1. Plants allocate defenses in order to decrease costs and maximize benefits against herbivores. The Optimal Defense Theory (ODT) predicts that continuously expressed (i.e., constitutive) defenses are expected in structures of high value, whereas defenses that are expressed or that increase their expression only after damage or upon risk of damage (i.e., induced defenses) are expected in structures

1. At broad spatial scales, the factors regulating litter decomposition remain ambiguous, with the understanding of these factors largely based on studies investigating site‐specific single litter species, whereas studies using multi litter species mixtures across sites are rare.

Despite progress in trait‐based ecology, there is limited understanding of the plant traits that structure semiarid grasslands. In particular, it remains unclear how traits that enable plants to cope with water limitation are related to traits that influence other key functions such as herbivore defense and growth. The hypothesis that drought and herbivory exert convergent selection pressures is supported

The evolutionary potential of populations inhabiting marginal areas has been extensively debated and directly affects their conservation value. Gene flow is one of the main factors influencing selection, adaptive potential and thus, local adaptation processes in marginal areas. The effects of differential gene flow provenance are still not well understood, since studies on gene flow between marginal

1. Disentangling species strategies that confer resilience to natural disturbances is key to conserving and restoring savanna ecosystems. Fire is a recurrent disturbance in savannas, and savanna vegetation is highly adapted to and often dependent on fire. However, although the woody component of tropical savannas is well studied, we still do not understand how ground‐layer plant communities respond

Forest decline under environmental stress is expressed by regeneration failure and accelerated mortality in all ontogenic stages at the population level. Characterizing functional traits and mechanisms that best capture species decline and mortality is essential to assess forest dynamics. We analyzed sensitivity to increasing water stress in two species with different water‐use strategies on a mixed

Species range limits are expected to be dramatically altered under future climate change and many species are predicted to shift their distribution upslope to track their suitable conditions (i.e. based on their niche). However, there might be large discrepancies between the speed of the upward shift of the climatic niche and the actual migration velocity of the species, especially in long‐lived organisms

Plant soil legacies consisting of species‐specific microbial communities are hypothesized to play a critical, structuring role in plant species co‐existence processes. Plant species are thought to perform worse on soil conditioned by the same species compared to soil of other species, which serves as a self‐limitation mechanism and averts mono‐dominance of strong competitors. Here we test in a multi‐species

Peatlands are globally important ecosystems but many are degraded and some are eroding. However, some degraded peatlands are undergoing apparently spontaneous recovery, with switches from erosion to renewed carbon accumulation – a type of ecological regime shift. We used a palaeoecological approach to investigate and help understand such a switch in a blanket peatland in North Wales, UK. Our data show:

Plant species differ in their competitive effects by decreasing resource availability via uptake, but in some cases may increase resource availability via non‐uptake pathways. Here we explore differences between grasses and woody plants in their competitive effects, and relate these to differences in resource effects. We grew five species each of grasses and woody plants in monocultures for eight years

Tall goldenrod plants (Solidago altissima ) appear to eavesdrop on the communication of a specialist gall‐inducing fly (Eurosta solidaginis ) by detecting the volatile emissions of male flies and priming anti‐herbivore defences. However, the effects of defence priming on fly fitness have not previously been demonstrated, despite some evidence that female flies avoid ovipositing on primed plants in

Climate change is known to affect many facets of the Earth’s ecosystems. However, little is known about its impacts on phylogenetic and functional properties of ecological communities. Here we studied the responses of plant communities in an alpine grassland on the Tibetan Plateau to environmental warming across taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional levels in a six‐year multiple‐level warming experiment

1. Functional traits are expected to provide insights into the abiotic and biotic drivers of plant demography. However, successfully linking traits to plant demographic performance likely requires the consideration of important contextual and individual‐level information that is often ignored in trait‐based ecology.

1. Due to complex root‐soil interactions, the responses of carbon (C) dynamics in the rhizosphere to elevated nitrogen (N) deposition may be different from those in bulk soil. However, the potentially different response of C dynamics in the rhizosphere and bulk soils and their contributions to soil C sequestration under N deposition is still not elucidated.