Open research questions in Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies

What the literature leaves open

• New approaches to ensure protected areas retain trained staff and critical funds for effective performance and future growth should be examined. Major efforts are needed to assess taxonomic groups or species that have not been assessed to determine their conservation status including crop genetic diversity and animal genetic resources and their conservation. They also lack qualified staff and training programs for specialists and technicians, in addition to lacking information technology systems and databases for the management of biosystematics data. On the ground there is limited evidence of its effectiveness in guiding development and planning. The performance of protected areas in maintaining populations of their key species is poorly documented.

  The role of non-native plants in shaping biodiversity and ecosystem · 2026 · DOI

• Soil organic matter content varies widely (~1-50%) but increases sharply on basal slopes, loosening the soils and allowing substantial water storage (10.

  Geoecological significance and feeding habits of the mountain pocket gopher (Thomomys monticola) on Lassen Peak, an active volcano in the southern Cascade Mountains (California, USA) · 2026 · DOI

• Introduction Seasonality and anthropogenic disturbance are key drivers of avian community structure in tropical savannah ecosystems, yet their effects on taxonomic and functional diversity across protected and unprotected landscapes remain insufficiently understood, especially in Nigeria.

  Seasonal variation, habitat protection, and disturbance influence bird assemblages in a tropical Guinea savannah · 2026 · DOI

• The effects of habitat transformation on dung beetles in seasonally dry tropical forests (SDTF) have been poorly explored, with a few studies analyzing the effects of native habitat conversion into bovine and caprine livestock (Liberal et al.

  Effect of land use transformation on dung beetle (Coleoptera: Scarabaeinae) taxonomic diversity in a forested-matrix landscape of Yucatan, Mexico · 2026 · DOI

• Abstract Premise The differentiation of native populations at regional scales may limit evolutionary inferences derived from comparisons between native and non‐native populations in common gardens, but little is known about how native populations of invasive species vary along environmental gradients at a regional scale.

  Strong differentiation between ancestral populations from low and high elevation: Implications for invasion biology · 2026 · DOI

• While the paper recommends maintaining RLs and APPs surrounding Emas National Park, it provides no quantitative analysis of the minimum landscape composition (percentage native vegetation) or patch size thresholds necessary to sustain viable populations of extinction-threatened mammal species in sugarcane-dominated agricultural matrices.

  Effects of habitat fragmentation on species richness and community composition of medium- and large-sized mammals in sugarcane-dominated Cerrado landscapes, southwestern Goiás, Brazil · 2026 · DOI

• The study documents effects of habitat fragmentation on community composition of medium- and large-sized mammals but lacks temporal replication data showing whether fragmentation effects on species richness and composition remain stable or change across the six-year monitoring period (2013-2019), limiting inference about long-term population persistence in fragmented sugarcane landscapes.

  Effects of habitat fragmentation on species richness and community composition of medium- and large-sized mammals in sugarcane-dominated Cerrado landscapes, southwestern Goiás, Brazil · 2026 · DOI

• The camera trap sampling design was applied across seven landscapes in two municipalities between 2013-2019, but the paper does not specify whether sampling effort was standardized across all fragments, what the detection probability curves were for different mammal body sizes, or how camera placement bias may have affected species richness estimates in edge versus interior habitat patches.

  Effects of habitat fragmentation on species richness and community composition of medium- and large-sized mammals in sugarcane-dominated Cerrado landscapes, southwestern Goiás, Brazil · 2026 · DOI

• The study identified habitat corridors connecting Legal Reserves (RLs) and Permanent Preservation Areas (APPs) as critical for mammal species conservation in sugarcane-dominated landscapes, but provides no empirical data on minimum corridor width, connectivity threshold distances, or species-specific passage rates required to maintain gene flow and prevent local extinctions of threatened medium- and large-sized mammals in the Cerrado.

  Effects of habitat fragmentation on species richness and community composition of medium- and large-sized mammals in sugarcane-dominated Cerrado landscapes, southwestern Goiás, Brazil · 2026 · DOI

• The paper emphasizes that evolutionary history shapes plant physiological responses to grazing and predicts grassland responses to future climate and land-use change, but provides no comparative analysis of how the evolutionary divergence between chloridoid and panicoid lineages (in anatomical traits, rooting depth, phenology) determines their physiological plasticity to bison-created micro-site conditions under different precipitation regimes.

  Bison grazing increases grass foliar nutrients and drought tolerance at fine spatial scales · 2026 · DOI

• The study examines grazing-drought relationships at fine spatial scales within a single grassland type (tallgrass prairie at Konza), but does not test whether the observed patterns of grass foliar nutrient enhancement and drought tolerance under bison grazing generalize across the broad environmental gradients (precipitation, soil type, grass phylogenetic composition) where dry-adapted chloridoid and mesic-adapted panicoid species co-occur.

  Bison grazing increases grass foliar nutrients and drought tolerance at fine spatial scales · 2026 · DOI

• The authors propose that spatial patchiness of bison activity drives grassland resilience through physiological plasticity but do not experimentally isolate or quantify how specific bison behaviors (wallows, selective defoliation, nutrient redistribution) individually contribute to fine-scale nutrient heterogeneity and grass drought tolerance responses. Manipulative experiments recreating bison-induced disturbance patterns independently would be needed to establish causal mechanisms.

  Bison grazing increases grass foliar nutrients and drought tolerance at fine spatial scales · 2026 · DOI

• The study demonstrates that chloridoid grass species exhibit greater physiological responsiveness to micro-site heterogeneity created by bison grazing than panicoid species, but the mechanistic basis of this differential plasticity in response to bison-induced soil patchiness remains unexplored. Future work should directly compare the physiological trait expression (turgor loss point, water-use efficiency, nutrient uptake capacity) of chloridoid versus panicoid species across the spatial scales of bison wallow creation and selective defoliation patterns.

  Bison grazing increases grass foliar nutrients and drought tolerance at fine spatial scales · 2026 · DOI

• The interactive effects of N and CO2 on species composition and asynchrony warrant further investigation, as current analysis shows these interactions may be indirect and require deeper exploration.

  Elevated <scp> CO ₂ </scp> and N Gradually Weaken the Influence of Diversity on Ecosystem Stability · 2025 · DOI

• The hypothesis that high productivity in diverse plots under elevated CO2 and N makes plants more susceptible to water limitation requires empirical testing.

  Elevated <scp> CO ₂ </scp> and N Gradually Weaken the Influence of Diversity on Ecosystem Stability · 2025 · DOI

• The Holt et al. (1994) model examines the trade-off between resource competition and herbivory for two species competing for a single resource, but the multispecies system studied here is more complex and represents a testable hypothesis extension of the model.

  Trade-offs between deer herbivory and nitrogen competition alter grassland forb composition · 2024 · DOI

• Although the reported herbivory defenses of A. ludoviciana and strong N competitive ability of S. rigida are consistent with a trade-off between N competitive ability and resistance to deer herbivory, the underlying mechanism driving the changes in these species' abundances cannot be stated with certainty.

  Trade-offs between deer herbivory and nitrogen competition alter grassland forb composition · 2024 · DOI

• However, the size and spatial distribution of NPP across global grasslands remain unclear, especially for belowground NPP (BNPP), which limits our understanding of above‐ and belowground carbon cycling and the assessments of herbivore food security.

  Field‐Based Estimation of Net Primary Productivity and Its Above‐ and Belowground Partitioning in Global Grasslands · 2021 · DOI

• While findings are limited in their generalizability due to lack of replication among disturbances, they do suggest that the current limitations of standard disturbance detection methods—such as optical‐based remote sensing platforms, which are often above‐canopy perspectives—limit our ability to understand the full ecological and structural impacts of disturbance, and to evaluate the consistency of structural patterns within and among disturbance agents.

  Application of multidimensional structural characterization to detect and describe moderate forest disturbance · 2020 · DOI

• However, approximately 30 years of matrix regeneration were insufficient for functional diversity to recover to the same levels as in continuous forest.

  The Road to Functional Recovery: Temporal Effects of Matrix Regeneration on Amazonian Bats · 2018 · DOI

• The conservation of the Magnoliaceae family is considered a priority worldwide, especially in Colombia, where all of its 36 species are seriously endangered while frustratingly little is known about their ecology.

  Habitat and conservation status of molinillo ( <i>Magnolia sambuensis</i> ) and laurel arenillo ( <i>Magnolia katiorum</i> ), two endangered species from the lowland, Colombia · 2016 · DOI

• While in most parts of Australia the area of land devoted to nature conservation has been increasing rapidly, little is known about such basic questions as the minimum area needed to maintain native communities in at least part of a reserve, or even the effects of intensive land use in surrounding areas on directly unmodified native vegetation.

  Plant invasion and extinction in a suburban coastal reserve · 1974 · DOI

• Meanwhile, distance-based dimen- sions alone in inter-community analysis were insufficient to fully explain PBD variation.

  Integrating phylogenetic community structure and phylogenetic beta diversity to infer community formation in Pinus rigida plantations · 2026 · DOI

• 1977), all of which were lacking in or near the preserve. Both species prefer mature hardwood forests, which was lacking in the preserve.

  OP-393- Mammals of Hazeldell Meadow State Nature Preserve: A Threatened Highland Rim Ecosystem, Pulaski County, Kentucky · 2026 · DOI

• Grassland sites were concentrated mainly in Europe and North America and did not fully capture the most arid grasslands, whereas Asian grasslands, tropical grasslands, dry tropical forests and Southern Hemisphere systems were sparsely represented or absent.

  Biodiversity effects under climate extremes intensify with aridity in grasslands but not forests · 2026 · DOI

Most-cited papers in Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies

• Choosing and using diversity indices: insights for ecological applications from the German Biodiversity Exploratories · Ecology and Evolution · 2014 · 912 citations
• Functional traits, the phylogeny of function, and ecosystem service vulnerability · Ecology and Evolution · 2013 · 547 citations
• Does functional redundancy affect ecological stability and resilience? A review and meta‐analysis · Ecosphere · 2020 · 542 citations
• Urban biodiversity: patterns and mechanisms · Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2011 · 475 citations
• Quantifying the Contribution of Organisms to the Provision of Ecosystem Services · BioScience · 2009 · 307 citations
• Don't let spurious accusations of pseudoreplication limit our ability to learn from natural experiments (and other messy kinds of ecological monitoring) · Ecology and Evolution · 2015 · 277 citations
• Meta‐analysis reveals evolution in invasive plant species but little support for Evolution of Increased Competitive Ability (<scp>EICA</scp>) · Ecology and Evolution · 2013 · 185 citations
• Abundance decline in the avifauna of the European Union reveals cross‐continental similarities in biodiversity change · Ecology and Evolution · 2021 · 175 citations
• The Atlantic Forest of South America: Spatiotemporal dynamics of the vegetation and implications for conservation · Biological Conservation · 2024 · 171 citations
• Regional-scale land-cover change during the 20th century and its consequences for biodiversity · AMBIO · 2015 · 143 citations

Most recent work

• Arctic defaunation initiated a cascade of mammal-plant interaction shifts through dispersal dynamics · bioRxiv · 2026
• MultiTroph: Multi-trophic interactions in a forest biodiversity experiment in China · Research Ideas and Outcomes · 2026
• Landscape quality drives ecological responses to habitat loss and fragmentation · Nature Ecology & Evolution · 2026
• Effects of habitat fragmentation on species richness and community composition of medium- and large-sized mammals in sugarcane-dominated Cerrado landscapes, southwestern Goiás, Brazil · Frontiers in Conservation Science · 2026
• Holistic Species Delimitation Supports Recognition of Multiple Lineages in the Gila robusta Complex of the American Southwest · Ichthyology & Herpetology · 2026
• The size of tropical vegetation gross primary production · Nature · 2026
• Bison grazing increases grass foliar nutrients and drought tolerance at fine spatial scales · Plant and Soil · 2026
• Strong differentiation between ancestral populations from low and high elevation: Implications for invasion biology · American Journal of Botany · 2026
• Phytosociological Structure of Shrub Vegetation in Eturnagaram Wildlife Sanctuary, Telangana, India · Journal of Advances in Biology & Biotechnology · 2026
• Characterization of grassland and shrubland patches on post-mining Mediterranean slopes and the adjacent forest: soil, vegetation, and topography data · Annals of Forest Science · 2026

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