Dr. Henry Pollock, a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne, discusses with us his recently accepted article in Functional Ecology: “Heat tolerances of temperate and tropical birds and their implications for susceptibility to climate change”, his journey into ecology, as well as his favorite (and least favorite) parts about being an ecologist.
For Black History Month, the British Ecological Society (BES) journals are celebrating the work of Black ecologists from around the world and sharing their stories. This post is from Jhan Salazar, a PhD student at Washington University.
Hi, I’m Jhan! I’m an Afro-Colombian ecologist, and I’m a PhD student in Jonathan Losos’ Lab at Washington University in St Louis. My research is focused on exploring the effect that temperature and climate have on the ecology and evolution of tropical lizards. I was born in Puerto Tejada, Cauca (Colombia), and unlike many of my peers, the story of why I became an ecologist and evolutionary biologist started long before I went to university or even to school. When I was five years old, I went to the most beautiful place I have ever been: my parents and grandparents’ hometown. In this small town called Boca de Patía, which is also in the Cauca region, I saw for the first time a forest – a tropical rainforest – and met many of its unique inhabitants: snakes, poison dart frogs, and many other fantastic animals and plants. After being there I started watching as many nature documentaries as I could, which made me wonder why none of the scientists on these documentaries looked like me.
Andrew Eagar, a phd candidate at the Kent State University, presents his article “Dominant community mycorrhizal types influence local spatial structure between adult and juvenile temperate forest tree communities” where he studied plant-soil feedbacks at community level, and talks about his passion for research.
In our latest Insight, Bingwei Zhang of Beijing Normal University at Zhuhai talks about the importance of trait plasticity in regulating species performance under environmental change, for his latest paper ‘Species responses to changing precipitation depends on trait plasticity rather than trait means and intraspecific variation’.
Continue reading “Bingwei Zhang: Trait plasticity determines species performance”
In this post Emily Waddell, a Phd candidate at the UK Centre of Ecology and Hydrology in Edinburgh, talks about her experience working in Tropical forest in South-East Asia, the importance of functional traits for community tolerance to invasive species and her future plants on ecological research in oil palm plantations.
Jiri Dolezal, researcher at the Institute of Botany of Czech Academy of Sciences, presents his latest manuscript ‘Contrasting biomass allocation responses across ontogeny and stress gradients reveal plant adaptations to drought and cold’, discusses how plants manage to survive 80 years and highlights the importance of moving beyond scientific dogmas.
Continue reading “Jiri Dolezal: surving drought, cold and time”
In our this new Insight, André Franco, a research scientist at Colorado State University presents his last work “‘Root herbivory controls the effects of water availability on the partitioning between above and belowground grass biomass”, shows the strong connection between above- and belowground processes and tells us how a soil scientist arrived to ecology.
Dr. Melanie Pollierer, Researcher at University of Göttingen, summarizes her latest publication “Isotope analyses of amino acids in fungi and fungal feeding Diptera larvae allow differentiating ectomycorrhizal and saprotrophic fungi-based food chains”, where she and her colleagues show a novel methodology to identify different fungal guilds along food chains. She highlights the relevance of their findings and shares her experience as a young researcher in Germany.
Continue reading “Melanie Pollierer: Saprotrophic and ectomycorrhizal fungi and their consumers can be separated using amino acid fingerprints”
Dr. Maud Ferrari, Professor in the Department of Veterinary Biomedical Sciences at the University of Saskatchewan, discusses with us her paper titled, “The fading of fear effects due to coral degradation is modulated by community composition”, the broader impact of her research, and her interest in ecology.
Jana Doudová, research at the Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague, explains his work ‘Along with intraspecific functional trait variation, individual performance is key to resolving community assembly processes’, highlights how plant facilitation can be present in productive ecosystems and tells her history about how she got fascinated by plants.
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