Juan Pablo Gómez

Universidad del Norte (Colombia) | Uninorte · Departamento de Química y Biología

Tropical montane communities host the world's highest beta diversity of birds, a phenomenon usually attributed to community turnover caused by changes in biotic and abiotic factors along elevation gradients. Yet, empirical data on most biotic factors are lacking. Nest predation is thought to be especially important because it appears to be common a...

Documenting patterns of spatiotemporal change in hyper‐diverse communities remains a challenge for tropical ecology yet is increasingly urgent as some long‐term studies have shown major declines in bird communities in undisturbed sites. In 1982, Terborgh et al. quantified the structure and organisation of the bird community in a 97‐ha. plot in sout...

One of the main threats to diversity in the world is habitat fragmentation. In Colombia, the loss of virgin forest increased by 9% between 2017 and 2018. Deforestation rates have increased between 9 and 18% in the last 4 years, putting the future of our country's high diversity at risk. Although the effects of habitat fragmentation on diversity are...

Introduction, Appearance, Systematics, Distribution, Habitat, Movements and Migration, Diet and Foraging, Sounds and Vocal Behavior, Behavior, Breeding, Demography and, Populations, Conservation and Management, Other, Priorities for Future Research, Acknowledgments, About the Author(s), Multimedia, Revision History, References.

De acuerdo con la teoría de los síndromes de polinización la morfología floral se puede predecir consistentemente por los polinizadores, dado que estos seleccionan las características florales (Stebbins 1970; Faegri y Pijl 1979; Grant 1994; S. D. Johnson y Steiner 2000; Willmer 2011). Alternativamente, existe evidencia que sugiere que las caracterí...

Determining the factors responsible for phenotypic variation within species is a fundamental task in evolutionary ecology. Isolation by distance, isolation by environment and clines along secondary contact zones between formerly isolated populations are common patterns of morphological variation. In this study, we evaluated whether patterns of morp...

Determining the factors responsible for phenotypic variation within species is a fundamental task in evolutionary ecology. Isolation by distance, isolation by environment and clines along secondary contact zones between formerly isolated populations are common patterns of morphological variation. In this study, we evaluated whether patterns of morp...

A basic tenet of animal behavior is that animal groupings (e.g. schools of fishes or flocks of birds) are widely influenced by predators. Many studies have focused on communication between individuals within the same species or different species within a defined social group; but predators typically select from a number of different co-occurring sp...

Documenting patterns of spatio-temporal change in hyper-diverse communities remains a challenge for tropical ecology, yet is increasingly urgent as some long-term studies have shown major declines in bird communities even in relatively undisturbed sites. In 1982, Terborgh et al. quantified the structure and organization of the bird community in a 9...

(1) Background: Hemorrhagic diseases in white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) are caused by orbiviruses and have significant economic impact on the deer ranching industry in the United States. Culicoides stellifer is a suspected vector of epizootic hemorrhagic disease virus (EHDV), with recent field evidence from Florida, but its natural histo...

Interspecific aggression may shape species distributions through competitive exclusion, resulting in spatial segregation, or facilitate sym-patry as an adaptive mechanism for resource partitioning. Competitive exclusion results from asymmetric aggression of one species towards another, but if the aggressive relationship between species is symmetric...

Body mass is one of the most important phenotypic attributes in animal ecology and life history. This trait is widely used in the fields of ecology and macroevolution, since it influences physiology, morphological functions, as well as a myriad of ecological and social interactions. In this data set, our aim was to gather a comprehensive bird and m...

Taxonomic revisions using newly available molecular data can have profound consequences for identifying areas of high endemism and, therefore, high conservation priority. A good example of the connection between taxonomy, biodiversity ecology, and conservation issues is genus Phaeiris (Iris subsect. Hexagonae), an endemic taxon of the southeastern...

Serpophaga hypoleuca P.L. Sclater & Salvin, 1866, is a bird species distributed in northern South America, where it mainly inhabits shrubs on river islands and occasionally large river shores. Its distribution is not well known in Colombia where current records show the species present south of the Amazonas department and locally in Arauca and Vich...

Diversification rates and evolutionary trajectories are known to be influenced by phenotypic traits and the geographic history of the landscapes that organisms inhabit. One of the most conspicuous traits in butterflies is their wing color pattern, which has been shown to be important in speciation. The evolution of many taxa in the Neotropics has a...

Latin America is experiencing severe impacts of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, but poverty and weak public health institutions hamper gathering the kind of refined data needed to inform classical SEIR models of epidemics. We present an alternative approach that draws on advances in statistical ecology and conservation biology to enhance the value of spar...

Variable contribution estimation for, and determination of variable importance within, ecological niche models (ENMs) remain an important area of research with continuing challenges. Most ENM algorithms provide normally exhaustive searches through variable space; however, selecting variables to include in models is a first challenge. The estimation...

Bacillus anthracis, the etiological agent of anthrax, is a well-established model organism. For B. anthracis and most other infectious diseases, knowledge regarding transmission and infection parameters in natural systems, in large part, comprises data gathered from closely controlled laboratory experiments. Fatal, natural anthrax infections transm...

Aim: We evaluated the influence of climate on the structure of bird communities along precipitation gradients. We hypothesize that mechanisms responsible for community turnover along precipitation gradients are similar to mechanisms operating along temperature and latitudinal gradients. We tested the hypothesis that environmental conditions affect...

Abstract Despite the enormous advances in genetics, links between phenotypes and genotypes have been made for only a few nonmodel organisms. However, such links can be essential to understand mechanisms of ecological speciation. The Costa Rican endemic Mangrove Warbler subspecies provides an excellent subject to study differentiation with gene flow...

Aim Changes in climate and land use are modifying biodiversity worldwide. Yet it remains unclear how both drivers interact to structure communities and determine patterns in taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional diversity at local scales. We focused on bird diversity and asked: how do precipitation and forest cover gradients interactively structur...

Variable selection for, and determination of variable importance within, species distribution models (SDMs) remain an important area of research with continuing challenges. Most SDM algorithms provide normally exhaustive searches through variable space, however, selecting variables to include in models is a first challenge. The estimation of the ex...

Quantitative models describing environmentally-mediated disease transmission rarely focus on the independent contribution of recruitment and the environment on the force of infection driving outbreaks. In this study we attempt to investigate the interaction between external factors and host’s population dynamics in determining the outbreaks of some...

Variability in R0 with respect to τ, θ and A) high, B) intermediate and C) low values of b determined by the seasonal component of the infection probability. The white line indicates the one to one ration between τ and θ. Values above and below the line indicate low and high dispersal effort respectively. Values along the line indicate cases in whi...

Relative bias in the estimation of the parameters τ, θ, b0 and b1 removing one time series at a time. Labels in the x axis refer to the time series used for estimation. A) τ, B) θ, C) b0, D) b1. SMILE: Susceptible, Immune, Infected, LIZ, Environment. (TIFF)

Relative bias in the estimation of the parameters τ, θ, b0 and b1 removing two time series at a time. Labels in the x axis refer to the time series used for estimation. A) τ, B) θ, C) b0, D) b1. SMILE: Susceptible, Immune, Infected, LIZ, Environment. (TIFF)

Demonstration of the derivation of infection probability as a stochastic process with heterogeneity in dispersion effort. (PDF)

Observed number of cases during the 2008 Montana anthrax outbreak. Data is presented on a daily basis and only for the range of weeks for which there was at least one anthrax case reported. Date is in Month/Day/Year format. (PDF)

Brucellosis, caused by bacteria in the genus Brucella, is an infectious zoonosis affecting animals and humans worldwide. Free-ranging Rocky Mountain elk ( Cervus canadensis nelsoni) and bison ( Bison bison) in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (areas of southwestern Montana, eastern Idaho, and northwestern Wyoming, USA) are the self-sustaining rese...

The species-sorting hypothesis (SSH) states that environmental factors influence local community assembly of metacommunities by selecting for species that are well adapted to the specific conditions of each site. Along environmental gradients, the strength of selection against individuals that are marginally adapted to the local conditions increase...

In the last decade coffee certification programs have grown rapidly in Latin America, encouraging producers to harvest coffee based on production standards intended to enhance biodiversity conservation. However, few studies have tested whether such programs have a positive conservation impact. To date, research has focused on comparing community si...

One of the main goals of community ecology is to understand the influence of the abiotic environment on the abundance and distribution of species. It has been hypothesized that dry forests are harsher environments than wet forests, which leads to the prediction that environmental filtering should be a more important determinant of patterns of speci...

In this study we propose an extension of the N-mixture family of models that targets an improvement of the statistical properties of rare species abundance estimators when sample sizes are low, yet typical for tropical studies. The proposed method harnesses information from other species in an ecological community to correct each species’ estimator...

1. In this study we propose an extension of the N-mixture family of models that targets an improvement of the statistical properties of rare species abundance estimators when sample sizes are low, yet typical size for tropical studies. The proposed method harnesses information from other species in an ecological community to correct each species’ e...

Physical and environmental barriers drive evolutionary diversification by limiting gene flow among populations. Rivers are barriers to gene flow in birds and other vertebrates, but differences in ecological conditions among sites also can affect the genetic structure of populations. The Magdalena River Valley (MRV) of Colombia, the largest South Am...

Differences in the limits and range of aerobic activity levels between endotherms and ectotherms remain poorly understood, though such differences help explain basic differences in species’ lifestyles (e.g. movement patterns, feeding modes, and interaction rates). We compare the limits and range of aerobic activity in endotherms (birds and mammals)...

Butterflies and moths exhibit a spectacular diver sity of wing shape and size. The extent of wing variation is particularly evident in wild silk moths (Saturniidae), which have large wing shape and size variation. Some species have jagged wing margins, rounded forewing apical lobes, or narrow hind wings with long tails, while others lack these trai...

Significance Biologists have long sought to understand how differences in the structure of vertebrate respiratory systems are related to differences in oxygen consumption rates associated with metabolism. In particular, they have sought to understand how structural constraints on passive oxygen diffusion through gills or lungs are related to the no...

Within a community, different species might share similar predation risks, and, thus, the ability of species to signal and interpret heterospecific threat information may determine species' associations. We combined observational, experimental, and phylogenetic approaches to determine the extent to which evolutionary history and functional traits d...

Abstract. Diverse alien and native floras of the same region provide a good opportunity to test the influence of environmental variables in structuring of plant assemblages because both can be considered as a replicates of the assembly process under identical conditions but with different dispersal capabilities. We performed this test within 11 flo...

Abstract The stability of tropical systems has been hypothesized to explain the evolution of complex behavioral interactions among species. We evaluate the degree to which one highly evolved social system, mixed-species flocks, are stable in space and time in French Guiana, where flocks were characterized 17 years apart. These flocks are led by ala...

Many biodiversity hotspots are located in montane regions, especially in the tropics. A possible explanation for this pattern is that the narrow thermal tolerances of tropical species and greater climatic stratification of tropical mountains create more opportunities for climate-associated parapatric or allopatric speciation in the tropics relative...

1. Methods that assess patterns of phylogenetic relatedness, as well as character distribution and evolution, allow one to infer the ecological processes involved in community assembly. Assuming niche conservatism, assemblages should shift from phylogenetic clustering to evenness with decreasing geographic scale because the relative importance of m...