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Anthropogenic landscape change is a leading driver of biodiversity loss. Preceding dramatic changes such as wildlife population declines and range shifts, more subtle responses may signal impending larger‐scale change. For example, disturbance‐induced shifts to species’ activity patterns may disrupt temporal niche partitioning along the 24‐h time axis, compromising community structure via altered...
In the long‐term, herbivores can alter nutrient dynamics in terrestrial ecosystems by changing the functional composition of plant communities. Here, we ask to what extent herbivores can affect plant‐community nutrient dynamics in the short‐term. We provide theoretical expectations for immediate effects of herbivores on tundra‐grassland plant‐community nutrient levels throughout a single growing season...
Understanding what species characteristics allow some alien plants to become invasive while others fail is critical to our understanding of community assembly processes. While many characteristics have been shown to predict plant invasiveness, the importance of plant–soil feedback (PSF) in invasions has been difficult to assess since individual studies include only a few species and use disparate...
While many ecological theories have historically invoked niche differences as the primary mechanism allowing species coexistence, we now know that coexistence in competitive communities depends on the balance of two opposing forces: niche differences (ND) that determine how species limit their own growth rate versus that of their competitor, and relative fitness differences (RFD) that establish competitive...
Ample variation in body size is common in vertebrates over extensive geographical distances, or in isolated populations, where effective geographical barriers may cause dwarfism or gigantism. Here we study potential causes of extreme size reduction in continental populations of amphibians within a short geographical distance and in the absence of geographical barriers. Natterjack toads Epidalea calamita...
Mixotrophic nanoflagellate bacterivory is affected by light; however, in glacially influenced lakes, glacial clay may also interfere with prey uptake. Mechanistic models based on prior quantitative hypotheses and tested with field data are useful for predicting these predator–prey interactions under a changing climate. We modelled the effect of glacial particles on the bacterivory of mixotrophic nanoflagellates,...
Tradeoffs between key aspects of plant performance such as resource acquisition and allocation underpin several trait‐based theories that have been derived for vascular plants. However, due to difficulty in quantifying traits in nonvascular plants, our theoretical understanding of how traits govern the physiological and ecological preferences of nonvascular plant species is quite limited. Here, we...
In stressful environments, a nurse plant can ameliorate harsh biotic and abiotic conditions for another plant species that grows within its canopy. This canopy can act as a barrier for herbivores, reducing damage to the protected plants inside, but it can also reduce access to pollinators possibly resulting in a tradeoff between survival and reproductive output. In a semi‐arid ecosystem, the shrub...
Flower visitation does not necessarily mean pollination. In this sense, floral visitors can either act as mutualists (pollinators) or antagonists (floral robbers/thieves), indicating that these interactions are part of a continuum and that a visitor species can present multiple behaviours. We included both mutualistic and antagonistic interactions between plants and floral visitors in a multilayer...
The Anthropocene is defined by human‐driven environmental change, with one consequence being the modern dramatic decline in biodiversity globally. This is especially worrisome given the long‐acknowledged causal linkage between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning and the delivery of ecosystem services. However, the exact mechanisms driving biodiversity–ecosystem function (BEF) relationships remain...
Organismal life histories evolve as syndromes, resulting in correlated evolutionary differentiation of key traits that ultimately aid in discerning species. Reproductive success depends both on the absolute body size of an individual and its size relative to the opposite sex: sexual size dimorphism. In an attempt to further elucidate their coexistence and ecological diversification, we compared standard...
Resource dispersion or kin selection are commonly used to explain animal spatial and social organization. Despite this, studies examining how these factors interact in wild populations of solitary animals are rare. We used 16 years of individual‐level spatial and genetic data to disentangle how resources and relatedness influence spatial organization of a solitary predator, the Eurasian lynx Lynx lynx...
Trait variation defines and underpins biodiversity, yet we are only beginning to understand how processes acting across biological scales (individuals to whole communities) interact to produce trait differences and their consequences, particularly over short time scales. First, species often differ widely in their mean phenotype, meaning that changes in community composition can alter average trait...
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