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…
Rui Wang, Institute of Plant Protection of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, discusses their article: Asymmetric adaptation across a core–periphery climatic gradient drives rapid phenological evolution and range expansion in an invasive plant When we think about plant invasions, we often picture species spreading quickly, competing with native plants, and causing problems for ecosystems…
Henrique Augusto Mews, Universidade Federal de Rondonópolis in Brazil, discusses his article: Unravelling the drivers of island species richness in tropical savannas Many landscapes contain “island-like” habitats: patches of suitable conditions surrounded by an inhospitable matrix. How species diversity is regulated in these systems remains surprisingly poorly understood. In tropical savannas, such as the Cerrado…
Jiayun Zou, Technical University of Munich, discusses his article: Biodiversity associations between aboveground and belowground communities in mountain forests across different climatic regions How tightly are the biological communities above and below the forest floor connected? In mountain forests, those associations remain poorly understood. While plants and soil microbes interact intimately, such as through symbioses…
Álvaro Gaytán and Lorena Gómez-Aparicio, Institute of Natural Resources and Agrobiology of Seville (IRNAS-CSIC), discuss their article: Evidence for linkages between the root elementome and oak decline in Mediterranean systems invaded by soil-borne pathogens Mediterranean oak woodlands are among the most iconic ecosystems of southern Europe. Yet many of these forests are under increasing pressure from…
Valentin Graf, Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre in Frankfurt, discusses his article: Relative importance of range position, seed size, and genetic diversity for tree recruitment at alpine range edges Climate change is rapidly altering ecosystems, pushing many species to adapt or move to cooler environments. In mountains, this often means shifting to higher elevations,…
Alberto Canarini (University of Bologna, Italy), Pierre Mariotte (Agroscope, Switzerland), Yolima Carrillo (Western Sydney University, Australia), Raúl Ochoa-Hueso (University of Cádiz, Spain), and Barbara Drigo (Adelaide University and CRC SAAFE, Australia) discuss their article: Enhanced belowground functioning is associated with higher plant resistance against drought: implications for ecosystem functions A long-standing puzzle in grassland ecology…
Jiarong Yang and Yu Liu, East China Normal University, discuss their article: Rare tree species host a high diversity of rhizosphere fungi Forest ecosystems are intricate webs of life where trees and their root-associated fungi form a delicate balance. One question that remains, is whether and how tree species abundance influences the fungal communities that…
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