1. Understanding ecological strategies of invasive species relative to the entire native community is important in understanding and managing both the mechanisms and the potential impacts of invasion, but few studies have taken this approach. 2. We utilize advances in plant ecology to compare functional traits of an invasive shrub species, autumn-olive Elaeagnus umbellata, to those of the under...

Aerosol particle size distributions were measured below and above a tropical rainforest canopy in Borneo, Malaysia, in June/July 2008 using the WIBS-3: a single particle dual channel fluorescence spectrometer. Material in the size range 0.8–20 μm was characterized according to optical equivalent diameter (DP), morphology and fluorescence at 310–400 nm and 400–600 nm following excitation at 280 ...

Quantifying post-fire effects in a forested landscape is important to ascertain burn severity, ecosystem recovery and post-fire hazard assessments and mitigation planning. Reporting of such post-fire effects assumes significance in fire-prone countries such as USA, Australia, Spain, Greece and Portugal where prescribed burns are routinely carried out. This paper describes the use of Terrestrial...

The unified neutral theory of biodiversity and biogeography has gained the status of a quantitative null model for explaining patterns in ecological (meta)communities. The theory assumes that individuals of trophically similar species are functionally equivalent. We empirically evaluate the relative contribution of neutral and deterministic processes in shaping fruit-feeding butterfly assemblag...

Regional species-climate correlations are well documented, but little is known about the ecological processes responsible for generating these patterns. Using the data from over 690,000 individual trees I estimated five demographic rates--canopy growth, understorey growth, canopy lifespan, understorey lifespan and per capita reproduction--for 19 common eastern US tree species, within the core a...

Variation in understorey irradiance is both a cause and consequence of the structure and dynamics of closed-canopy forests, which are also influenced by soil nutrients and water availability. We tested the hypothesis that understorey light regimes differ among four mixed dipterocarp forest types that share the same rainfall, but grow on different soils along an edaphic gradient at one site in B...

Despite more than a century of research, some key aspects of habitat preference and ecology of the earliest angiosperms remain poorly constrained. Proposed growth ecology has varied from opportunistic weedy species growing in full sun to slow-growing species limited to the shaded understorey of gymnosperm forests. Evidence suggests that the earliest angiosperms possessed low transpiration rates...

Disruption to species-interaction networks caused by irruptions of herbivores and mesopredators following extirpation of apex predators is a global driver of ecosystem reorganization and biodiversity loss. Most studies of apex predators' ecological roles focus on effects arising from their interactions with herbivores or mesopredators in isolation, but rarely consider how the effects of herbivo...

The crown architecture of three shade-tolerant tree species (two subcanopy and one mid-canopy) was analyzed in relation to the light regime of the forest understorey. The aim was to examine to which extent shade-tolerant species variate in their crown architecture. Tree saplings (265) between 50 and 300 cm height, and distributed from understorey to variously-sized canopy gaps, were measured fo...

Mortality and recruitment rates were obtained for tree species over a 5.6 year period in a 1-ha fragment of secondary montane rain forest in Southeastern Brazil. All plants with a diameter at breast height (dbh) > or = 8 cm were sampled in 1989-1990 and 1995. There was an increase from 90 to 96 species, and 669 ind./ha to 749 ind./ha over the period. The mortality rate of 1.67%/yr was similar t...