Dataset Information

Investigating the effect of forestry on leaf-litter arthropods (Algonquin Park, Ontario, Canada).

ABSTRACT: Arthropods are the most diverse taxonomic group of terrestrial eukaryotes and are sensitive to physical alterations in their environment such as those caused by forestry. With their enormous diversity and physical omnipresence, arthropods could be powerful indicators of the effects of disturbance following forestry. When arthropods have been used to measure the effects of disturbance, the total diversity of some groups is often found to increase following forestry. However, these findings are frequently derived using a coarse taxonomic grain (family or order) to accommodate for various taxonomic impediments (including cryptic diversity and poorly resourced taxonomists). Our intent with this work was to determine the diversity of arthropods in and around Algonquin Park, and how this diversity was influenced by disturbance (in this case, forestry within the past 25 years). We used DNA barcode-derived diversity estimates (Barcode Index Number (BIN) richness) to avoid taxonomic impediments and as a source of genetic information with which we could conduct phylogenetic estimates of diversity (PD). Diversity patterns elucidated with PD are often, but not always congruent with taxonomic estimates-and departures from these expectations can help clarify disturbance effects that are hidden from richness studies alone. We found that BIN richness and PD were greater in disturbed (forested) areas, however when we controlled for the expected relationship between PD and BIN richness, we found that cut sites contained less PD than expected and that this diversity was more phylogenetically clustered than would be predicted by taxonomic richness. While disturbance may cause an evident increase in diversity, this diversity may not reflect the full evolutionary history of the assemblage within that area and thus a subtle effect of disturbance can be found decades following forestry.

SUBMITTER: Smith MA

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5456079 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Investigating the effect of forestry on leaf-litter arthropods (Algonquin Park, Ontario, Canada).

Smith M Alex MA Boyd Amanda A Chan Amelia A Clout Simonne S des Brisay Paulson P Dolson Sarah S Eagalle Thanushi T Espinola Sean S Fairweather Aaron A Frank Sydney S Fruetel Christopher C Garrido Cortes Cristina C Hall James J Ho Chris C Matczak Eryk E McCubbin Sandra S McPhee Megan M Pare Kate A KA Paris Kelsie K Richard Ellen E Roblin Morgan M Russell Cassandra C Snyder Ryan R Trombley Carolyn C Schmitt Tyler T Vandermeer Caitlin C Warne Connor C Welch Natasha N Xavier-Blower Chelsie C

PloS one 20170602 6

Arthropods are the most diverse taxonomic group of terrestrial eukaryotes and are sensitive to physical alterations in their environment such as those caused by forestry. With their enormous diversity and physical omnipresence, arthropods could be powerful indicators of the effects of disturbance following forestry. When arthropods have been used to measure the effects of disturbance, the total diversity of some groups is often found to increase following forestry. However, these findings are fr ...[more]

PMID: 28575022

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Project description:BackgroundThe province of Ontario, Canada, has instituted indefinite school closures (SC) as well as other social distancing measures to mitigate the impact of the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. We sought to evaluate the effect of SC on reducing attack rate and the need for critical care during COVID-19 outbreaks, while considering scenarios with concurrent implementation of self-isolation (SI) of symptomatic cases.MethodsWe developed an age-structured agent-based simulation model and parameterized it with the demographics of Ontario stratified by age and the latest estimates of COVID-19 epidemiologic characteristics. Disease transmission was simulated within and between different age groups by considering inter- and intra-group contact patterns. The effect of SC of varying durations on the overall attack rate, magnitude and peak time of the outbreak, and requirement for intensive care unit (ICU) admission in the population was estimated. Secondly, the effect of concurrent community-based voluntary SI of symptomatic COVID-19 cases was assessed.ResultsSC reduced attack rates in the range of 7.2-12.7% when the duration of SC increased from 3 to 16 weeks, when contacts among school children were restricted by 60-80%, and in the absence of SI by mildly symptomatic persons. Depending on the scenario, the overall reduction in ICU admissions attributed to SC throughout the outbreak ranged from 3.3 to 6.7%. When SI of mildly symptomatic persons was included and practiced by 20%, the reduction of attack rate and ICU admissions exceeded 6.3% and 9.1% (on average), respectively, in the corresponding scenarios.ConclusionOur results indicate that SC may have limited impact on reducing the burden of COVID-19 without measures to interrupt the chain of transmission during both pre-symptomatic and symptomatic stages. While highlighting the importance of SI, our findings indicate the need for better understanding of the epidemiologic characteristics of emerging diseases on the effectiveness of social distancing measures.

Project description:Plant invasions have tremendous potential to alter food webs by changing basal resources. Recent studies document how plant invasions may contribute to increased arthropod abundances in detritus-based food webs. An obvious mechanism for this phenomenon-a bottom-up effect resulting from elevated levels of detritus from the invasive plant litter-has not been explicitly studied. We examined the effects of an annual grass invasion on ground arthropod assemblages in the coastal sage scrub (CSS) of southern California. Bottom-up food web theory predicts that the addition of detritus would increase generalist-feeding arthropods at all trophic levels; accordingly, we expected increases in fungi, Collembola, and common predators such as mites and spiders. For the common ant taxa, habitat alteration may also be important for predicting responses. Thus we expected that Forelius mccooki and Pheidole vistana, the most common ant species, would decline because of changes in soil temperature (F. mccooki) and habitat structure (P. vistana) associated with litter. We studied trends observationally and conducted a 3-year experiment in which we manipulated litter quantity. In contrast to other published studies, most detritus-based arthropod taxa declined in areas of high grass invasion, and, within trophic levels, responses often varied idiosyncratically. For the two most common taxa, a native ant (F. mccooki), and predatory mites in the Anystidae, we experimentally linked declines in abundance to increased levels of invasive grass litter. Such declines, especially those exhibited by the most common ant taxa, could have cascading effects on the CSS ecosystem, where ants are numerically dominant and thus may have broad influences on food web and ecosystem properties. Our results highlight that accurately predicting arthropod responses to invasive plant litter requires careful consideration of the structural and food resources provided by detritus to each particular food web.

Dataset Information

Investigating the effect of forestry on leaf-litter arthropods (Algonquin Park, Ontario, Canada).

Publications

Investigating the effect of forestry on leaf-litter arthropods (Algonquin Park, Ontario, Canada).

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