News 2013
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[img_assist|nid=254|title=|desc=|link=popup|align=right|width=260|height=173]
December 2013 Fieldwork in Argentina
In the beginning of December, professor Meelis Pärtel and PhD student Riin Tamme had an opportunity to visit Argentina and its species-rich grasslands. They collaborated with Juan Jose Cantero (University of Rio Cuarto) and collected data about small-scale plant species richness and environmental conditions as a part of our workgroup's global study about community assembly patterns and heterogeneity-diversity relationship. See photos from the fieldwork.
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December 2013 Aveliina won the Young Conservationist Award 2013
[img_assist|nid=253|title=|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=260|height=173]
Estonian Fund for Nature nominated Aveliina with the Young Conservationist Award which is given to people who have outstanding achievements in Estonian nature conservation. Aveliina was awarded for her scientific and conservation work on improving the status and future prospects of Estonian semi-natural grassland habitats. See the press release and read more about the award (in Estonian).
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[img_assist|nid=252|title=Rainforest in French Guyana|desc=|link=popup|align=right|width=260|height=172]
November 2013 Expedition to French Guyana
Researcher Ülle Reier and Ph.D. student Kersti Riibak participated in an expedition to tropical French Guyana, organized by the Doctoral School of Earth Sciences and Ecology. Expedition took place from 14th October to 1st November, during that time, 16 doctoral students from different Estonian universities collected data for their research project. For Ülle, it was the third time to explore French Guyana. This time, she was one of the leaders of expedition. Kersti studied the epiphytic plants in the rainforest to compare the dispersal ability of spore and seed-producing plants.
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November 2013 New paper about community assembly during land use change
[img_assist|nid=250|title=Somewhere on the Machair (Photo: Richard Hewison)|desc=|link=popup|align=left|width=260|height=140]
Plant functional traits, particularly those that are tightly coupled to the environment provide useful functional indicators to patterns and processes driving ecological change. Rob Lewis’s recent paper, together with co-authors Rob Marrs (Liverpool University) and Robin Pakeman (The James Hutton Institute), utilises the link between selected plant functional traits to assess patterns of land use change and in turn shifts in community assembly processes of Scottish Machair grasslands. An introduction to Rob’s article and the unique dataset can be read on the Oikos Blog.
Lewis, R.J., Marrs, R.H., Pakeman, R.J. (2013) Inferring temporal shifts in landuse intensity from functional response traits and functional diversity patterns: a study of Scotland's machair grassland. Oikos.
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[img_assist|nid=251|title=Jonathan Bennett|desc=|link=none|align=right|width=260|height=195]
November 2013 Jonathan Bennett received the Canadian Graduate Student Research Prize
Jon, currently a researcher in the macroecology workgroup, was nominated for the Canadian Council of Univeristy Biology Chairs Graduate Student Research Prize. Jon received the award for his paper in Ecology Letters where he presented novel results about the lack of relationship between competition and phylogenetic relatedness of competing species. Congratulations Jon!
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November 2013 Macroecology workgroup autumn seminar
[img_assist|nid=249|title=Macroecology workgroup|desc=|link=popup|align=left|width=260|height=148]
This time the two-day seminar took place at Vaskna tourist farm in picturesque Võrumaa. All workgroup members presented new ideas and fresh results. The recurrent theme of the talks was dark diversity, covering taxonomic, functional and genetic levels. See photos from the seminar.
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October 2013 Does low shrub cover influences alvar grasslands species richness?
[img_assist|nid=227|title=Overgrown alvar grassland|desc=|link=popup|align=right|width=260|height=174]
Alvar grasslands (rare and species-rich type of calcareous grasslands) in Estonia are increasingly being abandoned and overgrown by pine and juniper. Several studies have shown that a shrub cover of more than 70% rapidly decreases species richness, but little is known about how a low shrub cover (up to 30%) influences environmental conditions and species richness in alvar grasslands. We found that low shrub cover increased the richness of total and generalist species by increasing available light heterogeneity, whereas alvar characteristic species were not influenced by low shrub cover. This suggests that it is important to consider species' habitat preferences when estimating the effects of shrub cover on species richness. In addition, the results indicate that low shrub cover of up to 30% is desirable in terms of maximizing grassland diversity.
Kasari, L., Gazol, A., Kalwij, J.M., Helm, A. (2013) Low shrub cover in alvar grasslands increases small-scale diversity by promoting the occurrence of generalist species. Tuexenia 33, 293-308.
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October 2013 Goodbye Antonio
[img_assist|nid=67|title=Antonio Gazol|desc=|link=popup|align=left|width=200|height=206]
Antonio Gazol spent three years in our working group as a post-doctoral researcher. He has now finished his successful stay and returned to home in Spain. During his post-doc, Antonio worked mainly on environmental heterogeneity and landscape history topics but also participated in many other fields of research in our university and in collaboration with researchers from Spain and China. He published 9 papers and there are several more in preparation! Antonio, we wish you all the best and hope to see you again soon.
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[img_assist|nid=226|title=How many species from the species pool are present?|desc=|link=popup|align=right|width=200|height=194]
October 2013 Dark Diversity takes a step forward
In a special issue of Folia Geobotanica, Meelis Pärtel, together with Robert and Martin Zobel from the Plant Ecology Lab, expand on their article on Dark Diversity to introduce the concept of Community Completeness. Completeness is a metric that reveals how much of the species pool is actually present in a given community. This metric is far more insightful than concentrating only on those species present, especially when comparing biodiversity among different ecosystems.
Pärtel, M., Szava-Kovats, R., Zobel, M. (2013) Community completeness: linking local and dark diversity within the species pool concept. Folia Geobotanica.
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October 2013 Welcome Jon
[img_assist|nid=222|title=Jon Bennett|desc=|link=popup|align=left|width=260|height=213]
We are pleased to welcome Jon Bennett to the macroecology workgroup. Jon recently completed his PhD at the University of Alberta, Canada. His research focused on grassland plant community assembly, investigating the role of evolutionary history, environmental heterogeneity, competition and pollination. Jon will stay until the end of 2013, working with Meelis and Aveliina on a project aimed at detecting extinct species using environmental DNA.
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October 2013 Open landscapes conference in Germany
At the beginning of October, workgroup members Aveliina and Nele participated in conference "Open landscapes 2013 - Ecology, Management and Nature Conservation", held in Germany, Hildesheim. Conference focused on the conservation and restoration of natural and semi-natural open habitats, and keynote speakers included noted scientists on the topic: Paul Keddy, Osvaldo Sala, Roland Bobbink, Michael Kleyer and Iris Möller. Aveliina made an oral presentation "Extinction debt and invasion of generalist species in European dry grasslands" and Nele made a poster presentation "The effect of different mowing regimes on the species richness and coverage of vascular plants and bryphytes". Conference excursions led to famous semi-natural habitats in Germany, including beautiful Lüneburg Heath.
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[img_assist|nid=220|title=Marge Thetloff|desc=|link=popup|align=right|width=260|height=173]
September 2013 Welcome Marge
Marge Thetloff started her PhD studies this September working on population and landscape genetics. She is supervised by Tsipe Aavik. Welcome to our working group, Marge!
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September 2013 Relocating orchids in Northern Estonia
[img_assist|nid=229|title=Relocating soil pod|desc=|link=popup|align=left|width=260|height=173]
Aveliina and Liis participated in large orchid relocation project in Northern Estonia. Altogether 5 species and more than 400 individuals of grassland and forest orchids were transplanted from possibly threatened habitat to new location. Work was carried out by relocating large soil-pods of 1 and 4 square meters, with an aim to translocate local species pool and mycoflora as much as possible. Scientific monitoring of the results will continue for next 10 years. See also a small TV-clip (in Estonian) about the activities. Work was carried out by the spin-off company of University of Tartu and Macroecology workgroup, Loodusseeme Ltd.
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August 2013 Goodbye Jesse
[img_assist|nid=82|title=Jesse Kalwij|desc=|link=popup|align=left|width=150|height=156]
Jesse Kalwij spent four years in our working group as a senior researcher focusing on global macroecological questions. During his time here, he also collaborated with the Plant Ecology Lab and workgroups from abroad, working on many different fields of ecology. Now he will be looking for new challenges and we wish him all the best!
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August 2013 Fieldwork in Saaremaa and Muhu[img_assist|nid=216|title=It was hot|desc=|link=popup|align=right|width=260|height=173]
Doctoral students Riin, Liis, Kersti, Marge and Krista spent the first half of August on the alvars of Saaremaa and Muhu, examining the state of our permanent transects marked three years ago and also gathering biomass and environmental heterogeneity data. Altogether they determined 350 m of plants, gathered 640 biomass samples and experienced the life in an orthodox monastery. To speed up their process (or not) they had two rental cars nicknamed “Little Sick Jet Mouse” and “Jam Shelf” (referencing the sound made by the small airplane An-2). See photos from their time on the field.
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July 2013 New paper about predicting seed dispersal distances
[img_assist|nid=228|title=Webpage for dispeRsal function|desc=|link=url|url=http://www.botany.ut.ee/dispersal/|align=left|width=260|height=173]
Information about plant species dispersal distances is important for many fields in ecology (e.g. meta-population studies in fragmented landscapes, species distribution patterns following climate change). Unfortunately dispersal distance data is scarce and difficult to obtain. We collected the available data to a global dataset of maximum dispersal distances for 576 plant species, and tested the possibility to predict seed dispersal distances from simple plant traits. We found it is feasible to estimate dispersal distances when only data on dispersal syndrome and plant growth form are available. We also provide a function dispeRsal to be run in R, which enables researchers to estimate dispersal distances for their own sets of species. The R function and instructions (and future updates) are available in the dispeRsal website.
Tamme, R., Götzenberger, L., Zobel, M., Bullock, J.M., Hooftman, D.A.P., Kaasik, A., Pärtel, M. (ilmumas) Predicting species' maximum dispersal distances from simple plant traits. Ecology.
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June 2013 IAVS in Tartu
[img_assist|nid=213|title=Pre-symposium excursion to Western Estonia (Viita alvar grassland)|desc=|link=popup|align=left|width=260|height=173]
This year, the 56th Annual Symposium of the International Association for Vegetation Science was hosted by the University of Tartu. Altogether over 450 delegates from 41 countries participated and all of the members of our working group presented posters or talks. The list of keynote speakers was especially remarkable – including David Tilman, Hans de Kroon, Meelis Pärtel and others. Five days of the conference were filled with great talks and discussions, and we were happy to see old friends and collaborators and make a lot of new friends. The pre-symposium excursion to Western Estonia and Islands organized by Aveliina (with the help of Krista and Liis) was also extremely fun and successful. The conference itself was held on 26-30th June but pre- and post-symposium excursions gave visitors the opportunity to enjoy Estonian summer from 20th June to 6th July.
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[img_assist|nid=214|title=This is how it starts|desc=|link=popup|align=right|width=260|height=195]
June 2013 Field work in Canada
For several years, our working group has sampled species-rich grasslands around the world to study the global patterns of small-scale community assembly and heterogeneity-diversity relationship. We have already collected data from Estonia, Spain, Iceland, Australia, Mongolia and this summer, researchers Jodi Price (from Australia) and Antonio Gazol as well as PhD student Riin Tamme flew to Canada to sample the famous prairies. They collaborated with Prof. James Cahill and his PhD student Gisela Stotz from University of Alberta in Edmonton. Altogether they determined species composition and measured environmental conditions in 600 small quadrats despite the heat, rain and tornado warning. See photos from the fieldwork.
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June 2013 Visiting PhD student from Spain
[img_assist|nid=224|title=Guillem Bagaria|desc=|link=popup|align=left|width=130|height=195]
Guillem Bagario Marató, a PhD student at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and Centre for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications (CREAF) visited our working group from April until end of June. Guillem is interested in landscape ecology and in Tartu he worked with Meelis and Aveliina to study the extinction dept in Mediterranean grasslands. He also had time to visit beautiful places in Estonia, participate in the IAVS conference with an oral presentation and bake empanadas.
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[img_assist|nid=211|title=Briza media|desc=|link=popup|align=right|width=174|height=261]
June 2013 Common plant species are also affected by landscape fragmentation
Briza media is a widespread and frequent plant in Estonian meadows and probably the only grass that also non-botanists recognize. Despite its commonness, the area loss and fragmentation of grasslands in Estonia has left its mark also on this beautiful plant’s populations. Measuring traits of Briza media on alvar grasslands in Saaremaa and Muhu showed that the decreased genetic diversity, caused by the landscape changes, already affects the reproductive success of even this common plant. At the same time, plant height and germination are still related to the historical landscape configuration, indicating that populations are still adapting to the landscape changes and that the final consequences of fragmentation on Briza media populations are still unknown.
Takkis, K, Pärtel, M, Saar, L & Helm, A (2013) Extinction debt in a common grassland species: immediate and delayed responses of plant and population fitness. Plant Ecology 214: 953–963, DOI 10.1007/s11258-013-0221-y
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May 2013 Conference for PhD students
The 2nd Conference of Doctoral School of Earth Sciences and Ecology "Down to Earth" was held at the Tallinn university on 16-17th May. Our students Argo, Liis and Kersti participated in this international students' conference and presented their fresh scientific results to a wide audience.
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May 2013 Plant Population Biology Conference in Tartu
The 26th Conference of the Plant Population Biology Section of the GfÖ was held at the University of Tartu in Estonia on 9–11th May. From our working group, PhD students Krista and Riin gave talks, Liina and Liis presented posters, and almost all of us participated in this great conference. Three days were filled with exciting talks and scientific discussions in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere. Thank you to all the organisers!
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May 2013 Publication on limiting similarity - an Editor's Choice in Oikos
[img_assist|nid=209|title=Editor's Choice|desc=|link=popup|align=left|width=130|height=107]
The May issue of Oikos showcases a publication by Jodi Price and Meelis Pärtel as an Editor's Choice article (see also Oikos Blog). In this paper, Jodi and Meelis use meta-analysis of experimental studies to test the role of limiting similarity in biotic resistance. The Editor's Choice articles are selected as ones of particular interest or high quality and are freely accessible online for three months.
Price, JN and Pärtel, M (2013) Can limiting similarity increase invasion resistance? A meta-analysis of experimental studies. Oikos 122, 649-656.
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April 2013 Local-regional richness patterns – what we thought we knew
The general consensus in the ecological community for many years has been that evidence for species saturation is sparse. Robert Szava-Kovats together with Argo and Meelis recently published an article in Ecology presenting a re-analysis of local-regional richness relationships for dozens of published datasets using the model published last year in Oikos. The results of this re-analysis overturn this consensus. Saturation patterns are at least as common as non-saturation patterns. No less interesting (and perhaps disquieting) is that almost one third of the datasets produce no discernable pattern. It turns out local-regional richness relationships are far more diverse than has been widely believed.
Szava-Kovats, R., Ronk, A., Pärtel, M. (in press) Pattern without bias: local-regional richness relationship revisited. Ecology.
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April 2013 Macroecology workgroup meeting
[img_assist|nid=205|title=Macroecology workgroup, spring 2013|desc=|link=popup|align=left|width=260|height=195]
Our macroecology workgroup spring seminar was held on 3-4th of April in Torupillitalu, Viljandimaa. Two days were filled with cool presentations, cutting-edge science and exchange of good ideas.
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March 2013 Goodbye Inga[img_assist|nid=81|title=Inga Hiiesalu|desc=|link=popup|align=right|width=154|height=174]
After successfully finishing her PhD studies on plant below-ground diversity topic, Inga starts her post-doc in Czech Republic. She will work with Jitka Klimešova and other researchers at the Institute of Botany of the Academy of Science in Třeboň. Inga continues to study the hidden part of plant communities - roots and microorganisms below-ground. We wish her good luck in her future studies and hope she will visit us soon!
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March 2013 Goodbye Jodi
[img_assist|nid=206|title=Jodi Price|desc=|link=popup|align=left|width=260|height=174]
Jodi Price, a post-doctoral researcher in our working group for three years, left Estonia and started a new position as a research associate at the University of Western Australia. During her post-doc, Jodi published 13 papers and many more future publications from her work here are in preparation! In Australia, she will continue examining community assembly processes but this time in relation to restoration ecology at the Ecosystem Restoration & Intervention Ecology lab led by prof. Richard Hobbs. We are sad to say goodbye to Jodi, but we know she will be happy being back in Australia. We wish you all the best, Jodi, and hope to see you soon!
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[img_assist|nid=203|title=Rob Lewis|desc=|link=popup|align=right|width=130|height=174]
March 2013 New member in our working group
We are very happy to welcome postdoctoral candidate Rob Lewis to our working group. He finished his PhD at the University of Liverpool in 2012 studying the changes in plant community composition and functional traits during land use and climate change at different temporal and spatial scales. Rob will stay with us at least until August but we hope to have him for much longer.
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March 2013 Estonian alvar grasslands are disappearing
[img_assist|nid=204|title=Alvar grassland in Muhu island - typical sight in rapidly overgrowing valuable alvar habitat in Estonia|desc=|link=popup|align=left|width=260|height=195]
Members of macroecology workgroup together with other alvar grassland specialists and nature conservation societies in Estonia made already second official complaint to our environmental minister regarding the extremely bad condition of alvar grasslands in Estonia. Most of Estonian alvar grasslands are heavily overgrown and we estimate that without large-scale restoration this habitat type will disappear from Estonian landscapes within next 5 years. We are very concerned about to the lack of interest and activities by the Estonian Ministry of the Environment regarding the improvment of condition of this priority habitat type. Currently, less than 2000 hectares of alvar grasslands are suitably managed, while remaining 8000 hectares have almost perished during past 10 years. Find the complaint letter and related press release (in Estonian). We also had some media coverage (also in Estonian) by Estonian Public Broadcasting, Estonian Radio and some newspapers such as Saarte Hääl and Maaleht.
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March 2013 Annual Meeting of the Specialist Group on Macroecology of the GfÖ
PhD student Riin Tamme represented our working group at the 7th Annual Meeting of the Specialist Group on Macroecology of the GfÖ in Göttingen, Germany. In spite of cancelled and delayed flights, Riin arrived to the meeting in time for her talk about the global patterns in heterogeneity-diversity relationship. She also had the chance to listen to great talks on macroecology topic, exchange ideas with fellow macroecologists and establish contacts for future collaboration. Riin was funded by the Doctoral School of Earth Sciences and Ecology.
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March 2013 New paper about a negative heterogeneity-diversity relationship
[img_assist|nid=207|title=Experiment - before and after|desc=|link=popup|align=left|width=260|height=315]
Antonio Gazol, together with Riin, Jodi, Inga, Lauri and Meelis, published a new paper in Oecologia. This is the first publication coming from a greenhouse experiment conducted two years ago. In the experiment, coexisting grassland species were subjected to five different treatments combining a gradient of soil fertility (low, medium or high) and resource heterogeneity (large or small patches in a chessboard pattern). In this paper they show how small-scale soil resource heterogeneity lowers plant species diversity, by altering competitive interactions among coexisting species. When high fertility patches are close to each other (i.e. small-scale heterogeneity treatment), larger plants can forage among the patches increasing biomass and competition for above- and below-ground resources. See photos from the days spent in the greenhouse.
Gazol, A., Tamme, R., Price, J.N., Hiiesalu, I., Laanisto, L., Pärtel, M. (2013) A negative heterogeneity–diversity relationship found in experimental grassland communities. Oecologia 10.1007/s00442-013-2623-x
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February-March 2013 Visitors from Czech Republic
Researcher Francesco de Bello together with post-doctoral researcher Ondřej Mudrák from the University of South Bohemia in Czech Republic spent two weeks in Estonia visiting our working group. They worked with Meelis and Jodi to shed some light on dark diversity and community assembly patterns in Saaremaa, as well as enjoyed Estonian wintery delights (skiing and sauna).
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[img_assist|nid=202|title=Where is the highest biodiversity?|desc=|link=popup|align=right|width=260|height=132]
February 2013 BGSIMweb – fun way to learn biogeography
BGSIMweb is a web-based simulation of biogeography programmed by prof. Meelis Pärtel. It allows to create islands and continents, change species traits and to follow changes in biodiversity in ecological and evolutionary time-scales. BGSIMweb is aimed for students to help to understand biogeographical processes.
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February 2013 We joined the Nutrient Network
Nutrient Network is a global project with an aim to collect data from grasslands all over the world following a unified sampling protocol. Last year, Meelis and Aveliina sampled two sites in Estonia and our working group is now the latest member of the network. We are very happy to be part of this great project and look forward to collaborate with other members in the future.
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February 2013 Visiting PhD student from Czech Republic
[img_assist|nid=196|title=Petr during fieldworks in alvar grassland|desc=|link=popup|align=left|width=260|height=195]
Petr Blažek from University of South-Bohemia spent a semester (June 2012 – February 2013) in our working group. He is from the Department of Botany in České Budějovice, our longtime collaborator. In Estonia, Petr studied the effect of environmental and landscape parameters on the genetic diversity of Rhinanthus species.
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[img_assist|nid=194|title=Tsipe Aavik|desc=|link=popup|align=right|width=260|height=195]
January 2013 New researcher in macroecology workgroup!
Tsipe Aavik (previously from Plant Ecology lab) has joined our workgroup. Tsipe has spent last two years in Switzerland as a post-doctoral researcher, where she studied the genetic diversity of grassland species. Now her post-doc is ending and new exciting research questions in landscape genetics await in macroecology workgroup. Welcome, Tsipe!
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January 2013 Fieldwork in Africa
[img_assist|nid=208|title=Hypericum pseudohenryi - an emerging alien invader in the Sani Pass area|desc=|link=popup|align=left|width=260|height=173]
January is the perfect month to conduct fieldwork in the southern hemisphere, for example in Sani Pass. This study area is a mountain pass located in the Drakensberg on the border of South Africa and Lesotho ranging from 1500-2874 meters above sea level. For the last seven years Jesse has been visiting this mountain pass on an annual base to monitor trends in exotic plants, such as the number of exotic species and their upper altitudinal limits. For this project he closely collaborates with Prof. Mark Robertson from the University of Pretoria (South Africa) and Dr Berndt Janse van Rensburg of the University of Queensland (Australia).
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[img_assist|nid=254|title=|desc=|link=popup|align=right|width=260|height=173]
December 2013 Fieldwork in Argentina
In the beginning of December, professor Meelis Pärtel and PhD student Riin Tamme had an opportunity to visit Argentina and its species-rich grasslands. They collaborated with Juan Jose Cantero (University of Rio Cuarto) and collected data about small-scale plant species richness and environmental conditions as a part of our workgroup's global study about community assembly patterns and heterogeneity-diversity relationship. See photos from the fieldwork.
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December 2013 Aveliina won the Young Conservationist Award 2013
[img_assist|nid=253|title=|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=260|height=173]
Estonian Fund for Nature nominated Aveliina with the Young Conservationist Award which is given to people who have outstanding achievements in Estonian nature conservation. Aveliina was awarded for her scientific and conservation work on improving the status and future prospects of Estonian semi-natural grassland habitats. See the press release and read more about the award (in Estonian).
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[img_assist|nid=252|title=Rainforest in French Guyana|desc=|link=popup|align=right|width=260|height=172]
November 2013 Expedition to French Guyana
Researcher Ülle Reier and Ph.D. student Kersti Riibak participated in an expedition to tropical French Guyana, organized by the Doctoral School of Earth Sciences and Ecology. Expedition took place from 14th October to 1st November, during that time, 16 doctoral students from different Estonian universities collected data for their research project. For Ülle, it was the third time to explore French Guyana. This time, she was one of the leaders of expedition. Kersti studied the epiphytic plants in the rainforest to compare the dispersal ability of spore and seed-producing plants.
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November 2013 New paper about community assembly during land use change
[img_assist|nid=250|title=Somewhere on the Machair (Photo: Richard Hewison)|desc=|link=popup|align=left|width=260|height=140]
Plant functional traits, particularly those that are tightly coupled to the environment provide useful functional indicators to patterns and processes driving ecological change. Rob Lewis’s recent paper, together with co-authors Rob Marrs (Liverpool University) and Robin Pakeman (The James Hutton Institute), utilises the link between selected plant functional traits to assess patterns of land use change and in turn shifts in community assembly processes of Scottish Machair grasslands. An introduction to Rob’s article and the unique dataset can be read on the Oikos Blog.
Lewis, R.J., Marrs, R.H., Pakeman, R.J. (2013) Inferring temporal shifts in landuse intensity from functional response traits and functional diversity patterns: a study of Scotland's machair grassland. Oikos.
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[img_assist|nid=251|title=Jonathan Bennett|desc=|link=none|align=right|width=260|height=195]
November 2013 Jonathan Bennett received the Canadian Graduate Student Research Prize
Jon, currently a researcher in the macroecology workgroup, was nominated for the Canadian Council of Univeristy Biology Chairs Graduate Student Research Prize. Jon received the award for his paper in Ecology Letters where he presented novel results about the lack of relationship between competition and phylogenetic relatedness of competing species. Congratulations Jon!
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November 2013 Macroecology workgroup autumn seminar
[img_assist|nid=249|title=Macroecology workgroup|desc=|link=popup|align=left|width=260|height=148]
This time the two-day seminar took place at Vaskna tourist farm in picturesque Võrumaa. All workgroup members presented new ideas and fresh results. The recurrent theme of the talks was dark diversity, covering taxonomic, functional and genetic levels. See photos from the seminar.
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October 2013 Does low shrub cover influences alvar grasslands species richness?
[img_assist|nid=227|title=Overgrown alvar grassland|desc=|link=popup|align=right|width=260|height=174]
Alvar grasslands (rare and species-rich type of calcareous grasslands) in Estonia are increasingly being abandoned and overgrown by pine and juniper. Several studies have shown that a shrub cover of more than 70% rapidly decreases species richness, but little is known about how a low shrub cover (up to 30%) influences environmental conditions and species richness in alvar grasslands. We found that low shrub cover increased the richness of total and generalist species by increasing available light heterogeneity, whereas alvar characteristic species were not influenced by low shrub cover. This suggests that it is important to consider species' habitat preferences when estimating the effects of shrub cover on species richness. In addition, the results indicate that low shrub cover of up to 30% is desirable in terms of maximizing grassland diversity.
Kasari, L., Gazol, A., Kalwij, J.M., Helm, A. (2013) Low shrub cover in alvar grasslands increases small-scale diversity by promoting the occurrence of generalist species. Tuexenia 33, 293-308.
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October 2013 Goodbye Antonio
[img_assist|nid=67|title=Antonio Gazol|desc=|link=popup|align=left|width=200|height=206]
Antonio Gazol spent three years in our working group as a post-doctoral researcher. He has now finished his successful stay and returned to home in Spain. During his post-doc, Antonio worked mainly on environmental heterogeneity and landscape history topics but also participated in many other fields of research in our university and in collaboration with researchers from Spain and China. He published 9 papers and there are several more in preparation! Antonio, we wish you all the best and hope to see you again soon.
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[img_assist|nid=226|title=How many species from the species pool are present?|desc=|link=popup|align=right|width=200|height=194]
October 2013 Dark Diversity takes a step forward
In a special issue of Folia Geobotanica, Meelis Pärtel, together with Robert and Martin Zobel from the Plant Ecology Lab, expand on their article on Dark Diversity to introduce the concept of Community Completeness. Completeness is a metric that reveals how much of the species pool is actually present in a given community. This metric is far more insightful than concentrating only on those species present, especially when comparing biodiversity among different ecosystems.
Pärtel, M., Szava-Kovats, R., Zobel, M. (2013) Community completeness: linking local and dark diversity within the species pool concept. Folia Geobotanica.
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October 2013 Welcome Jon
[img_assist|nid=222|title=Jon Bennett|desc=|link=popup|align=left|width=260|height=213]
We are pleased to welcome Jon Bennett to the macroecology workgroup. Jon recently completed his PhD at the University of Alberta, Canada. His research focused on grassland plant community assembly, investigating the role of evolutionary history, environmental heterogeneity, competition and pollination. Jon will stay until the end of 2013, working with Meelis and Aveliina on a project aimed at detecting extinct species using environmental DNA.
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October 2013 Open landscapes conference in Germany
At the beginning of October, workgroup members Aveliina and Nele participated in conference "Open landscapes 2013 - Ecology, Management and Nature Conservation", held in Germany, Hildesheim. Conference focused on the conservation and restoration of natural and semi-natural open habitats, and keynote speakers included noted scientists on the topic: Paul Keddy, Osvaldo Sala, Roland Bobbink, Michael Kleyer and Iris Möller. Aveliina made an oral presentation "Extinction debt and invasion of generalist species in European dry grasslands" and Nele made a poster presentation "The effect of different mowing regimes on the species richness and coverage of vascular plants and bryphytes". Conference excursions led to famous semi-natural habitats in Germany, including beautiful Lüneburg Heath.
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[img_assist|nid=220|title=Marge Thetloff|desc=|link=popup|align=right|width=260|height=173]
September 2013 Welcome Marge
Marge Thetloff started her PhD studies this September working on population and landscape genetics. She is supervised by Tsipe Aavik. Welcome to our working group, Marge!
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September 2013 Relocating orchids in Northern Estonia
[img_assist|nid=229|title=Relocating soil pod|desc=|link=popup|align=left|width=260|height=173]
Aveliina and Liis participated in large orchid relocation project in Northern Estonia. Altogether 5 species and more than 400 individuals of grassland and forest orchids were transplanted from possibly threatened habitat to new location. Work was carried out by relocating large soil-pods of 1 and 4 square meters, with an aim to translocate local species pool and mycoflora as much as possible. Scientific monitoring of the results will continue for next 10 years. See also a small TV-clip (in Estonian) about the activities. Work was carried out by the spin-off company of University of Tartu and Macroecology workgroup, Loodusseeme Ltd.
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August 2013 Goodbye Jesse
[img_assist|nid=82|title=Jesse Kalwij|desc=|link=popup|align=left|width=150|height=156]
Jesse Kalwij spent four years in our working group as a senior researcher focusing on global macroecological questions. During his time here, he also collaborated with the Plant Ecology Lab and workgroups from abroad, working on many different fields of ecology. Now he will be looking for new challenges and we wish him all the best!
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August 2013 Fieldwork in Saaremaa and Muhu[img_assist|nid=216|title=It was hot|desc=|link=popup|align=right|width=260|height=173]
Doctoral students Riin, Liis, Kersti, Marge and Krista spent the first half of August on the alvars of Saaremaa and Muhu, examining the state of our permanent transects marked three years ago and also gathering biomass and environmental heterogeneity data. Altogether they determined 350 m of plants, gathered 640 biomass samples and experienced the life in an orthodox monastery. To speed up their process (or not) they had two rental cars nicknamed “Little Sick Jet Mouse” and “Jam Shelf” (referencing the sound made by the small airplane An-2). See photos from their time on the field.
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July 2013 New paper about predicting seed dispersal distances
[img_assist|nid=228|title=Webpage for dispeRsal function|desc=|link=url|url=http://www.botany.ut.ee/dispersal/|align=left|width=260|height=173]
Information about plant species dispersal distances is important for many fields in ecology (e.g. meta-population studies in fragmented landscapes, species distribution patterns following climate change). Unfortunately dispersal distance data is scarce and difficult to obtain. We collected the available data to a global dataset of maximum dispersal distances for 576 plant species, and tested the possibility to predict seed dispersal distances from simple plant traits. We found it is feasible to estimate dispersal distances when only data on dispersal syndrome and plant growth form are available. We also provide a function dispeRsal to be run in R, which enables researchers to estimate dispersal distances for their own sets of species. The R function and instructions (and future updates) are available in the dispeRsal website.
Tamme, R., Götzenberger, L., Zobel, M., Bullock, J.M., Hooftman, D.A.P., Kaasik, A., Pärtel, M. (ilmumas) Predicting species' maximum dispersal distances from simple plant traits. Ecology.
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June 2013 IAVS in Tartu
[img_assist|nid=213|title=Pre-symposium excursion to Western Estonia (Viita alvar grassland)|desc=|link=popup|align=left|width=260|height=173]
This year, the 56th Annual Symposium of the International Association for Vegetation Science was hosted by the University of Tartu. Altogether over 450 delegates from 41 countries participated and all of the members of our working group presented posters or talks. The list of keynote speakers was especially remarkable – including David Tilman, Hans de Kroon, Meelis Pärtel and others. Five days of the conference were filled with great talks and discussions, and we were happy to see old friends and collaborators and make a lot of new friends. The pre-symposium excursion to Western Estonia and Islands organized by Aveliina (with the help of Krista and Liis) was also extremely fun and successful. The conference itself was held on 26-30th June but pre- and post-symposium excursions gave visitors the opportunity to enjoy Estonian summer from 20th June to 6th July.
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[img_assist|nid=214|title=This is how it starts|desc=|link=popup|align=right|width=260|height=195]
June 2013 Field work in Canada
For several years, our working group has sampled species-rich grasslands around the world to study the global patterns of small-scale community assembly and heterogeneity-diversity relationship. We have already collected data from Estonia, Spain, Iceland, Australia, Mongolia and this summer, researchers Jodi Price (from Australia) and Antonio Gazol as well as PhD student Riin Tamme flew to Canada to sample the famous prairies. They collaborated with Prof. James Cahill and his PhD student Gisela Stotz from University of Alberta in Edmonton. Altogether they determined species composition and measured environmental conditions in 600 small quadrats despite the heat, rain and tornado warning. See photos from the fieldwork.
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June 2013 Visiting PhD student from Spain
[img_assist|nid=224|title=Guillem Bagaria|desc=|link=popup|align=left|width=130|height=195]
Guillem Bagario Marató, a PhD student at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and Centre for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications (CREAF) visited our working group from April until end of June. Guillem is interested in landscape ecology and in Tartu he worked with Meelis and Aveliina to study the extinction dept in Mediterranean grasslands. He also had time to visit beautiful places in Estonia, participate in the IAVS conference with an oral presentation and bake empanadas.
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[img_assist|nid=211|title=Briza media|desc=|link=popup|align=right|width=174|height=261]
June 2013 Common plant species are also affected by landscape fragmentation
Briza media is a widespread and frequent plant in Estonian meadows and probably the only grass that also non-botanists recognize. Despite its commonness, the area loss and fragmentation of grasslands in Estonia has left its mark also on this beautiful plant’s populations. Measuring traits of Briza media on alvar grasslands in Saaremaa and Muhu showed that the decreased genetic diversity, caused by the landscape changes, already affects the reproductive success of even this common plant. At the same time, plant height and germination are still related to the historical landscape configuration, indicating that populations are still adapting to the landscape changes and that the final consequences of fragmentation on Briza media populations are still unknown.
Takkis, K, Pärtel, M, Saar, L & Helm, A (2013) Extinction debt in a common grassland species: immediate and delayed responses of plant and population fitness. Plant Ecology 214: 953–963, DOI 10.1007/s11258-013-0221-y
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May 2013 Conference for PhD students
The 2nd Conference of Doctoral School of Earth Sciences and Ecology "Down to Earth" was held at the Tallinn university on 16-17th May. Our students Argo, Liis and Kersti participated in this international students' conference and presented their fresh scientific results to a wide audience.
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May 2013 Plant Population Biology Conference in Tartu
The 26th Conference of the Plant Population Biology Section of the GfÖ was held at the University of Tartu in Estonia on 9–11th May. From our working group, PhD students Krista and Riin gave talks, Liina and Liis presented posters, and almost all of us participated in this great conference. Three days were filled with exciting talks and scientific discussions in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere. Thank you to all the organisers!
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May 2013 Publication on limiting similarity - an Editor's Choice in Oikos
[img_assist|nid=209|title=Editor's Choice|desc=|link=popup|align=left|width=130|height=107]
The May issue of Oikos showcases a publication by Jodi Price and Meelis Pärtel as an Editor's Choice article (see also Oikos Blog). In this paper, Jodi and Meelis use meta-analysis of experimental studies to test the role of limiting similarity in biotic resistance. The Editor's Choice articles are selected as ones of particular interest or high quality and are freely accessible online for three months.
Price, JN and Pärtel, M (2013) Can limiting similarity increase invasion resistance? A meta-analysis of experimental studies. Oikos 122, 649-656.
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April 2013 Local-regional richness patterns – what we thought we knew
The general consensus in the ecological community for many years has been that evidence for species saturation is sparse. Robert Szava-Kovats together with Argo and Meelis recently published an article in Ecology presenting a re-analysis of local-regional richness relationships for dozens of published datasets using the model published last year in Oikos. The results of this re-analysis overturn this consensus. Saturation patterns are at least as common as non-saturation patterns. No less interesting (and perhaps disquieting) is that almost one third of the datasets produce no discernable pattern. It turns out local-regional richness relationships are far more diverse than has been widely believed.
Szava-Kovats, R., Ronk, A., Pärtel, M. (in press) Pattern without bias: local-regional richness relationship revisited. Ecology.
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April 2013 Macroecology workgroup meeting
[img_assist|nid=205|title=Macroecology workgroup, spring 2013|desc=|link=popup|align=left|width=260|height=195]
Our macroecology workgroup spring seminar was held on 3-4th of April in Torupillitalu, Viljandimaa. Two days were filled with cool presentations, cutting-edge science and exchange of good ideas.
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March 2013 Goodbye Inga[img_assist|nid=81|title=Inga Hiiesalu|desc=|link=popup|align=right|width=154|height=174]
After successfully finishing her PhD studies on plant below-ground diversity topic, Inga starts her post-doc in Czech Republic. She will work with Jitka Klimešova and other researchers at the Institute of Botany of the Academy of Science in Třeboň. Inga continues to study the hidden part of plant communities - roots and microorganisms below-ground. We wish her good luck in her future studies and hope she will visit us soon!
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March 2013 Goodbye Jodi
[img_assist|nid=206|title=Jodi Price|desc=|link=popup|align=left|width=260|height=174]
Jodi Price, a post-doctoral researcher in our working group for three years, left Estonia and started a new position as a research associate at the University of Western Australia. During her post-doc, Jodi published 13 papers and many more future publications from her work here are in preparation! In Australia, she will continue examining community assembly processes but this time in relation to restoration ecology at the Ecosystem Restoration & Intervention Ecology lab led by prof. Richard Hobbs. We are sad to say goodbye to Jodi, but we know she will be happy being back in Australia. We wish you all the best, Jodi, and hope to see you soon!
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[img_assist|nid=203|title=Rob Lewis|desc=|link=popup|align=right|width=130|height=174]
March 2013 New member in our working group
We are very happy to welcome postdoctoral candidate Rob Lewis to our working group. He finished his PhD at the University of Liverpool in 2012 studying the changes in plant community composition and functional traits during land use and climate change at different temporal and spatial scales. Rob will stay with us at least until August but we hope to have him for much longer.
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March 2013 Estonian alvar grasslands are disappearing
[img_assist|nid=204|title=Alvar grassland in Muhu island - typical sight in rapidly overgrowing valuable alvar habitat in Estonia|desc=|link=popup|align=left|width=260|height=195]
Members of macroecology workgroup together with other alvar grassland specialists and nature conservation societies in Estonia made already second official complaint to our environmental minister regarding the extremely bad condition of alvar grasslands in Estonia. Most of Estonian alvar grasslands are heavily overgrown and we estimate that without large-scale restoration this habitat type will disappear from Estonian landscapes within next 5 years. We are very concerned about to the lack of interest and activities by the Estonian Ministry of the Environment regarding the improvment of condition of this priority habitat type. Currently, less than 2000 hectares of alvar grasslands are suitably managed, while remaining 8000 hectares have almost perished during past 10 years. Find the complaint letter and related press release (in Estonian). We also had some media coverage (also in Estonian) by Estonian Public Broadcasting, Estonian Radio and some newspapers such as Saarte Hääl and Maaleht.
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March 2013 Annual Meeting of the Specialist Group on Macroecology of the GfÖ
PhD student Riin Tamme represented our working group at the 7th Annual Meeting of the Specialist Group on Macroecology of the GfÖ in Göttingen, Germany. In spite of cancelled and delayed flights, Riin arrived to the meeting in time for her talk about the global patterns in heterogeneity-diversity relationship. She also had the chance to listen to great talks on macroecology topic, exchange ideas with fellow macroecologists and establish contacts for future collaboration. Riin was funded by the Doctoral School of Earth Sciences and Ecology.
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March 2013 New paper about a negative heterogeneity-diversity relationship
[img_assist|nid=207|title=Experiment - before and after|desc=|link=popup|align=left|width=260|height=315]
Antonio Gazol, together with Riin, Jodi, Inga, Lauri and Meelis, published a new paper in Oecologia. This is the first publication coming from a greenhouse experiment conducted two years ago. In the experiment, coexisting grassland species were subjected to five different treatments combining a gradient of soil fertility (low, medium or high) and resource heterogeneity (large or small patches in a chessboard pattern). In this paper they show how small-scale soil resource heterogeneity lowers plant species diversity, by altering competitive interactions among coexisting species. When high fertility patches are close to each other (i.e. small-scale heterogeneity treatment), larger plants can forage among the patches increasing biomass and competition for above- and below-ground resources. See photos from the days spent in the greenhouse.
Gazol, A., Tamme, R., Price, J.N., Hiiesalu, I., Laanisto, L., Pärtel, M. (2013) A negative heterogeneity–diversity relationship found in experimental grassland communities. Oecologia 10.1007/s00442-013-2623-x
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February-March 2013 Visitors from Czech Republic
Researcher Francesco de Bello together with post-doctoral researcher Ondřej Mudrák from the University of South Bohemia in Czech Republic spent two weeks in Estonia visiting our working group. They worked with Meelis and Jodi to shed some light on dark diversity and community assembly patterns in Saaremaa, as well as enjoyed Estonian wintery delights (skiing and sauna).
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[img_assist|nid=202|title=Where is the highest biodiversity?|desc=|link=popup|align=right|width=260|height=132]
February 2013 BGSIMweb – fun way to learn biogeography
BGSIMweb is a web-based simulation of biogeography programmed by prof. Meelis Pärtel. It allows to create islands and continents, change species traits and to follow changes in biodiversity in ecological and evolutionary time-scales. BGSIMweb is aimed for students to help to understand biogeographical processes.
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February 2013 We joined the Nutrient Network
Nutrient Network is a global project with an aim to collect data from grasslands all over the world following a unified sampling protocol. Last year, Meelis and Aveliina sampled two sites in Estonia and our working group is now the latest member of the network. We are very happy to be part of this great project and look forward to collaborate with other members in the future.
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February 2013 Visiting PhD student from Czech Republic
[img_assist|nid=196|title=Petr during fieldworks in alvar grassland|desc=|link=popup|align=left|width=260|height=195]
Petr Blažek from University of South-Bohemia spent a semester (June 2012 – February 2013) in our working group. He is from the Department of Botany in České Budějovice, our longtime collaborator. In Estonia, Petr studied the effect of environmental and landscape parameters on the genetic diversity of Rhinanthus species.
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[img_assist|nid=194|title=Tsipe Aavik|desc=|link=popup|align=right|width=260|height=195]
January 2013 New researcher in macroecology workgroup!
Tsipe Aavik (previously from Plant Ecology lab) has joined our workgroup. Tsipe has spent last two years in Switzerland as a post-doctoral researcher, where she studied the genetic diversity of grassland species. Now her post-doc is ending and new exciting research questions in landscape genetics await in macroecology workgroup. Welcome, Tsipe!
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January 2013 Fieldwork in Africa
[img_assist|nid=208|title=Hypericum pseudohenryi - an emerging alien invader in the Sani Pass area|desc=|link=popup|align=left|width=260|height=173]
January is the perfect month to conduct fieldwork in the southern hemisphere, for example in Sani Pass. This study area is a mountain pass located in the Drakensberg on the border of South Africa and Lesotho ranging from 1500-2874 meters above sea level. For the last seven years Jesse has been visiting this mountain pass on an annual base to monitor trends in exotic plants, such as the number of exotic species and their upper altitudinal limits. For this project he closely collaborates with Prof. Mark Robertson from the University of Pretoria (South Africa) and Dr Berndt Janse van Rensburg of the University of Queensland (Australia).
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