BACKGROUND Synchrony among populations has been attributed to three major hypotheses: dispersal, the Moran effect, and trophic-level interactions. Unfortunately, simultaneous testing of these hypotheses demands complete and detailed data, which are scarce for ecological systems. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Hudson's Bay Company data on mink and muskrat fur returns in Canada represent an exc...

BACKGROUND Trigeminal trophic syndrome is a rare complication of peripheral or central damage to the trigeminal nerve characterized by anesthesia, paresthesia and a secondary persistent facial ulceration. METHODS We describe the case of a 40-year-old woman with previous history of Le Fort I osteotomy for a class III malocclusion who developed trigeminal trophic syndrome. Atypically, the cutan...

Exploited ecosystems are characterised by exports of secondary production from each fished trophic level that reduce the energy available for upper levels at the ecosystem scale, thus impinging on overall secondary production. Depletion in secondary production is proposed here as a proxy for quantifying the ecosystem effects of fishing. Theoretical analysis of trophic web interactions permits t...

The development of an area-based polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) food-web bioaccumulation model enabled a critical evaluation of the efficacy of sediment quality criteria and prey tissue residue guidelines in protecting fish-eating resident killer whales of British Columbia and adjacent waters. Model-predicted and observed PCB concentrations in resident killer whales and Chinook salmon were in g...

Human population growth and development have heavily degraded coastal ecosystems with cascading impacts across multiple trophic levels. Understanding both the direct and indirect trophic effects of human activities is important for coastal conservation. In New England, recreational overfishing has triggered a regional trophic cascade. Predator depletion releases the herbivorous purple marsh cra...

Background: Present study was conducted to measure the level of total mercury (tHg) in sediments, benthos and benthivorous fish (i.e., common carp) for determining Biota (Benthos)-Sediment Accumulation Factor (BSAF), as well as Biomagnification Factor (BMF) of tHg between two trophic levels of benthos and benthivorous fish caught from Sanandaj Gheshlagh Reservoir (SGR) in the west of Iran. Met...

Trophic cascades are indirect positive effects of predators on resources via control of intermediate consumers. Larger-bodied predators appear to induce stronger trophic cascades (a greater rebound of resource density toward carrying capacity), but how this happens is unknown because we lack a clear depiction of how the strength of trophic cascades is determined. Using consumer resource models,...

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) offer a unique opportunity to test the assumption that fishing pressure affects some trophic groups more than others. Removal of larger predators through fishing is often suggested to have positive flow-on effects for some lower trophic groups, in which case protection from fishing should result in suppression of lower trophic groups as predator populations recover...