Individual plant species thrive in specific environments, some growing well across a wide area, others being restricted to survival in very narrow ecological niches. Within a niche, a species must compete for space, light and other resources with the same and other species. Many decades of work on crops has advanced our understanding of characteristics related to crop production and agronomy, w...

Zoosporic parasites have received increased attention during the last years, but it is still largely unnoted that these parasites can themselves be infected by hyperparasites. Some members of the Chytridiomycota, Blastocladiomycota, Cryptomycota, Hyphochytriomycota, Labyrinthulomycota, Oomycota, and Phytomyxea are hyperparasites of zoosporic hosts. Because of sometimes complex tripartite intera...

One of the most important issues in structure-function relationship modeling is that each rangeland has numerous functions and each of them can provide the most benefits in a certain state of that ecosystem. In fact, relationship between structure and function can be varied in different states. After presentation of the Linear Structure-Function Model based on the Clementsian succession theory,...

linear green infrastructures along rivers and canals serve different functions: green corridors, or ecological network, maintain biological diversity, improve water quality, and provide areas for fauna and flora to grow and thrive. greenways connect people with landscape resources and serve as recreational areasthat are easy to use and accessible to the greatest number of potential human users....

Birds are one of the most diverse groups of ecosystem service providers, whose ecological functions range from creating soil to shaping primate behavior, Nevertheless, the impression that birds have little influence on ecological processes has been hard to change. Given the ongoing declines in avian functional groups, there is a pressing need to compare avian ecological functions to those of ot...

Megaherbivores fulfilled a number of important ecological functions in terrestrial ecosystems and behaved as ecological engineers since 300 million years until around 12,000 years ago. These essential ecological functions include opening vegetation cover, selective seed dispersal and nutrient recycling and spreading. Thanks to these effects, megaherbivores change the vegetation structure where ...