OOS 8
Danse Macabre: The Role of Migrations and Mortality in Shaping Our Planet

Monday, August 10, 2015: 1:30 PM-5:00 PM
329, Baltimore Convention Center
Organizer:
Amanda L. Subalusky
Co-organizers:
Joseph K. Bump and Colden V. Baxter
Moderator:
David Post
Animals can play an important role in the distribution of resources across, or concentration within, ecosystems. When animals die, or are killed and partially consumed, their carcasses can provide a significant source of energy and materials (e.g., nutrients) that can have strong effects on the surrounding ecosystem. Numerous carcass inputs often accompany animal migrations associated with reproductive events or shifts in life history stage, and these mass inputs can alter ecosystem function at large spatial and temporal scales. Moreover, even single carcass inputs, particularly when those carcasses are relatively large, can form biogeochemical hotspots and lead to alterations in the diversity and abundance of species that influence an ecosystem for years to decades. These high quality resources can have disproportionately large effects on trophic structure and secondary production even if they occur in low quantities because they are preferentially selected for by animals. Animals that engage in migrations of large scale and/or magnitude are among the most endangered on the planet, and as numbers decline and migration pathways are diminished or disappear, there are also losses of pulsed carcass inputs that have historically accompanied these phenomena. In order to understand the ecological costs of these losses (and reciprocally, to characterize the benefits of their conservation or restoration), we must first understand the role they can play in shaping food web structure and ecosystem processes in systems where they still occur. This session will bring together scientists working on animal migrations and carcass inputs that occur across a range of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, to develop a conceptual understanding of the commonalities across animal carcass inputs, their relationship to migration events, and their consequences for communities and ecosystem processes.
1:30 PM
More than bags of nutrients: Weighing ecological and social costs of losing migratory fishes versus the management paradigm of compensatory mitigation
Colden V. Baxter, Idaho State University; Scott F. Collins, Illinois Natural History Survey; Amy M. Marcarelli, Michigan Technological University; J. Ryan Bellmore, US Geological Survey
1:50 PM
Mammal carcasses, migration, and drought in Amboseli National Park, Kenya
Anna K. Behrensmeyer, Smithsonian Institution; David Western, African Conservation Center; Joshua Miller, University of Cincinnati
2:10 PM
All ungulates migrate- right? Identifying spatiotemporal migration patterns in an increasingly heterogeneous and asynchronous landscapes
Scott Bergen, Idaho Dept. Fish and Game; Anna Moeller, University of Montana; Jon Horne, Idaho Dept. of Fish and Game; Linda Gormezano, Idaho Dept. of Fish and Game; Mark Hurley, Idaho Department of Fish and Game
2:30 PM
Wolves, ungulate carcasses, and ecological heterogeneity: Testing the spatial structure of carrion-derived soil respiration
Joseph K. Bump, Michigan Technological University; Anna C. Nisi, Michigan Technological University
2:50 PM
Can animal migration explain the dominance of top-down forces in many Arctic food webs? Insights from empirical and theoretical approaches
Marie-Andrée Giroux, Canada Research Chair on Continental Ecosystem Ecology and Quebec Center for Biodiversity Science, Université du Québec à Rimouski, and Canada Research Chair on Polar and Boreal Ecology, Université de Moncton; Nicolas Lecomte, Canada Research Chair on Polar and Boreal Ecology, Université de Moncton and Quebec Center for Biodiversity Science; Dominique Gravel, Canada Research Chair on Continental Ecosystem Ecology and Quebec Center for Biodiversity Science, Université du Québec à Rimouski; Joël Bêty, Université du Québec à Rimouski; Gilles Gauthier, Department of biology and Center for Northern Studies, Université Laval; Dominique Berteaux, Université du Québec à Rimouski
3:10 PM
3:20 PM
Insect carcasses link aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems: Lessons from the subarctic
Claudio Gratton, University of Wisconsin - Madison; Jamin Dreyer, University of Kentucky; David Hoekman, Southern Nazarene University; Randall D. Jackson, Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center; Mireia Bartrons, CREAF; Phil Townsend, University of Wisconsin - Madison; Jake Vander Zanden, University of Wisconsin
3:40 PM
Holding on, long gone, and back from the dead: Ecosystem implications of persistence, loss, and resurgence of fish migrations
Peter B. McIntyre, University of Wisconsin; Solomon David, Shedd Aquarium; Ashley Moerke, Lake Superior State University; Evan Childress, University of Wisconsin; Thomas Neeson, University of Wisconsin; Allison Moody, University of Wisconsin; Matt Herbert, The Nature Conservancy; Mary Khoury, The Nature Conservancy; Patrick J. Doran, The Nature Conservancy; Matthew W. Diebel, Wisconsin DNR Bureau of Science Services
4:00 PM
Whale carcasses influence community and ecosystem processes at large spatial and temporal scales
Joe Roman, University of Vermont, Harvard University; Craig Smith, University of Hawaii at Manoa; Andrew Pershing, University of Maine & Gulf of Maine Research Institute; J. B. Nation, University of Hawaii; David Johnston, Duke University; George A. Antonelis, National Marine Fisheries Service; David K. Matilla, Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary
4:20 PM
Causes and consequences of wildebeest mass drownings in the Mara River, Kenya
Amanda L. Subalusky, Yale University; Christopher Dutton, Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Yale University; Emma Rosi-Marshall, Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies; David Post, Yale University
4:40 PM
Spatial heterogeneity in water temperature asynchronizes aquatic insect emergence and prolongs a trophic supply to juvenile steelhead trout
Hiromi Uno, University of California, Berkeley; Mary Power, University of California Berkeley