Pollinator functional group abundance and floral heterogeneity in an agroecological context affect mating patterns in a self-incompatible wild plant.

Premise: Restoration of seminatural field margins can elevate pollinator activity. However, how they support wild plant gene flow through interactions between pollinators and spatiotemporal gradients in floral resources remains largely unknown.

Methods: Using a farm-scale experiment, we tested how mating outcomes (expected heterozygosity and paternity correlation) of the wild, self-incompatible plant Cyanus segetum transplanted into field margins (sown wildflower or grass-legume strips) were affected by the abundance of different pollinator functional groups (defined by species traits).

Long-term cattle grazing shifts the ecological state of forest soils.

Cattle grazing profoundly affects abiotic and biotic characteristics of ecosystems. While most research has been performed on grasslands, the effect of large managed ungulates on forest ecosystems has largely been neglected. Compared to a baseline seminatural state, we investigated how long-term cattle grazing of birch forest patches affected the abiotic state and the ecological community (microbes and invertebrates) of the soil subsystem.

Pathways for Novel Epidemiology: Plant-Pollinator-Pathogen Networks and Global Change.

Multiple global change pressures, and their interplay, cause plant-pollinator extinctions and modify species assemblages and interactions. This may alter the risks of pathogen host shifts, intra- or interspecific pathogen spread, and emergence of novel population or community epidemics. Flowers are hubs for pathogen transmission.

The functional role of temperate forest understorey vegetation in a changing world.

Temperate forests cover 16% of the global forest area. Within these forests, the understorey is an important biodiversity reservoir that can influence ecosystem processes and functions in multiple ways. However, we still lack a thorough understanding of the relative importance of the understorey for temperate forest functioning.

Notes on some enigmatic taxa of limnoterrestrial rhabdocoels, with the description of two new species.

Six taxa of limnoterrestrial rhabdocoels are discussed, two of them, both belonging to Typhloplanidae Graff, 1905, are new to science. Adenoplea reisingeri n. sp.