We propose that microbial diversity must be viewed in light of gene flow and selection, which define units of genetic similarity, and of phenotype and ecological function, respectively. We discuss to what extent ecological and genetic units overlap to form cohesive populations in the wild, based on recent evolutionary modeling and on evidence from some of the first microbial populations studied...

1. Intensive agricultural practices drive biodiversity loss with potentially drastic consequences for ecosystem services. To advance conservation and production goals, agricultural practices should be compatible with biodiversity. Traditional or less intensive systems (i.e. with fewer agrochemicals, less mechanisation, more crop species) such as shaded coffee and cacao agroforests are highlight...

The increase in the number of species with decreasing latitude is a striking pattern of global biodiversity. An important feature of studies of this pattern up to now has been the focus on species as the fundamental unit of interest, neglecting potential within-species ecological diversity. Here, we took a new perspective on this topic by measuring the degree to which individuals within populat...

www.frontiersinecology.org I derived from a species’ range is central to the science of ecology. Current patterns of species and physiological trait distributions contain important information about plant functional relationships to climate and other environmental controls (Cody and Mooney 1978; Davis 1986; Bonan and Sirois 1992; Kearney and Porter 2009; Rödder et al. 2011). In a foundational p...

We present an analytically tractable variant of the voter model that provides a quantitatively accurate description of Beta diversity (two-point correlation function) in two tropical forests. The model exhibits novel scaling behavior that leads to links between ecological measures such as relative species abundance and the species-area relationship.

This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of copper extraction on the structure and function of rangelands ecosystem around the mine area in Dareh Zereshk, Yazd province, Iran. Three study sites were considered at the specified intervals of the mine (0-200, 200-500 and 500-1000m). This research was conducted from 2012 to 2013. In each location, three linear transects with a length of 50 m...

The urkingdoms and major divisions of prokaryotes are enormously diverse in their metabolic capabilities and membrane architectures. These ancient differences likely have a strong influence on the kinds of ecological adaptations that may evolve today. Some ecological transitions have been identified as having occurred primarily in the distant past, including transitions between saline and non-s...

The emerging fields of microbial population genetics and genomics provide an avenue to study the ecological rules that govern how communities form, function, and evolve. Our struggle to understand the causes and consequences of microbial diversity stems from our inability to define ecologically and evolutionarily meaningful units of diversity. The 16S rRNA-based tools that have been so useful i...