Plant performance response to eight different types of symbiosis.

Almost all plant species interact with one or more symbioses somewhere within their distribution range. Bringing together plant trait data and growth responses to symbioses spanning 552 plant species, we provide for the first time on a large scale (597 studies) a quantitative synthesis on plant performance differences between eight major types of symbiosis, including mycorrhizas, N-fixing bacteria, fungal endophytes and ant-plant interactions. Frequency distributions of plant growth responses varied considerably between different types of symbiosis, in terms of both mean effect and 'risk', defined here as percentage of experiments reporting a negative effect of symbiosis on plants.

Teamwork, Soft Skills, and Research Training.

We provide a list of soft skills that are important for collaboration and teamwork, based on our own experience and from an opinion survey of team leaders. Each skill can be learned to some extent. We also outline workable short courses for graduate schools to strengthen teamwork and collaboration skills among research students.

Evolutionary divergence of leaf width and its correlates.

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Premise Of The Study: The question why leaf dimensions vary so much between species has long puzzled ecologists. Presumably, variation arises from selective forces acting on leaf function but which selective forces and which leaf functions? This investigation assesses the consistency of divergence in plant traits and habitat variables in association with leaf width divergence in the flora of NSW, Australia.•

Methods: More than 80 traits and habitat variables were measured for 25 independent evolutionary divergence events (PICs).