 | First paper from Jack McLachlan's Masters work is now published in early view in Freshwater Biology. The paper, "Strong zonation of benthic communities across a tidal freshwater height gradient" was coauthored by Hamish and lab alum, Jess Haghkerdar and demonstrates that benthic communities can display strong differences across a small area. These surprising community patterns were likely driven by harsh intertidal wet-dry conditions and strong fish predation. Check it out now! |
 Lab alum Jess Haghkerdar, along with Jack McLachlan, Alexis Ireland and Hamish Greig, was recently published in Ecology and Evolution (link). This work on the cumulative impacts of repeat disturbances on stream communities was featured in April's issue of Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, a journal of the Ecological Society of America. The issue is sent to all ESA members and is one of the most-read journals in ecology!
Check out the dispatch ""One thing after another" weakens ecosystem health" to learn more!  Work from lab alum Jess Haghkerdar's masters thesis now published! Haghkerdar et al. demonstrate that disturbance frequency, not just time since last disturbance can alter community structure in different ways. Previous studies have not controlled for the length of time a community has had to recover post disturbance (communities that are disturbed more often have also been disturbed more recently, and therefore successional processes are confounded). Taxa were lost due to differences in vulnerability under increasing disturbance frequency. Check it out for yourself here:
Haghkerdar, JM, McLachlan, JR, Ireland, A, Greig HS. (2019) Repeat disturbances have cumulative impacts on stream communities. Ecology and Evolution (early view)  Check out our new paper in Ecology, led by Edd Hammill at Utah State, testing the relationship between diversity and ecosystem function at the landscape scale. We used simulated landscapes of pond mesocosms to show the relationship between beta-diversity and two ecosystem processes (decomposition and primary production) strengthens as landscape heterogeneity in temperature and nutrient conditions increase.
Hammill, E., C. P. Hawkins, H. S. Greig, P. Kratina, J. B. Shurin, and T. B. Atwood. Landscape heterogeneity strengthens the relationship between β-diversity and ecosystem function. Ecology. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.2492
 Photo: Angus McIntosh, University of Canterbury
 Check out this new paper by Nicki Ramberg-Pihl and colleagues on the influence of lake attributes and predation on the distribution of a crayfish in New Hampshire!
Looking for bass (in all the wrong places): Nicki Ramberg-Pihl featured in Maine Sea Grant news8/17/2017
A recent sampling trip to the Kenduskeag stream to look for smallmouth bass was covered by the monthly news blog for the Maine Sea Grant project. You can read the article here and learn more about the Sea Grant project Nicki is working on here  Isaac gave a talk entitled "Estimating predator diets using observational methods: A comparison of stable isotope and feeding survey methods", during a session on predation and predator-prey interactions at this year's Ecological Society of America meeting in Portland, OR. You can read his talk abstract here
 Jack gave a talk entitled "Spatial turnover of benthic communities is greater across a freshwater tidal height gradient than between temporary and permanent ponds" during the Community Ecology session at this year's meeting of the Society for Freshwater Science in Raleigh, NC.
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