Field Ecology - Science topic

HANDS!!!

Hazlo como recomienda Andrew Paul McKenzie Pegman , o usa rarefacciones. Eso se puede hacer usando el software PAST 4 or EstimateS (ambos gratis). Claro, el R tambien lo puede hacer.

I would recommend that you contact the Horticultural and Plant Health Division of the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) (In Ireland) and Centre for International Trade (Foss House) Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA), a branch of Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) (In the United Kingdom). Each agency is involved in the process and certification of moving plant material and potential consequences of this. If you provide each agency (via their contacts pages) with information about what you intend to send they will provide you with the appropriate documentation and permits that you might need. You'd also need letters of recommendation or similar from the company/institution/department that you're sending from and is expected to receive it while doing the actual shipping process.

I was using "Smart Measure version 1.7.7" for measuring height of trees planted along streets within settlements. I am moderately satisfied with the precision. I found the optimal distance to carry out the measurements from a distance about 2-4 times of the tree height. In most cases, however, I was not able to measure from the optimal distance because buildings, parked cars, etc. made it impossible.

This depends mostly on the methodology (baited/non-baited; random samples/non random) and especially the analysis method.

For most of the more recent density estimate methods very short (2s etc) or no time delay have been used.

If you have enough saving capacity and battery life (which has improved in newer models) I would say you should go for the shortest interval possible. If required you can remove/filter multiple triggers in analysis. Otherwise you may miss critical data during the time interval where the camera stays innactive. And I personally prefer video captures instead of snapshots (which helps better identification).

Germination and seedling establishment in orchids: a ...

https://academic.oup.com/aob/article/116/3/391/169761

Hi, you can use the 4th generation Song Meter SM4 which is a compact, weatherproof, dual-channel acoustic recorder capable of capturing large amounts of data from wildlife such as birds, frogs and aquatic life.

Hope this link useful https://www.wildlifeacoustics.com/

Dear Al-Delemy and Mr. Kovalchuk

Thank you for the advices. So I should use various methods at the same time to be able to catch all the Crustaceans. 

Thank you very much for your response.

Dear Antoine,

For comparing diversity Index (for e.g. Shannon) you can use the T-Hutchenson (Zar, 1996; page 157). It is a specific analysis for comparing diversity index, I attached to this message a .xls file for calculating Hutchenson tes. You have to do this in paired way. Ifyou need help I'am available without interest to help you. (by the way, you dont need to replicate measures, nad the anova it does not work for comparing diversity index).

Best regards

Carlos 

Email: carlos.gonzalez@correo.uady.mx

I agree with Jérome Mallefet, better putting a tag to the hard substratum at the base, depending on the conditions it may be used a two component adhesive glue that works well underwater. I attach a sample of how the growth can be controlled with photographs, the measurement can be assured by putting a metric strip into the frame.

Just a few thoughts. If you want estimates of N, make sure your survey areas are consistent. If you want estimates to apply in a general sense to your area of interest, but cannot exhaustively survey the whole thing, then you need to employ a probabilistic sampling approach. You can account for detection heterogeneity in time of day by using that as a covariate in your analysis. Otherwise you will have unmodeled heterogeneity resulting in overdispersion. The more quadrats and sampling you do, and the better estimates of detection you get, the better your estimates of N etc. will be. Make sure to model average for N.

Hello Vinitha, 

If i may suggest some literature that you will find very useful and will answer some of your questions:

The Guide to Best Practice in Ocean Acidification Research:

A methods review from Dr. Cornwall et al., 

1) You do not really need a wave maker, but a recirculation pump, unless of course wave motion is a parameter that you want to add to your experiment;

2) For CO2 diffusion it is advised to use an atomizer, but strongly depends on what kind of tank (e.g. if your tank is closed or open) and on your CO2 injection systems. Also in your case with a 2000L tank you will need A LOT of CO2 to maintain high CO2 to simulate future oceans conditions, that will be hard (but not impossible) and costly to accomplish;

4) if you have a closed system, you have to consider refilling... using UV filtered seawater, or a synthetic one that you can DIY

5) there are many problems that you face, and these are similar to the ones that aquarist and aquaculture professionals experience, so you will find a lot about proper methods of cultivating planktonic communities. For example, water changes, proper nutrients concentration, oxygen depletion, in your case also CO2 diffusion, temperature maintenance, proliferation of unwanted organisms... etc etc... 

personal advices:

I just wonder why you need so much volume, since you need to replicate your experiment, there are simpler (and easier treated) tanks that are designed for planktonic communities, for example a very very simple one that you can build yourself: http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-07/ds/images/image002.jpg 

Hope it helped you a bit, this is as far as i can go with the information you gave, 

Regards, 

Fabio

To do power analysis to estimate your sample size, you have to write your hypothesis, and based on that you decide what statistical test you will use. It should be one of the inferential statistics. so you need to determine the following: alpha {standard to be .05}, power [standard to be .80], effect size {small, moderate, or large, each test has its own value, you can find these values in the net}. Then download free programs to calculate the sample size such as G. power.

Leaf Area Index (LAI): was calculated as ratio of the leaf surface area to the ground area occupied by a plant stand (Thomas et al., 2003). = Leaf area / ground area.

Through this way you can calculate the land area of selected  crop plants of your treatments. Same calculation will be measured at 30 and 60 days in selected plants or according to your trial,   

Tahnk you so much at all

The answer is not that simple... We could start by why 1 m x 1 m quadrats and why a 20 m transect line? Even that could be discussed. And a transect over what? How homogeneous or heterogeneous is what you want to sample? Power and sample size? Statistics you will use?

I recommend that you read:

Chopin, T., 1997 - Marine biodiversity monitoring. Protocol for monitoring of seaweeds.  Environment Canada, Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Network, Ottawa, 40 p. 

The text is available on my ResearchGate page.

All the best,

Thierry Chopin

I agree with Salindra. I understand that ear characteristics, such as tears, ear venation, and tusk size and shape have been used to identify individual elephants (see Whitehouse & Kerley 2002. Oryx 36, 243–248, and also the associated PhD thesis). I would be doubtful whether paint would be useful for a long term study. Elephants will scratch and rub themselves against trees, alongside wallowing and washing behaviours, I can't imagine the paint lasting long. Also, if a semi-permanent paint is found, there are some ethical questions about whether we should be marking animals with unnatural colours for long periods.

I used nail varnish to paint the toe nails of small mammals. I got the best results when using fast drying ones with glitter inside.

But if you want to recognise the animals after more than 3 days I would prefer fur clipping!

Whatever you do don't paint their heads! Attaching anything to the animal is going to snag, drop off or hinder growth eventually. Recognising pattern on monitor lizards is very tricky because they are often covered in dirt, shedding skin, in the shade etc. It looks easy when they are wet and freshly shed but it's not a practical way of doing it. By far the most efficient way I have found for biawaks is to cut a unique set of notches into the tail crest with a very sharp sterile blade. If it's done carefully they can be made deep enough to be permanent without hurting the animal (you can tell very easily when a biawak is hurt by its reaction). Never cut beyond the crest! These pictures show tail notches made 1-3 years previously. Mid third of the tail is best because the crest is high and they are very unlikely to lose that much tail. Sorry for late reply.

I have this paper, however it is only a speculation on the sustainability of the commercial trade of pythons and not a direct measure of sustainability of wildlife harvest nor did it use any or some kind of harvest or production model to assess sustainability of wildlife harvests. I am interested in studies that have actually used harvest or production models to assess sustainability of wildlife harvest (hunting).

You would need a sensitive microphone very close to the chicks but I don't believe you could identify species from the sound alone. Much easier to identify from the videos. If they are Culex, pipiens had a higher frequency than tarsalis when we recorded them in the lab.   Peter

Hi Peter,

I would have a look at Favaro et al. 2012. TrapCam: an inexpensive camera system for studying deep‐water animals. Methods in Ecology and Evolution 3:39-46. While it might seem a stretch, Favaro designed this himself to look at prawn catches (which you could equate to insect-sized animals). It was cheap and dirty, but it worked really well and the footage he got was excellent.

Hope this helps a bit.

Aleks

Given your focus on ecology, you may want to start with this GEO BON document:

The GEO Secretariat (https://www.earthobservations.org/index.php) is dedicated to the coordination of data acquisition and analysis in a wide range of thematic fields called "Societal Benefit Areas (SBA)", and strongly advocates open access and inter-operability.

The weather and climate community has a very long history (>150 years) of developing common measurement protocols and sharing data, so you may gain insight by investigating the work and findings of

- the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS: http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/gcos/), which coordinates and oversees efforts to acquire, archive and distribute climate data worldwide, in particular for atmospheric, oceanic and terrestrial applications. Look, in particular, at the various pages under "About GCOS", "Observing Systems and Data", and "Outreach" (in this latter case for a list of publications).

- the World Meteorological Organization (WMO: https://www.wmo.int/pages/index_en.html) and specifically the Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS: https://www.wmo.int/pages/governance/ec/global-framework-for-climate-services_en.html).

Another large, multidisciplinary organization to monitor is the International Council for Science (ICSU: http://www.icsu.org/), including its flagship programme called "Future Earth" (http://www.futureearth.org/).

All these international structures share a common interest in database structure, inter-operability, effective and open access, etc., not only to stimulate interdisciplinary research but also to promote the sustainable development of nations and societies.

Hi Danny, delayed density dependence refers to density-dependent mortality that involves a time lag after the increase in host/prey density and subsequent predator-induced mortality. For example, in souther pine beetles, the populations increases rapidly, but it takes a year for their predators to produce a new generation, so there are cyclical population trends where beetle abundance increases dramatically and then crashes a year later when the predator population catches up. This is also seen in some fish, where small, fast-growing species rapidly reproduce and then crash a year or more later, when larger, slower-growing predators finally start to limit the population of small fish.

For a better explanation, check out Hajek, A.E. 2004.  Natural Enemies: An Introduction to Biological Control. Cambridge University Press.

I usually work with Garmin 60Csx and 62Csx, like Galo. But now there is a new option Garmin GPSmap 64st . All of them are relativily cheap, weight is ok, and the new one has a very good improved signal (GPS+GLONASS). 

Probably some of these: 

Frizzo, Tiago L. M. ; Campos, Ricardo I. ; Vasconcelos, Heraldo L. . Contrasting Effects of Fire on Arboreal and Ground-Dwelling Ant Communities of a Neotropical Savanna. Biotropica (Lawrence, KS), v. 44, p. 254-261, 2012.

FERREIRA, R.N.C ; Franklin, E. ; Souza, J. L. P; Moraes, J.. Soil oribatid mite (Acari: Oribatida) diversity and composition in semi-deciduous forest fragments in eastern Amazonia and comparison with the surrounding savanna matrix. Journal of Natural History, v. 46, p. 2131-2144, 2012.

SILVA, LAURA V. B. ; Vasconcelos, Heraldo L. . Plant palatability to leaf-cutter ants (Atta laevigata) and litter decomposability in a Neotropical woodland savanna. Austral Ecology (Print), v. 36, p. 504-510, 2011.

Lopes, Cauê T. ; Vasconcelos, Heraldo L. . Fire Increases Insect Herbivory in a Neotropical Savanna. Biotropica (Lawrence, KS), v. 43, p. 612-618, 2011.

AMPOS, Ricardo Ildefonso de ; VASCONCELOS, H. L. ; ANDERSEN, A. ; Frizzo, Tiago L. M. ; SPENA, KELLY C. . Multi-scale ant diversity in savanna woodlands: an intercontinental comparison. Austral Ecology (Print), v. 36, p. 983-992, 2011.

SANTOS, E. M. R. ; FRANKLIN, E. ; MAGNUSSON, W. . Cost-efficiency of Sub-sampling Protocols to Evaluate Oribatid Mites Communities in an Amazonian Savanna. Biotropica (Lawrence, KS), v. 40(6), p. 728-735, 2008.

To stimulate more discussion:

Some people claim that different species do not share the same 'niche', for instance defined as an X-dimensional or endless-dimensional space where individual species live. Some would even claim that there is no overlap in the niche across species because of natural forces such as inter-specific competition. However, the level of niche overlap between individuals or species will probably depend on scales of analysis. For instance, unicellular or multi-cellular individuals or species should express niche overlap when the niche is defined with a small number of variables. Each unicellular or multi-cellular individual probably have their unique niche when the niche is defined with X-dimensions or endless dimensions.

The definition of the niche will evidently depend on what variables are empirically studied. If only one dimension is used to define a niche, such as the place where an individual organism lives and moves, does an individual vertebrate and an endoparasite (e.g. ancient mitochondria) living inside an individual vertebrate share exactly the same niche or not? Both the vertebrate and the organism living permanently in or on the vertebrate move together and therefore may share the same niche. However, the average physiological environment of the endoparasite will not be the same than the average physiological environment of the vertebrate, so individual endoparasites and individual vertebrates would not share the same niche from a physiological point of view.

               

If information mentally perceived are defined as resources exploited by living beings, does this imply that the size of the individual niche depends on the spatiotemporal scale of perception mechanisms involved? The perception niche of physical contact will probably be substantially smaller than the perception niche of a visual system or the perception niche in dream expressions. How to identify dynamic perception niches in wildlife, accepting scientists can never obtain detailed information provided by wildlife not been able to explain what they see, what they smell, what they hear, what they dream, etc.?

               

Different species should express significant overlap in niches when a given species explores niches of other species, for instance to find energy or material for living (soil, wood, plants, animals). If humans explore any environment in the world, for instance because of curiosity or to get resources for living, what fraction of the so-called human niche is shared with niches from so-called non-human organisms or species? Does this imply that both the individual-specific or species-specific niches are probably difficult to define with precision from an empirical point of view?

Could a niche be defined as a probabilistic place of living or a probabilistic space of perception occupied by an organism with a probabilistic design? Accepting that Earth as a niche of living is permanently moving either around its axis, is permanently moving around the sun, and is following moving trajectories in the universe, would this imply that the definition of the niche changes with research domain (e.g. astronomy versus earth ecology), also to provide additional arguments that individual niches are unique in time and place for at least one scale of analysis?

Accepting nothing is fixed an individual will always express continuous spatiotemporal variation in physical design for at least one level of analysis, and therefore could be defined as a probabilistic unit.

Artificial food such as fat balls hanging from a wire attract small passerines like great or blue tits or chickadees, but also attract other species such as robins or house sparrows having niches different from that of tits/chickadees. When a fat ball is attached on a wire 10-20cm above the ground, tits will use the fat ball as a perch to get food of which some is falling on the ground. Sparrows or robins will never touch the fat ball, but just wait under it until the food extracted by tits is falling on the ground. Why robins or house sparrows did not evolve simple niche shifts to exploit the artificial fat balls? Why is species-specific plasticity in habitat exploitation reduced, even for very simple food searching tasks, like extracting food from fat balls hanging from a wire? Do some species through their foraging activities provide food to other species, as illustrated with the case described above?

Properties, gardens, or so-called territories are most often defined using 2-dimensional measurements expressed in length and width, but how to define a property, a garden, or a territory using 3 dimensional measurements? For instance, is the 3-D of a garden limited by the height of the tallest trees in the garden and the deepest roots in the garden, or not? Does this imply that 3-D of a garden continuously changes? And what if someone can build a ladder of more than 1 km high? Are the people that are climbing the ladder still in the same garden? What is the highest acceptable height defining the 3 dimensions of a garden? If an airplane is flying over a garden, is it flying in the garden defined with 3-D, or not?

+ What are consequences for estimates of intraspecific population densities or interspecific densities influencing life-history expressions within species (e.g. lay-date, clutch size)? For instance, tropical forest research indicates that different species are observed at different heights in the same trees, which implies that different species occupying these trees may have the same territory or niche size at a two-dimensional level, but not at a three-dimensional level.

+ How to define a territory or niche when every individual movement is unique in time and space?

+ How far should we go in the past to define a wildlife territory of an individual? If history is not important in the definition of a functional territory, can the functional wildlife territory only be defined through current position and perhaps probabilistic future movements?

+ In an ever dynamic world, the individual functional territory probably equals the individual space of movement best represented by a network of traces on a map.

Geopaparazzi for Android...and geopapazazzi plugin for QGIS....

You may use the archaic method with a mixture of solid salt in ice and saturated saline water. Eutectic point is reached at -23°C. This was used in the 18th century for the making of ice creams during spring/summer time out of saved snow. This should save you a freezer and energy problems.

Hi Anna,

check <http://www.knnvuitgeverij.nl/EN/webwinkel/0/0/15942>

- this book is probably the best guide for exuviae (and larvae) on the market (and includes the discrimination of Coenagrion ornatum from other species of the genus). You'll have to buy that, it's not available as a PDF, but it's worth the price. A bit of a problem is the Dutch language, but the numerous photographs help a lot to identify a species. There is also a very good guide by Steve Cham for the UK, however with less species included (and without Coenagrion ornatum). Note that the Dutch authors of the first book I recommend are currently working on an according guide for all European species, then in English language - we are all eagerly waiting for this publication.

Regards

Florian

Thank you Kurt Rinehart

we use dry shippers for that purpose. They hold -140C for about 21 days and can go on airplanes. They are expensive to get but once you have them they pay off