Genomic basis of drought resistance inFagus sylvatica

In the course of global climate change, central Europe is experiencing more frequent and prolonged periods of drought. These drought events have severe and detrimental impacts on the forest ecosystem. The drought years 2018 and 2019 affected European beeches (Fagus sylvatica L.) in noticeably different ways: even in the same local stand, badly drought damaged trees immediately neighboured apparently healthy trees. This led to the hypothesis that the genotype rather than the environment was responsible for this conspicuous pattern. We used this natural experiment to study the genomic basis of drought resistance in a Pool-GWAS approach. Contrasting the extreme phenotypes, we identified 106 si…

Dietary and Temporal Niche Differentiation in Tropical Ants-Can They Explain Local Ant Coexistence?

How species with similar ecological requirements avoid competitive exclusion remains contentious, especially in the species-rich tropics. Niche differentiation has been proposed as a major mechanism for species coexistence. However, different niche dimensions must be studied simultaneously to assess their combined effects on diversity and composition of a community. In most terrestrial ecosystems, ants are among the most abundant and ubiquitous animals. Since they display direct, aggressive competition and often competitively displace subordinate species from resources, niche differentiation may be especially relevant among ants. We studied temporal and trophic niche differentiation in a gr…

Author response: Genomic basis for drought resistance in European beech forests threatened by climate change

Specialization and interaction strength in a tropical plant–frugivore network differ among forest strata

The degree of interdependence and potential for shared coevolutionary history of frugivorous animals and fleshy-fruited plants are contentious topics. Recently, network analyses revealed that mutualistic relationships between fleshy-fruited plants and frugivores are mostly built upon generalized associations. However, little is known about the determinants of network structure, especially from tropical forests where plants' dependence on animal seed dispersal is particularly high. Here, we present an in-depth analysis of specialization and interaction strength in a plant-frugivore network from a Kenyan rain forest. We recorded fruit removal from 33 plant species in different forest strata (…

Unveiling community patterns and trophic niches of tropical and temperate ants using an integrative framework of field data, stable isotopes and fatty acids.

Background: The use and partitioning of trophic resources is a central aspect of community function. On the ground of tropical forests, dozens of ant species may be found together and ecological mechanisms should act to allow such coexistence. One hypothesis states that niche specialization is higher in the tropics, compared to temperate regions. However, trophic niches of most species are virtually unknown. Several techniques might be combined to study trophic niche, such as field observations, fatty acid analysis (FAA) and stable isotope analysis (SIA). In this work, we combine these three techniques to unveil partitioning of trophic resources in a tropical and a temperate community. We d…

The relation between circadian asynchrony, functional redundancy, and trophic performance in tropical ant communities

The diversity-stability relationship has been under intense scrutiny for the past decades, and temporal asynchrony is recognized as an important aspect of ecosystem stability. In contrast to relatively well-studied interannual and seasonal asynchrony, few studies investigate the role of circadian cycles for ecosystem stability. Here, we studied multifunctional redundancy of diurnal and nocturnal ant communities in four tropical rain forest sites. We analyzed how it was influenced by species richness, functional performance, and circadian asynchrony. In two neotropical sites, species richness and functional redundancy were lower at night. In contrast, these parameters did not differ in the t…

Appendix A. Interaction frequencies in a plant–frugivore network of 88 frugivore and 33 plant species from Kakamega Forest, Kenya.

Interaction frequencies in a plant–frugivore network of 88 frugivore and 33 plant species from Kakamega Forest, Kenya.