Ecological speciation is defined as the emergence of reproductive isolation as a direct or
indirect consequence of divergent ecological adaptation. Several empirical examples of …

Contemporary global change is altering ecosystems at an unprecedented pace and scale.
This critical period is a crisis for biodiversity, but the perturbations caused by global …

A major focus of research in spatial ecology over the past 25 years has been to understand
why the number of species varies geographically. The most striking, and perhaps best …

Knowledge about the phylogeny and ecology of communities along environmental gradients
helps to disentangle the role of competition-driven processes and environmental filtering for …

Herbivory and plant defenses exhibit a coupled decline along elevation gradients. However,
the current ecological equilibrium could be disrupted under climate change, with a faster …

Patterns of phenotypic change across environmental gradients (eg, latitude, altitude) have
long captivated the interest of evolutionary ecologists. The pattern and magnitude of …

The effect of low host plant nitrogen (N) content on herbivore performance has rarely been
studied together with the herbivore's feeding behaviour. We explored this relationship with …

Altitudinal gradients offer valuable study systems to investigate how adaptive genetic
diversity is distributed within and between natural populations and which factors promote or …

European mountain hay meadows are hosting an exceptionally rich biodiversity. They are
currently threatened by both land abandonment and farming intensification via aerial …

Despite enormous diversity, abundance, and role in ecosystem processes, little is known
about how butterflies differ across altitudinal gradients. For this, butterfly communities were …