1. Zooplankton species have different feeding habits, but the diversity of their food resources and the factors governing them are still largely unknown. We here estimated the differences in the trophic niche breadths of dominant zooplankton species in ponds, using stable isotopes. 2. To understand the differences in trophic niches of different zooplankton species, we measured the carbon and nitrogen stable isotope ratios and calculated the nearest neighbor distance (NND), and standard deviation of NND...

Dispersal as well as population growth is a key demographic process that determines population dynamics. However, determining the effects of environmental covariates on dispersal from spatial-temporal abundance proxy data is challenging owing to the complexity of model specification for directional dispersal permeability and the extremely high computational loads for numerical integration. In this paper, we present a case study estimating how environmental covariates affect the dispersal of Japanese sika deer by developing a spatially explicit...

Light is a fundamental driver of ecosystem dynamics, affecting the rate of photosynthesis and primary production. In spite of its importance, less is known about its community-scale effects on aquatic ecosystems compared with those of nutrient loading. Understanding light limitation is also important for ecosystem management, as human activities have been rapidly altering light availability to aquatic ecosystems. Here we show that decreasing light can paradoxically increase phytoplankton abundance in shallow lakes. Our results, based...