Can tree species diversity make our forest more resilient to climate change?

Eugénie Mas, from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (@MasPlantphys) discusses her article: Drought effects in Mediterranean forests are not alleviated by diversity-driven water source partitioning Forest are unique ecosystems where each species of animal, plant, and microorganism interact together to provide many services, called ecosystem services. These services can benefit humans directly through wood production,…

Seagrass-oyster facilitation at risk under future ocean conditions

Fiona Ralph, from Bowdoin College, discusses her article: Shifting seagrass-oyster interactions alter species response to ocean warming and acidification The Why: Eelgrass and oysters are ecosystem building species that both have economic, ecological, and cultural importance in Maine. Eelgrass populates much of the soft-sediment coastal subtidal in the Northern Hemisphere, which is also where most of…

Do mutualist limitations hinder ectomycorrhizal tree seedling establishment in North American secondary forests?

Andrew Cortese, from Michigan State University, discusses his article: Ectomycorrhizal tree islands in arbuscular mycorrhizal forests: hotspots of fungal inoculum important for seedling establishment of historically dominant trees Present-day forests echo past disturbance history Northeastern North American forests are comprised of a mixture of arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) and ectomycorrhizal (EM) trees. However, by the turn…

Exploring How Mycorrhiza Affect Strawberry Offspring: A Look at Sexual vs. Clonal Reproduction

Vít Latzel (@LatzelV; @IBOTCZ; @popecolIBOT), Institute of Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences, discusses his article: Transgenerational effects of mycorrhiza are stronger in sexual than in clonal offspring of Fragaria vesca and are partly adaptive BackgroundPlants have a great capacity to adjust their phenotypes to the environment—not just during their own lifetimes, but also…

Are large grazers a boon or bane for temperate salt marshes? Exploring context-dependency in the top-down trophic interactions of charismatic megafauna

Sean J Sharp (@seancologie, Linkedin), from University of Maryland, discusses his article: Large grazers suppress a foundational plant and reduce soil carbon concentration in eastern US saltmarshes Grazing has been a common practice in temperate salt marshes for millennia. In European saltmarshes, the grazing activity of large animals like sheep and cows can boost plant…

Understanding how diversity and disturbance affect biomass stock and productivity

Erica Rievrs Borges, Institut de recherche pour le développement in France, discusses her article: Evolutionary diversity impacts tropical forest biomass and productivity through disturbance-mediated ecological pathways in both English and French. Understanding Biodiversity and Biomass We know that tropical forests are incredibly important, partly because they account for around half of global forest aboveground carbon…

Bringing habitat patches into the species distribution models world

Federico Riva, Environmental Geography Dept. of the Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM),Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, discusses his review article: Incorporating effects of habitat patches into species distribution models Habitat patches are everywhere – forests surrounded by agriculture, pastures within Alpine forests, or green areas in a city. This patchiness of many ecosystem types is key to…

How mycorrhizal associations are growing our understanding of plant-soil feedback across plant communities

Andrew Eagar and Sara Moledor, from Michigan State University’s Department of Plant Biology, discuss their research group’s new review paper: Setting the Stage for Plant-Soil Feedback: Mycorrhizal Influences over Conspecific Recruitment, Plant and Fungal Communities, and Coevolution A holistic view of plant-soil feedback Research over the last 20 years on plant-soil interactions has greatly advanced…

Entangled? How to resolve feedbacks between diversity and productivity in natural systems

Karl Andraczek (@KarlAndraczek), from the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, discusses his article: Weak reciprocal relationships between productivity and plant biodiversity in managed grasslands Setting The Scene Global change impacts both plant diversity and ecosystem functioning with detrimental consequences for nature’s contributions to people. Predicting these consequences has emerged as a focal…

Timing of nutrient resorption from senesced leaves: steady-and-slow versus late-and-fast

Yu-Kun Hu, from Lanzhou University, discusses his article: Leaf functional traits predict timing of nutrient resorption and carbon depletion in deciduous subarctic plants Nutrient resorption from senescing leaves is an important way that plants maintain their nutrient balance, meeting more than 1/3 of their total nutrient requirements. Thus, these nutrients are critical for plant growth…