Revisiting old papers in ecology and evolution through interviews with their authors
In a paper published in The American Naturalist in 1988, Susan Harrison, Dennis Murphy and Paul Ehrlich demonstrate the existence of a metapopulation of the Bay checkerspot butterfly, a rare species whose larvae feed on plants that grow on patches of serpentine soil. Using a combination of field surveys, simulation modelling and historical information, Harrison … Continue reading Revisiting Harrison et al. 1988
In a paper published in Ecological Monographs in 1996, Sarah Hobbie reported the results of her laboratory experiments on the effect of increased temperature and species composition on litter decomposition in the Alaskan Tundra. Hobbie found that increased temperature led to "increased rates of soil and litter respiration, litter decomposition, litter nitrogen release, and soil … Continue reading Revisiting Hobbie 1996
In a paper published in Science in 2001, Jeremy Jackson, Michael Kirby, Wolfgang Berger, Karen Bjorndal, Louis Botsford, Bruce Bourque, Roger Bradbury, Richard Cooke, Jon Erlandson, James Estes, Terence Hughes, Susan Kidwell, Carina Lange, Hunter Lenihan, John Pandolfi, Charles Peterson, Robert Steneck, Mia Tegner and Robert Warner showed, using paleoecological, archeological and historical data, that … Continue reading Revisiting Jackson et al. 2001
In a paper published in PNAS in 1996, Nancy Moran showed that endosymbiotic bacterial lineages showed faster rates of evolution of 16S rDNA and increased rate of fixation of deleterious mutations, compared to free-living lineages. These results, Moran concluded, were evidence for the Muller's ratchet phenomenon in combination with mutational bias. Twenty-three years after the … Continue reading Revisiting Moran 1996
In a paper published in Nature in 1995, Steven Frank proposed a simple model to show how "mutual policing" can suppress competition and ensure "fairness" in reproduction, in the evolution of cooperative groups. Twenty-two tears after the paper was published. I asked Steven Frank about his motivation to do the work presented in this paper, … Continue reading Revisiting Frank 1995
In a paper published in Ecology in 1985, Lenore Fahrig and Gray Merriam presented a model for changes in population sizes in a set of interconnected patches, which predicted that populations in isolated patches will grow at a slower rate and are thus morel likely to go extinct than those in connected patches. Fahrig and … Continue reading Revisiting Fahrig and Merriam 1985
In a paper published in PNAS in 2003, Jordi Bascompte, Pedro Jordano, Carlos Melián and Jens Olesen investigated the structural organisation of 52 mutualistic networks and found them to be highly nested, resulting in communities centred around a smaller core of interactions. Bascompte and colleagues also found that communities that contained a greater number of … Continue reading Revisiting Bascompte et al. 2003
