Metacommunity ecology combines local (eg, environmental filtering and biotic interactions)
and regional (eg, dispersal and heterogeneity) processes to understand patterns of species …

This article introduces a Special Issue on biodiversity of Palaearctic grasslands and
provides a synthesis of the current knowledge on this topic. Four major categories of …

Unraveling the drivers of community structure and succession in response to environmental
change is a central goal in ecology. Although the mechanisms sha** community structure …

There is little consensus about how natural (eg productivity, disturbance) and anthropogenic
(eg invasive species, habitat destruction) ecological drivers influence biodiversity. Here, we …

Although anthropogenic disturbances are often perceived as detrimental to plant
biodiversity, the relationship between biodiversity and disturbance remains unclear …

A general understanding of grazing effects on plant diversity in drylands is still missing,
despite an extensive theoretical background. Cross‐biome syntheses are hindered by the …

Abstract As other Mediterranean areas, Catalonia has experienced a forest transition
following rural abandonment during the last sixty years. The GIS reconstruction of three land …

Disturbance is known to affect the ecosystem structure, but predicting its outcomes remains
elusive. Similarly, community diversity is believed to relate to ecosystem functions, yet the …

In the context of grazing, the intermediate disturbance hypothesis (IDH) predicts that plant
diversity peaks under moderate grazing, resulting in a hump‐shape pattern for the grazing …

Micro‐organisms associated with plants and animals affect host fitness, shape community
structure and influence ecosystem properties. Climate change is expected to influence …