Soil respiration, the major pathway for ecosystem carbon (C) loss, has the potential to enter a positive feedback loop with the atmospheric CO2 due to climate warming. For reliable projections of climate-carbon feedbacks, accurate quantification of soil respiration and identification of mechanisms that control its variability are essential. Process-based models simulate soil respiration as functions

Early in his career, Russ Monson produced a series of influential eco-physiological papers that helped lay the foundation for the study of C4 plant evolution. Among the most important was a 1984 paper with Maurice Ku and Gerry Edwards that outlined the pathway for the evolutionary bridge from C3 to C4 photosynthesis. This model proposed C4 photosynthesis arose out of a shuttle that imported photorespiratory

A key goal of ecological research is to obtain reliable estimates of population demographic rates, abundance and trends. However, a common challenge when studying wildlife populations is imperfect detection or breeding observation, which results in unknown survival status and reproductive output for some individuals. It is important to account for undetected individuals in population models because

Assessing carryover effects from the aquatic to the terrestrial stage of pond-breeding amphibians is critical as temperature and hydrologic regimes of temporary ponds continue to be altered as a result of climate change and other stressors. We evaluated carryover effects of hydroperiod length (50–62 days) on amphibian survival, developmental rates, and locomotor performance using a model organism,

Forest cover and light availability comprise key factors for plant establishment in tropical forests. In the Brazilian Atlantic Forest (AF), Euterpe edulis (Areacaceae) is an endangered and keystone food resource contributing to forest functionality. We investigated the influence of forest loss and light availability on leaf traits and acclimatization of young individuals of E. edulis in AF fragments

Tropical forests represent the largest store of terrestrial biomass carbon (C) on earth and contribute over-proportionally to global terrestrial net primary productivity (NPP). How climate change is affecting NPP and C allocation to tree components in forests is not well understood. This is true for tropical forests, but particularly for African tropical forests. Studying forest ecosystems along elevation

Ants have efficient and well-studied social immunity mechanisms, which prevent the colony contamination. Little is known about how workers keep their outside territory clear of diseases. We investigated the interactions between Azteca chartifex ants, their associated bacteria and bacteria on the phyllosphere of Byrsonima sericea trees, comparing plants patrolled and not by the ants. The hypothesis

Introduced ecosystem engineers are expected to have extensive ecological impacts on a broad range of resident biota by altering the physical–chemical structure of ecosystems. Livestock that are potentially important introduced ecosystem engineers in grassland systems could create and/or modify habitats for native plant-dwelling insects. Yet, there is little knowledge of how insects respond to engineering

Open grassy vegetation and forests share riparian zones across the Neotropical savannas, characterizing alternative stable states. However, factors determining the occurrence and maintenance of each vegetation type are yet to be elucidated. To disentangle the role of environmental factors (soil properties and groundwater depth) constraining tree colonization of wet grasslands in the Cerrado, we assessed

The biotic resistance hypothesis asserts that native species may hinder the invasion of exotic species, which can occur either directly or indirectly by influencing interactions between exotic and local species. Aphid-tending ants may play a key role in the indirect biotic resistance to plant invasion. Ants may protect aphids, thus increasing their negative effect on exotic plants, but may also deter

Understanding the processing of limiting nutrients among organisms is an important goal of community ecology. Less known is how human disturbances may alter the stoichiometric patterns among organisms from different trophic levels within communities. Here, we investigated how livestock grazing affects the C:N:P ecological stoichiometry of soils, plants (Leymus chinensis), and grasshoppers (Euchorthippus

An altitudinal gradient of leaf water repellency is often observed between and within species. In a previous study of Arabidopsis halleri, cauline leaves (stem leaves that wrap flowering buds) showed higher water repellency in exposed semi-alpine plants than in understory low-elevation plants. Here, we examined altitudinal variations in the cuticular wax content of the leaf surface and experimentally

Habitat selection is expected to balance benefits and costs that maximizes fitness. Using a rare data set on collared lemming (Dicrostonyx groenlandicus) winter nest location spanning more than two decades, we show that lemmings actively select for Salix snow beds, likely due to its favorable micro-climate, and that lemming habitat selection was density-dependent. Lemmings nevertheless exhibited some

Ectomycorrhizal (EcM) tree species often become more dominant than arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) tree species in temperate forests, but they generally coexist. Theory predicts that ecological feedback mediated by aboveground herbivory and/or belowground microbes could explain these dominance/coexistence patterns. An experimental test of how aboveground/belowground organisms associated with AM/EcM trees

The original article can be found online.

Trade-offs between photosynthesis and the costs of resource capture inform economic strategies of plants across environmental gradients and result in predictable variation in leaf traits. However, understudied functional groups like hemiparasites that involve dramatically different strategies for resource capture may have traits that deviate from expectations. We measured leaf traits related to gas

It is increasingly recognized that gut microbiota have a major effect on the physiology, biology, ecology and evolution of their animal hosts. Because in social insects, the gut microbiota is acquired through the diet and by contact with nest provisions, it can be hypothesized that regular supplementation of microorganisms to the diet will have an impact on the fitness of the consumer and on the development

Foliar fungi (defined as all fungal species in leaves after surface sterilization; hereafter, ‘FF’) are of great importance to host plant growth and health, and can also affect ecosystem functioning. Despite this importance, few studies have explicitly examined the role of host filtering in shaping local FF communities, and we know little about the differences of FF community assembly between symptomatic

Ecologists often collect data with the aim of determining which of many variables are associated with a particular cause or consequence. Unsupervised analyses (e.g. principal components analysis, PCA) summarize variation in the data, without regard to the response. Supervised analyses (e.g., partial least squares, PLS) evaluate the variables to find the combination that best explain a causal relationship

Lyme disease is the most prevalent vector-borne disease in the United States, yet critical gaps remain in our understanding of tick and host interactions that shape disease dynamics. Rodents such as deer mice (Peromyscus spp.) and dusky-footed woodrats (Neotoma fuscipes) are key reservoirs for Borrelia burgdorferi, the etiological bacterium of Lyme disease, and can vary greatly in abundance between

Most non-native domesticated plants provide benefits without escaping cultivation, but others have become prominent invaders. A better understanding of how domestication might alter plant traits that influence the ability of species to overcome barriers to invasion could improve invasion risk predictions. We explored how variation in foliar chemistry among cultivars of a widespread invader in the U

Species diversity varies in space and time. Temporal changes in the structure and dynamics of communities can occur at different scales. We investigated the temporal changes of dung beetle assemblages in the Amazonian region along seasons, years, and successional stages. We evaluated if assemblage structure changes between temporal scales and whether such changes affect the functional structure of

Temporal dynamics of plant-pollinator interactions inform the mechanisms of community assembly and stability. However, most studies on the dynamics of pollination networks do not consider plant reproductive traits thus offering poor understanding of the mechanism of how networks maintain stable structure under seasonal changes in flower community. We studied seasonal dynamics of pollination networks

Leaf litter and its breakdown products represent an important input of organic matter and nutrients to mangrove sediments and adjacent coastal ecosystems. It is commonly assumed that old-grown stands with mature trees contribute more to the permanent sediment organic matter pool than younger stands. However, neither are interspecific differences in leaf decay rates taken into account in this assumption

Tropical rainforest disturbance and conversion are critical drivers of biodiversity loss. A key knowledge gap is understanding the impacts of habitat modification on mechanisms of community assembly, which are predicted to respond differently between taxa and across spatial scales. We use a null model approach to detect trait assembly of species at local- and landscape-scales, and then subdivide communities

The increase in managed honeybees (Apis mellifera) in many European cities has unknown effects on the densities of wild bees through competition. To investigate this, we monitored honeybees and non-honeybees from 01 April to 31 July 2019 and 2020 at 29 species of plants representing diverse taxonomic and floral-functional types in a large urban garden in the city of Munich in which the same plant species

Increasing urbanization and use of urban areas by synanthropic wildlife has increased human and domestic animal exposure to zoonotic diseases and exacerbated epizootics within wildlife populations. Consequently, there is a need to improve wildlife disease surveillance programs to rapidly detect outbreaks and refine inferences regarding spatiotemporal disease dynamics. Multistate occupancy models can

To understand impacts of post-disturbance assembly mechanisms on the functional diversity (FD) of plant communities, it is necessary to determine how the environment drives their functional trait composition. In the boreal forest, post-fire abiotic filters may control community assembly by selecting plants with specific traits. Ericaceous heaths are characterized by low FD and are thought to be subject

Ecological opportunity occurs when a resource becomes available through a decrease of interspecific competition and another species colonizes the vacant niche through phenotypic plasticity and intraspecific competition. Brook charr exhibit a resource polymorphism in some Canadian Shield lakes, where a littoral ecotype feeds mainly on zoobenthos and a pelagic ecotype feeds mostly on zooplankton. The

Patterns of β-diversity can provide insight into forces shaping community assembly. We analyzed species-rich insect assemblages in two reserve fragments that had once been part of one contiguous Mediterranean coastal pine forest. Local environments are still similar across both fragments, but their landscape context differs strongly, with one surrounded by intense agricultural land, while the other

Authors would like to correct error in affiliation in the original publication of the article.

Stomata are central players in the hydrological and carbon cycles, regulating the uptake of carbon dioxide (CO2) for photosynthesis and transpirative loss of water (H2O) between plants and the atmosphere. The necessity to balance water-loss and CO2-uptake has played a key role in the evolution of plants, and is increasingly important in a hotter and drier world. The conductance of CO2 and water vapour

Tropical mountain ecosystems are threatened by climate and land-use changes. Their diversity and complexity make projections how they respond to environmental changes challenging. A suitable way are trait-based approaches, by distinguishing between response traits that determine the resistance of species to environmental changes and effect traits that are relevant for species' interactions, biotic

Grasses are recognized as a critical regeneration barrier in tropical pastures, yet the effects of rodents and rodent–grass interactions are not well understood. As selective foragers, rodents could shape tree communities, moderating biodiversity in regenerating tropical landscapes. We utilized a fully crossed two-way factorial design to examine the effect that grasses, rodents, and their interaction

Apex predators play important roles in ecosystem functioning and, where they coexist, intraguild interactions can have profound effects on trophic relationships. Interactions between predators range from intraguild predation and competition to facilitation through scavenging opportunities. Despite the increased availability of fine-scale GPS data, the determinants and outcomes of encounters between

Invasive plants cause changes to native plant communities and nutrient cycling, and by doing so, may alter the amount and quality of habitat available for animals at multiple trophic levels, including arthropods. Arthropods are generally abundant, diverse, and contribute to energy flow and nutrient cycling and are, therefore, an important group to study as a way of determining the effects of changes

Plants growing under reduced water availability can affect insect herbivores differently, in some instances benefitting them. However, the forces mediating these positive impacts remain mostly unclear. To identify how water availability impacts plant quality and multi-trophic interactions, we conducted manipulative field studies with two populations of the specialist herbivore Pieris rapae, and its

Supercolonial ants are among the largest cooperative units in nature, attaining extremely high densities. How these densities feed back into their population growth rates and how abundance and extrinsic factors interact to affect their population dynamics remain open questions. We studied how local worker abundance and extrinsic factors (rain, tree density) affect population growth rate and spread

The trade-offs between sexual reproduction and clonal propagation are of great significance in terms of ecology and evolution for clonal plants, and they vary with environmental change. Nitrogen (N) deposition can increase litter accumulation in grassland and promote litter decomposition and consequently increase nutrient availability. However, the response of plant reproduction to N and litter addition

Foraging strategies are of great ecological interest, as they have a strong impact on the fitness of an individual and can affect its ability to cope with a changing environment. Recent studies on foraging strategies show a higher complexity than previously thought due to intraspecific variability. To reliably identify foraging strategies and describe the different foraging niches they allow individual

Turnover in species composition between sites, or beta diversity, is a critical component of species diversity that is typically influenced by geography, environment, and biotic interactions. Quantifying turnover is particularly challenging, however, in multi-host, multi-parasite assemblages where undersampling is unavoidable, resulting in inflated estimates of turnover and uncertainty about its spatial

Invasive species–species that have successfully overcome the barriers of transport, introduction, establishment, and spread—are a risk to biodiversity and ecosystem function. Introduction effort is one of the main factors underlying invasion success, but life history traits are also important as they influence population growth. In this contribution, we first investigated life history traits of the

We used both satellite tracking and carbon, nitrogen and sulphur stable isotopic analysis (SIA) to infer wintering ecology and habitat use of the Corsican osprey Pandion haliaetus population. A control sample of feathers from 75 individuals was collected within the osprey’s northern hemisphere breeding range, to assess the SIA variability across habitat types. An experimental set of SIA on feathers

Provenance translocations of tree species are promoted in forestry, conservation, and restoration in response to global climate change. While this option is driven by adaptive considerations, less is known of the effects translocations can have on dependent communities. We investigated the relative importance and consistency of extended genetic effects in Eucalyptus using two species—E. globulus and

The cool season rainfall at our study site should favour C3 rather than C4 grasses. There are, however, several locations where C4 grasses have become dominant, suggesting that rainfall seasonality is not a constraint on distribution. Here, we explored the limitations on C4 grass distribution in a fynbos shrubland. Using δ13C values of SOM, we determined when these grasses had established. We also

How environmental factors influence population dynamics in long-distance migrants is complicated by the spatiotemporal diversity of the environment the individuals experience during the annual cycle. The effects of weather on several different aspects of life history have been well studied, but a better understanding is needed on how weather affects population dynamics through the different associated

Plant and animal community composition changes at higher elevations on mountains. Plant and animal species richness generally declines with elevation, but the shape of the relationship differs between taxa. There are several proposed mechanisms, including the productivity hypotheses; that declines in available plant biomass confers fewer resources to consumers, thus supporting fewer species. We investigated

It is unclear whether the frequently observed increase in non-structural carbohydrates (NSC) in plants exposed to low temperatures or drought reflects a higher sensitivity of growth than photosynthesis in such conditions (i.e. sink limitation), or a prioritization of carbon (C) allocation to storage. Alpine areas in Mediterranean-type climate regions are characterized by precipitation increases and

Drought threatens arthropod communities worldwide. Water limitation affects the quantity and quality of plants available to herbivores as food, and can also affect higher trophic-level consumers through variability in prey quality and reduced availability of suitable habitats. Our study assessed the response of an arthropod community to water limited wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) in a field setting

Climatic factors act on populations at multiple timescales leading to the separation of long-term climate and shorter-term weather effects. We used passerine counts from 1995 to 2019 in subarctic Alaska (Denali National Park, USA) to assess the impacts of the prior breeding season’s weather on breeding season abundance and the impacts of climate measured through shifts in elevational distribution.

Plant phenology differs largely among coexisting species within communities that share similar habitat conditions. However, the factors explaining such phenological diversity of plants have not been fully investigated. We hypothesize that species traits, including leaf mass per area (LMA), seed mass, stem tissue mass density (STD), maximum plant height (Hmax), and relative growth rate in height (RGRH)

Although microbial participation in litter decomposition is widely known within terrestrial soils, the role and significance of microorganisms during the aerial standing litter phase of decomposition remains poorly investigated. We examined the fungi inhabiting standing leaf litter of Schizachyrium scoparium and Schizachyrium tenerum in a Longleaf Pine savanna ecosystem and estimated their contribution

Corridors are expected to increase species dispersal in fragmented habitats. However, it remains unclear how the quality of corridors influences the dispersal process, and how it interacts with corridor length and width. Here we investigate these factors using a small-scale laboratory system where we track the dispersal of the model organism Collembola Folsomia candida. Using this system, we study

Drought, defined as a marked deficiency of precipitation relative to normal, occurs as periods of below-average precipitation or complete failure of precipitation inputs, and can be limited to a single season or prolonged over multiple years. Grasslands are typically quite sensitive to drought, but there can be substantial variability in the magnitude of loss of ecosystem function. We hypothesized

Phenotypic plasticity is common among animal taxa. While there are clearly limits and likely costs to plasticity, these costs are unknown for most organisms. Further, as plasticity is partially genetically determined, the potential magnitude of exhibited plasticity may vary among individuals. In addition to phenotypic plasticity, various animal taxa also display sexual size dimorphism, a feature ultimately

Anthropogenic nitrogen (N) deposition is significantly altering both community structure and ecosystem processes in terrestrial ecosystems across the globe. However, our understanding of the consequences of N deposition in dryland systems remains relatively poor, despite evidence that drylands may be particularly vulnerable to increasing N inputs. In this study, we investigated the influence of 7 years

Plant isoprene emissions are known to contribute to abiotic stress tolerance, especially during episodes of high temperature and drought, and during cellular oxidative stress. Recent studies have shown that genetic transformations to add or remove isoprene emissions cause a cascade of cellular modifications that include known signaling pathways, and interact to remodel adaptive growth-defense tradeoffs

Predation by invasive species is a major threat to the persistence of naïve prey. Typically, this negative effect is addressed by suppressing the population size of the invasive predator to a point where the predation pressure does not hinder the viability of the prey. However, this type of intervention may not be effective whenever a few specialised predators are the cause of the decline. We investigated

Cloud forests have been found to lose more nitrogen in stream discharge than they gain from atmospheric deposition. They also support a large diversity and biomass of tree epiphytes, predominately composed of cryptogams. Since cryptogam epiphytes harbor nitrogen fixing cyanobacteria, they may help make up for the nitrogen loss from ecosystems. We assessed cryptogam biomass on the ground, boles and

Physiological integration of connected plants of the same clone, or ramets, often increases clonal fitness when ramets differ in resource supply. However, review of the literature found that no study has directly tested the hypothesis that integration can increase the ability of clones to compete against other species. To test this, we grew two-ramet clonal fragments of the stoloniferous, perennial