Editor's Choice May

Oikos publishes novel work of great synthetic value on a wide range of organisms. For the May issue, two vertebrate papers were chosen as editor's choice. The work of Hance Ellington and Dennis Murray provides synthesis on the impact of hybridization on ecological dynamics. Given the ongoing human impact on species (re)distribution patterns, we can expect hybridization to become increasingly important. Such an evolutionary force may again feedback on the ecological dynamics, and clearly, we lack insights into the ecological consequences of such processes. Introgression through hybridization is common in coyotes. By means of meta-regression analysis, a significant impact on space use was retrieved. Altered space requirements can then be expected to impact other ecosystem-level processes relative to the parental lineages.  

Soay sheep are among the few model organisms that allow the integration of individual-based approaches into population ecology. Integral projection models incorporate information on how an individual's state influences its vital rates. Usually, individual heterogeneity in phenotypes and/or genotypes is neglected when inferring the impact of environmental change on population trajectories. Emily Simmonds & Tim Coulson incorporated climatic drivers into such a projection framework to predict future dynamics of the sheep under a set of specific climate change scenarios. The work presents as such a unique approach to forecast the fate of populations and their character or trait distribution under future scenarios of climate change, and will advance the field by moving towards more mechanistic forecast approaches. Extending this approach to multiple organisms should eventually allow us to identify and synthesise the critical vital processes underlying population change in response to climate change.