Lignin’s role in litter and soil organic carbon (SOC) decomposition remains contentious. Lignin decomposition was traditionally thought to increase during midstage litter decomposition, when cellulose occlusion by lignin began to limit mass loss. Alternatively, lignin decomposition could be greatest in fresh litter as a consequence of co‐metabolism, and lignin might decompose faster than bulk SOC.

Animals must balance various costs and benefits when deciding when to breed. The costs and benefits of breeding at different times have received much attention, but most studies have been limited to investigating short‐term season‐to‐season fitness effects. However, breeding early, versus late, in a season may influence lifetime fitness over many years, trading off in complex ways across the breeder’s

The current knowledge about pollinators in sub‐Saharan Africa is extremely scarce. General pollinator distributions and resource usages are mainly unknown, as are the main pollinators of different crops (Timberlake and Morgan 2018). In early 2011, I went to an Afromontane area of Ethiopia, where arabica coffee, Coffea arabica L., has its origin, to survey coffee pollinators. I surveyed 19 coffee sites

The biogeographic origin of species may help to explain differences in average tree height and aboveground biomass (AGB) of tropical mountain forests. After the Andean uplift, small‐statured trees should have been amongst the initial colonizers of the highlands (new cold environment) from the lowland tropics since these species are pre‐adapted to cold conditions with narrow vessels that are relatively

Climate change is altering biogeochemical, metabolic, and ecological functions in lakes across the globe. Historically, mountain lakes in temperate regions have been unproductive due to brief ice‐free seasons, a snowmelt‐driven hydrograph, cold temperatures, and steep topography with low vegetation and soil cover. We tested the relative importance of winter and summer weather, watershed characteristics

Investigations into the transfer of carbon from plant litter to underlying soil horizons has primarily focused on the leaching of soluble carbon from litter belowground or the mixing of litter directly into soil. However, previous work has largely ignored the role of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) released during litter decomposition. Unlike most leaf carbon, these litter‐derived VOCs are able to

Understanding community assembly is a key goal in community ecology. Environmental filtering influences community assembly by excluding ill‐adapted species, resulting in communities with similar functional traits. An RLQ (a four‐way ordination) analysis incorporating spatial data was run on a data set of 642 species of cheilostomes (Bryozoa) from 779 New Zealand sites, and results were compared to

As anthropogenic impacts on the natural world escalate, there is increasing interest in the role of humans in dispersing seeds. But the consequences of this Human‐Mediated Dispersal (HMD) on plant spatial dynamics are little studied. In this paper, we ask how secondary dispersal by HMD affects the dynamics of a natural plant metapopulation. In addition to dispersal between patches, we suggest within‐patch

The fauna of decapod crustaceans in the Southern Ocean has historically been considered impoverished, with only about a dozen species of decapod shrimp overall, of which only three species are common and abundant on the Antarctic continental shelf. Crabs and lobsters were assumed to be absent or very rare in the Southern Ocean, mainly ascribed to the physiological constraint of cold polar waters. Polar

The roles mobile animals and abiotic processes play as vectors for resource transfers between ecosystems (“subsidies”) are well‐studied, but the idea that resources from animals with limited mobility may be transported across boundaries through intermediate taxa remains unexplored. Aquatic plants (“macrophytes”) are globally distributed and may mediate transfers of aquatic‐derived nutrients from aggregations

Alluvial aquifers are key components of river floodplains and biodiversity worldwide, but they contain extreme environmental conditions and have limited sources of carbon for sustaining food webs. Despite this, they support abundant populations of aquifer stoneflies that have large proportions of their biomass carbon derived from methane. Methane is typically produced in freshwater ecosystems in anoxic

The theory of alternate stable states provides an explanation for rapid ecosystem degradation, yielding important implications for ecosystem conservation and restoration. However, utilizing this theory to initiate transitions from degraded to desired ecosystem states remains a significant challenge. Applications of the alternative stable states framework may currently be impeded by a mismatch between

The speed and maneuverability of organisms are central to their fitness, determining the strength and outcome of many species interactions that drive population and community level processes. While locomotion is influenced by many internal and external factors, body size and temperature are two key factors governing organismal locomotion. Biologists have been measuring locomotor performance, particularly

Historical comparisons of body size often lack pertinent details, including information on the sampling protocol and relevant ecological covariates that influence body size. Moreover, historical estimates of body size that rely on museum specimens may be biased towards larger size classes because of collector preferences, and thus size thresholds have been used to focus attention on maximum body size

Environmental conditions that vary from year to year can be strong drivers of ecological dynamics, including the composition of newly assembled communities. However, ecologists often chalk such dynamics up to “noise” in ecological experiments. Our lack of attention to such “year effects” hampers our understanding of contingencies in ecological assembly mechanisms and limits the generalizability of

The ability of random environmental variation to stabilize competitor coexistence was pointed out long ago and, in recent years, has received considerable attention. Analyses have focused on variations in the log abundances of species, with mean logarithmic growth rates when rare, E r , used as metrics for persistence. However, invasion probabilities and the times to extinction are not single‐valued

Understanding what makes food webs stable has long been a goal of ecologists. Topological structure and the distribution and magnitude of interaction strengths in food webs have been shown to confer important stabilizing properties. However, our understanding of how variable species interactions affect food‐web structure and stability is still in its infancy. Anthropogenic stress, such as acid mine

Climate warming is facilitating the expansion of many cold‐sensitive woody species in woodland–grassland ecotones worldwide. Recent research has demonstrated that this range expansion can be further enhanced by positive vegetation–microclimate feedbacks whereby woody canopies induce local nocturnal warming, which reduces freeze‐induced damage and favors the establishment of woody plants. However, this

Hypotheses about the mechanisms of community assembly suggest that biotic and abiotic filters constrain species establishment through selection on their functional traits. It is unclear how differences in traits influence the niche dimensions of closely‐related bird species when they co‐exist in spatiotemporally heterogeneous environments. Further, it is necessary to take into account their participation

Individuals of large or dark‐colored ectothermic species often have a higher reproduction and activity than small or light‐colored ones. However, investments into body size or darker colors should negatively affect the fitness of individuals as they increase their growth and maintenance costs. Thus, it is unlikely that morphological traits directly affect species’ distribution and abundance. Yet, this

Ecological literature offers a myriad of methods for quantifying b‐diversity. One such methods is determining BDtotal (BD), which, unlike other methods, can be decomposed into meaningful components that indicate how unique a sampling unit is regarding its composition (local contribution) and how unique a species is regarding its occurrence in the community (species contribution). Despite this advantage

When populations colonize new habitats, they are likely to experience novel environmental conditions, and as a consequence may experience strong selection. While selection and the resulting evolutionary responses may have important implications for establishment success in colonizing populations, few studies have estimated selection in such scenarios. Here we examined evidence of selection in recently

The goal of elucidating the primary mechanisms constraining the assembly and distribution of biodiversity remains among the central unresolved challenges facing the field of ecology. Simulation studies and experimental manipulations have focused on how patterns in community assembly result from bivariate relationships along productivity or environmental gradients. However, the joint influence of multiple

Species interaction networks, which govern the maintenance of biodiversity and ecosystem processes within ecological communities, are being rapidly altered by anthropogenic activities worldwide. Studies on the response of species interaction networks to anthropogenic disturbance have almost exclusively focused on one interaction type at a time, such as mutualistic or antagonistic interactions, making

Effects of group size (local conspecific density) on individual performance can be substantial, yet it is unclear how these translate to larger‐scale and longer‐term outcomes. Effects of group size can be mediated by both top‐down and bottom‐up interactions, can change in type or direction across the life cycle, and can depend on the spatial scale at which group size is assessed. Only by determining

Social foraging allows groups of predators to search for, pursue, and capture prey with greater efficiency than using solitary hunting. It can vary in complexity and take many forms ranging from cooperative hunting, to social information sharing and local enhancement (Lang and Farine 2017). Theoretical and empirical studies support the advantages of group foraging, although there will be trade‐offs

Bats contend with a great diversity of predators, though predation on bats is considered to be opportunistic and the frequency at which it occurs is unknown. Snake‐on‐bat predation in the New World is increasingly well documented, though records are largely limited to arboreal colubrids and boids hunting in caves (Esbérard and Vrcibradic 2007). Here we report predation of what was likely a fringe‐lipped

Some caterpillars produce sounds to startle or warn predators by rubbing the mandibles together or forcing air through the abdominal spiracles/oral cavity (Bura et al. 2016). Sound production through larval abdominal spiracles (i.e., whistling) has been reported in two closely related moth groups (Bura et al. 2016), hawkmoths (Sphingidae) and wild silkmoths (Saturniidae), which share a common ancestor

Large‐scale warming will alter multiple local climate factors in alpine tundra, yet very few experimental studies examine the combined yet distinct influences of earlier snowmelt, higher temperatures and altered soil moisture on alpine ecosystems. This limits our ability to predict responses to climate change by plant species and communities. To address this gap, we used infrared heaters and manual

Asexual species are thought to suffer more from coevolving parasites than related sexuals. Yet a variety of studies do not find the patterns predicted by theory. Here, to shine light on this conundrum, we investigate one such case of an asexual advantage in the presence of parasites. We follow the frequency dynamics of sexual and asexual Daphnia pulex in a natural pond that was initially dominated

Functional traits are characteristics of an organism that represent how it interacts with its environment and can influence the structure and function of ecosystems. Ecological stoichiometry provides a framework to understand ecosystem structure and function by modeling the coupled flow of elements (e.g. carbon [C], nitrogen [N], phosphorus [P]) between consumers and their environment. Animals tend

Wood is a major carbon input into aquatic ecosystems and is thought to decay slowly, yet surprisingly little terrestrial carbon accumulates in marine sediments. A better mechanistic understanding of how habitat conditions and decomposer communities influence wood decay processes along the river-estuary-ocean continuum can address this seeming paradox. We measured mass loss, wood element, and polymer

Boreal forest and tundra biomes are key components of the Earth system because the mobilization of large carbon stocks and changes in energy balance could act as positive feedbacks to ongoing climate change. In Alaska, wildfire is a primary driver of ecosystem structure and function, and a key mechanism coupling high‐latitude ecosystems to global climate. Paleoecological records reveal sensitivity

Mountaintop removal coal mining is the predominant form of surface mining in the Appalachian Region of the United States and leads to elevated levels of chemical constituents in streams draining mined watersheds. This data set contains measurements of water chemistry in the mountaintop mined landscape of Central Appalachia. These data were collected to determine the accumulation and transport of mercury

Recent observations have found plant-species-specific fly-host selection (i.e., specialization) of wasp parasitoids (wasps) in plant-fly-wasp (P-F-W) tripartite networks, yet no study has explored the dynamical implications of such high-order specialization for the persistence of this network. Here we develop a patch-dynamic framework for a unique P-F-W tripartite network with specialization observed

Climate change is exposing high‐latitude systems to warming and a shift towards more shrub‐dominated plant communities, resulting in increased leaf‐litter inputs at the soil surface, and more labile root‐derived organic matter (OM) input in the soil profile. Labile OM can stimulate the mineralization of soil organic matter (SOM); a phenomenon termed “priming.” In N‐poor subarctic soils, it is hypothesized

As organisms shift their geographic distributions in response to climate change, biotic interactions have emerged as an important factor driving the rate and success of range expansions. Plant–microbe interactions are an understudied but potentially important factor governing plant range shifts. We studied the distribution and function of microbes present in high‐elevation unvegetated soils, areas

Top-down and bottom-up controls regulate the structure and stability of ecosystems, but their relative roles in terrestrial systems have been debated. Here we studied a hydro-inundated land-bridge system in subtropical China and tested the relative importance of these two controls in determining the rodent-mediated regeneration of a locally dominant tree species. Our results showed that both controls

Plant‐root‐associated microbes influence plant phenotype and tolerance to environmental stress, and thus have been hypothesized to play a role in plant local adaptation. Here, we test this hypothesis with factorial experiments addressing the role of microbes in local adaptation of Hypericum perforatum (St. John’s wort) to stressful limestone barrens (alvars) compared to neighboring old‐fields. Alvar

Providing a complete data set with species and trait information for a given area is essential for assessing plant conservation, management, and ecological restoration, both for local as well as global applications. Also, these data sets provide additional information for surveys or data collections, establishing the starting point for more detailed studies on plant evolution, vegetation dynamics,

The term rheophyte describes a biological group of flood-tolerant plants that are confined to the beds of swift-running streams and rivers in nature and grow up to flood level, but not beyond the reach of regularly occurring flash floods. Although over 35 yr have passed since the first global census of rheophytes, no updates have been recorded regarding the number of taxa in this biological group in

Feeding interactions between fish species and crustaceans are not rare, such as the relations between cleaner shrimps and reef fishes (Horká et al. 2018) and between parasitic isopods and their fish hosts (Baeza 2015). In most of these cases the fish plays the main role as host and the crustacean a secondary role as associated species (Karplus 2014). This report presents an example of the opposite

Pollen data are widely used to reconstruct past climate changes, using relationships between modern pollen abundance in surface samples and climate at the surface-sample sites as a calibration. Visualization of modern pollen data in multidimensional climate space provides a way to establish that taxon abundances are well behaved before using them in climate reconstructions. Visualization is also helpful

Competition is a widespread interaction among carnivores, ultimately manifested through one or more dimensions of the species' ecological niche. One of the most explicit manifestations of competitive interactions regards spatial displacement. Its interpretation under a theoretical context provides an important tool to deepen our understanding of biological systems and communities, but also for wildlife

The king cobra (Ophiophagus hannah) is an iconic elapid snake species distributed throughout tropical forests from southwestern India to the Philippines, and southern China to the Indonesian archipelago (Stuart et al., 2012). As the generic epithet suggests, king cobras are thought to specialize on snake prey. Documenting feeding habits of snakes in nature can be difficult due to their low detectability

Revealing the mode of pollination in extant basal angiosperms might shed light on the evolution of early angiosperms (Hu et al. 2008). Because an extant basal-most angiosperm, Amborella trichopoda, is pollinated by a diversity of arthropods, the extinct early angiosperms might have been pollination generalists (Gottsberger 2016). Other extant basal angiosperms, including Schisandraceae, are pollinated

Soil phosphorus (P) availability in lowland tropical rainforests influences the distribution and growth of tropical tree species. Determining the P-acquisition strategies of tropical tree species could therefore yield insight into patterns of tree β-diversity across edaphic gradients. In particular, the synthesis of root phosphatases is likely to be of significance given that organic P represents a

Ants are a widespread group of ecologically important insects. Therefore, ants that are important predators of other ants are likely to play key roles by changing the abundance and impacts of their prey. Familiar arthropod predators, like army ants, are known for their overwhelming raids on invertebrate prey but are limited to mostly tropical systems. Thief ants (Genus: Solenopsis Westwood) are a cosmopolitan

While work in temperate forests suggests that there are consistent differences in plant–soil feedback (PSF) between plants with arbuscular and ectomycorrhizal associations, it is unclear whether these differences exist in tropical rainforests. We tested the effects of mycorrhizal type, phylogenetic relationships to overstory species, and soil fertility on the growth of tree seedlings in a tropical

The dispersal potential of a species determines its abundance, distribution, and community compatibility (biocoenosis) (Kneitel and Miller 2003) but the extent and the dispersal mechanisms of many organisms, especially microbes, are largely unknown and, in some cases, based on serendipitous observations (Ptatscheck et al. 2018, Sugiura et al. 2019). The extent of dispersal depends on the type, i.e

Besides climate change, plastic pollution and bioinvasions are currently among the most pervasive human‐based threats to biodiversity (Molnar et al. 2008, Gall and Thompson 2015). Overall, plastic ingestion by marine animals, its toxicity, and the capability to take up and accumulate other toxins from the marine environment are some of the main reasons for increasing scientific attention. Recently

A principal impact of invasive species is that they reduce local species richness. However, it is unknown whether the magnitude of the richness decrease has been consistent over the past two decades of published research. We used cumulative meta-analysis to synthesize evidence from 240 articles evaluating whether this cumulative evidence base generally supports, or refutes, the association between

Most organisms reproduce in a dynamic environment, and life-history theory predicts that this can favor the evolution of strategies that capitalize on good times and avoid bad times. When offspring experience these environmental changes, fitness can depend strongly upon environmental conditions at birth and at later life stages. Consequently, fitness will be influenced by the reproductive decisions

Individual diet specialization (IS) has important community‐ and population‐level implications and its ecological drivers are actively investigated. Here, to test the hypothesis that local environmental conditions may influence IS in wild populations, we analyzed the stomach contents of 395 individuals from eight populations of five allopatric species of European cave salamanders (genus Hydromantes

Biodiversity loss is a hallmark of our times, but predicting its consequences is challenging. Ecological interactions form complex networks with multiple direct and indirect paths through which the impacts of an extinction may propagate. Here we show that accounting for these multiple paths connecting species is necessary to predict how extinctions affect the integrity of ecological networks. Using

The Stress Gradient Hypothesis (SGH), which predicts increasing ratios of facilitative:competitive interactions with increasing stress, has long been a guiding framework for conceptualizing plant-plant interactions. Recently, there has been a growing recognition of the roles of microbes in mitigating or exacerbating environmental stress for their plant hosts. As such, we might predict based on the

Many studies have tried to assess the role of both deterministic and stochastic processes in community assembly, yet a lack of consensus exists on which processes are more prevalent and at which spatial scales they operate. To shed light on this issue, we tested two nonmutually exclusive, scale‐dependent hypotheses: (1) that competitive exclusion dominates at small spatial scales; and (2) that environmental

The input of external energy and matter in recipient ecosystems can act as a bottom-up force that subsidizes consumers, with subsequent cascading effects throughout the food web. Depending on the amount of input, dietary preference, and the strength of trophic links, allochthonous resources generally play a stabilizing role on food webs. In this study, we investigated the stabilizing role of allochthonous

Behavioral niche partitioning is an important and widely assumed mechanism for the coexistence of ecologically similar species. Here we assessed this mechanism by testing its core assumption, that evolved differences in foraging behavior correspond with differences in resources consumed. We combined data on foraging behavior, available prey, and observed diets of five coexisting species of New World

Intraspecific differentiation across a steep environmental gradient depends on the relative influences of evolutionary, organismal, and environmental processes. But steep environmental gradients may be nested within larger‐scale, regional conditions that could influence these processes at the local scale. Therefore, we hypothesized that phenotypic differentiation along a steep environmental gradient