Diana Bertuol Garcia, University of Victoria, discusses her article: Long-term aridity shapes grassland drought resistance and modulates the roles of plant diversity and functional composition As ecologists, we often ask how ecosystems cope with change. This question now feels more urgent than ever. Around the world, ecosystems are facing habitat loss, overexploitation, invasive species, rising…
Kechang Niu and Pingyu Liu, Nanjing University, discuss their article: Earlier flowering, later fading: Plant diversity loss restructures alpine phenology via competitive release What is our paper about? For centuries, the timing of flowering has captivated both the public and scientists. Much of this fascination stems from a desire to understand the rhythms of life…
Shun Nonaka, Yokohama National University in Japan, discusses his article: Non-random species loss weakens functional diversity and species asynchrony, destabilizing grassland communities Why does the order of species loss matter? When we think about biodiversity loss, we often ask a simple question: how many species are disappearing? This is important, but it is not the…
Xiaoran Wang, East China Normal University, and Jian Zhang, Sun Yat-Sen University, discuss their article: Elevation and environmental factors shape variability rather than the mean of seedling herbivory across subtropical forests In mountain forests, not all seedlings experience insect herbivory in the same way. While some individuals suffer substantial leaf damage, others are barely affected.…
Eva Janíková, University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice, discusses her article: Realistic species loss has little effect on local resource depletion and competitive pressure in a temperate wet meadow A story that started with a simple idea When we began this project, we had clear expectations. Following ideas going back to Charles Elton’s hypothesis…
Jiayun Zou, Technical University of Munich, discusses his article: Biodiversity associations between aboveground and belowground communities in mountain forests across different climatic regions How tightly are the biological communities above and below the forest floor connected? In mountain forests, those associations remain poorly understood. While plants and soil microbes interact intimately, such as through symbioses…
Jiarong Yang and Yu Liu, East China Normal University, discuss their article: Rare tree species host a high diversity of rhizosphere fungi Forest ecosystems are intricate webs of life where trees and their root-associated fungi form a delicate balance. One question that remains, is whether and how tree species abundance influences the fungal communities that…
Vincent Buness, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, discusses his article: Distinct diversity trajectories of boreal wood-inhabiting fungi following fire vs. clear-cutting As humans, we tend to trust our senses and assume that we can perceive most of what surrounds us. When we walk through the forest, we see trees with their stems and canopy, and…
Jiaqi Chen and Wentao Luo, Institute of Applied Ecology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, discuss their article: Dominant species determine drought effects on grassland multifunctionality The increasing frequency of extreme drought events poses a severe threat to grassland ecosystem multifunctionality—a metric aggregating multiple ecosystem functions. However, the ecological mechanisms driving these impacts remain contentious.…
Beatriz Aguirre, Cornell University, discusses her article: Plant functional diversity does not dilute virus infection, but community virus prevalence positively correlates with net C3 grass production Greater plant diversity can protect plant communities from pathogens in wild and agricultural plant communities, and the effects of many aspects of diversity, such as genetic and species diversity,…
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