We present strong evidence that pathogens play a critical role in structuring plant
communities and maintaining plant diversity. Pathogens mediate plant species coexistence …

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

Enrichment of nutrients and loss of herbivores are assumed to cause a loss of plant diversity
in grassland ecosystems because they increase plant cover, which leads to a decrease of …

Community ecology aims to understand what factors determine the assembly and dynamics
of species assemblages at different spatiotemporal scales. To facilitate the integration …

A quantitative approach to species coexistence based on the invasibility criterion has led to
an appreciation of coexistence mechanisms in terms of stabilizing and equalizing …

Human alterations to nutrient cycles, and herbivore communities,,,, are affecting global
biodiversity dramatically. Ecological theory predicts these changes should be strongly …

Conservation aims to preserve species and ecosystem services. If rare species contribute
little to ecosystem services, yet are those most in need of preservation, tradeoffs may exist …

▪ Abstract The focus of most ideas on diversity maintenance is species coexistence, which
may be stable or unstable. Stable coexistence can be quantified by the long-term rates at …

The metacommunity concept is an important way to think about linkages between different
spatial scales in ecology. Here we review current understanding about this concept. We first …

Adaptive radiation is the evolution of diversity within a rapidly multiplying lineage. It can
cause a single ancestral species to differentiate into an impressively vast array of species …