Highlight articles 

Here we introduce the BIODESERT survey, the first systematic field survey devoted to evaluating the joint impacts of grazing by domestic livestock and climate on the structure and functioning of dryland ecosystems worldwide. We describe the major characteristics and the field protocols used in this survey and the organizational aspects followed to carry it out succesfully.

Human population growth imposes increasing demands on crop yield (i.e., crop production per unit area). Worryingly, first signs of yield deceleration and stagnation were reported. In our study we show how crop cultivation region, type of harvested organ, pollinator dependency, and life form affect yield growth and/or stability of globally important crops. Our results together advocate for a more diverse agriculture involving the cultivation of different crops with different ecological features.

We introduce the Alpine research platform Ödenwinkel to promote observational and experimental research on the emergence of multidiversity and ecosystem complexity. The Ödenwinkel platform will be available as a long-term ecological research site where researchers from various disciplines can contribute to the accumulation of knowledge on ecological successions and on how interactions between various taxonomic groups structure ecological complexity in this Alpine environment.

It is not only the climate that is changing. We are now also observing a global biological change. Here we revise the overwhelming evidence that these changes affect not only individual species but also simplify the structure of entire food webs, threatening long-term community persistence. We must take urgent action to protect the integrity of natural food webs, or we might rapidly push entire ecosystems outside their safe zones.

Can organisms other than vascular plants establish and develop on road slopes? Yes, biological soil crusts (or biocrusts) can. Here, we found that lichen biocrusts are common and relatively abundant in road slopes after ~20 years of construction with no assistance needed. These findings are of critical importance for dryland restoration because biocrusts can speed up ecosystem recovery by stabilizing soil surface, improving soil fertility and facilitating vascular plant establishment.

Natural or synthetic neopolyploids offer unique opportunities to quantify the immediate consequences of polyploidy. We developed a protocol based on seedling exposure to colchicine to obtain neotetraploids from wild diploid plants of Jasione maritima, with potential for being used in other species. High rates of tetraploid conversion were obtained, but survival decreased with increasing colchicine concentration. Therefore, low concentrations were ideal for obtaining neotetraploids.

We conducted a greenhouse experiment with wild radish plants and found a multigenerational effect of herbivore induction on palatability for generalist slugs but not specialist caterpillars, and that the order of these inductions seemed to be important. These results are potentially meaningful for plant–herbivore ecology and evolution because a plant's ability to defend itself may be influenced by multiple previous generations and this may depend on the type of herbivore.

Pouteria splendens is an endemic endangered tree from central Chile. Natural regeneration in the species seems to be low and its distribution is restricted. We investigate seed dispersal and survival. Results indicated a low distance of seed dispersal, and the presence of leaf litter covering seeds increased survival. We suggest that future conservation programs should focus on protecting both adult plants and leaf litter under trees.

Following the 150th anniversary of the science of ecology, the Portuguese Ecological Society (SPECO) proposes 14 September as Ecology Day. This day should be promoted by ecological societies to host different kinds of public and media events closely related to ecology, in a broad sense. The date, 14 September, was chosen because it was on that day Haeckel had published his Ökologie und Chorologie.

Plants produce a considerable number of structures of one kind, like leaves, flowers, fruits, and seeds, which are not identical. This paper provides an overview of current knowledge on traits that vary subindividually, the magnitude of subindividual variation, and its spatial patterning. Examples are presented on the consequences of subindividual variation for plants and consumers. Emerging links between genetics, epigenetics, subindividual variation, and population ecology are also considered.

A thriving future science community could depend on disruptive technologies to shake up outmoded academic practices.

During early succession plant communities show a decrease in the initial species richness and a change in the phylogenetic structure from random or clustered to overdispersion. We tested this general model in two regional distinct sites. In one region we found the expected trajectory of species richness while phylogenetic structure did not follow the expected trend. In the other region species richness did not follow the expected trajectory and phylogenetic structure remained clustered.

Artificial wetlands are becoming critical habitats as natural wetlands continue to be degraded and destroyed. I surveyed quarry wetlands to assess how they provide habitat for frogs and the factors driving patterns. Quarry wetlands consistently harboured more species and healthier individuals than reference wetlands. We need to encourage wildlife utilisation of quarry wetlands, and the methods outlined here provide a powerful, yet simple, tool to assess the overall health of artificial wetlands.

Dice snakes live in freshwater but are able to spend prolonged periods in sea water for food foraging. However, it is unclear whether foraging in salty sea water has a physiological cost. Our experimental data suggest that even though dice snakes show a remarkable tolerance to waters with increased salinity, prolonged exposure induces significant physiological stress (increased metabolism, membrane rupture), which should limit their ability to stay in them for long periods of time.

The identification of potential zones for offshore wind farm development is a delicate and multifaceted procedure. For this aim, a holistic approach has been adopted integrating technical and environmental criteria related to the offshore wind energy exploitation. The integration is made feasible through the Smart Wind Chart that aims to maintain and secure the sustainable blue growth in the Mediterranean Sea through the support of offshore wind energy projects and marine habitat conservation.

I use primary empirical data obtained through interviews in case studies around England to explore the neoliberal character of biodiversity offsetting, its interrelationship with governance rescaling, and the way the latter influences the distribution of offsetting’s costs and benefits. My results show that biodiversity offsetting in England has been a reactionary neoliberal policy characterized by important deficits from an environmental and socio-spatial justice perspective.

Tropical forests are faced with a loss of forest cover with effects on ecosystem processes. We quantified decomposition within forest fragments and sites affected by increasing levels of agricultural land-use intensity. Mass loss increased with the area of forest fragments and decreased with land-use intensification. Fragmentation has negative effects on litter decomposition. However, the magnitude of this negative effect was not as large as expected.

Lophodermium needle cast is a common disease in the genus Pinus. Our analyses relating needle cast to climate in central Siberia showed that the disease depended most on precipitation and summer temperatures were important to trigger the disease in wetter years. In a warming climate needle cast outbreaks would have damaged the largest forest areas by 2020. In 2080 the outbreak progression would slow down because the Scots pine (the host tree) shift would be halted by the slow permafrost retreat.

The transition from a mobile hunter-gatherer lifestyle to one of settled agriculture is arguably the most fundamental change in the development of human society (Lev-Yadun et al., 2000). The establishment of agricultural economies, emerging initially in the Fertile Crescent of the Near East (Nesbitt, 2002), required the domestication of crops; ancient plant remains recovered from early farming sites provide direct evidence for this process of domestication.

Trees modify the physico-chemical and biological properties of the soil underneath. Here we present results for seven tree species planted at a site that was contaminated by a mine spill, after which soil was cleaned-up and remediated, and later was afforested. Although the observed tree effects on topsoil chemistry were weak, the footprint is expected to be reinforced with age of the plantation, contributing to the phytostabilization of contaminating elements and to the carbon sequestration.

The effects of tree diversity on the photosynthetic efficiency of tree species were assessed on six European mature forests (distributed along a latitudinal gradient) and in forest stands planted ad hoc with different levels of tree-species richness. The behaviour of Picea abies (spruce) was compared at the different sites. Site-specific responses were detected in relation to the age of the stands and their developmental stage.

In this short paper, some consideration to the term biodiversity is given. The need for strong formal rigor in using this term is stressed in order to maintain credibility by non-ecologists and environmental agencies over the scientific community involved in biodiversity studies.

Native invaders are species that become ``invasive'' in their own native range to the point of becoming a nuisance. This demographic disregulation presents management challenges, but we question the usefulness of this term on four grounds: it adds nothing to a well-known management problem, can bias the perception of management options, neglects different causes underlying the disregulation of native and non-indigenous species, and excludes species that can become antropogenically disregulated.