The processes in natural systems and the patterns that result from them occur in ecological space and time. To study natural systems and to understand the functional processes that are related to them, we need to identify the relevant spatial and temporal scales at which these occur. While the spatial and temporal dimensions of ecological phenomena have always been inherent in the conceptual fr...

Lessons learned from the study of ecological succession have much to offer contemporary environmental problem solving but these lessons are being underutilized. As anthropogenic disturbances increase, succession is more relevant than ever. In this review, we suggest that succession is particularly suitable to address concerns about biodiversity loss, climate change, invasive species, and ecolog...

The paper introduces a real-time monitoring and forecasting system for ecological phenomena. The process yields a collection of ecological parameters viewed as distributed time series, which are measured by means of wireless network of sensors. The acquired data are preliminary processed and modeled by using complex algorithms in view of prediction. There are three graphical user interfaces imp...

Biologists have long been fascinated by species’ borders, and with good reason. Understanding the ecological and evolutionary dynamics of species’ borders may prove to be the key that unlocks new understanding across a wide range of biological phenomena. After all, geographic range limits are a point of entry into understanding the ecological niche and threshold responses to environmental chang...

Ecological indicators, historical land use, and invasive species detection in the lower Iowa River floodplain." MA has been approved by the Examining Committee for the thesis requirement for the Master of Arts degree in Geography at the May 2014 graduation.

The current study used ecological momentary assessment to test several tenets of the reserve capacity model (L.C. Gallo & K. A. Matthews, 2003). Women (N = 108) with varying socioeconomic status (SES) monitored positive and negative psychosocial experiences and emotions across 2 days. Measures of intrapsychic and social resources were aggregated to represent the reserve capacity available to ma...

We address the question how citation-based bibliometric indicators can best be normalized to ensure fair comparisons between publications from different scientific fields and different years. In a systematic large-scale empirical analysis, we compare a traditional normalization approach based on a field classification system with three source normalization approaches. We pay special attention t...

Independent evolutionary lineages often display similar characteristics in comparable environments. Three kinds of historical hypotheses could explain this convergence. The first is adaptive and evolutionary: nonrandom patterns may result from analogous evolutionary responses to shared conditions. The second explanation is exaptive and ecological: species may be filtered by their suitability fo...