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Cover October

editor
11 September 2015
The cover photo on the October issue shows a mallard duck in flight taken at Burnaby Lake, Burnaby, BC, Canada. The photo illustates movement behaviour of mallard ducks (Anas platyrhynchos) in relation to the spread of avian influenza viruses. Read more in the paper "...

Cover September

editor
11 September 2015
The photo on the Septmber cover shows a couple of stallions that leisurely find water in the mid-west side of Sable Island. However, although for some horses water isn't always so accessible to find here. Read more in the paper "Density-dependent, central-place...

New SE - Silke Bauer

editor
10 September 2015
We are very happy to welcome Silke Bauer, Swiss Ornithological Institute, Sempach, to our Editorial Board. get to know her in the interview below and read more at her webpage: http://www.vogelwarte.ch/de/vogelwarte/ueber-uns/team/mitarbeitende/silke-bauer.html 1. What'...

Do core frugivores disperse more seeds than peripheral species?

editor
8 September 2015
Frugivores and fleshy-fruited plants can interact with a mutual benefit: animals obtain nutrients from fruits and plants disperse their seeds to variable distances through bird faeces. It has been largely assumed that only a few of the many species interacting are the...

How do mutualists avoid extinciton?

editor
8 September 2015
Mutualism is a form of species interactions in which each species gains benefits from each other. An obligate mutualist is a species whose survival and/or reproduction requires the benefits from its partners, and a facultative mutualist does not necessarily require the...

Effects on dispersal in aquatic metacommunities

editor
4 September 2015
Using a microcosm experiment with natural phytoplankton assemblages we tested the combined effect of dispersal and disturbance on assemblage composition and productivity. The experimental set-up was designed to simulate conditions typical of natural coastal systems,...

β-diversity in metacommunities

editor
4 September 2015
This paper tests whether a statistical measure of community structure can actually differentiate between neutral and niche assembly processes. More broadly, we were interested in the connection between the ecological processes that determine community structure and...

Birds as ecosystem servants?

editor
4 September 2015
The main message of our study is related to the importance of diversified frugivorous bird assemblages driving diversified and complementary ecological services in the tropical forests. Studying three plant species and their fruit dispersers in a complex landscape we...

Editor's Choice September

editor
2 September 2015
We selected two meta-analysis papers as editor’s choice for the September issue. The meta-analysis authored by Albert and colleagues aimed to study to which degree ungulates act as an environmental filter for the dispersal of seeds. By relating patterns in dispersal to...

Is there competition in initial ecosystem?

editor
1 September 2015
Self-assembly has always fascinated people. Ecologists were particularly interested in the emergence of ecological systems during primary succession. However, respective opportunities to trace initial community assembly are scarce and mainly restricted to faraway...

Sweet and tasty: how salinity can increase attraction

editor
31 August 2015
In our study system (a salt marsh on a back-barrier island in the Wadden Sea) it is very obvious: some plants are highly preferred by herbivores and are being grazed down to the ground, whereas others are not being grazed at all. One of the main herbivores during early...

Motifs in the assembly of food web networks.

editor
25 August 2015
Traditionally, the role of species interactions in community assembly is inferred from patterns of taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity. Furthermore, assembly theory employs a competition-based framework that does not include trophic interactions or the...

Rapid Evolution of Stoichiometric Traits

editor
19 August 2015
Background: Rapid Evolution Stoichiometry Group Woodstoich 2014 Carrying on the far-out tradition established by Woodstoich I, which was held in Norway during summer, 2004 and continued by Woodstoich II held in Japan during the summer of 2009, five groups of early...

Will the Superplant evolve?

editor
18 August 2015
What would happen if a plant could produce billions of seeds capable of arriving, germinating and growing anywhere? Such plant would coat the face of the Earth, displacing every other plant species on the planet. From the assumptions of natural selection, we would even...

On the usefulness of boring presentations

editor
31 July 2015
Old data + new techniques = new answers to old questions: On the usefulness of boring presentations Most biodiversity-ecosystem functioning experiments focus at one trophic level and use randomly assembled communities. However, in natural systems communities are rarely...

Editor's Choice July

editor
2 July 2015
Two research papers were chosen as EC for July. The two papers have in common that they generate synthesis in community ecology by collecting large datasets to test predictions on network structure and functional organisation. Staab et al. tested the hypothesis that...

EC August

editor
29 June 2015
We selected for the August issue two rather atypical contributions as editor’s choice. We see Oikos as a journal at the interface of ecology and evolution and decided to highlight a forum and research paper that are focusing on the genetic component of population...

August cover

editor
16 June 2015
The photo on the August cover shows a polar bear that has just caught a bearded seal. The phot was taken by Wayne Lynch. The paper about the polar bears is "Multi-temporal factors influence predation for polar bears in a changing climate" by Nick Pilfold and coworkers.

July Cover

editor
16 June 2015
The photo on the cover on the July-issue shows various protists and relates to the paper "Dendritic network structure and dispersal affect temporal dynamics of diversity and species persistence" by Mathew Seymore et al. "Different species commonly used in protist...

June Cover

editor
12 June 2015
The photo at Oikos' June cover is taken by Bram Vanschoenwinkel, one of the authors to the paper "Hydrological stability drives both local and regional diversity patterns in rock pool metacommunities" in the same issue. Here he describes the photo and the study: The...

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