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By removing riparian vegetation, wildfires can have significant effects on river ecology, especially in headwater systems where fringing plant life helps to regulate stream temperature and provides a source of carbon in the form of leaf litter and woody debris. To help understand the impacts of fire on streams, and the length of time […]
March 30, 2019
In urban areas, natural wetlands are rapidly being replaced by constructed wetlands designed to treat stormwater. While stormwater wetlands provide habitats for wildlife, there are concerns that their often high concentrations of nutrients, heavy metals and pesticides may have a harmful impact on animals that are attracted to them – in other words, that […]
January 14, 2019
Comments Off on Understanding how fish benefit from river restoration
Although relationships between fish traits and environmental factors are well known, there have been few attempts to use fish traits to interpret the outcomes of stream restoration projects. German scientists set out to do this by analyzing data from a tributary of the Rhine River, which had a long history of channelization, bank fixation, riparian […]
October 8, 2018
Comments Off on Research on insect emergence warms up
Long-term data show that climate change affects ecosystem functioning and the body size distributions of animal species, but more information is needed to understand the mechanisms underlying these changes. There’s a need for experimental studies that take account of linkages between the aquatic and terrestrial environment and that simulate changes in the intensity and frequency […]
October 8, 2018
Comments Off on Small fish species are more at risk
Large-bodied animal species tend to have relatively low fecundity, long generation times and slow growth rates, which makes for low population turnover and a heightened risk of extinction. This trend seems to be true for vertebrates such as mammals and marine fish, but not, it seems, for freshwater fish. Australian ecologists explored the relationship between […]
July 5, 2018
Comments Off on Fish life histories: filling in the gaps
Estimates of life history parameters such as age at maturity, maximum body size and rates of growth and mortality play a crucial role in understanding and managing animal populations, but in the case of many species they’re lacking or poorly measured. Fortunately however, compilations of existing estimates now exist, and these databases open up opportunities […]
March 25, 2018
Comments Off on A mature approach to growth data
The age at which an animal matures is a key life history trait with implications for ecology, evolution and population dynamics, but data on maturation can be costly to collect. However, in many animals growth occurs in two phases, with a change-point at maturity, which means that it’s sometimes possible to estimate the maturation age […]
March 30, 2019
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