Monthly Archives: September 2017

Changing climate promotes prolific plants and satiated consumers

by

Plants in Sweden can have a difficult life, but climate change has provided a more benign environment for some of them, including the white swallow-wort, Vincetoxicum hirundinaria. This perennial herb grows in patches in sun-exposed rocky areas, in forests located below cliffs, and along the edges of wooded areas. The plant forms clumps that are heavily laden with flowers in June and July, and creates pod-like fruits in July and August

Solbreck1AB

Vincetoxicum hirundinaria growing in rocky outcrop (top photo). Vincetoxicum pods releasing their wind-dispersed seeds (bottom photo).

Christer Solbreck has had a lifelong interest in insect populations, and he has been following the insects that eat Vincetoxicum’s seeds for the past 40 years. As he described to me, surprisingly few population ecologists actually measure the amount of food available to insects. I should add that very few people have the resilience to study the same population of insects for 40 years, either. And interestingly, though this paper discusses the effect of a changing climate on seed production and seed predation, it was not Solbreck’s intent to consider climate change as a variable when he began, as climate change was not a concern of most scientists in the 1970s.

But climate change has happened in southeastern Sweden (and elsewhere), and has affected ecosystems in many different ways. Ecologists can quantify climate change by describing its effect on the vegetation period, or growing season (days above 5°C), which has increased by about 20 days since the mid 1990s.

Solbreck2B

Length of growing season (vegetation period) in southern Sweden.

During the same time period the abundance of Vincetoxicum has increased sharply.

Solbreck2Ayes

Vincetoxicum abundance, measured as area of the research site covered, during the study.

You will note that “Vincetoxicum” has the word “toxic” in its midst; the seeds are toxic to most consumers, and are important food sources for only two insect species. Euphranta connexa females lay eggs in developing fruits of the host plant, with the emerging larva boring through the seeds and killing most of them. Lygaeus equestris is an all-purpose seed predator; both larvae and adults suck on flowers, on developing seeds within the fruits, and on dry seeds they find on the ground up to a year later.

solbreck1c.png

Euphranta connexa female lays eggs in an immature seed pod.

Solbreck1D

Lygaeus equestra larva feeds on a fallen seed.

Solbreck teamed up with biostatistician Jonas Knape to analyze his data. From the beginning of the study, Solbreck suspected that annual variation in weather – particularly rainfall – might influence Vincetoxicum seed production, and consequent population growth of the two insect species. They discovered something quite unexpected; the dynamics of seed production shifted dramatically in the second half of the study, alternating annually from very high to very low production over that period. This dynamic shift coincides with the extension of the growth season as a result of climate change.

Solbreck2Cyes

Seed pod abundance by year.

The researchers argue that there is a non-linear negative feedback relationship of the previous year’s seed production on the current year’s seed production. Negative feedback occurs when an increase in one factor or event causes a subsequent decrease in that same factor or event. In this case, an increase in seed production uses up plant resources, leading to a decrease in seed production the following year. But the effect is non-linear, and does not come into play unless Vincetoxicum produces a huge number of seeds, as shown by the graph below,

Solbreck3yes

Seed production in the current year in relation to seed production in the previous year. Note that both axes are logarithmic. The curve represents the expected seed pod density generated by the statistical model, with the shaded area representing the 95% credible intervals. Open circles are data for 1977-1996, while closed circles are data for 1997-2016.

The researchers also found that high rainfall in June and July increased seed production.

So how do these wild fluctuations in seed production affect insects and the plant itself? One important finding is that in high seed production years, the proportion of seeds attacked by insects plummets because the sheer number of seeds overwhelms the seed-eating abilities of the insect consumers. Ecologists describe this phenomenon as predator satiation.

Solbreck4yes

Seed predation rates in relation to seed pod density.  Note that both axes are logarithmic. The curve represents the expected predation rate generated by the statistical model, with the shaded area representing the 95% credible intervals. Points are E. connexa predation rates while triangles are combined predation by both insect species.

As a result of predator satiation, there were, on average, seven times as many healthy (unattacked) seed pods in 1997-2016 than there were in 1977-1996. Presumably, this increased number of healthy seeds translates to an increase in new plants becoming established in the area. An important takehome message is that the entire dynamics of an ecosystem can change as a result of changes to the environment, in this case, climate change. More long-term studies are needed to evaluate how common these shifting dynamics are likely to become in the novel environmental conditions we humans are creating.

note: the paper that describes this research is from the journal Ecology. The reference is Solbreck, Christer and Knape, Jonas (2017), Seed production and predation in a changing climate: new roles for resource and seed predator feedback?. Ecology, 98: 2301–2311. doi:10.1002/ecy.1941. Thanks to the Ecological Society of America for allowing me to use figures from the paper. Copyright © 2017 by the Ecological Society of America. All rights reserved.

Powdery parasites pursue pedunculate oak

by

Studying disease transmission is tricky for many reasons. Most humans frown on what might seem like the easiest experimental protocol – release a disease into the environment and watch to see how it spreads. For his doctoral dissertation in 2006, Ayco Tack settled on a different experimental protocol – bring the potential hosts to the disease. In this study, staged in Finland, the hosts were pedunculate oak trees, Quercus robur, and the disease was the powdery mildew parasite, Erysiphe alphitoides. Almost 10 years later, Adam Ekholm continued research on the same system, with Tack as his co-supervisor.

Ayco Tack

Trees on the move. Credit: Ayco Tack.

But before moving trees around, the researchers first needed to see how the disease moved around under field conditions.  Within a tree stand, powdery mildew success will depend on how many trees it occupies, how many trees it colonizes in the future, and how many trees it disappears from (extinction rate). The researchers measured these rates over a four year period (2003 – 2006) on 1868 oak trees situated on the island of Wattkast in southwest Finland. They also measured spatial connectivity of each tree to others in the stand. In this case connectivity is a measure of the distance between a tree and other trees, weighted by the size of the other trees. So a tree that has many large neighbors nearby has high connectivity, while a tree with a few distant and mostly small neighbors has low connectivity. Results varied from year-to-year, but in general, the researchers found higher infection rates, lower extinction rates, and some evidence of higher colonization rates in trees with high connectivity.

Mildew_Adam Ekholm

Oak leaf infected with powdery mildew parasite. Credit: Adam Ekholm.

The importance of connectivity indicated that the parasites simply could not disperse efficiently to distant trees. But perhaps the environment might play a role in colonization rates as well. For example, fungi like powdery mildew tend to thrive in shady and humid environments. Thus a tree out in the open might resist colonization by powdery mildew more effectively than would a tree deep in the forest. To test this hypothesis, Tack and his colleagues placed 70 trees varying distances (up to 300 meters) from an infected oak stand. On one side of the oak stand was an open field, while the other side was closed forest. Thus two variables, distance and environment, could be investigated simultaneously.

Ayco Tack inspecting a potted tree_Tomas Roslin

Ayco Tack inspects an oak tree placed in an open field. Credit: Tomas Roslin.

The researchers collected infection data twice; once in the middle of the growing season (July) and a second time at the end of the growing season (September). Not surprisingly, infection rates were higher by the end of the growing season. In general, infection rates, and infection intensity (mildew abundance) were higher in the forest than in the field, indicating a strong environment effect. In the July survey, trees further from the oak stand had lower infection intensity, but as infection rates increased over the course of the season, the effects of distance diminished, particularly in the forest.

EkholmFig3

Upper two graphs show the impact of habitat type on (a) proportion of trees infected and (b) mildew abundance. The lower two graphs are the influence of distance from parasite source on mildew abundance of trees set in (c) a forest habitat and (d) an open field. Mildew abundance was scored on an ordinal scale with 0 = none and 4 = very abundant.

Ten years later, Adam Ekholm, as part of his PhD dissertation that studies the effect of climate on the insect community on oak trees, added a third element to the mix – the influence of genes on disease resistance. He wondered whether certain genotypes were more resistant to powdery mildew infection. The researchers grafted twigs from 12 large “mother” trees, creating 12 groups of trees, with between 2 – 27 trees per group (depending on grafting success). Each tree in a given group was thus genetically identical to all other trees within that group.

Ayco Tack

Oak tree placed in the forest. Credit: Ayco Tack.

The researchers chose a site that contained a dense stand of infected oaks, but was surrounded by a grassy matrix that contained only an occasional tree. To study the impact of early season exposure, Ekholm and his colleagues divided the trees into two groups; 128 trees were placed in the matrix at varying distances from the infected stand, while 58 trees were placed directly in the midst of the stand for about 50 days, and then moved varying distances away. The researchers scored trees for infection at the end of the growing season (mid-September).

 

Trees that spent 50 days within the oak stand had much higher infection frequency and intensity than trees that were initially placed in the matrix. Some genotypes (for example genotype I in graphs C and D below) were much more resistant to infection than others (such as genotypes D and J). Finally trees further from the source of infection were less susceptible to become colonized over the course of the summer (data not shown).

EkholmFig2

Proportion of trees infected (A) and proportion of leaves infected (B) in response to early season exposure to stand of oaks infected with the powdery mildew parasite (oak stand) or no early season exposure (matrix). Proportion of trees infected (C) and proportion of leaves infected (D) in relation to tree genotype. Genotypes are labeled A – L; numbers in parenthesis are sample size for each group.

These findings illustrate how dispersal, host genotype and the environment influence the spread of a parasite under natural conditions. The parasite exists as a metapopulation – a group of local populations inhabiting networks of somewhat discrete habitat patches. Some populations go extinct while others successfully colonize each year, depending on distance from a source, tree genotype and environment. Ekholm and his colleagues encourage researchers to use similar experimental approaches in other host-parasite systems to evaluate how general these findings are, and to explore how multiple factors interact to shape the dynamics of disease transmission.

note: the paper that describes this research is from the journal Ecology. The reference is Ekholm, Adam; Roslin, Tomas; Pulkkinen, Pertti and Tack, Ayco. J. M. (2017). Dispersal, host genotype and environment shape the spatial dynamics of a parasite in the wild. Ecology. doi:10.1002/ecy.1949. The paper should come out in print very soon. Meanwhile you can also link to Dr. Tack’s website at www.plantmicrobeinsect.com Thanks to the Ecological Society of America for allowing me to use figures from the paper. Copyright © 2017 by the Ecological Society of America. All rights reserved.

Is your goose cooked? Climate change and phenological mismatch.

by

As an undergraduate at the University of Manitoba, Megan Ross investigated nutrient reserves stored up by Lesser Snow Geese before reproduction in southern Manitoba. These reserves of fat and protein are critical to female geese, who then fly thousands of kilometers north to breeding grounds above the Arctic Circle, where they lay eggs and raise their young. For her Master’s thesis (this study), Ross investigated how nutrient levels influence adult reproductive success and recruitment of new goslings into the population.

SNGOonnest

Lesser Snow Goose on its nest. Credit: Megan Ross

As climates become warmer and more variable, there is a danger that goose reproduction may fall out of synchrony with the availability of high quality food in the feeding grounds – a phenomenon called phenological mismatch. If eggs don’t hatch until substantially after the grass is well-established, then grass nutritive value may not be high enough to raise a goose family. The problem is that even if geese had the ability to adjust the timing of their migration, it would be very difficult for them to know what feeding conditions are like thousands of kilometers away. Ross and her colleagues explored several questions regarding phenological mismatch and how successfully Snow Geese and Ross’s Geese (a smaller relative of Snow Geese – not named after our senior author) raise their broods.

1024px-Ross's_Goose_RWD

Ross’s Goose paddling about. Credit: DickDaniels (http://carolinabirds.org/)

Those of you who hang out near ponds, golf courses, or farms probably know that goose populations are thriving. Over the past few decades, geese at Karrak Lake in Nunavut, Canada, have increased sharply in population, though the growth rate has leveled off in recent years (see graph below).

RossLakePop

Combined estimate of Ross’s Goose and Lesser Snow Goose population size at Karrak Lake. Credit: Megan Ross.

Measuring recruitment of goslings into a population of a million birds is not the easiest task. The researchers used helicopters to herd the birds into portable geese corrals, and then simply calculated the proportion of juveniles as their measure of recruitment. They also weighed, measured and banded all of the captured birds before releasing them, unharmed back into the environment. For each year of the study, they calculated phenological mismatch as the difference between the mean annual hatch date and the NDVI50 date (which stands for the date of 50% annual maximum Normalized Difference Vegetation Index). To calculate NDVI50, researchers use satellite images to estimate the date at which the environment achieved 50% of maximum green-up for the year.

Thecolony

Small portion of the goose population near Karrak Lake. Credit: Megan Ross

Several factors were related to recruitment. For both species, recruitment was very low in years with considerable phenological mismatch (Graph a). High recruitment was associated with high levels of protein in both species (Graph b), and high levels of fat in snow geese (Graph d). Recruitment was also greatest if nests were initiated early in the year (Graph c).

RossFig1

Mean annual values for Ross’s Geese (gray circles) and Lesser Snow Geese (black circles) in relation to (a) phenological mismatch, (b) female body protein index, (c) ELI (early late index) – a measure of nest initiation date (for example, ELI = -5 means that nests were initiated 5 days earlier than average on that particular year), and (d) female body fat index.

The number of eggs per clutch, and the number of nests that produced at least one gosling (nest success) were highest when geese initiated their nests earlier in the year. Snow Geese laid, on average, more eggs, than did Ross’s Geese, but Ross’s Geese had somewhat higher nesting success than did Snow Geese. But nutrients also figure into this increasingly complex picture. In years when females stored up more protein, they tended to lay more eggs.

SNGOgoslingsinnest

Three Lesser Snow Goose goslings huddle together. Credit: Megan Ross.

Not surprisingly, the researchers also demonstrated that warmer springs were associated with earlier vegetation growth (NDVI50). The geese were able to adjust somewhat to earlier NDVI50 by initiating nests earlier in the year. However, these adjustments were only partial at best, so that phenological mismatch was very high in years that greened-up early (the distance along the x-axis between the data points and the bold dotted line in the graph below).

RossFig4b

Mean annual hatch date for Ross’s Geese (gray circles) and Lesser Snow Geese (black circles) in relation to the date of the year that NDVI50 is reached.  The bold dotted line is the expected value if there were no phenological mismatch.

From these data, you might ask why don’t the geese migrate earlier in the spring? One problem is that they need enough protein and fat to migrate, to produce eggs and to incubate the eggs during the cool Arctic spring. Another part of the problem is that gonadal development is determined by day length – not temperature – so there is a limit to how early in the year the geese are able to begin courtship and breeding activities. The concern is that if, as expected, environmental warming continues, phenological mismatch could become more extreme, further reducing juvenile recruitment, and putting a seemingly robust population at risk.

note: the paper that describes this research is from the journal Ecology. The reference is Ross, Megan V., Alisauskas, Ray T., Douglas, David C. and Kellett, Dana K. (2017), Decadal declines in avian herbivore reproduction: density-dependent nutrition and phenological mismatch in the Arctic. Ecology, 98: 1869–1883. doi:10.1002/ecy.1856. Thanks to the Ecological Society of America for allowing me to use figures from the paper. Copyright © 2017 by the Ecological Society of America. All rights reserved.