Tuesday Tasters: 13/06/2017

Did you know that bird feather structure relates very nicely to its habitat preference? If you want to know more about this, and how this is phylogenetically determined, read this paper by Péter Pap and colleagues. One of my recent favourites in Functional Ecology is this paper by Grégoire Freschet and Catherine Doumet,  who discuss very neatly which root sampling strategies can better inform about … Continue reading Tuesday Tasters: 13/06/2017

Ecologist’s Diary – meet the researchers!

In Ecologist’s Diary, we follow four ecologists from different fields in their daily work. Through regular updates, by means of columns, pictures and video, these enthusiastic  researchers take us along the ups and downs of their field and lab work. Below they introduce themselves and give us a taste of what their posts are about.     Continue reading “Ecologist’s Diary – meet the researchers!”

Welcome, Functional Ecologists!

By Bjorn Robroek

Over the last few months, my life has changed drastically. I left the beautiful mountains of Switzerland behind, exchanging them for the rolling hills of Southwest England when I took up a lectureship in ecology at the University of Southampton. One week into my new position at Southampton, I found myself teaching plant and invertebrate ecology to 50 undergrads in Andalusia, Spain– a fantastic experience that reminded me how broad the field of ecology is. Ecology comes in many different flavours, and ecologists are also a varied group, with different interests, experiences and backgrounds. I am extremely chuffed to launch functionalecologists.com, a blog for the journal Functional Ecology.  To understand ecology takes a wide range of approaches, and I hope that this blog will show the many different ways that Functional Ecology can offer different aspects of ecology to ecologists. Continue reading “Welcome, Functional Ecologists!”