Understanding herbivore foraging behaviour is often limited by not knowing the palatability of food items. Electivity indices can overcome this challenge by relating the consumption of food items to their relative abundance in the environment
Tanentzap, A. J.; Bee, J. N.; Lee, W. G.; Lavers, R. B.; Mills, J. A.; Mark, A. F.; Coomes, D. A.
2009
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Report long-term vegetation changes in permanent plots located in forest, shrubland and grassland communities across a mountain range in southern New Zealand. We test whether 92% reduction in the population of invasive non-indigenous red deer, Cervus elaphus, since 1964 has led to the recovery of deer-preferred species.
Tanentzap, A.J.; Burrows, L.E.; Lee, W.G.; Nugent, G; Maxwell, J.M.; Coomes, D.A.
2009
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The mass loss of litter mixtures is often different than expected based on the mass loss of the component species. We investigated if the identity of neighbour species affects these litter mixing effects.
Hoorens, B.; Coomes, D.; Aerts; R.
2009
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We convert point observations of more than 28,000 beetles from 851 species into a continuous biodiversity surface representing the similarity of ecological communities relative to that of pristine forest, effectively integrating on-the-ground biodiversity data with remotely sensed landcover data to predict the magnitude of community change in a modified landscape.
Ewers, R.M.; Kapos, V.; Coomes, D.A.; Lafortezza, R.; Didham, R.K.
2009
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Quantification of growth and mortality for two different juvenile life stages – seedlings and saplings– of seven tree species common in temperate rain forests in New Zealand using data from field studies. Strong evidence that the ranking of species for survival in shade and growth in full light was affected by size.
Kunstler, G.; Coomes, D.A.; Canham, C.D.
2009
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An attempt to describe and compare the impacts of the invasive red deer in New Zealand with the extinct species of Moa, large flightless birds, which appeared to occupy significantly overlapping habitat niches to present day deer.
Forsyth, D.M.; Wilmshurst, J.M.; Allen, R.B.; Coomes, D.A.
2009
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Metabolic Scaling Theory (MST) predicts a ‘universal scaling law’ of tree growth. Proponents claim that MST has strong empirical support: the size-dependent growth curves of 40 out of 45 species in a Costa Rican forest have scaling exponents indistinguishable from the MST prediction. This paper shows the Costa Rican data has been misinterpreted. Using Standardized MajorAxis (SMA) line-fitting to estimate scaling exponents, we find that four out of five species represented have scaling exponents that deviate significantly from the prediction.
Coomes, D.A.; Allen, R.B.
2009
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Investigating if a wider range of growth rates and shade tolerances are found on nutrient-rich soils, because such soils not only support fast-growing species with high metabolic rates, but also species capable of tolerating the very deep shade cast by forest canopies growing where nutrients are plentiful.
Coomes, D.A.; Kunstler, G.; Canham, C.D.; Wright, E.
2009
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The role of neighbour palatability in affecting foraging of a target plant by large mammalian herbivores using a large-scale field dataset on diet selection by red deer. Examining whether intraspecific variation in browsing of plants can be related to variation in the local abundance of alternative forage species.
Bee, J.N.; Tanentzap, A.J.; Lee, W.G.; Lavers, R.B.; Mark, A.F.; Mills, J.A.; Coomes, D.A.
2009
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Identification of the geophysical variables (“pattern drivers”) that explain the spatial patterns of forest loss and fragmentation between 1976 and 1999 using both a GIS-based land-use change model (GEOMOD) and spatially explicit logistic regression. Includes projections where and how much forest fragmentation will occur in the future by extrapolation of the current rate of deforestation to 2010 and 2020.
Echeverria, C.; Coomes, D.A.; Hall, M.; Newton, A.C.
2008
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Forest Ecology and Conservation Group 