Ecological modelling articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Risk estimates are important measures for the study and practice of conservation ecology. Here, the authors show that such estimates can be substantially biased, and propose an approach to improve accuracy.

    • Kotaro Ono
    • , Øystein Langangen
    •  & Nils Chr. Stenseth

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Environmental stress can affect the outcome of ecological competition. Here, the authors use theory and experiments with a synthetic microbial community to show that a tradeoff between growth rate and competitive ability determines which species prevails when the population faces variable mortality rates.

    • Clare I. Abreu
    • , Jonathan Friedman
    •  & Jeff Gore

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Previous work on the mechanisms responsible for the formation of deep chlorophyll maxima (DCM) has focused on phytoplankton physiology and behaviour. Here the authors used mathematical models informed by laboratory grazing studies to show that microzooplankton has a mechanism that can reduce phytoplankton biomass but allows accumulation at depth.

    • Holly V. Moeller
    • , Charlotte Laufkötter
    •  & Matthew D. Johnson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Extreme climate events can cause population crashes and may threaten population persistence. Here, the authors model reindeer population dynamics and find that more frequent extremely icy winters can actually reduce extinction risk due to density dependence and a demographic shift to resilient ages.

    • Brage B. Hansen
    • , Marlène Gamelon
    •  & Vidar Grøtan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Pollinator loss is a concern but data on their status is lacking. Here Powney et al. use occupancy modelling to estimate the degree of loss in wild bee and hoverfly species across Great Britain, and report a 55% decline in upland species and a 12% increase in dominant crop pollinators.

    • Gary D. Powney
    • , Claire Carvell
    •  & Nick J. B. Isaac

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The fossil record shows a decline in dinosaur diversity preceding their mass extinction. Here, the authors apply ecological niche modelling to show that suitable dinosaur habitat was declining in areas with present-day rock-outcrop, but not across North America as a whole, possibly generating sampling bias in the fossil record.

    • Alfio Alessandro Chiarenza
    • , Philip D. Mannion
    •  & Peter A. Allison

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Forecasting of infectious disease outbreaks can inform appropriate intervention measures, but whether fundamental limits to accurate prediction exist is unclear. Here, the authors use permutation entropy as a model independent measure of predictability to study limitations across a broad set of infectious diseases.

    • Samuel V. Scarpino
    •  & Giovanni Petri

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding the source of malaria outbreaks in low-transmission areas is important for controlling the disease. Here, the authors use mobile phone data to map malaria transmission in Madagascar, and are able to show that primary sources of infection in the capital city are found along populated coastal areas.

    • Felana Angella Ihantamalala
    • , Vincent Herbreteau
    •  & Amy Wesolowski

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Human-tiger conflict occurs where there is a higher risk of encountering tigers. Here, Struebig et al. use geographic profiling to predict risk of encounters in Sumatra, and show that combining risk measures with social data on tolerance could help prioritise regions for conflict mitigation efforts.

    • Matthew J. Struebig
    • , Matthew Linkie
    •  & Freya A. V. St. John

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The disease dynamics of bovine tuberculosis have been of interest given the pathogen’s effect on wild animal and livestock health. Here, the authors show that a brief cessation of testing for bovine tuberculosis in 2001 altered the population synchrony of the disease dynamics across regions of Great Britain.

    • Aristides Moustakas
    • , Matthew R. Evans
    •  & Yannis Markonis

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The role of adaptive foraging in the threat of invasive pollinators to plant-pollinator systems is difficult to characterise. Here, Valdavinos et al. use network modelling to show the importance of foraging efficiency, diet overlap, plant species visitation, and degree of specialism in native pollinators.

    • Fernanda S. Valdovinos
    • , Eric L. Berlow
    •  & Neo D. Martinez

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Wolbachia infection in mosquitoes reduces dengue virus spread under specific lab conditions, prompting its use in disease control. Here, King et al. show that Wolbachia increases mean and variance in mosquito susceptibility and explain how this affects Wolbachia invasion and dengue transmission.

    • Jessica G. King
    • , Caetano Souto-Maior
    •  & M. Gabriela M. Gomes

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Nitrite tends to peak at the base of the sunlit zone in the ocean, but the ecological drivers of the local and global distributions of nitrite are not known. Here, Zakem et al. use a marine ecosystem model to show how the interactions of nitrifying microbes mediate nitrite accumulation.

    • Emily J. Zakem
    • , Alia Al-Haj
    •  & Michael J. Follows

  • Article
    | Open Access

    New global datasets of upper canopy vegetation respiration have become available and their impact on global carbon cycle models is unclear. Here, the authors show the implications of these parameterisations with a global gridded land model and report significantly higher global plant respiration estimates.

    • Chris Huntingford
    • , Owen K. Atkin
    •  & Yadvinder Malhi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Stressors such as sediment dredging can harm marine organisms, but this impact could be minimised if targeted within ‘ecological windows’. Here, Wu and colleagues develop a modelling framework to identify ecological windows that maximise seagrass resilience under varying dredging schedules.

    • Paul Pao-Yen Wu
    • , Kerrie Mengersen
    •  & M. Julian Caley

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Adélie penguins are a key Antarctic indicator species, but data patchiness has challenged efforts to link population dynamics to key drivers. Che-Castaldo et al. resolve this issue using a pan-Antarctic Bayesian model to infer missing data, and show that spatial aggregation leads to more robust inference regarding dynamics.

    • Christian Che-Castaldo
    • , Stephanie Jenouvrier
    •  & Heather J. Lynch

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In a changing world, the ability to predict the impact of environmental change on ecological communities is essential. Here, the authors show that by separating species abundances from interaction preferences, they can predict the effects of habitat modification on the structure of weighted species interaction networks, even with limited data.

    • Phillip P. A. Staniczenko
    • , Owen T. Lewis
    •  & Felix Reed-Tsochas

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The structure and dynamics of microbial communities reflect trade-offs in the ability to use different resources. Here, Josephides and Swain incorporate metabolic trade-offs into an eco-evolutionary model to predict networks of mutational paths and the evolutionary outcomes for microbial communities.

    • Christos Josephides
    •  & Peter S. Swain

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Earth system model simulations of future climate in the Amazon show little agreement. Here, the authors show that biases in internally generated climate explain most of this uncertainty and that the balance between water-saturated and water-limited evapotranspiration controls the Amazon resilience to climate change.

    • Anders Ahlström
    • , Josep G. Canadell
    •  & Robert B. Jackson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Predictions of coastal wetland response to sea-level rise often neglect attenuation effects due to vegetation and infrastructure. Here, the authors show that including attenuation effects improves prediction of wetland evolution and suggests increases in wetland vulnerability to sea-level rise.

    • José F. Rodríguez
    • , Patricia M. Saco
    •  & Gerardo Riccardi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Deforestation and edge effects around cleared areas impact forest stability. Here, the authors examine human impacts on Amazonian forest-savanna bistability and show that tree cover bimodality is enhanced in regions close to human activities and is nearly absent in regions unaffected by human activities.

    • Bert Wuyts
    • , Alan R. Champneys
    •  & Joanna I. House

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Many estimates of fisheries recovery time currently assume that the environment and associated fish population dynamics are fixed. Brittenet al. use Bayesian models incorporating variation in productivity and carrying capacity to provide revised estimates of recovery timelines for depleted fish stocks worldwide.

    • Gregory L. Britten
    • , Michael Dowd
    •  & Boris Worm

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Environmental niche models are often used to predict species responses to climate change but they neglect the potential for evolutionary responses. Here, Cottoet al. develop a model incorporating demographic processes and evolutionary dynamics and show that perennial alpine plants persist in unsuitable habitats but produce maladapted offspring.

    • Olivier Cotto
    • , Johannes Wessely
    •  & Frédéric Guillaume

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A central question in theoretical ecology is how diverse species can coexist in communities, and how that coexistence depends on network properties. Here, Grilliet al. quantify the extent of feasible coexistence of empirical networks, showing that it is smaller for trophic than mutualism networks.

    • Jacopo Grilli
    • , Matteo Adorisio
    •  & Amos Maritan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Habitat fragmentation can lead to extinction even when some habitat remains. Here, the authors model the metapopulation dynamics of the Glanville fritillary butterfly and show that persistence depends on spatial configuration and quality of the habitat, as well as on genotype-associated dispersal rate.

    • Ilkka Hanski
    • , Torsti Schulz
    •  & Sami P. Ojanen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Future stress on water resources, and on temperate drylands in particular, remains uncertain. Here, the authors show that climate in the late twenty first century may reduce the extent of temperate drylands, dry deep soils, and create intra-regional and intercontinental differences in ecological drought.

    • Daniel R. Schlaepfer
    • , John B. Bradford
    •  & Khishigbayar Jamiyansharav

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In addition to affecting individual species, climate change can modify species interactions. Coupling simulation models with networks between plants and animal pollinators and seed dispersers, Schleuninget al. show that animal persistence under climate change depends more strongly on plant persistence than vice versa.

    • Matthias Schleuning
    • , Jochen Fründ
    •  & Christian Hof

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A major challenge of theoretical ecology is explaining the stable coexistence of diverse multi-species communities. Here, the authors show that when the interactions among two species depend on the presence of other species, the diversity of the community becomes a necessity rather than an obstacle for its stability.

    • Eyal Bairey
    • , Eric D. Kelsic
    •  & Roy Kishony

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How mechanisms underlying food-web stability may influence ecosystem regime shifts is not well understood. Combining food-web and ecosystem modelling, Kuiperet al. show that destabilizing reorganization of a small number of key trophic interactions precede catastrophic changes in shallow lake ecosystems.

    • Jan J. Kuiper
    • , Cassandra van Altena
    •  & Wolf M. Mooij

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Biological range expansions and invasions can be affected by rapid evolution. Here the authors show an evolutionary increase of dispersal during range expansions and an increase of population densities from range cores to range margins in microcosm experiments with a freshwater ciliate.

    • Emanuel A. Fronhofer
    •  & Florian Altermatt

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Long-range synchronization of ecological populations separated by distances greater than their dispersal range is thought only to occur via environmental correlations. Here, Noble et al.show that synchronization can also occur beyond these distances, and is described by the Ising universality class.

    • Andrew E. Noble
    • , Jonathan Machta
    •  & Alan Hastings

  • Article |

    Control of pests in agriculture by introduced natural enemies may be hampered because of unstable oscillations in the dynamics of the two populations. Here, the authors show that stable conditions can be maintained by combining two unstable systems utilizing different biological control agents.

    • Theresa Wei Ying Ong
    •  & John H. Vandermeer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The mechanisms that determine the relationship between diversity and productivity in marine phytoplankton remain unclear. Here, Vallina et al.show that selective predation and transient competitive exclusion determine phytoplankton community composition.

    • S. M. Vallina
    • , M. J. Follows
    •  & M. Loreau

  • Article |

    Climate change and increasing temperature have an impact on the flowering time of plants but models predicting these effects are lacking. Satake et al. provide a model based on differential gene expression to predict the response of plants to warmer temperatures and find that the flowering period is shortened.

    • Akiko Satake
    • , Tetsuhiro Kawagoe
    •  & Hiroshi Kudoh

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