Understanding the genetics of speciation and the processes that drive it is a central goal of evolutionary biology. Grasshoppers of the Chorthippus species group differ strongly in calling song (and corresponding female preferences) but are exceedingly similar in other characteristics such as morphology. Here, we performed a population genomic scan on three Chorthippus species (Chorthippus biguttulus, C. mollis and C. brunneus) to gain insight into the genes and processes involved in divergence and speciation in...

1. Arthropod communities in water-filled tree-holes may be sensitive to impacts of forest management, for example via changes in environmental conditions such as resource input. 2. We hypothesized that increasing forest management intensity negatively affects arthropod abundance and richness and shifts community composition and trophic structure of tree-hole communities. We predicted that this shift is caused by reduced habitat and resource availability at the forest stand scale as well as reduced tree-hole size, detritus amount...

While changes in magnitude of single traits responding to selective agents have been studied intensively, little is known about selection shaping networks of traits and their patterns of co-variation. However, this is central for our understanding of phenotypic evolution since traits are embedded in a multivariate environment with selection affecting a multitude of traits simultaneously rather than individually. Here, we investigate inter- and intraspecific patterns of trait integration (trait correlations) in the larval abdomen of...

1. Fine roots and mycorrhiza often represent the largest input of carbon (C) into soils, and are therefore of primary relevance to the soil C balance. Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi have previously been found to increase litter decomposition which may lead to reduced soil C stocks, but these studies have focused on immediate decomposition of relatively high amounts of high-quality litter and may therefore not hold in many ecological settings over longer terms. 2. Here...

Small scale distribution of insect root herbivores may promote plant species diversity by creating patches of different herbivore pressure. However, determinants of small scale distribution of insect root herbivores, and impact of land use intensity on their small scale distribution are largely unknown. We sampled insect root herbivores and measured vegetation parameters and soil water content along transects in grasslands of different management intensity in three regions in Germany. We calculated community-weighted mean plant traits...

Although stochastic and deterministic processes have been found to jointly shape structure of natural communities, the relative importance of both forces may vary across different environmental conditions and across levels of biological organization. We tested the effects of abiotic environmental conditions, altered trophic interactions and dispersal limitation on the structure of aquatic microfauna communities in Costa Rican tank bromeliads. Our approach combined natural gradients in environmental conditions with experimental manipulations of bottom-up interactions (resources), top-down...

1.Hundreds of experiments have now manipulated species richness of various groups of organisms and examined how this aspect of biological diversity influences ecosystem functioning. Ecologists have recently expanded this field to look at whether phylogenetic diversity among species, often quantified as the sum of branch lengths on a molecular phylogeny leading to all species in a community, also predicts ecological function. Some have hypothesized that phylogenetic divergence should be a superior predictor of ecological function...