trait based

New Publication: Shape matters: cell geometry determines phytoplankton diversity

Exploring the shape-diversity relationship in phytoplankton

Trait correlation network analysis identifies biomass allocation traits and stem specific length as hub traits in herbaceous perennial plants

Correlations among plant traits often reflect important trade‐offs or allometric relationships in biological functions like carbon gain, support, water uptake, and reproduction that are associated with different plant organs. Whether trait …

A new dimension: Evolutionary food web dynamics in two dimensional trait space

Species within a habitat are not uniformly distributed. However this aspect of community structure, which is fundamental to many conservation activities, is neglected in the majority of models of food web assembly. To address this issue, we introduce …

Emergence of evolutionary cycles in size-structured food webs

The interplay of population dynamics and evolution within ecological communities has been of long-standing interest for ecologists and can give rise to evolutionary cycles, e.g. taxon cycles. Evolutionary cycling was intensely studied in small …

Environmental and trait variability constrain community structure and the biodiversity‐productivity relationship

There is still considerable debate about which mechanisms drive the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem function (BEF). Although most scientists agree on the existence of two underlying mechanisms, complementarity and selection, …

Evolutionary food web models: effects of an additional resource

Many empirical food webs contain multiple resources, which can lead to the emergence of sub-communities—partitions—in a food web that are weakly connected with each other. These partitions interact and affect the complete food web. However, the fact …

Imperfect prey selectivity of predators promotes biodiversity and irregularity in food web

Ecological communities are often characterised by many species occupying the same trophic level and competing over a small number of vital resources. The mechanisms maintaining high biodiversity in such systems are still poorly understood. Here, we …