Revisiting Ritchie et al. 1998

In a paper published in Ecology in 1998, Mark Ritchie, David Tilman and Johannes Knops reported the results of their 7-year long field experiment to examine the effects of herbivores on nitrogen cycling in a nitrogen-limited oak savanna. The results of their study suggested that herbivores, by reducing the abundance of plants with ntirogen-rich tissues, …

Revisiting Silvertown et al. 1993

In a paper published in the Journal of Ecology in 1993, Jonathan Silvertown, Miguel Franco, Irene Pisanty, and Ana Mendoza analysed elasticities of matrix projection models to quantify the contribution of different life cycle components to population increase rates of 45 herbs and 21 woody species. They found that herbs differed significantly from woody plants …

Revisiting Likens et al. 1970

In a study published in Ecological Monographs in 1970, Gene Likens, F. Herbert Bormann, Noye Johnson, Don Fisher and Robert Pierce compared nutrient budgets between a control forested catchment and a catchment that was deforested and regrowth prevented for two years through the application of herbicide. Likens and colleagues demonstrated that this manipulation caused changes …

Revisiting Ostrom & Nagendra 2006

In a paper published in PNAS in 2006, Elinor Ostrom and Harini Nagendra synthesized the findings of a long-term research program aimed at understanding how institutional factors affect forests managed under different kinds of tenure. Bringing together satellite images, socio-ecological studies in the field, and laboratory experiments of human behaviour, Ostrom and Nagendra showed that …

Revisiting Kessler & Baldwin 2001

In a study published in Science in 2001, Andre Kessler and Ian Baldwin quantified and characterised the volatiles emitted by Nicotiana attenuata when attacked by herbivores and mimicked their release to see if they reduced herbivory by attracting egg predators inhibiting herbivore oviposition. Their results suggested that release of volatiles could reduce presence of herbivores …

Revisiting Nosil et al. 2002

In a paper published in Nature in 2002, Patrik Nosil, Bernard Crespi and Cristina Sandoval showed, using a combination of morphological measurements and mate choice experiments, that parallel evolution of sexual isolation in the walking-stick insect, Timema cristinae, was promoted by divergent selection for host adaptation, suggesting that such adaptation could play an important role …

Revisiting Soule 1985

In a paper published in Bioscience in 1985, Michael Soule laid out his vision for a new discipline called Conservation Biology to "provide principles and tools for preserving biological diversity". Soule envisioned Conservation Biology as a "crisis discipline" in which "one must act before knowing all the facts", using a "mixture of science and art", …

Revisiting Peterson et al. 1999

In a paper published in Science in 1999, A. Townsend Peterson, Jorge Soberón and Víctor Sánchez-Cordero presented strong evidence for niche conservatism in 37 sister taxon pairs of mammals, birds and butterflies on either side of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Mexico. These results suggested that speciation initally took place along geographic dimensions and ecological …

Revisiting Gavrilets 2000

In the late 1990s, mounting experimental evidence for rapid evolution of traits related to fertilisation seemed paradoxical given that matching of male and female traits is required for successful reproduction In a paper published in Nature in 2000, Sergey Gavrilets showed, through a simple mode, that continual change is expected in such traits whenever females …

Revisiting Stachowicz et al. 1999

In a paper published in Science in 1999, Jay Stachowicz, Robert Whitlach and Richard Osman showed, using experimental communities of sessile marine invertebrates that invasion success was lower in more species rich communities. The like reason for this pattern was that space, which was the limiting resource in the system, was more fully and efficiently …