Recent functional trait studies have shown that trait differences may favour certain species
(environmental filtering) while simultaneously preventing competitive exclusion (niche …

Metacommunity theory has advanced understanding of how spatial dynamics and local
interactions shape community structure and biodiversity. Here, we review empirical …

Metacommunity ecology links smaller-scale processes that have been the provenance of
population and community ecology—such as birth-death processes, species interactions …

Anthropogenic habitat destruction leads to habitat loss and fragmentation, both of which
interact to determine how biodiversity changes at the landscape level. While the detrimental …

The study of tradeoffs among major life history components (age at maturity, lifespan and
reproduction) allowed the development of a quantitative framework to understand how …

The study of ecological communities often involves detailed simulations of complex
networks. However, our empirical knowledge of these networks is typically incomplete and …

Ecology Letters (2011) 14: 313–323 Abstract Classical approaches to food webs focus on
patterns and processes occurring at the community level rather than at the broader …

Metacommunity theory provides an understanding of how spatial processes determine the
structure and function of communities at local and regional scales. Although metacommunity …

The competition–colonization trade‐off has long been a mechanism explaining patterns of
species coexistence and diversity in nonequilibrium systems. It forms one explanation of the …

Introduced species threaten native biodiversity, but whether exotic species can competitively
displace native species remains contested. Building on theory that predicts multi-species …