Yvonne Maria Buckley

Trinity College Dublin | TCD · Department of Zoology

Motivation and aim Mapping the spatial distribution of biodiversity is critical for understanding its fundamental drivers (e.g. speciation, environmental filtering) as well as for conservation assessment. An important dimension of this topic is how the distributions of subsets of species contribute to the overall distribution of biodiversity. Altho...

Aim Historically, climate has been a dominant driver of global vegetation patterns. Recently, ecological understanding has been updated to acknowledge the influence of human land use (the dominant driver of biodiversity change) in shaping global vegetation patterns. We test whether Raunkiær's life form, a plant classification system designed to ref...

Human activities are altering ecological communities around the globe. Understanding the implications of these changes requires that we consider the composition of those communities. However, composition can be summarized by many metrics which in turn are influenced by different ecological processes. For example, incidence-based metrics strongly re...

Although cryobanking represents a powerful conservation tool, a lack of standardized information on the species represented in global cryobanks, and inconsistent prioritization of species for future sampling, hinder the conservation potential of cryobanking, resulting in missed conservation opportunities. We analyze the representation of amphibian,...

Eutrophication usually impacts biodiversity, species composition, and functioning of grassland communities. Whether such effects propagate to influence the stability of these community aspects is unknown. Using standardized experiments across 55 global grasslands, we quantified the effects of nutrient addition on five stability facets (i.e., tempor...

Increasing demand for access to nature has the potential to increase environmental impacts. Identifying links between increased visitor intensity and habitat damage in context‐specific studies is an oversimplification which does not account for visitor demographics or activity characteristics. We compared the prevalence of tourism‐related threats/p...

As global wildlife populations continue to decline, the health and sustainability of ex situ populations in zoos and aquariums have become increasingly important. However, the majority of managed ex situ populations are not meeting sustainability criteria and are not viable in the long term. Historically, ex situ flamingo (Phoenicopteriformes) popu...

A major component of Earth's dry surface is human-managed grassland, making the relationships among management actions, grassland biodiversity and ecosystem services of great ecological interest. Common management practices-fertiliser addition and large herbivore grazing-influence grassland diversity and productivity. The Nutrient Network, a distri...

Globally, we are faced with a climate crisis that requires urgent transition to a low-carbon economy. Simultaneously, the biodiversity crisis demands equally urgent action to prevent further species loss and promote restoration and rehabilitation of ecosystems. Climate action itself must prevent further pressures on biodiversity and options for syn...

Spatial isolation is a key driver of population-level variability in traits and genotypes worldwide. While geographical distance between populations can determine isolation, organisms may face additional barriers when dispersing between suitable habitat patches. Despite the predicted universal nature of factors underlying isolation, global comparis...

Abstract Biotic and abiotic factors interact with dominant plants—the locally most frequent or with the largest coverage—and nondominant plants differently, partially because dominant plants modify the environment where nondominant plants grow. For instance, if dominant plants compete strongly, they will deplete most resources, forcing nondominant...

Genetic differentiation and phenotypic plasticity jointly shape intraspecific trait variation, but their roles differ among traits. In short-lived plants, reproductive traits may be more genetically determined due to their impact on fitness, whereas vegetative traits may show higher plasticity to buffer short-term perturbations. Combining a multi-t...

Dominant and non-dominant plants could be subject to different biotic and abiotic influences, partially because dominant plants modify the environment where non-dominant plants grow, causing an interaction asymmetry. Among other possibilities, if dominant plants compete strongly, they should deplete most resources forcing non-dominant plants into a...

Droughts can strongly affect grassland productivity and biodiversity, but responses differ widely. Nutrient availability may be a critical factor explaining this variation, but is often ignored in analyses of drought responses. Here, we used a standardized nutrient addition experiment covering 10 European grasslands to test if full‐factorial NPK‐ad...

Life history strategies are fundamental to the ecology and evolution of organisms and are important for understanding extinction risk and responses to global change. Using global datasets and a multiple response modelling framework we show that trait‐climate interactions are associated with life history strategies for a diverse range of plant speci...

Phenotypic plasticity can mask population genetic differentiation, reducing the predictability of trait-environment relationships. In short-lived plants, reproductive traits may be more genetically determined due to their direct impact on fitness, whereas vegetative traits may show higher plasticity to buffer short-term perturbations. Combining a m...

Human activities are enriching many of Earth’s ecosystems with biologically limiting mineral nutrients such as nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P). In grasslands, this enrichment generally reduces plant diversity and increases productivity. The widely demonstrated positive effect of diversity on productivity suggests a potential negative feedback, wher...

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

Aim Nutrient enrichment is associated with plant invasions and biodiversity loss. Functional trait advantages may predict the ascendancy of invasive plants following nutrient enrichment but this is rarely tested. Here, we investigate (a) whether dominant native and non‐native plants differ in important morphological and physiological leaf traits, (...

When plants establish outside their native range, their ability to adapt to the new environment is influenced by both demography and dispersal. However, the relative importance of these two factors is poorly understood. To quantify the influence of demography and dispersal on patterns of genetic diversity underlying adaptation, we used data from a...

Zoos contribute substantial resources to in situ conservation projects in natural habitats using revenue from visitor attendance, as well as other sources. We use a global dataset of over 450 zoos to develop a model of how zoo composition and socioeconomic factors directly and indirectly influence visitor attendance and in situ project activity. We...

Invasive plant species threaten native biodiversity, ecosystems, agriculture, industry and human health worldwide, lending urgency to the search for predictors of plant invasiveness outside native ranges. There is much conflicting evidence about which plant characteristics best predict invasiveness. Here we use a global demographic survey for over...

Information on individuals from all stages of life is crucial to explore their ecology, evolution and conservation biology. However, the life cycles of many species contain cryptic life stages that are difficult to detect and track over time and are therefore omitted from demographic models. One example is the dormant seed bank, an evolutionary bet...

Animals exhibit an extraordinary diversity of life history strategies. These realized combinations of survival, development and reproduction are predicted to be constrained by physiological limitations and by trade-offs in resource allocation. However, our understanding of these patterns is restricted to a few taxonomic groups. Using demographic da...

The Encyonopsis microcephala-complex occurs in oligo-mesotrophic freshwaters and is often abundant in the periphyton of low nutrient lakes of high conservation value. It is globally distributed and increasing in apparent diversity with the discovery of additional species. To better differentiate this taxonomic aggregate, we re-examined the original...

Leaf traits are frequently measured in ecology to provide a ‘common currency’ for predicting how anthropogenic pressures impact ecosystem function. Here, we test whether leaf traits consistently respond to experimental treatments across 27 globally distributed grassland sites across 4 continents. We find that specific leaf area (leaf area per unit...

Species’ movements affect their response to environmental change but movement knowledge is often highly uncertain. We now have well‐established methods to integrate movement knowledge into conservation practice but still lack a framework to deal with uncertainty in movement knowledge for environmental decisions. We provide a framework that distingu...

Despite the popularity of flamingos within zoo and aquarium collections, the long-term sustainability of ex situ populations remains an issue owing to their poor rates of reproductive success. Flock size has already been identified as a key determinant of reproductive success, with larger flocks demonstrating greater reproductive success. In a bid...

Data S1. Materials and methods. Table S1. The 124 pre‐submitted research questions that address fundamental and applied issues in weed ecology, evolution and management

Environmental and conservation scientists are increasingly being asked to justify their work in terms of benefits to society. This article describes economic theory for conceptualizing the benefits from environmental research, and provides a framework for estimating those benefits. In particular we discuss the evaluation of environmental science th...

Weedy plants pose a major threat to food security, biodiversity, ecosystem services and consequently to human health and wellbeing. However, many currently used weed management approaches are increasingly unsustainable. To address this knowledge and practice gap, in June 2014, 35 weed and invasion ecologists, weed scientists, evolutionary biologist...

Biodiversity is declining in many local communities while also becoming increasingly homogenized across space. Experiments show that local plant species loss reduces ecosystem functioning and services, but the role of spatial homogenization of community composition and the potential interaction between diversity at different scales in maintaining e...

Land management practices directly impact on the occurrence and condition of natural capital stocks, which can be measured using species diversity and abundance metrics. Species identity and abundance drive ecosystem service supply, either through effects of local diversity and/or through the presence of service providing species. However, the infl...

Correlative species distribution models are based on the observed relationship between species’occurrence and macroclimate or other environmental variables. In climates predicted less favourable, populations are expected to decline, and in favourable climates they are expected to persist. However, little comparative empirical support exists for a r...

Microcosm experiments show that post-invasion evolution of residents and invaders means invasive species effects are even harder to predict than previously thought.

Researchers based in Ireland or working on Irish ecosystems have had a long history of association with the British Ecological Society and its journals. During his BES Presidential address the English born Amyan MacFadyen, then based in Northern Ireland, had “some thoughts on the behavior of ecologists” (Macfadyen 1975). Macfadyen appealed for a mo...

Plant population responses are key to understanding the effects of threats such as climate change and invasions. However, we lack demographic data for most species, and the data we have are often geographically aggregated. We determined to what extent existing data can be extrapolated to predict population performance across larger sets of species...

Weed management is a critically important activity on both agricultural and non-agricultural lands, but it is faced with a daunting set of challenges: environmental damage caused by control practices, weed resistance to herbicides, accelerated rates of weed dispersal through global trade, and greater weed impacts due to changes in climate and land...

A definitive list of invasive species traits remains elusive, perhaps due to inconsistent ways of identifying invasive species. Invasive species are typically identified using one or more of four demographic criteria (local abundance, geographic range, environmental range, spread rate), referred to here as the demographic dimensions of invasiveness...

Understanding the impact of herbivory on plant populations is a fundamental goal of ecology. Damage to individual plants can be visually striking and affect the fates of individuals, but these impacts do not necessarily translate into population-level differences in vital rates (survival, growth, or fecundity) or population growth rates. In biologi...

Management of invasive populations is typically investigated case‐by‐case. Comparative approaches have been applied to single aspects of management, such as demography, with cost or efficacy rarely incorporated. We present an analysis of the ranks of management actions for 14 species in five countries that extends beyond the use of demography alone...

Appendix S9. Ardisia elliptica.

Appendix S10. Carduus nutans.

Appendix S12. Cirsium vulgare.

Appendix S13. Cytisus scoparius.

Appendix S19. Prunus serotina.

Appendix S4. Management data.

Appendix S5. Table of symbols and definitions of model parameters and management objectives.

Appendix S6. Responses of survey analysis.

Appendix S7. Agropyron cristatum.

Appendix S1. Hierarchical structure of management data.

Appendix S3. Continental maps of the population locations.

Appendix S11. Centaurea stoebe.

Appendix S15. Lespedeza cuneata.

Appendix S16. Parkinsonia aculeata.

Appendix S17. Persicaria perfoliata.

Appendix S2. Demographic information for the 14 species used.

Appendix S8. Alliaria petiolata.

Appendix S14. Dipsacus sylvestris.

Appendix S18. Pinus nigra.

Appendix S20. Rubus armeniacus.

Decision makers and land managers are increasingly required to manage landscapes for multiple purposes and benefits. However, despite progress in the development of frameworks linking natural capital to the provision of ecosystem services and human benefits there remains little guidance for how management interventions can improve ecosystem service...

Appendix S1. Supporting Online Figures. Appendix S2. Constituents of COMADRE. Appendix S3. COMADRE user's guide. Appendix S4. COMADRE R scripts. Appendix S5. Extended literature used in COMADRE 1.0.0. Appendix S6. Funding and extended acknowledgements. Appendix S7. Author contributions. Appendix S8. Supporting information references.

Fraser et al. (Reports, 17 July 2015, p. 302) report a unimodal relationship between productivity and species richness at regional and global scales, which they contrast with the results of Adler et al. (Reports, 23 September 2011, p. 1750). However, both data sets, when analyzed correctly, show clearly and consistently that productivity is a poor...

Synthesis: We introduce the COMADRE Animal Matrix Database, a resource for animal demography. Its open-data nature, together with its ancillary information, will facilitate comparative analysis, as will the growing availability of databases focusing on other aspects of the rich animal diversity, and tools to query and combine them. Through future...