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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...

On Mixotrophy

editor
28 October 2016
Bacteria appear not to be aware of the paradigm shift in the 'microbial loop'. There is a new player in the game, he is pigmented, he is efficient, he is flexible - 'The Mixotroph'." Read more about the success of mixotrophs, here http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10...

What happens when the neighbour is eaten?

editor
21 October 2016
An important current focus in ecology is to better understand how species interactions can change in response to biotic and abiotic contexts. Herbaceous plants in many forests of the world face increased impacts from growing ungulate herbivore populations. However not...

Field work at home - in the tropics

editor
18 October 2016
Most biologists in temperate countries wonder how it is to study ecological systems in megadiverse tropical countries. Yes, it is thrilling, a true privilege. By walking in pristine tropical forests, savannas, and grasslands sometimes you have a sensation similar to a...

Field work at home - in the tropics

editor
18 October 2016
Most biologists in temperate countries wonder how it is to study ecological systems in megadiverse tropical countries. Yes, it is thrilling, a true privilege. By walking in pristine tropical forests, savannas, and grasslands sometimes you have a sensation similar to a...

Species richness and biomass-how are they related?

editor
13 September 2016
Figure 1: More diverse assemblages of herbivores, like these algal grazers living on seagrass, produce more grazer biomass. Hundreds of experiments have shown that changes in species richness affect the biomass of a species assemblage. Have they converged on a single...

Welcome EriK T Aschehoug - new SE

editor
9 September 2016
We are very happy to welcome Erik T Aschehoug from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. Get to know him on his website: http://aschehouglab.com/about.html and in my interview with him: What's your main research focus at the moment? Most of my work is focused on...

INTEGRATING TOOLS OF ECOLOGICAL STOICHIOMETRY AND NUTRITIONAL GEOMETRY

editor
6 September 2016
Background: ES/NG working group at Woodstoich III Upon meeting at the Woodstoich III workshop in Sydney, Australia in the summer of 2014, we and four other working groups sought to explore connections between ecological stoichiometry (ES), nutritional geometry (NG),...

Coexisting or not coexisiting? That's the....

editor
2 September 2016
A lot of species coexist. A lot don’t. Distinguishing between the two groups is a core component of community ecology. The inherent complexity of natural systems, and the quantity of data needed to fill in theoretical models, makes species coexistence particularly...

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...

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