Shun Nonaka, Yokohama National University in Japan, discusses his article: Non-random species loss weakens functional diversity and species asynchrony, destabilizing grassland communities Why does the order of species loss matter? When we think about biodiversity loss, we often ask a simple question: how many species are disappearing? This is important, but it is not the…
Cristina Herrero-Jáuregui (Complutense University of Madrid), Merryn Hunt and Simon Smart (UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology), and Lenore Fahrig (Carleton University) discuss their article: Richness of forest specialist plant species increases with forest fragmentation per se but decreases with proximity to forest edge and reduced forest patch size Walk into a large, ancient British…
Gheyur Gheyret, Xinjiang Normal University, discusses his article in Journal of Ecology: Tree growth phenology shifts in response to trait-based neighborhood effects in a large subtropical forest biodiversity experiment Growth in trees is invisible to the naked eye — it happens too slowly, too quietly, measured in micrometers rather than anything you could observe directly.…
Jan Vigués Jorba, from the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL, discusses his article: Same damage, different story: Vertical decoupling of herbivore abundance and beech herbivory across forest layers Invertebrate herbivory is a key ecological process that shapes ecosystem functions, especially in forest habitats. Since forests have a complex three-dimensional structure,…
Xiaoran Wang, East China Normal University, and Jian Zhang, Sun Yat-Sen University, discuss their article: Elevation and environmental factors shape variability rather than the mean of seedling herbivory across subtropical forests In mountain forests, not all seedlings experience insect herbivory in the same way. While some individuals suffer substantial leaf damage, others are barely affected.…
Luís Felipe Daibes, from Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden, Haldre Rogers, from Virginia Tech, and Marco A. Pizo, from São Paulo State University, discuss their article: Landscape features predict broad-scale seed rain patterns across fragments of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest, in both English and Portuguese Spanning a broad latitudinal gradient across South America, the Brazilian…
Alexandra Urza, Whitebark Institute in California, discusses her article: Seed source climate and precipitation timing determine dryland tree recruitment in hot and dry range margins As climate change intensifies drought and reshapes precipitation patterns across western North America, many dryland forests are facing an uncertain future. Adult trees can survive harsh conditions for centuries, but…
Oliver Spacey, University of Oxford, UK, discusses his article: European mistletoe shares a similar demographic strategy with non-parasitic plants Few plants are as enshrined in folklore as mistletoe, and much of this is owed to its unusual ecology. A parasitic plant that never touches the ground and was thus associated with divine power, European mistletoe…
Eva Janíková, University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice, discusses her article: Realistic species loss has little effect on local resource depletion and competitive pressure in a temperate wet meadow A story that started with a simple idea When we began this project, we had clear expectations. Following ideas going back to Charles Elton’s hypothesis…
Robert Dunn and Steve Pennings, University of Houston, discuss their article: Variable trait responses to rapid sea level rise in a foundational grass across a coastal marsh landscape One strategy that plants utilize to survive across a range of environmental conditions is to alter the expression of their traits. Functional traits are the characteristics of…
Miaojun Ma. Lanzhou University, discusses his article: Warming advanced leaf senescence in alpine plants through advancing leaf emergence and increasing soil drought Background Plant autumn leaf senescence, which marks the end of photosynthesis and the growing season, as well as the onset of dormancy, is particularly critical in the plant annual cycle. Early or late…
Carlos Roberto Fonseca, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN) in Brazil, discusses his article: The Red Queen unveils the sexual and mating strategies of flowers In 1876, Charles Darwin wrote the book “The effects of cross and self-fertilization in the vegetable kingdom” to answer a simple, but important question: if self-fertilisation is the…
Kari Sogera Iamba, University of South Bohemia and the Institute of Entomology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, discusses his article: Insects and non-woody plants slow down tropical forest succession: A community-wide experiment in Papua New Guinea We investigated the factors driving rainforest regeneration in canopy gaps created by tree falls or selective logging. Ecological…
Guochun Shen and Jing Yang, East China Normal University in Shanghai, China, discuss their article: Shifts in above- and belowground trait dissimilarity under competition mediate the future impact of neighbors When we walk into a forest, it is easy to picture trees competing for light, water, and nutrients. Some seedlings race upwards and cast their…
Feixue Yu, Inner Mongolia University, discusses her article: Nitrogen addition weakens drought-driven coupling between plant, arthropod, and soil nematode functional groups The concurrent increase in drought and atmospheric nitrogen deposition has profoundly impacted multitrophic biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in grasslands. Nitrogen enrichment is frequently assumed to alleviate drought stress by stimulating plant growth, but this…
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