Journal Club Article for February 12th, 2021

We will dis­cuss the linked arti­cle at our next week­ly Jour­nal Club meet­ing. The arti­cle is titled “Urban­iza­tion-induced habi­tat frag­men­ta­tion erodes mul­ti­ple com­po­nents of tem­po­ral diver­si­ty in a South­ern Cal­i­for­nia native bee assem­blage”, and will be pre­sent­ed by STEM Research Intern, Mari­am Arif. Feel free to for­ward this invite to any­one inter­est­ed!

https://massasoit.zoom.us/j/97902596935?pwd=ekhEb1FxTENwWjBOR0NzSWtwZ3hHdz09

Meet­ing ID: 979 0259 6935

Abstract: Despite a large num­ber of eco­log­i­cal stud­ies that doc­u­ment diver­si­ty loss result­ing from anthro­pogenic dis­tur­bance, sur­pris­ing­ly few con­sid­er how dis­tur­bance affects tem­po­ral pat­terns of diver­si­ty that result from sea­son­al turnover of species. Tem­po­ral dynam­ics can play an impor­tant role in the struc­ture and func­tion of bio­log­i­cal assem­blages. Here, we inves­ti­gate the tem­po­ral diver­si­ty pat­terns of bee fau­nas in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia coastal sage scrub ecosys­tems that have been exten­sive­ly frag­ment­ed by urban­iza­tion. Using a two-year dataset of 235 bee species (n = 12,036 spec­i­mens), we com­pared 1‑ha plots in scrub frag­ments and scrub reserves with respect to three com­po­nents of tem­po­ral diver­si­ty: over­all plot-lev­el diver­si­ty pooled over time (tem­po­ral gam­ma diver­si­ty), diver­si­ty at dis­crete points in time (tem­po­ral alpha diver­si­ty), and sea­son­al turnover in assem­blage com­po­si­tion (tem­po­ral beta diver­si­ty). Com­pared to reserves, frag­ments har­bored bee assem­blages with low­er species rich­ness and assem­blage even­ness both when summed across tem­po­ral sam­ples (i.e., low­er tem­po­ral gam­ma diver­si­ty) and at sin­gle points in time (i.e., low­er tem­po­ral alpha diver­si­ty). Bee assem­blages in frag­ments also exhib­it­ed reduced sea­son­al turnover (i.e., low­er tem­po­ral beta diver­si­ty). While frag­ments and reserves did not dif­fer in over­all bee abun­dance, bee abun­dance in frag­ments peaked lat­er in the sea­son com­pared to that in reserves. Our results argue for an increased aware­ness of tem­po­ral diver­si­ty pat­terns, as infor­ma­tion about the dis­tinct com­po­nents of tem­po­ral diver­si­ty is essen­tial both for char­ac­ter­iz­ing the assem­blage dynam­ics of sea­son­al organ­isms and for iden­ti­fy­ing poten­tial impacts of anthro­pogenic dis­tur­bance on ecosys­tem func­tion through its effects on assem­blage dynamics.

Mas­sas­oit STEM events are open to ALL Mas­sas­oit stu­dents, fac­ul­ty, and staff.

Mas­sas­oit Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege encour­ages per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties to par­tic­i­pate in its pro­grams and activ­i­ties. If you antic­i­pate need­ing any type of accom­mo­da­tion or have ques­tions relat­ed to access for this event, please con­tact the Divi­sion of Sci­ence and Math­e­mat­ics at sciencemath@massasoit.edu in advance of your par­tic­i­pa­tion or vis­it.


Pho­to by Ana Pieters on Unsplash

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