We didn’t have the blizzard of the Ghent meeting or the grandeur of a conference dinner in the Titanic (Belfast 2019) or in the shadow of Tower Bridge (London 2013). Nevertheless, the Festival of Ecology offered the expected wide range of presentations, posters, plenaries and other activities as usual but in a new, virtual setting.…
Many of us regular ESA delegates were disappointed that the 2020 Ecological Society of America Annual Meeting had to go virtual. I look forward to the annual chance to catch up with colleagues and friends, meet new ecologists, and hear about the latest research. This year I was looking forward to several days in Salt…
How Will Climate Change Affect Community Stability? There’s a great deal of concern and uncertainty over the patterns and causal mechanisms that underlie community grassland change in response to climate change (Ratajczak & Ladwig 2019). Experimental work is needed to better understand the potentially synergistic effects of global change stressors on stability of grasslands. In…
We have been lamenting with ecological colleagues (while sheltering in place and communicating remotely) how we used to feel important as plant ecologists studying global climate change. Currently, however, we feel much less important than the human epidemiologists, health care and other front-line workers who are the heroes during the COVID-19 global pandemic. “I measure…
We are pleased to announce that, going forward, the Data Availability statement that provides a link to the publicly archived data supporting papers in Journal of Ecology is now in front of the paywall. Readers without a subscription to Journal of Ecology can now not only access the abstract (both in English and second language),…
I always look forward to the annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America although by the end of the marathon week I am with everyone else ready to head home. This year’s meeting ended a week ago and as I reflect on it my recurring thought was, what was the theme? I know that…
Jane Catford and Lizzie Jones contributed a chapter about grassland invasions to Grasslands and Climate Change, the latest volume of the Ecological Reviews series. The authors tells us more about their chapter below. Imagine a typical grassland ecosystem. You might see American prairies, rangelands of Australia, or African savannah. Either way, you’re probably thinking of wide-open spaces, dominated by…
Zak Ratajczak and Laura Ladwig contributed a chapter to Grasslands and Climate Change, the latest volume of the Ecological Reviews series. Zak tells us more about their chapter below. Critical thresholds or “tipping points” are familiar to most of us. Think of a boat out at sea, which can stay afloat wave after wave after wave, without much…
The latest in the Ecological Reviews series is Grasslands and Climate Change. Kathryn Yurkonis, co-author with Will Harris of the chapter ‘Keeping up: climate-driven evolutionary change, dispersal and migration‘, tells us more about their contribution to the book below. Can our grassland species keep up with climate change? Can we predict which species are more…
Grasslands are the most extensive terrestrial biome, and have the largest total global accumulation of soil carbon. Grasslands and their ecotonal neighbours the savannas, have been the crucible for much of human history and activity. However, despite being lauded and loved because of their charismatic megafauna (e.g., lions in African grasslands and savannas, bison in…
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