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How does climate variables and diversity loss “filter” natural communities?

editor
10 February 2015
As the oceans gradually become warmer and more acidified, an increasing number of studies test the effects of climate change on marine organisms. As most climate change experiments have studied effects of single climate variables on single species, more and more...

Phenotypic effects of climate change

editor
6 February 2015
Understanding how changes in the climate affect biological communities is essential in predicting the future size and composition of populations. However, accurate predictions pose a difficult challenge for researchers. For the majority of animal species it is not...

Synthesising: Population genetics and tropical ecology

editor
4 February 2015
This is our first collaboration study between a population geneticist, Hideki Innan, and a field-based tropical ecologist, me, Yayoi Takeuchi. I have been long wondering why Hubbell’s neutral model fitted so well to tropical forest communities because my impression of...

Invaders in plant-pollinator communities

editor
3 February 2015
The introduction of a new species to an ecological community can initiate a chain of events that results in a significant change to the community’s composition. For instance, the introduction of a pollinator species can facilitate the colonization of new plants that...

To live longer - choose the right place to live?

editor
30 January 2015
Despite the increasing use of Species Distribution Models (SDM) for predicting current or future animal distribution, only a few studies have linked the gradient of habitat suitability to demographic parameters. Species Distribution Models are a niche modelling...

Frugivores and seed dispersal

editor
30 January 2015
Everyone who likes to spend some time in nature, or who has trees at home, knows that several animals love to feed on fruits. Figs, tomatoes, peppers, guavas, mangos, bananas, and many other delicacies are harvested by frugivores that range from tiny bats to huge...

Herbivore response to global warming

editor
27 January 2015
Experimental warming is an effective approach to determine the effect of increasing temperature on ecological processes, with few confounding factors (e.g., other variables that covary spatially and temporally with temperature). Therefore, a number of field experiments...

Soil, elevation and plant growth

editor
27 January 2015
Elevational gradients have become important tools for assessing the effects of temperature changes on vegetation properties, because these gradients enable temperature effects to be considered over larger spatial and temporal scales than is possible through...

How do ants affect spider populations in coffee plants?

editor
23 January 2015
Biotic interactions play a central role in determining species distribution and abundance. Indeed, some organisms can have particularly strong effects on the distribution of other species because they act as keystone species or ecosystem engineers whose effects cascade...

January Cover

editor
20 January 2015
I hope you haven't missed that Oikos from 2015 changes cover each month! Each month a photo from one of the papers in the issue will be featured on the cover. The January cover photo was taken by David W. Inouye. The paper in questions is "Phenological shifts and the...

Herbivory effects of climate change

editor
20 January 2015
Herbivory may be changed by climate change and how does that affect the host plants? Find out in the Early View paper "Colonization of a host tree by herbivorous insects under a changing climate" by Kaisa Heimonen and co-workers. Below is their summary of the paper:...

Amphibian responses to diversity of native and non-native litter

editor
19 January 2015
Fig. 1. Recently metamorphosed green frog (Lithobates clamitans) at the edge of a pond (photo by Laura Martin) Amphibians develop in watery places that are full of plants. And yet we know little about how these plants affect larval amphibians. As disease, climate...

Only few invading individuals, still dangerous?

editor
14 January 2015
Invasive species have negative economic and environmental consequences worldwide and, in our changing world, it has become increasingly important to understand their impacts. However, when assessing the impacts of invasive species, scientists often compare un-invaded...

Travelling around to catch more parasites?

editor
14 January 2015
Do migratory birds catch more parasites? This is explored in the Oikos Early View paper "Flying with diverse passengers: greater richness of parasitic nematodes in migratory birds" by Janet Koprivnikar and tommy L.F. Leung. Below is their short summary of the study:...

Stay or go for next clutch?

editor
14 January 2015
Moving to a new site for next brood? Good or bad? And why? These questions are answered in the Early View paper “Mechanisms and reproductive consequences of breeding dispersal in a specialist predator under temporally varying food conditions” by Julien Terraube and co-...

Now or never: adaptive phenology and biotic interactions

editor
9 January 2015
Timing is everything. For an interaction to take place, organisms not only have to be at the same place, they need to be there at the same time. The timing of flowering has likely been an important trait ever since the first flowers appeared on Earth ~200 million years...

Welcome new SE: Francois Massol

editor
19 December 2014
We are very happy to welcome Dr. Francois Massol to Oikos Editorial Board. Get to know him here: What’s your main research focus at the moment? These days, I try and focus my efforts on the evolution of dispersal and the evolutionary ecology of interaction networks...

How small rodents in the Arctic affect birds in New Zealand

editor
17 December 2014
The complicated predator-prey interactions are one of the most fascinating fields in ecology. They have been studied for decades, and the more we learn, the more surprising and unpredicted stories that we find. For me, finding that small rodents (lemmings) in the high...

Not easy being a seedling…

editor
16 December 2014
Who will eat me and how fast will I be out-competed? Questions about the future for eucalyptus seedlings in a kangaroo world. Read more in Early View paper “Associational refuge in practice: can existing vegetation facilitate woodland restoration?” by Rebecca S. Stutz...

Butterfly resilience to climate warming

editor
15 December 2014
How species may cope with global warming is studied in the Early View paper “Geographic mosaics of phenology, host preference, adult size and microhabitat choice predict butterfly resilience to climate warming” by Nichole L. Bennett and coworkers. Below is their...

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