James Byers

University of Georgia | UGA · Odum School of Ecology

Across relatively small spatial scales, differences in seascape structure may influence how species transverse adjacent habitats, with effects on trophic relationships and energy flow dynamics. To understand the effects of seascape structure, we used stable isotope analysis to examine variation in resource use by 2 highly abundant estuarine species...

Introduced seaweeds can alter the structure and productivity of marine food webs, especially when they lack top-down control by native herbivores. However, relatively little is known about the role of consumption of introduced seaweeds by native herbivores, and the potential role of seaweed nutrient content to mediate local herbivore consumption. I...

Predators regulate communities through top‐down control in many ecosystems. Because most studies of top‐down control last less than a year and focus on only a subset of the community, they may miss predator effects that manifest at longer timescales or across whole food webs. In southeastern US salt marshes, short‐term and small‐scale experiments i...

For marine species with planktonic dispersal, invasion of open ocean coastlines is impaired by the physical adversity of ocean currents moving larvae downstream and offshore. The extent species are affected by physical adversity depends on interactions of the currents with larval life history traits such as planktonic duration, depth and seasonalit...

The abundance of an invasive species within an ecosystem after introduction can depend on multiple factors. Although large-scale abiotic data are typically used to model the distribution of invasive species, there may be other fine-scale environmental or biotic factors within the invaded range influencing changes in the species’ distribution and ab...

Spatial variation in parasitic infection may have many physical and biological drivers. Uncovering these drivers may be especially important for parasites of ecosystem engineers because the engineers are foundational to their communities. Oysters are an important coastal ecosystem engineer that have declined drastically worldwide, in part due to en...

The desire to stabilize coastlines has led to widespread use of hard armoring infrastructure across the globe; however, ecologists and coastal managers have increasingly documented the deleterious effects of armoring on ecological communities. Although many studies have assessed economic and landscape correlates of armoring, few studies incorporate...

Predation is a dominant structuring force in ecological communities. In aquatic environments, predation on bivalves has long been an important focal interaction for ecological study because bivalves have central roles as ecosystem engineers, basal components of food webs, and commercial commodities. Studies of bivalves are common, not only because...

People often modify the shoreline to mitigate erosion and protect property from storm impacts. The 2 main approaches to modification are gray infrastructure (e.g., bulkheads and seawalls) and natural or green infrastructure (NI) (e.g., living shorelines). Gray infrastructure is still more often used for coastal protection than NI, despite having mo...

Homeowners in coastal environments often augment their access to estuarine ecosystems by building private docks on their personal property. Despite the commonality of docks, particularly in the Southeastern United States, few works have investigated their historical development, their distribution across the landscape, or the environmental justice...

Ecosystems vary broadly in their responses to disturbance, ranging from highly impacted to resilient or resistant. We conducted a large‐scale analysis of hurricane disturbance effects on coastal marshes by examining 20 years of data from 10 sites covering 100,000 ha at the Georgia Coastal Ecosystems Long‐Term Ecological Research site distributed ac...

Fisheries and aquaculture provide food and economic security, especially in the developing world, but both face challenges from infectious disease. Here, we consider management of disease issues from a structured decision‐making perspective to examine how infectious disease can threaten seafood production and influence management decisions. For bot...

Civil infrastructure will be essential to face the interlinked existential threats of climate change and rising resource demands while ensuring a livable Anthropocene for all. However, conventional infrastructure planning largely neglects the contributions and maintenance of Earth’s ecological life support systems, which provide irreplaceable servi...

The increase in genetic distance between marine individuals or populations with increasing distance has often been assumed to be influenced by dispersal distance. In turn, dispersal distance has often been assumed to correlate strongly with pelagic larval duration (PLD). We examined the consistency of these assumptions in species with long plankton...

Parasitism rates can vary dramatically across large and small spatial scales. Such heterogeneity in infection is driven by variation in environmental factors that influence the probability of host and parasite encountering each other (encounter filters) and of genetic and physiological factors that alter whether that encounter results in a successf...

Native predators can confer biotic resistance through consumption of invasive prey. However, early in the invasion process, native predators may initially ignore an invader when it is rare and only increase consumption once it becomes abundant. Furthermore, the willingness of native predators to consume novel invasive prey may be influenced by the...

Although parasites can kill their hosts, they also commonly cause nonlethal effects on their hosts, such as altered behaviors or feeding rates. Both the lethal and nonlethal effects of parasites can influence host resource consumption. However, few studies have explicitly examined the joint lethal and nonlethal effects of parasites to understand th...

Despite the ubiquity of coastal infrastructure, it is unclear what factors drive its placement, particularly for water access infrastructure (WAI) that facilitates entry to coastal ecosystems such as docks, piers, and boat landings. The placement of WAI has both ecological and social dimensions, and certain segments of coastal populations may have...

Global environmental factors (e.g., extreme weather, climate action failure, natural disasters, human environmental damage) increasingly threaten coastal communities. Shorelines are often hardened (seawalls, bulkheads) to prevent flooding and erosion and protect coastal communities. However, hardened shorelines lead to environmental degradation and...

Non‐indigenous species (NIS) and hypoxia (<2 mg O2 l−1) can disturb and restructure aquatic communities. Both are heavily influenced by human activities and are intensifying with global change. As these disturbances increase, understanding how they interact to affect native species and systems is essential. To expose patterns, outcomes, and general...

Ecosystem engineers (EEs) strongly influence ecosystems by affecting the abiotic properties of a system to which many biota respond. EEs can, thus, be pivotal species in restoration by helping to move systems toward desired states much faster and more efficiently than direct human intervention on the abiotic state. For EEs to play a central, purpos...

Native predators can confer biotic resistance through consumption of invasive prey. However, early in the invasion process, native predators may initially ignore an invader when it is rare and only increase consumption once it becomes abundant. Furthermore, the willingness of native predators to consume novel invasive prey may be influenced by the...

Climate change causes both chronic and pulsed environmental changes to ecosystems. In estuaries, tidal freshwater marshes experience both extended and episodic periods of elevated salinities due to sea level rise, reduced river discharge during drought and storm surge, but most research has focused on extended (press) perturbations. Over a 4‐year p...

Examining community responses to habitat configuration across scales informs basic and applied models of ecosystem function. Responses to patch‐scale edge effects (i.e., ecological differences between patch edges and interiors) are hypothesized to underpin the effects of landscape‐scale fragmentation (i.e., mosaics of multipatch habitat and matrix)...

Parasites are often distributed heterogeneously across host populations, but the controls of this heterogeneity across regional scales often remain unclear. Here, we test the relative importance of natural and anthropogenic environmental factors and biological attributes of host populations on the large-scale variability in infection probability an...

Parasites are often distributed heterogeneously across host populations, but the controls of this heterogeneity across regional scales often remain unclear. Here, we test the relative importance of natural and anthropogenic environmental factors and biological attributes of host populations on the large-scale variability in infection probability an...

Ecosystem engineers physically alter the environment, but their effects vary with abiotic context. Such context-dependent alteration can influence other species, including establishing recruits. In Florida, mangroves are expanding northward with warming climate and replacing salt marshes. We examined how structural traits of marsh and mangrove vege...

Single‐gene markers, such as the mitochondrial cox1, microsatellites, and single nucleotide polymorphisms are powerful methods to describe diversity within and among taxonomic groups and characterize phylogeographic patterns. Large repositories of publicly‐available, molecular data can be combined to generate and evaluate evolutionary hypotheses fo...

Human‐altered shorelines make up approximately 14% of the coastline in the United States, with consequences for marsh ecosystems ranging from altered physical and biological variables, to direct loss of intertidal marsh habitat, to diminished land–sea connectivity. Trophically transmitted parasites that require connectivity between upland host spec...

Aim: To investigate some of the environmental variables underpinning the past and present distribution of an ecosystem engineer near its poleward range edge. Location: >500 locations spanning >7,400 km around Ireland. Results: Through plotting 981 records of presence and absence, we revealed a discontinuous distribution with discretely bounded sub...

Resident species can facilitate invading species (biotic assistance) or inhibit their expansion (biotic resistance). Species interactions are often context‐dependent and the relative importance of biotic assistance versus resistance could vary with abiotic conditions or the life stage of the invading species, as invader stress tolerances and resour...

Climate change affects ecological processes and interactions, including parasitism. Because parasites are natural components of ecological systems, as well as agents of outbreak and disease-induced mortality, it is important to summarize current knowledge of the sensitivity of parasites to climate and identify how to better predict their responses...

Primer reporte de forrajeo sobre el chanchito de mar (Emerita analoga) por perros (Canis lupus familiaris) en la costa de Valdivia, Chile First report of foraging behaviour on Pacific molecrabs (Emerita analoga) by dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) on the coast of Valdivia, Chile RESUMEN Perros domésticos son reportados forrajeando sobre el "chanchito...

Domestic dogs are reported foraging on molecrabs Emerita analoga on Curiñanco beach, Valdivia, Chile. Preying on these crabs represents a potential health risk for the dogs, because E. analoga is the intermediate host of larvae of the acanthocephalan Profilicollis altmani, which uses shorebirds as definitive hosts, but also have been documented to...

Information on parasites and disease in marine ecosystems lags behind terrestrial systems, increasing the challenge of predicting responses of marine host–parasite systems to climate change. However, here I examine several generalizable aspects and research priorities. First, I advocate that quantification and comparison of host and parasite therma...

When prey alter behavioral or morphological traits to reduce predation risk, they often incur fitness costs through reduced growth and reproduction as well as increased mortality that are known as nonconsumptive effects (NCEs). Environmental context and trophic structure can individually alter the strength of NCEs, yet the interactive influence of...

The distance travelled by marine larvae varies by seven orders of magnitude. Dispersal shapes marine biodiversity, and must be understood if marine systems are to be well managed. Because warmer temperatures quicken larval development, larval durations might be systematically shorter in the tropics relative to those at high latitudes. Nevertheless,...

Disturbances often have positive, direct effects on invasions by dispersing propagules or creating environmental conditions that favor invasive species. However, disturbances that alter interactions between resident and invading species could also affect invasion success. In northeast Florida, the black mangrove Avicennia germinans is expanding int...

When non-native primary producers become successful, the structure and function of native detrital food webs can be fundamentally altered. Salt marsh estuaries of the southeastern USA are in part detritus-based ecosystems and rely on the annual production of detritus from a single native species, the smooth cordgrass Spartina alterniflora . Over th...

Understanding the drivers of biodiversity is important for forecasting changes in the distribution of life on earth. However, most studies of biodiversity are limited by uneven sampling effort, with some regions or taxa better sampled than others. Numerous methods have been developed to account for differences in sampling effort, but most methods w...

Boom-bust dynamics of invasive species have long intrigued scientists and managers alike, but quantification of such dynamics, let alone their causes, is rare. We documented the decline of a previously prolific invasive mudsnail, Batillaria attramentaria, at Elkhorn Slough estuary in central California, USA. The mudsnail was the most abundant epibe...

Parasites can kill hosts directly, but also indirectly, by enhancing susceptibility to environmental factors and biotic interactions. In the United States South Atlantic Bight region of the northwest Atlantic Ocean, white shrimp (Penaeus setiferus) support a substantial commercial fishery and are also valuable prey for many marine and estuarine spe...

Increasing temperatures associated with climate change are shifting plant species to higher latitudes. Soil communities could aid the plants’ shift into novel areas by harbouring fewer soil‐borne antagonists or more mutualists that influence the fitness and stress tolerance of the shifting species. Alternatively, they could contain novel antagonist...

Although species interactions are often assumed to be strongest at small spatial scales, they can interact with regional environmental factors to modify food web dynamics across biogeographic scales. The eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica) is a widespread foundational species of both ecological and economic importance. The oyster and its associa...

Climate‐driven range shifts of foundation species could alter ecosystem processes and community composition by providing different resources than resident foundation species. Along the US Atlantic coast, the northward expanding foundation species, black mangrove Avicennia germinans, is replacing the dominant salt marsh foundation species, marsh cor...

The rapid growth of the aquaculture industry to meet global seafood demand offers both risks and opportunities for resource management and conservation. In particular, hatcheries hold promise for stock enhancement and restoration, yet cultivation practices may lead to enhanced variation between populations at the expense of variation within populat...

Free-living species vary substantially in the extent of their spatial distributions. However, distributions of parasitic species have not been comprehensively compared in this context. We investigated which factors most influence the geographical extent of mammal parasites. Using the Global Mammal Parasite Database we analysed 17 818 individual geo...

• Many communities are shifting composition, with losses of native species and increases of non‐indigenous species (NIS). At its extreme, such alteration of ecological guilds can result in simplification with a single NIS performing an ecological role once carried out by a suite of natives. This alteration has occurred in many rivers of the south‐e...

The article Effects of Small-Scale Armoring and Residential Development on the Salt Marsh-Upland Ecotone.

The article Generalizing Ecological Effects of Shoreline Armoring Across Soft Sediment Environments.

Since at least the 1980s, ecologists have argued that restoring ecosystem functioning in highly degraded areas is the “acid test” for ecological understanding (Bradshaw 1987). Ecosystem engineers and foundational species are often considered pivotal in the restoration of degraded areas (Suding et al. 2004; Byers et al. 2006), as by definition, they...

Biotic resistance by native predators can limit the geographic range and abundance of non-native species following introduction into an ecosystem. Here we tested the hypothesis that the strength of predation pressure varies with latitude and limits the abundance and northward expansion of the non-native green porcelain crab, Petrolisthes armatus, w...

Escaping the control of natural enemies is thought to heavily influence the establishment success and impact of non-native species. Here we examined how the profitability of alternative prey in combination with the presence of a competitor and predator aggressive behavior explain individual differences in diet specialization and the consumption of...

Invasive ecosystem engineers both positively and negatively affect their recipient ecosystems by generating novel habitats. Many studies have focused on alterations to ecosystem properties and to native species diversity and abundance caused by invasive engineers. However, relatively few studies have documented the extent to which behaviors of nati...

Interactions with resident species can affect the rate that expanding species invade novel areas. These interactions can be antagonistic (biotic resistance), where resident species hinder invasive establishment, or facilitative (biotic assistance), where residents promote invasive establishment. The predominance of resistance or assistance could va...

Ecosystem engineers are predicted to have stronger facilitative effects when environmental stress is higher. Here we examined whether facilitation of the invasive porcelain crab Petrolisthes elongatus by the ecosystem engineering serpulid tube worm Galeolaria caespitosa increased with wave exposure. Petrolisthes occurs beneath intertidal boulders w...

Background Changes in climate are predicted to influence parasite and pathogen infection patterns in terrestrial and marine environments. Increases in temperature in particular may greatly alter biological processes, such as host-parasite interactions. For example, parasites could differentially benefit from increased reproduction and transmission...

Complete data as read by R Studio for analyses

Significance Experiments and modeling demonstrate that vital rates of a host and parasite respond differently to temperature, with local parasite extinction in the coastal southeastern United States predicted under climate warming. Quantifying and comparing thermal performance curves for multiple host and parasite traits can help identify locations...

Established populations of introduced Pomacea maculata, a highly fecund, large species of apple snail native to South America, now occur throughout southeast Asia, in Spain and extensively across the southern United States. Substantial research on non-native apple snails takes place in Southeast Asia and has frequently identified apple snails as P....

Risk of infection by parasites can be driven by environmental heterogeneity, often at small scales. We quantified the effect of tidal elevation on infection patterns of two lethal parasites, Perkinsus marinus and Haplosporidium nelsoni, in an important coastal species, the eastern oyster, Crassostrea virginica. Within the southeastern US, oysters i...

Although cascading effects of top predators can help structure communities, their influence may vary across habitats that differentially protect prey. Therefore, to understand how and to what degree habitat complexity can affect trophic interactions in adjacent habitats, we used a combination of a broad regional-scale survey, manipulative field tri...