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The effective use of functional traits to explain species coexistence has been hindered by the scarce use of demographic variables, such as growth, with the association between functional traits and growth often assumed rather than tested. In this study, using spatial point‐pattern analyses, we spatially related three functional traits linked to plant competitive ability (maximum tree height [HMAX...
In species with obligate sexual reproduction, scarcity of males can occasionally limit female reproductive success. It is unclear, however, whether this impacts population‐level persistence. Sexually deceptive orchids attract mate‐searching male insects who lose time, mating opportunities and may even become sperm depleted by mating with flowers. These insects are almost exclusively haplodiploid,...
In cities, humans directly and indirectly affect plant and wildlife communities. These human–species interactions are not included in traditional ecological approaches used to understand why and how organisms are distributed. Here, we incorporate human behaviors into urban community assembly theories and detail all the complex ways humans affect the dispersal, selection and persistence of species...
Human activities can cause resource fluctuations through reducing uptake by the resident vegetation (e.g. disturbance) or through changing external resource supply (e.g. fertilization). Resource fluctuations often occur as pulses which are low frequency, large magnitude and short duration and now are recognized as an important driver of plant invasions. However, resource pulses often vary dramatically...
As environmental conditions shift due to global warming and other human‐caused environmental changes, plastic responses in phenological traits like germination or flowering time may become increasingly important. While phenological plasticity is a common response to global warming, with many populations exhibiting earlier germination or flowering in warmer years, warming may also result in transgenerational...
Spatial resource partitioning between species via differences in rooting depth is one of the main explanations for the positive biodiversity–productivity relationship. However, evidence for the importance of this mechanism is limited. This may be due to the community scale at which these interactions are often investigated. Community measures represent net outcomes of species interactions and may...
Anthropogenic noise has received considerable recent attention, but we know little about the role that sources of natural noise have on wildlife abundance and distributions. Rivers and streams represent an ancient source of natural noise that is widespread and covers much of Earth. We sought to understand the role that whitewater river noise plays on arthropod abundance in riparian habitats across...
The factors governing invasiveness and invasibility are important for understanding invasions in plant communities, but most previous work does not incorporate network‐level interaction structure. We addressed this gap by simulating perennial plant communities at multiple life stages that varied in species richness and interaction network structures (transitive and intransitive), characteristics associated...
Traditional approaches to guiding decisions about harvesting bushmeat often employ single‐species population dynamic models, which require species‐ and location‐specific data, are missing ecological processes such as multi‐trophic interactions, cannot represent multi‐species harvesting and cannot predict the broader ecosystem impacts of harvesting. In order to explore an alternative approach to devising...
In the last decade, several major dwarf‐shrub dieback events have occurred in northern European coastal heathlands. These dieback events occur after extended periods with sub‐zero temperatures under snow‐free conditions and clear skies, suggesting that coastal heathlands have low resistance to winter drought. As climate projections forecast increased drought frequency, intensity, and duration, coastal...
Phenotypic evolution in sympatric species can be strongly impacted by species interactions, either mutualistic or antagonistic. Heterospecific reproductive behaviours between sympatric species have been shown to favour phenotypic divergence of traits used as sexual cues. Those traits may also be involved in local adaptation or in other types of species interactions and, as a result, undergo complex...
Germination timing is determined by several plant life‐history traits. Seed dormancy regulates the time and place of early plant development and spreads recruitment risks over time. Dispersal phenology and syndrome can influence germination timing and buffer spatial heterogeneity. The ecological requirements for germination (the germination niche) can also influence when and where germination takes...
Overexploitation of natural resources is often viewed as a problem characteristic of only the human species. However, any species could evolve a capacity to overexploit its essential resources through natural selection and competition, even to the point of resource collapse. Here, we describe the processes that potentially lead to overexploitation and synthesize what is known about overexploitation...
Theoretical ecologists have analysed a range of neutral models but few including stage structure. Here we introduce a stage‐structured neutral model, by extending the standard spatial neutral model to have two‐stage classes: a juvenile stage and a reproductive stage. We find that formulas for biodiversity patterns (e.g. species–area relationships and species abundance distributions) of reproductives...
Invasions constitute a major driver of biodiversity changes. Insular plant communities are particularly vulnerable to invasions and are relevant models for investigating mechanisms supporting the establishment and spread of introduced plants. Terrestrial flora of sub‐Antarctic islands must often thrive in highly windy habitats, thus imposing strong mechanical constraints on individuals. Many alien...
The intensification of land‐use changes in tropical forests during the 20th century, mainly caused by deforestation for agricultural uses, had an overwhelming influence on bird assemblages. However, how these historical anthropogenic changes have impacted the habitat use and diet of tropical birds is poorly known. Stable isotope analysis (δ13C and δ15N) can be useful in this regard since it provides...
Understanding the relative contribution of different biotic interactions in shaping species assemblages constitutes a major goal in community ecology, and consequently, multiple methods aimed at inferring the nature of these associations have emerged during the last decade. In this framework, the stress‐gradient hypothesis (SGH) predicts that prevalent biotic interactions shift from competition to...
Synchrony in ecological systems, the degree to which elements respond similarly over time or space, can inform our understanding of how ecosystems function and how they are responding to global change. While studies of ecological synchrony are often focused on within‐species dynamics, synchrony among species may provide important insights into how dynamics of one species are indicative of conditions...
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