Abstracts

To develop the following abstracts, the editorial staff searches more than 100 scientific journals, professional and organizational newsletters, conference proceedings, and other resources for information relevant to ecological restoration practice and research. Please send suggested abstract sources to the editorial staff (ERjournal@aesop.rutgers.edu).

Climate Change

Wild Bee Abundance Declines with Urban Warming, Regardless of Floral Density. 2018. Hamblin, A.L., E. Youngsteadt (Department of Entomology & Plant Pathology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, eyoungs@ncsu.edu) and S.D. Frank. Urban Ecosystems doi: 0.1007/s11252-018-0731-4

Because insects are small-bodied and ectothermic, the urban heat island effect has been shown to alter insect physiology and abundance in cities. Different insect taxa are affected by heat in different ways and to different degrees but wild bees have seemingly remained prevalent in urban areas. Hamblin et al. examined urban bee community structure in 15 residential yards and three urban natural areas in Raleigh, NC to determine whether temperature is a driver of community structure. The authors used a Land-sat derived heat map to identify a range of warm to cool sites within residential and natural areas. Bee abundance declined by 41% per degree C, and temperature was the primary driver of both abundance and community composition. Although floral density was considered an important factor, only large bees seemed to benefit from increased floral density, but species richness did increase with floral density. Despite this benefit, simply adding more flowers to warmer sites doesn’t restore a complete pollinator community. Urban areas have a strong potential to act as refuges of insect diversity so understanding pollinator communities in these areas is essential to restoration practice.

Coastal & Marine Communities

Natural Recovery of Zostera noltii Seagrass Beds and Benthic Nematode Assemblage Responses to Physical Disturbance Caused by Traditional Harvesting Activities. 2018. Branco J., S. Pedro, A.S. Alves, C. Ribeiro, P. Materatski, R. Pires, I. Caçador and H. Adão (MARE, University of Évora, Évora, Portugal, hadao@uevora.pt). Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology 502:191–202. doi: 10.1016/j.jembe.2017.03.003

Seagrass beds provide important ecosystem functions to coastal environments such as modulating the structure of marine community assemblages, but they are also sensitive to disturbances. In Portugal, seagrass beds are exposed to anthropogenic perturbations such as harvesting of mollusks for consumption or polychaetes used as bait. Sea grass communities in Portugal’s Mira Estuary have begun to recover from a major collapse caused by unknown factors, but their recovery has been inconsistent. To understand how seagrass beds respond to digging, Branco and colleagues performed a field experiment comparing plots disturbed by digging to control plots. Their results showed that digging allowed a rapid recovery of the seagrasses. Microbial activity showed no differences between treatment and control plots, and observed variations in nematode assemblages were attributed mainly to changes in physicochemical conditions and other characteristics of seagrasses beds unrelated to digging. These results highlight the ability of this system to recover after low intensity harvesting activities.

Phylogenetically Diverse Macrophyte Community Promotes Species Diversity of Mobile Epi-Benthic Invertebrates. 2018. Nakamoto K. (International Coastal Research Center, Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute, The University of Tokyo, Otsuchi, Japan, nakamoto@aori.u-tokyo.ac.jp), J. Hayakawa, T. Kawamura, M. Kodama, H. Yamada, T. Kitagawa and Y. Watanabe. Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science 207:56–62. doi: 10.1016/j.ecss.2018.03.020

In terrestrial systems, plant diversity has been shown to influence a wide array of ecological functions, from nutrient cycling and carbon storage, to species diversity. In marine habitats, there is evidence that species composition of epi-bentic invertebrates differs between communities with different macrophyte species. Nakamoto et al. examined whether these differences are a consequence of macrophyte phylogenetic diversity. The authors selected a site on Nagura Bay, Japan and sampled algae and invertebrates in the macrophyte bed. Results demonstrated a positive relationship between invertebrate abundance and macrophyte biomass, species richness and taxonomic diversity of macrophytes but no difference in species diversity. The latter, being the most interesting result for restorationists, as it evidences how different levels of diversity have different effects on community structure. In this...