Scaling up in ecology: Mechanistic approaches

Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics

Volumn 43, Issue , 2012, Pages 1-22

  Denny, Mark ^a   Benedetti Cecchi, Lisandro ^b  

^a STANFORD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF PISA   (Italy)

Author keywords

criticality; dispersal distance; environmental bootstrap; extreme events; pattern formation; random walks; response function; scale transition; self organization

Indexed keywords

BOOTSTRAPPING; DATA ACQUISITION; DISPERSAL; ECOLOGY; RESPONSE ANALYSIS; SELF ORGANIZATION; UNDERPINNING;

EID: 84877918953     PISSN: 1543592X     EISSN: 15452069     Source Type: Book Series    
DOI: 10.1146/annurev-ecolsys-102710-145103     Document Type: Review

References (127)

1. Angilletta MJ. 2009. Thermal Adaptation: A Theoretical and Empirical Synthesis. New York: Oxford Univ. Press
2. Barkai A, McQuaid CD. 1988. Predator prey role reversal in a marine benthic ecosystem. Science 242:62-64
3. Baskett ML. 2012. Integrating mechanistic organism-environment interactions into the basic theory of community and evolutionary ecology. J. Exp. Biol. 215:948-61
4. Bell EC. 1995. Environmental and morphological influences on body temperature and desiccation of the intertidal alga Mastorcarpus papillatus K̈ utzing. J. Exp. Mar. Biol. Ecol. 191:29-55
5. Benedetti-Cecchi L. 2005. Unanticipated impacts of spatial variance of biodiversity on plant productivity. Ecol. Lett. 8:791-99
6. Benedetti-Cecchi L, Tamburello L, Bulleri F, Maggi E, Gennusa V, Miller M. 2012. Linking patterns and processes across scales: the application of scale-transition theory to algal dynamics on rocky shores. J. Exp. Biol. 215:977-85
7. Berg H. 1984. Random Walks in Biology. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press
8. Berteaux D, Ŕeale D, McAdam AG, Boutin S. 2004. Keeping pace with fast climate change: Can arctic life count on evolution Integr. Comp. Biol. 44:140-51
9. Bjørnstad ON, Peltonen M, Liebhold AM, BaltensweilerW. 2002. Waves of larch budmoth outbreaks in the European Alps. Science 298:1020-23
10. Brown JH. 1995. Macroecology. Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press
11. Buckley LB, Rodda GH, JetzW. 2008. Thermal energetic constraints on ectotherm abundance. Ecology 89:48-55
12. Buckley LB, Urban MC, Angilletta MJ, Crozier LG, Rissler LJ, Sears MW. 2010. Can mechanism inform species distribution models Ecol. Lett. 13:1041-54
13. Campbell GS, Norman JM. 1998. An Introduction to Environmental Biophysics. New York: Springer-Verlag
14. Carpenter SR, Turner MG. 2000. Hares and tortoises: interactions of fast and slow variables in ecosystems. Ecosystems 3:495-97
15. Carrington E. 2002a. Seasonal variation in the attachment strength of blue mussels: causes and consequences. Limnol. Oceanogr. 47:1723-33
16. Carrington E. 2002b. The ecomechanics of mussel attachment: from molecules to ecosystems. Integr. Comp. Biol. 42:846-52
17. Carrington E, Moeser GM, Dimond J, Mello JJ, Boller ML. 2009. Seasonal disturbance to mussel beds: field test of a mechanistic model predicting wave dislodgment. Limnol. Oceanogr. 54:973-86
18. Carrington E,Moeser GM, Thompson SB, Coutts LC, Craig CA. 2008. Mussel attachment on rocky shores: the effect of flow on byssus production. Int. Comp. Biol. 48:801-7
19. Chesson P,Donahue MJ,Melbourne B, Sears AL. 2005. Scale transition theory for understanding mechanisms in metacommunities. In Metacommunities: Spatial Dynamics and Ecological Communities, ed. M Holyoak, MA Leibold, RD Holt, pp. 279-306. Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press
20. Chown SL, Gaston KJ. 1999. Exploring links between physiology and ecology at macro-scales: the role of respiratory metabolism in insects. Biol. Rev. 74:87-120
21. Chown SL, Gaston KJ. 2010. Body size variation in insects: a macroecological perspective. Biol. Rev. 85:139-69
22. Chown SL, Marais E, Terblanche JS, Klok CJ, Lighton JRB, Blackburn TM. 2007. Scaling of insectmetabolic rate is inconsistent with the nutrient supply network model. Funct. Ecol. 21:282-90
23. Clark JS, Shannon L, Ibanez I. 2004. Fecundity of trees and the colonization-competition hypothesis. Ecol. Monogr. 74:415-42
24. Couteron P, Lejeune O. 2001. Periodic spotted patterns in semi-arid vegetation explained by a propagationinhibition model. J. Ecol. 89:616-28
25. Cowen RK, Lwiza KMM, Sponaugle S, Paris CB, Olson DB. 2000. Connectivity of marine populations: open or closed Science 287:857-59
26. Cowen RK, Paris CB, Srinivasan A. 2006. Scaling connectivity in marine populations. Science 311:522-27
27. Cowen RK, Sponaugle S. 2009. Larval dispersal and marine population connectivity. Annu. Rev. Mar. Sci. 1: 443-66
28. Cullen J, Neale P, Lesser M. 1992. Biological weighting function for the inhibition of phytoplankton photosynthesis by ultraviolet radiation. Science 258:646-50
29. Davis, AJ, Jenkinson LS, Lawton JH, Shorrocks B,Wood S. 1998. Making mistakes when predicting shifts in species range in response to global warming. Nature 391:783-86
30. de Jaeger M, Weissing FJ, Herman PMJ, Nolet BA, van de Koppel J. 2011. Ĺevy walks evolve through interaction between movement and environmental complexity. Science 332:1551-53
31. Denny MW. 1987. Lift as a mechanism of patch initiation in mussel beds. J. Exp. Mar. Biol. Ecol. 113:231-45
32. Denny MW. 1988. Biology and theMechanics of theWave-Swept Environment. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press
33. Denny MW. 1995. Predicting physical disturbance: mechanistic approaches to the study of survivorship on wave-swept shores. Ecol. Monogr. 65:371-418
34. Denny MW, DowdWW. 2012. Biophysics, environmental stochasticity, and the evolution of thermal safety margins in intertidal limpets. J. Exp. Biol. 215:934-47
35. Denny MW, Gaines S. 2000. Chance in Biology. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press
36. Denny MW, Harley CDG. 2006. Hot limpets: predicting body temperature in a conductance-mediated system. J. Exp. Biol. 209:2409-19
37. Denny MW, Hunt LJH, Miller LP, Harley CDG. 2009. On the prediction of ecological extremes. Ecol. Monogr. 79:397-421
38. Efron B, Tibshirani RJ. 1993. An Introduction to the Bootstrap. Boca Raton: Chapman and Hall/CRC
39. Elith J, Leathwick JR. 2009. Species distribution models: ecological explanation and prediction across space and time. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Evol. Syst. 40:677-97
40. Frechette M, Butman CA, Geyer WR. 1989. The importance of boundary-layer flows in supplying phytoplankton to the benthic suspension feeder, Mytilus edulis L. Limnol. Oceanogr. 34:19-36
41. Gaines SD,DennyMW.1993. The largest, smallest, highest, lowest, longest and shortest: extremes in ecology. Ecology 74:1677-92
42. Gaines SD,White C, Carr MH, Palumbi SR. 2010. Designing marine reserve networks for both conservation and fisheries management. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 107:18286-93
43. Gaston KJ, Chown SL, Calosi P, Bernardo J, Bilton DT, et al. 2009. Macrophysiology: a conceptual reunification. Am. Nat. 174:595-612
44. Gates DM. 1980. Biophysical Ecology. Mineola, NY: Dover
45. Gaylord B, Blanchette C, Denny MW. 1994. Mechanical consequences of size in wave-swept algae. Ecol. Monogr. 64:287-313
46. Gaylord B, Gaines SD. 2000. Temperature or transport Range limits in marine species mediated solely by flow. Am. Nat. 155:769-89
47. Gaylord B, Reed DC, Raimondi PT, Washburn L. 2006. Macroalgal spore dispersal in coastal environments: mechanistic insights revealed by theory and experiment. Ecol. Monogr. 76:481-502
48. Guichard F,Halpin PM,AllisonGW,Lubchenco J,Menge BA. 2003. Mussel disturbance dynamics: signatures of oceanographic forcing from local interactions. Am. Nat. 161:889-904
49. Gutschick VP, BassiriRad H. 2003. Extreme events as shaping physiology, ecology, and evolution of plants: toward a unified definition and evaluation of their consequences. New Phytol. 160:21-42
50. Helmuth BST. 1998. Intertidal mussel microclimates: predicting the temperature of a sessile invertebrate. Ecol. Monogr. 68:51-74
51. Helmuth BST, Denny MW. 2003. Predicting wave exposure in the rocky intertidal zone: Do bigger waves always lead to larger forces Limnol. Oceangr. 48:1338-45
52. Holling CS. 1959. Some characteristic of simple types of predation and parasitism. Can. Entomol. 7:385-98
53. Holling CS 1965. The functional response of predators to prey density and its role in mimicry and population regulation. Mem. Entomol. Soc. Can. 45:1-60
54. Holling CS. 1992. Cross-scale morphology, geometry, and dynamics of ecosystems. Ecol. Monogr. 62:447-502
55. Huey RB, Stevenson RD. 1979. Integrating thermal physiology and ecology of ectotherms: a discussion of approaches. Am. Zool. 19:357-66
56. Hutchinson GE. 1957. Concluding remarks. Cold Spring Harb. Symp. Quant. Biol. 22:415-27
57. Jensen JL. 1906. Sur les functions convexes et les iń equalit́es entre les valeursmoyennes. Acta Math. 30:175-93
58. Kaitala V, Ranta E. 1998. Travelling wave dynamics and self organization in a spatio-temporally structured population. Ecol. Lett. 1:186-92
59. Katul GG, Porporato R, Nathan R, Siqueira M, Soons MB, et al. 2005. Mechanistic analytical models for long-distance seed dispersal by wind. Am. Nat. 166:368-81
60. Katz RW, Brush GS, Parlange MB. 2005. Statistics of extremes: modeling ecological disturbances. Ecology 86:1124-34
61. Kearney M, Matzelle A, Helmuth B. 2012. Biomechanics meets the ecological niche: the importance of temporal data resolution. J. Exp. Biol. 215(8):1422-24
62. KearneyM, Phillips BL, Tracy CR, Christian KA, Betts G, Porter WP. 2008. Modeling species distributions without using species distributions: the cane toad in Australia under current and future climates. Ecography 31:423-34
63. KearneyM, PorterW. 2009. Mechanistic niche modeling: combining physiological and spatial data to predict species ranges. Ecol. Lett. 12:334-50
64. KearneyM, Simpson SJ, Raubenheimer D, Helmuth B. 2010. Modelling the ecological niche from functional traits. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. B 365:3469-83
65. Kinlan BP, Gaines SD, Lester SE. 2005. Propagule dispersal and the scales of marine community process. Divers. Distrib. 11:139-48
66. Klausmeier CA. 1999. Regular and irregular patterns in semiarid vegetation. Science 284:1826-28
67. Kooijman SALM. 2000. Dynamic Energy Budget Theory forMetabolic Organisation. Cambridge,UK: Cambridge Univ. Press
68. Kozlowski J, KonarzewskiM,Gawelczyk AT. 2003. Cell size as a link between noncodingDNAand metabolic rate scaling. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 100:14080-85
69. Kuo ESL, Sanford E. 2009. Geographic variation in the upper thermal limits of an intertidal snail: implications for climate envelope models. Mar. Ecol. Progr. Ser. 388:137-46
70. Lande R, Engen S, Saether BE. 2003. Stochastic Population Dynamics in Ecology and Conservation. Oxford, UK: Oxford Univ. Press
71. Levin SA. 1992. The problem of pattern and scale in ecology: the Robert H. MacArthur Award lecture. Ecology 73:1943-67
72. Levin SA, Muller-Landau HC, Nathan R, Chave J. 2003. The ecology and evolution of seed dispersal: a theoretical perspective. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Evol. Syst. 34:575-604
73. Long S, Humphries S, Falkowski P. 1994. Photoinhibition of photosynthesis in nature. Annu. Rev. Plant Physiol. Plant Mol. Biol. 45:633-62
74. MacArthur RH, Levins R. 1967. The limiting similarity, convergence and divergence of coexisting species. Am. Nat. 101:377-85
75. Madin JS, Black KP, Connolly SR. 2006. Scaling water motion on coral reefs: from regional to organismal scales. Coral Reefs 25:635-44
76. Madin JS, Connolly ST. 2006. Ecological consequences of major hydrodynamic disturbances on coral reefs. Nature 444:477-80
77. Malamud BD, Morein G, Turcotte DL. 1998. Forest fires: an example of self-organized critical behavior. Science 281:1840-42
78. Massel SR. 1996. Advanced Series on Ocean Engineering,Vol. 11. Ocean Surface Waves: Their Physics and Prediction. Singapore: World Sci. 508 pp.
79. Massel SR, Done TJ. 1993. Effects of cyclone waves in massive coral assemblages on the Great Barrier Reef: meteorology, hydrodynamics and demography. Coral Reefs 12:153-66
80. Maynard-Smith J. 1974. Models in Ecology. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press
81. McGill BJ,Nekola JC. 2010. Mechanisms in macroecology: AWOLor purloined letter Towards a pragmatic view of mechanism. Oikos 119:591-603
82. McLeod E, Salm R, Green A, Almany J. 2009. Designing marine protected areas networks to address the impact of climate change. Front. Ecol. Environ. 7:362-70
83. McNair JN, Newbold JD, Hart DD. 1997. Turbulent transport of suspended particles and dispersing benthic organisms: how long to hit bottom J. Theor. Biol. 188:29-52
84. Melbourne BA, Chesson P. 2006. The scale transition: scaling up population dynamics with field data. Ecology 87:1476-88
85. Melbourne BA, Hastings A. 2008. Extinction risk depends strongly on factors contributing to stochasticity. Nature 454:100-3
86. Melbourne BA, Sears ALW, DonahueMJ, Chesson P. 2005. Applying scale transition theory to metacommunities in the field. In Metacommunities: Spatial Dynamics and Ecological Communities, ed. M Holyoak, MA Leibold, RD Holt, pp. 307-30. Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press
87. Miller LP, Harley CDG, Denny MW. 2009. The role of temperature and desiccation stress in limiting the local-scale distribution of the owl limpet, Lottia gigantea. Funct. Ecol. 23:756-67
88. Moeser GM,Carrington E. 2006. Seasonal variation inmussel byssal threadmechanics. J. Exp. Biol. 209:1996-2003
89. Moeser GM, Leba H, Carrington E. 2006. Seasonal influence of wave action on thread production in Mytilus edulis. J. Exp. Biol. 209:881-90
90. Morgan SG, Fisher JL. 2010. Larval behavior regulates nearshore retention and offshore migration in an upwelling shadow and along the open coast. Mar. Ecol. Progr. Ser. 404:109-26
91. Morritt DM, Nilsson C, Jansson R. 2010. Consequences of propagule dispersal and river fragmentation for riparian plant community diversity and turnover. Ecol. Monogr. 80:609-26
92. Nathan R. 2006. Long-distance dispersal of plants. Science 313:786-88
93. Nathan R, Katul GG, Horn HS, Thomas SM, Oren R, et al. 2002. Mechanism of long-distance dispersal of seeds by wind. Nature 418:409-13
94. Nathan R, Sapir N, Trakenbrot A, Katul GG, Bohrer G, et al. 2005. Long-distance biological transport processes through the air: can nature's complexity be unfolded in silico. Diversity Distrib. 11:131-37
95. Nisbet RM, Jusup M, Klanjseek T, Pecquerie L. 2012. Integrating dynamic energy budget (DEB) theory with traditional bioenergetic models. J. Exp. Biol. 215(7):1246
96. Nisbet RM, Muller EB, Lika K, Kooijman SALM. 2000. From molecules to ecosystems through dynamic energy budget models. J. Anim. Ecol. 69:913-26
97. Paine RT, Levin SA. 1981. Intertidal landscapes: disturbance and the dynamics of pattern. Ecol. Monogr. 51:145-78
98. Paine RT, Tegner MJ, Johnson EA. 1998. Compounded perturbations yield ecological surprises. Ecosystems 1:535-45
99. Paine RT, Trimble AC. 2004. Abrupt community change on a rocky shore-biological mechanisms contributing to the potential formation of an alternative state. Ecol. Lett. 7:441-45
100. Pascual M, Guichard F. 2005. Criticality and disturbance in spatial ecological systems. Trends Ecol. Evol. 20:88-95
101. Peters DPC, Groffman PM, Nadelhoffer KJ, Grimm NB, Collins SL, et al. 2008. Living in an increasingly connected world: a framework for continental-scale environmental science. Front. Ecol. Environ. 6:229-37
102. Peters DPC, PielkeRASr,Bestelmeyer BT,AllenCD, Munson-McGee S, et al. 2004. Cross-scale interactions, nonlinearities and forecasting catastrophic events. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 101:15130-35
103. Petraitis PS, Methratta ET, Rhile EC, Vidargas NA, Dudgeon SR. 2009. Experimental confirmation of multiple community states in a marine ecosystem. Oecologia 161:139-48
104. Phillips BL, Kelehear C, Pizzatto L, Brown GP, Barton D, Shine R. 2010. Parasites and pathogens lag behind their host during periods of host range advance. Ecology 91:872-81
105. PlattWJ, Connell JH. 2003. Natural disturbances and directional replacement of species. Ecol. Monogr. 73:507-22
106. Ranta E, Kaitala V. 1997. Travelling waves in vole population dynamics. Nature 390:456
107. Ranta E, Kaitala V, Lindstrom J. 1997. Dynamics of Canadian lynx populations in space and time. Ecography 20:454-60
108. Rastetter EB, Aber JD, Peters DPC, Ojima DS, Burke IC. 2003. Using mechanistic models to scale ecological processes across space and time. BioScience 53(1):68-76
109. Rees MR, Condit R, Crawley M, Pacala S, Tilman D. 2001. Long-term studies of vegetation dynamics. Science 293:650-55
110. Rietkerk M, Boerlijst MC, van Langevelde F, HilleRisLambers R, van de Koppel J, et al. 2002. Selforganization of vegetation in arid ecosystems. Am. Nat. 160:524-30
111. Ruel JJ, Ayres MP. 1999. Jensen's inequality predicts effects of environmental variation. Trends Ecol. Evol. 14:361-66
112. Schoener TW. 2011. The newest synthesis: understanding the interplay of evolutionary and ecological dynamics. Science 331:426-29
113. Soĺe RV, Bascompte J. 2006. Self-Organization in Complex Ecosystems. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press
114. Solomon S, Qin D, Manning M, Chen Z, Marquis M, et al., eds. 2007. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press. 996 pp.
115. Tennekes H, Lumley JL. 1972. A First Course in Turbulence. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
116. Tilman D. 1994. Competition and biodiversity in spatially structured habitats. Ecology 75:2-16
117. Turing A. 1952. On the chemical basis of morphogenesis. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. B 237:37-72
118. Underwood AJ, Paine RT. 2007. Two views on ecological experimentation. Bull. Br. Ecol. Soc. 38(3):24-30
119. UrbanMC, Phillips BL, Skelly DK, Shine R. 2007. The cane toad's (Chaunus [Bufo] marinus) increasing ability to invade Australia is revealed by a dynamically updated range model. Proc. R. Soc. B 274:1413-19
120. van de Koppel J, Gascoigne JC, Theraulaz G, Rietkerk M, Mooij WM, Herman PMJ. 2008. Experimental evidence for spatial self-organization and its emergent effects in mussel bed ecosystems. Science 322:739-42
121. van de Koppel J, Rietkerk M, Dankers N, Herman PMJ. 2005. Scale-dependent feedback and regular spatial patterns in young mussel beds. Am. Nat. 165:E66-77
122. van der Meer J. 2006. An introduction to dynamic energy budget (DEB) models with special emphasis on parameter estimation. J. Sea Res. 56:85-102
123. Viswanathan GM, Afanasyev V, Buldryrev SV, Havlin S, da Luz MGE, et al. 2000. Ĺevy flights in random searches. Physica A 282:1-12
124. West GB, Brown JH, Enquist BJ. 1997. A general model for the origin of allometric scaling laws in biology. Science 276:122-26
125. Whitehead A. 2012. Comparative genomics in ecological physiology: toward a more nuanced understanding of acclimation and adaptation. J. Exp. Biol. 215:884-91
126. Widdows J, Pope ND, Brinsely MD, Gascoigne J, Kaiser MJ. 2009. Influence of self-organised structures on near-bed hydrodynamics and sediment dynamics within a mussel (Mytilus edulis) bed in theMenai Strait. J. Exp. Mar. Biol. Ecol. 379:92-100
127. Zimmer RK, Fingerut JT, Zimmer CA. 2009. Dispersal pathways, seed rains, and the dynamics of larval behavior. Ecology 90:1933-47