Journal of Ecology

Thirty-year reciprocal transplant experiments using two long-lived, slow-growing arctic species (Dryas octopetala and Eriophorum vaginatum) demonstrate that local adaptation can be strong, and yet able to remain undetected or underestimated by short-term experiments. Such genetically-based population differences limit the ability of plant populations to respond to a changing climate.

Flowering time is likely under selection in warming climates. Using artificial selection lines planted into nature, we demonstrated flowering time evolution has cascading effects throughout the life cycle and potentially in the offspring. This indicates that it is essential to recognize genetic and functional linkages among traits to fully understand the consequences of selection on a single character. Blog Post

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Our modelling study suggests that the relative dispersal distances of seeds and natural enemies are crucial to determining establishment rates and spatial patterns of seedlings. Better characterization of the movement and natural histories of natural enemies is critical to improving our understanding of seedling distributions and plant–enemy interactions. Blog Post

Our validated model provides a functional understanding of seed dispersal in Impatiens glandulifera. The model reveals surprisingly complex interactions between the ballistic dispersal mechanism and the wind and shows how population-level dispersal patterns emerge from intraspecific variation in dispersal traits.

Our study highlights that different components of global change have similar negative outcomes on pollination patterns, but that responses of pollinators vary among taxa and ecosystem types, as well as the attributes of landscape alteration considered and whether the invader is an animal or a plant. Blog Post

Tallow plants from introduced populations had higher flavonoids and lower tannins than plants from native populations, especially in new leaves following induction. Caterpillar responses to changing chemical concentrations varied in direction and strength so overall performance varied from significantly lower (generalist Grammodes geometrica), unchanged (generalist Cnidocampa flavescens), to significantly higher (specialist Gadirtha inexacta) on introduced populations.

Our results demonstrate that the strength of density-dependent seedling survival can vary between seasons and among species in tropical forests. Future research is needed to assess the underlying mechanisms of this temporal and interspecific variation in NDD and its consequences for species coexistence and community composition.

Our results are the first to identify sex as a significant driver of facilitation. Stronger facilitation by hermaphroditic Silene, coupled with a lower cost of harbouring beneficiaries suggests that life history traits can influence the facilitative effects of a species.

Plants occur in different size patches and insects distribute themselves across those patches in a variety of ways. Using a simulation model, we show that differing distributions of insects that can exert top-down control on the plant population, can alter density dependance of plant popuation growth and the extent to which plant populations persist.

The results suggest different effects of clipped neighbours that depend on plant age. Responding to the cues of experimental clipping may provide a slight net benefit, considering these results and other published studies, even though these cues provided little predictive value about actual risk of herbivory. Responding to reliable cues may be even more beneficial and may favour plants that eavesdrop on neighbours. Blog Post

Community density in a high-stress environment increased with both fine-scale spatial heterogeneity and added seed diversity. However, these effects were independent of one another, and impacts of heterogeneity were stronger than those of seed diversity. Our results suggest heterogeneity promotes density indirectly, through downstream effects of enhanced establishment diversity such as facilitation. These findings confirm establishment-stage interrelationships among biodiversity, density, and heterogeneity as overlooked determinants of community structure by providing important field support for ideas primarily tested in the greenhouse. Blog Post

Our results suggest that the relative and absolute importance of different processes of community assembly (i.e. environmental control and dispersal limitation) differs remarkably among species even within a single community. These interspecific differences may be explained in part by interspecific differences in dispersal mode.

Our results suggest that the observed regeneration within closed-canopy Callitris intratropica groves within frequently burnt savanna reflects a vegetation–fire feedback. A significant, negative relationship between canopy cover and the probability of burning provides strong evidence that closed-canopy C. intratropica groves are capable of excluding low-intensity savanna fires, thereby enabling the persistence of patches of fire-sensitive forest or woodland amid open, highly flammable savanna vegetation. We present our findings as evidence that alternative stable state dynamics may play a role in determining savanna diversity and structure.

This study demonstrates the widespread occurrence of habitat associations at the seedling stage for large number of woody species in a very diverse Amazonian forest. Differential performance among habitat types and inter-annual variation in seedling dynamics contribute to the maintenance of species diversity in tropical forests.

The experiment demonstrates that rescue effects occur at fine scales even for vagile plant taxa, such as cryptogams, which may inhabit spatially isolated substrates characterized by turnover rates as fast as their own population dynamics. Furthermore, the results highlight the importance of quantifying both stochastic and deterministic extinction modes, as underestimating either of these parameters leads to over optimistic projections of future metapopulation size.

The unpredictable component of community structure – chance/randomness/stochasticity – is often discussed, but never directly measured. We do so from the nugget in spatial autocorrelation. Applied to 16 sites in South Island, New Zealand, 0–71% of the variation in plant community composition was due to chance. Chance played a larger role in communities with a larger species pool, matching theory. Blog Post

Our findings reveal that Phoenix loureiri demographic rates are driven by interactive effects among multiple forms of disturbance and abiotic factors, and that the intensities of disturbance are themselves driven by interactions between other forms of disturbance and abiotic factors. These results illustrate that understanding the effects of, and interactions among, multiple drivers will be key in attempts to mitigate the effects of environmental change on plant species declines.

Arabidopsis thaliana can behave as a winter or spring annual plant. Nevertheless, the spring annual life cycle is clearly relevant to maintain A. thaliana populations, particularly at high-elevation locations. It is suggested that germination timing represents one of the most relevant traits to focus our efforts to understand adaptive variation in A. thaliana. The results illustrate the potential of annual plants to adjust their life cycles to varying environmental conditions encountered along a climatic gradient, which could mitigate the effects of global warming on annual plant populations.

This report on the legume tree Ormosia glaberrima in a subtropical forest in southern China shows that a negative plant-soil feedback on seeds and seedlings is caused by a host-specific fungus (Fusarium oxysporum). The data obtained from field and growth-room simulation experiments fully support the criteria of spatially unequal pathogen distribution and host specificity as proposed in the Janzen-Connell model. Editor's Choice

Delphinium glaucum exhibits systematic variation in flower size and female and male effort, both within and among plants. These variation patterns are consistent with shifting selection on sex function during the flowering season caused as the population floral sex ratio changes from male- to female-biased, which may limit correlations among floral traits that facilitate interactions with pollinators. Blog Post

Dryopteris carthusiana, D. dilatata and D. expansa (Buckler Ferns), and their hybrids, are genetically inter-related, native, deciduous ferns. Dryopteris dilatata and D. carthusiana are tetraploid, whereas D. expansa is diploid. Dryopteris dilatata is shade-tolerant and widespread in woodland; D. carthusiana is more typical of wetlands and wet woodlands; D. expansa affects better-illuminated habitats, mostly on mountains, and is the most vulnerable to competition.