Author: functionalecologist

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Associate Editor Profile: Angélica L. González

Angélica L. González
Angélica L. González

We’re happy to welcome Angélica L. González, of the Department of Biology and Center for Computational and Integrative Biology, Rutgers University, to our Editorial Board.

Angélica has broad interests in community and ecosystem ecology and her work combines experiments, surveys, data synthesis, and meta-analysis to understand how changes in the availability of energy and matter constrain and shape the structure and function of ecological systems across spatial and temporal scales.

Find out more about Angélica’s research and her approach to ecology here.

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Urban deer (Photo by Rana El-Sabaawi)
Behind the paper, Journal content

Feeding ecology in the urban jungle

In July, Functional Ecology published the Special Feature: A Mechanistic Understanding of Global Change Ecology. We have invited the authors of the papers to write a blogpost on their paper. In this post, Rana El-Sabaawi (Trophic structure in a rapidly urbanizing planet) writes about feeding ecology in the urban jungle.

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Behind the paper, Journal content

Evolving perspectives on range shifts in a changing world

In July, Functional Ecology published the Special Feature: A Mechanistic Understanding of Global Change Ecology. We have invited the authors of the papers to write a blogpost on their paper. In this article, Sarah Diamond expands on her paper, Contemporary climate‐driven range shifts: Putting evolution back on the table, by looking at evolving perspectives on range shifts in a changing world. Continue reading “Evolving perspectives on range shifts in a changing world”

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Lisa Whitenack
Community+Ecology

Observations from my first year as an associate editor

Lisa Whitenack
Lisa Whitenack

For Peer Review week, Lisa Whitenack shares her observations from her first year as an associate editor. Lisa is an associate professor of biology at Allegheny College and Associate Editor for Neotropical Ichthyology. She also chairs the Equity and Diversity committee for the American Elasmobranch Society.

 

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Community+Ecology

ESA 2018: A biogeochemist’s first ESA

by Avni Malhotra

MalhotraI am not sure why, but until this year, I had not attended the Ecological Society of America (ESA) annual meeting. I suspect that some subconscious sense of loyalty to the American Geophysical Union was at play. In any case, excited by my passion for ecology and love of New Orleans, I headed to the 2018 ESA meeting. As soon as I entered the conference center, I noticed a high incidence of plant- and fungi-based tattoo art- I knew I was among friends!

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Community+Ecology

The 27th International Ornithological Congress (August 19-26, 2018)

The 27th International Ornithological Congress (August 19-26, 2018)

sandercock_smallBrett K. Sandercock reports on the functional ecology of birds from the 2018 congress held in Vancouver, Canada. Brett was also the keynote speaker at a  symposium on grassland birds organised by the British Ornithological Union.

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Associate Editor Profile: Adam Martin

We’re happy to welcome Adam Martin, (University of Toronto at Scarborough, Canada) to the board. Adam is a forest- and agro- ecologist interested in plant ecophysiology, plant functional traits, forest carbon dynamics, and ecosystem functioning. He works in both natural and managed terrestrial ecosystems in temperate and tropical regions.

Find out more about Adam, his research and his approach to ecology here.

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Behind the paper

Insights: Tyler Refsland

In Insights we discover the story (and the people) behind a recent publication in Functional Ecology: what inspired the authors to do the research, how did the project develop and what wider impact might the work have?

 

RefslandIn this week’s Insights, Tyler Refsland from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA, talks about his paper titled: ‘Fire increases drought vulnerability of Quercus alba juveniles by altering forest microclimate and nitrogen availability’. Refsland and his colleague, Jennifer Fraterrigo present the results of an experiment where they imposed drought on natural and juvenile oak juvenile to disentangle the mechanisms underlying the effects of fire tree responses to drought. While postfire rerouting can temporarily improve water relations, fire exacerbates drought-driven declines in growth by both promoting a warmer microclimate and intensifying nitrogen limitation. Based on their results, Refsland & Fraterrigo postulate that the effect of fires ripple into the future by changing microclimate and resource condition, which could ultimately limit tree recruitment.

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