Biotic resistance, the reduction in invasion success caused by native communities, plays an important role in the long-term dynamics of biological invasions. A large body of empirical research on bio...

Many soil microbes play a vital role in ecosystems, as they help plants access nutrients and water and assist in stress tolerance such as during drought and to defend against pathogens. One such group...

2024 HARPER PRIZE SHORTLIST: For the next two weeks, we are featuring the articles shortlisted for the 2024 Harper Prize. The Harper Prize is an annual award for the best early …

Biotic complexity, encompassing both competitive interactions within trophic levels and consumptive interactions among trophic levels, plays a fundamental role in maintaining ecosystem stability. Whil...

1. Nitrogen enrichment alters soil communities and their functioning, having major effects on key decomposers such as Collembola. In particular nitrogen might d

Given the negative fitness effects that pathogens impose on their hosts, the benefits of resistance should be universal. However, there is marked variation across plant species in the number of nucleo...

In this post, Seraina Cappelli – postdoctoral fellow at University of Minnesota – presents her work ‘The potential of undersown species identity vs. diversity to manage disease in crops’. She discu…

The expansion and intensification of agriculture has led to a loss of soil carbon. Here the authors show that increasing plant diversity within an agricultural soil increases positive associations wit...

<em>Functional Ecology</em> journal publishes high-impact research providing a mechanistic understanding of ecological pattern and process from the organismic to ecosystem scale.

Passion for science is a gift, and one of the best things about our line of work. But don't let it completely control you. It is important to have breaks, an...

Natural systems are under increasing pressure by a range of anthropogenic global change factors. Pesticides represent a nearly ubiquitously occurring global change factor and have the potential to aff...