Understanding the causes of variation in foliar plant metabolomes is essential for our understanding of ecological interactions between plants and other organisms. It is well‐accepted that foliar herbivory alters metabolites in leaves. However, soil (micro)organisms can also induce such changes. We generated plant‐specific soil legacies by growing twelve plant species individually in a common starting

Understanding and explaining the structure of communities in response to environmental gradients is a central goal in ecology. Trait‐based approaches are promising but yet rarely applied to understand community dynamics in response to changing environmental conditions. Here we investigate seasonal succession patterns of functional traits in phytoplankton communities and how nutrient reductions (oligotrophication)

Plant community succession is structured by initial richness, plant consumer pressure, and soil resource supply. These drivers influence species’ trait tradeoffs that underlie temporal changes in plant community diversity. Importantly, how these drivers interact with each other and through time and whether they act on different facets of plant community diversity by promoting different plant tradeoff

1. Biological communities are intrinsically dynamic, with species and interactions changing over time. However, the temporal dynamics of species interaction networks is usually assessed using independent “snapshot” networks, which may provide an incomplete representation of ecological processes. The use of temporal multilayer networks, where networks (i.e., layers) are formally interconnected via interlayer

By causing phenological shifts that vary among species, climate change is altering time envelopes for species interactions, often with unexpected demographic consequences. Indirect interactions, like apparent competition and apparent facilitation, are especially likely to change in duration because they involve multiple interactors, increasing the likelihood of asynchronous phenological shifts by at

When can small, isolated populations overcome the negative consequences of rarity? Despite considerable effort to understand threats to rare species, few studies consider how community context alters these threats. Plant‐pollinator interactions offer the opportunity to test the effect of community context on rare species success, as plant‐pollinator dynamics are thought to be influenced by neighboring

Fungal mycelium is increasingly recognized as a central component of soil biogeochemical cycling, yet our current understanding of the ecological controls on fungal necromass decomposition is limited to single sites and vegetation types. By deploying common fungal necromass substrates in a temperate oak savannah and hardwood forest in the midwestern USA, we assessed the generality of the rate at which

Although sunlight is essential for plant growth and development, the relative importance of each spectral region in shaping functional traits is poorly understood, particularly in dynamic light environments such as forest ecosystems. We examined responses of 25 functional traits from groups of 11 shade‐intolerant and 12 understorey shade‐tolerant forb species grown outdoors under five filter treatments

Fully mycoheterotrophic plants are thought to obtain carbon exclusively from their root‐associated fungal partners. The general enrichment of these plants in the heavy isotopes 13C and 15N suggests that fungi are the main nutrient source for these plants. Yet, the majority of studies have targeted mycoheterotrophic plants associated with ectomycorrhizal, orchid mycorrhizal and saprotrophic fungi, while

Plant species with broad climatic ranges might be more vulnerable to climate change than previously appreciated due to intraspecific variation in climatic stress tolerance. In tropical forests, drought is increasingly frequent and severe, causing widespread declines and altering community dynamics. Yet, little is known about whether foundation tropical trees vary in drought tolerance throughout their

The latitudinal diversity gradient hypothesis suggests that species richness should be highest at low latitudes, whereas Rapoport's rule states that largest ranges ought to be found for species at high latitudes. However, there is no consensus over these patterns and their underlying drivers in the freshwater realm. We investigated species richness and mean range size of freshwater plants in 50 × 50 km

Where conspecific seedlings occur at high densities, density‐dependent processes tend to depress their performance and survival relative to co‐occurring heterospecifics. We extend this observation to within‐species genetic diversity and relatedness. We posit that seedling growth and survival increase where there is higher genetic diversity, and lower relatedness, among seedling populations, under the

Negative density dependence (NDD) and niche partitioning have been proposed to explain the species coexistence in plant communities. However, the majority of previous studies have examined either only resource partitioning or NDD, or have focused only on a single life‐history stage. We thus lack knowledge regarding the relative importance of biotic neighbourhood interactions and abiotic conditions

Plants show ontogenetic variation in growth‐defence strategies to maximize reproductive output within a community context. Most work on plant ontogenetic variation in growth‐defence trade‐offs has focussed on interactions with antagonistic insect herbivores. Plants respond to herbivore attack with phenotypic changes. Despite the knowledge that plant responses to herbivory affect plant mutualistic interactions

Understanding how functional traits moderate species’ demographic responses along environmental gradients is a core pursuit in ecology, often to predict how species abundances will respond to a rapidly changing environment. The latter necessitates species demography, or at least abundance, to be modelled directly as a response; yet, most studies till date use abundance indirectly to calculate and then

Trait values affect how plants function, with consequences that propagate through scales of ecological organization to affect ecosystem function. However, the pathway connecting trait expression to ecosystem function is complicated by feedbacks: trait expression may vary within species in response to community diversity, and trait expression also determines a community's functional diversity. The predictability

Increasing temperatures and human activity are likely to reduce fire return intervals in the seasonal tropics. Anticipating how more frequent fires may alter forest community structure and composition requires understanding how fire intensity and species‐specific responses to fires interact to drive fire‐induced mortality for large numbers of species. We developed an analytical framework to estimate

Community assembly theory assumes that ecological communities are spatially delimited into patches. Within these patches, coexistence results from environmental filtering, competition and immigration. Truly delineated communities exist in laboratory studies of microbial cultures in Petri dishes, yet empirical tests conducted in continuous environments often use patches defined by convention as opposed

Density‐ and trait‐mediated indirect interactions (DMIIs and TMIIs respectively) are important drivers of community dynamics but how plant nutrients (bottom‐up effects) affect the magnitude of such indirect interactions has been scarcely addressed. To assess the impact of bottom‐up forces on indirect interactions, we carried out laboratory and greenhouse experiments manipulating plant nutrient supplies