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Hunting in groups allows predators to forage more efficiently. Here, the authors outline a framework for evaluating social predation strategies according to five key behavioural dimensions.
Our understanding of how species diversity is maintained depends on spatial scale. Here, the coexistence–area relationship is developed to understand scale dependence and increase community ecology’s contribution to biodiversity conservation.
Biodiversity and ecosystem functioning relationships remain constant no matter how many functions are considered. Biodiversity affects the level of multifunctionality and the effect on multifunctionality equals the average effect on single functions.
A new approach is outlined for capturing multiple facets of biodiversity in near real-time by combining the latest advances in automated Earth observation recording, high-throughput sequencing and ecological modelling.
Five laws derived from fossil data describe the relationships between species extinction and longevity, species richness, origination rates, extinction rates and diversification. These laws are crucial to the study of evolution and ecology.
Reproducibility starts with having a transparent and streamlined workflow. Here, the authors describe how they achieved this using open data tools for the collaborative Ocean Health Index project.
The evolutionary history of life and the history of the planet itself are closely entwined. This Perspective looks at the sources of energy — geochemical, sunlight, oxygen, flesh and fire — that have shaped this inter-relationship and the course of evolution.
Ecological interactions typically vary across both space and time. Here, the authors outline a framework for incorporating multiple layers of complexity into ecological networks, and discuss their potential applications and future challenges.
Recent developments in data acquisition and quantitative modelling allow evolutionary biologists to predict future processes. This Perspective reviews progress in understanding the evolutionary dynamics of systems such as microorganisms and cancer and discusses unifying concepts of predictive analysis.
Current understanding of eco-evolutionary feedbacks rests primarily on simple systems at small spatial scales. Here, the authors outline a framework for examining spatiotemporal dynamics in species-rich networks at the metacommunity scale.
Speciation can be a sudden or gradual process, and may involve genomic tipping points where positive feedback accelerates the process towards completion. Here, the mechanics of speciation tipping points and their similarities to other dynamic systems are discussed.
