Testing a pyroclimatic hypothesis on the Mexico-United States border

The "pyroclimatic hypothesis" proposed by F. Biondi and colleagues provides a basis for testable expectations about climatic and other controls of fire regimes. This hypothesis asserts an a priori relationship between the occurrence of widespread fire and values of a relevant climatic index. Such a hypothesis provides the basis for predicting spatial and temporal patterns of fire occurrence based on climatic control. Forests near the Mexico-United States border offer a place to test the relative influence of climatic and other controls in mountain ranges that are ecologically similar and subject to broadly similar top-down climatic influence, but with differing cultural influences. We tested the pyroclimatic hypothesis by comparing fire history information from the Mesa de las Guacamayas, a mountain range in northwestern Chihuahua, with previously published fire data from the Chiricahua Mountains, in southeastern Arizona, approximately 150 km away. We developed a priori hypothetical models of fire occurrence and compared their performance to empirical climate-based models. Fires were frequent at all Mesa de las Guacamayas study sites through the mid-20th century and continued uninterrupted to the present at one site, in contrast to nearly complete fire exclusion after 1892 at sites in the Chiricahua Mountains. The empirical regression models explained a higher proportion of the variability in fire regime associated with climate than did the a priori models. Actual climate-fire relationships diverged in each country after 1892. The a priori models predicted continuing fires at the same rate per century as prior to 1892; fires did in fact continue in Mexico, albeit with some alteration of fire regimes, but ceased in the United States, most likely due to changes in land use. The cross-border comparison confirms that a frequent-fire regime could cease without a climatic cause, supporting previous arguments that bottom-up factors such as livestock grazing can rapidly and drastically alter surface fire regimes. Understanding the historical patterns of climate controls on fire could inform the use of historical data as ecological reference conditions and for future sustainability.     

Macrozoobenthos diversity in an oxygen minimum zone off northern Namibia

A benthological survey in the Benguela upwelling area off northern Namibia (located at 17.3°S and water depth ranging between 26 and 117 m) showed the concentration of dissolved oxygen and the accumulation of organic-rich sediments to control macrozoobenthic community patterns. In contrast to highly biodiverse nearshore areas with well-structured shell deposits of the brachiopod Discinisca tenuis (Sowerby 1847), the benthic community in the oxygen minimum zone (OMZ) decreased strongly in species numbers. Nevertheless, a well-established community ranging from 13 to 31 species persisted. Species densities (300–3,350 ind m⁻²) and biomass (4–109 g afdw/m²) were surprisingly high for areas with near bottom oxygen concentrations from 0.06 to 0.88 ml l⁻¹. In contrast to OMZ’s of other upwelling areas, where the benthic macrofauna is generally dominated by small-bodied polychaetes, off Namibia larger key organisms like the bivalve Nuculana bicuspidata (Gould 1845) and the snail Nassarius vinctus (Marrett 1877) accounted for a large proportion of the macrozoobenthos >1 mm. This is supposed to have a distinct effect on the functional properties of the sediments.

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Learning a time-place pattern of food availability: a comparison between an insectivorous and a granivorous weaver species (Ploceus bicolor and Euplectes hordeaceus)

Summary We compared the ability of an insectivorous weaver bird species, Ploceus bicolor, and a granivorous weaver species, Euplectes hordeaceus to learn time-place patterns of food availability. ln the laboratory both species learned to visit four different feeding places, each at a different fixed time of day. This learned feeding pattern persisted even when every feeding place provided food over the whole day. We found differences in the performance between the two species in phase shift (6 h advance) and blocking (4 h food deprivation) experiments. Unlike the insectivorous species, the granivorous species did not show the learned time-place pattern under these conditions. We suggest that this difference might reflect a difference between the species in the strength of the linkage between time and place. Correspondence to: H. Falk