Detecting spatial regimes in ecosystems
| dc.contributor.author | Sundstrom, Shana | |
| dc.contributor.author | Eason, Tarsha | |
| dc.contributor.author | Nelson, R. John | |
| dc.contributor.author | Angeler, David G. | |
| dc.contributor.author | Barichievy, Chris | |
| dc.contributor.author | Garmestani, Ahjond S. | |
| dc.contributor.author | Graham, Nicholas A. J. | |
| dc.contributor.author | Granholm, Dean | |
| dc.contributor.author | Gunderson, Lance | |
| dc.contributor.author | Knutson, Melinda | |
| dc.contributor.author | Nash, Kirsty L. | |
| dc.contributor.author | Spanbauer, Trisha | |
| dc.contributor.author | Stow, Craig A. | |
| dc.contributor.author | Allen, Craig R. | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2018-06-27T19:55:45Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2018-06-27T19:55:45Z | |
| dc.date.copyright | 2017 | en_US |
| dc.date.issued | 2017 | |
| dc.description.abstract | Research on early warning indicators has generally focused on assessing temporal transitions with limited application of these methods to detecting spatial regimes. Traditional spatial boundary detection procedures that result in ecoregion maps are typically based on ecological potential (i.e. potential vegetation), and often fail to account for ongoing changes due to stressors such as land use change and climate change and their effects on plant and animal communities. We use Fisher information, an information theory-based method, on both terrestrial and aquatic animal data (U.S. Breeding Bird Survey and marine zooplankton) to identify ecological boundaries, and compare our results to traditional early warning indicators, conventional ecoregion maps and multivariate analyses such as nMDS and cluster analysis. We successfully detected spatial regimes and transitions in both terrestrial and aquatic systems using Fisher information. Furthermore, Fisher information provided explicit spatial information about community change that is absent from other multivariate approaches. Our results suggest that defining spatial regimes based on animal communities may better reflect ecological reality than do traditional ecoregion maps, especially in our current era of rapid and unpredictable ecological change. | en_US |
| dc.description.reviewstatus | Reviewed | en_US |
| dc.description.scholarlevel | Faculty | en_US |
| dc.description.sponsorship | This research arose from a workshop series, ‘Understanding and managing for resilience in the face of global change’, which was funded by the USGS John Powell Center for Synthesis and Analysis, and the USGS National Climate Change and Wildlife Center. We thank the Powell Center for supporting collaborative and interdisciplinary research efforts. We thank JC Nelson at the USGS Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center for creating Fig. 1a. The Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit is jointly supported by a cooperative agreement between the United States Geological Survey, the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, the University of Nebraska Lincoln, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Wildlife Management Institute. This is GLERL contribution number 1838. The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views or policies of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. | en_US |
| dc.identifier.citation | Sundstrom, S. M.; Eason, T.; Nelson, R. J.; Angeler, D. G.; Barichievy, C.; Garmestani, A. S.; … & Allen, C. R. (2017). Detecting spatial regimes in ecosystems. Ecology Letters, 20(1), 19-32. https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.12709 | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.12709 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/1828/9531 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | en_US |
| dc.publisher | Ecology Letters | en_US |
| dc.subject | boundary detection | en_US |
| dc.subject | community change | en_US |
| dc.subject | Fisher information | en_US |
| dc.subject | regime shifts | en_US |
| dc.subject | spatial regimes | en_US |
| dc.subject | spatial resilience | en_US |
| dc.title | Detecting spatial regimes in ecosystems | en_US |
| dc.type | Article | en_US |