Blog

Of birthday cakes and interactions of density-dependence

editor
30 August 2016
There are few things that we perceive as exclusively good or bad. Whether something is good or bad often depends on conditions and circumstances. Take, for example, a birthday party. Most of us like to be surrounded by many dear friends to celebrate. It’s just more fun...

Cover September

editor
30 August 2016
The cover for our September Issue comes from the study "Host nutritional status mediates degree of parasitoid virulence" by Fanny Maure et al. The photo shows a "Spotted lady beetle (Coleomegilla maculata) attending a newly emerged parasitoid larva on a maize plant in...

How do herbivores find the plants?

editor
23 August 2016
Can herbivores use sight and smell to detect preferred plants from afar? Our study shows that these senses are used by a model browser, the swamp wallaby, to find and consume eucalypt seedlings. However, the use of odour and visual cues is dependent on the context -...

Can tropical forests recover after major disturbance?

editor
23 August 2016
Can tropical dry forests recover their species richness and composition after major disturbance? Secondary forests recovering after previous deforestation account for a substantial proportion of the world’s remaining area of tropical forest and their importance is...

Lichen it up in the trees

editor
16 August 2016

To recycle or steal?

editor
5 July 2016
Have you ever wondered how plants could save energy by doing things more efficiently? Like other organisms, plants can develop strategies that allow them to be more efficient in acquiring and conserving nutrients. To optimize the benefits of nutrient conservation,...

Stress hormones provide a cloudy picture of environmental quality and fitness

editor
5 July 2016
Wildlife are facing many stressors spanning climate change, loss and alteration of habitats, and pollutants. In an effort to determine whether organisms can cope with an altered environment, many ecologists and conservation biologists have begun to turn to measures of...

July Cover

editor
5 July 2016
The photo on Oikos' July cover shows a group of Northern gannets (Morus bassanus) foraging near their breeding colony at Bass Rock (east coast of Scotland) and is taken by Richard Shucksmith (www.ecologicalphotography.co.uk) . This photo illustrates the study "Colony...

How does temperature influence the winter moth’s phenology?

editor
28 June 2016
In most species phenology, or the timing of biological events such as flowering, migration, or reproduction, is crucial for survival and fitness. Several external and internal factors such as light, temperature, endogenous clocks, food-availability and density are...

Consequences of eating infected prey

editor
28 June 2016
We investigate the ways in which consuming pathogen-infected prey influence some important life-history parameters of insect predators. Pathogens are used in a variety of biocontrol programs, especially to control crop pests. We focused on crop-pests due to their short...

Sometimes “less is more”… ecological networks also prove us right

editor
17 June 2016
The networks of plant-animal interactions represent a perfect tool to capture the complexity of ecological communities, and, simultaneously, to relate the effect of this complexity on ecosystem functioning. For example, seed dispersal, an important ecological process...

All Biology is Local

editor
14 June 2016
All Biology is Local One of the most interesting aspects of global climate change is that, while its extent is global, its effects at the regional scale are quite variable. Yet the vast majority of studies focused on the effects of climate change have relied on work at...

Pyramids of species richness

editor
14 June 2016
Two years ago, I was finishing my MSc and considering whether I’d like to do a PhD, and if so, with whom. I met with Chris and we threw around a few ideas for PhD projects. It was when he brought up a certain mystery that my decision to do a PhD in his lab was cemented...

Predators linking the brown and green worlds

editor
7 June 2016
The concept of a trophic cascade, where predators eat herbivores and thus indirectly benefit plants, has been around for a long time in ecology. Trophic cascades have been documented in all habitats with a wide variety of species. However, systems that involve cascades...

The importance of time in plant pollination networks

editor
3 June 2016
Network theory is widely used to explore the structure of ecological interactions. Consequently, network tools have permeated the ecological literature during the last decade. For example, plant-pollinator interaction networks accounted for nearly 250 papers in the...

Welcome Tadashi Fukami, new SE

editor
24 May 2016
We now have the great pleasure to welcome Dr. Tadashi Fukami to Oikos Editorial Board. Below is a short interview with him and if you want to know more, just visit his webiste: http://web.stanford.edu/~fukamit/ What's you main research focus at the moment? I am...

Editor's Choice May

editor
17 May 2016
The meta-analysis and forum paper from the May issue of Oikos are selected as Editor’s choice. Bauer and colleagues synthesise the available empirical evidence to provide evidence that timing of migration events strongly impacts ecological dynamics across larger...

Cover May

editor
3 May 2016
The photo on Oikos' May cover, shows a well deserved break in fieldwork and is taken by Bess Hardwick. Fieldwork is performed for the study: Disentangling the ‘brown world’ faecal–detritus interaction web: dung beetle effects on soil microbial properties by Eleanore M...

Heating up arthropod interactions in situ

editor
29 April 2016
With advancing climate change, species ranges are likely to shift. However, climate change may also affect interactions among the co-occurring species remaining in the landscape. Most interactions on the globe involve insects, whether in the tropics , the temperate...

Cover April

editor
26 April 2016
The photo on the April cover is taken by Javier Valverde and relates to the paper: The temporal dimension in individual-based plant pollination networks , by Valverde et al. here's a short description of the photo: Unfocused in the background, a bee fly approaches to...

Pages

Subscribe to Blog

Recent Comments & Hot Topics