Brief Communications

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  • Unpalatable plants can deter herbivory on palatable plants grown in the same vicinity, but managing unwanted herbivory by planting unpalatable plants is not time- or cost-effective. This paper shows that artificial odour, designed to mimic the informative volatile compounds of unpalatable plants, can deter herbivory on the target plants, offering a potentially useful management strategy

    • Patrick B. Finnerty
    • Malcolm Possell
    • Clare McArthur
    Brief CommunicationOpen Access
  • Exposing clonal plant populations to volatile compounds produced by root-associated microorganisms, the authors show that combinations of different plant phenotypes induced by this exposure can lead to transgressive overyielding in biomass when different phenotypes are combined in diverse mixtures.

    • Waseem Raza
    • Gaofei Jiang
    • Alexandre Jousset
    Brief Communication
  • Between 2000 and 2015, reclamation for cropland in China undermined gains in wildlife habitat and the ecosystem services of water retention, sandstorm prevention, carbon sequestration and soil retention by 113.8%, 63.4%, 52.5%, 29.0% and 10.2%, respectively.

    • Lingqiao Kong
    • Tong Wu
    • Zhiyun Ouyang
    Brief CommunicationOpen Access
  • Multidecadal ground and remote-sensing observations of Northern Hemisphere forests show that, at the decadal scale, autumn senescence dates and total net carbon assimilation are positively related, despite a negative relationship at the annual scale. This suggests that acclimation relieves the leaf longevity constraints.

    • Laura Marqués
    • Koen Hufkens
    • Benjamin D. Stocker
    Brief Communication
  • An analysis of 199 journals in ecology and evolution finds no link between policies mandating data sharing and the rate of article retraction or correction. The authors position this finding in a broader discussion of open data and code.

    • Ilias Berberi
    • Dominique G. Roche
    Brief Communication
  • The authors use a theoretical model along with competition experiments between two aquatic plant species to show that phenotypic plasticity affects the outcome of competition.

    • Cyrill Hess
    • Jonathan M. Levine
    • Simon P. Hart
    Brief Communication
  • In a meta-analysis comparing experimental versus observational studies of aboveground biomass responses to drought in grasslands, the authors show that effect sizes in experiments are 53% weaker than in observational studies, suggesting that experiments are underestimating drought responses.

    • György Kröel-Dulay
    • Andrea Mojzes
    • Josep Peñuelas
    Brief CommunicationOpen Access
  • Despite expectations that global anthropogenic pressures on species with communities may be size biased, this relationship has not been tested on a large scale. Here the authors use existing databases to show that larger species have not experienced more declines in abundance within their respective communities than small species.

    • J. Christopher D. Terry
    • Jacob D. O’Sullivan
    • Axel G. Rossberg
    Brief CommunicationOpen Access
  • By surveying ~5,000 citizens across five Asian countries/territories, the authors show that increased awareness of the COVID-19 pandemic reduced self-reported propensity to consume wildlife products. A behavioural intervention simulation also suggests that increasing awareness of zoonotic risks could reduce future wildlife consumption.

    • Robin Naidoo
    • Daniel Bergin
    • Jan Vertefeuille
    Brief Communication
  • An analysis of the overlap between tropical forest restoration, human populations, development and national policies for community forest ownership shows that 294.5 million people live within forest restoration opportunity land in the Global South.

    • J. T. Erbaugh
    • N. Pradhan
    • A. Chhatre
    Brief Communication
  • Comparing historical records with contemporary camera trap surveys, the authors report widespread declines in the occurrence of four large carnivore species from protected areas within the distributional range of the giant panda.

    • Sheng Li
    • William J. McShea
    • Xiaoli Shen
    Brief Communication
  • The costs of echolocation during flight were thought to be negligible for bats, but here it is shown that this is true only below a certain intensity threshold. Above 130 dB, the costs of sound production become too expensive for small bats.

    • Shannon E. Currie
    • Arjan Boonman
    • Christian C. Voigt
    Brief Communication