This paper reports on patterns in plant-mediated processes that determine the rate of nutrient cycling in temperate fens and bogs. We linked leaf-level nutrient dynamics with leaf-litter decomposition and explored how the observed patterns were reflected in nutrient cycling at the ecosystem level. Comparisons were made among growth forms (evergreen and deciduous shrubs and trees, graminoids and...

Most achlorophyllous mycoheterotrophic (MH) plants obtain carbon (C) from mycorrhizal networks and indirectly exploit nearby autotrophic plants. We compared overlooked tropical rainforest MH plants associating with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) to well-reported temperate MH plants associating with ectomycorrhizal basidiomycetes. We investigated (13)C and (15)N abundances of MH plants, gree...

The climate variability hypothesis proposes that in variable temperate climates poikilothermic animals have wide thermal tolerance windows, whereas in constant tropical climates they have small thermal tolerance windows. In this study we quantified and compared the upper and lower lethal thermal tolerance limits of numerous bivalve species from a tropical (Roebuck Bay, north western Australia) ...

Birds in which both sexes produce complex songs are thought to be more common in the tropics than in temperate areas, where typically only males sing. Yet the role of phylogeny in this apparent relationship between female song and latitude has never been examined. Here, we reconstruct evolutionary changes in female song and breeding latitude in the New World blackbirds (Icteridae), a family wit...

Impermeable seed/fruit coat, i.e. physical dormancy (PY) occurring only in several genera of 18 angiosperm families plays an important role in controlling seed persistence and germination timing. It has been theoretically speculated that PY is more prevalent in drylands than in moist vegetation zones, but unequivocal support for this assertion is currently unavailable. The broad objective of th...

Many terrestrial and most marine herbivores have generalist diets, yet the role that evolutionary history plays in their foraging behaviors is poorly documented. On tropical hard-bottom reefs, generalist fishes and sea urchins readily consume seaweeds that produce lipophilic secondary metabolites. In contrast, herbivores on temperate reefs less commonly encounter seaweeds with analogous metabol...

A fundamental challenge facing physiological ecologists is to understand how variation in life history at the whole-organism level might be linked to cellular function. Thus, because tropical birds have higher annual survival and lower rates of metabolism, we hypothesized that cells from tropical species would have greater cellular resistance to chemical injury than cells from temperate species...

As the climate warms, boreal tree species are expected to be gradually replaced by temperate species within the southern boreal forest. Warming will be accompanied by changes in above- and below-ground consumers: large moose (Alces alces) replaced by smaller deer (Odocoileus virginianus) above-ground, and small detritivores replaced by larger exotic earthworms below-ground. These shifts may ind...

Temperate phages drive genomic diversification in bacterial pathogens. Phage-derived sequences are more common in pathogenic than nonpathogenic taxa and are associated with changes in pathogen virulence. High abundance and mobilization of temperate phages within hosts suggests that temperate phages could promote within-host evolution of bacterial pathogens. However, their role in pathogen evolu...