Journal of Applied Ecology

The effectiveness of organic farming on biodiversity has been widely documented especially for plants, arthropods and birds; however, the effects of the transition period required to become an organic farm on wildlife remain poorly understood.We assessed the effects of organic farming on insectivorous bats in citrus orchards in the Republic of Cyprus employing two matched designs (conventional vs. 3-year organic-transitional and conventional vs. organic-certified) and a third unmatched design (3-year organic-transitional vs...

Floral plantings adjacent to crops fields can recruit populations of natural enemies by providing flower nectar and non-crop prey to increase natural pest regulation. Observed variation in success rates might be due to changes in the unseen community of endosymbionts hosted by many herbivorous insects, of which some can confer resistance to natural enemies, for example, parasitoid wasps. Reduced insect control may occur if highly protective symbiont combinations increase in frequency via selection effects, and this is expected to be stronger in lower diversity systems...

Deformed wing virus (DWV) is a pathogenic virus of honey bees transmitted by the ectoparasitic mite Varroa destructor . Annual overwintering colony losses, accounting for ~25% of all colonies, are associated with high levels of Varroa-DWV infestation. Effective miticide treatments are available to control Varroa. However, the absence of coordinated treatment means environmental transmission of mites continues unchecked. We aimed to determine whether rational, coordinated treatment is beneficial, and characterized the DWV population as an indicator of colony health...

Standing deadwood is an important structural component of forest ecosystems. Its occurrence and dynamics influence both carbon fluxes and the availability of habitats for many species. However, deadwood is greatly reduced in managed, and even in many currently unmanaged temperate forests in Europe. To date, few studies have examined how environmental factors, forest management and changing climate affect the availability of standing deadwood and its dynamics.Data from five periods of the Austrian National Forest Inventory (1981-2009) were used to (I) analyse standing deadwood volume in relation to living volume stock, elevation, eco-region, forest type, ownership and management intensity, (II) investigate the influence of forest ownership and management intensity on snag persistence and (III) define drivers of standing deadwood volume loss for seven tree genera ( Abies , Alnus , Fagus , Larix , Picea , Pinus and Quercus ) using tree-related, site-related and climate-related variables, and predict volume loss under two climate change scenarios...

Anthropogenic heathlands are semi-natural ecosystems with a unique cultural and biodiversity value, considered worthy of preservation across most of the world. Their rate of loss, however, is alarming. Currently, we know little about the heathlands' actual span of resilience affordances and their association with abiotic and anthropogenic factors, including how much additional intervention they need to persist. Consequently, we are missing out on vital knowledge for conservation, management and the historical persistence of heathlands...

The causative bacterium of Lyme disease, Borrelia burgdorferi , expanded from an undetected human pathogen into the etiologic agent of the most common vector-borne disease in the United States over the last several decades. Systematic field collections of the tick vector reveal increases in the geographic range and prevalence of B. burgdorferi-infected ticks that coincided with increases in human Lyme disease incidence across New York State.We investigate the impact of environmental features on the population dynamics of B...

Migratory species are protected under international legislation; their seasonal movements across international borders may therefore present opportunities for understanding how global conservation policies translate to local-level actions across different socio-ecological contexts. Moreover, local-level management of migratory species can reveal how culture and governance affects progress towards achieving global targets. Here, we investigate potential misalignment in the two-way relationship between global-level conservation policies (i...

Pathogen management strategies in wildlife are typically accompanied by an array of uncertainties such as the efficacy of vaccines or potential unintended consequences of interventions. In the context of such uncertainties, models of disease transmission can provide critical insight for optimizing pathogen management, especially for species of conservation concern. The endangered Florida panther experienced an outbreak of feline leukemia virus (FeLV) in 2002-04, and continues to be affected by this deadly virus...

Recovering or threatened carnivore populations are often harvested to minimise their impact on human activities, such as livestock farming or game hunting. Increasingly, harvest quota decisions involve a set of scientific, administrative and political institutions operating at national and sub-national levels whose interactions and collective decision-making aim to increase the legitimacy of management and ensure population targets are met. In practice, however, assessments of how quota decisions change between these different actors and what consequences these changes have on population trends are rare...

Neotropical countries receive financing and effort from temperate nations to aid the conservation of migratory species that move between temperate and tropical regions. If allocated strategically, these resources could simultaneously contribute to other conservation initiatives. In this study, we use novel distribution maps to show how those resources could aid planning for the recovery of threatened resident vertebrates.Using eBird-based relative abundance estimates, we first identified areas with high richness of Neotropical migrant landbirds of conservation concern (23 species) during the stationary non-breeding period...

Understanding the role of different species in the transmission of multi-host pathogens, such as rabies virus, is vital for effective control strategies. Across most of sub-Saharan Africa domestic dogs Canis familiaris are considered the reservoir for rabies, but the role of wildlife has been long debated. Here we explore the multi-host transmission dynamics of rabies across south-east Tanzania.Between January 2011 and July 2019, data on probable rabies cases were collected in the regions of Lindi and Mtwara...

Control of the arboviral disease vector Aedes aegypti has shown variable levels of efficacy around the globe. We evaluated an Autocidal Gravid Ovitrap (AGO) intervention as a stand-alone control tool for population suppression of A . aegypti in US communities bordering Mexico.We conducted a cluster randomized crossover trial with weekly mosquito surveillance of sentinel households from July 2017 to December 2018. The intervention took place from August to December of both years. Multilevel models (generalized linear and additive mixed models) were used to analyse the changes in population abundance of female A ...

The management of biological invasions is a worldwide conservation priority. Unfortunately, decision-making on optimal invasion management can be impeded by lack of information about the biological processes that determine invader success (i.e. biological uncertainty) or by uncertainty about the effectiveness of candidate interventions (i.e. operational uncertainty). Concurrent assessment of both sources of uncertainty within the same framework can help to optimize control decisions.Here, we present a Value of Information (VoI) framework to simultaneously analyse the effects of biological and operational uncertainties on management outcomes...

Interactions between plants can be beneficial, detrimental or neutral. In agricultural systems, competition between crop and spontaneous vegetation is a major concern. We evaluated the relative support for three non-exclusive ecological hypotheses about interactions between crop and spontaneous plants based on competition, complementarity or facilitation.The study was conducted in Swiss vineyards with different vegetation management intensities. In all, 33 vineyards planted with two different grape varieties were studied over 3 years to determine whether low-intensity vegetation management might provide benefits for grape quality parameters...

1. Contaminants such as mercury are pervasive and can have immunosuppressive effects on wildlife. Impaired immunity could be important for forecasting pathogen spillover, as many land-use changes that generate mercury contamination also bring wildlife into close contact with humans and domestic animals. However, the interactions among contaminants, immunity and infection are difficult to study in natural systems, and empirical tests of possible directional relationships remain rare. 2. We capitalized on extreme mercury variation in a diverse bat community in Belize to test association among contaminants, immunity and infection...

Plant pathogens are introduced to new geographical regions ever more frequently as global connectivity increases. Predicting the threat they pose to plant health can be difficult without in-depth knowledge of behaviour, distribution and spread. Here, we evaluate the potential for using biological traits and phylogeny to predict global threats from emerging pathogens.We use a species-level trait database and phylogeny for 179 Phytophthora species: oomycete pathogens impacting natural, agricultural, horticultural and forestry settings...

Gut microbiome disequilibrium is increasingly implicated in host fitness reductions, including for the economically important and disease-challenged western honey bee Apis mellifera . In laboratory experiments, the antibiotic tetracycline, which is used to prevent American Foulbrood Disease in countries including the US, elevates honey bee mortality by disturbing the microbiome. It is unclear, however, how elevated individual mortality affects colony-level fitness.We used an agent-based model (BEEHAVE) and empirical data to assess colony-level effects of antibiotic-induced worker bee mortality, by measuring colony size...

Learning is a behavioural change based on memory of previous experiences and a ubiquitous phenomenon in animals. Learning effects are commonly life-stage- and age-specific. In many animals, early life experiences lead to pervasive and persistent behavioural changes.There is broad consensus that learning has far-reaching implications to biological control. Proximate and ultimate factors of individual learning by parasitoids and true predators are relatively well understood, yet the consequences of learning to higher organizational levels, populations and communities, and top-down trophic cascades are unexplored...

The development of genetically modified (GM) mosquitoes and their subsequent field release offers innovative and cost-effective approaches to reduce mosquito-borne diseases, such as malaria. A sex-distorting autosomal transgene has been developed recently in G3 mosquitoes, a laboratory strain of the malaria vector Anopheles gambiae s.l. The transgene expresses an endonuclease called I-PpoI during spermatogenesis, which selectively cleaves the X chromosome to result in ~95% male progeny. Following the World Health Organization guidance framework for the testing of GM mosquitoes, we assessed the dynamics of this transgene in large cages using a joint experimental modelling approach...

New invading pathogen strains must compete with endemic pathogen strains to emerge and spread. As disease control measures are often non-specific, that is, they do not distinguish between strains, applying control not only affects the invading pathogen strain but the endemic as well. We hypothesize that the control of the invasive strain could be compromised due to the non-specific nature of the control.A spatially explicit model, describing the East African cassava mosaic virus-Uganda strain (EACMV-UG) outbreak, is used to evaluate methods of controlling both disease incidence and spread of invading pathogen strains in pathosystems with and without an endemic pathogen strain present...