Anne Ebeling

New paper from our JenaTron facility:

Bröcher et al. show that reciprocal effects between plants and invertebrate herbivores vary with plant species richness, plant history and soil history.

Herbivores want nutritious plants with soil history, while they reduce plant height in monocultures

🐛🌱

Public broadcasting visited our experiment today to shoot a science education clip on #biodiversity

Happy to contribute to "Planet Schule" #SWR & looking forward to seeing the finished clip soon 🌱🪲🪱

Selection and Phenotypic Plasticity Shape Plant Performance in a Grassland Biodiversity Experiment We conducted a transplant experiment for nine plant species in a 17-year-old biodiversity experiment (Jena Experiment) to disentangle the role of adaptation and phenotypic plasticity in phenotypic re...

New study led by Francesca De Giorgi finds that selection and phenotypic plasticity shape plant performance 🌱🌿

Find the results from the transplant experiment here:
doi.org/10.1002/ece3...

Our paper on the integration of biodiversity-disease and biodiversity-herbivore relationships is out now! Thanks to @idiv-research.bsky.social for supporting us through #sDiv working group funding to bring together two typically disparate fields in ecology! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Ecological traits for 1374 arthropod species collected in a German grassland Arthropods play an important role in grasslands, making trait-based research a valuable approach to advance our understanding of ecosystem functioning. However, a wide range of functional traits for ....

Find Bröcher et al.'s Data Paper here: doi.org/10.1002/ecy....

Cover of the May 2025 issue of Ecology

The handsome click beetle on the cover of Ecology's May issue is one of nearly 1,400 arthropods (insects, spiders & the like) from Germany's Jena Experiment whose traits are compiled in a new Data Paper by Bröcher et al.

Find the full issue: esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/19399170...

What a great week for Max, he also defended his PhD with great success - congratulations!

Stay tuned for more of his research on plant-consumer interactions 🌱🪲

With proud supervisors @ebelingae.bsky.social, Sebastian Meyer @terrecolgroup.bsky.social & Holger Schielzeth

Aus der thüringischen Böttcher AG, einem führenden Büroartikelhändler mit einem Jahresumsatz von 760 Mill €, hat die AfD 1 Million Euro Wahlkampfunterstützung erhalten (www.spiegel.de/politik/jena...). Ich habe sofort reagiert!

We are looking for more collaborators who want to run a BugNet site in their region. If you are interested, join our online info event. Please re-skeet, and help us to reach community ecologists, and those interested in plant- herbivore and plant-pathogen interactions around the world! 👇

In case you're wondering: FU and TU Berlin are not on the list of German universities who have just quit X on January 10, since they already left quite a while ago.

Extinction of experience among ecologists Fieldwork-based research and education in ecology are under multiple threats and are progressively declining. We call for greater attention to this ongoing loss of direct field experience within the ecology community, as it could have widespread consequences for science and education, ultimately hindering efforts to address the ongoing biodiversity crisis.

Where are all the field studies?

This ⬇️ important but rather depressing paper describes how conducting, & crucially initiating, field studies is becoming harder & rarer.

A short 🧵 (and a call for more fieldwork)
www.cell.com/trends/ecolo...

Plant Species Richness and the Root Economics Space Drive Soil Fungal Communities Soil fungi are critical for plants and ecosystems but are also affected by the vegetation itself. Here, we show how an experimental gradient of plant species richness and community fine root traits d...

What a nice start to 2025! The second chapter of my PhD is now out in Ecology Letters!
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Seasonal shifts in plant diversity effects on above‐ground–below‐ground phenological synchrony Plant diversity modulates above-ground–below-ground interdependence through intricate phenological dynamics, with the degree of synchrony fluctuating in response to the varying combination of process....

New study led by Ana Elizabeth Bonato Asato published in @journalofecology.bsky.social 🌱🪱

Plant diversity increases above- and below-ground ecosystem functioning and their phenological synchrony, but effects on traits vary across seasons.

doi.org/10.1111/1365...

Loss of pollinator diversity consistently reduces reproductive success for wild and cultivated plants Nature Ecology & Evolution - A meta-analysis finds that decreasing diversity of pollinator species has a negative affect on multiple measures of plant reproductive success, with wild plant...

[new paper] You probably suspected that loss of pollinator diversity consistently reduces reproductive success for wild and cultivated plants, but here we quantify it: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We're thrilled to welcome you to #BES2024! 🎉

Connect with fellow ecologists, and celebrate the innovations that come out of this week 🌿

Don’t forget to tag us and share your favourite moments from the Annual Meeting. We can't wait to see what inspires you! ✨

Successful restoration of endangered oyster reefs- great talk by Dominic McAfee at #BES2024

Effects of multiple microplastic types on growth of winter wheat and soil properties vary in different agricultural soils Winter wheat is one of the most important crops in the world. Microplastics, as an emerging pollutant, are widespread in agricultural soils due to various modern agricultural practices and can have a....

Final version published:

Effects of multiple microplastic types on growth of winter wheat and soil properties vary in different agricultural soils

Hongyu Chen et al. in Plants, People, Planet

@plantspeopleplanet.bsky.social #microplastics
nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

At today's lab journal club we will discuss this
#Cell Commentary by @johannajoyce.bsky.social and colleagues from @unil.bsky.social on strategies to promote gender equality in academia #WomeninSTEM www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Species‐rich old grasslands have beneficial effects on the health and gut microbiome of bumblebees Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

This new study suggests that high-quality old grassland may be particularly good at supporting pollinators because diverse food sources provided by such grassland provide additional health benefits.

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
| Pornon et al. @funecology.bsky.social

The Field Automatic Insect Recognition‐Device—A Non‐Lethal Semi‐Automatic Malaise Trap for Insect Biodiversity Monitoring: Proof of Concept The FAIR-Device, a novel nonlethal field tool, combines semi-automatic image capture and AI-based species identification to monitor insect biodiversity. In a 26-day proof-of-concept evaluation, it re....

Ever dreamt of an insect trap that is non lethal? Check out this new paper by our PhD student Juan Chiavassa! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Read our new paper in EcologicalMonographs esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
We introduce a framework on how to partition species contributions to ecological stability in disturbed communities based on species absolute change in biomass and relative change in proportion.

🧪Paper alert

New findings from our JenaTron experiment show that the multitrophic functioning of soil fauna depends on soil community history. 🪱🌱

Led by @amyntas.bsky.social , published in Nat. Commun. @natureportfolio.bsky.social

doi.org/10.1038/s414...