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Individual plants can modify the microenvironment within their spatial neighborhood. However, the consequences of microenvironment modification for demography and species interactions remain unclear at the community scale. In a study of co-occurring alpine plants, we 1) determined the extent of species-specific microclimate modification by comparing temperature and soil moisture between vegetated
Håkan Wallander is a professor in Soil Biology and the reader is guided through the fascinating world below ground. The book has a free form and the author mixes scientific facts with personal stories from active research experiences and everyday life. The main focus is to make the reader aware of the vast biodiversity that exists in the soil, and to describe the important processes provided by th
The ratio of leaf carotenoid to chlorophyll (Car/Chl) is an indicator of vegetation photosynthesis, development and responses to stress. However, the correlation between Car and Chl, and their overlapping absorption in the visible spectral domain pose a challenge for optical remote sensing of their ratio. This study aims to investigate combinations of vegetation indices (VIs) to minimize the influ
The ecological effects of mass-flowering crops on pollinator abundance and species richness of neighbouring habitats are well established, yet the potential evolutionary consequences remain unclear. We studied effects of proximity to a mass-flowering crop on the pollination of local co-flowering plants and on patterns of natural selection on a pollination-generalised plant on the Tibetan Plateau.
Shuker points to some inconsistencies in my terminology about consequence laws in evolutionary biology, specifically that gene flow and recombination are not as easily classified as one gets the impression of after reading Sober (1984). I agree, and I also emphasize that evolutionary biology should not only focus on consequence laws, but also source laws arising from the ecological selective envir
The last decades have seen frequent calls for a more extended evolutionary synthesis (EES) that will supposedly overcome the limitations in the current evolutionary framework with its intellectual roots in the Modern Synthesis (MS). Some radical critics even want to entirely abandon the current evolutionary framework, claiming that the MS (often erroneously labelled “Neo-Darwinism”) is outdated, a
Vassiliki “Betty” Smocovitis has done a thorough and admirable job in highlighting the complex history the Modern Synthesis (MS) or the Evolutionary Synthesis (ES) as she prefers to call it. Her interesting contribution should hopefully increase awareness that the history of evolutionary biology is important even for researchers today who are mainly interested in solving practical questions of mor
Varved lake sediments offer valuable insight into past environmental conditions with high temporal resolution and precise chronological control. A combination of diatom and geochemical analyses of the recently deposited sediments of Odensjön, a small dimictic lake in southern Sweden, shows alternating light and dark laminae composed of greater amounts of biogenic silica and organic matter, respect
Mapping in situ eddy covariance measurements of terrestrial land–atmosphere fluxes to the globe is a key method for diagnosing the Earth system from a data-driven perspective. We describe the first global products (called X-BASE) from a newly implemented upscaling framework, FLUXCOM-X, representing an advancement from the previous generation of FLUXCOM products in terms of flexibility and technica
Ectomycorrhizal fungi are essential for nitrogen (N) cycling in many temperate forests and responsive to anthropogenic N addition, which generally decreases host carbon (C) allocation to the fungi. In the boreal region, however, ectomycorrhizal fungal biomass has been found to correlate positively with soil N availability. Still, responses to anthropogenic N input, for instance through atmospheric
Changes in environmental temperature during development can affect growth, metabolism and temperature tolerance of the offspring. We know little about whether such changes remain to adulthood, which is important to understand the links between climate change, development and fitness. We investigated whether phenotypic consequences of the thermal environment in early life remained in adulthood in t
This study aims to broaden our historical knowledge about ideas of rationalism and monocultures in forestry science and rational forest management. Empirically, it focuses on the writings of Swedish forestry scientist Henrik Hesselman, active in the early twentieth century. The texts were analyzed using the method of historical contextualization. The study indicates that monocultures historically
It is a well-known predicament of the social sciences that predictions, if the right circumstances are in place, can intervene on the very processes the predictions concern. The purpose of this paper is to address the question of how modelers or scientists should act in the presence of such performative effects with a specific focus on the example of climate economics. Specifically, we will argue
Pesticide use in agricultural landscapes creates environmental contamination that is heterogenous in space and time. Mobile organisms, such as bees, are exposed to multiple contamination sources when visiting patches that vary in the amount, timing and toxicity of pesticides used. Yet, environmental risk assessments (ERA) typically fail to consider this heterogeneity, in part because of the comple
Scorzoneroides autumnalis is a highly polymorphic perennial with several described infraspecific taxa, largely differing in involucre colour and indumentum intensity. Here, we examine the role of ecotypic divergence and phenotypic plasticity in shaping large-scale geographical variation in these characters. We collected phenotypic data from herbarium specimens and garden-grown plants of S. autumna
