SEARCH · bioRxiv Science

Results for “ecology”

Search indexed bioRxiv preprints in genomics, neuroscience, cell biology and bioinformatics. Read source abstracts and check manuscript versions; preprints are not peer reviewed.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 505 records · Page 28Linked to original sources

bioRxiv2025

Connections in the Dark: Social-Ecological Networks as a Promising Tool for Bat Conservation and One Health

Bats provide vital ecosystem services, including pest suppression and crop pollination. However, the increasing proximity of bats and humans is a growing conservation and public health concern with negative consequences for both sides. Mitigating these consequences requires integrative approaches like network science and the emerging field of social-ecological networks (SENs), which offer powerful tools to map and analyse complex social and ecological dynamics. Here, we synthesize how network approaches have been applied to bat research and conservation. Specifically, we: (i) assess the use of both ecological and social network analyses to study bats; (ii) identify network tools well-suited for SEN-based bat research; (iii) present a case study illustrating how SEN applications in bat research can inform conservation and One Health efforts; and, lastly, (iv) discuss key challenges and opportunities in using SENs to investigate the human-bat interface. Our review unveils a rise in network-based bat research from 2006 to 2020, followed by a post-pandemic decline. Nevertheless, across the 127 studies mapped by our review, only one applied an SEN lens. Finally, we suggest how applying some underexplored SEN tools to bat research could lead to novel perspectives, aiming to promote integrated strategies for the coexistence of bats and humans.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2025

A JSDM with zero-inflation to increase the ecological relevance of analyses of species distribution data.

1. A long-term goal of community ecology has been to decipher the mechanisms that shape the spatio-temporal organization of species communities. Understanding these processes is critical to predicting the responses of ecological communities to environmental change. To this end, Joint Species Distribution Models (JSDMs) offer statistical tools to analyze community data, identify the impact of abiotic factors on them and study inter-species correlations in their distributions. In particular, the JSDM-inferred partial-correlation networks allow one to identify direct links between species that can help decipher the mechanisms that shape their joint distribution. 2. Community data based on species counts often contains numerous zeros. However, not accounting for these zeros in a data set is known to hinder parameter inference. We investigate this issue in the context of JSDMs, and ask what impact it can have on the inference of partial-correlation networks. 3. We propose a novel JSDM, the ZIPLN-network model, based on the PLN-network (Poisson log-normal network) and ZIPLN (Zero-Inflated Poisson log-normal) model, which models count data while including zero-inflation and infers a partial-correlation network. Using simulated data, we compare the results obtained by this model with existing JSDMs in terms of association network inference from abundance data containing structural zeros. We then illustrate the ZIPLN-network approach using real data from tropical freshwater fish communities. 4. Simulations show that zero-inflation can significantly bias the inference of partial-correlation networks from community data and that the ZIPLN-network model efficiently counterbalances these effects. The ZIPLN-network approach is widely applicable to community data, delivers ecologically-insightful analyses, helps distinguish amongst potential mechanisms, and aids better understanding of community assembly rules. We provide guidance for getting started with our approach.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2025

Grassland Ecological Compensation Policy On Pastoral Production Efficiency--Evidence From Pastoral China

Grassland Ecological Compensation Policy(GECP) in the protection of grassland ecological environment at the same time also promote the transformation and upgrading of animal husbandry, pastoral production efficiency is one of the important indicators to evaluate the sustainable development of animal husbandry, but also has a direct impact on the economic benefits of the herders. Based on field questionnaire data from 468 herding households in the pastoral areas of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China, this study used two-stage semi-parametric DEA model and mediated effect model to measure herding households pastoral production efficiency and analyze the effect and influence mechanism of GECP on herding households pastoral production efficiency, respectively.The results of the study show that: (1) the overall pastoral production efficiency of herding households in Inner Mongolia is low, with a mean value of 0.43, which is mainly caused by low pure technical efficiency. (2) GECP, the number of years of education of the household head, whether or not the head of the household receives technical training, the percentage of income from herding, the number of herding machines, the evaluation of the herding socialized services and whether or not to rent pasture have a significant positive effect on the herding efficiency of herding households. (3) the realization of appropriate scale management by herding households plays a part of the mediating effect in the process of affecting herding households pastoral production efficiency. The realization of moderate scale operation by herders plays a partial intermediary effect in the process of GECP affecting herders pastoral production efficiency, and the direct effect of this policy on the pastoral production efficiency of large-scale herders is significantly larger than that of small-scale herders. Based on the above conclusions, this paper puts forward the suggestions of improving the supporting policies of ecological bonus, demonstrating and popularizing the breeding technology, and guiding the moderate scale management.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2025

Livestock Landscapes as Ecological Filters: Effects of the Tree Cover Gradient on the Taxonomic and Functional Diversity of Granivorous Birds in the Colombian Amazon

Livestock landscapes in the Colombian Amazon are undergoing rapid land-use changes, leading to the structural simplification of vegetation and the loss of avifauna and its ecological functions. This study evaluated the effect of tree cover as an ecological filter on the taxonomic and functional diversity of granivorous birds within livestock mosaics. Eight livestock landscape mosaics were analyzed and classified based on tree cover into open, semi-open, and semi-closed categories. Bird surveys were conducted using point counts and mist netting, and eight morphological traits were measured across the 22 recorded species. Five functional diversity indices were calculated to assess the response to the tree cover gradient through their morphological traits. A reduction in tree cover excludes functionally specialized species and favors generalist communities with redundant traits. Semi-closed and semi-open covers harbored higher functional and taxonomic diversity, showing high levels of richness and functional evenness, with niche complementarity. Open pastures exhibited lower trait variability and clustering with reduced ecological functionality. Larger granivorous species were associated with denser vegetation, whereas smaller species were linked to more open, highly disturbed areas. Greater tree cover promotes the coexistence of granivorous bird species by increasing the availability of microhabitats and resource diversity, which are exploited by species with different functional traits. This highlights the importance of conserving structurally complex vegetation within livestock matrices, using silvopastoral systems to enhance the resilience and functionality of productive Amazonian landscapes.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2025

Community ecology dynamics on reefs in Fiji are dependent on soft coral density and depth

Some soft corals (order Alcyonacea) have the potential to increase in prevalence on tropical coral reefs as the severity of anthropogenic climate change increases. While soft corals are therefore an increasingly important component of reef ecosystems, little is known about their ecological role on coral reefs and their influence on community dynamics and diversity. We used Bayesian Network Inference to identify the relationships among benthic taxa across sites with varying degrees of soft coral dominance on the Great White Wall, Fiji, and then employed spatial point process analysis to reveal the ecological processes behind these associations. We found that depth was the dominant driver of community dynamics, and that white Nephtheidae soft corals were negatively associated with scleractinian corals and positively associated with algae due to a facilitative mutualism - possibly due to soft corals reducing grazing pressure. Our results show distinctions in reef benthos and ecological dynamics between scleractinian- and soft coral-dominated reefs. We found that diversity levels were significantly lower on soft coral than scleractinian reefs, potentially highlighting the risk of a loss in benthic diversity on reefs where soft corals replace scleractinians.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2025

The ecology and adaptive function of clownfish color patterns

Anti-predator coloration strategies vary widely from conspicuous to cryptic, and everything between. Coloration serves multiple functions, and determining the selective pressures that drive this diversity is a long-standing mystery. Clownfishes display enormous inter- and intra-specific variation in coloration without the influence of sexual selection, providing an excellent system in which to explore these drivers in closely related and sympatric species. Across clownfishes, three color-pattern phenotypes have evolved convergently with host anemone use, implying adaptive functions linked to the hosts physical and chemical properties. Here we conducted a comprehensive study to infer the ultimate functions of clownfish color patterns. By integrating multiple levels of biological organization, including behavior, visual ecology, dietary niche, and microbiome, our data overwhelmingly indicate that specialist and generalist clownfish color patterns have different underlying ecologies and adaptive functions. Specialist clownfishes background match their anemones, remain near hosts, and have specialized diets and microbiomes. Generalists are highly contrasting with their anemones, remain far from hosts, and have variable diets and microbiomes. Taken together, specialist color patterns align with functional expectations of camouflage while generalists align with aposematic or disruptive coloration. Our study provides novel insights into how ecological conditions shape the evolution of multiple anti-predator coloration strategies.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2025

Ecological drift drives microbiome variation in the red flour beetle

Many eukaryotes harbor complex microbial communities that provide significant benefits to the host. However, recent work demonstrates substantial variation in microbiota across hosts and over time, though the causes and consequences of this instability are not always clear. We describe large temporal, among-individual and across-population variation in the microbiome of the red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum, a widespread pest of stored grain flour and a laboratory model organism. Across 5 years, the total load and composition of the bacterial community of laboratory beetle populations fluctuated dramatically, cycling between a few dominant taxa and hundreds of rare taxa. We show that this ecological drift is caused by a lack of maternal microbial transmission and large microbial load fluctuations in flour, which is the primary reservoir of microbial inocula. Newly hatched larvae (from eggs) and newly eclosed adults (from pupae) acquire microbes from ingested flour containing conspecific feces. The flour microbiome fluctuates with host population density and stage structure, with larval feces increasing microbial load and antimicrobial secretions from adults decreasing it. Periodic flour replacement during population maintenance also dramatically decreases flour bacterial load, contributing to stochasticity in microbial colonization. The resulting drift was associated with unstable fitness benefits for beetles, though we cannot disentangle cause vs. effect. Our work thus represents a case study of significant ecological drift even in a highly controlled laboratory environment. We suggest that such unstable microbial communities and variable host benefits may not be uncommon, and offer an opportunity to analyze early stages of the evolution and ecology of host-microbial interactions.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2025

Thinking past owl vs owl: The barred owl invasion threatens ecological communities in the western United States

Anthropogenic land use and climate change are facilitating intracontinental species range expansions, leading to novel ecological communities and interactions. Although invasive range-expanders threaten native species, lethal management can be challenged based on the notion that range-expanders are native and therefore less likely to precipitate ecological damage. The anthropogenically-mediated range expansion of barred owls (Strix varia) from eastern to western North America exemplifies this controversy: a recent U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plan to cull barred owls for the benefit of spotted owls (Strix occidentalis) ignited public outcry and resistance. Here, we assessed barred owls potential invasiveness and broader effects on biodiversity by using molecular methods to characterize the diet of 788 individuals in California, Oregon, and Washington. Barred owls consumed 162 vertebrate and invertebrate prey species, including 29 species with federal- or state-level conservation status. Our findings suggest that barred owls may (1) threaten smaller native predators via intraguild predation and competition for shared prey; and (2) further imperil amphibian communities already threatened by a suite of environmental stressors. We thus contend that barred owls function as an invasive species in their expanded range. The Precautionary Principle suggests that large-scale lethal management is warranted to curb barred owls impacts on not just spotted owls but broader ecological communities in the forests of the Pacific Northwest. More broadly, our study highlights the significant biodiversity loss that could result from range expansions of a generalist predator and provides a roadmap for quantifying putative impacts.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2025

Ecological coherence in abundance dynamics across terrestrial and marine assemblages

Understanding how communities respond to environmental change requires assessing not just overall variability but also the structure of co-variation among taxa. We frame this idea under the Ecological Coherence (EC) framework, which generalizes previous notions such as community synchrony or coherence. EC captures the structure of co-responses among taxa within assemblages and can be expressed through two complementary objects: (1) the co-response matrix C, which contains all pairwise correlations between taxa and can be used to identify clusters of taxa with coherent responses as well as the contributions of individual species to community-wide coherence; and (2) the EC distribution, which summarizes the overall profile of co-responses by capturing their shape, spread, and central tendency across the community. By combining these two views, EC moves beyond single summary metrics and provides a richer picture of how coherence is organized within communities. Analyzing the EC distribution across 341 terrestrial and 105 marine assemblages worldwide, we found a general prevalence of weak correlations and a few strong, directional correlations. We also found that it varies with community composition, sampling effort, and biogeographic region. Moreover, the C matrix consistently identified a small subset of taxa with strong correlations to many others, suggesting a promising path to detecting those that may play central roles in amplifying or buffering community responses to environmental change. Our findings on EC pave the way for deeper investigations into what drives the diversity of ecological responses to environmental changes and how it shapes community dynamics, while also underscoring the need for strategically distributing ecological monitoring across trophic guilds and functional roles.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2017

Whole genome data reveal the complex history of a diverse ecological community

How widespread ecological communities assemble remains a key question in ecology. Trophic interactions between widespread species may reflect a shared population history, or ecological sorting of local pools of species with very different population histories. Which scenario applies is central to the stability of trophic associations, and the potential for coevolution between species. Here we show how alternative community assembly hypotheses can be discriminated using whole genome data for component species, and provide a novel likelihood framework that overcomes current limitations in formal comparison of multispecies histories. We illustrate our approach by inferring the assembly history of a Western Palaearctic community of insect herbivores and parasitoid natural enemies, trophic groups that together comprise 50% of terrestrial species. We reject models of co-dispersal from a shared origin, and of delayed enemy pursuit of their herbivore hosts, arguing against herbivore attainment of enemy-free space. The community-wide distribution of species expansion times is also incompatible with a random, neutral model of assembly. Instead, we reveal a complex assembly history of single- and multi-species range expansions through the Pleistocene from different directions and over a range of timescales. Our results suggest substantial turnover in species associations, and argue against tight coevolution in this system. The approach we illustrate is widely applicable to natural communities of non-model species, and makes it possible to reveal the historical backdrop against which selection acts.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2018

Disturbance macroecology: integrating disturbance ecology and macroecology in different-age post-fire stands of a closed-cone pine forest as a case study

Macroecological studies have generally restricted their scope to relatively steady-state systems, and as a result, how biodiversity and abundance metrics are expected to scale in disturbance-dependent ecosystems is unknown. We examine macroecological patterns in a fire-dependent forest of Bishop pine (Pinus muricata). We target two different-aged stands in a stand-replacing fire regime, one a characteristically mature stand with a diverse understory, and one more recently disturbed by a stand-replacing fire (17 years prior to measurement). We compare the stands using macroecological metrics of species richness, abundance and spatial distributions that are predicted by the Maximum Entropy Theory of Ecology (METE), an information-entropy based theory that has proven highly successful in predicting macroecological metrics across a wide variety of systems and taxa. Ecological patterns in the mature stand more closely match METE predictions than do data from the recently disturbed stand. This suggests METEs predictions are more robust in late-successional, slowly changing, or steady-state systems than those in rapid flux with respect to species composition, abundances, and organisms sizes. Our findings highlight the need for a macroecological theory that incorporates natural disturbance and other ecological perturbations into its predictive capabilities, because most natural systems are not in a steady state.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2018

Towards an Ecological Trait-data Standard

O_LITrait-based approaches are widespread throughout ecological research, offering great potential for trait data to deliver general and mechanistic conclusions. Accordingly,a wealth of trait data is available for many organism groups, but, due to a lack of standardisation, these data come in heterogeneous formats.\nC_LIO_LIWe review current initiatives and infrastructures for standardising trait data and discuss the importance of standardisation for trait data hosted in distributed open-access repositories.\nC_LIO_LIIn order to facilitate the standardisation and harmonisation of distributed trait datasets, we propose a general and simple vocabulary as well as a simple data structure for storing and sharing ecological trait data.\nC_LIO_LIAdditionally, we provide an R-package that enables the transformation of any tabular dataset into the proposed format. This also allows trait datasets from heterogeneous sources to be harmonised and merged, thus facilitating data compilation for any particular research focus.\nC_LIO_LIWith these decentralised tools for trait-data harmonisation, we intend to facilitate the exchange and analysis of trait data within ecological research and enable global syntheses of traits across a wide range of taxa and ecosystems.\nC_LI

ecology↗

bioRxiv2018

Implementation of the Water Framework Directive: Lessons learned and future perspectives for an ecologically meaningful classification of the status of Greek lakes, Mediterranean region

The enactment of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) initiated scientific efforts to develop reliable methods for comparing prevailing lake conditions against reference (or non-impaired) states, using the state of a set biological elements. Drawing a distinction between impaired and natural conditions can be a challenging exercise, as it stipulates the robust delineation of reference conditions along with the establishment of threshold values for key environmental variables used as proxies for the degree of system impairment. Another important aspect is to ensure that water quality assessment is comparable among the different Member States. In this context, the present paper offers a constructive critique of the practices followed during the WFD implementation in Greece by pinpointing methodological weaknesses and knowledge gaps that undermine our ability to classify the ecological status of Greek lakes. One of the pillars of WDF is a valid lake typology that sets ecological standards transcending geographic regions and national boundaries. The national typology of Greek lakes has failed to take into account essential components (e.g. surface area, altitude, salinity). WFD compliance assessments based on descriptions of phytoplankton communities are oversimplified and as such should be revisited. Exclusion of most chroococcal species from the analysis of cyanobacteria biovolume in Greek lakes and most reservoirs in the Mediterranean Geographical Intercalibration Group (Greece, Spain, Portugal and Cyprus) is not consistent with the distribution of those taxa in lakes. Similarly, the total biovolume reference values and the indices used in their classification schemes reflect misunderstandings of WFD core principles. This hampers the comparability of ecological status across Europe and leads to quality standards that are too relaxed to provide an efficient target especially for the protection and management of Greek/transboundary lakes such as Lake Megali Prespa, one of the oldest lakes in Europe.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2018

Superior dispersal ability leads to persistent ecological dominance by Candida pseudoglaebosa in the Sarracenia purpurea fungal metacommunity

A large number of descriptive surveys document changes in microbial communities over time, but direct evidence for the ecological processes mediating succession or causing ecological dominance remains rare. Differential dispersal may be a key mechanism. We surveyed microbial diversity within a metacommunity of pitchers of the model carnivorous plant Sarracenia purpurea and discovered the yeast Candida pseudoglaebosa as ecologically dominant. Its frequency in the metacommunity increased over the growing season, and it was not replaced by other taxa. We next measured its competitive ability in a manipulative laboratory experiment and tracked its dispersal over time in nature. Despite its dominance, C. pseudoglaebosa is not a superior competitor. Instead, it is a superior disperser: it arrives in pitchers earlier, and disperses into more pitchers, than other taxa. Differential dispersal across the spatially structured metacommunity of individual pitchers emerges as a key driver of the continuous dominance of C. pseudoglaebosa during succession.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2018

Climate as a driver of adaptive variations in ecological strategies in Arabidopsis thaliana

Background and aimsThe CSR classification categorizes plant species between stress-tolerators, ruderals (R) and competitors (C). Initially proposed as a general framework to describe ecological strategies at the interspecific level, this scheme has recently been used to investigate the variation of strategies within species. For instance, ample variation along the S-R axis was found in Arabidopsis thaliana, with stress-tolerator accessions predominating in hot and dry regions.\n\nMethodsIn this study, the range of CSR strategies within A. thaliana was evaluated across 426 accessions originating from North Africa to Scandinavia. A position in the CSR strategy space was allocated for every accession based on three functional traits: leaf area, leaf dry matter content (LDMC) and specific leaf area (SLA). Results were related to climate at origin and compared to a previous study performed on the same species. Furthermore, the role of natural selection in phenotypic differentiation between lineages was investigated with Qst-Fst comparisons, using the large genetic information available for this species.\n\nKey resultsSubstantial variation in ecological strategies along the S-R axis was found in A. thaliana. By contrast with previous findings, stress-tolerator accessions predominated in cold climates, notably Scandinavia, where late flowering was associated with traits related to resource conservation such as high LDMC and low SLA. Because of trait plasticity, variations in CSR classification to growth conditions were also observed for the same genotypes.\n\nConclusionsThere is a latitudinal gradient of ecological strategies in A. thaliana as a result of within-species adaptation to climate. Our study also underlines the importance of growth conditions and of the methodology used for trait measurement, notably age versus stage measurement, to infer the strength and direction of trait-environment relationships. Taken together, this highlights the potential and limitations of the CSR classification to explain functional adaptation to the environment.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2018

The ecological drivers of variation in global language diversity

Language diversity is distributed unevenly over the globe. Why do some areas have so many different languages and other areas so few? Intriguingly, patterns of language diversity resemble biodiversity patterns, leading to suggestions that similar mechanisms may underlie both linguistic and biological diversification. Here we present the first global analysis of language diversity that identifies the relative importance of two key ecological mechanisms suggested to promote language diversification - isolation and ecological risk - after correcting for spatial autocorrelation and phylogenetic non-independence. We find significant effects of climate on language diversity consistent with the ecological risk hypothesis that areas of high year-round productivity lead to more languages by supporting human cultural groups with smaller distributions. Climate has a much stronger effect on language diversity than landscape features that might contribute to isolation of cultural groups, such as altitudinal variation, river density, or landscape roughness. The association between biodiversity and language diversity appears to be an incidental effect of their covariation with climate, rather than a causal link between the two. While climate and landscape provide strong explanatory signal for variation in language diversity, we identify a number of areas of high unexplained language diversity, with more languages than would be predicted from environmental features alone; notably New Guinea, the Himalayan foothills, West Africa, and Mesoamerica. Additional processes may be at play in generating higher than expected language diversity in these regions.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2018

Size-based ecological interactions drive food web responses to climate warming

Predicting the impacts of climate change on animal populations and communities requires understanding of feedbacks between direct physiological responses and indirect effects via ecological interactions. Food-dependent body growth and within-species size variation have major effects on dynamics of populations and communities through feedbacks between individual performance and population size structure. Moreover, evidence suggests a link between temperature and population size structure, but we lack an understanding of how this is mediated by species interactions when life history processes are food-dependent. Here, we use a dynamic stage-structured biomass model with food-, size- and temperature-dependent life history processes to assess how temperature affects coexistence, stability and size structure in a tri-trophic food chain. We show that predator biomass densities decline with warming either gradually or in the form of collapses, depending on which consumer life stage they predominantly feed on. Collapses occur when warming destabilizes the community and induces alternative stable states via Allee effects, which emerge when predators promote their own food source through predation. By contrast, warming at low temperatures stabilizes the community as limit cycles turn to fixed point dynamics, unless predators feed only on juveniles. Elevated costs of being large in warmer environments accelerate the decline in predator persistence and mean body size of the community. These results suggest that predator persistence in warmer climates may be lower than previously acknowledged when accounting for size- and food-dependence of life history processes, and that interactions within and between species can mediate the effects of warming on food web stability.\n\nSignificanceClimate warming is altering the dynamics and structure of aquatic ecosystems worldwide. Predicting food web reorganization under rising temperatures requires an understanding of physiological responses and ecological interactions of organisms, both of which depend on body size. We show that size variation within species, food-dependent growth and ecological interactions critically affect how food chains respond to warming. Specifically, warming can stabilize or destabilize food chains and expose predators to increased risk of sudden collapses, resulting in alternative stable food web states. Increasing temperatures can cause abrupt reductions in mean community body size, primarily due to loss of top predators. The potential loss of biodiversity and shifts in ecosystem stability are among the major challenges caused by a warming climate.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2018

Relationship between ecological stoichiometry and community diversity of plant ecosystems in the upper reaches of the Tarim River, China

AimAlthough it is commonly proposed that nutrient cycling can impact plant community diversity, this relationship has not been fully examined in arid and semi-arid zones. Here, we expand on the framework for evaluating the relationship between biodiversity and ecological stoichiometry by scaling up from the level of the community.\n\nLocationThe upper reaches of the Tarim River (Northwest China, 80{degrees}10-84{degrees}36E, 0{degrees}25-41{degrees}10N).\n\nMethodsWe used multivariate analysis of variance to compare the stoichiometric characteristics and species diversity indices of sampled plant communities. We also measured carbon (C), nitrogen (N), and phosphorous (P) content of plants. We then assessed correlations between community stoichiometry and species diversity through structural equation models (SEM) and redundancy analysis (RDA).\n\nResultsWe found that the differences between stoichiometric characteristics and community diversity indices were highly significant. The Margalef index was strongly related to C and P content. The Simpsons index and Shannon-Weaner index were most strongly correlated with C content. Pielous index was closely related to C and N contents, and the C:N and C:P ratios were important at driving ecological dominance.\n\nMain ConclusionsOur study highlights the importance of ecological stoichiometry in driving community assembly and diversity within a desert ecosystems in northwestern China. The relationship between eclogical stoichiometry in the desert plant community had an effect on species diversity, and it was a good indicator of plant community diversity.

ecology↗