How to resist plant invasion? It is all about traits!

In this video podcast, Luisa Conti explains how ‘Functional trait differences and trait plasticity mediate biotic resistance to potential plant invaders‘, which is also the title of her recent paper published in Journal of Ecology.  Luisa’s video can also be found on the Journal of Ecology YouTube channel (English subtitles available).   Luisa Conti is a plant ecologist. She…

EGU 2018: Insights from Giovanna Battipaglia

The European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2018 was held in Vienna from April 8 to 13 and Associate Editor Giovanna Battipaglia kindly agreed to share her thoughts and experiences from the meeting below. When you arrive at EGU, you have the feeling that you are in the right place for science! Thousands of scientists and…

Coral Reefs Survival: Interactions Between Multiple Local Stressors of Algal Turf Communities?

Our new video podcast brings us below the ocean surface and explores the role of interacting local stressors on algal turf communities, an important driver of coral reef development and survival. This study conducted by Caitlin Fong at the University of California Santa Barbara (USA) and titled ‘Simultaneous synergistic, antagonistic and additive interactions between multiple local…

Ecological Inspirations: Richard Shefferson

Richard P. Shefferson is an Associate Professor at the Organization for Programs on Environmental Sciences; a relatively new unit within the University of Tokyo aimed at research on global environmental problems and the fundamental sciences related to them. He is an evolutionary ecologist studying life history evolution in long-lived plants and fungi, and the evolution…

Toward an Integrative Approach to Assess Ozone Impacts on Forest Growth

Maxime Cailleret and colleagues from the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (Switzerland) recently published a review titled ‘Ozone effects on European forest growth – Towards an integrative approach‘. Maxime tell us more about the paper below. Tropospheric ozone is a key greenhouse gas responsible for 5-16% of the global temperature change since preindustrial…

Ecological Inspirations: Liesje Mommer

Liesje Mommer‘s research focuses on  “belowground plant-plant interactions” within the Plant Ecology and Nature Conservation group of Wageningen University, the Netherlands. Recently, the theme of her research has expanded to include plant-fungal interactions, as root-root interactions cannot be understood without considering the myriad of microbes in the soil. To reveal these ‘hidden’ interactions and the consequences…

Arrested Succession in European Forest: How can this happen?

The first video podcast from 2018 is dedicated to arrested succession in European forest, an interesting topic developed by Timothy Thrippleton in his recent paper published in Journal of Ecology entitled ‘Herbaceous competition and browsing may induce arrested succession in central European forests‘. Watch the video to understand how interactive effects of herbaceous plant biomass,…

Why Yellow-cedar does not expand despite available habitat?

John Krapek (University of Alaska Fairbanks) and Brian Buma (University of Alaska Southeast) recently had a paper published in Journal of Ecology entitled ‘Limited stand expansion by a long-lived conifer at a leading northern range edge, despite available habitat‘. John tells us more about the paper below. Yellow-cedar (Callitropsis nootkatensis, Cupressaceae), a culturally and economically important…