Category: Behind the paper

The Hidden Regulators of the Forest: How Soil Fungi Shape Tree Life and Death

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The post provided by Wanwan Yu and Yu Liu

The Tiantong 20-ha Forest Dynamics Plot, located in eastern China. Credit by Hengyi Zhu

This post refers to the article Tree Demography Exhibits a Strong Association with Soil Fungal Pathogens and Stability of Soil Fungal Community in a Subtropical Forest by Rouf et al, published in the Journal of Vegetation Science (https://doi.org/10.1111/jvs.70131…

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Beyond the paper: lessons learned from managing invasions in extreme ecosystems

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The post provided by Eduardo Fuentes-Lillo, Rafael Garcia, Jonas Lembrechts, and Anibal Pauchard

Invasion of Pinus contorta across the Patagonian steppe, southern Chile, showing a clear invasion gradient radiating from a propagule source. Dense pine stands in the background progressively transition into scattered individuals and isolated recruits within the native treeless steppe vegetation.
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Why study succession? It is permanently challenging, especially now under global change

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The post provided by Karel Prach, with a contribution by Tomáš Herben

Two-year-old abandoned field with dominant Papaver rhoeas, and other weedy archeophytes. Photo credit: K. Prach

This post refers to the article Species occurrence in successional series as field-based indicators of their disturbance niche by Tomáš Herben and Karel Prach, published in the Journal of Vegetation Science (https://doi.org/10.1111/jvs.70104…

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From field trip to first paper: the colorful arable fields of Lemnos, Greece

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The post provided by Lina Rinne

Left: Stefan Meyer and Erwin Bergmeier discussing arable plant species on a windy day on Lesvos, April 2025 (photo credit: Lina Rinne). Right: Lina Rinne photographing arable plants on Lemnos, May 2025 (photo credit: Ute Bergmeier)

This post refers to the article Soil and season shape less intensively managed agro-ecosystems of a Mediterranean island—Insights from Lemnos (Greece) by Lina Rinne, Stefan Meyer, and Erwin Bergmeier, published in Vegetation Classification and Survey (https://doi.org/10.3897/VCS.164437…

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Twelve years with DiffVal and TDV: the making of a method

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The post provided by Tiago Monteiro-Henriques

Hay meadows and woodlands in Campo Benfeito in the spring of 2016. Photo credit: Tiago Monteiro-Henriques.

This post refers to the article TDV-optimization: A novel numerical method for phytosociological tabulation by Tiago Monteiro-Henriques published in Vegetation Classification and Survey (https://doi.org/10.3897/VCS.140466…

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From picking wild asparaguses to studying vegetation responses to fire regimes

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The post provided by Sabina Burrascano

Sampling of vegetation in recently burnt areas. Photo credit: Lorenzo Caucci

This post refers to the article “Transiently richer but profoundly changed: fire regime triggers physiognomic changes in sub-Mediterranean vegetation” by Lorenzo Caucci, Francesca Napoleone and colleagues, published in the Journal of Vegetation Science (https://doi.org/10.1111/jvs.70047…

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Does the use of ordinal cover scales bias biodiversity metrics?

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The post provided by Iwona Dembicz & Jürgen Dengler

Schema illustrating how the use of ordinal cover scales introduces an additional error to the analytical data on top of the unavoidable estimation error in the field. When estimating cover directly in percent, the final error in the data is just the estimation error from the field, while in the case of ordinal scales it is the estimation error plus the error from the double translation (from cover to ordinal scale and back from ordinal scale to cover).
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Mean ecological indicator values: which system and which weighting approach to use

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The post provided by Grzegorz Ostrowski, Severin Aicher, Agnieszka Mankiewicz & Jürgen Dengler

The performance of EIVE in comparison to Tichý et al. (2023) and the two regional EIV systems. EIVE was significantly better (higher correlation with measured environmental variables) than “Tichý”, while there were no significant differences to the two regional systems applicable to the Swiss Alps (from the paper)

This post refers to the article Mean ecological indicator values: use EIVE but no cover-weighting by Ostrowski et al.…

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