Climate change has profound influences on plant community composition and ecosystem functions. However, its effects on plant community composition and biomass production are not well understood. A four-year field experiment was conducted to examine the effects of warming, nitrogen (N) addition, and their interactions on plant community composition and biomass production in a temperate meadow ec...

We measured CH4 fluxes from three major plant communities characteristic of alpine tundra in the Colorado Front Range. Plant communities in this ecosystem are determined by soil moisture regimes induced by winter snowpack distribution. Spatial patterns of CH4 flux during the snow-free season corresponded roughly with these plant communities. In Carex-dominated meadows, which receive the most mo...

We compared the density and spatial distribution of four small mammal species (Microtus ochrogaster, Peromyscus maniculatus, Sigmodon hispidus, and P. leucopus) along with general measures of an old field plant community across two successional phases (1984–1986 and 1994–1996) of an experimental study of fragmentation in eastern Kansas. During the early phase the plant community was characteriz...

In plant-pollinator communities many pollinators are potential generalists and their preferences for certain plants can change quickly in response to changes in plant and pollinator densities. These changes in preferences affect coexistence within pollinator guilds as well as within plant guilds. Using a mathematical model, we study how adaptations of pollinator preferences influence population...

Intraspecific plant diversity can modify the properties of associated arthropod communities and plant fitness. However, it is not well understood which plant traits determine these ecological effects. We explored the effect of intraspecific chemical diversity among neighbouring plants on the associated invertebrate community and plant traits. In a common garden experiment, intraspecific diversi...

Excessive herbivory can have transformative effects on forest understory vegetation, converting diverse communities into depauperate ones, often with increased abundance of non-native plants. White-tailed deer are a problematic herbivore throughout much of eastern North America and alter forest understory community structure. Reducing (by culling) or eliminating (by fencing) deer herbivory is e...

The Compliance and Interoperability Working Group of the Genomic Standards Consortium facilitates the establishment of a community of experts and the development of recommendations to describe genomic data and associated information. Here we present our ongoing conation to harmonise the reporting of contextual plant specimen data associated with genomics and functional genomics. This commentary...

Patterns of herbivory may vary with fine-scale plant community structure: the degree of damage plants experience may depend on their neighbors (i.e., associational resistance or susceptibility). Differential herbivory, in turn, may facilitate a shift in plant community structure. We investigated these reciprocal effects of plant community structure and insect herbivory in a field mesocosm exper...

BACKGROUND Microbial communities in floral nectar have been shown to be characterized by low levels of species diversity, yet little is known about among-plant population variation in microbial community composition. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS We investigated the microbial community structure (yeasts and bacteria) in floral nectar of ten fragmented populations of the bee-pollinated forest...

The trait-based approach shows that plant functional diversity strongly affects ecosystem properties. However, few empirical studies show the relationship between soil fungal diversity and plant functional diversity in natural ecosystems. We investigated soil fungal diversity along a restoration gradient of sandy grassland (mobile dune, semifixed dune, fixed dune, and grassland) in Horqin Sand ...