Joschinski, J. | bioRxiv Science

bioRxiv2024

The ECOLOPES PLANT MODEL : a high-resolution model to simulate plant community dynamics in cities and other human-dominated and managed environments

Cities and urbanized areas have become an important habitat for organisms. Although nature can provide multiple ecosystem services to humans, urban planning and architecture often do not adequately consider the ecological needs of species. In ECOLOPES we envision buildings, and in particular building envelopes, to be a joint habitat for humans, plants, animals and microbiota as equally relevant stakeholders. A centerpiece of the planning and design tools that ECOLOPES provides is a joint soil-plant-animal community model. We present the first prototype of the ECOLOPES PLANT (community) MODEL that responds to 3-dimensional (building) geometry and management, show potential applications as a stand-alone model, and discuss its technical and conceptual limitations that are yet to be overcome.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2019

Diapause is not selected as a bet-hedging strategy in insects: a meta-analysis of reaction norm shapes

Many organisms escape from lethal climatological conditions by entering a resistant resting stage called diapause, which needs to be optimally timed with seasonal change. As climate change exerts selection pressure on phenology, the evolution of mean diapause timing, but also of phenotypic plasticity and bet-hedging strategies is expected. Especially the latter as a strategy to cope with unpredictability is little considered in the context of climate change. Contemporary patterns of phenological strategies across a geographic range may provide information about their evolvability. We thus extracted 458 diapause reaction norms from 60 studies. First, we correlated mean diapause timing with mean winter onset. Then we partitioned the reaction norm variance into a temporal component (phenotypic plasticity) and among-offspring variance (diversified bet-hedging) and correlated this variance composition with predictability of winter onset. Mean diapause timing correlated reasonably well with mean winter onset, except for populations at high latitudes, which apparently failed to track early onsets. Variance among offspring was, however, limited and correlated only weakly with environmental predictability, indicating little scope for bet-hedging. The apparent lack of phenological bet-hedging strategies may pose a risk in a less predictable climate, but we also highlight the need for more data on alternative strategies.

ecology↗