Can we trust? Yes, we can trust estimates of species turnover, but estimates of changes in species richness are less reliable. Our new article in the Journal of Ecology: doi.org/10.1111/1365... @journalofecology.bsky.social @iavs5.bsky.social

Estimating belowground decomposability is still a challenge due to methodolgical barriers. Thus, we investigated the effect of experimental (i.e. drought-induced) and natural senescence and associated traits on the decomposability of roots and rhizomes of four Carex species.

In our latest paper, we show that the ecological determinants of stability in #dryland plant communities changed along an #aridity gradient, highlighting that the mechanisms underpinning community #stability are climate-dependent. 🔗🔓 doi.org/10.1111/nph.... 🌍🌐🌱

Ecological determinants of stability in dryland plant communities

Conceptual framework for partitioning the drivers of community stability.

doi.org

Ecological determinants of stability in dryland plant communities Gresse et al. nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

As part of our final fieldwork campaign of the year in the multisite experiment, we had a great opportunity to welcome Gloria (PhD student of Francesco de Bello), who visited our experimental sites with a hyperspectral camera and collected images of the plots.

🌿Recent study shows that interspecific phenological variation in herbaceous plant species is more strongly reflected in vegetative traits than in floral traits 👉️ buff.ly/gKKEw7p

Realistic loss of rare & subordinate plant species had little effect on local resource depletion or community competitive ability in an oligotrophic wet meadow. Phytometers revealed strong competition overall, but similar pressure from monocultures to species-rich communities 👉️ buff.ly/K3QUNCp

Using phytometers, we show that plant species loss in a species-rich meadow does not weaken competition or free up resources, highlighting the complexity of biodiversity–competition relationships. 🔗🔓 doi.org/10.1111/1365... Paper in @journalofecology.bsky.social led by Eva Janíková 🌍🌐📏

Realistic species loss has little effect on local resource depletion and competitive pressure in a temperate wet meadow

Realistic biodiversity loss in a species-rich wet meadow had limited effects on community competitive ability. Phytometers revealed strong competition compared to competition-free gaps, but similar p...

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Friday (📅 April 24), I’ll be talking about temporal stability in ecological communities and how to study its drivers using community time series. 🌐🌍📏 #Rstats #Ecology #EcoInformatics #TimeSeries 💻 Online seminar · 👉 Register here 👇👇👇 🔗 iavs-org.github.io/ecoinformati...

Ecoinformatics IAVS@iavs-ecoinfo.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Want to learn more about ecological stability with a hands-on approach? Join us in the next cycle of free webinars! On April 24, Jules Segrestin will talk about drivers of stability in time series. Register at us06web.zoom.us/meeting/regi... and consider becoming an IAVS member!

What does ecosystem #integrity mean in a rapidly changing #Anthropocene biosphere? I argue for a shift from static reference states toward 1) the ecological processes that sustain biodiversity & 2) evolutionary heritage➡️ doi.org/10.1111/rec.... #ecology #restoration #biodiversity #ecosystemintegrity

A new paper publised in New Phytologist led by Xiaobin Pan "Reconciling links between diversity and population stability across global plant communities" dx.doi.org/10.1111/nph....

Reconciling links between diversity and population stability across global plant communities

Maintaining ecological stability is essential for sustaining ecosystem functions and the benefits they provide to society. Ecological theory predicts that plant diversity destabilizes local populati...

dx.doi.org

The global island species–area relationship for plants "a simple power model explains a remarkable amount of variation, with ISAR slope and residual variation explicable by isolation, island origins, and proportion of endemism" 🧪🌐 www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

All coexisting species ☘️🌿🌾 follow a single power function 📈 linking their temporal variability to their mean abundance 🤯 — 💥Taylor’s power law💥. This exceptionally strong law in community #ecology shows how dominants play a key role in stabilizing ecosystems worldwide 🌍🌐 🔗🔓 doi.org/10.1002/ecog...

A globally consistent scaling relationship reveals stabilizing effects of dominant species in plant communities

Despite extensive research, stabilizing mechanisms in ecosystems remain uncertain. Taylor's power law (TPL) is a pervasive ecological pattern that describes how variance scales with mean abundance (σ....

doi.org

Does greater biodiversity always increase ecosystem functioning? I used to think so, but now I'm not so sure.

How I stopped believing in the biodiversity-ecosystem functioning consensus

The E120 Biodiversity Experiment at Cedar Creek in Minnesota, from their website. It all began with the best of intentions. By the time the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment was published in 2005, th…

treesinspace.com

🌱 Recrutement MCF – Botanique & écologie végétale L’Université Lyon 1 recrute un·e maître·sse de conférences 🌿💦Laboratoire : LEHNA (umr5023.univ-lyon1.fr) 📍 Lyon 🌍 Écologie végétale des zones humides 📣 Merci pour les partages dans vos réseaux ! 🔗 umr5023.univ-lyon1.fr/images/jdown...

🌿 New paper out in New Phytologist! 📊 Our global dataset shows that when considering species dominance & long‑term richness, higher diversity can actually destabilize populations. ✨ Excited to share these insights from plant communities across the world! 🌐🌍 👇👇👇

New Phytologist@newphyt.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Reconciling links between diversity and population stability across global plant communities Pan et al. nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

🌿 Really enjoyed this read! A valuable synthesis in @ecography.bsky.social reconciling concepts and definitions around interspecific population synchrony — and a valuable perspective on why synchrony matters for ecology. 🔗 doi.org/10.1002/ecog... #Ecology #PopulationDynamics #Synchrony 🌐🌍

Studying interspecific population synchrony: current status and future perspectives

Interspecific population synchrony, or co-fluctuations in the population dynamics and demographic parameters of different species, is an important ecological phenomenon with major implications for th...

doi.org

A new publication led by Ondra, now published in @jvegsci.bsky.social is the result of fieldwork by almost our entire working group. We examined the intraspecific trait variability of 15 Carex species across South Bohemia. You can find the article here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

📢 Looking for an international Master’s in Ecology? 🌿 A great opportunity to study cutting-edge ecology in a dynamic research environment in the Czech Republic! 🇨🇿✨ 🔗 prf.jcu.cz/ecology #Ecology #Masters 🌐 👇👇👇

Plant ecology in České Budějovice@plantecolcb.bsky.social · last yr.

Faculty of Science, USB, České Budějovice, Czechia offers a two-year research-oriented Master's study in Ecology. prf.jcu.cz/ecology Application deadline: 31 October 2025. Tuition fee: EU citizens: 500 CZK per year (≈ 20 EUR) Non-EU: 12000 CZK per year (≈ 480 EUR)

🌿 Excited to share FAIRTraits! A data set with 189,452 records of 180 quantitative #traits from 240 Mediterranean plant species, fully FAIR-compliant & openly available 📊🌐 🔗🔓 doi.org/10.1002/ecy.... Started back in 2013 when I was a MSc student, now a huge team effort 💪 @esajournals.bsky.social

In our new article with Rui-Ling Liu and Wen-Yong Guo in J. Ecol., we quantified how plant strategy scores derived from leaf traits (Pierce method) correlate with other plant traits and plant environmental preferences. 🔗 Open-access article: doi.org/10.1111/1365... ‪@journalofecology.bsky.social‬

New Article: "Arbuscular mycorrhizal association regulates global root–seed coordination" rdcu.be/eBmpX Global positive correlation between root diameter and seed size, driven by dual roles of arbuscular mycorrhiza in phosphorus uptake and pathogen defence.

Last week’s campaign combined tech & teamwork! Multispectral drone flights by Leyre Pedrós Pla (PhD student of Francesco de Bello) + trait sampling across all Prachatice grassland sites = 710 leaf samples processed in 2 days. Big thanks to the whole team! @jsegrestin.bsky.social #RemoteSensing

Last week, we hosted Leyre (PhD w/ Francesco) who flew a drone equipped with a #multispectral camera over all our multi-site diversity plots 🚁 At the same time, we measured plant #traits across the entire gradient and… processed 710 leaf samples in just 2 days 😅 An intense but rewarding campaign 💪

🌿 Testing the ‘afterlife' effect 👻 within species 🌿 Do Carex populations from different environments decompose differently? 🍂 ✅ Yes – different populations had different decomposability 🤏 But species identity mattered much more ❗ And leaf #traits didn’t reliably predict decay rates

Szilvia Neumann@szilviamneumann.bsky.social · last yr.

So excited to see the first chapter of my PhD published! 🎉 We conducted a leaf decomposition experiment on closely related Carex species, and investigated the extent of trait differences within and between species 🍃🍂 🔗 doi.org/10.1007/s004...

I am very happy to spend some weeks visiting the @plantecolcb.bsky.social group! After reading a lot of papers from this experiment I finally have the opportunity to visit the place and meet the people 😊

Plant ecology in České Budějovice@plantecolcb.bsky.social · last yr.

lucrecialipoma.bsky.social, a researcher at IMBIV (CONICET, Argentina) and assistant professor at the National University of Córdoba, is now visiting our working group. She arrived at the peak of the field season and had already joined the harvest of the biomass from Šuspa's experiment.

📰Published📰 Seedling fate in wet meadows: success fueled by mowing, not fertilizer 🌱 buff.ly/00VeEhU 🧪🌍

Seedling fate in wet meadows: success fueled by mowing, not fertilizer

Terezie Rychtecká, Pavel Fibich, Jan Lepš This is a plain language summary for a Functional Ecology research article which can be found here. Regeneration from seed plays an important role in grass…

buff.ly

A 🆕 #OpenAccess Review in "Ecological Monographs": 8 key limitations in how we link species traits to ecosystem structure & function, and a to-do list to push the field forward 📄Raunkiæran shortfalls: Challenges and perspectives in trait-based ecology doi.org/10.1002/ecm....

🎤 Grateful for the opportunity to speak as a keynote at #PopBio2025 in beautiful Prague! 🇨🇿✨ It was a true pleasure to share my work and connect with such a thoughtful community 🌍 Huge thanks to the organizers for putting together such a fantastic event! 👏🏼🎉🌱 #Ecology #ScientificCommunity

A nice review to add to the next steps in #TraitBaesdEcology literature - "Raunkiæran shortfalls: Challenges and perspectives in trait‐based ecology" 🌐🧪🌾https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ecm.70018

Raunkiæran shortfalls: Challenges and perspectives in trait‐based ecology

Trait-based ecology, a prominent research field identifying traits linked to the distribution and interactions of organisms and their impact on ecosystem functioning, has flourished in the last three...

esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com