The dynamics of ecological communities have been described by neutral and niche theories that are now increasingly integrated into unified models. It is known that a critical transition exists between these two states, but the spatial aspect of this …
Knowledge of the food web structure and complexity are central to better understand ecosystem functioning. A food-web approach includes both species and energy flows among them, providing a natural framework for characterizing species’ ecological …
The search for general properties in network structure has been a central issue for food web studies in recent years. One such property is the small-world topology that combines a high clustering and a small distance between nodes of the network. …
Antarctica is seriously affected by climate change, particularly at the Western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) where a rapid regional warming is observed. Potter Cove is a WAP fjord at Shetland Islands that constitutes a biodiversity hotspot where over …
The replacement of forest areas with human-dominated landscapes usually leads to fragmentation, altering the structure and function of the forest. Here we studied the dynamics of forest patch sizes at a global level, examining signals of a critical …
Abstract Intertidal zones are one of the most studied habitats in the world. However, in Antarctica, further studies are needed for a more complete understanding of these systems. When conspicuous Antarctic intertidal communities occur, macroalgae …
The objective of this study was to relate earthworm assemblage structure with three different soil use intensities, and to indentify the physical, chemical, and microbiological soil variables that are associated to the observed differences. Three …
Multifractals have been applied to characterize complex communities in a spatial context. They were developed for nonlinear systems and are particularly suited to capture multiplicative processes observed in ecological systems. Multifractals …