A gap still exists in published data on variation of morphological and ecological traits for common bird species over a large area. To diminish this knowledge gap, we report here average values of 99 bird species from three sites in Germany from the...
Assessing the functional traits and ecological stoichiometric characteristics of dominant species across different life forms within plant communities in karst environments and investigating the inherent connection between them can provide insights i...
Selecting suitable species to enhance ecological functions is crucial for improvements in the planning and design of roof greening and in maintaining sustainable urban development, especially in rapidly urbanized areas. Assisted by field trips to enh...
Southeast Asian riverine fishes are classified into three guilds (‘black’, ‘white’ and ‘grey’ species) based on their reproductive and migration strategies. In this study, we aimed to investigate whether fish morphology could be used to predict the M...
Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi are biotrophic fungi that form an association with plant roots and render benefits in nutrient uptake, disease control and plant tolerance to stress conditions. Plant–mycorrhizal fungi interaction has been proposed...
Community ecology has experienced a major transition, from a focus on patterns in taxonomic composition, to revealing the processes underlying community assembly through the analysis of species functional traits. The power of the functional trait app...
Microorganisms encode proteins that function in the transformations of useful and harmful nitrogenous compounds in the global nitrogen cycle. The major transformations in the nitrogen cycle are nitrogen fixation, nitrification, denitrification, anaer...
(1) Background: Because ecosystem degradation has become a global phenomenon which seriously affects the health of natural ecosystems and human well-being, restoration of degraded ecosystems has attracted increasing attention. However, many of the me...
The aim of the present study was to infer phenotypic trait expressions via mixed modeling considering both social and ecological continuous descriptors simultaneously. In this regard, we selected a challenging heterogeneous social-ecological environm...
Mechanistic models are invaluable in ecological risk assessment (ERA) because they facilitate extrapolation of organism-level effects to population-level effects while accounting for species life history, ecology, and vulnerability. In this work, we...
We propose the trait-based method for quantifying the activity of functional groups in the human gut microbiome based on metatranscriptomic data. It allows one to assess structural changes in the microbial community comprised of the following functio...
Adaptative traits enable organisms to survive and reproduce. Though these traits are often innate features (ones that may or may not exhibit variability in response to environmental cues or originate from horizontal gene transfer), this is not always...
Parthenium hysterophorus L. (Asteraceae), commonly known as famine weed in South Africa, is one of the most invasive weeds worldwide, accountable for losses to biodiversity, agriculture, the economy, and the health of livestock and human beings. The...
In terrestrial mammalian carnivore guilds, interspecific competitions (interferences and resource competitions) among sympatric species induce their ecological and behavioral patterns and population dynamics, thereby shaping community structures. Com...
Trait-based approaches to calculate ecological strategy is important for understanding forest succession dynamics. However, the functional traits and ecological strategy change during succession remain poorly understood. We measured key leaf traits a...
Understanding the striking diversity of the angiosperms is a paramount issue in biology and of interest to biologists. The Millettiod legumes is one of the most hyper-diverse groups of the legume family, containing many economically important medicin...
Although the rare plant Cotoneaster integerrimus is distributed across Eurasia, ecological information on its isolated populations at the easternmost range limit in Korea has been entirely lacking. This study was conducted to (1) characterize the env...
Herbaceous plant species form the plant synusia of desert ecosystems and play crucial roles in wind-breaking, sand-fixing, and the maintenance of oasis ecosystem stability. This study focused on the leguminous species Medicago sativa and Astragalus l...
Plant functional traits have been incorporated in studies of vegetation ecology to better understand the mechanisms of ecological processes. For this reason, a global effort has been made to collect functional traits data for as many species as possi...
Ex situ conservation plays an important role in maintaining global plant biodiversity and protects thousands of wild plants. Plant conservation in botanical gardens is an important part of ex situ conservation; however, little attention has been give...
Variation patterns in plant functional traits and their interrelationships play a crucial role in understanding species coexistence mechanisms and ecological differentiation within local plant communities. However, the dynamic patterns of plant funct...
Leymus chinensis is important for ecological restoration and stock farming in Eurasia. In the context of climate change, excavating L. chinensis germplasm resources with excellent ecological functional traits is important to resist grassland degradat...
Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata L.), a traditional legume food crop indigenous to Africa, has potential as both a vegetable and grain crop in contributing to dietary diversity to support health and address malnutrition, especially for those relying heavily...
Cryptocaryeae, as a significant tribe within the Lauraceae family with important economic and ecological value, comprises over 850 species. Its common ancestor dates back to approximately 123 million years ago, in the early Cretaceous, originating in...
Understanding the effect of nitrogen addition on species trait–abundance relationships is one of the central focuses of community ecology and can offer us insights into the mechanisms of community assembly under atmospheric nitrogen deposition. Howev...
Although fitness-related traits are expected to be under strong selection, traits related to reproduction are often quite variable within plant populations. We used data from two large greenhouse experiments to quantify phenotypic, genetic, and envir...
In a community, due to the different characteristics of each species, their contributions to community beta diversity may vary. Quantifying the contribution of each species to overall beta diversity (SCBD) is essential for explaining the patterns of...
Plant functional traits have shown to be relevant predictors of forest functional responses to climate change. However, the trait-based approach to study plant performances and ecological strategies has mostly been focused on trait comparisons at the...
Environments can be in states of dynamic change as well as persistent stability. These different states are a result of outside external conditions, but also the constant flux of living organisms in that ecological fauna. Nematodes are tremendously d...
As an indispensable grain crop, foxtail millet (Setaria italica L.) is becoming a functional food in China because of its abundant nutrients. However, low rainfall and uneven precipitation limit its growth and production, especially in northwest Chin...
Diet, morphological traits, and other ecological characteristics may influence the composition of bird communities. The southern slopes of the Himalayas are one of the global hotspots for avian species diversity. However, systematic research on the d...
Phosphorus (P) is a pivotal element in plant energy metabolism and growth, and P limitation is widespread among plants in nature. However, our understanding of how epiphytes allocate P and adapt to P-deficient environments remains limited. We selecte...
The great pipefish Syngnathus acus is one of the most representative European syngnathids, being highly associated with seagrass and macroalgal beds. Surprisingly, the ecology of this large ovoviviparous marine fish has received scanty attention. The...
The loss of biodiversity is shaping today’s environment. Bird ringing is a citizen science research tool that can determine species population dynamics and trends over a large geographic area. We used a 17-year time series to assess population...
Understanding why some plant species become widespread while others remain restricted to limited ranges is a central challenge in ecology and biogeography. This study investigates how functional traits, including morphological, physiological, and nut...
Stream restoration practice typically relies on a geomorphological design approach in which the integration of ecological criteria is limited and generally qualitative, although the most commonly stated project objective is to restore biological inte...
The influence of urbanization on macroinvertebrate traits was explored in forested rivers in the Niger Delta area of Nigeria. Physico-chemical variables were sampled on a monthly basis alongside macroinvertebrates in 20 sites of 11 rivers spanning 20...
Plant ecological strategies are essential for assessing habitat stress and disturbance and evaluating community productivity. These strategies provide theoretical frameworks for maintaining the natural state of vegetation and enhancing productivity....
This study aims to contribute to the limited knowledge on the bio-ecological traits of the native Western tubenose goby, Proterorhinus semilunaris, which is considered to invade many inland waters in Europe and North America. During monthly sampling...
We analyzed plants and their traits in dolines, which are characteristic enclosed terrain depressions on carbonate (karst) plateaus. These landforms range from a few meters to over 100 m in diameter, their depth generally varying from a few meters to...
Fire is an ecological factor that strongly influences plant communities and functional traits. Communities respond differently to fire, either decreasing or increasing in flammability and resource acquisition strategies. This study aimed to investiga...
Plant ecological strategies are shaped by long-term adaptation to the environment and are beneficial to plant survival and reproduction. Research is ongoing to better understand how plants best allocate resources for growth, survival and reproduction...
Plant functional traits are indicative of the long-term responses and adaptations of plants to their environment. However, the specific mechanisms by which desert plant functional groups (PFGs) adjust their ecological adaptation strategies to cope wi...
Long-term population trends are considerable sources of information to set wildlife conservation priorities and to evaluate the performance of management actions. In addition, trends observed in functional groups (e.g., trophic guilds) can provide th...
Adaptive radiations are characterized by increases in rates of lineage and trait evolution, typically due to the opening of new ecological opportunities such as may follow from dispersal to a new region or the evolution of a trait that allows exploit...
Assessment of relationships between functional diversity and ecological stoichiometry in plant communities can aid in determining the relative variability and ecological complementarity of functional attributes among species, which is a better approa...
29 June 2022
A pair of quantitative case studies is presented to demonstrate how different approaches to quantifying temporal variability in ratings of traits and affect can provide rich information for personality researchers. Data are presented and analyzed fro...
Great efforts have been made to improve the soil and water conservation capacity by restoring plant communities in different climatic and land-use types. However, how to select suitable species from local species pools that not only adapt to differen...
As critical reservoirs of biodiversity and providers of ecosystem services, wetland ecosystems play a pivotal role in maintaining global ecological balance. They not only serve as habitats for diverse aquatic and terrestrial organisms but also play s...
Plant diversity often contributes to the shape of arthropod communities, which in turn supply important ecosystem services. However, the current biodiversity loss scenario, particularly worrying for arthropods, constitutes a threat for sustainability...
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