image: Research published in Ecosphere uses ancient DNA to determine that beaver ponds like this one have existed in what is now known as Grand Teton National Park for thousands of years.
Credit: Emily Fairfax
The Ecological Society of America (ESA) presents a roundup of five research articles recently published across its esteemed journals. Widely recognized for fostering innovation and advancing ecological knowledge, ESA’s journals consistently feature illuminating and impactful studies. This compilation of papers explores tiger conservation, the effects of invasive grasses on tick populations, plant–fungal networks in the Arctic, collaborations between artists and scientists for conservation and the long-term presence of beavers in Grand Teton National Park.
From Ecological Applications:
Protected forests can’t solve a tiger food crisis
Author contact: Robert Steinmetz (roberts@wwf.or.th)
Thailand’s Mae Wong and Khlong Lan National Parks offer dense forest, strong protection from poaching and are situated next to one of Southeast Asia’s last tiger strongholds. Despite these advantages, their tiger population has shown little sign of recovery. New research drawing from 11 years of camera trap monitoring shows that the obstacle to recovery is not protection, but prey scarcity. Tiger density in Mae Wong and Khlong Lan National Parks, while remaining stable, is six times lower than in a neighboring wildlife sanctuary. Researchers found that most adult female tigers at this site were immigrants from nearby parks, and while adult tigers survived relatively well, few cubs remained residents of the parks or made it to adulthood. The culprit was a shortage of large prey like sambar deer and wild cattle. The study suggests that even the safest habitat in Southeast Asia cannot bring tigers back from the brink without enough food to fuel reproduction, and that parks in Southeast Asia need not just protection from poaching but also plenty of prey and opportunities for tigers to roam.
Read the article: Investigating the demography and dynamics of a low-density tiger population in Southeast Asia: What limits recovery?
From Ecology:
Invasive grass gives ticks a boost
Author contact: Drew Hiatt (dhiatt@ufl.edu)
New research from the longleaf pine forests of Florida suggests that some invasive plant species may offer more hospitable habitat to lone star ticks than native plants. Lone star ticks are native to the eastern U.S. and are vectors of multiple human pathogens, including the bacteria that cause ehrlichiosis, Rocky Mountain spotted fever and tularemia. Tick survival is known to be strongly influenced by the conditions of the ticks’ immediate surroundings, yet we still lack a clear understanding of how invasive plants might change these conditions and drive vector-borne disease risk. The study compared tick survival and abundance in areas dominated by native plants versus areas overtaken by cogongrass, an invasive species that grows rapidly and is notoriously expensive to mitigate. They found that ticks lived much longer in invaded areas, where the dense cogongrass kept things cool and damp, protecting the ticks from drying out. However, the researchers observed no difference in overall tick abundance between areas dominated by native versus invasive plants, suggesting that prolonged survival in invaded settings does not necessarily translate into higher tick densities. These mixed results point to different mechanisms driving tick populations in each setting, highlighting how invasive plants can have complex implications for disease risk.
Read the article: Mechanistic pathways of tick exposure risk in native and invaded plant communities
From Ecological Monographs:
Arctic plant–fungal partnerships are surprisingly flexible in a warming world
Author contact: Bastien Parisy (bastien.parisy@helsinki.fi)
As the Arctic warms at record speed, scientists are investigating how environmental changes affect the underground web of microbes and fungi that form crucial partnerships with Arctic plants. A new study examined thousands of soil and root samples across the Arctic to explore how plants and fungi interact under different environmental conditions. Because fungi help plants access nutrients and shape soil conditions, shifts in these relationships can ripple through whole ecosystems. The findings show that environmental conditions, such as local temperature and soil acidity, are the main drivers that determine which fungal species are present around a plant’s roots, while the identity of the plant itself plays a much smaller role. Arctic fungi appear to form opportunistic partnerships with whatever plant hosts are available, rather than maintaining exclusive relationships. This flexibility may help both plants and fungi cope with rapid environmental change. These results point to a high degree of adaptability among Arctic plants and fungi, which may be an encouraging sign for ecosystem resilience in a rapidly changing climate.
Read the article: Opportunistic partner choice among arctic plants and root-associated fungi is driven by environmental conditions
From Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment:
Artists and scientists join forces to advance conservation goals
Author contact: Ivan Jarić (ivan.jaric@universite-paris-saclay.fr)
A newly published paper explores how collaborations between artists and conservationists can create new opportunities to study and protect nature. The authors show that art can reveal information about biodiversity through historical paintings, poems and Indigenous traditions that record species or environmental changes over time. Art can also inspire new conservation tools and engage the public through games, comics, music and movies. Interactive projects, like the Sonic Kayak, let people explore nature directly: kayaks equipped with underwater sensors both monitor environmental conditions and translate them into real-time sound. In return, conservationists can provide artists with expertise, access to natural materials and guidance on sustainability. The authors show how these partnerships not only spark creativity and insight but also improve public awareness, foster behavioral change and strengthen ecosystem protection. The paper also outlines challenges such as funding limits, cultural differences and the responsible use of artificial intelligence, and calls for more funding and institutional support to expand collaborations between biodiversity conservation and the arts.
Read the article: Bridging worlds: exploring synergies between the arts and biodiversity conservation
From Ecosphere:
Beaver occupancy in Grand Teton lakes spans 5,000 years
Author contact: D. Nevé Baker (bakerd@umn.edu)
A new study of ancient DNA preserved in sediment from subalpine lakes in Grand Teton National Park has uncovered thousands of years of beaver history in the region. Researchers found that beavers have been shaping the landscape continuously for at least 5,000 years at Taggart Lake, and intermittently at Jenny Lake for over 7,000 years. Beaver activity coincided with shifts in the local plant communities, including more aquatic plants as well as willows and poplars, suggesting that beavers helped shape and maintain these lakeside habitats. Beavers persisted at Taggart Lake even during late Holocene droughts, suggesting that their intensive ecological engineering may have helped to maintain local wetlands that supported plants and wildlife through periods of stress. Historical trapping and limited pre-colonial records have long obscured understanding of beaver distribution and long-term ecological impacts. Studies such as this one provide insight on the role beavers have played in shaping North American ecosystems over thousands of years, and can guide conservation managers in using beaver activity as a nature-based strategy to buffer the impacts of climate change.
Read the article: Ancient sedimentary DNA shows more than 5000 years of continuous beaver occupancy in Grand Teton National Park
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The Ecological Society of America, founded in 1915, is the world’s largest community of professional ecologists and a trusted source of ecological knowledge, committed to advancing the understanding of life on Earth. The 8,000 member Society publishes six journals and a membership bulletin and broadly shares ecological information through policy, media outreach and education initiatives. The Society’s Annual Meeting attracts 4,000 attendees and features the most recent advances in ecological science. Visit the ESA website at https://www.esa.org
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