Author Sally Archibald discusses newly published article: “Browsing is a strong filter for savanna tree seedlings in their first growing season” by Archibald, Twine, Mthabini, & Stevens. This research found that establishment limitation through early browsing is an under-recognised constraint on savanna tree species distributions When trying to explain why an organism is found in…
The cover image for our June issue shows white pine trees at the oldest forest research plot in Canada – this species being considered for assisted migration efforts in this region. This image relates to the research article: Critical seed transfer distances for selected tree species in eastern North America by Pedlar, McKenney & Lu. Lead author, John…
Throughout May, we will be featuring all the articles that were shortlisted for the Harper Prize 2020. The Harper Prize is an annual award for the best early career research paper published in Journal of Ecology. To start off this blog series, we hear from Michał Bogdziewicz! Michał’s article, “Do benefits of seed dispersal and…
Natural history collections in museums, herbaria, seed banks, and tissue banks provide some of the most valuable information sources in an ecologist’s toolbox: time series data. These collections not only permanently archive preserved specimens, but also critical historical and contemporary information about how species distributions, interactions, and phenotypes respond to global change across time scales.…
Authors, Víctor Martín-Vélez and Andy J. Green, discuss their recent study which highlights the importance of non‐frugivorous waterbirds as vectors for long‐distance plant dispersal: Spatial patterns of weed dispersal by wintering gulls within and beyond an agricultural landscape. You can also read the Press Release for this article here. Weeds are plants that spontaneously grow…
Authors Robert Whelan and David Ayre provide further insight into their recently published Journal of Ecology article: Long inter‐fire intervals do not guarantee a large seed bank in a serotinous shrub (Banksia spinulosa Sm.) Find out how fires influence the seedling recruitment of an Australian shrub. This research is especially poignant in the wake of the…
David Ascoli, Andrew Hacket-Pain, … & Giorgio Vacchiano just had their paper entitled “Climate teleconnections synchronize Picea glauca masting and fire disturbance: Evidence for a fire‐related form of environmental prediction” published in Journal of Ecology (DOI:10.1111/1365-2745.13308). In this blog post, David explains how seed masting in white spruce (Picea glauca) matches fire disturbance and can be…
The Editor’s Choice article for Volume 107 Issue 6 is a study by Quintana‐Ascencio et al., which looks at the role of seed dormancy, dispersal and fire history on plant population dynamics, distribution and abundance. Associate Editor, Shurong Zhou, discusses this new research paper in more detail. Biodiversity conservation and management depend on our understanding of population dynamics at…
The Journal of Ecology has recently published new research by Villar et al. “The cryptic regulation of diversity by functionally complementary large tropical forest herbivores.” Read more about their work in this post & Part 1, written by authors Nacho Villar & Mauro Galetti. To Janzen or not to Janzen? The standard Janzen-Connell hypothesis (JCH)…
The Journal of Ecology has recently published new research by Villar et al. “The cryptic regulation of diversity by functionally complementary large tropical forest herbivores.” Read more about their work in this post & Part 2, written by authors Nacho Villar & Mauro Galetti. The empty forest The “empty forest” syndrome described by Redford (1992)…
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