This update was a little slow in coming, but we had a new paper come out recently that highlights some of the benefits of using large citizen science datasets to understand invasion dynamics. Specifically, we looked at the well-documented invasion of Eurasian collared doves in North America following their introduction in Florida in 1989. Our study benefited in large part from collared dove sightings by birders posted to the eBird website, by which we could track new locality records as the species spread. It turns out all that compulsive list-making can really benefit science! In the paper, we wanted to understand how the rate of invasion of collared doves in North America related to the position of invaded habitats within the suitable abiotic niche of the species. That's a mouthful. Let's step back. Think about it this way. In a given location, there will be an annual mean temperature, annual precipitation, etc. The combination of these variables at this location can be thought of as its position in "niche space" just as its latitude and longitude describe its location in geographic space. In the paper, we inferred the dimensions of abiotic niche space (i.e. temperature, precipitation, etc.) suitable to collared doves based on its known distribution. We then looked at records of the expansion of collared doves as they invaded North America. We then calculated the position of the invasion front in niche space every year to see if doves moved faster in more suitable habitat. This was our hypothesis, since we thought more comfortable habitat would lead to more offspring being produced and consequently more birds to disperse and invade. What we found was actually the opposite! The invasion moved faster through unsuitable habitat. We hope in the future that these methods can be used to explore other well-documented species invasions to see if this pattern is the exception, or a hint at a new paradigm for invasion dynamics. Citation: Ingenloff, K, CM Hensz, T Anamza, V Barve, LP Campbell, JC Cooper, ED Komp, L Jimenez, KV Olson, L Osorio-Olvera, HL Owens, AT Peterson, AM Samy, M Simões, J Soberón. 2017. Predictable invasion dynamics in North American populations of the Eurasian Collared Dove Streptopelia decaocto. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 284: 20171157. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2017.1157 Article link: http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/284/1862/20171157 Comments are closed.
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Hannah L. Owens | What's Going On? |
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