Competition simultaneously limits the availability of above‐ and below‐ground resources for plants. How plants respond to density with changes in patterns of biomass allocation is poorly understood. Previous studies had inconsistent results, but emphasised increased biomass allocation to stems in response to density. However, the response of plants to density may depend on environmental conditions

1. Warming temperatures and rising moisture deficits are expected to increase rates of background tree mortality–low amounts of tree mortality (~0.5‐2% year ‐1) characterizing forest demographic processes in the absence of abrupt, coarse‐scale disturbance events (e.g., fire). When compounded over multiple decades and large areas, even minor increases in background tree mortality (e.g., <0.5% year ‐1)

Anthropogenic aerosols could alter multiple meteorological processes such as radiation regime and air temperature, thereby modifying plant transpiration. However, the lack of field observations at leaf‐ and plant‐level hinders our ability to understand how aerosols could affect plant water use. Aerosol concentrations in northern China fluctuate periodically over a wide range. Taking advantage of this

1. Threshold non‐linearities in the relationship between island area and species richness can result in dramatic declines in richness with a seemingly small decline in area near the threshold. What is not known, is whether threshold declines in richness are also accompanied by non‐linear changes in functional trait space and non‐random shifts of trait group composition in response to declining area

1. Invasive plants often successfully occupy large areas encompassing broad environmental gradients in their invaded range, yet how invader dominance and effects on ecological communities vary across the landscape has rarely been explored. Furthermore, while the impacts of invasion on plant communities are well studied, it is not well understood whether responses of aboveground (plant) and belowground

Plant root exudation is a crucial means through which plants communicate with soil microbes and influence rhizosphere processes. Exudation can also underlie ecosystem response to changing environmental conditions. Different plant species vary in their root exudate quantity and quality, but our understanding of the plant characteristics that drive these differences is fragmentary. We hypothesised that

Canopy structure is an important driver of the energy budget of grassland ecosystem and is, at the same time, altered by plant diversity. Diverse plant communities typically have taller and more densely packed canopies than less diverse communities. With this, they absorb more radiation, have a higher transpiring leaf surface and are better coupled to the atmosphere which leads to cooler canopy surfaces

1. Invasive species have the ability to rapidly adapt in the new regions where they are introduced. Classic evolutionary theory predicts that the accumulation of genetic differences over time in allopatric isolation may lead to reproductive incompatibilities resulting in decreases in reproductive success and, eventually, to speciation. However, experimental evidence for this theoretical prediction

1. Resilience—the capacity of an ecosystem to recover from disturbance—is a popular concept but quantitative empirical studies are still uncommon. This lack of empirical evidence is especially true for semiarid ecosystems in the face of the combined and often confounding impacts of land‐use and climate changes.

The balance between trees and grasses is a key aspect of savanna ecosystem functioning, and so far, believed to be regulated by resource availability, fire frequency and consumption by mammalian herbivores. Herbivores, however, also impact plant communities through the deposition of growth‐limiting nutrients in their dung and urine. Little attention has been paid to the fact that savanna herbivores

1. Anthropogenic activity can modify the distribution of species abundance in a community leading to the appearance of new dominant species. While many studies report that an alien plant species which becomes increasingly dominant can change species composition, plant‐pollinator network structure and the reproductive output of native plant species, much less is known about native plant species which

1. The effects of temperature and precipitation, and the impacts of changes in these climatic conditions, on plant communities have been investigated extensively. The roles of other climatic factors are, however, comparatively poorly understood, despite potentially also strongly structuring community patterns. Wind, for example, is seldom considered when forecasting species responses to climate change

1. Whether fragmented ecosystems can maintain diversity is a key ecological question. The ability of fragmented forests to support diversity is determined by both landscape‐scale metapopulation dynamics and within‐patch mechanisms that govern species coexistence. Within‐patch dynamics can be affected by proximity to forest edges. Edge effects on abiotic and biotic processes can alter species’ performance

1. One of the most studied emergent functions of plant community diversity is the resistance of diverse communities to non‐native invasions. As emphasized in this Special Feature, facilitation among native species is a key mechanism by which biodiversity increases various functions, including resistance to invasion. However, when diverse assemblages facilitate non‐native species, diversity‐invasibility

1. Non‐frugivorous waterbirds disperse a wide variety of plants by endozoochory, providing longer dispersal distances than other mechanisms. Many waterbirds visit both agricultural and natural landscapes during their daily movements, but potential bird‐mediated dispersal of weed plants within and from agricultural landscapes to other habitats is commonly overlooked. Gulls (Laridae) are expanding in

Fungal pathogens have the potential to affect plant biogeography and ecosystem processes through their influence on the fitness and functioning of their plant hosts. Simultaneously, changes in plant communities can influence fungal pathogen communities. Exactly which host plant attributes determine the composition of fungal pathogen communities on the leaves remains poorly understood. Here, we characterized

Global warming is facilitating the range‐expansion of tropical herbivores, causing a tropicalization of temperate marine ecosystems, where tropical herbivores can suppress habitat‐forming macrophytes, supporting the resilience of canopy‐free ecosystem states. However, currently we lack a thorough understanding of the mechanisms that, on one hand, support the persistence of tropical herbivores and on

1. Despite the ecological importance of vascular epiphytes in the tropics, even basic information on the processes that form epiphyte communities is scarce. This is partially due to an almost complete lack of long‐term studies.

1. Climate warming has the potential to drive changes in fungal community development and dead wood decomposition, but our understanding of this process is obscured by complex interactions between temperature and multiple other factors. A pivotal factor driving decay dynamics is fungal assembly history, yet its response to elevated temperature is poorly understood.

1. Although both observational and experimental studies have shown that positive tree species diversity‐productivity relationships are predominant in global forests, weak or the lack of tree species diversity and productivity relationships also exist. Growing evidence has revealed that ecosystem productivity depends more on the functional characteristics of species than on their number. However, exactly

Previous theoretical work has highlighted the potential for natural enemies to mediate the coexistence of species with similar life‐histories via density‐dependent effects on survivorship. For plant pathogens to play this role, they must differ in their ability to infect or induce disease in different host plant species. In tropical forests characterized by high diversity, these effects must extend

Increasing evidence shows that facilitative interactions between species play an essential role in coastal wetland ecosystems. However, there is a lack of understanding of how such interactions can be used for restoration purposes in salt marsh ecosystems. We therefore studied the mechanisms of reciprocal facilitative interactions between native annual plants, Suaeda salsa, and burrowing crabs, Helice

Life history tradeoffs are important coexistence mechanisms in plant communities. In particular, a tradeoff between seed quality and seed output may explain coexistence among species with a wide variety of seed sizes in heterogeneous landscapes with varying degrees of local stresses such as shade, drought, and browsing. Under spatially implicit formulations of the tolerance‐fecundity tradeoff, species

Forest planting events present key opportunities to enhance forest adaptation and growth through the selection of appropriate growing materials (seeds and seedlings). Critical to such efforts is knowledge of the climatic distance that seed sources can be moved before significant growth forfeitures are incurred. These limits, referred to here as critical seed transfer distances (CSTD), can be used to