http://www.journalofanimalecology.org EarlyView RSS Feed http://www.journalofanimalecology.org/details/journalArticle/765295/Inference_from_habitatselection_analysis_depends_on_foraging_strategies.html 1. Several methods have been developed to assess habitat selection, most of which are based on a comparison between habitat attributes in used vs. unused or random locations, such as the popular resource selection functions (RSFs). Spatial evaluation of residency time has been recently proposed as a promising avenue for studying habitat selection. Residency-time analyses assume a positive relationship between residency time within habitat patches and selection. We demonstrate that RSF and... 2010-07-30T00:00:00Z http://www.journalofanimalecology.org/details/journalArticle/765299/Guildspecific_patterns_of_species_richness_and_host_specialization_in_plantx2013.html 1. The extent to which plant–herbivore feeding interactions are specialized is key to understand the processes maintaining the diversity of both tropical forest plants and their insect herbivores. However, studies documenting the full complexity of tropical plant–herbivore food webs are lacking. 2. We describe a complex, species-rich plant–herbivore food web for lowland rain forest in Papua New Guinea, resolving 6818 feeding links between 224 plant species and 1490 herbivore species drawn from... 2010-07-28T00:00:00Z http://www.journalofanimalecology.org/details/journalArticle/765297/Measurements_of_foraging_success_in_a_highly_pelagic_marine_predator_the_norther.html 1. Identification of foraging behaviour and the ability to assess foraging success is critical to understanding individual and between-species variation in habitat use and foraging ecology. For pelagic predators, behaviour-dependent foraging metrics are commonly used to identify important foraging areas, yet few of these metrics have been validated. 2. Using the northern elephant seal as a model species, we validated the use of a behaviour-independent measure of foraging success (changes in... 2010-07-28T00:00:00Z http://www.journalofanimalecology.org/details/journalArticle/761569/Cohort_variation_climate_effects_and_population_dynamics_in_a_shortlived_lizard.html 1. Demographic theory and empirical studies indicate that cohort variation in demographic traits has substantial effects on population dynamics of long-lived vertebrates but cohort effects have been poorly investigated in short-lived species. 2. Cohort effects were quantified in the common lizard (Zootoca vivipara Jacquin 1787), a short-lived ectothermic vertebrate, for body size, reproductive traits and age-specific survival with mark–recapture data collected from 1989 to 2005 in two... 2010-07-22T00:00:00Z http://www.journalofanimalecology.org/details/journalArticle/760953/A_phylogenetic_approach_to_disentangling_the_role_of_competition_and_habitat_fil.html 1. Methods that assess patterns of phylogenetic relatedness, as well as character distribution and evolution, allow one to infer the ecological processes involved in community assembly. Assuming niche conservatism, assemblages should shift from phylogenetic clustering to evenness with decreasing geographic scale because the relative importance of mechanisms that shape assemblages is hypothesized to be scale-dependent. Whereas habitat filtering is more likely to act at regional scales because... 2010-07-20T00:00:00Z http://www.journalofanimalecology.org/details/journalArticle/760543/Seasonality_in_the_strength_and_spatial_scale_of_processes_determining_intertida.html 1. Population growth rate is determined by both density-dependent and density-independent processes. In the temperate zone, the strength and spatial scale of these processes are likely to differ seasonally, but such differences have rarely been quantitatively examined. 2. Coverage, the area occupied by organisms, is a measure of resource use in sessile marine populations. Population models used for density-based studies should be able to characterize effectively fluctuations in coverage, but... 2010-07-15T00:00:00Z http://www.journalofanimalecology.org/details/journalArticle/760539/Disentangling_the_mechanistic_drivers_of_ecosystemsize_effects_on_species_divers.html 1. Species richness is typically positively correlated with ecosystem size, yet there is no general consensus on the proximate mechanisms (resource concentration, disturbance, colonization–extinction dynamics or habitat heterogeneity) driving this relationship. Ecosystem-size effects are often attributed to increasing resource concentration, but the inherent intercorrelation of resource concentration with other potential proximate mechanisms has led to strong debate over its significance as a... 2010-07-15T00:00:00Z http://www.journalofanimalecology.org/details/journalArticle/760535/How_does_local_weather_predict_red_deer_home_range_size_at_different_temporal_sc.html 1. There is a rapidly growing literature on how climate affects populations of vertebrates. For large herbivorous mammals, most attention has been paid to demographic responses to climate variation. Much less information is available regarding how climate affects animal behaviour, i.e. the climate mechanisms. Further, the appropriate measurement scale of climate variables remains debated. Here, we investigate how local climate variables determine home range sizes at four temporal scales using... 2010-07-15T00:00:00Z http://www.journalofanimalecology.org/details/journalArticle/760533/The_legacy_of_dispersal_larval_experience_shapes_persistence_later_in_the_life_o.html 1. Movement pathways of individuals can be shaped by heterogeneity in the dispersal environment that separates origin and destination patches. However, effects of the dispersal environment on the phenotype (or future fitness) of dispersers is poorly known; individual experiences during dispersal may have latent effects on the performance or persistence of later life-stages. 2. We evaluated such 'legacy effects' for dispersing reef fish larvae using (i) otolith (ear stone) microchemistry to... 2010-07-15T00:00:00Z http://www.journalofanimalecology.org/details/journalArticle/760561/Does_size_matter_An_investigation_of_habitat_use_across_a_carnivore_assemblage_i.html 1. This study utilizes a unique data set covering over 19 000 georeferenced records of species presence collected between 1993 and 2008, to explore the distribution and habitat selectivity of an assemblage of 26 carnivore species in the Serengeti–Ngorongoro landscape in northern Tanzania. 2. Two species, the large-spotted genet and the bushy-tailed mongoose, were documented for the first time within this landscape. Ecological Niche Factor Analysis (ENFA) was used to examine habitat selectivity... 2010-07-14T00:00:00Z http://www.journalofanimalecology.org/details/journalArticle/760557/Predator_identity_and_the_nature_and_strength_of_food_web_interactions.html 1. Most trophic interaction theory assumes that all predators are an abstract form of risk to which prey respond in a quantitatively similar manner. This conceptualization can be problematic because recent empirical work demonstrates that variation in the responses of prey to different predators can play a key role in structuring communities and regulating ecosystem function. 2. Predator identity – the species specific response of prey to a predator – has been proposed as an ultimate mechanism... 2010-07-14T00:00:00Z http://www.journalofanimalecology.org/details/journalArticle/760551/Food_supplementation_leads_to_bottomup_and_topdown_foodx2013hostx2013parasite_in.html 1. Food–prey–predator interactions may involve both 'bottom-up' and 'top-down' processes. Conventionally, food–host–parasite interactions have been seen as governed solely from the 'bottom-up', i.e. well-fed hosts can better resist parasites and so suffer less parasitism. Recent studies on diverse endo- and ecto-parasites increasingly highlight that well-fed hosts provide parasites with a better resource base, and so may be more likely to be parasitized. 2. Brood parasites exploit host... 2010-07-14T00:00:00Z http://www.journalofanimalecology.org/details/journalArticle/760547/Individual_variation_in_rates_of_senescence_natal_origin_effects_and_disposable_.html 1. Longitudinal studies of various vertebrate populations have recently demonstrated senescent declines in reproductive performance and/or survival probability with age to be almost ubiquitous in nature. Little is known, however, about the extent to which rates of senescence vary between individuals, and about causes or consequences of such variation. Quantifying these links in natural populations is important for understanding the constraints and adaptive processes underlying the evolution of... 2010-07-14T00:00:00Z http://www.journalofanimalecology.org/details/journalArticle/759503/Ecological_differentiation_between_coexisting_sexual_and_asexual_strains_of_Daph.html 1. The widespread occurrence of sexual reproduction indicates that the benefits of sex can overcome its costs relative to asexual reproduction. Many closely related sexual and asexual taxa have different geographic distributions suggesting that their relative fitness may depend on the environment. However, support for such ecological differentiation is mainly based on correlative evidence, with experimental support being scarce, especially from the wild. 2. We studied ecological... 2010-07-13T00:00:00Z http://www.journalofanimalecology.org/details/journalArticle/758537/Carbon_isotope_fractionation_of_amino_acids_in_fish_muscle_reflects_biosynthesis.html 1. Analysis of stable carbon isotopes is a valuable tool for studies of diet, habitat use and migration. However, significant variability in the degree of trophic fractionation (Δ13CC-D) between consumer (C) and diet (D) has highlighted our lack of understanding of the biochemical and physiological underpinnings of stable isotope ratios in tissues. 2. An opportunity now exists to increase the specificity of dietary studies by analyzing the δ13C values of amino acids (AAs). Common mummichogs... 2010-07-09T00:00:00Z