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Introduction
Additional affiliations
October 2012 - present
February 2006 - December 2008
April 2003 - January 2006
Education
July 1994 - October 1999
Publications
Publications (56)
Urban bird communities exhibit high population densities and low species diversity, yet mechanisms behind these patterns remain largely untested. We present results from experimental studies of behavioral mechanisms underlying these patterns and provide a test of foraging theory applied to urban bird communities. We measured foraging decisions at a...
Ecological traps occur when habitat selection and habitat suitability (measured in terms of fitness) are decoupled. We developed a graphical model based on isodar theory to distinguish between an ideal distribution and an ecological trap. We tested the model's predictions using data on breeding bird populations in managed tallgrass prairie in Oklah...
The global decline in biodiversity as a result of urbanization remains poorly understood. Whereas habitat destruction accounts
for losses at the species level, it may not explain diversity loss at the community level, because urban centers also attract
synanthropic species that do not necessarily exist in wildlands. Here we suggest an alternative f...
Rapid urbanization has become an area of crucial concern in conservation owing to the radical changes in habitat structure and loss of species engendered by urban and suburban development. Here, we draw on recent mechanistic ecological studies to argue that, in addition to altered habitat structure, three major processes contribute to the patterns...
During long‐distance migration, many birds experience periods of either prolonged fasting (during endurance flights) or extensive feeding (during stopovers). Despite decades of research on avian metabolism during migration, many questions have remained unanswered, as such research mainly focused on targeted metabolites and fat metabolism. Here, we...
Migratory birds excel in phenotypic flexibility, adapting physiologically as their life histories and environments require. Discerning the metabolic processes underlying migrants' physiology, an emergent property of multiple continuous and dynamic organism–environment interactions, is therefore challenging, particularly under natural conditions. Ac...
During long distance migration, many birds may experience periods of either prolonged fasting, during endurance flights, or extensive feeding during stopovers. It was previously shown that habitat selection during stopover can largely affect the migration outcome of an individual. Despite decades of research of the avian metabolism during stopover...
Optimal clutch size theory predicts a trade-off between egg number and fledgling body mass, potentially affecting their survival rate. Yet, only a few studies have directly linked clutch or brood size to energy (food), nestling growth rate, and timing of breeding. We studied the relationship among all these variables in the Eurasian eagle owl. Of 1...
For an avian migrant, refueling capacity attainable during stopovers governs the entire migration schedule and, ultimately, its fitness. Specifically, timely replenishing energy stores is critical when migration involves crossing ecological barriers, within which refueling may be limited. Here, we tested the hypothesis that fuel deposition rates (F...
The intensification of land alterations promotes the spread of invasive and overabundant species. Yet, controlling such species is not always derived from extensive impact assessments. We explored the consequences of the Hooded Crow (Corvus cornix) expansion into the arid region of Israel on the local biota. Crow activities and their potential effe...
Encounters between birds of prey and porcupines are rarely documented, and so far only in North America. At least 39% of such encounters lead to death of the attacker. We present first evidence for similar encounters between The Eurasian Eagle Owl and the Indian Crested Porcupine, suggesting that young porcupines may occasionally serve as potential...
During their seasonal migration, birds stage in areas comprising stopover sites of varying quality. Given that migrating birds have a limited information about their environment, they may land at a low‐quality stopover site in which their fuel deposition rate (FDR) is low. Birds landing at such sites should decide either to extend their stopover du...
Migratory birds are often not specifically adapted to arid conditions, yet several species travel across deserts during their journeys, and often have more or less short stopovers there. We investigated whether differences in thermoregulatory mechanisms, specifically evaporative cooling, explain the different behavior of three passerine species whi...
Understanding the causes of spread of overabundant species plays a key role in deciphering their invasion mechanisms, while providing managers with targeted management actions to control their spread. The objective of this research was to quantify the spread of Hooded Crow (Corvus cornix) in Israel and to elucidate the causes of its spread. Long-te...
Many insectivorous passerines become frugivorous during migration. Because water may facilitate the digestion of dry fruits, some passerines may benefit from staging in stopover sites that offer access to drinking water. In autumn, water consumption by Blackcaps (Sylvia atricapilla) staging in Israel was found to induce a shift from insectivory to...
Lipids stored subcutaneously serve as the main energy source for long-distance bird migration. The 2 major inputs of such lipids are dietary fats and de novo synthesis of fatty acids from acetyl-CoA derived from non-lipid sources, including ingested carbohydrates. Remarkably, relatively little is known about the specific roles of dietary fats and c...
The composition of urban bird communities is clearly affected by local habitat factors. These factors often determine whether individuals choose to occupy urban habitats and how they behave and reproduce once they are there. However, landscape-scale factors also play a major role in the shaping of urban bird communities. Most commonly, these are el...
The PREDICTS project—Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems (www.predicts.org.uk)—has collated from published studies a large, reasonably representative database of comparable samples of biodiversity from multiple sites that differ in the nature or intensity of human impacts relating to land use. We have used t...
Figure S1: Database schema. Diversity data in yellow, GIS data in green and Catalogue of Life data in blue. The diversity tables datasource, study, site, measuredtaxon and diversitymeasurement
follow the structure described in ‘Methods’ in the main text and in Hudson et al. (2014): a datasource is associated with one or more study records, each of...
The PREDICTS project—Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems (www.predicts.org.uk)—has collated from published studies a large, reasonably representative database of comparable samples of biodiversity from multiple sites that differ in the nature or intensity of human impacts relating to land use. We have used t...
The PREDICTS project—Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems (www.predicts.org.uk)—has collated from published studies a large, reasonably representative database of comparable samples of biodiversity from multiple sites that differ in the nature or intensity of human impacts relating to land use. We have used t...
Urban bird communities have higher densities but lower diversity compared with wildlands. However, recent studies show that residential urban yards with native plantings have higher native bird diversity compared with yards with exotic vegetation. Here we tested whether landscape designs also affect bird foraging behavior. We estimated foraging dec...
Background/Question/Methods
Patterns emerging from cities indicate that bird species richness and evenness decline while biomass and density increase. However, recent studies have shown that within cities, invasive and synanthropic species had a strong association with residential yards and gardens landscaped with exotic vegetation while native bi...
Background/Question/Methods
Asexual fungal endophytes and their grass hosts have attracted growing research interest as systems in which to examine the ecological and evolutionary consequences of maternally-inherited symbioses. The lion’s share of research for these endophytic symbioses has been focused on Neotyphodium endophytes in three introdu...
Introduction
Consider a tree, growing in a forest. Its fate, in terms of growth rate, longevity and reproduction, is regulated by a suite of biotic and abiotic factors, such as soil moisture, competition with other plants and interactions with natural enemies. Its branches, leaves and roots contribute to nutrient and water cycles. The tree provides...
Some microbial symbionts of plants are maternally inherited and thus functionally increase genetic and phenotypic variation within plant populations. This variation, coupled with that of the host plant and environment, may alter abundances, diversity, and trophic structure of associated plant and animal communities. Fungal endophytes in the genus N...
Populations of the lesser prairie-chicken (Tympanuchus pallidicinctus), an endemic grouse of the south-central United States, have declined precipitously. This species occurs in short- and mixed-grass prairies with sandy soils. Apart from perennial grasses of short stature, prairie-chicken habitat is characterized by dryland shrubs of the sand shin...
We analyzed how urbanization in a desert ecosystem affects avian distribution at two distinct scales. At the regional level,
we compared how urban land use configuration, relative to its surrounding agricultural fields and desert, affected the distribution
of native and exotic species. While exotic species are isolated to the city; native species a...
This article explores factors that shape population structure in novel environments that have received scant theoretical attention: cities. Urban bird populations exhibit higher densities and lower diversity. Some work suggests this may result from lower predation pressure and more predictable and abundant resources. These factors may lead to popul...
In the southern Great Plains, the greater prairie-chicken (Tympanuchus cupido) is confined to tallgrass prairie, a habitat now largely converted to agriculture. Remaining prairie is highly fragmented and subjected to land management practices that greatly alter the ecosystem of this species. Chief among these practices are deliberate, large-scale s...
Life-history studies of prairie grouse have focused on reproductive ecology, habitat use, movement patterns and survivorship, with only cursory or anecdotal references to mortality causes, or they have been of insufficient duration or scale to infer mortality patterns. Because mortality causes and patterns affect other life-history traits, their de...
In the southern Great Plains, the greater prairie-chicken (Tympanuchus cupido) is confined to tallgrass prairie, a habitat now largely converted to agriculture. Remaining prairie is highly fragmented and subjected to land management practices that greatly alter the ecosystem of this species. Chief among these practices are deliberate, large-scale s...
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Bird populations in North America's grasslands have declined sharply in recent decades. These declines are traceable, in large part, to habitat loss, but management of tallgrass prairie also has an impact. An indirect source of decline potentially associated with management is brood parasitism by the Brown-headed Cowbird (Molothrus ater), which has...
Populations of the lesser prairie-chicken (Tympanuchus pallidicinctus), an endemic grouse of the south-central United States, have declined precipitously. This species occurs in short-and mixed-grass prairies with sandy soils. Apart from perennial grasses of short stature, prairie-chicken habitat is characterized by dryland shrubs of the sand shinn...
Associations between extinction and habitat fragmentation have been modelled and described, but we document the first clear mechanistic link between habitat fragmentation and population persistence, demonstrating that a rapid evolutionary response to fragmentation can yield conditions wherein some populations are more vulnerable to extinction. Hist...
Human activities dramatically change the abundance, diversity, and composition of species. However, little is known about
how the most intense human activity, urbanization, alters food webs and trophic structure in biological communities. Studies
of the Phoenix area, situated amid the Sonoran Desert, reveal some surprising alterations in the contro...
Articles E cologists have long debated what factors control the trophic (feeding) structure and function of ecosystems. This is more than just a matter of determining "who eats whom"; ecologists have pondered whether there are fundamental rules for determining (a) how many trophic levels an ecosystem can support, (b) how much primary production is...
The attributes of roadside vegetation, an important bird habitat in grassland ecosystems, have been shown to affect bird abundance, distribution composition, and diversity, yet there are relatively few works on reproductive success of birds nesting along roadsides. Because roadsides are linear habitats, management at the landscape scale can affect...
Frugivorous migrants may select fruit-rich habitats en route to attain high food rewards, yet their stopover behavior may also be shaped by other considerations, such as predation risk. During 1996-2001 we investigated autumn stopover habitat use of three Sylvia warblers (sylviids; S. hortensis, S. atricapilla and S. curruca) and three Turdidae cha...
The underlying evolutionary mechanisms of urban bird populations have hardly been studied. High food density and low predation risk serve to explain the global pattern of extremely high urban bird population densities. Both these bottom-up and top-down effects are paradoxical since the per capita amount of food is small due to competition, and dome...
Bird habitat conservation may require different management strategies for different seasonal bird assemblages. We studied habitat use by winter birds in forest and scrubland habitat patches in the northern Negev, Israel. Our goal was to assess whether differences in responses to landscape and habitat structure between breeding and non-breeding seas...
As a part of the Central Arizona–Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research project, we determined how land-use alteration influenced spider and harvestman diversity. We sampled spiders in six habitat types (desert parks, urban desert remnants, industrial, agricultural, xeric-and mesic-residential yards) and tested how habitat type and productivity affe...
Frugivorous migrants may select fruit-rich habitats en route to attain high food rewards, yet their stopover behavior may also be shaped by other considerations , such as predation risk. During 1996-2001 we investigated autumn stopover habitat use of three Sylvia warblers (sylviids; S. hortensis, S. atricapilla and S. curruca) and three Turdidae ch...
Semi-arid scrubland in the Middle East consists of a soil crust matrix overlain with patches of perennial shrubs. To understand factors influencing biodiversity in this vulnerable landscape we need to understand how this mosaic of habitats influences associated fauna. Spiders are particularly abundant in this habitat so we asked if spider diversity...
Afforestation of the Northern Negev, Israel, from 1956 resulted in patches of primarily coniferous trees that fragmented large scrubland areas. This alteration in landscape pattern was followed by immigration of mediterranean bird species to the Negev.
We counted breeding birds, and measured various environmental variables in scrubland and planted...
We studied the distribution of migratory warblers (genus: Sylvia) in poor and high quality habitat patches at a stopover site in the northern Negev, Israel. The purpose of our study was to test predictions based on the ideal free distribution (IFD) model by using a natural ecosystem which has a high turnover of individuals moving between unfamiliar...
Two Pseudomonas isolates, named ES-1 and ES-2, were shown to possess a wide degradative spectrum for haloalkanes in general and bromoalkanes in particular but did not degrade nonsubstituted alkanes. The utilization of water-insoluble haloalkanes, such as 1-bromooctane, appeared to consist of three phases: (i) extracellular emulsification by a const...
The effects on vegetation structure and composition from differing grazing intensities by flocks of Beduin sheep and goats were studied in the sandy regions of the Northern Negev Desert. Vascular plant community composition, as measured by detrended correspondence analysis, was significantly changed by grazing, as well as by differences in soil tex...