Sébastien Albert and Olivier Flores discuss their article: ‘Defaunated and invaded insular tropical rainforests won’t recover alone: recruitment limitation factors unravelled by hierarchical models of spontaneous and assisted regeneration.’ For text in French and Spanish, please see below. Background It is well known that wild populations of large vertebrates are in decline worldwide, with strong…
Nicolas Velasco Saragoni discusses his article: ‘Large-scale facilitative effects for a single nurse shrub: impact of the rainfall gradient, plant community and distribution across a geographic barrier.’ For text in Spanish, please see below. Are you curious about how common it is for plants to positively influence each other? This intriguing question formed the basis…
The editor’s choice for our January issue is ‘Environmental filtering of life-history trait diversity in urban populations of Arabidopsis thaliana‘ by Gregor Schmitz et al. Here, Associate Editor Richard Shefferson discusses the importance of this research: One of the more common motifs that Hollywood sets to the screen is the story of the country boy or girl moving to…
Biodiversity supports the foundation for ecosystem functions and services. Extensive research has shown that global changes have significantly impacted above-ground biodiversity and its associated ecosystem functions and services. However, below-ground soil microbial biodiversity has received relatively less attention, leading to significant knowledge gaps. It remains uncertain whether below-ground biodiversity responds to global changes in a…
Aramee Diethelm discusses her article: ‘Herbivores disrupt clinal variation in plant responses to water limitation.’ Factors Shaping Plant Traits Plants, often perceived as static, exhibit remarkable resilience in challenging environments involving rapid adjustments (plastic responses), and evolving (evolutionary responses) to cope with challenges. Research has predominantly focused on single stressors, despite the increasing occurrence of…
Welcome to the December Art Gallery features the art of Ellie Biggs, F. Curtis Lubbe, Rebecca Buchs, Jude Wild and Vicky Bowskill. Mediums include: pen and watercolour, ceramics and pipe cleaners, ballpoint pen, AI and oils on canvas. These artworks come from Australia, The Czech Republic, Switzerland and the UK. Ellie Biggs Ellie Biggs is…
Fernando Tuya Cortés, from ECOAQUA’s Biodiversity and Conservation Group, discusses his article: ‘Strong phylogenetic signal and models of trait evolution evidence phylogenetic niche conservatism for seagrasses.’ Aquatic flowering plants Seagrasses are a group of marine angiosperms (i.e., flowering plants) fully adapted to a submerged life. They are found thoughout the world’s oceans, distributed from tropical…
This blog post on ‘Ecosystem structure and energy flow’ is part of the BES ‘Key Concepts in Ecology’ blog series, designed to help ecologists in learning the key topics in ecology. See the full blog series for a list of key topics that you might typically find in an ecology textbook, each providing a short…
Shihong Jia and Bastien Castagneyrol discuss their article: ‘Neighbouring tree effects on leaf herbivory: insect specialization matters more than host plant leaf traits.’ Background Insect herbivores feed on plants and play a crucial role in determining plant performance, population, and community dynamics. This role is particularly significant in forests where insect herbivores can change the…
This blog post on ‘Community structure’ is part of the BES ‘Key Concepts in Ecology‘ series, designed to help ecologists in learning the key topics in ecology! Take a look at the full blog series for a list of key topics you might typically find in an ecology textbook, each providing a quick introduction to…
