Researchers from around the world, including AMU biologist Jonathan Parrett, have analysed data from 127 studies to reveal ‘thresholds’ for when logged rainforests lose the ability to sustain themselves. The results, published today in Nature, could widen the scope of which forests are considered ‘worth’ conserving, but also show how much logging degrades forests beyond the [...]
A recent paper of Michał Bogdziewicz and collegues on mast seeding in perennial plants presents a model that integrates proximate factors (environmental variation, weather cues, resource budgets) with ultimate drivers (predator satiation, pollination efficiency). This model illustrates how the relationships between mast seeding and weather influence species' responses to climate warming, ranging from no change [...]
A new publication by Agnieszka Majer, Anna Skoracka and Lechosław Kuczyński (Population Ecology Lab) in cooperation with Jürg Spaak (Institute for Environmental Sciences, Landau, Germany) showing, on the basis on Modern Coexistence Theory, how biotic interactions change over time. As a result of higher-order interactions, species switch rapidly between facilitation and competition. Read more: https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.14428. [...]
Article in Nature co-authored by Beata Messyasz reveals that lakes ecosystems play a key role in the plastic-pollution cycle. Read more here https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06168-4
The journal Biological Reviews has published a paper authored by Anna Skoracka, Lechosław Kuczynski and Jacek Radwan and colleagues from the University of Lisbon and the University of Montpellier (https://doi.org/10.1111/brv.13018). It is a review publication that explains the evolutionary and ecological relationships between dispersal and host specialization using herbivorous arthropods as a model group. The [...]
The journal Methods in Ecology and Evolution (https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-210X.14176) has published a paper by Katarzyna Malinowska, Katarzyna Markowska and Lechoslaw Kuczynski. The paper describes a new algorithm for generating so-called "virtual species." Virtual species are synthetic data structures that replicate the spatial distribution of real organisms. They are used to test various statistical tools, as well [...]
Climate change continues to reshape our natural ecosystems, and its impact on tree populations is a topic of great concern. Recent study (link: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/gcb.16730) led by Michal Bogdziewicz investigating the response of European beech (Fagus sylvatica) to climate warming has uncovered intriguing insights into the complex relationship between tree reproduction, climate change, and forest dynamics.
In a recent paper (link) Jon Parrett and co-authors from our Institute and Ghent University provided genomic evidence from mites with sexually selected weapon that this costly trait captures genome-wide variation and facilitates the purging of genetic load from populations.
Leszek Rychlik and co-authors (mainly from the University of Lisbon, Portugal) tested average differences in behaviour as well as the inter-individual variation in behaviour in rural and urban populations of shrews belonging to two species differing in life history and time since synurbanization: the fast-paced Sorex araneus and the slow-paced Crocidura russula. As predicted, [...]
Leszek Rychlik and co-authors from Portugal assessed the use of an external heat source (basking) in the thermoregulatory strategies of three shrew species. Shrews were tested in a terrarium where they had access to a heat rock which could be turned off (cold) or on (heated). In accordance with authors' predictions, Crocidura russula (the [...]
