Species engage in mutually beneficial interspecific interactions (mutualisms) that shape their population dynamics in ecological communities. Species engaged in mutualisms vary greatly in their degree of dependence on their partner from complete dependence (e.g. yucca and yucca moth mutualism) to low dependence (e.g. generalist bee with multiple plant species). While current empirical studies show

Habitat fragmentation remains a major focus of research by ecologists decades after being put forward as a threat to the integrity of ecosystems. While studies have documented myriad biotic changes in fragmented landscapes, including the local extinction of species from fragments, the demographic mechanisms underlying these extinctions are rarely known. However, many of them – especially in lowland

Intransitive competition has long been acknowledged as a potential mechanism favoring species coexistence. However, its prevalence, variance along environmental gradients, and possible underlying mechanisms (trade-offs) in plant communities (especially in forests) has seldomly been examined. A recently developed “reverse-engineering” approach based on Markov Chain allows us to estimate competitive

Biological invasions are expected to alter food web structure, but there are limited empirical data directly comparing invaded versus uninvaded food webs, particularly in species-rich, tropical systems. We characterize for the first time the food web of Lake Gatun – a diverse and highly-invaded tropical freshwater lake within the Panama Canal. We used stable isotope analysis to reconstruct the trophic

Hosts rely on the availability of nutrients for growth, and for defense against pathogens. At the same time, changes in host nutrition can alter the dynamics of pathogens that rely on their host for reproduction. For primary producer hosts, enhanced nutrient loads may increase host biomass or pathogen reproduction, promoting faster density-dependent pathogen transmission. However, the effect of elevated

Wood in the deep-sea serves as substantial food source in an otherwise barren environment, forming specialized, endemic, and diverse community assemblages. This biodiversity reliance on a terrestrial source creates a linkage by which anthropogenic impacts on land can alter the deep oceans. Knowledge of alpha- or beta-diversity of entire wood-fall communities, and wooden drivers of each would elucidate

While community synchrony is a key framework for predicting ecological constancy, the interplay between community synchrony and ecological invasions remains unclear. Yet the degree of synchrony in a resident community may influence its resistance and resilience to the introduction of an invasive species. Here we used a generalizable mathematical framework, constructed with a modified Lotka-Volterra

Natural enemies and their interaction with host nutrient availability influence plant population dynamics, community structure, and ecosystem functions. However, the nature in which these factors influence patterns of community stability, as well as the direct and indirect processes underlying that stability, remain unclear. Here, we investigated the separate and interactive roles of fungal/oomycete

Preference-performance theory predicts that females should select breeding sites that maximize offspring performance. Amphibians have been a model system for investigating habitat selection, yet most studies have focused on habitat selection in response to predators and conspecifics. We investigated female oviposition site selection and larval performance in eastern gray treefrogs (Hyla versicolor)

Anthropogenic environmental changes are influencing the structure and function of many ecological communities, but their underlying mechanisms are often poorly understood. We conducted a seven-year field experiment to explore the ecological consequences of nitrogen (N) and phosphorous (P) enrichment in a high-altitude Tibetan alpine grassland. We found that the enrichment of both N and P, but not either

Determining population demographic rates is fundamental to understanding differences in species’ life-history strategies and their capacity to coexist. Calculating demographic rates, however, is challenging and requires long-term, large-scale censuses. Body size may serve as a simple predictor of demographic rate; can it act as a proxy for demographic rate when those data are unavailable? We tested

For many species, a well documented response to anthropogenic climate change is a shift in various aspects of its life history, including its timing or phenology. Often, these phenological shifts are associated with changes in abiotic factors used as proxies for resource availability or other suitable conditions. Resource availability, however, can also be impacted by competition, but the impact of

Seed dispersal is widely considered an important mechanism for the conservation of plant diversity. In tropical regions, over 80% of woody plant species are dispersed by vertebrates, often through the consumption of fruits. Our understanding of what drives interactions between vertebrates and fruits is limited. Through a systematic literature search, we compiled a database of fruit and seed traits

Spatially synchronized population dynamics are common in nature, and understanding their drivers is key for predicting species persistence. A main driver of synchrony between populations of the same species is shared environmental conditions, which cause populations closer together in space to be more synchronized than populations further from one another. Most theoretical and empirical understanding

Understanding how climate warming will influence species interactions is a key question in ecology and predicting changes in the prevalence of disease outbreaks is particularly challenging. Ectotherms are likely to be more influenced by climatic changes as temperature governs their growth, feeding, development, and behavior. We test the hypothesis that pathogen transmission and host mortality will

One strategy for understanding the dynamics of any complex system, such as a community of competing species, is to study the dynamics of parts of the system in isolation. Ecological communities can be decomposed into single species, and pairs of interacting species. This reductionist strategy assumes that whole-community dynamics are predictable and explainable from knowledge of the dynamics of single

CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT The author declares no conflicts of interest.

A fundamental question in ecology is which species will prevail over others amid changes in both environmental mean conditions and their variability. Although the widely accepted fluctuating resource hypothesis predicts that increases in mean resource availability and variability therein will promote nonnative plant invasion, it remains unclear to what extent these effects might be mediated by soil

Land use intensification has led to conspicuous changes in plant and animal communities across the world. Shifts in trait-based functional composition have recently been hypothesized to manifest at lower levels of environmental change when compared to species-based taxonomic composition; however, little is known about the commonalities in these responses across taxonomic groups and geographic regions

The Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (RMBL; Colorado, USA) is the site for many research projects spanning decades, taxa, and research fields from ecology to evolutionary biology to hydrology and beyond. Climate is the focus of much of this work and provides important context for the rest. There are five major sources of data on climate in the RMBL vicinity, each with unique variables, formats

Alternative migratory strategies can coexist within animal populations and species. Anthropogenic impacts can shift the fitness balance between these strategies leading to changes in migratory behaviors. Yet some of the mechanisms that drive such changes remain poorly understood. Here we investigate the phenotypic differences, and the energetic, behavioral, and fitness trade-offs associated with four

These referees have served in the past year for manuscripts submitted to Ecology, Ecological Applications, Ecological Monographs, Ecosphere, and Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment (1 January 2022 through 31 December 2022). The authors, editors, staff, and members of ESA are indebted to these individuals for their thoughtful and critical reviews. We extend our deepest appreciation for the time

For their service as ad hoc editors of one or more manuscripts for Ecology, Ecological Applications, Ecological Monographs, Ecosphere, and Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment during the past year (1 January 2022 through 31 December 2022) the Society is especially grateful to: Lennart Bach Jennifer K. Balch* Sara Beery Megan E. Cattau* Michael H. Cortez Monique de Jager Lisa M. Ellsworth* Neil

Seagrass meadows across the globe are under increasing pressure from human activities and climate change (Dunic et al., 2021; Waycott et al., 2009). A major challenge limiting effective seagrass conservation is the paucity of global seagrass distribution data. Global estimates of seagrass distribution range from 150,000 to 600,000 km2 (Green & Short, 2003), with the most recent estimate of 160,387 km2

Infanticide—the killing of another's dependent young by a nonparent—is an extreme form of intrasexual competition that occurs across a wide range of animal taxa (Hausfater & Hrdy, 2008). Infanticide is typically committed by males of polygamous species, as it increases male reproductive opportunity by inducing female victims to reproduce again (Hrdy, 1979). Female infanticide is rarer and less understood

Planktonic animals drifting or floating in the sea have small body sizes and weights from hundreds to thousands of milligrams, and are primarily the food for other zooplankton and macrofauna: fish, cephalopods, seabirds and marine mammals, and also the larval pool of many benthic invertebrates. This paper describes a unique dataset of zooplankton collected from 1984 to 2013 in the North Pacific (the

Environmental pathogen reservoirs exist for many globally important diseases and can fuel epidemics, influence pathogen evolution, and increase the threat of host extinction. Species composition can be an important factor that shapes reservoir dynamics and ultimately determines the outcome of a disease outbreak. However, disease-induced mortality can change species communities, indicating that species

Fire is a dominant ecological force shaping many faunal communities globally. Fire affects fauna either directly, such as by killing individuals, or indirectly, such as by modifying vegetation structure. Vegetation structure itself also modulates fire frequency and intensity. As such, faunal responses to fire need to be seen through the lens of variable fire activity and vegetation structure. Here

Host–pathogen dynamics are influenced by many factors that vary locally, but models of disease rarely consider dynamics across spatially heterogeneous environments. In addition, theory predicts that dispersal will influence host–pathogen dynamics of populations that are linked, although this has not been examined empirically in natural systems. We examined the spatial dynamics of a patchy population

CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Tropical forests are well known for their high woody plant diversity. Processes occurring at early life stages are thought to play a critical role in maintaining this high diversity and shaping the composition of tropical tree communities. To evaluate hypothesized mechanisms promoting tropical tree species coexistence and influencing composition, we initiated a census of woody seedlings and small saplings

The persistent exposure of coral assemblages to more variable abiotic regimes is assumed to augment their resilience to future climatic variability. Yet, while the determinants of coral population resilience across species remain unknown, we are unable to predict the winners and losers across reef ecosystems exposed to increasingly variable conditions. Using annual surveys of 3171 coral individuals

We compiled and presented a dataset for all timber species reported in the Amazon region from all nine South American Amazonian countries. This was based on official information from every country, as well as from two substantial scientific references. We verified the standard taxonomic names from each individual source, using the Taxonomic Name Resolution Service (TNRS) and considered all Amazonian

Determining the spatial distributions of species and communities is a key task in ecology and conservation efforts. Joint species distribution models are a fundamental tool in community ecology that use multi-species detection–nondetection data to estimate species distributions and biodiversity metrics. The analysis of such data is complicated by residual correlations between species, imperfect detection

The relationship between biodiversity and stability, or its inverse, temporal variability, is multidimensional and complex. Temporal variability in aggregate properties, like total biomass or abundance, is typically lower in communities with higher species diversity (i.e., the diversity–stability relationship [DSR]). At broader spatial extents, regional-scale aggregate variability is also lower with

Habitat selection studies contrast actual space use with the expected use under the null hypothesis of no selection (hereafter neutral use). Neutral use is most often equated to the relative frequencies with which environmental features occur. This generates a considerable bias when studying habitat selection by foragers that perform numerous trips back and forth to a central place (CP). Indeed, the

CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Herbivores shape plant invasions through impacts on demography and dispersal, yet only demographic mechanisms are well understood. Although herbivores negatively impact demography by definition, they can affect dispersal either negatively (e.g., seed consumption), or positively (e.g., caching). Exploring the nuances of how herbivores influence spatial spread will improve the forecasting of plant movement

Flowering and fruiting phenology have been infrequently studied in the ever-wet hyperdiverse lowland forests of northwestern equatorial Amazonía. These Neotropical forests are typically called aseasonal with reference to climate because they are ever-wet, and it is often assumed they are also aseasonal with respect to phenology. The physiological limits to plant reproduction imposed by water and light

The long-known, widely documented inverse relationship between body size and environmental temperature (“temperature-size rule”) has recently led to predictions of body size decline following current climatic warming (“size shrinking effect”). For keystone pollinators such as wild bees, body shrinking in response to warming can have significant effects on pollination processes but there is still little

Climate change has a profound impact on species distribution and abundance globally, as well as local diversity, which affects ecosystem functioning. In particular, changes in population distribution and abundance may lead to changes in trophic interactions. Although species can often shift their spatial distribution when suitable habitats are available, it has been suggested that predator presence

Phylogenetic diversity (PD), the evolutionary history of the organisms comprising a community, is increasingly recognized as an important driver of ecosystem function. However, biodiversity–ecosystem function experiments have rarely included PD as an a priori treatment. Thus, PD's effects in existing experiments are often confounded by covarying differences in species richness and functional trait

Plant species loss due to eutrophication is a common phenomenon in temperate perennial grasslands. It occurs in a nonrandom fashion and is usually explained by increased competitive size asymmetry between the co-occurring winner (tall species with optima in productive habitats) and loser species (small-statured plants typical for unproductive habitats). It remains unclear why nutrient addition decreases

Beyond the study of the mean, functional ecology lacks a concise characterization of trait variance patterns across spatiotemporal scales. Traits are measured in different ways, using different metrics, and at different spatial (and rarely temporal) scales. This study expands on previous research by applying a ubiquitous and widely used empirical model—Taylor's Power Law—to functional trait variance

Phenotypic plasticity might increase fitness if the conditions under which it evolved remain unaltered, but becomes maladaptive if the environment no longer provides reliable cues for subsequent conditions. In seasonal environments, timing of reproduction can respond plastically to spring temperature, maximizing the benefits of a long season while minimizing the exposure to unfavorable cold temperatures

CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT The author declares no conflicts of interest.

Trees must allocate resources to core functions like growth, defense, and reproduction. These allocation patterns have profound effects on forest health, yet little is known about how core functions trade off over time, and even less is known about how a changing climate will impact tradeoffs. We conducted a 21-year survey of growth, defense, and reproduction in 80 ponderosa pine individuals spanning

Consumers mediate nutrient cycling through excretion and egestion across most ecosystems. In nutrient-poor tropical waters such as coral reefs, nutrient cycling is critical for maintaining productivity. While the cycling of fish-derived inorganic nutrients via excretion has been extensively investigated, the role of egestion for nutrient cycling has remained poorly explored. We sampled the fecal contents

Specialist insect herbivores make up a substantial fraction of Earth's biodiversity; however, they exploit a minority of plant lineages. For instance, in the eastern United States and Canada, ~25% of bee species are pollen specialists, but they are hosted by a small fraction of the native, animal-pollinated angiosperms in the region: Only 6% of plant genera and 3% of families support pollen-specialist

Biogeochemical niche (BN) hypothesis aims to relate species/genotype elemental composition with its niche based on the fact that different elements are involved differentially in distinct plant functions. We here test the BN hypothesis through the analysis of the 10 foliar elemental concentrations and 20 functional-morphological of 60 tree species in a French Guiana tropical forest. We observed strong

Understanding how communities respond to perturbations requires us to consider not only changes in the abundance of individual species but also correlated changes that can emerge through interspecific effects. However, our knowledge of this phenomenon is mostly constrained to situations where interspecific effects are fixed. Here, we introduce a framework to disentangle the impact of species correlated

An entire community of organisms may become modified when its environment changes. These modifications can happen through physiological processes (plasticity), evolutionary processes (adaptation) or shifts in species composition (sorting). The outcome of these three sources of change constitutes the community's phenotypic response, but how they combine to drive community trait dynamics is not currently

Human actions are decreasing the diversity and complexity of forests, and a mechanistic understanding of how these changes affect predators is needed to maintain ecosystem services, including pest regulation. Using a large-scale tree diversity experiment, we investigate how spiders respond to trees growing in plots of single or mixed species combinations (4 or 12) by repeatedly sampling 540 trees spanning

Biological processes play important roles in determining how global changes manifest at local scales. Primary producers can absorb increased CO2 via daytime photosynthesis, modifying pH in aquatic ecosystems. Yet producers and consumers also increase CO2 via respiration. It is unclear whether biological modification of pH differs across the year, and, if so, what biotic and abiotic drivers underlie

Decomposition of coarse detritus (e.g., dead organic matter larger than ~1 mm such as leaf litter or animal carcasses) in freshwater ecosystems is well described in terms of mass loss, particularly as rates that compress mass loss into one number (e.g., a first-order decay coefficient, or breakdown rate, “k”); less described are temporal changes in the elemental composition of these materials during