Vegetation ecology is usually divided into two broad research areas, floristic/environmental gradient analysis and studies of vegetation dynamics. The early influential American ecologist Clements combined the two areas into a dynamic system for classifying vegetation. His succession and climax theory, however, was later severely criticized. A new approach to the study of distributional dynamic...

BACKGROUND Ecologically meaningful classification of bacterial populations is essential for understanding the structure and function of bacterial communities. As in soils, the ecological strategy of the majority of root-colonizing bacteria is mostly unknown. Among those are Massilia (Oxalobacteraceae), a major group of rhizosphere and root colonizing bacteria of many plant species. METHODOLOG...

Using a sand dune chronosequence that spans 485 years of primary succession, we collected nearest-neighbor vegetation data to test two predictions associated with the traditional "size-advantage" hypothesis for plant competitive ability: (1) the relative representation of larger species should increase in later stages of succession; and (2) resident species that are near neighbors should, over ...

Restoration of species-rich grasslands on ex-arable land can help the conservation of biodiversity but faces three big challenges: absence of target plant propagules, high residual soil fertility and restoration of soil communities. Seed additions and top soil removal can solve some of these constraints, but restoring beneficial biotic soil conditions remains a challenge. Here we test the hypot...

The ecological mechanisms driving community succession are widely debated, particularly for microorganisms. While successional soil microbial communities are known to undergo predictable changes in structure concomitant with shifts in a variety of edaphic properties, the causal mechanisms underlying these patterns are poorly understood. Thus, to specifically isolate how nutrients--important dri...

Coastal sand dunes are extremely dynamic ecosystems, characterized by stark ecological succession gradients. Dune stabilization is mainly attributed to plant growth, but the establishment and survival of dune-inhabiting vegetation is closely linked to soil microorganisms and to the ecological functions they fulfill. Fungi are particularly important in this context, as some interact intimately w...

The physicochemical and biological gradients of soil and vegetative succession along the Franz Josef chrono sequence in New Zealand were used to test whether bacterial communities show patterns of change associated with long-term ecosystem development. Pyrosequencing was conducted on soil-derived 16S rRNA genes at nine stages of ecosystem progression and retrogression, ranging in age from 60 to...

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Question: How do different regeneration scenarios shape species composition at two stages of plant community establishment (emergence and net recruitment) in an early succession? Location: Northern Spain. Methods: In a recently ploughed field, we created eight regene­ ration scenarios with light, water and nitrogen availability (five replicates each). Seedlings of all species were monitored fro...