Diego Ellis SotoYale University | YU · Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Diego Ellis Soto
Bsc Environmental Sciences, MSc Biological Sciences M.Sc. Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
About
20
Publications
4,409
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141
Citations
Citations since 2017
Introduction
I'm a PhD candidate at Yale University in the department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, associated with the Center for Biodiversity and Global Change and the Max Planck-Yale Center for Biodiversity Movement and Global Change.
Additional affiliations
August 2018 - present
February 2017 - July 2018
February 2017 - July 2018
Publications
Publications (20)
Native biodiversity on the Galapagos Archipelago is severely threatened by invasive alien species. On Santa Cruz Island, the abundance of introduced plant species is low in the arid lowlands of the Galapagos National Park, but increases with elevation into unprotected humid highlands. Two common alien plant species, guava (Psidium guajava) and pass...
Ecosystems are open systems connected through spatial flows of energy, matter, and nutrients. Predicting and managing ecosystem interdependence requires a rigorous quantitative understanding of the drivers and vectors that connect ecosystems across spatio-temporal scales. Animals act as such vectors when they transport nutrients across landscapes i...
Despite the popular view of tortoises as slow, sedentary plodders, movement is a critical aspect of the life of Galapagos tortoises. Galapagos tortoises move to find and exploit food resources, thermoregulate, find mates, locate nighttime resting sites, and much more in their heterogeneous habitats. More than a decade of global positioning system d...
Anthropogenic change is affecting mountain regions worldwide. Managing this change and advancing biodiversity information for research requires spatially detailed information on species distributions which often is incomplete. Here, we provide a model‐based approach for the integration of expert‐based elevational range information with expert range...
Space-based tracking technology using low-cost miniature tags is now delivering data on fine-scale animal movement at near-global scale. Linked with remotely sensed environmental data, this offers a biological lens on habitat integrity and connectivity for conservation and human health; a global network of animal sentinels of environmental change.
Animal migration is a key process underlying active subsidies and species dispersal over long distances, which affects the connectivity and functioning of ecosystems. Despite much research describing patterns of where animals migrate, we still lack a framework for quantifying and predicting how animal migration affects ecosystem processes. In this...
Ecological restoration is critical for climate and biodiversity resilience over the coming century. Today, there is strong evidence that wildlife can significantly influence the distribution and stoichiometry of elements across landscapes, with subsequent impacts on the composition and functioning of ecosystems. Consequently, any anthropogenic acti...
Citizen science data has rapidly gained influence in urban ecology and conservation planning, but with limited understanding of how such data reflects social, economic, and political conditions and legacies. Understanding patterns of sampling bias across socioeconomic gradients is critical to accurately map and understand biodiversity patterns, and...
Animal migration is a key process underlying active subsidies and species dispersal over long distances, which affects the connectivity and functioning of ecosystems. Despite much research describing patterns of where animals migrate, we still lack a framework for quantifying and predicting how animal migration affects ecosystem processes. In this...
1. Energy, nutrients, and organisms move over landscapes, connecting ecosystems across space and time. Meta-ecosystem theory investigates the emerging properties of local ecosystems coupled spatially by these movements of organisms and matter, by explicitly tracking exchanges of multiple substances across ecosystem borders. To date, meta-ecosystem...
Ectothermic Galapagos tortoises must optimize their diet and behavioral repertoire in response to variable conditions across the Archipelago. In this chapter, data on tortoise diets, foraging behavior, social organization, and activity patterns from multiple species are summarized in the context of selection pressure on individuals that determine t...
Migratory decisions in birds are closely tied to environmental cues and fat stores, but it remains unknown if the same variables trigger bat migration. To learn more about the rare phenomenon of bat migration, we studied departure decisions of female common noctules (Nyctalus noctula) in southern Germany. We did not find the fattening period that m...
The independent evolution of the two toothed jaws of cichlid fishes is thought to have promoted their unparalleled ecological divergence and species richness. However, dental divergence in cichlids could exhibit substantial genetic covariance and this could dictate how traits like tooth numbers evolve in different African Lakes and on their two jaw...
Questions
Questions (2)
Dear all,
I am currently looking for checklists and inventory data of hummingbird species across the Argentinian and Chilean Andes to validate the predictions of models I created.
Is anyone aware of such datasets or can point me to a website with bird checklists for National Parks of these countries?
Thank you very much in advance.
Best,
Diego
Dear community,
I am trying to find information on how many years guava and passion fruit can remain dormant and still be viable. I have not stumbled upon databases or publications with dormancy information on these two species.
This would be helpful by coupling this with estimates of the seed bank of these two species and how many years these seeds can remain in the soil and still germinate.
Thank you very much for your feedback.
Kind regards,
Diego Ellis Soto
Projects
Project (1)
Coupling space use and behavior by animals with ecosystem services such as seed dispersal and transport of nutrients for ecological restoration purposes
Developed methodologies and results should be widely applicable across terrestrial vertebrate species and hopefully inform ongoing restoration efforts.
Most of this research is being done using giant tortoises in the Galapgos as study organisms
