25, 27, and 40), three of which appear incomplete, followed by relatively complete aquatic habitats with longer chains. For the two-dimensional webs, seven out of eight webs are incomplete (terrestrial habitats, marshes, and the rocky intertidal). We suggest that the three-dimensional food web descriptions, particularly those of webs in open seas, more completely reflect real food webs, while t...

The amphibious plants endemic to vernal pools of the California Floristic Province provide an excellent opportunity to study adaptive evolution for two reasons. First, most of these plants exhibit a major shift in habitat preference from that of their terrestrial ancestors. Second, in most cases, this shift apparently has occurred recently. Because this adaptive evolution has been dramatic and ...

—Natural history researchers are increasingly using digital cameras and computer software to measure their study animals. Adult Red-spotted Newts (Notophthalmus viridescens viridescens) are known to display a range of skin colors, from brown to green, but it has not been possible to quantify this variation until the advent of image analysis technology. We used an image analysis approach to comp...

Natural resource extraction and wildlife conservation are often perceived as incompatible. For wetland-dependent amphibians, forested buffers may mitigate timber-harvest impacts, but little empirical research has focused on buffers around lentic habitats. We conducted a landscape experiment to examine how spotted salamander and wood frog reproductive output (i.e., eggmass and metamorph producti...

Elucidating patterns and causes of interaction among mutualistic species is a major focus of ecology, and recent meta-analyses of terrestrial networks show that network-level reciprocal specialization tends to be higher in intimate mutualisms than in nonintimate mutualisms. It is largely unknown, however, whether this pattern holds for and what factors affect specialization in marine mutualisms...

Forest fragmentation results in a loss of forest interior and an increase in edge habitat. We studied how understorey bird community composition and habitat variables changed along an edge-to-interior gradient in a 1248-ha lowland rainforest patch in peninsular Malaysia. Birds and environmental variables such as vegetation structure and litter depth were detected within a 25-m radius of each of...

Ecosystems can be linked by the movement of matter and nutrients across habitat boundaries via aquatic insect emergence. Aquatic organisms tend to have higher concentrations of certain toxic contaminants such as methylmercury (MeHg) compared to their terrestrial counterparts. If aquatic organisms come to land, terrestrial organisms that consume them are expected to have elevated MeHg concentrat...

BACKGROUND Riparian habitats are subjected to frequent inundation (flooding) and are characterised by food webs that exhibit variability in aquatic/terrestrial subsidies across the ecotone. The strength of this subsidy in active riparian floodplains is thought to underpin local biodiversity. Terrestrial invertebrates dominate the fauna, exhibiting traits that allow exploitation of variable aqua...