Understanding how governance structures align to ecological processes in a landscape is critical for effective management of ecological resources. Ecological resources are not independent from each other, instead they are interconnected, and their well-being is often critically dependent on upholding ecological connectivity, especially in times of change and disturbances. Coordination and colla...

Disturbance regimes are changing rapidly, and the consequences of such changes for ecosystems and linked social-ecological systems will be profound. This paper synthesizes current understanding of disturbance with an emphasis on fundamental contributions to contemporary landscape and ecosystem ecology, then identifies future research priorities. Studies of disturbance led to insights about hete...

6 Abstract The decline of coral reefs has been broadly 7 attributed to human stressors being too strong and perva8 sive, whereas biological processes that may render coral 9 reefs fragile have been sparsely considered. Here we 10 review several ecological factors that can limit the ability 11 of coral reefs to withstand disturbance. These include: (1) 12 Many species lack the adaptive capacity ...

Anthropogenic disturbances affecting tropical forest reserves have been documented, but their ecological long-term cumulative effects are poorly understood. Habitat fragmentation and defaunation are two major anthropogenic threats to the integrity of tropical reserves. Based on a long-term (four decades) study, we document how these disturbances synergistically disrupt ecological processes and ...

Ecological systems with hierarchical organization and non-equilibrium dynamics require multiple-scale analyses to comprehend how a system is structured and to formulate hypotheses about regulatory mechanisms. Characteristic scales in real landscapes are determined by, or at least reflect, the spatial patterns and scales of constraining human interactions with the biophysical environment. If the...

The ability to predict the responses of ecological communities and individual species to human-induced environmental change remains a key issue for ecologists and conservation managers alike. Responses are often variable among species within groups making general predictions difficult. One option is to include ecological trait information that might help to disentangle patterns of response and ...

We reviewed the development of ideas and empirical understanding about disturbance in lotic ecosystems by providing a pre-1986 historic context and highlighting major themes that have emerged in the 25 y since the inception of J-NABS. Disturbance was not well incorporated into stream ecological thinking before 1986, but awareness of its significance began to emerge in the early 1980s, as demons...

Oral administration of antibiotics for treatment of urinary tract infections (UTIs) can cause ecological disturbances in the normal intestinal microflora. Poorly absorbed drugs can reach the colon in active form, suppress susceptible microorganisms and disturb the ecological balance. Suppression of the normal microflora may lead to reduced colonization resistance with subsequent overgrowth of p...

Management practices can disturb ecological communities in grazing lands, which represent one-quarter of land surface. But three knowledge gaps exist regarding disturbances: disturbances potentially interact but are most often studied singly; experiments with multiple ecosystems as treatment units are rare; and relatively new metrics of phylogenetic community structure have not been widely appl...