, the formation of patterns due to ecological interactions, is critical for enhanced ecosystem ... Full text Cite

The effects of elevated temperature and dissolved ρCO₂ on a marine foundation species.

Journal Article Ecology and evolution · June 2017 Understanding how climate change and other environmental stressors will affect species is a fundamental concern of modern ecology. Indeed, numerous studies have documented how climate stressors affect species distributions and population persistence. Howev ... Full text Cite

Effects of predation and nutrient enrichment on the success and microbiome of a foundational coral.

Journal Article Ecology · March 2017 By inflicting damage to prey tissues, consumer species may increase stress in prey hosts and reduce overall fitness (i.e., primary effects, such as growth or reproduction) or cause secondary effects by affecting prey interactions with other species such as ... Full text Cite

Natural enemies govern ecosystem resilience in the face of extreme droughts.

Journal Article Ecology letters · February 2017 Severe droughts are on the rise in many regions. But thus far, attempts to predict when drought will cause a major regime shift or when ecosystems are resilient, often using plant drought tolerance models, have been frustrated. Here, we show that pressure ... Full text Cite

Time to cash in on positive interactions for coral restoration.

Journal Article PeerJ · January 2017 Coral reefs are among the most biodiverse and productive ecosystems on Earth, and provide critical ecosystem services such as protein provisioning, coastal protection, and tourism revenue. Despite these benefits, coral reefs have been declining precipitous ... Full text Cite

Effective conservation science: Data not dogma

Book · January 1, 2017 This book gathers together 28 personal stories told by leading thinkers and practitioners in conservation - all of whom have something to say about the uncomfortable tension that arises when data meet dogma. Together, they make a powerful argument for cons ... Full text Cite

Natural history and environmental patterns in the El Yali coastal wetland, central Chile

Chapter · January 1, 2017 The coastal wetland of El Yali (33.82-33.72° S) is a priority site for the conservation of the flora and fauna of central Chile. In fact, it has been declared the Ramsar wetland and National Reserve by the Chilean authorities. In this chapter, a synopsis o ... Full text Cite

Conservation bias: What have we learned?

Chapter · January 1, 2017 Conservation science is unique among scientific disciplines in that it was founded on a set of normative principles. The often dogmatic adherence to these principles has made conservation science vulnerable to confirmation bias. When confronted with data, ... Full text Cite

Business as usual leads to underperformance in coastal restoration

Chapter · January 1, 2017 This chapter shows that coastal wetland projects are underperforming because of confirmation bias. Despite two decades of work showing that top-down control can be essential to marsh restoration, the potential role of top predators is typically ignored by ... Full text Cite

Thresholds in marsh resilience to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Journal Article Scientific reports · September 2016 Ecosystem boundary retreat due to human-induced pressure is a generally observed phenomenon. However, studies that document thresholds beyond which internal resistance mechanisms are overwhelmed are uncommon. Following the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill ... Full text Cite

Geographical distribution patterns of Carcharocles megalodon over time reveal clues about extinction mechanisms

Journal Article Journal of Biogeography · August 1, 2016 Aim: Given its catastrophic consequences, the extinction of apex predators has long been of interest to modern ecology. Despite major declines, no present-day species of marine apex predator has yet become extinct. Because of their vulnerability, understan ... Full text Cite

Consumer control as a common driver of coastal vegetation worldwide

Journal Article Ecological Monographs · August 1, 2016 Rapid, global, anthropogenic alteration of food webs in ecosystems necessitates a better understanding of how consumers regulate natural communities. We provide a global synthesis of consumer control of vegetation in coastal wetlands, where the domineering ... Full text Cite

A keystone mutualism underpins resilience of a coastal ecosystem to drought.

Journal Article Nature communications · August 2016 Droughts are increasing in severity and frequency, yet the mechanisms that strengthen ecosystem resilience to this stress remain poorly understood. Here, we test whether positive interactions in the form of a mutualism between mussels and dominant cordgras ... Full text Cite

Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Impacts on Salt Marsh Fiddler Crabs (Uca spp.)

Journal Article Estuaries and Coasts · July 1, 2016 The Deepwater Horizon oil spill was the largest marine oil spill in US waters to date and one of the largest worldwide. Impacts of this spill on salt marsh vegetation have been well documented, although impacts on marsh macroinvertebrates have received les ... Full text Cite

Consumer control of the establishment of marsh foundation plants in intertidal mudflats

Journal Article Marine Ecology Progress Series · April 7, 2016 The establishment of foundation plants in bare mudflats is a critical process. While consumers are increasingly recognized to exert strong top-down control of plant performance in salt marshes, studies to date have focused on the effects of consumers on ma ... Full text Cite

How habitat-modifying organisms structure the food web of two coastal ecosystems.

Journal Article Proceedings. Biological sciences · March 2016 The diversity and structure of ecosystems has been found to depend both on trophic interactions in food webs and on other species interactions such as habitat modification and mutualism that form non-trophic interaction networks. However, quantification of ... Full text Cite

Bottom-up and top-down human impacts interact to affect a protected coastal Chilean marsh.

Journal Article Ecology · March 2016 Many ecosystems, even in protected areas, experience multiple anthropogenic impacts. While anthropogenic modification of bottom-up (e.g., eutrophication) and top-down (e.g., livestock grazing) forcing often co-occurs, whether these factors counteract or ha ... Full text Cite

Facilitation and the niche: Implications for coexistence, range shifts and ecosystem functioning

Journal Article Functional Ecology · January 1, 2016 Viewing facilitation through the lens of the niche concept is one way to unify conceptual and empirical advances about the role of facilitation in community ecology. We clarify conceptually and through examples from marine and terrestrial environments how ... Full text Cite

Facilitation shifts paradigms and can amplify coastal restoration efforts

Journal Article Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · November 2, 2015 Restoration has been elevated as an important strategy to reverse the decline of coastal wetlands worldwide. Current practice in restoration science emphasizes minimizing competition between out-planted propagules to maximize planting success. This paradig ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Does relative abundance modify multiple predator effects?

Journal Article Basic and Applied Ecology · November 1, 2015 Ecologists have long known that multiple predator species can interact with each other and thereby either strengthen or weaken overall prey regulation. With few exceptions, our understanding of such 'multiple predator effects' (MPEs) is based on experiment ... Full text Cite

Non-consumptive predator effects intensify grazer-plant interactions by driving vertical habitat shifts

Journal Article Marine Ecology Progress Series · October 14, 2015 Predators non-consumptively induce prey habitat shifts, driving trait-mediated indirect interactions (TMIIs) with basal resources. Whether prey seek refuge within or avoid predatorcontaining patches determines the spatial re-distribution of prey and influe ... Full text Cite

Consumer-plant interaction strength: Importance of body size, density and metabolic biomass

Journal Article Oikos · October 1, 2015 Explaining variability in the strength and sign of trophic interactions between primary consumers and plants is a long-standing research challenge. Consumer density and body size vary widely in space and time and are predicted to have interactive effects o ... Full text Cite

Physical stress modifies top-down and bottom-up forcing on plant growth and reproduction in a coastal ecosystem.

Journal Article Ecology · August 2015 Bottom-up and top-down effects act together to exert strong control over plant growth and reproduction, but how physical stress modifies those interactive forces remains unclear. Even though empirical evidence is scarce, theory predicts that the importance ... Full text Cite

Foundation species' overlap enhances biodiversity and multifunctionality from the patch to landscape scale in southeastern United States salt marshes.

Journal Article Proceedings. Biological sciences · July 2015 Although there is mounting evidence that biodiversity is an important and widespread driver of ecosystem multifunctionality, much of this research has focused on small-scale biodiversity manipulations. Hence, which mechanisms maintain patches of enhanced b ... Full text Cite

Crab predation by the San Salvador rock iguana (Cyclura rileyi)

Journal Article Herpetological Bulletin · June 1, 2015 Open Access Cite

Density-dependent effects on initial growth of a branching coral under restoration

Journal Article Restoration Ecology · May 1, 2015 Coral reef restoration aims to help threatened coral ecosystems recover from recent severe declines. Here we address whether coral fragments should be out-planted individually or in larger aggregations. Theory suggests alternative possible outcomes: wherea ... Full text Cite

Biogeographic consequences of nutrient enrichment for plant-herbivore interactions in coastal wetlands.

Journal Article Ecology letters · May 2015 A major challenge in ecology is to understand broadscale trends in the impact of environmental change. We provide the first integrative analysis of the effects of eutrophication on plants, herbivores, and their interactions in coastal wetlands across latit ... Full text Cite

Factors affecting individual foraging specialization and temporal diet stability across the range of a large "generalist" apex predator.

Journal Article Oecologia · May 2015 Individual niche specialization (INS) is increasingly recognized as an important component of ecological and evolutionary dynamics. However, most studies that have investigated INS have focused on the effects of niche width and inter- and intraspecific com ... Full text Cite

Wide-ranging phylogeographic structure of invasive red lionfish in the Western Atlantic and Greater Caribbean

Journal Article Marine Biology · April 1, 2015 The red lionfish (Pterois volitans) is an invasive predatory marine fish that has rapidly expanded its presence in the Western Hemisphere. We collected 214 invasive red lionfish samples from nine countries and territories, including seven unpublished locat ... Full text Cite

Habitat use patterns of the invasive red lionfish Pterois volitans: A comparison between mangrove and reef systems in San Salvador, Bahamas

Journal Article Marine Ecology · March 1, 2015 The Indo-Pacific red lionfish Pterois volitans is widespread both in its native and its non-native habitats. The rapid invasion of this top predator has had a marked negative effect on fish populations in the Western Atlantic and the Caribbean. It is now w ... Full text Cite

Size, sex and individual-level behaviour drive intrapopulation variation in cross-ecosystem foraging of a top-predator.

Journal Article The Journal of animal ecology · January 2015 Large-bodied, top-predators are often highly mobile, with the potential to provide important linkages between spatially distinct food webs. What biological factors contribute to variation in cross-ecosystem movements, however, have rarely been examined. He ... Full text Cite

Grazing scar characteristics impact degree of fungal facilitation in spartina alterniflora leaves in a south american salt marsh

Journal Article Brazilian Archives of Biology and Technology · January 1, 2015 Grazing scars of burrowing crabs and Hemiptera insects were simulated on leaves of the salt marsh grass Spartina alterniflora. Simulations of crab feeding generated two-fold higher fungal (ergosterol) content in leaves in comparison to that generated by in ... Full text Open Access Cite

Long-distance interactions regulate the structure and resilience of coastal ecosystems.

Journal Article Annual review of marine science · January 2015 Mounting evidence indicates that spatial interactions are important in structuring coastal ecosystems. Until recently, however, most of this work has been focused on seemingly exceptional systems that are characterized by regular, self-organized patterns. ... Full text Cite

Bottom-up and top-down interactions in coastal interface systems

Chapter · January 1, 2015 General introduction of rocky intertidal and salt marsh systems. The land–sea margin encompasses a variety of hard and soft-bottom habitats where organisms are exposed to a dynamic range of aquatic and atmospheric conditions dependent on a rhythm set by th ... Full text Cite

Independent and combined effects of multiple predators across ontogeny of a dominant grazer

Journal Article Oikos · September 1, 2014 Ecosystems host multiple coexisting predator species whose interactions may strengthen or weaken top–down control of grazers. Grazer populations often exhibit size-structure, but the nature of multiple predator effects on suppression of size-structured pre ... Full text Cite

Salt marshes.

Journal Article Current biology : CB · May 2014 Salt marshes are unique ecosystems that are brimming with diversity, and provide crucial shelter to coastal communities. ... Full text Cite

Habitat collapse due to overgrazing threatens turtle conservation in marine protected areas.

Journal Article Proceedings. Biological sciences · February 2014 Marine protected areas (MPAs) are key tools for combatting the global overexploitation of endangered species. The prevailing paradigm is that MPAs are beneficial in helping to restore ecosystems to more 'natural' conditions. However, MPAs may have unintend ... Full text Cite

Impacts of marine invaders on biodiversity depend on trophic position and functional similarity

Journal Article Marine Ecology Progress Series · January 9, 2014 Impacts of marine invaders on local biodiversity have not been analyzed across invasive species and invaded habitats. We conducted a meta-analysis of 56 field experiments published in 29 papers that examined the effects of marine invaders on local species ... Full text Cite

Secondary foundation species as drivers of trophic and functional diversity: evidence from a tree-epiphyte system.

Journal Article Ecology · January 2014 Facilitation cascades arise where primary foundation species facilitate secondary (dependent) foundation species, and collectively, they increase habitat complexity and quality to enhance biodiversity. Whether such phenomena occur in nonmarine systems and ... Full text Cite

Animal-borne imaging reveals novel insights into the foraging behaviors and Diel activity of a large-bodied apex predator, the American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis).

Journal Article PloS one · January 2014 Large-bodied, top- and apex predators (e.g., crocodilians, sharks, wolves, killer whales) can exert strong top-down effects within ecological communities through their interactions with prey. Due to inherent difficulties while studying the behavior of thes ... Full text Cite

Livestock as a potential biological control agent for an invasive wetland plant

Journal Article PeerJ · 2014 Invasive species threaten biodiversity and incur costs exceeding billions of US$. Eradication efforts, however, are nearly always unsuccessful. Throughout much of North America, land managers have used expensive, and ultimately ineffective, techniques to c ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Consumer diversity across kingdoms supports multiple functions in a coastal ecosystem

Journal Article Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · December 17, 2013 The global biodiversity crisis impairs the valuable benefits ecosystems provide humans. These nature-generated benefits are defined by a multitude of different ecosystem functions that operate simultaneously. Although several studies have simulated species ... Full text Cite

Attachment and deployment of remote video/audio recording devices (Crittercams) on wild American alligators (Alligator mississippiensis)

Journal Article Herpetological Review · December 1, 2013 Cite

Coastal adaptation with ecological engineering

Journal Article Nature Climate Change · September 1, 2013 The use of combined approaches to coastal adaptation in lieu of a single strategy, such as sea-wall construction, allows for better preparation for a highly uncertain and dynamic coastal environment. Although general principles such as mainstreaming and no ... Full text Cite

The roles of large top predators in coastal ecosystems new insights from long term ecological research

Journal Article Oceanography · September 1, 2013 During recent human history, human activities such as overhunting and habitat destruction have severely impacted many large top predator populations around the world. Studies from a variety of ecosystems show that loss or diminishment of top predator popul ... Full text Cite

Impacts of a large-bodied, apex predator (Alligator mississippiensis Daudin 1801) on salt marsh food webs

Journal Article Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology · February 1, 2013 Large-bodied apex predators (e.g., sharks, wolves, crocodilians) are believed to regulate food web structure and drive ecosystem processes, but there remains relatively little experimental evidence. Here we use field surveys and a mesocosm experiment to ev ... Full text Cite

Consumer fronts, global change, and runaway collapse in ecosystems

Journal Article Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics · January 1, 2013 Consumer fronts occur when grazers or predators aggregate in bands along the edges of a resource. Our review reveals that consumer fronts are a common phenomenon in nature, occur in many different ecosystems, and are triggered by universal mechanisms: Exte ... Full text Cite

Rapid degradation of Deepwater Horizon spilled oil by indigenous microbial communities in Louisiana saltmarsh sediments.

Journal Article Environmental science & technology · January 2013 The Deepwater Horizon oil spill led to the severe contamination of coastal environments in the Gulf of Mexico. A previous study detailed coastal saltmarsh erosion and recovery in a number of oil-impacted and nonimpacted reference sites in Barataria Bay, Lo ... Full text Cite

Nature-Based Coastal Defenses: Can Biodiversity Help?

Chapter · January 1, 2013 Currently, coastal protection potential of ecosystems is estimated primarily as a function of its spatial extent and type. The degree to which coastal protection depends on aspects of biodiversity within these ecosystems is, however, less explored. Here, w ... Full text Cite

Non-linear interactions between consumers and flow determine the probability of plant community dominance on Maine rocky shores.

Journal Article PloS one · January 2013 Although consumers can strongly influence community recovery from disturbance, few studies have explored the effects of consumer identity and density and how they may vary across abiotic gradients. On rocky shores in Maine, recent experiments suggest that ... Full text Cite

American alligator digestion rate of Blue Crabs and its implications for stomach contents analysis

Journal Article Copeia · September 20, 2012 Stomach contents analysis (SCA) provides a snap-shot observation of a consumer's diet. Interpretation of SCA data can be complicated by many factors, including variation in gastric residence times and digestion rates among prey taxa. Although some SCA meth ... Full text Cite

Degradation and resilience in Louisiana salt marshes after the BP-Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Journal Article Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · July 2012 More than 2 y have passed since the BP-Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, yet we still have little understanding of its ecological impacts. Examining effects of this oil spill will generate much-needed insight into how shoreline habitats an ... Full text Cite

A three-stage symbiosis forms the foundation of seagrass ecosystems.

Journal Article Science (New York, N.Y.) · June 2012 Seagrasses evolved from terrestrial plants into marine foundation species around 100 million years ago. Their ecological success, however, remains a mystery because natural organic matter accumulation within the beds should result in toxic sediment sulfide ... Full text Cite

South Atlantic tidal wetlands

Journal Article · May 22, 2012 Cite

Estuarine and Coastal Ecosystems and Their Services

Chapter · March 6, 2012 The global decline in estuarine and coastal ecosystems (ECEs) is affecting a number of critical benefits, or ecosystem services. We review the main ecological functions and their services across a variety of ECEs, including marshes, mangroves, nearshore co ... Full text Cite

Genetic structure and connectivity patterns of two Caribbean rocky-intertidal gastropods

Journal Article Journal of Molluscan Studies · February 1, 2012 The extent of gene flow in Caribbean marine communities has been investigated primarily in taxa from coral reef habitats, particularly in corals and reef fishes. Results from empirical population genetic studies in those taxa have indicated the presence of ... Full text Cite

A meta-analysis of seaweed impacts on seagrasses: generalities and knowledge gaps.

Journal Article PloS one · January 2012 Seagrasses are important habitat-formers and ecosystem engineers that are under threat from bloom-forming seaweeds. These seaweeds have been suggested to outcompete the seagrasses, particularly when facilitated by eutrophication, causing regime shifts wher ... Full text Cite

Patch size-dependent community recovery after massive disturbance.

Journal Article Ecology · January 2012 Massive anthropogenic and climate-related disturbances are now common in ecosystems worldwide, generating widespread die-off and subsequent community recovery dominated by remnant-patch dynamics rather than open-gap dynamics. Whether communities can recove ... Full text Cite

New metrics for managing and sustaining the ocean's bounty

Journal Article Marine Policy · January 1, 2012 Policies are arising around the world, most recently in the United States, that mandate the implementation of marine spatial planning as a practical pathway towards ecosystem-based management. In the new United States ocean policy, and several other cases ... Full text Cite

A blueprint for blue carbon: Toward an improved understanding of the role of vegetated coastal habitats in sequestering CO2

Journal Article Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment · December 1, 2011 Recent research has highlighted the valuable role that coastal and marine ecosystems play in sequestering carbon dioxide (CO2). The carbon (C) sequestered in vegetated coastal ecosystems, specifically mangrove forests, seagrass beds, and salt marshes, has ... Full text Cite

Erratum to: Abiotic stress mediates top-down and bottom-up control in a Southwestern Atlantic salt marsh (Oecologia, (2010), 163, (181-191), 10.1007/s00442-009-1504-9)

Journal Article Oecologia · November 1, 2011 Full text Cite

Top predators suppress rather than facilitate plants in a trait-mediated tri-trophic cascade.

Journal Article Biology letters · October 2011 Classical ecological theory states that in tri-trophic systems, predators indirectly facilitate plants by reducing herbivore densities through consumption, while more recent work has revealed that predators can generate the same positive effect on plants n ... Full text Cite

Interactions among foundation species and their consequences for community organization, biodiversity, and conservation

Journal Article BioScience · October 1, 2011 Foundation species create complex habitats in which associated organisms find refuge from biological and physical stress; these foundation species are thus fundamental to the structure and resilience of terrestrial and marine ecosystems. In the present art ... Full text Cite

A broad framework to organize and compare ecological invasion impacts.

Journal Article Environmental research · October 2011 Invasive species have transformed local, regional and global biotas; however, few generalities about the mechanisms driving impacts of invaders have emerged. To explain variation in impacts among studies, we propose a broad framework that separates drivers ... Full text Cite

Crab regulation of cross-ecosystem resource transfer by marine foraging fire ants.

Journal Article Oecologia · August 2011 Permeability of boundaries in biological systems is regulated by biotic and/or abiotic factors. Despite this knowledge, the role of biotic factors in regulating resource transfer across ecosystem boundaries has received little study. Additionally, little i ... Full text Cite

The value of estuarine and coastal ecosystem services

Journal Article Ecological Monographs · May 1, 2011 The global decline in estuarine and coastal ecosystems (ECEs) is affecting a number of critical benefits, or ecosystem services. We review the main ecological services across a variety of ECEs, including marshes, mangroves, nearshore coral reefs, seagrass ... Full text Cite

The present and future role of coastal wetland vegetation in protecting shorelines: Answering recent challenges to the paradigm

Journal Article Climatic Change · May 1, 2011 For more than a century, coastal wetlands have been recognized for their ability to stabilize shorelines and protect coastal communities. However, this paradigm has recently been called into question by small-scale experimental evidence. Here, we conduct a ... Full text Cite

A framework to study the context-dependent impacts of marine invasions

Journal Article Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology · April 30, 2011 The ecological impacts of marine invasive species vary according to the spatial and temporal scale of analysis, thereby challenging the extraction of generalities about underlying mechanisms. Here, we applied a broad impact framework that addresses this sc ... Full text Cite

Predator diversity stabilizes and strengthens trophic control of a keystone grazer.

Journal Article Biology letters · February 2011 Despite the global vulnerability of predators to extinction, and the critical functional role they play in many ecosystems, there have been few realistic tests of the consequences of predator species deletion (conversely, predator diversity) in natural eco ... Full text Cite

Whole-community facilitation regulates biodiversity on Patagonian rocky shores.

Journal Article PloS one · January 2011 BackgroundUnderstanding the factors that generate and maintain biodiversity is a central goal in ecology. While positive species interactions (i.e., facilitation) have historically been underemphasized in ecological research, they are increasingly ... Full text Cite

Effects of selection and mutation on mitochondrial variation and inferences of historical population expansion in a Caribbean reef fish.

Journal Article Molecular phylogenetics and evolution · November 2010 Mitochondrial sequence data has contributed to the understanding of historical demography through the application of neutrality tests and coalescent estimators of population growth rates. Characteristics of the mitochondrial genome, such as high mutation r ... Full text Cite

Nutrient enrichment enhances hidden differences in phenotype to drive a cryptic plant invasion

Journal Article Oikos · November 1, 2010 Many mechanisms of invasive species success have been elucidated, but those driving cryptic invasions of non-native genotypes remain least understood. In one of the most successful cryptic plant invasions in North America, we investigate the mechanisms und ... Full text Cite

Population genetics of a trochid gastropod broadens picture of Caribbean Sea connectivity.

Journal Article PloS one · September 2010 BackgroundRegional genetic connectivity models are critical for successful conservation and management of marine species. Even though rocky shore invertebrates have been used as model systems to understand genetic structure in some marine environm ... Full text Cite

Habitat cascades: the conceptual context and global relevance of facilitation cascades via habitat formation and modification.

Journal Article Integrative and comparative biology · August 2010 The importance of positive interactions is increasingly acknowledged in contemporary ecology. Most research has focused on direct positive effects of one species on another. However, there is recent evidence that indirect positive effects in the form of fa ... Full text Cite

Ecological performance and possible origin of a ubiquitous but under-studied gastropod

Journal Article Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science · May 20, 2010 Invasions by non-indigenous species (NIS) have been suggested to alter local, regional and global biota on unprecedented scales. To manage NIS, it is pivotal to identify whether a species is introduced or native, but even today the geographical origin of t ... Full text Cite

Facilitation cascade drives positive relationship between native biodiversity and invasion success.

Journal Article Ecology · May 2010 The pervasive impact of invasive species has motivated considerable research to understand how characteristics of invaded communities, such as native species diversity, affect the establishment of invasive species. Efforts to identify general mechanisms th ... Full text Cite

Abiotic stress mediates top-down and bottom-up control in a Southwestern Atlantic salt marsh.

Journal Article Oecologia · May 2010 Increasing evidence has shown that nutrients and consumers interact to control primary productivity in natural systems, but how abiotic stress affects this interaction is unclear. Moreover, while herbivores can strongly impact zonation patterns in a variet ... Full text Cite

Mangrove use by the invasive lionfish Pterois volitans

Journal Article Marine Ecology Progress Series · March 11, 2010 Lionfish Pterois volitans are successful invasive predators in the sub- tropical and tropical Western Atlantic. Their invasion of coral reef ecosystems is a major conservation concern, as previous studies in the Western Atlantic have found that this top pr ... Full text Cite

Ecosystem services as a common language for coastal ecosystem-based management.

Journal Article Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology · February 2010 Ecosystem-based management is logistically and politically challenging because ecosystems are inherently complex and management decisions affect a multitude of groups. Coastal ecosystems, which lie at the interface between marine and terrestrial ecosystems ... Full text Cite

Comparative phylogeography of North American Atlantic salt marsh communities

Journal Article Estuaries and Coasts · January 1, 2010 Identifying differential population structure within metacommunities is key toward describing the mechanisms that maintain biodiversity in natural systems. At both local and regional scales on the North American Atlantic coast, we assessed phylogeographic ... Full text Cite

Distribution and ecological role of the non-native macroalga Gracilaria vermiculophylla in Virginia salt marshes

Journal Article Biological Invasions · October 1, 2009 Intertidal salt marshes are considered harsh habitats where relatively few stress-resistant species survive. Most studies on non-native species in marshes describe terrestrial angiosperms. We document that a non-native marine macroalga, Gracilaria vermicul ... Full text Cite

Evidence for impacts of nonindigenous macroalgae: A meta-analysis of experimental field studies1

Journal Article Journal of Phycology · August 1, 2009 Invasions by nonindigenous macroalgal species (NIMS) potentially cause severe impacts on native species. We conducted a meta-analysis of 18 field-based manipulative experiments to quantify the direction and magnitude of impacts (Hedges effect size d, herea ... Full text Cite

Why do we fly? Ecologists' sins of emission

Journal Article Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment · August 1, 2009 Full text Cite

Grazer facilitation of fungal infection and the control of plant growth in south-western Atlantic salt marshes

Journal Article Journal of Ecology · July 1, 2009 While great effort has been made in documenting the processes that drive plant-induced susceptibility after herbivore attack and it is widely accepted that herbivores can facilitate plant diseases, the relative importance of this interaction in controlling ... Full text Cite

Can conservation biologists rely on established community structure rules to manage novel systems? ... Not in salt marshes.

Journal Article Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America · March 2009 We experimentally examined plant zonation in a previously unstudied Chilean salt marsh system to test the generality of mechanisms generating zonation of plants across intertidal stress gradients. Vertical zonation in this system is striking. The low-lying ... Full text Cite

Non-linearity in ecosystem services: Temporal and spatial variability in coastal protection

Journal Article Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment · February 1, 2009 Natural processes tend to vary over time and space, as well as between species. The ecosystem services these natural processes provide are therefore also highly variable. It is often assumed that ecosystem services are provided linearly (unvaryingly, at a ... Full text Cite

Using facilitation theory to enhance mangrove restoration

Journal Article Ambio · January 1, 2009 Full text Cite

Centuries of human-driven change in salt marsh ecosystems.

Journal Article Annual review of marine science · January 2009 Salt marshes are among the most abundant, fertile, and accessible coastal habitats on earth, and they provide more ecosystem services to coastal populations than any other environment. Since the Middle Ages, humans have manipulated salt marshes at a grand ... Full text Cite

Broad-scale patterns of abundance of non-indigenous soft-bottom invertebrates in Denmark

Journal Article Helgoland Marine Research · January 1, 2009 Quantifying the broad-scale distribution and abundance of non-indigenous species (NIS) is necessary to provide accurate estimations on impacts of invasions, to prioritize research, and to guide national management. Sediment grab-sampling is a standardized ... Full text Cite

The dynamics of bottom-up and top-down control in a New England salt marsh

Journal Article Oikos · July 1, 2008 Traditionally, salt marsh ecosystems were thought to be controlled exclusively by bottom-up processes. Recently, this paradigm has shifted to include top-down control as an additional primary factor regulating salt-marsh community structure. The most recen ... Full text Cite

Consumer control of salt marshes driven by human disturbance.

Journal Article Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology · June 2008 Salt marsh ecosystems are widely considered to be controlled exclusively by bottom-up forces, but there is mounting evidence that human disturbances are triggering consumer control in western Atlantic salt marshes, often with catastrophic consequences. In ... Full text Cite

Mycorrhizal fungi determine salt-marsh plant zonation depending on nutrient supply

Journal Article Journal of Ecology · May 1, 2008 1. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) can affect nutrient uptake of associated plants and can vary in function from mutualism to parasitism as nutrient availability increases; thus they may interact with nutrient availability to influence plant community s ... Full text Cite

Response [1]

Journal Article Science · April 11, 2008 Full text Cite

Annual changes in abundance of non-indigenous marine benthos on a very large spatial scale

Journal Article Aquatic Invasions · January 1, 2008 Non-indigenous marine species (NIMS) have only recently caught general interest in Denmark, and baseline studies are needed to identify what species are of particular importance in order to prioritize management and research efforts. We used large data set ... Full text Cite

Coastal ecosystem-based management with nonlinear ecological functions and values.

Journal Article Science (New York, N.Y.) · January 2008 A common assumption is that ecosystem services respond linearly to changes in habitat size. This assumption leads frequently to an "all or none" choice of either preserving coastal habitats or converting them to human use. However, our survey of wave atten ... Full text Cite

Crab herbivory regulates plant facilitative and competitive processes in Argentinean marshes.

Journal Article Ecology · January 2008 Interactions among plants have been hypothesized to be context dependent, shifting between facilitative and competitive in response to variation in physical and biological stresses. This hypothesis has been supported by studies of the importance of positiv ... Full text Cite

Limpet grazing on a physically stressful Patagonian rocky shore

Journal Article Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology · December 21, 2007 Many theories of consumer control of communities have come from studies conducted in relatively benign, temperate zone rocky intertidal systems. Here, we examine gastropod grazing and the maintenance of bare space on a dry, wind-swept rocky shore of Patago ... Full text Cite

Local and geographic variation in grazing intensity by herbivorous crabs in SW Atlantic salt marshes

Journal Article Marine Ecology Progress Series · November 8, 2007 Coupling experiments at small spatial scales with large-scale surveys can help to generalize experimental results across large spatial scales. The goal of the present study was to evaluate patterns of crab herbivory within and, at a larger scale, between m ... Full text Cite

Academic institutions in the United States and Canada ranked according to research productivity in the field of conservation biology.

Journal Article Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology · October 2007 Full text Cite

Ecosystem engineers activate mycorrhizal mutualism in salt marshes.

Journal Article Ecology letters · October 2007 Theory predicts that ecosystem engineers should have their most dramatic effects when they enable species, through habitat amelioration, to live in zones where physical and biological conditions would otherwise suppress or limit them. Mutualisms between my ... Full text Cite

The Pleistocene history of the sheepshead minnow (Cyprinodon variegatus): Non-equilibrium evolutionary dynamics within a diversifying species complex.

Journal Article Molecular phylogenetics and evolution · June 2007 The sheepshead minnow, Cyprinodon variegatus, is a widespread fish species that typically inhabits coastal tidal marsh and mangrove swamp environments, ranging from Cape Cod, Massaschusetts to northern Mexico and into the Caribbean. This wide range crosses ... Full text Cite

A multi-locus assessment of connectivity and historical demography in the bluehead wrasse (Thalassoma bifasciatum).

Journal Article Heredity · May 2007 The pelagic larval stage of most coral reef fishes might allow extensive dispersal or, alternatively, some level of local recruitment might be important. Molecular markers can be used to obtain indirect estimates of dispersal to evaluate these alternatives ... Full text Cite

Alien macroalgae in Denmark - A broad-scale national perspective

Journal Article Marine Biology Research · April 24, 2007 Most studies documenting the importance of alien macroalgae relative to native species are based on smaller-scale sampling programmes. Between 1989 and 2003, a Danish monitoring programme collected data on the percentage cover of macroalgae at more than 60 ... Full text Cite

Incorporating positive interactions in aquatic restoration and conservation

Journal Article Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment · April 1, 2007 The role of positive interactions in structuring biological communities is recognized throughout the field of ecology, but has yet to be well integrated into the restoration and conservation of aquatic systems. Here, we use examples of success in terrestri ... Full text Cite

Spatial variation in recruitment of native and invasive sessile species onto oyster reefs in a temperate soft-bottom lagoon

Journal Article Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science · March 1, 2007 Although spatial variability in recruitment is a strong force structuring many marine communities, relatively few data exist on recruitment variability in sessile oyster reef communities. In a soft-bottom lagoon in Virginia, we tested if recruitment differ ... Full text Cite

Hierarchical organization via a facilitation cascade in intertidal cordgrass bed communities.

Journal Article The American naturalist · February 2007 It has recently been proposed that many communities are structured by a hierarchy of interactions in which facilitation by foundation species is of primary importance. We conducted the first explicit experimental test of this hypothesis by investigating th ... Full text Cite

Gracilaria vermiculophylla (Ohmi) Papenfuss, 1967 (Rhodophyta, Gracilariaceae) in northern Europe, with emphasis on Danish conditions, and what to expect in the future

Journal Article Aquatic Invasions · January 1, 2007 Gracilaria vermiculophylla, a red macroalga from the West Pacific, was discovered in western Germany (the Wadden Sea) in 2002 and has since also been observed in Sweden (from about 70 km south to about 80 km north of Göteborg), Denmark (Wadden Sea, Horsens ... Full text Cite

Predation on the rocky shores of Patagonia, Argentina

Journal Article Estuaries and Coasts · January 1, 2007 Rocky intertidal communities of Argentinean Patagonia are exposed to harsh physical conditions caused by dry, strong southern trade winds (mean speed 45 km h-1, gusts up to 140 km h-1) that result in intense desiccation of intertidal organisms. Predator di ... Full text Cite

Competitive displacement of a detritivorous salt marsh snail

Journal Article Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology · November 28, 2006 Here we examine the role of competitive interactions in controlling distributions of the most abundant omnivore-detritivore snails in East Coast U.S. salt marshes (Melampus bidentatus and Littoraria irrorata). Both snails prefer to eat fungi growing on pla ... Full text Cite

Conservation science: A 20-year report card

Journal Article Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment · November 1, 2006 We conducted an intensive review of conservation science to find out whether the field has tracked priorities over the past 20 years. A total of 628 papers from the literature, for the years 1984, 1994, and 2004, were surveyed. For each paper, we recorded ... Full text Cite

The community structure of western atlantic patagonian rocky shores

Journal Article Ecological Monographs · August 17, 2006 We examined the structure of rocky intertidal communities on the central Patagonian coast of Argentina. Extensive beds of the mussel Perumytilus purpuratus cover wave-exposed headlands from the low to extreme high intertidal (>95%), and a diverse assemblag ... Full text Cite

Relative effects of Littoraria irrorata and Prokelisia marginata on Spartina alterniflora

Journal Article Estuaries and Coasts · January 1, 2006 Spartina alterniflora salt marshes along the southeastern United States are some of the most productive and well studied ecosystems in the world. The role of physicochemical forces in regulating Spartina growth is well understood, while the importance of g ... Full text Cite

Scale-dependent interactions and community structure on cobble beaches.

Journal Article Ecology letters · January 2006 Recent theory suggests that scale-dependent interaction between facilitation and competition can generate spatial structure in ecological communities. The application of this hypothesis, however, has been limited to systems with little underlying heterogen ... Full text Cite

Drought, snails, and large-scale die-off of southern U.S. salt marshes.

Journal Article Science (New York, N.Y.) · December 2005 Salt marshes in the southeastern United States have recently experienced massive die-off, one of many examples of widespread degradation in marine and coastal ecosystems. Although intense drought is thought to be the primary cause of this die-off, we found ... Full text Cite

Linking biogeography and community ecology: Latitudinal variation in plant-herbivore interaction strength

Journal Article Ecology · January 1, 2005 Ecological interactions may vary geographically as a function of diversity, density, or per capita interaction strengths, but we know little about the relative importance of these three mechanisms. We examined variation in species richness, abundance, and ... Full text Cite

Shoreline development drives invasion of Phragmites australis and the loss of plant diversity on New England salt marshes

Journal Article Conservation Biology · October 1, 2004 The reed Phragmites australis Cav. is aggressively invading salt marshes along the Atlantic Coast of North America. We examined the interactive role of habitat alteration (i.e., shoreline development) in driving this invasion and its consequences for plant ... Full text Cite

Degree of fragmentation affects fish assemblage structure in Andros Island (Bahamas) estuaries

Journal Article Caribbean Journal of Science · August 1, 2004 We used underwater visual census (UVC) to characterize fish assemblages among estuaries with different degrees of fragmentation on Andros Island, Bahamas. Estuaries were classified a priori into four fragmentation categories: totally fragmented (no surface ... Cite

Trophic cascades in rocky shore tide pools: distinguishing lethal and nonlethal effects.

Journal Article Oecologia · May 2004 The effects of predators on the density of their prey can have positive indirect effects on the abundance of the prey's resource via a trophic cascade. This concept has strongly influenced contemporary views of how communities are structured. However, pred ... Full text Cite

Physical and biotic drivers of plant distribution across estuarine salinity gradients

Journal Article Ecology · January 1, 2004 Although it has long been recognized that marsh plant community composition shifts across estuarine salinity gradients, the mechanisms responsible for this species zonation have never been experimentally examined. In southern New England marshes of the Uni ... Full text Cite

Consumer-controlled community states on Gulf of Maine rocky shores

Journal Article Ecology · January 1, 2004 Mussel beds and algal canopies on Gulf of Maine (USA) rocky shores have been hypothesized to represent stochastically determined community states, but we recently found that they were highly deterministic, consumer-controlled states in a tidal river. Musse ... Full text Cite

Predation by the black-clawed mud crab, Panopeus herbstii, in Mid-Atlantic salt marshes: Further evidence for top-down control of marsh grass production

Journal Article Estuaries · January 1, 2004 Although top-down control of plant growth has been shown in a variety of marine systems, it is widely thought to be unimportant in salt marshes. Recent caging experiments in Virginia and Georgia have challenged this notion and shown that the dominant marsh ... Full text Cite

Do alternate stable community states exist in the Gulf of Maine Rocky intertidal zone? Comment

Journal Article Ecology · January 1, 2004 Full text Cite

Fungal farming in a snail.

Journal Article Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · December 2003 Mutualisms between fungi and fungus-growing animals are model systems for studying coevolution and complex interactions between species. Fungal growing behavior has enabled cultivating animals to rise to major ecological importance, but evolution of farmin ... Full text Cite

Underestimation of Spartina productivity in western Atlantic marshes: Marsh invertebrates eat more than just detritus

Journal Article Oikos · June 1, 2003 Full text Cite

Symbiosis between an alpheid shrimp and a xanthoid crab in salt marshes of mid-Atlantic states, U.S.A.

Journal Article Journal of Crustacean Biology · January 1, 2003 Instances of mutualism and commensalism between alpheid shrimp and other marine invertebrates and fish are common in tropical waters. In this study, we present evidence that the temperate alpheid big-clawed snapping shrimp (Alpheus heterochaelis) participa ... Full text Cite

Do alternate stable community states exist in the Gulf of Maine rocky intertidal zone?

Journal Article Ecology · December 1, 2002 It has recently been hypothesized that intertidal mussel beds and seaweed canopies in the Gulf of Maine are alternate community stable states or disturbance patch mosaics dominated by either seaweed or mussel communities. The community that occurs in a giv ... Full text Cite

A trophic cascade regulates salt marsh primary production.

Journal Article Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · August 2002 Nutrient supply is widely thought to regulate primary production of many ecosystems including salt marshes. However, experimental manipulation of the dominant marsh grazer (the periwinkle, Littoraria irrorata) and its consumers (e.g., blue crabs, Callinect ... Full text Cite

Preliminary survey and diet analysis of juvenile fishes of an estuarine creek on Andros Island, Bahamas

Journal Article Bulletin of Marine Science · July 9, 2002 Estuarine habitats are important nursery and feeding areas for a variety of fish and invertebrate species. Although numerous studies have investigated trophic linkages in temperate estuarine systems, few have empirically examined these relationships in tro ... Cite

Anthropogenic modification of New England salt marsh landscapes.

Journal Article Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · February 2002 Salt marshes play a critical role in the ecology and geology of wave-protected shorelines in the Western Atlantic, but as many as 80% of the marshes that once occurred in New England have already been lost to human development. Here we present data that su ... Full text Cite

Top-down control of Spartina Alterniflora production by periwinkle grazing in a Virginia salt marsh

Journal Article Ecology · January 1, 2001 Top-down forces, such as grazing and predation, have long been thought to be unimportant in controlling plant growth in salt marshes. Instead, bottom-up forces, such as porewater ammonium and oxygen availability, are thought to be the primary regulating fa ... Full text Cite