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March cover

editor
10 March 2017
The photo on the cover for our March Issue was shot by Johannes Foufopoulos. A male Aegean Wall Lizard (Podarcis erhardii) photographed on the Cycladic island of Naxos (Greece). The species occurs in numerous relict populations across land-bridge islands that were...

The place to study litter decomposition

editor
7 March 2017
This paper is based on field work mostly done in the Ohu Village. This is a village in Papua New Guinea that runs its own small rainforest conservation area of approximately 300 ha. The surrounding lands have been largely converted to food gardens or are covered by...

Does density dependence matter in foraging?

editor
3 March 2017
When explaining animal distributions in ecosystems, ecologists have long debated the relative importance of food availability on the one hand, and density-dependence on the other. A high availability of food typically attracts and concentrates animals. Foragers may...

How do the foragers respond to masting?

editor
17 February 2017
Masting is the synchronous production of large seed crops across individuals within a plant population, and is thought to have evolved (at least in part) as a mechanism to escape seed predators. How does this work? Theory predicts that superabundant, synchronous seed...

Welcome Miguel Verdu - new SE

editor
17 February 2017
We are very happy to welcome Dr Miguel Verdu, Valencia, Spain to our editoral board. Below is a short interview with Miguel: What's you main research focus at the moment? I am interested in the signature that evolution leaves into ecological processes acting at species...

Editor's choice February

editor
16 February 2017
Organisms respond to predation risk in multiple ways. Induced defences are not restricted to plants in response to herbivore attack, but are also prominently present in vertebrates and arthropods. Induced responses can be of behavioural or morphological origin and...

Sigmoidal function of infections

editor
3 February 2017
Infectious diseases that can be contracted from the environment form a persistent threat to human health, livestock and wildlife. With the changing environment, there is increasing need for predictive modelling of environmentally transmitted disease dynamics...

On carnivorous plants, seed banks, and uncertainty

editor
3 February 2017
Plant demographers have it easy, as the saying goes. Plants don't move and their fates may be followed through time in permanent plots - as the photo of M. Paniw, taking measurements of Drosophyllum lusitanicum in a heathland patch, shows. What happens, though, to...

Editor's Choice January

editor
3 February 2017
2017, a new year of Oikos to kick-off with two selected contributions as editor’s choices for the January issue. The first EC is the forum by Houlahan and colleagues on the priority of prediction in ecological understanding . The authors provide series of argument to...

Cover February

editor
2 February 2017
The February cover shows a bull moose on Isle Roylae foraging on deciduous forage in early spring. Parikh et al. show that increasingly diverse diet is associated with better nutritional status in "The influence of plant defensive chemicals, diet composition, and...

Welcome German Orizaola as new SE

editor
30 January 2017
We have the great pleasure to welcome Dr German Orizaola, Uppsala Univeristy to our Editorial Board. You can read more about German on his website www.gorizaola.wordpress.com and of course in myinterview with him below. What's you main research focus at the moment? My...

Plant Diversity and Decomposition

editor
24 January 2017
CO2 becomes plant biomass through photosynthesis and then returns to the atmosphere through respiration, including the decomposition of this biomass, forming the basis of the terrestrial carbon cycle. Research has shown that higher biodiversity of plants can increase...

Meta-analyses on sub-lethal effects of hypoxia

editor
13 January 2017
Findings from this meta-analysis, led by graduate students Allison Hrycik (@ahrycik) and Zoe Almeida (@almeida_zoe), suggest that the biologically relevant threshold of hypoxia for fish is 4.5 mg/l of dissolved oxygen. This is higher than the ‘typical’ definition of...

December Cover

editor
20 December 2016
The photo on the December cover relates to the study "Immune gene variability influences roe deer natal dispersal" by Cecile Vapné and co-workers. "The photo is taken by Olivier Villa. It shows a roe buck in a meadow. This roe buck seems particurlary healthy and in...

Editor's Choice December

editor
6 December 2016
We chose the forum paper of Siteur and colleagues as our first EC for the December issue. The forum focusses on how relevant deviations from steady-state may change predictions of critical transitions and resilience in current ecosystem models. Such a perspective is...

Editor's Choice November

editor
29 November 2016
Dear Oikos-followers. It has been a long time since we updated you on the papers that were selected as editor’s choice. In November, editor’s choices were two research papers. Jakub Szymkowiak tested the intriguing hypothesis that birds may use specific social...

Where do arctic foxes go in winter?

editor
25 November 2016
Tracking wild carnivores is never easy. They are fast, elusive, often nocturnal, and rarely abundant. This task can be even more daunting when a species is too small to wear a tracking device that is remotely heavy or if individuals have the ability to travel very long...

Can single species responses predict community change under global warming?

editor
25 November 2016
In previous experiments we grew grassland mesocosms in sunlit controlled growth chambers under different climate conditions. We investigated whether grassland species would maintain their current level of stress resistance when the global climate continues to change...

Life balance - to eat or be eaten?

editor
24 November 2016
Food availability and predation risk can have drastic impacts on animal behaviour and populations. The trade-off between foraging and predator avoidance is fundamental for survival of animals and will strongly modify individual body mass, since large fat reserves are...

November cover

editor
18 November 2016
The photo on the November cover shows "a masked flowerpiercer (Diglossa cyanea) robbing the flowers of Oreocallis grandiflora (Proteaceae) in Manu National Park, Peru. Avian nectar robbing has the potential to elicit trait-mediated indirect effects on plants by...

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