Patterns of β diversity are commonly used to infer underlying ecological processes. In this study, we examined the effect of spatial configuration of habitat capacity on different metrics of β diversity, i.e., β diversity measured as turnover and as variation. For β diversity as turnover, a monotonic species spatial turnover...
Chapter 2:
Aquatic macroinvertebrate communities have been shown to exhibit strong differences between erosional (riffle and run) and depositional (pool) macrohabitats of streams. A subset of these communities are aquatic insect taxa that are an important food source for riparian consumers like birds, bats, lizards, and spiders. Understanding the role...
While neutral theory and models have stimulated considerable literature, less well investigated is the effect of topology on neutral metacommunity model simulations. We implemented a neutral metacommunity model using two different stream network topologies, a widely branched network (wide tree) and a narrowly branched network (high tree), both represented as...
The spatial and temporal behavior of invasive species spread implies that optimal management strategies involve decisions over space and time. Dispersal and propagule pressure are two primary drivers of the spatial-temporal ecological process of species invasion. In the case of riparian communities, stream flow drives the dispersal of vegetation propagules....
Dendritic ecological networks (DENs) are a unique form of ecological networks that exhibit a dendritic network topology (e.g. stream and cave networks or plant architecture). DENs have a dual spatial representation; as points within the network and as points in geographical space. Consequently, some analytical methods used to quantify relationships...
Hydrology is the main environmental filter in aquatic ecosystems and may result in shared tolerances and functional traits among species in disparate ecosystems. We analyzed the associations between taxonomic and functional facets of diversity within aquatic ecosystems (ponds vs. streams) across a hydroperiod gradient (1–365 d) to untangle the hydrologic...
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Dong, X., R. Muneepeerakul, J. D. Olden, and D. A. Ly-
tle. 2015. The effect of spatial configuration
AIM:
Meta-community structure is a function of both local (site-specific) and regional (landscape-level) ecological factors, and the relative importance of each may be mediated by the dispersal ability of organisms. Here, we used aquatic invertebrate communities to investigate the relationship between local and regional factors in explaining distance decay relationships...
In a simulator-defined MDP, the Markovian dynamics and rewards are provided in the form of a simulator from which samples can be drawn. This paper studies MDP planning algorithms that attempt to minimize the number of simulator calls before terminating and outputting a policy that is approximately optimal with high...
Understanding the drivers and implications of anthropogenic disturbance of ecological connectivity is a key concern for the conservation of biodiversity and 50 ecosystem processes. Here, we review human activities that affect the movements and dispersal of aquatic organisms, including damming of rivers, river regulation, habitat loss and alteration, human-assisted dispersal...
This work is inspired by problems in natural resource management centered on the challenge of invasive species. Computing optimal management policies for maintaining ecosystem sustainable is challenging. Many ecosystem management problems can be formulated as MDP (Markov Decision Process) planning problems. In a simulator-defined MDP, the Markovian dynamics and rewards...