Category: Plain language summary

Increased rainfall and nitrogen alter colonization and extinction during postgrazing steppe succession

Posted on by

Prepared by Hong-Wei Yu & Wei-Ming He

Photos of the field experiment, northeastern Inner Mongolia, China: (a) Rainfall collectors and irrigation pipes at the beginning of the experiment, and (b) watered and fertilized experimental plots. Photo credit: Wei-Ming He.

Steppes are among the most important grassland types, and a high proportion of steppes have suffered from overgrazing.…

Continue reading

Which results of the standard test for community weighted mean approach are too optimistic?

Posted on by

Prepared by David Zelený

The relationship between the average height of understory herbs (CWM of species height) and the amount of light passing through the forest canopy (quantified by visually estimated cover of trees and shrubs at each site). If the analysis based on CWM approach was done by a standard parametric test, the result is highly significant (P<0.001). However, the result of the standard test is overly optimistic; the max test, which is the correct test for this analysis, returns considerably less exciting P-value (P=0.052).

Imagine a forest, with trees forming a canopy and herbs growing in the understory.…

Continue reading

Slow recovery of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and plant community after fungicide application: An eight-year experiment

Posted on by

Prepared by Hana Pánková, Tomáš Dostálek, Kristýna Vazačová & Zuzana Münzbergová

Study site – dry grassland in the central part of the Czech Republic. Photo credit: Hana Pánková.

Dry grasslands represent one of the most species-rich communities in Europe with a high occurrence of rare species.…

Continue reading