Recently accepted in Functional Ecology, a very interesting paper describing environmental conditions as an important determinant for the phenology of bird plumage.

Nature Ecology & Evolution last week published a paper that shows that the effects of biodiversity on ecosystem multifunctionality increase with increasing number of functions. These findings are in stark contrast with a paper published just over 5 months earlier, which makes the point the biodiversity-multifunctionality relationships do not increase with the number of functions considered. Interesting to see where these differences come from: methodological (multifunctionality is calculated in different ways in both papers), different functions considered or ecosystem dependent? I will keep following this field with much interest.

Working at a University does not help in living a happy life, researchers find. Job security is high on the list what people are unhappy about.

Last week, Dynamic Ecology was polling about people’s opinions on what they call ‘Statistical Machismo’. I am looking forward to their results. Personally, I think the simpler (not simplistic), the better; the impact of a paper should depend on design, methods, and scope of inference.

An interesting piece in Science Magazine (based on a publication in the journal Sex Roles) that perfectly fits in the gender discussions I have pointed to earlier. Apparently, men whose wives keep their name after marriage (that includes me!) may be perceived in a less gender-stereotyped manner. The majority of the study’s participants were female.  I find it hard to know what to conclude from the results (as do the authors).

Enjoy your week,

Bjorn

Bjorn Robroek is the blog editor for Functional Ecologists.