Plant Evolutionary Ecology lab

British Ecological Society invites applications for Associate Editor; deadline 23 February. Background shows ants on a green plant.

💭Are you a researcher or practitioner with an interest in publishing?

We are looking for Associate Editors who can help advance outstanding ecological research by joining the Editorial Board for one of our seven Society-owned journals.

🌿🍄‍🟫🌱🍄We’re recruiting!!🌿🍄‍🟫🌱🍄

I’m looking for two postdocs and a technician to join my group @sheffielduni.bsky.social @sheffieldpps.bsky.social to work with me on my exciting @royalsociety.org Faraday Discovery Fellowship project, details for each post as follows:

Tree evolution is surprisingly quirky! 🌳 Trees are likely ancestral in many plant groups, often re-evolve on islands, and Arabidopsis can be made tree-like by tweaking a few genes. We revisited what genes really make a tree a tree using comparative genomics. @trhvidsten.bsky.social #trees #evolution

The Bug‐Network (BugNet): A Global Experimental Network Testing the Effects of Invertebrate Herbivores and Fungal Pathogens on Plant Communities and Ecosystem Function in Open Ecosystems The Bug-Network (BugNet) is a novel global collaborative research network that implements standardized consumer-reduction experiments in herbaceous- or shrub-dominated ecosystems to assess the impact...

Our first paper from the Bug-Network (BugNet) is out! 🎉

BugNet is a global network studying how invertebrate herbivores and fungal pathogens shape plant diversity & ecosystem functioning worldwide. The paper reports on the methods of the experimental part:

📄 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Thanks for sharing! This paper makes a very good point

Ecological acclimation: A framework to integrate fast and slow responses to climate change Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Ecological acclimation: A framework to integrate fast and slow responses to climate change - Stemkovski - 2025 - Functional Ecology - Wiley Online Library besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Neighbourhood diversity increases tree growth in experimental forests more in wetter climates but not in wetter years - Nature Ecology & Evolution How tree diversity effects on ecosystem functioning vary along climatic gradients is unclear. Here, analysing data from 15 experimental forest sites, the authors show that tree growth responses to nei...

🗞️New publication🗞️

How do neighbourhood diversity effects on tree growth change with climatic conditions?🌳🌲🔆🌧️

We adress this question in our new study in @natecoevo.nature.com led by Liting Zheng.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

/w @liting-zheng.bsky.social, Peter Reich & #TreeDivNet

Integrating intraspecific trait variability in functional diversity: An overview of methods and a guide for ecologists Variability in traits within species (intraspecific trait variability; ITV) has attracted increased interest in functional ecology, as it can profoundly influence the detection of functional trait pa....

Hot off the press 🔥 New Ecological Monographs paper shows why, when and how to include intraspecific trait variability to enhance functional diversity research. Huge shout out to Facundo Palacio for his vision and leadership. Read here 👉 doi.org/10.1002/ecm....
#traits #functionaldiversity 📏🌐

Origin matters: mycorrhizal growth response and induced resistance to pathogens depend on mycorrhizal and pathogen source Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are critical to native plant community ecology and influence plant invasions. Research has focused on nutritional benefits of AMF, although evidence shows that the...

Check out our new paper: Origin matters: mycorrhizal growth response and induced resistance to pathogens depend on mycorrhizal and pathogen source, where we show that mycorrhizal induced resistance occurs within native plant species 🌱 @newphyt.bsky.social

Diversity Increases but Community Specialists Decline Over Three Decades in Dry Grassland Communities of Central Germany Aim Dry grasslands are vulnerable to climate and land-use change. Increasing temperatures, drought, grazing cessation and nitrogen deposition can all result in shifts in grasslands' taxonomic and fu...

⬆️🌡️Increasing temperatures,☀️ drought,🐮🐑🚫 grazing cessation and nitrogen deposition amount to tough times for vulnerable dry grasslands. A three-decade long case study in Germany by Horka et al. gives us more insights on the changes these communities face.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Looks like a familiar place from Popbio visit last year and portions haven’t got smaller!

Cool! And nice to learn what next door office neighbours are actually doing! Greetings from #Rhizosphere6

Welcome back! You forgot to mention mosquitos!

Chemically mediated plant–enemy interactions promote positive biodiversity effects on young tree growth A large-scale tree diversity experiment reveals that early growth of trees is influenced by phytochemically mediated trophic interactions. Specifically, foliar chemical diversity is higher for trees ...

led by Cathy Fahey, we used #metabolomics in the #BiodiversiTREE experiment to show that chemically mediated plant–enemy interactions promote positive biodiversity effects on young tree growth - Journal of Ecology #treedivnet besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Looks delicious! Cool spring here - about a month till we get any berries!

Ever wondered how plant interactions with soil pathogens and mutualists may regulate both species co-existence and diversity-productivity relationships? It is complicated 📈📉 but we tried to put different threads together:

Nitrogen deposition decouples grassland plant community from soil bacterial and fungal communities along a precipitation gradient

🦠Research reveals that nitrogen deposition decouples grassland plant community from soil bacterial & fungal communities, posing great challenges for an accurate evaluation of ecosystem functions under future global change scenarios 🧪🌍

Spring is in full swing and we had our traditional yearly botanical trip. Amazing variety and beauty in every habitat - from dessert-like heath to species-rich flooded meadow! 🤩

Barley roots are really hairy! 🤩Tempted to measure if varieties differ in root hair length and density, but how? If you have positive experience, please share your method with us!

Today we had a new record: over 600 pots harvested in one day for a plant-soil feedback experiment with barley + soil leachate collection for 150 pots! 💪👏🥳 #AgroCropFuture project @kkoorem.bsky.social

Research Fellow in Plant Evolutionary Ecology (postdoc) We are looking for a 2-year postdoctoral research fellow within the European Research Council project PlantSoilAdapt - “Eco-evolutionary dynamics in plant-soil interactions during land use transition:...

We are looking for a research fellow to join our group for 2 years! Please share with anyone looking for a new position and interested in 🌱 local adaptation, plant-soil interactions and land use! euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/340833

Predicting global intraspecific trait variation of grasses Plant traits are important for understanding community assembly and ecosystem processes, yet our understanding of intraspecific trait variation (ITV) is limited. This gap in our knowledge is partiall...

Global intraspecific trait variation in grasslands: intraspecific responses to local environment can change species trait rankings nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1... @rjgriffin-nolan.bsky.social

Tree functional strategies and soil microbial communities regulate forest ecosystem services This research highlights the role of tree functional strategies and soil microbial community composition in influencing the ecosystem services of subtropical forests, and provides important informati...

Out now by Wang et al. in Journal of Applied Ecology: 'Tree functional strategies and soil microbial communities regulate forest ecosystem services' besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

After every encounter with the current scientific publishing system

Have you heard about the concept of dark diversity 🧙‍♀️? If not, find out what it is and how it can be used in the assessment of human impacts!

We were just as surprised when finding widespread AMF colonisation in several species described as non-mycorrhizal. Your study suggests it might not be just randomness! besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/FWYYRW...

Very intriguing findings - quite strong positive effect of AMF on presumably non-mycorrhizal plant!

So nice! You should do it more often 😉

Capacity to form common mycorrhizal networks reduces the positive impact of clonal integration between plants Both clonal plant capabilities for physiological integration and common mycorrhizal networks (CMNs) formed by arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) can influence the distribution of nutrients and growth...

Very excited to see this work out by visiting PhD in my group Yuanhao Zhang exploring interactions between clonal plant integration and CMNs! Spoiler they interact in big ways! doi.org/10.1111/ppl....

Functional traits mediate the effect of land use on drivers of community stability within and across trophic levels Functional traits, notably leaf-related trade-offs, shape land-use impacts on stability drivers within and across trophic levels.

🌿 Understanding how land use affects temporal #stability is key to preserve #biodiversity & #ecosystem functions. Our 13-year study across 300 sites reveals that trait-based #community features are key mediators of #land-use effects on stability drivers. @science.org
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...