Plant species’ distributions are often thought to overwhelmingly reflect their climatic niches. However, climate represents only a fraction of the n‐dimensional environment to which plant populations adapt, and studies are increasingly uncovering strong effects of non‐climatic factors on species’ distributions. We used a manipulative, factorial field experiment to quantify the effects of soil environment

The United States is home to many anuran species, each with traits that set them apart from one another. Understanding trait variation within and between anurans is key to many successful conservation, management, and research efforts. However, compiling trait data is intensive and time‐consuming. Trait databases can meet this need, but currently there is no detailed database that collates trait data

Soil fungi link above and belowground carbon (C) fluxes through their interactions with plants and contribute to C and nutrient dynamics through the production, turnover, and activity of fungal hyphae. Despite their importance to ecosystem processes, estimates of hyphal production and turnover rates are relatively uncommon, especially in temperate hardwood forests. We sequentially harvested hyphal

Shifts in reproductive timing are among the most commonly documented responses of organisms to global climate change. However, our knowledge of these responses is biased towards taxa that are easily observable and abundant in existing biodiversity data sets. Mammals are common subjects in reproductive biology, but mammalian phenology and its drivers in the wild remain poorly understood because many

Biological invasions are a leading cause of global change, yet their long‐term effects remain hard to predict. Invasive species can remain abundant for long periods of time, or exhibit population crashes that allow native communities to recover. The abundance and impact of non‐native species may also be closely tied to temporally variable habitat characteristics. We investigated the long‐term effects

Constructing ecological networks has become an indispensable approach in understanding how different taxa interact. However, the methods used to generate data in network research varies widely among studies, potentially limiting our ability to compare results meaningfully. In particular, methods of classifying nodes vary in their precision, likely altering the architecture of the network studied. For

Recent studies suggest that the mycorrhizal type associated with tree species is an important trait influencing ecological processes such as response to environmental conditions and conspecific negative density dependence (CNDD). However, we lack a general understanding of how tree mycorrhizal type influences CNDD strength and the resulting patterns of species abundance and richness at larger spatial

Priority effect theory, a foundational concept from community ecology, states that the order and timing of species arrival during species assembly can affect species composition. Although this theory has been applied to co‐infecting parasite species, it has almost always been with a single time lag between co‐infecting parasites. Thus, how the timing of parasite species arrival affects co‐infections

Snow roots are a very special type of roots that counteract geotropism to grow upward into long‐lasting snow fields. They develop under snow at near 0ºC, a phenomenon that had previously only been reported from plant shoots (Körner et al. 2019). Up to now, this intriguing and spectacular looking plant structure has been discovered and studied in only a single species, i.e. the vernal forb, Corydalis

One sunny July morning on the Neotropical island of Trinidad, a group of caterpillars, hundreds strong, marched in head‐to‐tail procession up their host tree. Among them were two morphs: the majority, long‐haired and black, and in smaller numbers, a more cryptic short‐haired brown morph. Both proceeded up the tree trunk, thoroughly integrated, and indistinguishable from each other in their behavior

Predation is a primary selection pressure contributing to both the morphological and behavioral adaptations of organisms (Brodie 1983, Lima and Dill 1990). However, studying the anti‐predator behaviors of aquatic taxa such as sea turtles is currently limited by the difficulty of observing the natural behaviors of free‐ranging individuals at sea (Heithaus et al. 2008).

A simple description of temporal dynamics of ecological communities may help us understand how community assembly proceeds, predict ecological responses to environmental disturbances, and improve the performance of biological conservation actions. Although community changes take place at multiple temporal scales, the variation of species composition and richness over time across communities and habitats

At local scales, it has been suggested that high levels of resources lead to increased tree growth via trait optimization (highly peaked trait distribution). However, this contrasts with (i) theories that suggest that trait optimization and high growth occur in the most common resource level and (ii) empirical evidence showing that high trait optimization can be also found at low resource levels. This

Plants deploy an arsenal of chemical and physical defenses against arthropod herbivores, but it may be most cost efficient to produce these only when attacked. Herbivory activates complex signaling pathways involving several phytohormones, including jasmonic acid (JA), which regulate production of defensive compounds. The Poaceae also have the capacity to take up large amounts of silicon (Si) which

Numerous studies have documented changes in the seasonal timing of organisms’ growth and reproduction in response to climate warming. These changes correlate with documented changes in species’ abundance, but mechanisms linking these trends remain elusive. We investigated the joint demographic effects of advanced reproductive phenology and warming on a globally invasive plant (Carduus nutans) in a

Climate change and habitat degradation are amongst the two greatest threats to biodiversity. Together, they can interact to imperil species. However, how climate change and land‐use change jointly affect the demographic vital rates that underpin population viability remains unknown. Here, using long‐term data on birds from the increasingly degraded and rapidly warming Himalayas, we show that survival

Numerous mutualisms have been described from terrestrial and marine communities and many of these mutualisms have significant effects on community structure and function. In contrast, there are far fewer examples of mutualisms from freshwater habitats and there is no evidence that any mutualism has community‐wide or ecosystem‐level consequences. Northern hemisphere crayfish are host to a variety of

Theory predicts that population genetic structure and metacommunity structure are linked by the common processes of drift and migration, but how population genetic structure and metacommunity structure are related in nature is still unknown. Deeper understanding of the processes influencing both genetic and community diversity is vital for better predicting how environmental change will impact biodiversity

Burrowing animals can profoundly influence the structure of surrounding communities, as well as the performance of individual species. Changes in the community structure of burrowing animals or plants together with changing abiotic parameters could shift the influence of burrowers on surrounding habitats. For example, prior studies in salt marshes suggest that fiddler crabs stimulate cordgrass production

The genus Arisaema contains approximately 180 species of deciduous or evergreen perennial herbs characterized by spathaceous inflorescence and one to several leaves that emerge from underground stems (Murata et al. 2018). Most Arisaema species are distributed in subtropical to cool temperate regions of Asia, although several are endemic to North America and tropical East Africa (Murata et al. 2018)

Detection/non‐detection data are widely collected by ecologists interested in estimating species distributions, abundances, and phenology, and are often subject to imperfect detection. Recent model development has focused on accounting for both false positive and false negative errors given evidence that misclassification is common across many sampling protocols. To date, however, model‐based solutions

Vector‐borne diseases threaten human and agricultural health and are a critical component of the ecology of plants and animals. While previous studies have shown that pathogen spread can be affected by vector preferences for host infection status, less attention has been paid to vector preference for host sex, despite abundant evidence of sex‐specific variation in disease burden. We investigated vector

Parasite transmission is thought to depend on both parasite exposure and host susceptibility to infection; however, the relative contribution of these two factors to epidemics remains unclear. We used interactions between an aquatic host and its fungal parasite to evaluate how parasite exposure and host susceptibility interact to drive epidemics. In six lakes, we tracked the following factors from

Plants acting as ecosystem engineers create habitats and facilitate biodiversity maintenance within plant communities. Furthermore, biodiversity research has demonstrated that plant diversity enhances the productivity and functioning of ecosystems. However, these two fields of research developed in parallel and independent from one another, with the consequence that little is known about the role of

Plants are sessile organisms and are under serious threat of herbivory. In response to herbivory, plants have evolved physical, chemical, and/or biological defenses to protect themselves from herbivores. Plants are not only protected by their own defenses, but also by the existence of neighboring plants, the so called “associational resistance” (Tahvanainen and Root 1972).

The widespread importance of variable types of primary production, or energy channels, to consumer communities has become increasingly apparent. However, the mechanisms underlying this “multichannel” feeding remain poorly understood, especially for aquatic ecosystems that pose unique logistical constraints given the diversity of potential energy channels. Here, we use bulk tissue isotopic analysis

Although density regulates the abundance of most wild animal populations by influencing vital rates, such as fecundity and survival, the mechanisms responsible for generating negative density dependence are unclear for many species. Site dependence occurs when there is preferential filling of high‐quality territories, which results in higher per capita vital rates at low densities because a larger

In Southeast Asia, biodiversity‐rich forests are being extensively logged and converted to oil palm monocultures. Although the impacts of these changes on biodiversity are largely well documented, we know addition to samples we collected in 201 little about how these large‐scale impacts affect freshwater trophic ecology. We used stable isotope analyses (SIA) to determine the impacts of land‐use changes

Pulsed fluxes of organisms across ecosystem boundaries can exert top‐down and bottom‐up effects in recipient food webs, through both direct effects on the subsidized trophic levels and indirect effects on other components of the system. While previous theoretical and empirical studies demonstrate the influence of allochthonous subsidies on bottom‐up and top‐down processes, understanding how these forces

Predicting the response of biological communities to changes in the environment or management is a fundamental pursuit of community ecology. Meeting this challenge requires the integration of multiple processes: habitat filtering, niche differentiation, biotic interactions, competitive exclusion, and stochastic demographic events. Most approaches to this long‐standing problem focus either on the role

Understanding how to scale up effects of biological diversity on ecosystem functioning and services remains challenging. There is a general consensus that biodiversity loss alters ecosystem processes underpinning the goods and services upon which humanity depends. Yet most of that consensus stems from experiments performed at small spatial scales for short time frames, which limits transferability

Climate models project higher growing‐season temperatures and a decline in the depth and duration of winter snowpack throughout many north temperate ecosystems over the next century. A smaller snowpack is projected to induce more frequent soil freeze/thaw cycles in winter in northern hardwood forests of the northeastern United States. We measured the combined effects of warmer growing‐season soil temperatures

Parasite fitness depends on a successful journey from one host to another. For parasites that are transmitted environmentally, abiotic conditions might modulate the success of this journey. Here we evaluate how light, a key abiotic factor, influences spatiotemporal patterns of zooplankton disease where light varies seasonally, across lakes, and with depth in a lake. In an in situ experiment using those

Mammalian carnivores are considered a key group in maintaining ecological health and can indicate potential ecological integrity in landscapes where they occur. Carnivores also hold high conservation value and their habitat requirements can guide management and conservation plans. The order Carnivora has 84 species from 8 families in the Neotropical region: Canidae; Felidae; Mephitidae; Mustelidae;

In territorial species, non‐territorial floaters may be critical to population dynamics. One theoretical framework, based on the assumption that floating is a strategic decision to forgo reproduction, predicts that selection maintains an abundant floater population even if low‐quality territories are available. However, existing models make two critical assumptions: all individuals have equal competitive

In ecological networks, neutral predictions suggest that species’ interaction frequencies are proportional to their relative abundances. Deviations from neutral predictions thus correspond to interaction preferences (when positive) or avoidances (when negative), driven by non‐neutral (e.g. niche‐based) processes. Exotic species interact with many partners with which they have not coevolved, and it

Keystone engineers are critical drivers of biodiversity throughout ecosystems worldwide. Within the North American Great Plains, the black‐tailed prairie dog is an imperiled ecosystem engineer and keystone species with well‐documented impacts on the flora and fauna of rangeland systems. However, because this species affects ecosystem structure and function in myriad ways (i.e., as a consumer, a prey

Understanding factors that maintain ecosystem stability is critical in the face of environmental change. Experiments simulating species loss from grassland have shown that losing biodiversity decreases ecosystem stability. However, as the originally sown experimental communities with reduced biodiversity develop, plant evolutionary processes or the assembly of interacting soil organisms may allow ecosystems

Where interspecific facilitation favors the establishment of high densities of a beneficiary species, strong intraspecific competition may subsequently impede beneficiary performance. Consequently, the negative influence of intraspecific competition between beneficiary individuals could potentially outweigh the positive influence of interspecific facilitation when, for example, higher densities of

Integrated models combine multiple data types within a unified analysis to estimate species abundance and covariate effects. By sharing biological parameters, integrated models improve the accuracy and precision of estimates compared to separate analyses of individual data sets. We developed an integrated point process model to combine presence‐only and distance sampling data for estimation of spatially

Foundation species structure forest communities and ecosystems but are difficult to identify without long‐term observations or experiments. We used statistical criteria‐outliers from size‐frequency distributions and scale‐dependent negative effects on alpha diversity and positive effects on beta diversity‐to identify candidate foundation woody plant species in 12 large forest‐dynamics plots spanning

The presence and form of senescence in wild populations is of broad theoretical interest (e.g., Cohen 2015, Nussey et al. 2013), and mortality schedules have obvious practical implications for constructing demographic models for ecological research and conservation (e.g., Robert et al. 2015, Hassall et al. 2017). Therefore, there has been great interest in the diversity of patterns of senescence among

Disentangling the drivers of diversity gradients can be challenging. The Measurement of Biodiversity (MoB) framework decomposes scale‐dependent changes in species diversity into three components of community structure: the species abundance distribution (SAD), the total community abundance, and the within‐species spatial aggregation. Here we extend MoB from categorical treatment comparisons to quantify

Coastal wetlands have the highest carbon sequestration rate per unit area among all unmanaged natural ecosystems. However, how magnitude and seasonality of CO2 sink in coastal wetlands will respond to future climate warming remain unclear. Here, based on measurements of ecosystem CO2 fluxes in a field experiment in the Yellow River Delta, we found that experimental warming (i.e., a 2.4 °C increase

Litter decomposition is a key process that allows the recycling of nutrients within ecosystems. In temperate forests the role of large herbivores in litter decomposition remains a subject of debate. To address this question, we used two litterbag experiments in a quasi‐experimental situation resulting from the introduction of Sitka black‐tailed deer Odocoileus hemionus sitkensis on forested islands

Migration can allow individuals to escape parasite infection, which can lead to a lower infection probability (prevalence) in a population and/or fewer parasites per individual (intensity). Since individuals with more parasites often have lower survival and/or fecundity, infection intensity shapes the life‐history tradeoffs determining when migration is favored as a strategy to escape infection. Yet

The decline and subsequent recovery of the vicuña (Vicugna vicugna, Quechua: wik’uña), one of the few large, native herbivores in the Andes (Figure 1), is one of the world’s greatest conservation success stories. Over‐exploited nearly to extinction by the 1960’s, the current population of these wild camelids is estimated at close to 500,000 animals, with nearly half of the global population in Peru

Classical ecological theory posits that species partition resources such that each species occupies a unique resource niche. In general, the availability of more resources allows more species to co‐occur. Thus, a strong relationship between communities of consumers and their resources is expected. However, correlations may be influenced by other layers in the food web, or by the environment. Here we

Biological invasions can lead to the reassembly of communities, and understanding and predicting the impacts of exotic species on community structure and functioning is a key challenge in ecology. We investigated the impact of a predatory species of invasive ant, Pheidole megacephala, on the structure and function of a foundational mutualism between Acacia drepanolobium and its associated acacia‐ant

The species pool concept has advanced our understanding for how biodiversity is coupled at local and regional scales. However, it remains unclear how species pool size — the number of species available to disperse to a site — influences community assembly across spatial scales. We provide one of the first studies that assesses diversity across scales after experimentally assembling grassland communities

Shifts from coral to algal dominance are expected to increase in tropical coral reefs as a result of anthropogenic disturbances. The consequences for key ecosystem functions such as primary productivity, calcification, and nutrient recycling are poorly understood, particularly under changing environmental conditions. We used a novel in situ incubation approach to compare functions of coral‐ and algae‐dominated

Human activities are enriching many of Earth’s ecosystems with biologically limiting mineral nutrients such as nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P). In grasslands, this enrichment generally reduces plant diversity and increases productivity. The widely demonstrated positive effect of diversity on productivity suggests a potential negative feedback, whereby nutrient‐induced declines in diversity reduce the

Recent studies have found considerable trait variations within species. The effect of such intraspecific trait variability (ITV) on the stability, coexistence, and diversity of ecological communities received considerable attention and in many models it was shown to impede coexistence and decrease species diversity. Here we present a numerical study of the effect of genetically inherited ITV on species

Mortality and shifts in species distributions are among the most obvious consequences of extreme climatic events. However, the sublethal effects of an extreme event can have persistent impacts throughout an individual’s lifetime and into future generations via within‐generation and transgenerational phenotypic plasticity. These changes can either confer resilience or increase susceptibility to subsequent

Top‐predators, including birds of prey, play an important role in ecosystems and are good bioindicators (Sergio et al. 2005). Links between the presence of predators and the overall biodiversity of a particular habitat mainly focus on trophic relationships (Roth and Weber 2008, Sergio et al. 2008b, Burgas et al. 2014). However, top‐predators not only have food requirements, but also need to build large

Canopy‐forming kelps are foundational species in coastal ecosystems, fixing tremendous amounts of carbon, yet we know little about the ecological and physiological determinants of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) release by kelps. We examined DOC release by the bull kelp, Nereocystis luetkeana, in relation to carbon fixation, nutrient uptake, tissue nitrogen content, and light availability. DOC release

Gaps in the forest canopy, created by treefalls, are fundamental to the process of forest dynamics (Yamamoto 2000). Tree‐fall gaps are critical for the regeneration of shade‐intolerant tree species while at the same time, providing opportunities for the growth and establishment of shade‐tolerant tree species (Yamamoto 2000). Gap dynamics is central to understanding change in old‐growth forests, and

The dynamics of ecological communities depend partly on species interactions within and among trophic levels. Experimental work has demonstrated the impact of species interactions on the species involved, but it remains unclear whether these effects can also be detected in long‐term time series across heterogeneous landscapes. We analyzed a 19‐year time series of patch occupancy by the Glanville fritillary

Sixty year ago, Charles Elton posed that species‐rich communities should be more resistant to biological invasion. Still, little is known about which processes could drive the diversity–invasibility relationship. Here we examined whether soil‐microbe‐mediated apparent competition on alien invaders is more negative when the soil originates from multiple native species. We trained soils with five individually

Deciphering the ecological roles of plant secondary metabolites requires integrative studies that assess both the allocation patterns of compounds and their bioactivity in ecological interactions. Secondary metabolites have been primarily studied in leaves, but many are unique to fruits and can have numerous potential roles in interactions with both mutualists (seed dispersers) and antagonists (pathogens