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nsive consisting of one or more taproots and a network of entangled smaller roots closer to the surface these help trap water and nutrients where the plant can get at them and the dense cover provided by the cushion drastically cuts evaporation this is not an insignificant effect some research has shown that soil moisture in cushion sites can be increased up to 70 above non cushion sites and available nitrogen up to 90 the mean community composition estimates for plants and arthropods associated with cushion plants silene acaulis and open non cushion vegetated microsites note how the cushion positively effects all measurements except in this case diversity of plants molenda 2012 cushion plants often start out by colonizing completely bare soil in the harshest of climates as you can imagine the process of getting started without any existing buffering cushion is a little bit problematic so new cushion establishment is actually rather rare that s okay though because depending on the species a single cushion can reach up 350 years old and some andean species are claimed to have reached 3 000 the cushion grows very slowly much more so than lower elevation plants but can eventually reach up 3 m in diameter cushion species also tend to have very large showy flowers often strongly smelling for their small size which may bloom all at once attracting a greater number of pollinators than if they had smaller flowers or grew more sparsely as you can imagine all these factors contribute to making these cushions ideal microclimates in a very inhospitable habitat what s really interesting is that although cushions of the same plant may reach from the subalpine or even montane habitat to well past timberline and onto nearly bare windswept ridges the general conditions inside the cushion remain fairly constant so at a lower altitude the relative difference in conditions from open ground may not be very large but as the environment becomes higher and colder and windier conditions in the cushion will be vastly different while still resembling conditions inside the lower altitude cushion of the same species the desirable microclimate created by the cushion is not just desirable for the plant itself in fact these plants have been shown to provide habitat for other plants which shelter under the canopy of the cushion as well as a variety of microorganisms and arthropods studies on various species of cushion plant around the world have shown that depending on the type of plant and the location cushion plants may improve species diversity richness or evenness often all three when compared to a similar site with no cushion this has led to cushion plants being variously known as nurse plants ecosystem engineers and foundation species all these terms have different exact meanings but in general refer to a species that alters its environment in such a way that is beneficial or even vital for a number of other species or individuals in that ecosystem in fact the higher up slope you go and the more relative difference between conditions in and outside of the cushion the more important to other species cushion plants seem to be works consulted badano e and cavieres l 2006 impacts of ecosystem engineers on community attributes effects of cushion plants at different elevations of the chilean andes diversity and distributions 12 4 388 396 cavieres l arroyo m t k peñaloza a molina montenegro m and torres c 2002 nurse effect of bolax gummifera cushion plants in the alpine vegetation of the chilean patagonian andes journal of vegetation science 13 547 554 cavieres l badano e sierra almieda a and molina montenegro m 2007 microclimatic modifications of cushion plants and their consequences for seedling survival of native and non native herbaceous species in the high andes of central chile arctic antarctic and alpine research 39 2 229 236 molenda o reid a lortie cj 2012 the alpine cushion plant silene acaulis as foundation species a bug s eye view to facilitation and microclimate plos one 7 5 e37223 morris w and doak d 1998 life history of the long lived gynodioecious cushion plant silene acaulis caryophyllaceae inferred from size based population projection matrices american journal of botany 85 6 784 793 posted in alpine arctic ecology botany community ecology flowers local ecology mutualism plant ecology old bones new conservation tool december 19 2012 1 comment let me start out by saying i love yellowstone national park it is easily my favorite place i ve ever been to so i m always excited when new research comes out of yellowstone particular when it s research that could mean a lot for conservation in the park and elsewhere a recent paper in ecology by josh miller outlines a new method of using bone assemblages of elk in yellowstone as a means of discovering things about the population both in time how the population changes over decades and space how the animals use the resources available to them while the yellowstone ecosystem has been very heavily studied especially for the last 20 30 years there are still plenty of gaps in the data particular in terms of historical records about any given species it s important to understand as long a span of history about a population as is possible so that you can tell if short term changes in a population s structure abundance or movements are just a natural fluctuation or indicative of a trend or permanent shift the better the historical data the better conservationists can accurately determine how to manage a population and know whether it s in trouble the problem is the kind of decades long multi generational studies required to gather this kind of data are hard to get funded and difficult to maintain over the careers of perhaps several researchers and even if a very long term study starts now that doesn t help provide historical data from a hundred years ago or more so conservation ecologists try to find other methods to learn about the habits of previous generations of populations such as looking at soil cores but it can be hard to find a method that is reliable across the board particularly for different species in addition large migratory mammals present a special challenge because scientists need to know their seasonal movements as well as the population structure when reading the paper i was surprised at how seemingly simple the concept behind it was and that it hadn t been thought of until recently scientists have used bone assemblages previously to determine things about the structure and abundance of a population but using them to learn about populations over a long period or their seasonal movements is a pretty new idea and one that had never been tested on a large north american mammal before miller didn t originally set out to study modern ecosystems or develop a new tool for conservation he s a paleontologist by training and was originally looking for a reliable way to estimate population size of certain dinosaurs based on the fossil record to do this he needed to compare a live population of large animals to the bones they left behind and come up with some kind of ratio that could be applied to extinct animals but once he started studying ungulates he realized that there was much more data in the bones that was not being put to use part of the reason for this is that bones have generally been considered only to persist a short time in nature but in fact they can hang around on the surface for decades to more than a century in addition it s fairly easy to tell approximately how old a bone is by its rate of weathering antler and neonatal bone concentrations within the study area miller 2012 in this study 1 km square plots were established in 4 different habitats grassland lake margin conifer forest and river margin across the study area without regard for any current data on elk migration or use of certain areas researchers walked a set transect line though the study plots recording every bone of every kind they could see the main area of interest to this particular study were the antlers shed by male elk during the winter and the bones of recently born baby elk the reasons for this is that there is an abundance of both all males shed their antlers and the infant mortality rate for elk can be upwards of 80 and that both of these say something specific about the elk s seasonal habits antlers are a clue to the elk s annual wintering grounds and an abundance of calf bones points to the seasonal calving areas both major yearly events that dictate the animals migratory patterns surveys were conducted three years running and then the data on antlers and neonatal bones were compared with aerial surveys of live elk over a decade it was found that the bone assemblages can accurately delineate elk wintering and calving grounds by using the bone concentration to estimate the expected number of live elk found there in fact for bull elk wintering grounds the method was found to be even more consistently accurate than live aerial surveys comparison of survey methods for bull elk wintering grounds miller 2012 the reason this is so exciting is that not only is there now a useful method for prediction a modern population s use of the land through bone assemblages but it allows scientists to study how the land use has changed over time bone assemblages from the past where no or few live elk or recent remains are found means that the animals habits have changed live surveys provide a snap shot of what is happening in a particular season and when combined over several years or decades provide a short term view of populations changes bone assemblages are averaged over a long period time and provide excellent data on the population for up to a century past in addition bone surveys like this can take place in the summer and still provide data on winter usage and are in general less expensive to perform than aerial surveys they can be superior in certain habitats such as densely forested areas where it is difficult to see the animals from above bone surveys are also less invasive than most live surveys for the animals thus less likely to change their behavior due to observation and safer for researchers this study also opens the door for exciting new possibilities such as maybe using approximate ages of bones to gain data on changes in use and abundance of populate by decade instead of only a time averaged view i really look forward to seeing where this research leads both in yellowstone elk and when applied to other species it seems like this technique is really starting to catch on for many different kinds of animals in various habitats and i think it will prove to be a very important conservation tool in the future note i have only outlined the central conclusion of this research there are many other interesting facets to it i would encourage everyone to read the paper as well as miller s previous one to understand the full scope of the study and methods calculations used works consulted farke a 8 april 2011 life after death at yellowstone an interview with josh miller the open source paleontologist blog retrieved 12 19 12 lester liza 10 december 2012 elk bones tell stories of life death and habitat use at yellowstone national park esa ecotone blog retrieved 12 19 12 miller j h 2011 ghosts of yellowstone multi decadal histories of wildlife populations captured by bones on a modern landscape plos one 6 e18057 miller joshua h 2012 spatial fidelity of skeletal remains elk wintering and calving grounds revealed by bones on the yellowstone landscape ecology 93 2474 2482 primary source posted in animal behavior conservation natural history population ecology wildlife ecology winter ecology book review american bison december 12 2012 leave a comment what two blog posts in two days what kind of insane world is this i wasn t sure what to expect when i picked up american bison a natural history by dale e lott other than a lot of information about bison obviously i kind of thought it would be a dry technical volume which i wouldn t have minded too much but i was pleasantly surprised to find a broad accessible summary of bison ecology and behavior the author not only has done a large amount of research on bison behavior but he grew up in and around the national bison range in montana with a father and grandfather who worked managing the herds he provides a knowledgeable enthusiastic and even loving voice for his topic without seeming overly sentimental or dogmatic about any of his subjects the book is organized into several sections including ones on behavior biology history conservation and other organisms interactions and influence on the bison in each section he gave some basic general information about the topic he was pursuing and then went into detail on just a few specific areas in that larger subject i appreciated this approach because he provided the the reader a basic foundation to work on as well as really getting into the science and providing information that even people familiar with bison might not know without overwhelming the reader with more facts than they could remember or too much jargon for the layperson the strength of this book was really in its accessibility to the topic without dumbing down too much and in its breadth it lives up to its subtitle a natural history in that it really attempts and mostly succeeds in providing a relatively complete picture of the species past present and potential future i would recommend this book for the casual bison lover looking to learn more and to anyone interested in wildlife ecology in general but who maybe doesn t know much about the basics it provides a good introduction to larger ecological and conservation concepts as part of the case study of bison but in a way that is broadly applicable the field as a whole one last thing i particularly noticed and appreciated was that while the author did talk about his own research a lot he included research from other sources and was careful to talk about ways in which the research differed this was most notable in the section on behavior where bison behavior varies greatly between several populations that were studied this seems to be due to resource availability i think it s important to show that a species is not always homogenous across its range and that different studies may show different results for a variety of reasons american bison is not a perfect book but it is well written informative and a fairly quick read for a popular science book i wouldn t recommend it for someone already moderately well versed about bison ecology as it is unlikely they would find any new information in it or for someone looking for a lot of detail about any one aspect of bison natural history such as the history of bison hunting or their digestive biology but it s great for the beginner enthusiast and even for more serious students of ecology who have general knowledge but not much specific knowledge about this 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