Human mediated dispersal of non-native earthworms can cause substantial changes to the functioning and composition of ecosystems previously earthworm-free. Some of these non-native earthworm species have the potential to ‘geoengineer’ soils and increase plant nitrogen (N) uptake. Yet, what consequence increased plant N concentrations could have on rodent grazing remains poorly understood. In this study

The microbial use of resources to sustain life and reproduce influences e.g., decomposition and plant nutrient provisioning. The study of “limiting factors” has shed light on the interaction between plants and their environment. Here, we investigated whether carbon (C), nitrogen (N) or phosphorus (P) was limiting for soil microorganisms in a subarctic tundra heath, and how changes in resource availability

Dispersal is more intense in the ocean than on land because most marine taxa present planktonic life stages that are transported by currents even without specific morphological traits. Thus, species dispersal shapes the distribution of biodiversity along seascapes and drives the composition of biodiversity assemblages. To identify marine assembling zones which characterise spatial areas particularly

The patterns and underlying ecological (e.g. environmental filtering) and historical (e.g. priority effects) drivers of beta diversity are scale-dependent, but generally difficult to distinguish and rarely explored with a sufficiently broad range of spatial scales. We propose a general scale-explicit framework to assess and contrast the patterns and drivers of beta diversity across hierarchical spatial

Areas used for livestock production and dominated by native grasses represent a unique opportunity to reconcile biodiversity conservation and livestock production. However, limited knowledge on individual species responses to rangeland management restricts our capacity to design grazing practices that favor endangered species and other priority birds. In this work, we applied Hierarchical Modeling

CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT Johnathan Henn is an Associate Editor of Journal of Ecology, but took no part in the peer review and decision-making processes for this paper.

As coral reefs endure increasing levels of disturbance, understanding recovery patterns of reef-building hard corals is paramount to assessing the sustainability of these ecosystems. At local scales, coral recovery slows down; however, it's unclear how this trend propagates across spatial scales due to the inherent complexity of coral dynamics. In this paper, we aimed to learn about fine scale heterogeneity

Temperature is a primary driver to define the ecophysiological activity and performance of ectotherms. Thus, thermal tolerance limits have a profound effect in determining geographic ranges. In regions with extreme cold temperatures, lower thermal limits of species are a key physiological trait for survival. Moreover, thermal niche breadth also plays an important role in allowing organisms to withstand

It is often assumed that community assembly processes, i.e. deterministic or stochastic factors determining the structure of communities, vary with spatial scale. However, evidence showing such scale-dependency is challenging to gather, especially in microbial communities.

The climate variability hypothesis posits that an organism's exposure to temperature variability determines the breadth of its thermal tolerance and has become an important framework for understanding variation in species' susceptibilities to climate change. For example, ectotherms from more thermally stable environments tend to have narrower thermal tolerances and greater sensitivity to projected

Habitat partitioning among co-occurring, ecologically similar species is widespread in nature and thought to be an important mechanism for coexistence. The factors that cause habitat partitioning, however, are unknown for most species. We experimentally tested among three alternative hypotheses to explain habitat partitioning among two species of co-occurring burying beetle (Nicrophorus) that occupy

Wetlands in arid or semi-arid zones are vital for maintaining biodiversity but face growing threats. Flooding regime variability is a key driver of ecological dynamism in these systems, dictating primary productivity on a large spatial scale. Functional composition or diversity of wetland-dependent bird species has been found to be sensitive to fluctuations in hydrological regimes and can thus be indicative

Invasive predators can cause substantial evolutionary change in native prey populations. Although invasions by predators typically occur over large scales, their distributions are usually characterized by substantial spatiotemporal heterogeneity that can lead to patchiness in the response of native prey species. Our ability to understand how local variation shapes patterns of inducible defense expression

Current latitudinal diversity gradient (LDG) meta-analyses have failed to distinguish one of the most widespread marine habitats, the intertidal zone, as a separate system despite it having unique abiotic challenges and spatially compressed stress gradients that affect the distribution and abundance of resident species. We address this issue by revisiting published literature and datasets on LDGs since

Fire suppression and past selective logging of large trees have fundamentally changed frequent-fire adapted forests in California. The culmination of these changes produced forests that are vulnerable to catastrophic change by wildfire, drought, and bark beetles, with climate change exacerbating this vulnerability. Management options available to address this problem include mechanical treatments (Mech)

Wetland ecosystems are vital for maintaining global biodiversity, as they provide important stopover sites for many species of migrating wetland-associated birds. However, because weather determines their hydrologic cycles, wetlands are highly vulnerable to effects of climate change. Although changes in temperature and precipitation resulting from climate change are expected to reduce inundation of

The global emphasis on halting forest loss has failed to recognize the biodiversity and ecosystem services provision of non-forest biomes such as the Brazilian Cerrado. Here, we stress the urgent need to address their destruction, including at the upcoming UN Conference of the Parties (COP28), and for coordinated efforts to protect these non-forest ecosystems amid the climate crisis.

The Sandhill Wetland (SW) and Nikanotee Fen (NF) are two wetland research projects designed to test the viability of peatland reclamation in the Alberta oil sands post-mining landscape. To identify effective approaches for establishing peat-forming vegetation in reclaimed wetlands, we evaluated how plant introduction approaches and water level gradients influence species distribution, plant community

A meta-analysis demonstrates that non-native species are often more resilient to extreme weather events than their native counterparts.

Understanding the responses of plant populations dynamics to climatic variability is frustrated by the need for long-term datasets. Here, we advocate for new studies that estimate the effects of climate by sampling replicate populations in locations with similar climate. We first use data analysis on spatial locations in the conterminous USA to assess how far apart spatial replicates should be from

Acoustic telemetry is a popular approach used to track many different aquatic animal taxa in marine and freshwater systems. However, information derived from focal studies is typically resource- and geography-limited by the extent and placement of acoustic receivers. Even so, animals tagged and tracked in one region or study may be detected unexpectedly at distant locations by other researchers using

Diet breadth is one of the fundamental species traits of an herbivorous insect as it strongly determines its ecological niche and, at the same time, its ability to cope with changing environmental conditions. To what extent this trait is associated with other characteristics that may influence a species' ability to respond to environmental changes, however, is yet poorly understood. Using European

Species across the planet are shifting or expanding their ranges because of climate change. These are climate migrants. Although climate migrants are well-documented, their impacts on recipient ecosystems are not. Climate migrants that are also ecosystem engineers (species that modify or create habitats) will likely drive profound effects on ecosystems. The Atlantic marsh fiddler crab, Minuca pugnax

Food webs are complex ecological networks that reveal species interactions and energy flow in ecosystems. Prevailing ecological knowledge on forested streams suggests that their food webs are based on allochthonous carbon, driven by a constant supply of organic matter from adjacent vegetation and limited primary production due to low light conditions. Extreme climatic disturbances can disrupt these

Cities can have profound impacts on ecosystems, yet our understanding of these impacts is currently limited. First, the effects of the socioeconomic dimensions of human society are often overlooked. Second, correlative analyses are common, limiting our causal understanding of mechanisms. Third, most research has focused on terrestrial systems, ignoring aquatic systems that also provide important ecosystem

Site-occupancy modelling is widely used in ecology for understanding species distribution, habitat-use and community changes but its application is still limited in paleoecology, where incomplete detection is also routine. Here, we make extensive expansions to an earlier multispecies occupancy model used to estimate the dynamics of relative species abundance in fossil communities. These expansions

Across boreal forests, trees are the main living biomass carbon (C) stock, but the understory vegetation can contribute significantly to the C cycling and net forest carbon dioxide (CO2) balance. The patchy understory vegetation, which consists of sunlit (i.e. lichen-like) and shaded habitats (i.e. dwarf shrub-like), is often altered by ungulate grazers. Grazers may influence understory CO2 exchange