Preface to the Princeton Landmarks in Biology Edition vii Preface xi Symbols Used xiii 1. The Importance of Islands 3 2. Area and Number of Speicies 8 3. Further Explanations of the Area-Diversity Pattern 19 4. The Strategy of Colonization 68 5. Invasibility and the Variable Niche 94 6. Stepping Stones and Biotic Exchange 123 7. Evolutionary Changes Following Colonization 145 8. Prospect 181 Glossary 185 References 193 Index 201

The Theory of Island Biogeography

Citizen science enlists the public in collecting large quantities of data across an array of habitats and locations over long spans of time. Citizen science projects have been remarkably successful in advancing scientific knowledge, and contributions from citizen scientists now provide a vast quantity of data about species occurrence and distribution around the world. Most citizen science projects also strive to help participants learn about the organisms they are observing and to experience the process by which scientific investigations are conducted. Developing and implementing public data-collection projects that yield both scientific and educational outcomes requires significant effort. This article describes the model for building and operating citizen science projects that has evolved at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology over the past two decades. We hope that our model will inform the fields of biodiversity monitoring, biological research, and science education while providing a window into the cultur...

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/bio.2009.59.11.9

Citizen Science: A Developing Tool for Expanding Science Knowledge and Scientific Literacy

Habitat loss has pervasive and disruptive impacts on biodiversity in habitat remnants. The magnitude of the ecological impacts of habitat loss can be exacerbated by the spatial arrangement -- or fragmentation -- of remaining habitat. Fragmentation per se is a landscape-level phenomenon in which species that survive in habitat remnants are confronted with a modified environment of reduced area, increased isolation and novel ecological boundaries. The implications of this for individual organisms are many and varied, because species with differing life history strategies are differentially affected by habitat fragmentation. Here, we review the extensive literature on species responses to habitat fragmentation, and detail the numerous ways in which confounding factors have either masked the detection, or prevented the manifestation, of predicted fragmentation effects. Large numbers of empirical studies continue to document changes in species richness with decreasing habitat area, with positive, negative and no relationships regularly reported. The debate surrounding such widely contrasting results is beginning to be resolved by findings that the expected positive species-area relationship can be masked by matrix-derived spatial subsidies of resources to fragment-dwelling species and by the invasion of matrix-dwelling species into habitat edges. Significant advances have been made recently in our understanding of how species interactions are altered at habitat edges as a result of these changes. Interestingly, changes in biotic and abiotic parameters at edges also make ecological processes more variable than in habitat interiors. Individuals are more likely to encounter habitat edges in fragments with convoluted shapes, leading to increased turnover and variability in population size than in fragments that are compact in shape. Habitat isolation in both space and time disrupts species distribution patterns, with consequent effects on metapopulation dynamics and the genetic structure of fragment-dwelling populations. Again, the matrix habitat is a strong determinant of fragmentation effects within remnants because of its role in regulating dispersal and dispersal-related mortality, the provision of spatial subsidies and the potential mediation of edge-related microclimatic gradients. We show that confounding factors can mask many fragmentation effects. For instance, there are multiple ways in which species traits like trophic level, dispersal ability and degree of habitat specialisation influence species-level responses. The temporal scale of investigation may have a strong influence on the results of a study, with short-term crowding effects eventually giving way to long-term extinction debts. Moreover, many fragmentation effects like changes in genetic, morphological or behavioural traits of species require time to appear. By contrast, synergistic interactions of fragmentation with climate change, human-altered disturbance regimes, species interactions and other drivers of population decline may magnify the impacts of fragmentation. To conclude, we emphasise that anthropogenic fragmentation is a recent phenomenon in evolutionary time and suggest that the final, long-term impacts of habitat fragmentation may not yet have shown themselves.

Confounding factors in the detection of species responses to habitat fragmentation

Citizen science, the involvement of volunteers in research, has increased the scale of ecological field studies with continent-wide, centralized monitoring efforts and, more rarely, tapping of volunteers to conduct large, coordinated, field experiments. The unique benefit for the field of ecology lies in understanding processes occurring at broad geographic scales and on private lands, which are impossible to sample extensively with traditional field research models. Citizen science produces large, longitudinal data sets, whose potential for error and bias is poorly understood. Because it does not usually aim to uncover mechanisms underlying ecological patterns, citizen science is best viewed as complementary to more localized, hypothesis-driven research. In the process of addressing the impacts of current, global “experiments” altering habitat and climate, large-scale citizen science has led to new, quantitative approaches to emerging questions about the distribution and abundance of organisms across spa...

/pdf/citizen-science-as-an-ecological-research-tool-challenges-4itbtd5neh.pdf

Citizen Science as an Ecological Research Tool: Challenges and Benefits

Merchants of Doubt. How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming

A land managers guide to improving habitat for scarlet tanagers and other forest-interior birds. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology. We also wish to thank the following people for contributing their time and expertise to the preparation of this publication: Why did we choose the Scarlet Tanager for this set of guidelines? First, this conspicuous species represents a whole community of forest-dwelling Neotropical migratory birds. Scarlet Tanagers are part of a community of species that share similar habitat requirements and geographical distributions. By meeting the habitat needs of Scarlet Tanagers, we will also be improving habitat for dozens of other forest-dwelling birds. In addition, several studies show that Scarlet Tanagers are negatively affected by the fragmentation of mature forests in certain parts of its range. Although Scarlet Tanager populations are not presently declining in many areas, this species is nonetheless vulnerable because so much of its population is concentrated in forests in the northeastern United States and eastern Canada. Furthermore, it is vital for the long-term survival of a species to begin studying and protecting it while it is still common. For these reasons, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology conducted a three-year study of four species of North American tanagers, combining the expertise of Cornell scientists and hundreds of volunteer " citizen scientists " throughout eastern North America. The results of that study (see Project Tanager sidebar) enable us to make meaningful recommendations that we believe can benefit Scarlet Tanagers and other forest-interior birds over the long-term. This publication is a tool to help improve habitat for populations of forest-interior birds. These guidelines are written for two types of land managers: those responsible for large landscapes, such as public lands or entire states; and private landowners who manage small blocks of forest. We first discuss concepts associated with forest fragmentation at both landscape and smaller habitat scales and provide general management suggestions that benefit many forest-interior birds. We then focus directly on the habitat-area requirements of the Scarlet Tanager: specifically, how much mature forest is necessary to sustain a breeding population of this Neotropical migratory songbird? Because habitat requirements for the Scarlet Tanager vary geographically, our specific recommendations are tailored to conditions in four regions of the species' range. Two of these regions, the Midwest and Atlantic Coastal Plain, are sparsely forested, whereas the Appalachian and Northern Forest regions are more extensively and continuously forested. 4 This is the first in …

A land manager's guide to improving habitat for scarlet tanagers and other forest-interior birds

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are synthetic chemical pollutants with demonstrated detrimental toxic and developmental effects on humans and wildlife. Laboratory studies suggest that PCBs influence behavior due to their effects on endocrine and neurological systems, yet little is known about the behavioral consequences of sublethal PCB exposure in the field. Additionally, specific PCB congener data (in contrast to total PCB load) is necessary to understand the possible effects of PCBs in living organisms since number and position of chlorine substitution in a PCB molecule dictates the toxicity and chemical fate of individual PCB congeners. We non-lethally investigated total PCB loads, congener specific PCB profiles, and songs of black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapillus) and song sparrows (Melospiza melodia) along a historical PCB gradient at the Hudson River in New York State. Our results indicate that black-capped chickadees and song sparrows have higher total blood PCBs in regions with higher historic PCB contamination. The two bird species varied substantially in their congener-specific PCB profiles; within sites, song sparrows showed a significantly higher proportion of lower chlorinated PCBs, while black-capped chickadees had higher proportions of highly chlorinated PCBs. In areas of PCB pollution, the species-specific identity signal in black-capped chickadee song varied significantly, while variation in song sparrow trill performance was best predicted by the mono-ortho PCB load. Thus, PCBs may affect song production, an important component of communication in birds. In conclusion, we suggest that the ramifications of changes in song quality for bird populations may extend the toxic effects of environmental PCB pollution.

/pdf/the-effect-of-polychlorinated-biphenyls-on-the-song-of-two-3od56k08tg.pdf

The Effect of Polychlorinated Biphenyls on the Song of Two Passerine Species

Ubiquitous human-caused changes to the environment act as multiple stressors for organisms in the wild, and the effects of these stressors may be synergistic, rather than merely additive, with unexpected results. However, understanding how focal organisms respond to these stressors is crucial for conservation planning for these species. We propose a paradigm that alternates extensive, broadscale data collection by volunteer collaborators to document patterns of response, with intensive fine-scale studies by professional researchers, to elucidate the processes underlying these patterns. We demonstrate this technique, building on our existing work linking patterns of population declines in the Wood Thrush ( Hylocichla mustelina) to synergistic effects of acid rain and habitat fragmentation. To better understand the processes behind these patterns, we use a simple protocol to explore linkages between acid rain, leaching of calcium from the soil, and declines in the abundance of calcium-rich invertebrate prey species, which may be necessary for successful breeding by this thrush. We sampled at 40 study sites across New York that were chosen based on estimated acid deposition and soil properties. Our results show that the calcium content of the soils sampled is proportional to the soil pH, that the abundance of calcium-rich invertebrate prey tracks soil properties, and that the presence of a breeding Wood Thrush was correctly predicted in >70% of study sites by the biomass of calcium-rich prey, and in particular, the biomass of myriapods (Diplopoda). We show that a simple repeatable protocol, suitable for use by volunteers across broad geographic extents and ranges of habitat fragmentation, can help us understand the reactions of some forest birds to acid rain in combination with habitat fragmentation. We detail the development of this protocol for volunteers in the Birds in Forested Landscapes project, and describe future plans.

/pdf/understanding-the-risk-to-neotropical-migrant-bird-species-sl44uxv06n.pdf

Understanding the Risk to Neotropical Migrant Bird Species of Multiple Human-Caused Stressors: Elucidating Processes Behind the Patterns.

9. Developing a Conservation Research Program with Citizen Science

Effects of recreational development on forest-breeding birds in U.S. National Forests birds in U.S. National Forests birds in U.S. National Forests birds in U.S. National Forests birds in U.S. National Forests

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