Revisiting Johnson 1993

In a paper published in Ecological Applications in 1993, Nancy Collins Johnson showed, experimentally, that fertilization of soil leads to the selection of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal (AM) fungi that are inferior mutualists. Johnson found that fertilization, both, alters the species composition of AM fungal communities and that big bluestem plants colonized with AM fungi and other …

Revisiting Wilcove 1985

In a paper published in Ecology in 1985, David Wilcove provided experimental evidence in support of the idea that nest predation could be the cause for the decline of migratory songbirds in small woodlots in North America. Using fresh quail eggs places in artificial nests, Wilcove showed that predation was higher in smaller than in …

Revisiting Haddad et al. 2003

In a paper published in Ecology in 2003, Nick Haddad,  David Bowne, Alan Cunningham, Brent Danielson, Douglas Levey, Sarah Sargent and Tim Spira, synthesized findings from a large-scale experiment to show that corridors aided movement between habitat patches, although the strength of the effect varied across taxa. Fourteen years after the paper was published, I …

Revisiting O’Brien et al. 1983

In a paper published in Science in 1983, Stephen O'Brien, David Wildt, David Goldman, Carl Merril and Mitchell Bush showed that the cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) had extremely low levels of genetic diversity, a pattern that they interpreted as resulting from a population bottleneck. This study was one of the first to apply genetic tools to …

Revisiting Scheffer et al. 2001

In a paper published in Nature in 2001, Marten Scheffer, Steve Carpenter, Jonathan Foley, Carl Folke and Brian Walker reviewed the evidence for large-scale shifts between alternate stable states in different ecosystems, the patterns that emerge from such shifts, and its implications for the management of these ecosystems. Fifteen years after the paper was published, …

Revisiting Bolnick et al. 2003

In a paper published in The American Naturalist in 2003, Daniel Bolnick, Richard Svanbäck, James A. Fordyce, Louie Yang, Jeremy Davis, Darrin Hulsey and Matthew Forister reviewed studies that examined individual specialization on resource use and quantified how much inter-individual variation contributes to a species' niche width. Based on their review, they discuss the ecological, …

Revisiting Jackson et al. 2001

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 …

Revisiting Fahrig and Merriam 1985

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 …

Revisiting Schindler 1977

In a paper in Science in 1977, David Schindler showed, using whole-lake experiments, that natural biological mechanisms can compensate for deficiencies in carbon and nitrogen in lakes affected by eutrophication, but no such mechanisms exist for phosphorous. Based on his findings, Schindler recommended that management of lakes should focus on control of phosphorous levels. Forty …

Revisiting Simberloff and Wilson 1969

In a paper published in Ecology in 1969, Daniel Simberloff and E.O. Wilson reported the findings of a "defaunation experiment" they conducted on mangrove islands in the Florida Keys, to test the Theory of Island Biogeography proposed by Robert MacArthur and E.O. Wilson. In addition to this paper, Simberloff and Wilson published two other papers …