Florian Fort This is a plain language summary of a Functional Ecology review article which can be found here. Root systems come in a wide variety of shapes, colours, and organisation. Within a root system, some old roots may display absorbing hairs while young ones will not, which differs from the images in biology textbooks. This diversity helps plants acquire soil resources, mainly water and … Continue reading Root ecology must be rooted again
Beatriz Argüelles−Marrón, Jorge A. Meave, Isolda Luna−Vega, Doris B. Crispin-DelaCruz, Paul Szejner, Fressia N. Ames-Martínez, Ernesto C. Rodríguez−Ramírez This is a plain language summary of a Functional Ecology research article which can be found here. Climate change is one of the main factors affecting the adaptive capacity of species sensitive to climatic variations, such as endangered tree species, in moist environments such as tropical montane … Continue reading How are cloud forest oaks adapting to drought?
Matthew E. Gilbert This is a plain language summary of a Functional Ecology research article which can be found here. Weather seems unpredictable to most people. However, in many parts of the world today’s weather is a very good predictor of what tomorrow’s weather will be like. This is particularly true in dry areas that get rainfall in the winter, such as parts of California … Continue reading Flowers can predict tomorrow’s weather, matching pollinator activity
Camille Ziegler, Sébastien Levionnois, Damien Bonal, Patrick Heuret, Clément Stahl, Sabrina Coste This is a plain language summary of a Functional Ecology research article which can be found here. In the past decades, more frequent and severe drought events have increased forest tree mortality across the globe. It is now accepted that drought-induced tree mortality is mainly triggered by a catastrophic failure of the vascular … Continue reading Avoidance of leaf hydraulic dysfunction in Neotropical rainforest canopy tree species
Jackson W. Drew, M. Syndonia Bret-Harte, Agata Buchwal, Calvin Heslop This is a plain language summary of a Functional Ecology research article which can be found here. The Arctic is rapidly warming, and in response shrubs are getting taller, greener, and more competitive relative to shorter plants across much of the Arctic. This response to warming may provide an important counterbalance to climate change by … Continue reading Getting better with age: How old Siberian alder grows better in the warmer Alaskan Arctic
François Vasseur, Cyrille Violle, Brian J. Enquist, Denis Vile This is a plain language summary of a Functional Ecology research article which can be found here. A main consequence of a change in organism size is the modification of the proportional ratio between surface and volume. This modification can be modelled with trait-size relationships, called allometric relationships, which have been shown to exhibit quasi-universal coefficients … Continue reading Intraspecific variation in trait-size relationships
Anne Griebel, Matthias M. Boer, Chris Blackman, Brendan Choat, David S. Ellsworth, Paul Madden, Belinda Medlyn, V´ıctor Resco de Dios, Agnieszka Wujeska-Klause, Marta Yebra, Nicolas Younes Cardenas, Rachael H. Nolan This is a plain language summary of a Functional Ecology research article which can be found here. The moisture content of living tissues is an important predictor of the occurrence of wildfires as it affects … Continue reading Plant responses to environmental conditions control the moisture content of living fine fuels
Chris M. Smith-Martin, Robert Muscarella, Roi Ankori-Karlinsky, Sylvain Delzon, Samuel L. Farrar, Melissa Salva-Sauri, Jill Thompson, Jess K. Zimmerman, María Uriarte This is a plain language summary of a Functional Ecology research article which can be found here. Droughts are causing trees to grow less and die more in many forests worldwide. Some tree species are more affected by drought than others, but we do … Continue reading Tree plumbing system characteristics were not linked to their growth during drought
Kristiina Visakorpi, Sebastián Block, Loïc Pellissier, Jonathan M. Levine, Jake Alexander This is a plain language summary of a Functional Ecology research article which can be found here. Plant species growing at high altitudes have adapted to cooler temperatures, shorter summers and less competition from the surrounding vegetation. With climate change, the high elevation environment will increasingly resemble that found at lower elevations today: temperatures … Continue reading The future of Alpine meadows: Can we predict winners and losers in a warmer climate?
Marius Klotz, Jörg Schaller, Heike Feldhaar, Jürgen Dengler, Gerhard Gebauer, Gregor Aas, Anita Weissflog, Bettina M. J. Engelbrecht This is a plain language summary of a Functional Ecology research article which can be found here. Wildflower and grass species have to cope with unfavourable conditions, such as drought and flooding. This causes stress to which plants respond by adjusting their growth and nutrient content. Understanding … Continue reading The silicon and nitrogen concentrations in wildflowers and grasses vary under different water conditions
Functional Ecology: Plain Language Summaries 