Rachael E Blake

Intertidal Agency

Thousands of insect species have been introduced outside of their native ranges, and some of them strongly impact ecosystems and human societies. Because a large fraction of insects feed on or are associated with plants, nonnative plants provide habitat and resources for invading insects, thereby facilitating their establishment. Furthermore, plant...

The geographical exchange of non-native insects can be highly asymmetrical, with some world regions 'exporting' or 'importing' more species than others. Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain such asymmetries, including differences in propagule pressure, environmental features in recipient regions, or biological traits of invaders. We tes...

Synthesis research in ecology and environmental science improves understanding, advances theory, identifies research priorities, and supports management strategies by linking data, ideas, and tools. Accelerating environmental challenges increases the need to focus synthesis science on the most pressing questions. To leverage input from the broader...

Aim: Lepidoptera is a highly diverse, predominantly herbivorous insect order, with species transported to outside their native range largely facilitated by the global trade of plants and plant-based goods. Analogous to island disharmony, we examine invasion disharmony, where species filtering during invasions increases systematic compositional diff...

Coastal ecosystems are essential for absorbing, and bouncing back from, the impacts of climate change, yet accelerating climate change is causing anthropogenically-derived stressors in these ecosystems to grow. The effects of stressors are more difficult to foresee when they act simultaneously, however, predicting these effects is critical for unde...

It is a critical time to reflect on the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) science to date as well as envision what research can be done right now with NEON (and other) data and what training is needed to enable a diverse user community. NEON became fully operational in May 2019 and has pivoted from planning and construction to operatio...

Introduced (non-native) species that becomes established may eventually become invasive, so tracking introduced species provides a baseline for effective modeling of species trends and interactions, geospatially and temporally. The United States Register of Introduced and Invasive Species (US-RIIS) is comprised of three lists, one each for Alaska...

Aim The concept of “island disharmony” has been widely applied to describe the systematic over- and under-representation of taxa on islands compared to mainland regions. Here, we explore an extension of that concept to biological invasions. We compare biogeographical patterns in native and non-native beetle (Coleoptera) assemblages from around the...

A core goal of the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) is to measure changes in biodiversity across the 30‐yr horizon of the network. In contrast to NEON’s extensive use of automated instruments to collect environmental data, NEON’s biodiversity surveys are almost entirely conducted using traditional human‐centric field methods. We belie...

As part of national biosecurity programs, cargo imports, passenger baggage and international mail are inspected at ports of entry to verify compliance with phytosanitary regulations and to directly intercept potentially damaging non‐native species to prevent their introduction. Detection of organisms during inspections may also provide crucial info...

During the 21st century, human–environment interactions will increasingly expose both systems to risks, but also yield opportunities for improvement as we gain insight into these complex, coupled systems. Human–environment interactions operate over multiple spatial and temporal scales, requiring large data volumes of multi‐resolution information fo...

ABSTRACT: The mechanisms structuring patterns of diversity and community composition can be difficult to identify in large, open ecological systems. However, it is important to understand what drives these patterns at larger scales, especially in the face of climate change and other pertur - bations. The Gulf of Alaska (GOA) is an ideal study syste...

Growth of the open science movement has drawn significant attention to data sharing and availability across the scientific community. In this study, we tested the ability to recover data collected under a particular funder-imposed requirement of public availability. We assessed overall data recovery success, tested whether characteristics of the da...

Data recovery by grantee sector. Total successful (black) and unsuccessful (grey) data requests by grantee agency or institution sector. (EPS)

Data recovery by age of data. Age is calculated based on number of years between the last year of EVOSTC funding and start of the archiving project (2012). Total successful (black) and unsuccessful (grey) data requests by project age. (EPS)

History of data requirement documentation from EVOSTC. Chronology of EVOSTC data management policies from 1993–2007. (PDF)

Human subjects ethics statement. (PDF)

Toxic pollutants such as crude oil have direct negative effects for a wide array of marine life. While mortality from acute exposure to oil is obvious, sub-lethal consequences of exposure to petroleum derivatives for growth and reproduction are less evident and sub-lethal effects in fish populations are obscured by natural environmental variation,...

Marine ecosystems are complex, and there is increasing recognition that environmental, ecological, and human systems are linked inextricably in coastal regions. The purpose of this article was to integrate environmental, ecological and human dimensions information important for fisheries management into a common analytical framework. We then used t...

Anthropogenic stressors associated with climate change and shoreline development are increasingly impacting important habitats. But when multiple stressors act simultaneously, the results are often difficult to predict. Effects of multiple anthropogenic stressors and their interactions with community processes are of particular concern in estuarine...

Three quarters of the global human population will live in coastal areas in the coming decades and will continue to develop these areas as population density increases. Anthropogenic stressors from this coastal development may lead to fragmented habitats, altered food webs, changes in sediment characteristics, and loss of near-shore vegetated habit...

Changes in biodiversity can result in decreased ecosystem functioning and loss of ecosystem services, but altered biodiversity is only one of many stressors impacting ecosystems. In many estuaries, environmental stressors such as warming water temperatures and eutrophication are increasing and negatively impacting biological communities, particular...

When multiple stressors act simultaneously, their effects on ecosystems become more difficult to predict. In the face of multiple stressors, diverse ecosystems may be more stable if species respond differently to stressors or if functionally similar species can compensate for stressor effects on focal species. Many habitats around the globe are thr...

Many coastal habitats are being substantially altered by introduced plants. In San Francisco Bay, California, USA, a hybrid form of the eastern cordgrass Spartina alterniflora is rapidly invading open mudflats in southern and central sections of the Bay, altering habitat, reducing macrofaunal densities, and shifting species composition. The invasio...