Published in Marine environmental research
Seagrass detritus can attract numerous invertebrates as it provides food and substrate within the meadow or in adjacent environments. Nonetheless, several factors could modify the invertebrate response to this habitat. In this study, we tested if epifaunal colonisation of Zostera noltei detritus was related to substrate availability rather than foo...
Published in Parasites & Vectors
BackgroundBirds are major hosts for many tick species (Acari: Ixodidae, Argasidae), and their role is especially important in transporting ticks over large distances along their seasonal migratory routes. Accordingly, most studies across Europe focus on the importance of avian hosts in tick dispersal, and less emphasis is laid on resident birds and...
Published in Frontiers in Zoology
BackgroundInvasive species are of substantial concern because they may threaten ecosystem stability and biodiversity worldwide. Not surprisingly, studies examining the drivers of biological invasion have increased in number over the past few decades in an effort to curtail invasive species success by way of informing management decisions. The commo...
Abstract Occurrence, abundance, and distribution of fishes in intertidal rock pools are influenced by environmental and biological traits that determine habitat quality. Fishes actively inhabit areas that represent the most suitable habitat for their development. For the intertidal fish community of El Zonte, physical and structural traits of rock ...
Published in PeerJ
Ecological communities of interacting species analyzed as complex networks have shown that species dependence on their counterparts is more complex than expected at random. As for other potentially mutualistic interactions, ant-plant networks mediated by extrafloral nectar show a nested (asymmetric) structure with a core of generalist species domin...
Published in Environmental Monitoring and Assessment
The study was conducted to determine the habitat usage characteristics of the otter, which provides important information on the status of aquatic and coastal ecosystems. The Balikdami (Fish House) Wildlife Development Area, where the study was carried out, was registered in 1994 and was declared a natural site in 1998. The total area of the site i...
Published in Helgoland Marine Research
Predation is an interaction between species that influences community organisation by the direct consumption of prey, influencing prey numbers, behaviours and traits. The intensity of predation is greatly influenced by the environment, and the physical structure of habitats may influence predation intensity by providing refuge for prey or reducing ...
Published in Aquatic Sciences
Evaluating beta diversity patterns along environmental gradients and different geographic ranges helps comprehend the roles of niche-based and spatial processes to metacommunity structure. Pond-breeding anuran composition depends on environmental predictors such as climate, vegetation type and habitat features as well as spatial processes (e.g., di...
Published in Forest Ecosystems
BackgroundManaged forests can become a seminatural habitat by allowing natural vegetation to establish under the tree canopy. The aim of this study was to examine how this natural understory vegetation in pine plantations affects bird community composition and diversity. We compared bird communities in three types of pine forest plantations that di...
Published in Aquatic Sciences
α-diversity often responds to habitat structural complexity as a unimodal function. In aquatic systems, increasing density of aquatic vegetation creates more habitat structural complexity for fishes, but only up to a certain threshold, beyond which fish abundance and diversity are restricted by reduced space. As a result, species turnover and neste...
