Edge Effects on Sapling Characteristics and Microclimate in a Small Temperate Deciduous Forest Fragment

2012 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 110-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haley F. Wicklein ◽  
Dorothy Christopher ◽  
Megan E. Carter ◽  
Brent H. Smith
2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valerie S. Banschbach ◽  
Rebecca Yeamans ◽  
Ann Brunelle ◽  
Annie Gulka ◽  
Margaret Holmes

Determining how ant communities are impacted by challenges from habitat fragmentation, such as edge effects, will help us understand how ants may be used as a bioindicator taxon. To assess the impacts of edge effects upon the ant community in a northern temperate deciduous forest, we studied edge and interior sites in Jericho, VT, USA. The edges we focused upon were created by recreational trails. We censused the ants at these sites for two consecutive growing seasons using pitfall traps and litter plot excavations. We also collected nests of the most common ant species at our study sites,Aphaenogaster rudis, for study of colony demography. Significantly greater total numbers of ants and ant nests were found in the edge sites compared to the interior sites but rarefaction analysis showed no significant difference in species richness.Aphaenogaster rudiswas the numerically dominant ant in the habitats sampled but had a greater relative abundance in the interior sites than in the edge sites both in pitfall and litter plot data. Queen number ofA. rudissignificantly differed between the nests collected in the edge versus the interior sites. Habitat-dependent changes in social structure of ants represent another possible indicator of ecosystem health.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fan Liu ◽  
Chuankuan Wang ◽  
Xingchang Wang

Abstract Background Vegetation indices (VIs) by remote sensing are widely used as simple proxies of the gross primary production (GPP) of vegetation, but their performances in capturing the inter-annual variation (IAV) in GPP remain uncertain. Methods We evaluated the performances of various VIs in tracking the IAV in GPP estimated by eddy covariance in a temperate deciduous forest of Northeast China. The VIs assessed included the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), the enhanced vegetation index (EVI), and the near-infrared reflectance of vegetation (NIRv) obtained from tower-radiometers (broadband) and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), respectively. Results We found that 25%–35% amplitude of the broadband EVI tracked the start of growing season derived by GPP (R2: 0.56–0.60, bias < 4 d), while 45% (or 50%) amplitudes of broadband (or MODIS) NDVI represented the end of growing season estimated by GPP (R2: 0.58–0.67, bias < 3 d). However, all the VIs failed to characterize the summer peaks of GPP. The growing-season integrals but not averaged values of the broadband NDVI, MODIS NIRv and EVI were robust surrogates of the IAV in GPP (R2: 0.40–0.67). Conclusion These findings illustrate that specific VIs are effective only to capture the GPP phenology but not the GPP peak, while the integral VIs have the potential to mirror the IAV in GPP.


2004 ◽  
Vol 188 (1-3) ◽  
pp. 197-210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annett Wolf ◽  
Peter Friis Møller ◽  
Richard H.W. Bradshaw ◽  
Jaris Bigler

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document