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To investigate whether Northern Goshawk textit(Accipiter gentilis) reproduction is food-limited, we evaluated the reproductive output from 401 goshawk breeding opportunities on the Kaibab Plateau, Arizona during 1999-2002. Concurrently, we estimated densities of 10 goshawk prey species (seven birds, three mammals) using distance sampling. We then assessed the relationship between goshawk productivity (number of fledglings produced) and prey density within and among years by relating the contribution of individual prey species and total prey density to goshawk productivity. We also estimated the proportion of total diet and biomass for each species that contributed ?3% of all prey items. Total prey density was highly...
We investigated experimental warming and simulated grazing (clipping) effects on rangeland quality, as indicated by vegetation production and nutritive quality, in winter-grazed meadows and summer-grazed shrublands on the Tibetan Plateau, a rangeland system experiencing climatic and pastoral land use changes. Warming decreased total aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP) by 40 g.m?�.yr?� at the meadow habitats and decreased palatable ANPP (total ANPP minus non-palatable forb ANPP) by 10 g.m?�.yr?� at both habitats. The decreased production of the medicinal forb Gentiana straminea and the increased production of the non-palatable forb Stellera chamaejasme with warming also reduced rangeland quality. At the shrubland...
Obtaining reliable estimates of absolute and relative reproductive rates is challenging for avian species whose nests are difficult to observe, such as the burrowing owl (Athene cunicularia). We compared methods for estimating reproductive rates of burrowing owls, defined as the number of 21- to 28-day-old young per Successful nest. We compared observations using (1) the mean and (2) the maximum number of young observed during 5 30-min observation periods, and (3) the maximum number of voting videotaped during 2-hr video surveillance. We evaluated the reliability of these methods with the known number of young present in nest boxes. All 3 methods performed poorly as estimators of absolute reproductive rates (absolute...
Climate change is causing measurable changes in rainfall patterns, and will likely cause increases in extreme rainfall events, with uncertain implications for key processes in ecosystem function and carbon cycling. We examined how variation in rainfall total quantity (Q), the interval between rainfall events (I), and individual event size (SE) affected soil water content (SWC) and three aspects of ecosystem function: leaf photosynthetic carbon gain (inline image), aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP), and soil respiration (inline image). We utilized rainout shelter-covered mesocosms (2.6 m3) containing assemblages of tallgrass prairie grasses and forbs. These were hand watered with 16 I�Q treatment combinations,...
We used microsensors to characterize physicochemical microenvironments and photosynthesis occurring immediately after water saturation in two desert soil crusts from southeastern Utah, which were formed by the cyanobacteria Microcoleus vaginatus Gomont, Nostoc spp., and Scytonema sp. The light fields within the crusts presented steep vertical gradients in magnitude and spectral composition. Near-surface light-trapping zones were formed due to the scattering nature of the sand particles, but strong light attenuation resulted in euphotic zones only ca. 1 mm deep, which were progressively enriched in longer wavelengths with depth. Rates of gross photosynthesis (3.4?9.4 mmol O2�m?2�h?1) and dark respiration (0.81?3.1...
Ecological processes of low-productivity ecosystems have long been considered to be driven by abiotic controls with biotic interactions playing an insignificant role. However, existing studies present conflicting evidence concerning the roles of these factors, in part due to the short temporal extent of most data sets and inability to test indirect effects of environmental variables modulated by biotic interactions. Using structural equation modeling to analyze 65 years of perennial vegetation change in the Sonoran Desert, we found that precipitation had a stronger positive effect on recruitment beneath existing canopies than in open microsites due to reduced evaporation rates. Variation in perennial canopy cover...