Kari Sogera Iamba, University of South Bohemia and the Institute of Entomology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, discusses his article: Insects and non-woody plants slow down tropical forest succession: A community-wide experiment in Papua New Guinea We investigated the factors driving rainforest regeneration in canopy gaps created by tree falls or selective logging. Ecological…
Guochun Shen and Jing Yang, East China Normal University in Shanghai, China, discuss their article: Shifts in above- and belowground trait dissimilarity under competition mediate the future impact of neighbors When we walk into a forest, it is easy to picture trees competing for light, water, and nutrients. Some seedlings race upwards and cast their…
Feixue Yu, Inner Mongolia University, discusses her article: Nitrogen addition weakens drought-driven coupling between plant, arthropod, and soil nematode functional groups The concurrent increase in drought and atmospheric nitrogen deposition has profoundly impacted multitrophic biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in grasslands. Nitrogen enrichment is frequently assumed to alleviate drought stress by stimulating plant growth, but this…
Rui Wang, Institute of Plant Protection of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, discusses their article: Asymmetric adaptation across a core–periphery climatic gradient drives rapid phenological evolution and range expansion in an invasive plant When we think about plant invasions, we often picture species spreading quickly, competing with native plants, and causing problems for ecosystems…
Henrique Augusto Mews, Universidade Federal de Rondonópolis in Brazil, discusses his article: Unravelling the drivers of island species richness in tropical savannas Many landscapes contain “island-like” habitats: patches of suitable conditions surrounded by an inhospitable matrix. How species diversity is regulated in these systems remains surprisingly poorly understood. In tropical savannas, such as the Cerrado…
Jiayun Zou, Technical University of Munich, discusses his article: Biodiversity associations between aboveground and belowground communities in mountain forests across different climatic regions How tightly are the biological communities above and below the forest floor connected? In mountain forests, those associations remain poorly understood. While plants and soil microbes interact intimately, such as through symbioses…
Álvaro Gaytán and Lorena Gómez-Aparicio, Institute of Natural Resources and Agrobiology of Seville (IRNAS-CSIC), discuss their article: Evidence for linkages between the root elementome and oak decline in Mediterranean systems invaded by soil-borne pathogens Mediterranean oak woodlands are among the most iconic ecosystems of southern Europe. Yet many of these forests are under increasing pressure from…
Valentin Graf, Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre in Frankfurt, discusses his article: Relative importance of range position, seed size, and genetic diversity for tree recruitment at alpine range edges Climate change is rapidly altering ecosystems, pushing many species to adapt or move to cooler environments. In mountains, this often means shifting to higher elevations,…
Alberto Canarini (University of Bologna, Italy), Pierre Mariotte (Agroscope, Switzerland), Yolima Carrillo (Western Sydney University, Australia), Raúl Ochoa-Hueso (University of Cádiz, Spain), and Barbara Drigo (Adelaide University and CRC SAAFE, Australia) discuss their article: Enhanced belowground functioning is associated with higher plant resistance against drought: implications for ecosystem functions A long-standing puzzle in grassland ecology…
Jiarong Yang and Yu Liu, East China Normal University, discuss their article: Rare tree species host a high diversity of rhizosphere fungi Forest ecosystems are intricate webs of life where trees and their root-associated fungi form a delicate balance. One question that remains, is whether and how tree species abundance influences the fungal communities that…
Vincent Buness, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, discusses his article: Distinct diversity trajectories of boreal wood-inhabiting fungi following fire vs. clear-cutting As humans, we tend to trust our senses and assume that we can perceive most of what surrounds us. When we walk through the forest, we see trees with their stems and canopy, and…
Bushra Quyoom and Latif Ahmad Peer, University of Kashmir, discuss their article: The Epigenetic Engine: Transgenerational plasticity as a driver of plant climate resilience and adaptation The traditional story of evolution is a slow one. We are taught that it can take thousands of years for helpful genetic mutations to appear and spread through a…
Kacper Foremnik, Department of Forest Biodiversity of the University of Agriculture in Krakow in Poland, discusses his article: Century-long trends in plant diversity of temperate mountain vegetation are modulated along elevation gradient One hundred years ago, a group of outstanding researchers carried out pioneering phytosociological surveys in the Polish part of the Tatra Mountains. At…
2025 HARPER PRIZE SHORTLIST: For the next two weeks, we are featuring the articles shortlisted for the 2025 Harper Prize. The Harper Prize is an annual award for the best early career research paper published in Journal of Ecology. Jianguo Ma’s ‘Ammonium preference and microbial nitrification inhibition drive the expansion of a poisonous plant in alpine -meadows‘ is one of…
Theresa Möller, University of Hamburg in Germany, discusses her article: Effects of habitat quality and fine-scale spatial structure on epiphytic lichen and bryophyte communities Epiphytic lichens and bryophytes inhabit one of the most heterogeneous habitats in forest ecosystems: the bark of living trees. Different tree species provide distinct habitat conditions, leading to distinct epiphyte communities…
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