Mutualism is a positive interaction between different species. Pollinators or frugivores and their associated plants are popular examples of many kinds of mutualistic interactions. Mutualisms are relevant and widespread in all ecosystems. The topology of mutualistic networks has long puzzled ecologists and other researchers alike, who have assumed that the …
Researchers placed logs from five native tree species across 62 plots along the chronosequence, exposed them in the field for six months. They found that recovering forests hosted more diverse and complex saproxylic beetle-tree interactions. Specialization, however, didn’t follow the expected linear decline: it was actually higher in agricultural and …
The reptile and amphibian group never ceases to amaze us with new discoveries about the natural history of these animals. Now, moving beyond natural history, they share their findings on ecological recovery. In a publication led by Karla Neira-Salamea, they showed that understory frog communities recover with forest regeneration time. …
Anna R. Landim and collaborators investigated the functional recovery of seed rain during natural forest regeneration and its underlying drivers. Specifically, they studied how local forest structure and landscape-scale connectivity shape the functional diversity and composition of seed rain driven by animal-mediated seed dispersal. Using plant–frugivore interaction networks combined with …
Each tree can offer various structures, attached plants or other microhabitats, summarized as tree-related microhabitats (TreMs). These TreMs represent important niches for animals or other organisms and thus play an important role for the biodiversity in a forest. The importance of multiple TreMs has been studied in temperate forests, but …
On a hot, sunny afternoon in the tropics, the buffering effect of forests becomes most evident: intact forests are several degrees cooler, and keeps the moisture in the soil and vegetation. Forests maintain much more favourable conditions not only for humans but for any living organism not adapted to heat …
How long does it take for a tropical rainforest ecosystem to recover on its own from deforestation? The answer to this apparently simple question required a huge effort achieved by our entire Research Unit and a complex analysis across over 10’000 plant and animal species and over 23’000 bacteria sequences …
The paper led by Arianna Tartara explored the process by which fallen leaves are broken down to recycle nutrients back into the forest, recovers after disturbance in Ecuador’s lowland Chocó. Studying sites ranging from active cacao plantations to regenerating secondary forests and old-growth forest, they found that decomposition follows a …
In our recent paper lead by Nina Grella and colleagues, we tackled a fundamental question in ecology: when a tropical forest recovers from disturbance, what determines which ant and termite species end up where, is it simply that some species can’t reach certain areas, or is it that the habitat …
Our first synthesis on phylogenetics was published! In the words of the first author “in this study on the recovery of phylogenetic diversity and phylogenetic community structure, we found that early regenerating habitats do not necessarily harbour closely related species that are later replaced by distantly related ones during late …
