Kevin D. Lafferty results 53
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SNAPSHOT USA 2024: Year 6 of the Coordinated National Camera Trap Survey of the United StatesNARA Subscribed
Motivation SNAPSHOT USA is an annual, multi‐contributor camera trap survey of mammals across the United States. The growing SNAPSHOT USA dataset is intended for tracking the spatial and temporal responses of mammal populations to changes in land use, land cover and climate. These data will be useful for exploring the drivers of spatial and temporal changes in relative abundance and distribution, as well as the impacts of speci...
Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD) has devastated Caribbean coral reefs since 2014, but its potential for global impact remains uncertain. We developed predictive models to assess the worldwide vulnerability of coral reefs to SCTLD under different origin and spread hypotheses. Using random forest regression models incorporating coral taxonomy and zooxanthellae clade associations from 52 taxa, we projected SCTLD susceptibi...
Multi‐Species Telemetry Quantifies Current and Future Efficacy of a Remote Marine Protected AreaNARA Subscribed
Large‐scale marine protected areas (LSMPAs; > 1000 km 2 ) provide important refuge for large mobile species, but most do not encompass species' ranges. To better understand current and future LSMPA value, we concurrently tracked nine species (seabirds, cetaceans, pelagic fishes, manta rays, reef sharks) at Palmyra Atoll and Kingman Reef (PKMPA) in the U.S. Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument. PKMPA and the U.S. E...
In temperate lakes, eutrophication and warm temperatures can promote cyanobacteria blooms that reduce water quality and impair food-chain support. Although parasitic chytrids of phytoplankton might compete with zooplankton, they also indirectly support zooplankton populations through the “mycoloop”, which helps move energy and essential dietary molecules from inedible phytoplankton to zooplankton. Here, we consider how the myc...
Parasites alter food-web topology of a subarctic lake food web and its pelagic and benthic compartmentsNARA Subscribed
We compared three sets of highly resolved food webs with and without parasites for a subarctic lake system corresponding to its pelagic and benthic compartments and the whole-lake food web. Key topological food-web metrics were calculated for each set of compartments to explore the role parasites play in food-web topology in these highly contrasting webs. After controlling for effects from differences in web size, we observed...
Predator–prey interactions of terrestrial invertebrates are determined by predator body size and species identityNARA Subscribed
Predator–prey interactions shape ecosystems and can help maintain biodiversity. However, for many of the earth's most biodiverse and abundant organisms, including terrestrial arthropods, these interactions are difficult or impossible to observe directly with traditional approaches. Based on previous theory, it is likely that predator–prey interactions for these organisms are shaped by a combination of predator traits, includin...
Transient disease dynamics across ecological scalesNARA Subscribed
Analyses of transient dynamics are critical to understanding infectious disease transmission and persistence. Identifying and predicting transients across scales, from within-host to community-level patterns, plays an important role in combating ongoing epidemics and mitigating the risk of future outbreaks. Moreover, greater emphases on non-asymptotic processes will enable timely evaluations of wildlife and human diseases and...
At Palmyra Atoll , the fish‐community environmental DNA signal changes across habitats but not with tidesNARA Subscribed
At Palmyra Atoll, the environmental DNA (eDNA) signal on tidal sand flats was associated with fish biomass density and captured 98%–100% of the expected species diversity there. Although eDNA spilled over across habitats, species associated with reef habitat contributed more eDNA to reef sites than to sand‐flat sites, and species associated with sand‐flat habitat contributed more eDNA to sand‐flat sites than to reef sites. Tid...
Looking where it's hard to see: a case study documenting rare Eucyclogobius newberryi presence in a California lagoonNARA Subscribed
Environmental DNA (eDNA) analysis is increasingly used for biomonitoring and research of fish populations and communities by environmental resource managers and academic researchers. Although managers are much interested in expanding the use of eDNA as a survey technique, they are sceptical about both its utility (given that information is often limited to presence/absence of a species) and feasibility (given the need for prop...
Infection at an ecotone: cross‐system foraging increases satellite parasites but decreases core parasites in raccoonsNARA Subscribed
Ecotones can increase free‐living species richness, but little is known about how parasites respond to ecotones. Here, we use parasite communities in raccoons ( Procyon lotor ) to test the hypothesis that parasite communities can be divided into core and satellite species, each with fundamentally different responses to ecotones. We used published parasite surveys to classify parasites as common core or rare satellite species,...
Local and global measurements of parasite prevalence and abundance are critical for understanding the dynamics that underlie the diversity, distribution, and evolution of infectious diseases. Here, we present a data set of gut helminths found in (1) raccoons throughout their range, based on primary literature from 1925–2017 and (2) raccoons in Santa Barbara County, California, USA surveyed from 2012 to 2015. The range‐wide dat...
Species insurance trumps spatial insurance in stabilizing biomass of a marine macroalgal metacommunityNARA Subscribed
Because natural ecosystems are complex, it is difficult to predict how their variability scales across space and levels of organization. The species‐insurance hypothesis predicts that asynchronous dynamics among species should reduce variability when biomass is aggregated either from local species populations to local multispecies communities, or from metapopulations to metacommunities. Similarly, the spatial‐insurance hypothe...
We examined the extent to which supply‐side, niche, and competition theories and concepts help explain a trematode community in which one species comprises 87% of the trematode individuals, and the remaining 15 species each have Heleobia australis over four seasons from three distinct habitats from the intertidal area of the Bahía Blanca estuary, Argentina. Inside a snail, trematodes interact with each other with outcomes that...
Parasitologists have worked out many complex life cycles over the last ~150 yr, yet there have been few efforts to synthesize this information to facilitate comparisons among taxa. Most existing host–parasite databases focus on particular host taxa, do not distinguish final from intermediate hosts, and lack parasite life‐history information. We summarized the known life cycles of trophically transmitted parasitic acanthocephal...
The role of competition – colonization tradeoffs and spatial heterogeneity in promoting trematode coexistenceNARA Subscribed
Competition – colonization tradeoffs occur in many systems, and theory predicts that they can strongly promote species coexistence. However, there is little empirical evidence that observed competition‐ colonization tradeoffs are strong enough to maintain diversity in natural systems. This is due in part to a mismatch between theoretical assumptions and biological reality in some systems. We tested whether a competition – colo...
Managing Bay and Estuarine Ecosystems for Multiple ServicesNARA Subscribed
Understanding uncertainty in temperature effects on vector‐borne disease: a Bayesian approachNARA Subscribed
Extrinsic environmental factors influence the distribution and population dynamics of many organisms, including insects that are of concern for human health and agriculture. This is particularly true for vector‐borne infectious diseases like malaria, which is a major source of morbidity and mortality in humans. Understanding the mechanistic links between environment and population processes for these diseases is key to predict...
Does biodiversity protect humans against infectious disease?NARA Subscribed
Control of human infectious disease has been promoted as a valuable ecosystem service arising from the conservation of biodiversity. There are two commonly discussed mechanisms by which biodiversity loss could increase rates of infectious disease in a landscape. First, loss of competitors or predators could facilitate an increase in the abundance of competent reservoir hosts. Second, biodiversity loss could disproportionately...
A multi‐decade time series of kelp forest community structure at the California Channel IslandsNARA Subscribed
Studies of temperate rocky reef communities have added much to our understanding of ecology. However, data on these reef communities can be difficult to obtain; wind, waves, and poor underwater visibility often prevent research diving, and even under the best conditions only a few hours a day can be spent underwater collecting data. Here, we present data on temperate subtidal reef communities at 33 sites, almost half of which...
Our data set includes 38 008 fish parasite records (for Acanthocephala, Cestoda, Monogenea, Nematoda, Trematoda) compiled from the scientific literature, Internet databases, and museum collections paired to the corresponding host ecological, biogeographical, and phylogenetic traits (maximum length, growth rate, life span, age at maturity, trophic level, habitat preference, geographical range size, taxonomy). The data focus on...
Optimal temperature for malaria transmission is dramatically lower than previously predictedNARA Subscribed
The ecology of mosquito vectors and malaria parasites affect the incidence, seasonal transmission and geographical range of malaria. Most malaria models to date assume constant or linear responses of mosquito and parasite life‐history traits to temperature, predicting optimal transmission at 31 °C. These models are at odds with field observations of transmission dating back nearly a century. We build a model with more realisti...