How is polyploidy affecting the evolution and diversity of plant functional traits? the case of Dianthus broteri complex

Javier López-Jurado discusses recent article: Polyploidy promotes divergent evolution across the leaf economics spectrum and plant edaphic niche in the Dianthus broteri complex. Find out more about role of polyploidy – the state of having more than two paired sets of chromosomes – in overcoming constraints for the evolution of plant functional traits. Major functional traits in…

Editor’s Choice: Elegance in simplicity – a useful new way to quantify plant diversity dynamics

The Editor’s Choice article for Volume 107 Issue 5 is a study by Zhang et al., which outlines their new SRUD approach for measuring plant diversity dynamics. Associate Editor, Hans Cornelissen, discusses the importance of this new method. Many thousands of researchers have been concerned with what drives and threatens biodiversity. They have investigated whether biodiversity provides benefits…

Special Feature: Is phylogenetic and functional trait diversity a driver or a consequence of grassland community assembly?

The latest issue of Journal of Ecology includes a Special Feature guest edited by Nicholas Barber, David Gibson and Holly Jones. Below, Holly discusses the inspiration behind the Special Feature & summarises each of the research articles. When scientists think of healthy ecosystems, they often think of ecosystems that have lots of different species.  Diverse ecosystems are more resilient,…

Kerri Crawford – Interactive effect of species and genetic diversity on primary production

In the next Journal of Ecology podcast I interview Kerri Crawford about her paper exploring how plant species and genetic diversity interact to influence plant community biomass.  Check out the paper in the journal here.  This interview took place on 3 December, 2012. As always let us know what you think in the comments section below or on Twitter @JEcology or @recology_