Photosynthetic capacity in middle-aged larch and spruce acclimates independently to experimental warming and elevated CO2.

Photosynthetic acclimation to both warming and elevated CO2 of boreal trees remains a key uncertainty in modelling the response of photosynthesis to future climates. We investigated the impact of increased growth temperature and elevated CO2 on photosynthetic capacity (Vcmax and Jmax) in mature trees of two North American boreal conifers, tamarack and black spruce. We show that Vcmax and Jmax at a standard temperature of 25°C did not change with warming, while Vcmax and Jmax at their thermal optima (Topt) and growth temperature (Tg) increased. Moreover, Vcmax and Jmax at either 25°C, Topt or Tg decreased with elevated CO2. The Jmax/Vcmax ratio decreased with warming when assessed at both Topt and Tg but did not significantly vary at 25°C. The Jmax/Vcmax increased with elevated CO2 at either reference temperature. We found no significant interaction between warming and elevated CO2 on all traits. If this lack of interaction between warming and elevated CO2 on the Vcmax, Jmax and Jmax/Vcmax ratio is a general trend, it would have significant implications for improving photosynthesis representation in vegetation models. However, future research is required to investigate the widespread nature of this response in a larger number of species and biomes.

Modeling the spatiotemporal patterns and drivers of Dungeness crab fishing effort to inform whale entanglement risk mitigation on the U.S. West Coast.

Understanding and characterizing the spatiotemporal dynamics of fishing fleets is crucial for ecosystem-based fisheries management (EBFM). EBFM must not only account for the sustainability of target species catches, but also for the collateral impacts of fishing operations on habitats and non-target species. Increased rates of large whale entanglements in commercial Dungeness crab fishing gear have made reducing whale-fishery interactions a current and pressing challenge on the U.S. West Coast. While several habitat models exist for different large whale species along the West Coast, less is known about the crab fishery and the degree to which different factors influence the intensity and distribution of aggregate fishing effort. Here, we modeled the spatiotemporal patterns of Dungeness crab fishing effort in Oregon and Washington as a function of environmental, economic, temporal, social, and management related predictor variables using generalized linear mixed effects models. We then assessed the predictive performance of such models and discussed their usefulness in informing fishery management. Our models revealed low between-year variability and consistent spatial and temporal patterns in commercial Dungeness crab fishing effort. However, fishing effort was also responsive to multiple environmental, economic and management cues, which influenced the baseline effort distribution pattern. The best predictive model, chosen through out-of-sample cross-validation, showed moderate predictive performance and relied upon environmental, economic, and social covariates. Our results help fill the current knowledge gap around Dungeness crab fleet dynamics, and support growing calls to integrate fisheries behavioral data into fisheries management and marine spatial planning.

Potential Benefits and Challenges of Quantifying Pseudoreplication in Genomic Data with Entropy Statistics.

Generating vast arrays of genetic markers for evolutionary ecology studies has become routine and cost-effective. However, analyzing data from large numbers of loci associated with a small number of finite chromosomes introduces a challenge: loci on the same chromosome do not assort independently, leading to pseudoreplication. Previous studies have demonstrated that pseudoreplication can substantially reduce precision of genetic analyses (and make confidence intervals wider), such as FST and linkage disequilibrium (LD) measures between pairs of loci. In LD analyses, another type of dependency (overlapping pairs of the same loci) also creates pseudoreplication. Building on previous work, we explore the potential of entropy metrics to improve the status quo, particularly total correlation (TC), to assess pseudoreplication in LD studies. Our simulations, performed on a monoecious population with a range of effective population sizes (Ne) and numbers of loci, attempted to isolate the overlapping-pairs-of-loci effect by considering unlinked loci and using entropy to quantify inter-locus relationships. We hypothesized a positive correlation between TC and the number of loci (L), and a negative correlation between TC and Ne. Results from our statistical models predicting TC demonstrate a strong effect of the number of loci, and muted effects of Ne and other predictors, adding support to the use of entropy-based metrics as a tool for estimating the statistical information of complex genetic datasets. Our results also highlight a challenge regarding scalability; computational limitations arise as the number of loci grows, making our current approach limited to smaller datasets. Despite these challenges, this work further refines our understanding of entropy measures, and offers insights into the complex dynamics of genetic information in evolutionary ecology research.

Modeling impacts of saltwater intrusion on methane and nitrous oxide emissions in tidal forested wetlands.

Emissions of methane (CH4 ) and nitrous oxide (N2 O) from soils to the atmosphere can offset the benefits of carbon sequestration for climate change mitigation. While past study has suggested that both CH4 and N2 O emissions from tidal freshwater forested wetlands (TFFW) are generally low, the impacts of coastal droughts and drought-induced saltwater intrusion on CH4 and N2 O emissions remain unclear. In this study, a process-driven biogeochemistry model, Tidal Freshwater Wetland DeNitrification-DeComposition (TFW-DNDC), was applied to examine the responses of CH4 and N2 O emissions to episodic drought-induced saltwater intrusion in TFFW along the Waccamaw River and Savannah River, USA. These sites encompass landscape gradients of both surface and porewater salinity as influenced by Atlantic Ocean tides superimposed on periodic droughts. Surprisingly, CH4 and N2 O emission responsiveness to coastal droughts and drought-induced saltwater intrusion varied greatly between river systems and among local geomorphologic settings. This reflected the complexity of wetland CH4 and N2 O emissions and suggests that simple linkages to salinity may not always be relevant, as non-linear relationships dominated our simulations. Along the Savannah River, N2 O emissions in the moderate-oligohaline tidal forest site tended to increase dramatically under the drought condition, while CH4 emission decreased. For the Waccamaw River, emissions of both CH4 and N2 O in the moderate-oligohaline tidal forest site tended to decrease under the drought condition, but the capacity of the moderate-oligohaline tidal forest to serve as a carbon sink was substantially reduced due to significant declines in net primary productivity and soil organic carbon sequestration rates as salinity killed the dominant freshwater vegetation. These changes in fluxes of CH4 and N2 O reflect crucial synergistic effects of soil salinity and water level on C and N dynamics in TFFW due to drought-induced seawater intrusion.

The changing physical and ecological meanings of North Pacific Ocean climate indices.

Climate change is likely to change the relationships between commonly used climate indices and underlying patterns of climate variability, but this complexity is rarely considered in studies using climate indices. Here, we show that the physical and ecological conditions mapping onto the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) index and North Pacific Gyre Oscillation (NPGO) index have changed over multidecadal timescales. These changes apparently began around a 1988/1989 North Pacific climate shift that was marked by abrupt northeast Pacific warming, declining temporal variance in the Aleutian Low (a leading atmospheric driver of the PDO), and increasing correlation between the PDO and NPGO patterns. Sea level pressure and surface temperature patterns associated with each climate index changed after 1988/1989, indicating that identical index values reflect different states of basin-scale climate over time. The PDO and NPGO also show time-dependent skill as indices of regional northeast Pacific ecosystem variability. Since the late 1980s, both indices have become less relevant to physical-ecological variability in regional ecosystems from the Bering Sea to the southern California Current. Users of these climate indices should be aware of nonstationary relationships with underlying climate variability within the historical record, and the potential for further nonstationarity with ongoing climate change.

Non-stationary and interactive effects of climate and competition on pink salmon productivity.

Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) are exposed to increased environmental change and multiple human stressors. To anticipate future impacts of global change and to improve sustainable resource management, it is critical to understand how wild salmon populations respond to stressors associated with human-caused changes such as climate warming and ocean acidification, as well as competition in the ocean, which is intensified by the large-scale production and release of hatchery reared salmon. Pink salmon (O. gorbuscha) are a keystone species in the North Pacific Ocean and support highly valuable commercial fisheries. We investigated the joint effects of changes in ocean conditions and salmon abundances on the productivity of wild pink salmon. Our analysis focused on Prince William Sound in Alaska, because the region accounts for ~50% of the global production of hatchery pink salmon with local hatcheries releasing 600-700 million pink salmon fry annually. Using 60 years of data on wild pink salmon abundances, hatchery releases, and ecological conditions in the ocean, we find evidence that hatchery pink salmon releases negatively affect wild pink salmon productivity, likely through competition between wild and hatchery juveniles in nearshore marine habitats. We find no evidence for effects of ocean acidification on pink salmon productivity. However, a change in the leading mode of North Pacific climate in 1988-1989 weakened the temperature-productivity relationship and altered the strength of intraspecific density dependence. Therefore, our results suggest non-stationary (i.e., time varying) and interactive effects of ocean climate and competition on pink salmon productivity. Our findings further highlight the need for salmon management to consider potential adverse effects of large-scale hatchery production within the context of ocean change.

Recommendations for quantifying and reducing uncertainty in climate projections of species distributions.

Projecting the future distributions of commercially and ecologically important species has become a critical approach for ecosystem managers to strategically anticipate change, but large uncertainties in projections limit climate adaptation planning. Although distribution projections are primarily used to understand the scope of potential change-rather than accurately predict specific outcomes-it is nonetheless essential to understand where and why projections can give implausible results and to identify which processes contribute to uncertainty. Here, we use a series of simulated species distributions, an ensemble of 252 species distribution models, and an ensemble of three regional ocean climate projections, to isolate the influences of uncertainty from earth system model spread and from ecological modeling. The simulations encompass marine species with different functional traits and ecological preferences to more broadly address resource manager and fishery stakeholder needs, and provide a simulated true state with which to evaluate projections. We present our results relative to the degree of environmental extrapolation from historical conditions, which helps facilitate interpretation by ecological modelers working in diverse systems. We found uncertainty associated with species distribution models can exceed uncertainty generated from diverging earth system models (up to 70% of total uncertainty by 2100), and that this result was consistent across species traits. Species distribution model uncertainty increased through time and was primarily related to the degree to which models extrapolated into novel environmental conditions but moderated by how well models captured the underlying dynamics driving species distributions. The predictive power of simulated species distribution models remained relatively high in the first 30 years of projections, in alignment with the time period in which stakeholders make strategic decisions based on climate information. By understanding sources of uncertainty, and how they change at different forecast horizons, we provide recommendations for projecting species distribution models under global climate change.

Modeling impacts of drought-induced salinity intrusion on carbon dynamics in tidal freshwater forested wetlands.

Tidal freshwater forested wetlands (TFFW) provide critical ecosystem services including an essential habitat for a variety of wildlife species and significant carbon sinks for atmospheric carbon dioxide. However, large uncertainties remain concerning the impacts of climate change on the magnitude and variability of carbon fluxes and storage across a range of TFFW. In this study, we developed a process-driven Tidal Freshwater Wetlands DeNitrification-DeComposition model (TFW-DNDC) that has integrated new features, such as soil salinity effects on plant productivity and soil organic matter decomposition to explore carbon dynamics in the TFFW in response to drought-induced saltwater intrusion. Eight sites along the floodplains of the Waccamaw River (USA) and the Savannah River (USA) were selected to represent the TFFW transition from healthy to moderately and highly salt-impacted forests, and eventually to oligohaline marshes. The TFW-DNDC was calibrated and validated using field observed annual litterfall, stem growth, root growth, soil heterotrophic respiration, and soil organic carbon storage. Analyses indicate that plant productivity and soil carbon sequestration in TFFW could change substantially in response to increased soil pore water salinity and reduced soil water table due to drought, but in interactive ways dependent on the river simulated. These responses are variable due to nonlinear relationships between carbon cycling processes and environmental drivers. Plant productivity, plant respiration, soil organic carbon sequestration rate, and storage in the highly salt-impacted forest sites decreased significantly under drought conditions compared with normal conditions. Considering the high likelihood of healthy and moderately salt-impacted forests becoming highly salt-impacted forests under future climate change and sea-level rise, it is very likely that the TFFW will lose their capacity as carbon sinks without up-slope migration.

Resurgence of an apex marine predator and the decline in prey body size.

In light of recent recoveries of marine mammal populations worldwide and heightened concern about their impacts on marine food webs and global fisheries, it has become increasingly important to understand the potential impacts of large marine mammal predators on prey populations and their life-history traits. In coastal waters of the northeast Pacific Ocean, marine mammals have increased in abundance over the past 40 to 50 y, including fish-eating killer whales that feed primarily on Chinook salmon. Chinook salmon, a species of high cultural and economic value, have exhibited marked declines in average size and age throughout most of their North American range. This raises the question of whether size-selective predation by marine mammals is generating these trends in life-history characteristics. Here we show that increased predation since the 1970s, but not fishery selection alone, can explain the changes in age and size structure observed for Chinook salmon populations along the west coast of North America. Simulations suggest that the decline in mean size results from the selective removal of large fish and an evolutionary shift toward faster growth and earlier maturation caused by selection. Our conclusion that intensifying predation by fish-eating killer whales contributes to the continuing decline in Chinook salmon body size points to conflicting management and conservation objectives for these two iconic species.

Stable isotope signatures in historic harbor seal bone link food web-assimilated carbon and nitrogen resources to a century of environmental change.

Anthropogenic climate change will impact nutrient cycles, primary production, and ecosystem structure in the world's oceans, although considerable uncertainty exists regarding the magnitude and spatial variability of these changes. Understanding how regional-scale ocean conditions control nutrient availability and ultimately nutrient assimilation into food webs will inform how marine resources will change in response to climate. To evaluate how ocean conditions influence the assimilation of nitrogen and carbon into coastal marine food webs, we applied a novel dimension reduction analysis to a century of newly acquired molecular isotope data derived from historic harbor seal bone specimens. By measuring bulk δ13 C and δ15 N values of source amino acids of these top predators from 1928 to 2014, we derive indices of primary production and nitrogen resources that are assimilated into food webs. We determined coastal food webs responded to climate regimes, coastal upwelling, and freshwater discharge, yet the strength of responses to individual drivers varied across the northeast Pacific. Indices of primary production and nitrogen availability in the Gulf of Alaska were dependent on regional climate indices (i.e., North Pacific Gyre Oscillation) and upwelling. In contrast, the coastal Washington and Salish Sea food webs were associated with local indices of freshwater discharge. For some regions (eastern Bering Sea, northern Gulf of Alaska) food web-assimilated production was coupled with nitrogen sources; however, other regions demonstrated no production-nitrogen coupling (Salish Sea). Temporal patterns of environmental indices and isotopic data from Washington state varied about the long-term mean with no directional trend. Data from the Gulf of Alaska, however, showed below average harbor seal δ13 C values and above average ocean conditions since 1975, indicating a change in primary production in recent decades. Altogether, these findings demonstrate stable isotope data can provide useful indices of nitrogen resources and phytoplankton dynamics specific to what is assimilated by food webs.

Warming induces divergent stomatal dynamics in co-occurring boreal trees.

Climate warming will alter photosynthesis and respiration not only via direct temperature effects on leaf biochemistry but also by increasing atmospheric dryness, thereby reducing stomatal conductance and suppressing photosynthesis. Our knowledge on how climate warming affects these processes is mainly derived from seedlings grown under highly controlled conditions. However, little is known regarding temperature responses of trees growing under field settings. We exposed mature tamarack and black spruce trees growing in a peatland ecosystem to whole-ecosystem warming of up to +9°C above ambient air temperatures in an ongoing long-term experiment (SPRUCE: Spruce and Peatland Responses Under Changing Environments). Here, we report the responses of leaf gas exchange after the first two years of warming. We show that the two species exhibit divergent stomatal responses to warming and vapor pressure deficit. Warming of up to 9°C increased leaf N in both spruce and tamarack. However, higher leaf N in the warmer plots translate into higher photosynthesis in tamarack but not in spruce, with photosynthesis being more constrained by stomatal limitations in spruce than in tamarack under warm conditions. Surprisingly, dark respiration did not acclimate to warming in spruce, and thermal acclimation of respiration was only seen in tamarack once changes in leaf N were considered. Our results highlight how warming can lead to differing stomatal responses to warming in co-occurring species, with consequent effects on both vegetation carbon and water dynamics.

Divergent species-specific impacts of whole ecosystem warming and elevated CO2 on vegetation water relations in an ombrotrophic peatland.

Boreal peatland forests have relatively low species diversity and thus impacts of climate change on one or more dominant species could shift ecosystem function. Despite abundant soil water availability, shallowly rooted vascular plants within peatlands may not be able to meet foliar demand for water under drought or heat events that increase vapor pressure deficits while reducing near surface water availability, although concurrent increases in atmospheric CO2 could buffer resultant hydraulic stress. We assessed plant water relations of co-occurring shrub (primarily Rhododendron groenlandicum and Chamaedaphne calyculata) and tree (Picea mariana and Larix laricina) species prior to, and in response to whole ecosystem warming (0 to +9°C) and elevated CO2 using 12.8-m diameter open-top enclosures installed within an ombrotrophic bog. Water relations (water potential [Ψ], turgor loss point, foliar and root hydraulic conductivity) were assessed prior to treatment initiation, then Ψ and peak sap flow (trees only) assessed after 1 or 2 years of treatments. Under the higher temperature treatments, L. laricina Ψ exceeded its turgor loss point, increased its peak sap flow, and was not able to recover Ψ overnight. In contrast, P. mariana operated below its turgor loss point and maintained constant Ψ and sap flow across warming treatments. Similarly, C. calyculata Ψ stress increased with temperature while R. groenlandicum Ψ remained at pretreatment levels. The more anisohydric behavior of L. laricina and C. calyculata may provide greater net C uptake with warming, while the more conservative P. mariana and R. groenlandicum maintained greater hydraulic safety. These latter species also responded to elevated CO2 by reduced Ψ stress, which may also help limit hydraulic failure during periods of extreme drought or heat in the future. Along with Sphagnum moss, the species-specific responses of peatland vascular communities to drier or hotter conditions will shape boreal peatland composition and function in the future.

Phenological synchronization disrupts trophic interactions between Kodiak brown bears and salmon.

Climate change is altering the seasonal timing of life cycle events in organisms across the planet, but the magnitude of change often varies among taxa [Thackeray SJ, et al. (2016) Nature 535:241-245]. This can cause the temporal relationships among species to change, altering the strength of interaction. A large body of work has explored what happens when coevolved species shift out of sync, but virtually no studies have documented the effects of climate-induced synchronization, which could remove temporal barriers between species and create novel interactions. We explored how a predator, the Kodiak brown bear (Ursus arctos middendorffi), responded to asymmetric phenological shifts between its primary trophic resources, sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) and red elderberry (Sambucus racemosa). In years with anomalously high spring air temperatures, elderberry fruited several weeks earlier and became available during the period when salmon spawned in tributary streams. Bears departed salmon spawning streams, where they typically kill 25-75% of the salmon [Quinn TP, Cunningham CJ, Wirsing AJ (2016) Oecologia 183:415-429], to forage on berries on adjacent hillsides. This prey switching behavior attenuated an iconic predator-prey interaction and likely altered the many ecological functions that result from bears foraging on salmon [Helfield JM, Naiman RJ (2006) Ecosystems 9:167-180]. We document how climate-induced shifts in resource phenology can alter food webs through a mechanism other than trophic mismatch. The current emphasis on singular consumer-resource interactions fails to capture how climate-altered phenologies reschedule resource availability and alter how energy flows through ecosystems.

Benefits and risks of diversification for individual fishers.

Individuals relying on natural resource extraction for their livelihood face high income variability driven by a mix of environmental, biological, management, and economic factors. Key to managing these industries is identifying how regulatory actions and individual behavior affect income variability, financial risk, and, by extension, the economic stability and the sustainable use of natural resources. In commercial fisheries, communities and vessels fishing a greater diversity of species have less revenue variability than those fishing fewer species. However, it is unclear whether these benefits extend to the actions of individual fishers and how year-to-year changes in diversification affect revenue and revenue variability. Here, we evaluate two axes by which fishers in Alaska can diversify fishing activities. We show that, despite increasing specialization over the last 30 years, fishing a set of permits with higher species diversity reduces individual revenue variability, and fishing an additional permit is associated with higher revenue and lower variability. However, increasing species diversity within the constraints of existing permits has a fishery-dependent effect on revenue and is usually (87% probability) associated with increased revenue uncertainty the following year. Our results demonstrate that the most effective option for individuals to decrease revenue variability is to participate in additional or more diverse fisheries. However, this option is expensive, often limited by regulations such as catch share programs, and consequently unavailable to many individuals. With increasing climatic variability, it will be particularly important that individuals relying on natural resources for their livelihood have effective strategies to reduce financial risk.

Black swans in space: modeling spatiotemporal processes with extremes.

In ecological systems, extremes can happen in time, such as population crashes, or in space, such as rapid range contractions. However, current methods for joint inference about temporal and spatial dynamics (e.g., spatiotemporal modeling with Gaussian random fields) may perform poorly when underlying processes include extreme events. Here we introduce a model that allows for extremes to occur simultaneously in time and space. Our model is a Bayesian predictive-process GLMM (generalized linear mixed-effects model) that uses a multivariate-t distribution to describe spatial random effects. The approach is easily implemented with our flexible R package glmmfields. First, using simulated data, we demonstrate the ability to recapture spatiotemporal extremes, and explore the consequences of fitting models that ignore such extremes. Second, we predict tree mortality from mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) outbreaks in the U.S. Pacific Northwest over the last 16 yr. We show that our approach provides more accurate and precise predictions compared to traditional spatiotemporal models when extremes are present. Our R package makes these models accessible to a wide range of ecologists and scientists in other disciplines interested in fitting spatiotemporal GLMMs, with and without extremes.

Evapotranspiration and water yield of a pine-broadleaf forest are not altered by long-term atmospheric [CO2 ] enrichment under native or enhanced soil fertility.

Changes in evapotranspiration (ET) from terrestrial ecosystems affect their water yield (WY), with considerable ecological and economic consequences. Increases in surface runoff observed over the past century have been attributed to increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations resulting in reduced ET by terrestrial ecosystems. Here, we evaluate the water balance of a Pinus taeda (L.) forest with a broadleaf component that was exposed to atmospheric [CO2 ] enrichment (ECO2 ; +200 ppm) for over 17 years and fertilization for 6 years, monitored with hundreds of environmental and sap flux sensors on a half-hourly basis. These measurements were synthesized using a one-dimensional Richard's equation model to evaluate treatment differences in transpiration (T), evaporation (E), ET, and WY. We found that ECO2 did not create significant differences in stand T, ET, or WY under either native or enhanced soil fertility, despite a 20% and 13% increase in leaf area index, respectively. While T, ET, and WY responded to fertilization, this response was weak (<3% of mean annual precipitation). Likewise, while E responded to ECO2 in the first 7 years of the study, this effect was of negligible magnitude (<1% mean annual precipitation). Given the global range of conifers similar to P. taeda, our results imply that recent observations of increased global streamflow cannot be attributed to decreases in ET across all ecosystems, demonstrating a great need for model-data synthesis activities to incorporate our current understanding of terrestrial vegetation in global water cycle models.

Applying spatiotemporal models to monitoring data to quantify fish population responses to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Quantifying the impacts of disturbances such as oil spills on marine species can be challenging. Natural environmental variability, human responses to the disturbance (e.g., fisheries closures), the complex life histories of the species being monitored, and limited pre-spill data can make detection of effects of oil spills difficult. Using long-term monitoring data from the state of Louisiana (USA), we applied novel spatiotemporal approaches to identify anomalies in species occurrence and catch rates. We included covariates (salinity, temperature, turbidity) to help isolate unusual events. While some species showed evidence of unlikely temporal anomalies in occurrence or catch rates, we found that the majority of the observed anomalies were also before the Deepwater Horizon event. Several species-gear combinations suggested upticks in the spatial variability immediately following the spill, but most species indicated no trend. Across species-gear combinations, there was no clear evidence for synchronous or asynchronous responses in occurrence or catch rates across sites following the spill. Our results are in general agreement to other analyses of monitoring data that detected small impacts, but in contrast to recent results from ecological modeling that showed much larger effects of the oil spill on fish and shellfish.

Risky business for a juvenile marine predator? Testing the influence of foraging strategies on size and growth rate under natural conditions.

Mechanisms driving selection of body size and growth rate in wild marine vertebrates are poorly understood, thus limiting knowledge of their fitness costs at ecological, physiological and genetic scales. Here, we indirectly tested whether selection for size-related traits of juvenile sharks that inhabit a nursery hosting two dichotomous habitats, protected mangroves (low predation risk) and exposed seagrass beds (high predation risk), is influenced by their foraging behaviour. Juvenile sharks displayed a continuum of foraging strategies between mangrove and seagrass areas, with some individuals preferentially feeding in one habitat over another. Foraging habitat was correlated with growth rate, whereby slower growing, smaller individuals fed predominantly in sheltered mangroves, whereas larger, faster growing animals fed over exposed seagrass. Concomitantly, tracked juveniles undertook variable movement behaviours across both the low and high predation risk habitat. These data provide supporting evidence for the hypothesis that directional selection favouring smaller size and slower growth rate, both heritable traits in this shark population, may be driven by variability in foraging behaviour and predation risk. Such evolutionary pathways may be critical to adaptation within predator-driven marine ecosystems.

The effect of plant water storage on water fluxes within the coupled soil-plant system.

In addition to buffering plants from water stress during severe droughts, plant water storage (PWS) alters many features of the spatio-temporal dynamics of water movement in the soil-plant system. How PWS impacts water dynamics and drought resilience is explored using a multi-layer porous media model. The model numerically resolves soil-plant hydrodynamics by coupling them to leaf-level gas exchange and soil-root interfacial layers. Novel features of the model are the considerations of a coordinated relationship between stomatal aperture variation and whole-system hydraulics and of the effects of PWS and nocturnal transpiration (Fe,night) on hydraulic redistribution (HR) in the soil. The model results suggest that daytime PWS usage and Fe,night generate a residual water potential gradient (Δψp,night) along the plant vascular system overnight. This Δψp,night represents a non-negligible competing sink strength that diminishes the significance of HR. Considering the co-occurrence of PWS usage and HR during a single extended dry-down, a wide range of plant attributes and environmental/soil conditions selected to enhance or suppress plant drought resilience is discussed. When compared with HR, model calculations suggest that increased root water influx into plant conducting-tissues overnight maintains a more favorable water status at the leaf, thereby delaying the onset of drought stress.

Space-time investigation of the effects of fishing on fish populations.

Species distribution models (SDMs) are important statistical tools for obtaining ecological insight into species-habitat relationships and providing advice for natural resource management. Many SDMs have been developed over the past decades, with a focus on space- and more recently, time-dependence. However, most of these studies have been on terrestrial species and applications to marine species have been limited. In this study, we used three large spatio-temporal data sources (habitat maps, survey-based fish density estimates, and fishery catch data) and a novel space-time model to study how the distribution of fishing may affect the seasonal dynamics of a commercially important fish species (Pacific Dover sole, Microstomus pacificus) off the west coast of the USA. Dover sole showed a large scale change in seasonal and annual distribution of biomass, and its distribution shifted from mid-depth zones to inshore or deeper waters during late summer/early fall. In many cases, the scale of fishery removal was small compared to these broader changes in biomass, suggesting that seasonal dynamics were primarily driven by movement and not by fishing. The increasing availability of appropriate data and space-time modeling software should facilitate extending this work to many other species, particularly those in marine ecosystems, and help tease apart the role of growth, natural mortality, recruitment, movement, and fishing on spatial patterns of species distribution in marine systems.