Crystal McMichael is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Ecosystem and Landscape Dynamics at the University of Amsterdam. Her research interests are focused on assessing long-term (100s to 1000s of years) ecological processes in tropical ecosystems, and how distributions of species (including people) have changed over those time scales. Crystal is particularly interested in how tropical…
SIBECOL 2019: the 1st Iberian Ecological Society Meeting Earlier in February in sunny Barcelona more than 700 Ecologists gathered to celebrate the First Iberian Ecological Society meeting. This is a great achievement for science at large, as more than ever we need strong societies that can catalyze high-level research and help…
The Editor’s Choice article for Volume 107 Issue 2 is a study by Leunda et al. about long-term treeline dynamics. Associate Editor Bérangère Leys has taken a closer look at the paper in the blog post below… Ecosystem responses to climate change is a great concern and a lot of effort has been made to…
Volume 107 Issue 2 of Journal of Ecology is now available online! This issue includes a fascinating special feature on ecological succession. The special feature, guest edited by Ben Turner and Cynthia Chang, brings together work that highlights the importance of ecological succession in understanding the response of plant and microbial communities to disturbance. The…
The Bornean rainforest is one of the most ecologically diverse habitats for an ecologist to explore. Ryan Veryard (third year student at Oxford University) has kindly sent us some photos of his fieldwork in Borneo as a part of his third year project working with Andy Hector (Professor of Ecology, Oxford, and Journal of Ecology…
Karl Duffy‘s paper on ecogeographical isolation is published in the latest issue of Journal of Ecology (107.1). Karl tells us more about his paper in the blog post below. Since Humboldt, evolutionary biologists and ecologists have been interested in the geographical distributions of plants. Prior to the Modern Synthesis, ecological and geographical (ecogeographical) differences between…
Brandie Quarles (Duke University) gives some background on her recent paper on ageing in plants. Ageing, or senescence, is defined as a decline in function and an increased risk of mortality with increasing age. When many people hear the word aging, they likely think about it in the context of humans or other animals. I’ve…
The latest mini-review published in Journal of Ecology is Humboldt and the reinvention of nature by Juli Pausas and William Bond. Juli shares the inspiration behind the paper below. It all started when I was reading an excellent book by Andrea Wulf titled The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World. The book provides…
Following on from iDiv’s press release, lead author Stefan Kupers shares some background on their study about tropical tree species and drought and reflects on the significance of the findings. Despite high annual rainfall, tropical forests can suffer severe droughts. These droughts are expected to become more frequent and extreme with climate change. On regional…
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) press release. Growth rates shape species distributions of tropical tree seedlings on a soil moisture gradient, according to a new study published in Journal of Ecology. Even in wet environments like tropical rainforests, tree species are separated along local gradients of soil moisture. Researchers from iDiv found evidence…
