Some riparian areas of the country are in danger of deterioration due to uncontrolled exploitation coupled with loose implementation of environmental protection policies and regulations. Muleta River, a major watershed in Bukidnon, Philippines, was assessed to determine the present condition of its riparian habitat. Abiotic and biotic conditions of the river were assessed. Other factors includi...

Global climate change will remodel ecological communities worldwide. However, as a consequence of biotic interactions, communities may respond to climate change in idiosyncratic ways. This makes predictive models that incorporate biotic interactions necessary. We show how such models can be constructed based on empirical studies in combination with predictions or assumptions regarding the abiot...

Since the early 1990s, it has been hypothesized that the projected trajectory of climate change would have rapid consequential impacts on biotic disturbance in forests. The argument was mainly based on two points: (1) even in the absence of directional changes in climate, forests throughout the world are strongly influenced by episodic events of pestilence, and (2) insects are very responsive t...

This study presents an experimental approach to assess the relative importance of climatic and biotic factors as determinants of species' geographical distributions. We asked to what extent responses of grassland plant species to biotic interactions vary with climate, and to what degree this variation depends on the species' biogeography. Using a gradient from oceanic to continental climate rep...

© The Ecological Society of America www.frontiersinecology.org D this century, climate change is projected to cause profound plant species losses and migrations – and shifts in ecosystem structure and function – in many parts of the world (including several biodiversity hotspots; Malcolm et al. 2006). However, such assessments are based almost entirely on empirical niche (or climate envelope) m...

Direct facilitation among plants has recently been included into the humped-back diversitybiomass relationship along environmental severity gradients. However, recent evidence stresses the occurrence of indirect facilitation due to biotic disturbance under a wide range of environmental severity, and including indirect facilitation will thus bring these conceptual frameworks up to date. We propo...