For our second contribution for National Tree Week, we hear from authors Zilong Ma and Han Chen, whose recently published paper was included in the special National Tree Week Virtual Issue. Zilong Ma is a PhD student at Lakehead University in Canada, supervised by Han Y.H. Chen who is also an Associate Editor for Journal of Ecology. Research…
Michał Bogdziewicz is a PhD student at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, supervised by Rafał Zwolak (AMU, as well) and Elizabeth Crone (Tufts University, USA). Michal’s work involves the study of different aspects of mast seeding consequences on ecosystems: the connection between masting and Lyme disease and the effects of masting on animal populations. The main goal…
Today Journal of Ecology published a paper titled ‘Lagging behind: have we overlooked previous-year rainfall effects in annual grasslands?‘ written by Dudney et al. Below, lead author Joan Dudney of University of California Berkeley, provides a background to the study. Return to the same place in an annual grassland and you will invariably notice that no two…
Charlotte Grossiord et al. have an interesting paper recently published online in Journal of Ecology, entitled ‘Precipitation, not air temperature, drives functional responses of trees in semi-arid ecosystems‘. The scientists from the Los Alamos National Laboratory provide evidences that trees in semi-arid systems may acclimate to reduced precipitation but not to temperature rise. Charlotte kindly agreed to…
A new study from the Department of Soil Quality at Wageningen University and the Department of Terrestrial Ecology at Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW) gives evidence that plants grow better in soil from other species. Published today in Journal of Ecology, the paper is written by Cortois et al. and is titled ‘Plant-soil feedbacks: role of plant functional group and plant traits‘. …
Editor’s note We are very pleased to announce that Jenni McDonald has been selected to receive the Postdoctoral Excellence Award by the Ecological Society of America’s Plant Population Ecology section for her Journal of Ecology paper, “Transients drive the demographic dynamics of plant populations in variable environments.” This paper was part of a BES cross-journal…
New lay summary wrote by Manuel Delgado-Baquerizo about his paper”Lack of functional redundancy in the relationship between microbial diversity and ecosystem functioning” published in the last issue (July) of Journal of Ecology. Happy reading! The shape of the relationship between microbial diversity and ecosystem function (BEF) remains unclear, which limits our capacity to assess the impact of microbial diversity…
Mahasweta Saha and collaborators have an interesting paper published in the last issue (July) of Journal of Ecology titled “Rapid adaptation to controlling new microbial epibionts in the invaded range promotes invasiveness of an exotic seaweed“. The lead author of this article, Mahasweta Saha, wrote a blog post below describing the context and results of her research. Along with…
Philip Hahn and John Orrock have an interesting paper accepted in Journal of Ecology titled “Ontogenetic responses of four plant species to additive and interactive effects of land-use history, canopy structure, and herbivory“. The authors have provided a lay summary and a picture of their research below. Herbivory can have destructive effects on a plant’s…
Today is Endangered Species Day and to mark the occasion the BES journals have put together a Virtual Issue of recent papers on endangered species of various taxa from around the world. Journal of Ecology papers are strongly represented, showing that endangered species day is about more than just lions and tigers! The papers from Journal of…
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