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Journals & Publications

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  Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment

  At the interface between the terrestrial and marine realms, sandy beaches – such as these in Normandy, in northwest France – provide an assortment of valuable ecosystem services but are jeopardized by multiple threats and fragmented governance. Flanked by dunes and the surf zone, beach systems are collectively subject to so-called “coastal squeeze”, caught in a vise between sea-level rise on one side and development pressures on the other. In the December issue of Frontiers, Defeo et al. explain how in the face of an uncertain future, the sustainable management of sandy beach landscapes will necessitate their consideration as social–ecological systems.

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  Ecology

  Milkweed butterflies, like this Sulawesi common tiger (Danaus genutia leucoglene), supplement their inherent toxicity by feeding on plants that contain hepatotoxic pyrrolizidine alkaloids. These alkaloids not only act as chemical deterrents, but also serve as precursors for the production of pheromones. In their contribution to The Scientific Naturalist section in the December issue of Ecology, Tea et al. find that milkweed butterflies in Sulawesi additionally obtain these alkaloids through wounding and feeding on live caterpillars of other milkweed butterflies. This unusual behavior, termed kleptopharmacophagy, has not been previously reported, and should be looked for elsewhere where milkweed butterflies occur.

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  Ecosphere

  Monarch (Danaus plexippus) larvae are voracious herbivores in their final stage of larval development. In a series of laboratory experiments, Kharouba and Yang tested for direct, indirect, and combined effects of warming on a critical part of the monarch–milkweed interaction. Even in a relatively simple, short-term experiment, the authors found variability among these different effects of warming that highlights challenges for predicting the broader effects of climate warming on ecological communities. Their results are published in the October issue of Ecosphere.

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  Ecological Applications

  The movement and distribution of marine predators can help identify areas for conservation action and support the designation of Marine Protected Areas. In their study published in the December issue of Ecological Applications, Baylis et al. used a range of methods to identify important marine areas for globally significant breeding populations of seals and seabirds on the Patagonian Shelf (including South American fur seals, Arctocephalus australis, pictured here) and quantified spatial overlap with proposed Falkland Islands Marine Managed Areas (MMAs). The authors show that while there is much to celebrate about the proposed MMAs, management at spatial scales matching marine predator movements requires a range of approaches.

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  Ecological Monographs

  A group of female and juvenile waterbuck on the floodplain in Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique in 2017. In their study of this population, published in the November issue of Ecological Monographs, Becker et al. documented extraordinarily high densities of waterbuck on the floodplain and identified the behavioral and ecological mechanisms underpinning the expansion of individuals out of this preferred open habitat and into the historically less-preferred savanna.

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  Bulletin

  In the Networks, Centers, Observatories, and Field Stations section of the October issue of the ESA Bulletin, Flowers et al. share strategies for creating more diverse and inclusive field stations.

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