Mark Westoby
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Resurveyed Island Vegetation Reveals That Species Colonisation and Extinction Probabilities Are Linked to Traits Open
The Equilibrium Theory of Island Biogeography (ETIB) proposes that species richness on islands reflects a balance between extinctions and colonisations. However, ETIB assumes species neutrality, limiting predictions to species richness rat…
Trajectories of ecology past and future Open
Ecosystems have many different processes going on. Researchers need to select and simplify, and so development of ecology as a discipline has involved finding different possible ways to select and simplify. The history is summarised via si…
View article: A thinner jacket for frosty and windy climates? Global patterns in leaf cuticle thickness and its environmental associations
A thinner jacket for frosty and windy climates? Global patterns in leaf cuticle thickness and its environmental associations Open
Summary Plant cuticles protect the interior tissues from ambient hazards, including desiccation, UV light, physical wear, herbivores and pathogens. Consequently, cuticle properties are shaped by evolutionary selection. We compiled a global…
Future Climate Shifts for Vegetation on Australia's Coastal Islands Open
Small coastal islands serve as replicated units of space that are useful for studying community assembly. Using a unique database holding information on comprehensive vegetation surveys on > 840 small coastal islands fringing the whole con…
Island Plant Species Distributions Contracted at the Cooler Edge Compared to Mainland Open
Continental islands have long been used as ecological models for understanding species assembly dynamics in isolated habitat fragments. But competition or colonisation constraints might be different to mainland populations, manifesting as …
View article: Do trait–growth relationships vary with plant age in fire‐prone heathland shrubs?
Do trait–growth relationships vary with plant age in fire‐prone heathland shrubs? Open
Growth rate is a central element of a plant's ecological strategy in its competition with other plants. It is well known that traits give rise to differences in growth between species, but there is limited understanding of how trait–growth…
View article: A‐Islands: A Vascular Plant Dataset for Biodiversity Research and Species Monitoring on Australian Continental Islands
A‐Islands: A Vascular Plant Dataset for Biodiversity Research and Species Monitoring on Australian Continental Islands Open
Aims Australia's coastline is fringed by more than 8000 continental islands. These islands feature a diverse array of landforms, rock and soil types and geological origins. Some of these islands are among the least invaded, most pristine h…
John Raven, FRS, FRSE: a truly great innovator in plant physiology, photosynthesis and much more Open
This is a tribute to a truly inspirational plant biologist, Prof. John A. Raven, FRS, FRSE (25th June 1941– 23rd May 2024), who died at the age of 82. He was a leader in the field of evolution and physiology of algae and land plants. His r…
View article: Site‐Specific Nutrient Data Reveal the Importance of Soils in Driving the Mycorrhizal Make‐Up of Woody Vegetation Worldwide
Site‐Specific Nutrient Data Reveal the Importance of Soils in Driving the Mycorrhizal Make‐Up of Woody Vegetation Worldwide Open
Aim Arbuscular mycorrhizas (AM) and ectomycorrhizas (ECM) have different impacts on nutrient cycling, carbon storage, community dynamics and enhancement of photosynthesis by rising CO 2 . Recent global analyses have concluded that patterns…
Islands are key for protecting the world’s plant endemism Open
Islands are renowned as evolutionary laboratories and support many species that are not found elsewhere1,2. Islands are also of great conservation concern, with many of their endemic species currently threatened or extinct3. Here we presen…
Trait‐based ecology, trait‐free ecology, and in between Open
Summary Trait‐based ecology has become a popular phrase. But all species have traits, and their contributions to ecological processes are governed by those traits. So then, is not all ecology trait‐based? Actually, there do exist areas of …
View article: A-Islands: A plant dataset for biodiversity research and species monitoring on Australian islands
A-Islands: A plant dataset for biodiversity research and species monitoring on Australian islands Open
Australia’s coastline is fringed by more than 8,000 continental islands. These islands feature a diverse array of landforms, rock and soil types and geological origins. Some of these islands are among the least invaded, most pristine habit…
View article: Species gain and loss per degree Celsius
Species gain and loss per degree Celsius Open
With climate zones moving poleward, it is interesting to know how rapidly species are gained and lost along temperature gradients. For the Australian native vascular flora, observed climate envelopes for species distributions have here bee…
Data and code from: Studies on reproductive allocation in Kuringai shrubs Open
This repository contains all the code and data used to produce figures in the paper: Wenk EH, Abramowicz K, Falster DS & Westoby M (2024) Is allocation among reproductive tissues coordinated with seed size? Oikos Wenk EH, Abramowicz K, Wes…
View article: Trait filtering in island floras: A conceptual framework
Trait filtering in island floras: A conceptual framework Open
Aim Dispersal and environmental filtering processes affect plant species colonisation success on islands and can be identified by functional traits. However, the lack of synthesis about the different methodological approaches in functional…
View article: Perspectives on the scientific legacy of J. Philip Grime
Perspectives on the scientific legacy of J. Philip Grime Open
Perhaps as much as any other scientist in the 20th century, J.P. Grime transformed the study of plant ecology and helped shepherd the field toward international prominence as a nexus of ideas related to global environmental change. Editors…
Phylogenetically conservative trait correlation: Quantification and interpretation Open
Correlation across species between two quantitative traits, or between a trait and a habitat property, can suggest that a trait value is effective in sustaining populations in some contexts but not others. It is widely held that such corre…
Phylogenetically conservative trait correlation: quantification and interpretation Open
Correlation across species between two quantitative traits, or between a trait and a habitat property, can suggest that a trait value is effective in sustaining populations in some contexts but not others. It is widely held that such corre…
View article: ETIB‐T: An Equilibrium Theory of Island Biogeography for plant traits
ETIB‐T: An Equilibrium Theory of Island Biogeography for plant traits Open
Aim The Equilibrium Theory of Island Biogeography (ETIB) posits that species richness on islands represents a dynamic equilibrium between immigration and extinction. ETIB makes predictions about numbers of species and biogeographical rates…
View article: Patterns and drivers of plant diversity across Australia
Patterns and drivers of plant diversity across Australia Open
Biodiversity analyses across continental extents are important in providing comprehensive information on patterns and likely drivers of diversity. For vascular plants in Australia, community‐level diversity analyses have been restricted by…
View article: AnimalTraits - a curated animal trait database for body mass, metabolic rate and brain size
AnimalTraits - a curated animal trait database for body mass, metabolic rate and brain size Open
Trait databases have become important resources for large-scale comparative studies in ecology and evolution. Here we introduce the AnimalTraits database, a curated database of body mass, metabolic rate and brain size, in standardised unit…
Trait ecology of startup plants Open
Summary Startup plants include seedlings and basal and epicormic resprouts. It has long been held that startups have different strategies from adult plants, but theory for what trait differences to expect is limited and not yet quantitativ…
Field experiments on mechanisms influencing species boundary movement under climate change Open
Scope Currently knowledge is weak about which plant species boundaries are determined directly by climate and soil factors, versus which are mediated by biotic interactions, such as exclusion by superior competitors or by pathogens. Under …
View article: Functional recovery of secondary tropical forests
Functional recovery of secondary tropical forests Open
Significance Tropical forests disappear rapidly through deforestation but also have the potential to regrow naturally through a process called secondary succession. To advance successional theory, it is essential to understand how these se…
Strategic traits of bacteria and archaea vary widely within substrate-use groups Open
Quantitative traits such as maximum growth rate and cell radial diameter are one facet of ecological strategy variation across bacteria and archaea. Another facet is substrate-use pathways, such as iron reduction or methylotrophy. Here, we…
Impact of the Black-Tailed Jackrabbits (Lepus Californicus) on Vegetation in Curlew Valley, Northern Utah Open
The interrelations of black- tailed jackrabbits and the desertshrub vegetation on which they were feeding were studied in Curlew Valley, Northern Utah. The vegetation was described as a threecornered continuum, the corners being types domi…
A roadmap to plant functional island biogeography Open
Island biogeography is the study of the spatio‐temporal distribution of species, communities, assemblages or ecosystems on islands and other isolated habitats. Island diversity is structured by five classes of process: dispersal, establish…
Disentangling direct and indirect effects of island area on plant functional trait distributions Open
Aim Species diversity on islands generally increases with island area. This might arise either from direct effects of island area via neutral assembly processes or from indirect effects via habitat and structural differences between island…