Concepts

The decomposition and fragmentation of dead organic matter by organisms, particularly the conversion of coarse to fine particulate organic matter

Variation in interspecific interactions across time periods over which organisms co-occur that leads to flexible network structure

Changes in network composition between treatments, partitioned into species turnover versus interaction rewiring components

Plant characteristics that reflect ecological strategies, including specific leaf area and leaf dry matter content

The network of feeding relationships among organisms in an ecosystem

Movement of seeds away from parent plants through various mechanisms including wind, animals, and gravity

Predicts that species interactions should disappear at the stressful end of environmental gradients where abiotic conditions constrain species ranges

The extent to which fungal symbionts colonize plant tissues, measured as percentage of tissue colonized

Experimental removal of the most abundant plant species to test effects of species loss on community structure and function

Theory providing mass-metabolism scaling rules that relate metabolic rate to organism mass through allometric relationships

Approach using organism functional traits to understand ecological patterns and predict responses to environmental change

Species with greater primary production exert the main controls for the functioning of ecosystems due to greater aboveground abundance of biomass or leaf area that promotes resource uptake

Underground ecosystem components crucial for sustaining ecosystem function but often remain unseen