Author: Functional Ecology

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Leo Ohyama: Navigating the ecological traits of insect societies

In this blog post, Leo Ohyama, a PhD candidate, discusses his study “Ecological traits of social insects: Colony, queen and worker size relationships reveal a nexus trait with broad ecological relevance“, which has been shortlisted for Functional Ecology’s 2023 Haldane Prize for Early Career Researchers. About the Paper Trait-based approaches in ecology allow researchers to associate ecological characteristics spanning phenology, morphology, and physiology to species … Continue reading Leo Ohyama: Navigating the ecological traits of insect societies

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Félix P. Leiva: Cell Size is More Important in Conditions of Low Oxygen

In this post, Félix P. Leiva, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Germany, discusses his article “The role of cell size in shaping responses to oxygen and temperature in fruit flies“, which has been shortlisted for the Haldane Prize, Functional Ecology´s prize for Early Career Researchers. About the paper Our paper makes a significant contribution by unveiling that temperature and oxygen can explain responses … Continue reading Félix P. Leiva: Cell Size is More Important in Conditions of Low Oxygen

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Daniel G. Dick: Exploring the relationship between different measures of functional redundancy

In this blog post, Daniel G. Dick, a public education and geoscience communication postdoctoral fellow at McMaster University, Canada, discusses his study “Measuring functional redundancy using generalized Hill numbers”, which has been shortlisted for Functional Ecology’s 2023 Haldane Prize for Early Career Researchers. About the Paper Whether an ecological community can withstand an external perturbation (such as rapid global warming) is thought to be largely … Continue reading Daniel G. Dick: Exploring the relationship between different measures of functional redundancy

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Ximena Cibils: 2023 Haldane Prize Podcast

Podcast out now! Ximena Cibils chats to us about her research paper, Silicon and Epichloë-endophyte defences in a model temperate grass diminish feeding efficiency and immunity of an insect, which has been shortlisted for Functional Ecology’s Haldane Prize 2023. You can listen to the podcast on Soundcloud, Spotify and Apple Podcasts. You can also access Ximena’s previous ‘Behind the Paper’ blog post here Continue reading Ximena Cibils: 2023 Haldane Prize Podcast

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Indra Boving: Plants and flammability—Deep inside the mechanisms of wild fires

In this revisited blog post, Indra Boving, a PhD candidate at University of California-Santa Barbara, USA, shares her work ‘Live fuel moisture and water potential exhibit differing relationships with leaf-level flammability thresholds’, which has been shortlisted for Functional Ecology’s 2023 Haldane Prize for early career researchers. About the paper Our paper was inspired by patterns observed across the landscape in Southern California chapparal: wildfires typically … Continue reading Indra Boving: Plants and flammability—Deep inside the mechanisms of wild fires

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Samantha Bock: A long-standing evolutionary mystery: Why does temperature determine sex in long-lived reptiles?

In this blog post, Samantha Bock, a post-doctoral researcher, discusses her study “Differential early-life survival underlies the adaptive significance of temperature-dependent sex determination in a long-lived reptile“, which has been shortlisted for Functional Ecology’s 2023 Haldane Prize for Early Career Researchers. About the paper: The temperature an animal experiences during development can determine whether it becomes female or male in many reptiles and some fishes. … Continue reading Samantha Bock: A long-standing evolutionary mystery: Why does temperature determine sex in long-lived reptiles?

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Lina Aoyama: Root diversity in grasslands buffers biomass production under drought

In this post, Lina Aoyama, a PhD student at the University of Oregon, discusses their research “Functional diversity buffers biomass production across variable rainfall conditions through different processes above- versus below-ground“, which has been shortlisted for Functional Ecology’s 2023 Haldane Prize for Early Career Researchers. About the paper Water is a strong driver of plant productivity, and which plant species are there and how many … Continue reading Lina Aoyama: Root diversity in grasslands buffers biomass production under drought

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Behind the paper

Guangqi Zhang: A whole-tree perspective on the role of non-structural carbohydrates in resource allocation trade-offs along the tree economics spectrum 

In our latest blog post, Guangqi Zhang, postdoc at INRAE (France), presents his paper “Not all sweetness and light: non-structural carbohydrate storage capacity in tree stems is decoupled from leaf but not root economics”. He discusses the importance of considering multiple traits, shares his happiness for the publication of his research, and encourages ecologists to keep moving with eastern philosophy.  About the paper  Plant functional … Continue reading Guangqi Zhang: A whole-tree perspective on the role of non-structural carbohydrates in resource allocation trade-offs along the tree economics spectrum 

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2023 Haldane Prize Shortlist: Functional Ecology’s Award for Early Career Researchers

The Haldane Prize is awarded by the British Ecological Society each year for the best paper in Functional Ecology written by an early career author. With entries spanning the 37th volume of the journal, our Senior Editors carefully shortlisted the following 12 papers: Lina Aoyama Functional diversity buffers biomass production across variable rainfall conditions through different processes above- versus below-ground Lina found that although biomass was largely … Continue reading 2023 Haldane Prize Shortlist: Functional Ecology’s Award for Early Career Researchers

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International Women's Day

Functional Ecology: International Women’s Day 2024 

To celebrate International Women’s Day 2024, we are excited to share a collection of blog posts showcasing the work of some of our new Associate Editors. In each post, our editors discuss their experiences in ecology, as well as what this year’s theme, ‘Inspire Inclusion‘, means to them.  Dr Iveren Abiem  What work do you do?  I am a lecturer at the University of Jos, … Continue reading Functional Ecology: International Women’s Day 2024 

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