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Isolation and cultivation of microbes from environmental samples have been fundamental and important for species identification and investigating functions and ecology of target microbes. While cultivation and isolation of microbes are not easy, the natural environment can “culture” any endemic microbes, and thus key information for culturing and isolating microbes may be encoded in the natural population dynamics of microbes. In this paper, I present the idea that culturability of microbes may be inferred by quantifying dynamics properties of microbes using nonlinear time series analytical tools. To briefly demonstrate the idea, I analyzed high-frequency, quantitative microbial time series obtained for artificial rice plots established at Kyoto University, Japan. I selected bacterial phyla that included sufficient numbers of microbial taxa, and analyzed 398 microbial taxa using empirical dynamic modeling. The nine phyla analyzed generally followed a similar pattern: many microbial taxa fell into the “Simple” dynamics category, and a small proportion of taxa were categorized in “Simple but nonlinear” or “Nearly random” dynamics categories. The present analysis suggested that many microbes in the study system might be cultivated by modifying a relatively small number of conditions. However, the present idea as well as the result is preliminary and premature, and more precise taxonomic information (i.e., species-level identification) and a culturability dataset will help to validate the idea. If the present idea was found to be valid, a priori evaluation of the culturability of microbes would become possible, which would avoid unnecessary costs (labor, time and money) of attempts to cultivate microbes.

Even though individual life history is the focus of much ecological research, its importance for the dynamics and structure of ecological communities is unclear, or is it a topic of much ongoing research. In this paper I highlight the key life history traits that may lead to effects of life history or ontogeny on ecological communities. I show that asymmetries in the extent of food limitation between individuals in different life stage can give rise to an increase in efficiency with which resources are used for population growth when conditions change. This change in efficiency may result in a positive relationship between stage‐specific density and mortality. The positive relationship between density and mortality in turn leads to predictions about community structure that are not only diametrically opposite to the expectations based on theory that ignores population structure but are also intuitively hard to accept. I provide a few examples that illustrate how taking into account intraspecific differences due to ontogeny radically changes the theoretical expectations regarding the possible outcomes of community dynamics. As the most compelling example I show how a so‐called double‐handicapped looser, that is, a consumer species that is both competitively inferior in the absence of predators and experiences higher mortality when predators are present, can nonetheless oust its opponent that it competes with for the same resource and is exposed to the same predator., Individual life history is often ignored in dynamic models of interacting populations, which tend to be formulated in terms of total densities of identical individuals. However, the consequences of differences between conspecific individuals that arise from differences in their developmental state are substantial and often counterintuitive. This paper reviews these community consequences and discusses under what conditions life history differences will be important.

Southeast Asia is a hotspot of global seagrass diversity, offering valuable ecosystem services for human life. However, historically, there have been large gaps in the scientific knowledge of the distribution of seagrass beds in this region. Information on the distribution has not been updated in global databases since the publication of the World Seagrass Atlas in 2003, which was based on data mostly obtained up until the late 1990s. We collected more recent data on seagrass bed distribution from nine ASEAN countries plus southern China and southern Japan, and integrated these data into a geographic information system (GIS)-database. A total of 1,064 polygon data and 937 points data were uploaded in this paper, which were obtained from 107 scientific articles and reports published after 2000, including those written in local languages. Among them, 7.3% of the data have associated information on seagrass bed size and 35.3% have associated information on seagrass species composition. Data obtained from Vietnam, Cambodia, Singapore, Timore-Leste and Southern China cover almost all the coastlines of each country, whereas data for the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand still have large gaps in areal coverage. The data set has a few points from Brunei Darussalam, the Paracel Islands, Spratly Islands and Pratas Islands, which are areas that we lacked information on for a long time. The obtained data will be useful to understand the current status of seagrass beds and to help facilitate better conservation and management of coastal areas in this region. The complete data set for this abstract published in the Data Paper section of the journal is available in electronic format in MetaCat in JaLTER at .

Shigeru Nakano was a Japanese ecologist whose work crossed boundaries among subdisciplines in ecology, between aquatic and terrestrial habitats, and between different languages and cultures. He published his first paper in 1985 while still an undergraduate, and is well known for his early research on the individual behavior of stream salmonids in dominance hierarchies. Shortly after completing his Master’s degree in 1987 he began collaborating with many graduate students and other scientists, including those from the US, and expanded his research to include factors controlling stream salmonid distribution and abundance across spatial scales ranging from local to landscape levels. In 1995 he moved to a research station in southwestern Hokkaido and began new collaborative research on interactions between forest and stream food webs. Nakano pioneered large-scale field experiments using greenhouses to sever the reciprocal fluxes of invertebrate prey between stream and riparian food webs. The strong direct and indirect effects of isolating these food webs from each other on organisms ranging from stream algae to fish, riparian spiders, and bats have revealed new linkages and explained phenomena that were previously unexplained. When combined with similar results from other investigators, they have created a paradigm shift in ecology. Shigeru Nakano was lost at sea in Baja California on March 27, 2000 at the age of 37, but key papers from his 15-year career set new standards for rigor, detail, and synthesis. They continue to be highly cited and inspire new research, and to foster new collaborations among Japanese and western scientists.

The origin and patterns of species diversity are fundamental themes in ecology and evolutionary biology. Insular systems play an important role in biogeography, and the species richness within an insular system has classically been considered as determined by the balance between the rate of speciation plus net migration and the rate of species extinction. A recent wave of studies integrating comprehensive phenotypic, phylogenetic, and environmental data is accumulating additional macroevolutionary insights at unprecedented scales. In this review, I summarize and discuss the hypothesis that intermediate dispersal ability leads to clades with high species diversity by recurrent speciation events (referred to as the intermediate dispersal hypothesis, IDH). Although some recent empirical and theoretical studies have supported the IDH, further integration of other ecological and evolutionary concepts spanning different timescales is needed to resolve long-standing debates about the non-linear relationship between diversification and organismal dispersal ability. This paper presents a framework for future studies that intend to test the IDH; I organize the factors that should be taken into account, including the indices for quantifying dispersal ability and species diversification, and methods of taxon sampling. The IDH requires more attention and could be used to unveil the diversity of extant species and how dispersal ability affects rates of speciation and extinction.

A series of papers have been published which describe the influence of vegetation and soil type on the Western Australian wheatbelt termite,Drepanotermes tamminensis (Hill), and also on its litter harvesting levels and contribution to the soil nutrient budget. This paper integrates these findings by means of a computer simulation model. The model consists of three modules which respectively describe the dynamics of litter on the ground, the dynamics of litter within termite mounds and how these in turn influence nutrient loads within the habitat. The outputs of the model suggest that this litter harvesting termite plays an important role in the nutrient dynamics of the area and it provides an estimate of the unmeasured variable, litter consumed in mounds by termites, which is consistent with measurements for other termite species with similar feeding habits.

Even though individual life history is the focus of much ecological research, its importance for the dynamics and structure of ecological communities is unclear, or is it a topic of much ongoing research. In this paper I highlight the key life history traits that may lead to effects of life history or ontogeny on ecological communities. I show that asymmetries in the extent of food limitation between individuals in different life stage can give rise to an increase in efficiency with which resources are used for population growth when conditions change. This change in efficiency may result in a positive relationship between stage-specific density and mortality. The positive relationship between density and mortality in turn leads to predictions about community structure that are not only diametrically opposite to the expectations based on theory that ignores population structure but are also intuitively hard to accept. I provide a few examples that illustrate how taking into account intraspecific differences due to ontogeny radically changes the theoretical expectations regarding the possible outcomes of community dynamics. As the most compelling example I show how a so-called double-handicapped looser, that is, a consumer species that is both competitively inferior in the absence of predators and experiences higher mortality when predators are present, can nonetheless oust its opponent that it competes with for the same resource and is exposed to the same predator.

This data paper describes the densities of the bacterioplankton, picocyanobacteria, eukaryotic picoplankton, heterotrophic nanoflagellates and ciliates in the water of Lake Kasumigaura—a shallow, eutrophic lake that is the second largest in Japan. All of these planktonic organisms are components of a microbial loop and are countable using an epifluorescence microscope. These data represent the results of monthly collections from April 1996 through March 2010 at two sites on the lake, and this data set is unique among the available published data papers concerning lakes or plankton and continues to be freely available. The monitoring was performed as a component of the Lake Kasumigaura Long-term Environmental Monitoring program conducted by National Institute for Environmental Studies since 1977 and includes water quality, plankton, and benthos. The data have been used for ecological studies and for studies on the management of water quality.

This data paper reports the abundance of phytoplankton species in monthly or biweekly samples collected from May 1978 through March 2010 at two stations on Lake Kasumigaura, a shallow lake that is the second-largest lake in Japan. The data set of quantitatively over several decades is unique among the available published data papers concerning lakes or plankton and continues to be freely available. The monitoring has been performed as a component of the Lake Kasumigaura Long-term Environmental Monitoring program, conducted by the National Institute for Environmental Studies since 1977. The data set details 173 phytoplankton species (or taxa), which can be identified by using an optical microscope and records their abundance. The abundance of each species is expressed in units of volume (μm3) per milliliter of lake water. This approach allows quantitative comparisons among taxa because the cell size of phytoplankton varies by several orders of magnitude among taxa. The phytoplankton data include 39 species (taxa) of Cyanophyta, 67 Chlorophyceae (Chlorophyta), 3 Prasinophyceae (Chlorophyta), 1 Raphidophyceae (Heterokontophyta), 6 Euglenophyceae (Euglenozoa), 4 Dinophyceae (Dinophyta), 38 Bacillariophyceae (Heterokontophyta), 6 Chrysophyceae (Heterokontophyta), 7 Xanthophyceae (Heterokontophyta), 1 Cryptophyceae (Cryptophyta) and 1 Prymnesiophyceae (Haptophyta). The data have been used for ecological and environmental studies and for studies on lake management.

The peer-review system ensures the reliability of academic publication. However, authors may be unsatisfied with the duration of peer-review and/or the reviewers' comments, whereas both reviewers and editors have many concerns over peer-reviewing. To provide information to increase the efficiency of the peer-review process for authors, reviewers and editors, we analyzed recent trends in publication and peer-review processes in Ecological Research, and asked Editorial Board members to answer an online questionnaire. The acceptance rate of Original Articles, which accounted for 89.2% of all submissions, was 20.1%, whereas those of Special Features, Data Papers, and Technical Reports were 76.3, 73.7 and 38.3%, respectively. The median number of days to final decision was 168 for accepted manuscripts. The stage when handling editors invited reviewers to review was the longest stage during the peer-review process. This stage was prolonged when potential reviewers declined the invitations to review. The results of the questionnaire revealed that both editors and reviewers felt burdened by the load of peer-reviewing. Most editors encountered declining of peer-review invitations. As the period of assigning reviewers is the most important step in determining the number of days to the final decision, the editorial office should support handling editors to locate reviewers. Motivating reviewers to review manuscripts is another way to speed up the process. Since many respondents indicated that improvements in the logical structure and English standard of manuscripts would facilitate review, authors could improve the process by carefully preparing their manuscripts with consideration to readers, including voluntary reviewers and editors.

The paper summarizes literature on climate, soil chemistry, vegetation and metal accumulation by plants found on ultramafic substrata in the circumboreal zone (sensu Takhtajan, Floristic regions of the world, 1986) of the Northern Hemisphere. We present a list of 50 endemic species and 18 ecotypes obligate to ultramafic soils from the circumboreal region of Holarctic, as well as 30 and 2 species of Ni and Zn hyperaccumulators, respectively. The number of both endemics and hyperaccumulators are markedly lower compared to that of the Mediterranean and tropical regions. The diversity of plant communities on ultramafics soils of the circumboral region is also described. The underlying causes for the differences of ultramafic flora between arctic, cold, cool temperate and Mediterranean and tropical regions are also discussed. © 2018, The Ecological Society of Japan.

Tropical forests are characterized by high biodiversity and aboveground biomass growing on strongly weathered soils. However, the distribution of plant species and soils are highly variable even within a tropical region. This paper reviews existing and novel knowledge on soil genesis, plant and microbial physiology, and biogeochemistry. Typically, forests in Southeast Asia are dominated by dipterocarps growing on acidic Ultisols from relatively young parent material. In the Neotropics and Africa, forests contain abundant legume trees growing on Oxisols developed in the older parent materials on stable continental shields. In Southeast Asia, the removal of base cations from the surface soil due to leaching and uptake by dipterocarp trees result in intensive acidification and accumulation of exchangeable Al3+, which is toxic to most plants. Nutrient mining by ectomycorrhizal fungi and efficient allocation within tree organs can supply phosphorus (P) for reproduction (e.g., mast fruiting) even on P-limited soils. In the Neotropics and Africa, nitrogen (N) fixation by legume trees can ameliorate N or P limitation but excess N can promote acidification through nitrification. Biological weathering [e.g., plant silicon (Si) cycling] and leaching can lead to loss of Si from soil. The resulting accumulation of Al and Fe oxides in Oxisols that can reduce P solubility through sorption and lead to limitation of P relative to N. Thus, geographical variation in geology and plant species drives patterns of soil weathering and niche differentiation at the global scale in tropical forests.

Our human-dominant world can be viewed as being built up in two parts, social and ecological systems, each consisting of multi-level organizations that interact in a complex manner. However, there are knowledge gaps among those interactions. In this paper, we focus on studies filling two types of gaps in the socioecological system, some of which are case studies in the East Asia region and others are discussed in a more general context. First, we address the gaps between different levels of organizations in ecological systems, namely, (1) the importance of plant trait plasticity in bridging evolution and ecology, (2) linking primary producer diversity and the dynamics of blue carbon in coastal ecosystems in the Asia–Pacific region, and (3) research direction of climate change biology to fill the gaps across evolution, community, and ecosystem. Also included is (4) the gap between ecological monitoring programs and theories, which also addresses the potential of citizen science. Second, we illustrate the gaps between ecological and social systems through ongoing development of an ecosystem management framework, i.e., ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction. Finally, we summarize the benefits of filling the gaps for ecologists and society.

In 2016, Ecological Research (ER) celebrated its 30th anniversary. ER’s goal is to be the leading ecological, evolutionary, and biodiversity journal in Asia. This article introduces the development of ER, improvements to its editorial system and their outcomes, and the strategies designed to achieve this goal. ER has already become a leading comprehensive and international publication as shown by statistical evidence and its strong editorial foundation. However, some members of the Ecological Society of Japan (ESJ) retain impressions of an old stereotype about ER. The discrepancy between the current status of the journal and its stereotype may explain why submissions from Japan remain static. A new article category for ER, Biodiversity in Asia, was created to encourage Asian studies. In addition, the Forum category is dedicated to promoting a broad understanding of the ESJ’s various activities. To promote open science, the proportion of open access articles in the journal is increasing. The publication of Data papers has been accelerated to improve the public availability of excellent open data sets. ER symposia and seminars provide good opportunities for members to participate. ER financially supports the invitation of scientists internationally to facilitate research exchanges with other countries and consequently promotes the internationalization of the ESJ. The ESJ is open to the world’s ecologists, and your participation in developing ER is welcome.

The primary objective of this paper was to estimate how the mass of Silver fir (Abies alba Mill.) and Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) deadwood in two decay classes affected biochemical processes and the accumulation of soil organic matter, as well as the extent of this impact. We evaluated deadwood mass, as well as the biological activity and influence of the distance from deadwood on biological activity and carbon (C) storage. The investigation was carried out in Magurski National Park, southern Poland, in four randomly selected study plots. The organic C and nitrogen contents and soil pH and texture were analysed. The study also included the determination of enzyme activities. The results obtained demonstrated that soil C storage and the biological activity of the soil were influenced by deadwood form, tree species and decay class. Significant differences in the C content in the soil between the logs of fir and pine trees were noted. With the advancement of the deadwood decomposition process, the C concentration and enzyme activity increased slightly. Lower C accumulation occurred further away from the deadwood. At a 100-cm distance from the deadwood, the influence of the logs was not evident. Higher C storage was found in the soil around the stumps than in the decaying logs. This study confirmed an important role of deadwood in forest ecosystems, i.e., maintaining species biodiversity and increasing C accumulation in the soil environment with a simultaneous increase in the biological activity of the soil.

Spatial aggregation and self-similarity are two important properties in species spatial distribution analysis and modeling. The aggregation parameter k in the negative binomial distribution model and fractal dimension are two widely used measures of spatial aggregation and self-similarity, respectively. In this paper, we attempt to describe spatial aggregation and self-similarity using nearest neighbor methods. Specifically, nearest neighbor methods are used to calculate k and box-counting fractal dimension of species spatial distribution. First, five scaling patterns of k are identified for tree species in a tropical rainforest on Barro Colorado Island (BCI), Panama. Based on the scaling patterns and the means of the nth nearest neighbor distance (NND), the mean NND of higher ranks can be accurately predicted. Second, we describe how to use the theoretical probability distribution model of the nth NND for a homogeneous Poisson process on regular fractals to estimate the fractal dimension. The results indicate that the fractal dimensions estimated using the nearest neighbor method are consistent with those estimated using the scale-area method for 85 tree species on BCI (abundance a parts per thousand yen 100 individuals and a parts per thousand currency sign 5000 individuals). For other tree species, the breakdown of self-similarity in estimates of fractal dimension causes these two methods to be inconsistent. The applicability of the nearest neighbor method is also discussed.

Numerous experiments have been established to examine the effect of plant diversity on the soil microbial community. However, the relationship between plant diversity and microbial functional diversity along broad spatial gradients at a large scale is still unexplored. In this paper, we examined the relationship of plant species diversity with soil microbial biomass C, microbial catabolic activity, catabolic diversity and catabolic richness along a longitudinal gradient in temperate grasslands of Hulunbeir, Inner Mongolia, China. Preliminary detrended correspondence analysis (DCA) indicated that plant composition showed a significant separation along the axis 1, and axis 1 explained the main portion of variability in the data set. Moreover, DCA-axis 1 was significantly correlated with soil microbial biomass C (r = 0.735, P = 0.001), microbial catabolic activity (average well color development; r = 0.775, P < 0.001) and microbial functional diversity (catabolic diversity: r = 0.791, P < 0.001 and catabolic richness: r = 0.812, P < 0.001), which suggested thatsome relationship existed between plant composition and the soil microbial community along the spatial gradient at a large scale. Soil microbial biomass C, microbial catabolic activity, catabolic diversity and catabolic richness showed a significant, linear increase with greater plant species richness. However, many responses that we observed could be explained by greater aboveground plant biomass associated with higher levels of plant diversity, which suggested that plant diversity impacted the soil microbial community mainly through increases in plant production.

Human domination of the Earth has resulted in dramatic changes to global and local patterns of biodiversity. Biodiversity is critical to human sustainability because it drives the ecosystem services that provide the core of our life-support system. As we, the human species, are the primary factor leading to the decline in biodiversity, we need detailed information about the biodiversity and species composition of specific locations in order to understand how different species contribute to ecosystem services and how humans can sustainably conserve and manage biodiversity. Taxonomy and ecology, two fundamental sciences that generate the knowledge about biodiversity, are associated with a number of limitations that prevent them from providing the information needed to fully understand the relevance of biodiversity in its entirety for human sustainability: (1) biodiversity conservation strategies that tend to be overly focused on research and policy on a global scale with little impact on local biodiversity; (2) the small knowledge base of extant global biodiversity; (3) a lack of much-needed site-specific data on the species composition of communities in human-dominated landscapes, which hinders ecosystem management and biodiversity conservation; (4) biodiversity studies with a lack of taxonomic precision; (5) a lack of taxonomic expertise and trained taxonomists; (6) a taxonomic bottleneck in biodiversity inventory and assessment; and (7) neglect of taxonomic resources and a lack of taxonomic service infrastructure for biodiversity science. These limitations are directly related to contemporary trends in research, conservation strategies, environmental stewardship, environmental education, sustainable development, and local site-specific conservation. Today’s biological knowledge is built on the known global biodiversity, which represents barely 20% of what is currently extant (commonly accepted estimate of 10 million species) on planet Earth. Much remains unexplored and unknown, particularly in hotspots regions of Africa, South Eastern Asia, and South and Central America, including many developing or underdeveloped countries, where localized biodiversity is scarcely studied or described. "Backyard biodiversity", defined as local biodiversity near human habitation, refers to the natural resources and capital for ecosystem services at the grassroots level, which urgently needs to be explored, documented, and conserved as it is the backbone of sustainable economic development in these countries. Beginning with early identification and documentation of local flora and fauna, taxonomy has documented global biodiversity and natural history based on the collection of "backyard biodiversity" specimens worldwide. However, this branch of science suffered a continuous decline in the latter half of the twentieth century, and has now reached a point of potential demise. At present there are very few professional taxonomists and trained local parataxonomists worldwide, while the need for, and demands on, taxonomic services by conservation and resource management communities are rapidly increasing. Systematic collections, the material basis of biodiversity information, have been neglected and abandoned, particularly at institutions of higher learning. Considering the rapid increase in the human population and urbanization, human sustainability requires new conceptual and practical approaches to refocusing and energizing the study of the biodiversity that is the core of natural resources for sustainable development and biotic capital for sustaining our life-support system. In this paper we aim to document and extrapolate the essence of biodiversity, discuss the state and nature of taxonomic demise, the trends of recent biodiversity studies, and suggest reasonable approaches to a biodiversity science to facilitate the expansion of global biodiversity knowledge and to create useful data on backyard biodiversity worldwide towards human sustainability.

Vegetation and land-use mosaics of shrub land, grassland, farmland and reforested land are characteristic for residential areas of the Wolong nature reserve in Sichuan province, southwest China. The patterns represent a stage in long-term human disturbance and natural secondary succession since deforestation. The aim of this paper was to elucidate the soil-land cover types, soil-slope position relationships on a typical disturbed slope in the humid mountainous region. Soils were taken from four typical land cover types (shrub land, grassland, farmland and reforested land) under four slope positions (upper slope, middle slope, lower slope, foot slope) to study the distribution of soil nutrients and moisture on the transect scales of the slope. To elucidate the influence of land-use and slope position on soil quality, two integrated quantitative indexes were developed to compare soil quality under different land-use types (QI) and under different slope positions (PI). The results showed shrub land had the highest QI value, while the QI of reforested land and farmland had lower values. Foot slopes and upper slopes had higher soil quality levels compared to middle slopes and lower slopes. The results indicated that on the slope scale shrub land had high soil quality levels. The results also suggested that in the area of China where the climate favors secondary succession, ‘leave nature as it is’ is a better choice than the policy ‘change farmland to forest land’.

Female multiple mating (or polyandry) is considered to act as a genetic bet-hedging mechanism, by which females can reduce the assessment error in regard to mates’ genetic quality when only uncertain information is available. In spite of frequent verbal arguments, no theoretical examination has been carried out to determine the effectiveness of bet-hedging by multiple mating. In the present paper, I show that three factors, female population size, remating costs and environmental fluctuation, all affect the effectiveness of bet-hedging. A mathematical model predicts that bet-hedging effectively works only in small populations, and computer simulations were used to confirm this prediction. The results of simulations differed according to the degree of environmental fluctuation. In relatively stable environments, if there is no remating cost, the fixation probability of a multiple mating strategy is slightly higher than that of a single mating strategy, independent of female population size. However, with very slight fitness costs, multiple mating drastically loses its advantage as population size increases, and almost always becomes extinct within large populations. This means that the evolution of polyandry solely by the mechanism of bet-hedging is unlikely in stable environments. However, in unpredictable environments, or when negative frequency-dependent selection on fitness-related loci is introduced, a multiple mating strategy is sometimes successful against a single mating strategy, even if it entails a small fitness cost. Therefore, female multiple mating may possibly evolve only in these limited conditions. In most cases, some deterministic mechanisms such as postcopulatory sperm selection by multiply mated females (or direct ‘material’ benefits) are more reasonable as the evolutionary causes of polyandry.

Land use data serve as an essential part of large-scale ecological research, such as landscape ecology and macroecological studies. For agricultural fields in Japan, existing time series statistical records can be used to convert map data according to a map of municipality units. In this data paper, we determined the areas of agricultural land use in Japan from 1970 to 2005, excluding small islands, at spatial resolutions of 5- and 10-km mesh grid units, which are often referred to as the Five-fold Mesh and Japanese Second-order Mesh, respectively. The elements considered included total farmland, paddy fields, dry farmland, and orchards. In 2005, we included abandoned agricultural areas because the related data were available in the agricultural statistical records. The source data came from the Census for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries conducted by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Japan. The Datum was the Japanese Geodetic Datum 2000 (JGD2000). All of the datasets have open data licenses under the rules of the Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode).

Recent theoretical studies have pointed our that a relatively small degree of dispersion between chaotic subpopulations produces predictable, simple dynamics and severely reduces the frequency of the occurrence of chaos. In this paper, we show that the introduction of mortality to models which are initially chaotic, alone or combined with dispersal, can produce similar effects.

This data paper reports spectral reflectance and transmittance data of leaves from 21 terrestrial vascular plant species (seven herbaceous, and 14 broadleaf and long-needle coniferous tree species) and of shoots from one short-needle coniferous tree species. The reflectance spectra of branches of one tree species, of the trunks of 12 tree species and ground surface of one deciduous broad-leaf forest are also reported. Optical measurements and leaf samplings were made at five sites on Honshu Island, Japan, which are typical vegetation types in East Asia, i.e., grassland, paddy field, and deciduous broad-leaf or coniferous forests. The collection and measurements were conducted for main species in each site. To include other common vegetation types in East Asia, such as evergreen broad-leaf or coniferous forests, the sample collection and the measurements were conducted at gardens and an experimental forest. Leaves of ten deciduous species were measured at different phenological stages from leaf expansion to senescence since those species shows significant seasonal changes in spectral reflectance and transmittance of leaves. Leaves at different position in a canopy (e.g., sunlit versus shaded leaves) were also measured for eight of 21 species. The spectral reflectance and transmittance from both adaxial and abaxial sides of the all leaves or needles, expect Picea abies needles. The measurements of the leaves were conducted with a spectroradiometer attached via an optical fiber to an integrating sphere. Two types of integrating spheres were used: a model LI-1800-12 (Li-Cor) and an RTS-3ZC integrating sphere (Analytical Spectral Devices). A leaf clip accessory was also used instead of an integrating sphere for measuring the leaves of two species. All data were measured within the 350-2,500-nm spectral range with 1-nm steps between measurements but the data obtained by LI-1800 is unavailable in 1,650-1,740, 1,890-1,950, and 2,050-2,500 nm because of a large amount of noise. These data are used as input parameters in a radiative transfer model designed to estimate the leaf area index from radiation reflected from a canopy surface., 資料番号: PA1410019000

Forest ecosystems are self-fertilizing systems, and development of forest stands depends on nutrient supply via biogeochemical cycling within the ecosystem. Therefore, it is important to clarify the nutrient cycle mediating growth and development. In addition, long-term hydrochemical monitoring is needed to understand the influence of environmental changes on biogeochemical cycling in forest ecosystems. The Oyasan Experimental Forest Watershed (OEFW) is located in the Field Museum Oyasan, the university forest of Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, in Gunma prefecture, Japan. OEFW comprises two small adjacent forested watersheds—A-watershed and B-watershed—with respective areas of 1.3 and 1.8 ha. A-watershed is a reestablished forest planted with sugi (Japanese cedar; Cryptomeria japonica) and hinoki (Japanese cypress; Chamaecyparis obtusa) in 1976, and has been managed intensively with fertilizer application. By contrast, B-watershed is an established forest planted with sugi and hinoki in 1907. No forest practices have been carried out except for thinning of suppressed trees in 1983. However, the sugi plantation on the lowest slope (18% of the watershed area) was cut in 2000, and sugi was replanted the following year. In this data paper, we present data on the daily precipitation, discharge, pH, and concentrations of major nutrients (Ca2+, Mg2+, K+, Na+, NH4+, Cl−, NO3−, and SO42−) in rainwater and stream water since November 1978. The arithmetical mean pH of precipitation, stream water in A- and B-watershed from the beginning of the monitoring to the present were 4.77 ± 0.67, 6.85 ± 0.41 and 6.88 ± 0.36 (average ± SD), respectively. The arithmetical mean concentrations in precipitation in mmolc L−1 were 0.030 ± 0.030 for Ca2+, 0.010 ± 0.011 for Mg2+, 0.009 ± 0.013 for K+, 0.020 ± 0.024 for Na+, 0.035 ± 0.041 for NH4+, 0.026 ± 0.029 for Cl−, 0.033 ± 0.038 for NO3−, and 0.046 ± 0.043 for SO42−. The mean concentrations in stream water in A-watershed were 0.180 ± 0.032 for Ca2+, 0.073 ± 0.013 for Mg2+, 0.018 ± 0.009 for K+, 0.182 ± 0.024 for Na+, 0.010 ± 0.010 for NH4+, 0.060 ± 0.008 for Cl−, 0.111 ± 0.038 for NO3−, and 0.074 ± 0.012 for SO42−; whereas for B-watershed the mean concentrations were 0.169 ± 0.025 for Ca2+, 0.079 ± 0.016 for Mg2+, 0.018 ± 0.005 for K+, 0.192 ± 0.026 for Na+, 0.010 ± 0.010 for NH4+, 0.065 ± 0.010 for Cl−, 0.093 ± 0.025 for NO3−, and 0.087 ± 0.011 for SO42−.

In the 21st century, researchers have attempted a synthesis between community ecology and evolutionary biology. This emerging research area, which aims to synthesize community ecology and evolutionary biology, is evolutionary community ecology. Evolutionary community ecology addresses how intraspecific trait variation in community members is essential for predicting community properties and, how community properties are a key component of the selective forces that determine genetic and phenotypic variation in a community member. In this paper, I review recent findings in evolutionary community ecology in plant-associated arthropods in terrestrial ecosystems. I discuss roles of both genetic variation and phenotypic plasticity as a source of trait variation in plants in shaping plant-associated arthropod communities. Also, I discuss effects of genetic variation in herbivores on plant-associated arthropod communities. Furthermore, I highlight community context evolution in which multiple species interactions and community composition affect trait evolution of a community member. Finally, I argue that future studies should investigate a feedback loop between community and evolutionary dynamics beyond unidirectional studies on effects of evolution on a community or vice versa. This approach will provide major insights into mechanistic principles for making predictions of community ecology.

The evergreen oak Quercus glauca often dominates secondary broadleaved forests in Western Japan. It is regarded as a mid-successional species, whose diameter and height growth fall between those of early- and late-successional species. Despite the ecological importance of this evergreen oak in the secondary succession of the evergreen broadleaved forest zone in Japan, tree-felling data that allow estimations of tree mass and leaf area from non-destructive measurements are lacking. This paper provides stem growth data, read from tree rings on disks sampled from 13 Q. glauca stems, and their allometric data. The samples were collected in 1994 from the Ginkakuji-san National Forest, Kyoto City, Japan. Allometric data comprised data on stem age, diameter at breast height, diameter at 10% height, tree height, height of the lowest living branch, height of the lowest living leaf in the crown, volume of the main stem, squared stem diameter just below the lowest living branch, total leaf area of the stem, dry weight of the total leaves, dry weight of all branches, dry weight of the main stem, total aboveground dry weight, mean relative photosynthetic photon flux density (PPFD) above the crown, mean relative PPFD below the crown, crown projection area, and specific leaf area. These data can be helpful for estimating the biomass and leaf area index of a Q. glauca stand by enabling the derivation of allometric relationships between non-destructive measurements (such as stem diameter at breast height, and tree height) and tree mass or leaf area. Diameters (including bark thickness) at ground height and above (at 0.5- or 1-m intervals) for each stem are also provided. Stem growth data were based on tree-ring reads from disks taken from heights of 0.0 and 0.3 m, and at 0.5-m (stem height < 7 m) or 1.0-m (stem height >= 7 m) intervals above that. Stem volume growth derived from these tree-ring data can be converted into stem mass growth if combined with an analysis of the allometric data, which may serve as a useful resource for the estimation of carbon fixation by evergreen oaks in relation to global climate change.