• The reliability of palatability estimates obtained from rumen contents analysis and a field-based index of diet selection

    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 PDF

  • Landscape-level vegetation recovery from herbivory: progress after four decades of invasive red deer control

    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;…

  • Neighbour identity hardly affects litter-mixture effects on decomposition rates of New Zealand forest species

    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 PDF

  • Mapping community change in modified landscapes

    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,…

  • Size-dependence of growth and mortality influence the shade tolerance of trees in a lowland temperate rain forest

    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,…

  • Impacts of introduced deer and extinct moa on New Zealand ecosystems

    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 PDF

  • Testing the Metabolic Scaling Theory of tree growth

    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…

  • A greater range of shade-tolerance niches in nutrient-rich forests: an explanation for positive richness–productivity relationships?

    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.…

  • The benefits of being in a bad neighbourhood: plant community composition influences red deer foraging decisions

    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,…

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