Soil microbes have long been recognized to substantially affect the coexistence of pairwise plant species across terrestrial ecosystems. However, projecting their impacts on the coexistence of multispecies plant systems remains a pressing challenge. To address this challenge, we conducted a greenhouse experiment with 540 seedlings of five tree species in a subtropical forest in China and evaluated

Theoretical biologist who ‘tamed’ mathematicians and tested the theory of evolution.

In migratory insects performing multigenerational migration, such as the painted lady butterfly Vanessa cardui, successive generations face a wide variety of predator communities and may be subject to different predation risks. Here, we analyze the pattern of wing damage of over 2000 butterflies to investigate, for the first time, the risk of predation of adult painted ladies across a latitudinal range

The availability of online biodiversity data has increased in recent decades, aiding our understanding of diversity patterns and species richness–environment relationships across temporal and spatial scales. However, even the most exhaustive databases are prone to sampling biases, which create knowledge gaps in species distributions and increase uncertainty in model predictions. Regarding marine environments

Animals spend a considerable proportion of their life span at rest. However, resting status has often been overlooked when investigating how species respond to environmental conditions. This may induce a large bias in understanding the local adaptation of species across environmental gradients and their vulnerability to potential environmental change. Here, we conducted an empirical study on montane

Adaptively managing marine protected areas (MPAs) requires accurately assessing whether established MPAs are achieving their goals of protecting and conserving biomass, especially for harvested populations. Ecological MPA assessments commonly compare inside of the MPA to a reference point outside of and/or before implementation (i.e., calculating “response ratios”). Yet, MPAs are not simple ecological

Knowledge of how agricultural management interacts with weed seed banks and emergent weed communities is crucial for proactive weed management. Though studies have detailed how differences in disturbance and nutrient applications between organic and conventional herbicide‐based systems affect weed communities, few have focused on these same factors in contrasting organic systems. This study assessed

Global change is affecting the distribution and population dynamics of plant species across the planet, leading to trends such as shifts in distribution toward the poles and to higher elevations. Yet, we poorly understand why individual species respond differently to warming and other environmental changes, or how the trait composition of communities responds. Here we ask two questions regarding plant

Common mycorrhizal networks (CMNs) can link multiple plants and distribute nutrients among them. However, how parasitic plants regulate the carbon and nutrient exchange between CMNs and the linked plants is unknown. Thus, we conducted a container experiment with two Trifolium pratense grown in two plastic cores and connected only by CMNs using a 25‐μm nylon fabric in each container. Host T. pratense

Increasingly frequent severe drought events are pushing Mediterranean forests to unprecedented responses. Lack of management leads to dense forests that are highly susceptible to drought stress, potentially resulting in extensive dieback and increased vulnerability to other disturbances. Forest treatments like thinning and slash burning reduce competition for resources and have the potential to enhance

Conservation of species requires the protection of the associated suitable habitat. However, it is usually not known how much habitat is required to detect a single rare species. This problem is important, and it is related directly to the success and optimization of conservation planning. However, to date, no statistical methods have been developed to address this problem adequately. In this study

Increased temperatures are altering rates of organic matter (OM) breakdown in stream ecosystems with implications for carbon (C) cycling in the face of global change. The metabolic theory of ecology (MTE) provides a framework for predicting temperature effects on OM breakdown, but differences in the temperature dependence of breakdown driven by different organismal groups (i.e., microorganisms vs.

The Invention of Prehistory: Empires, Violence, and Our Obsession with Human Origins Stefanos GeroulanosLIVERIGHT PRESS: 2024. 512 pp. £22.99 The study of the human past matters for an array of positive and negative reasons. A new book from historian Stefanos Geroulanos promises to explore those reasons — but also to question the worth of studying human origins altogether — by reviewing the histories

Litter decomposition in mountainous forest ecosystems is an essential process that affects carbon and nutrient cycling. However, the contribution of litter decomposition to terrestrial ecosystems is difficult to estimate accurately because of the limited comparability of different studies and limited data on local microclimatic and non‐climatic factors. Here, we designed a coordinated experiment within

Co‐occurrence networks offer insights into the complexity of microbial interactions, particularly in highly diverse environments where direct observation is challenging. However, identifying the scale at which local and non‐local processes structure co‐occurrence networks remains challenging because it requires simultaneously analyzing network structure within and between local networks. In this context

Unraveling the spatiotemporal dynamics of communities is critical to understand how biodiversity responds to global changes. However, this task is not trivial, as these dynamics are quite complex, and most studies are limited to few taxa at small local and temporal scales. Tropical mountains are ideal indicators of biodiversity response since these endangered and complex ecosystems include many distinct

The landscape theory of food web architecture (LTFWA) describes relationships among body size, trophic position, mobility, and energy channels that serve to couple heterogenous habitats, which in turn promotes long‐term system stability. However, empirical tests of the LTFWA are rare and support differs among terrestrial, freshwater, and marine systems. Further, it is unclear whether the theory applies

Parasite–host systems are a good study model for answering ecological and evolutionary questions. In this regard, mistletoes have been increasingly studied in recent decades in both temperate and tropical zones. The genus Phoradendron is a group of American mistletoes that has been studied from different evolutionary and ecological approaches as a model of parasite–host systems. Currently, however

Ecosystems and biodiversity across the world are being altered by human activities. Habitat modification and degradation are among the most important drivers of biodiversity loss. These modifications can have an impact on species behavior, which can, in turn, impact their mortality. While several studies have investigated the impacts of habitat degradation and fragmentation on terrestrial species,

COVER PHOTO: Mulla et al. (this issue; Article e4368; doi:10.1002/ecy.4368) performed annual monitoring to assess the recovery of coral populations which led to the emergence of a Pocillopora‐dominated reef at Orchid Island (also called Lanyu), Taiwan, pictured on the cover. Their demographic data collection from 2012 to 2020 tracks individual corals after Typhoon Morakot severely impacted the region

Most organisms are at risk of being consumed by a predator or getting infected by a parasite at some point in their life. Theoretical constructs such as the landscape of fear (perception of risk) and nonconsumptive effects (NCEs, costly responses sans predation or infection) have been proposed to describe and quantify antipredator and antiparasite responses. How prey/host species identify and respond

Globally, numerous ecosystems have been co‐invaded by multiple exotic plant species that can have competitive or facilitative interactions with each other and with native plants. Invaded ecosystems often exhibit spatial heterogeneity in soil moisture and nutrient levels, with some habitats having more nutrient‐rich and moist soils than others. The stress‐gradient hypothesis predicts that plants are

Shrinking saline lakes provide irreplaceable habitat for waterbird species globally. Disentangling the effects of wetland habitat loss from other drivers of waterbird population dynamics is critical for protecting these species in the face of unprecedented changes to saline lake ecosystems, ideally through decision‐making frameworks that identify effective management options and their potential outcomes

Reptiles make up one‐third of tetrapods, however they are often omitted from global conservation analyses. Understanding the determinants of reptile distribution is the foundation for reptile conservation research. We assembled a dataset on the distribution of 231 reptile species (nearly 50% of recorded species in China). We then investigated the association of species range filling (the proportion

Liverworts are an ancient plant lineage that occurs worldwide with the highest species richness in cool and humid habitats such as tropical montane and temperate rain forests. It has been proposed that liverworts originated under such temperate climatic conditions and have later expanded into more tropical conditions, but how this is reflected in their phylogenetic diversity along the strong climatic

Georeferencing is a key process in the digitization of natural history collections as it assigns spatial coordinates to preserved specimen collecting locations, facilitating their use in ecological, evolutionary and conservation research. Georeference data in public repositories such as GBIF is often missing or incomplete, jeopardising their use in research and limiting the return on investment made

The impact of fragmentation on biodiversity is driven by more than the spatial configuration of suitable habitat patches. Habitat is embedded in the surrounding anthropogenic land cover, known as the matrix, which plays a key role in species movement and connects the fragmented habitat. Whether the matrix is a barrier or a conduit to movement depends on the mortality of the moving individuals. However

Warming associated with climate change will advance the onset of spring phenology for many forest plants across the Eastern United States. Understory forbs and spring ephemerals that fix a disproportionate amount of carbon during early spring may be negatively affected by earlier canopy closure; however, information on the spatial patterns of phenological change for these communities is still lacking

Major theories regarding microbe‐mediated plant community dynamics assume that plant species cultivate distinct microbial communities. However, few studies empirically assess the role of species‐associated microbial community dissimilarity in plant competitive dynamics. In this study, we paired a competition experiment between eight annual forbs with characterisation of species‐associated fungal communities

Animals disperse seeds in various ways that affect seed deposition sites and seed survival, ultimately shaping plant species distribution, community composition, and ecosystem structure. Some animal species can disperse seeds through multiple pathways (e.g., defecation, regurgitation, epizoochory), each likely producing distinct seed dispersal outcomes. We studied how seed traits (size and toughness)