Are large grazers a boon or bane for temperate salt marshes? Exploring context-dependency in the top-down trophic interactions of charismatic megafauna

Sean J Sharp (@seancologie, Linkedin), from University of Maryland, discusses his article: Large grazers suppress a foundational plant and reduce soil carbon concentration in eastern US saltmarshes Wild horses grazing on Cumberland Island, Georgia, USA. Photo by Kate Davidson. Grazing has been a common practice in temperate salt marshes for millennia. In European saltmarshes, the […]

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Understanding how diversity and disturbance affect biomass stock and productivity

Erica Rievrs Borges, Institut de recherche pour le développement in France, discusses her article: Evolutionary diversity impacts tropical forest biomass and productivity through disturbance-mediated ecological pathways in both English and French. Understanding Biodiversity and Biomass We know that tropical forests are incredibly important, partly because they account for around half of global forest aboveground carbon […]

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Bringing habitat patches into the species distribution models world

Federico Riva, Environmental Geography Dept. of the Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM),Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, discusses his review article: Incorporating effects of habitat patches into species distribution models Habitat patches are everywhere – forests surrounded by agriculture, pastures within Alpine forests, or green areas in a city. This patchiness of many ecosystem types is key to […]

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How mycorrhizal associations are growing our understanding of plant-soil feedback across plant communities

Andrew Eagar and Sara Moledor, from Michigan State University’s Department of Plant Biology, discuss their research group’s new review paper: Setting the Stage for Plant-Soil Feedback: Mycorrhizal Influences over Conspecific Recruitment, Plant and Fungal Communities, and Coevolution A patch of temperate hardwood forest at the W. K. Kellogg Biological Station in South Gull Lake, Michigan. […]

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Entangled? How to resolve feedbacks between diversity and productivity in natural systems

Meadow with foxtail grass (Alopecurus spp.) in the Schorfheide-Chorin, credit: Victoria Henning. Karl Andraczek (@KarlAndraczek), from the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, discusses his article: Weak reciprocal relationships between productivity and plant biodiversity in managed grasslands Setting The Scene Global change impacts both plant diversity and ecosystem functioning with detrimental consequences for […]

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Timing of nutrient resorption from senesced leaves: steady-and-slow versus late-and-fast

Yu-Kun Hu, from Lanzhou University, discusses his article: Leaf functional traits predict timing of nutrient resorption and carbon depletion in deciduous subarctic plants Nutrient resorption from senescing leaves is an important way that plants maintain their nutrient balance, meeting more than 1/3 of their total nutrient requirements. Thus, these nutrients are critical for plant growth […]

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