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p strongIntroduces key terms, quantitative and qualitative research, debates, and histories for Environmental and Nature Studies/strong Understandings of \"nature\" have expanded and changed, but the word has not lost importance at any level of discourse: it continues to hold a key place in conversations surrounding thought, ethics, and aesthetics. Nowhere is this more evident than in the interdisciplinary field of environmental studies. em Keywords for Environmental Studies/em analyzes the central terms and debates currently structuring the most exciting research in and across environmental studies, including the environmental humanities, environmental social sciences, sustainability sciences, and the sciences of nature. Sixty essays from humanists, social scientists, and scientists, each written about a single term, reveal the broad range of quantitative and qualitative approaches critical to the state of the field today. From \"ecotourism\" to \"ecoterrorism,\" from \"genome\" to \"species,\" this accessible volume illustrates the ways in which scholars are collaborating across disciplinary boundaries to reach shared understandings of key issues-such as extreme weather events or increasing global environmental inequities-in order to facilitate the pursuit of broad collective goals and actions. This book underscores the crucial realization that every discipline has a stake in the central environmental questions of our time, and that interdisciplinary conversations not only enhance, but are requisite to environmental studies today. Visit emkeywords.nyupress.org/em for online essays, teaching resources, and more./p

The nutrient status was studied in permanent plots of four plant communities, two rich-fen communities and two wooded grassland communities, all formerly used for hay-making. The concentrations of N, P and K in plant material of dominant and subdominant species (above-and below-ground) were measured in plots experimentally scythed annually or biennially for two decades, and in plots unscythed for four decades. Three of the communities had an N:P ratio of 14 or less, indicating N-limitation: the most fertile grassland community had particularly low values for the N:P ratio (6-12), as did a majority of the species, including all tall-herb species. A species-rich community of fen-margin vegetation in the lowest productive rich fen, had an N:P ratio of 17-19 in the above-ground biomass, which indicates P-limitation of nutrients. Molinia caerulea and Thalictrum alpinum were found to be the vascular plants with the highest N:P ratio, indicating P-limitation of nutrients. Calculations of N:K and K:P ratios indicated possible K-limitation in the rich-fen communities, especially for Thalictrum alpinum, the species with the highest N:K value. No expected change from N- to P-limited growth was found; in contrast, a reduction in the N:P ratio was found in the annually scythed plots of the rich fens, suggesting that reduced biomass production is mainly a result of disturbance by scything. As expected, a reduction in the concentration of K was detected in the scythed plots.

Seed dispersal research has expanded significantly over time, leading to a proliferation of terms relating to dispersal modes that has resulted in terminological confusion. This viewpoint identifies the primary concerns in this regard: synonymy (multiple terms used for the same mode) and polysemy (the same term used for distinctly different modes). Such inconsistencies hinder conceptual clarity, impede literature syntheses, and obstruct the practical application of seed dispersal ecology. To address these challenges, we propose two complementary pathways. First, we suggest organizing a world cafe to foster consensus‐building among researchers engaging with seed dispersal ecology. Second, we introduce the Diaspore‐Vector‐Review (DVR) framework as a decision‐support tool to prioritize nomenclature for non‐overlapping dispersal mechanisms rather than agent‐centric definitions of dispersal modes. By refining the branching of subclasses from classical modes into a coherent, hierarchical classification system, we can ensure greater scientific rigor and real‐world impact of seed dispersal research. Ambiguity and redundancy in seed dispersal modes hinder ecological research and its applications. This viewpoint argues for the need for systematic simplification by proposing a framework for decluttering terminology and preparing a standardized hierarchical classification to resolve inconsistencies and enhance understanding of seed dispersal ecology.

Aims Vegetation classification consistent with the Braun‐Blanquet approach is widely used in Europe for applied vegetation science, conservation planning and land management. During the long history of syntaxonomy, many concepts and names of vegetation units have been proposed, but there has been no single classification system integrating these units. Here we (1) present a comprehensive, hierarchical, syntaxonomic system of alliances, orders and classes of Braun‐Blanquet syntaxonomy for vascular plant, bryophyte and lichen, and algal communities of Europe; (2) briefly characterize in ecological and geographic terms accepted syntaxonomic concepts; (3) link available synonyms to these accepted concepts; and (4) provide a list of diagnostic species for all classes. Location European mainland, Greenland, Arctic archipelagos (including Iceland, Svalbard, Novaya Zemlya), Canary Islands, Madeira, Azores, Caucasus, Cyprus. Methods We evaluated approximately 10 000 bibliographic sources to create a comprehensive list of previously proposed syntaxonomic units. These units were evaluated by experts for their floristic and ecological distinctness, clarity of geographic distribution and compliance with the nomenclature code. Accepted units were compiled into three systems of classes, orders and alliances (EuroVegChecklist, EVC) for communities dominated by vascular plants (EVC1), bryophytes and lichens (EVC2) and algae (EVC3). Results EVC1 includes 109 classes, 300 orders and 1108 alliances; EVC2 includes 27 classes, 53 orders and 137 alliances, and EVC3 includes 13 classes, 24 orders and 53 alliances. In total 13 448 taxa were assigned as indicator species to classes of EVC1, 2087 to classes of EVC2 and 368 to classes of EVC3. Accepted syntaxonomic concepts are summarized in a series of appendices, and detailed information on each is accessible through the software tool EuroVegBrowser. Conclusions This paper features the first comprehensive and critical account of European syntaxa and synthesizes more than 100 yr of classification effort by European phytosociologists. It aims to document and stabilize the concepts and nomenclature of syntaxa for practical uses, such as calibration of habitat classification used by the European Union, standardization of terminology for environmental assessment, management and conservation of nature areas, landscape planning and education. The presented classification systems provide a baseline for future development and revision of European syntaxonomy. This is the first comprehensive and critical account of the hierarchical syntaxonomic system of communities of vascular plants, bryophytes, lichens, and algae in Europe, synthesizing more than 100 years of research in classification of vegetation. It aims at documenting standardization of concepts and terminology of syntaxa and informing calibration of habitat classifications for environmental assessment, nature management, conservation, landscape planning, and education.

We give a comprehensive review of Chesson's coexistence theory, summarizing, for the first time, all its fundamental details in one single document. Our goal is for both theoretical and empirical ecologists to be able to use the theory to interpret their findings, and to get a precise sense of the limits of its applicability. To this end, we introduce an explicit handling of limiting factors, and a new way of defining the scaling factors that partition invasion growth rates into the different mechanisms contributing to coexistence. We explain terminology such as relative nonlinearity, storage effect, and growth-density covariance, both in a formal setting and through their biological interpretation. We review the theory's applications and contributions to our current understanding of species coexistence. While the theory is very general, it is not well suited to all problems, so we carefully point out its limitations. Finally, we critique the paradigm of decomposing invasion growth rates into stabilizing and equalizing components: we argue that these concepts are useful when used judiciously, but have often been employed in an overly simplified way to justify false claims.

Growing interest in proximate and ultimate causes and consequences of between‐ and within‐individual variation in labile components of the phenotype – such as behaviour or physiology – characterizes current research in evolutionary ecology. The study of individual variation requires tools for quantification and decomposition of phenotypic variation into between‐ and within‐individual components. This is essential as variance components differ in their ecological and evolutionary implications. We provide an overview of how mixed‐effect models can be used to partition variation in, and correlations among, phenotypic attributes into between‐ and within‐individual variance components. Optimal sampling schemes to accurately estimate (with sufficient power) a wide range of repeatabilities and key (co)variance components, such as between‐ and within‐individual correlations, are detailed. Mixed‐effect models enable the usage of unambiguous terminology for patterns of biological variation that currently lack a formal statistical definition (e.g. ‘animal personality’ or ‘behavioural syndromes’), and facilitate cross‐fertilisation between disciplines such as behavioural ecology, ecological physiology and quantitative genetics.

Thanatosis—also known as death-feigning and, we argue more appropriately, tonic immobility (TI)—is an under-reported but fascinating anti-predator strategy adopted by diverse prey late on in the predation sequence, and frequently following physical contact by the predator. TI is thought to inhibit further attack by predators and reduce the perceived need of the predator to subdue prey further. The behaviour is probably present in more taxa than is currently described, but even within well-studied groups the precise taxonomic distribution is unclear for a number of practical and ethical reasons. Here we synthesise the key studies investigating the form, function, evolutionary and ecological costs and benefits of TI. This review also considers the potential evolutionary influence of certain predator types in the development of the strategy in prey, and the other non-defensive contexts in which TI has been suggested to occur. We believe that there is a need for TI to be better appreciated in the scientific literature and outline potentially profitable avenues for investigation. Future use of technology in the wild should yield useful developments for this field of study.

In its simplest definition, a trait is a surrogate of organismal performance, and this meaning of the term has been used by evolutionists for a long time. Over the last three decades, developments in community and ecosystem ecology have forced the concept of trait beyond these original boundaries, and trait-based approaches are now widely used in studies ranging from the level of organisms to that of ecosystems. Despite some attempts to fix the terminology, especially in plant ecology, there is currently a high degree of confusion in the use, not only of the term ‘‘trait’’ itself, but also in the underlying concepts it refers to. We therefore give an unambiguous definition of plant trait, with a particular emphasis on functional trait. A hierarchical perspective is proposed, extending the ‘‘performance paradigm’’ to plant ecology. ‘‘Functional traits’’ are defined as morpho-physiophenological traits which impact fitness indirectly via their effects on growth, reproduction and survival, the three components of individual performance. We finally present an integrative framework explaining how changes in trait values due to environmental variations are translated into organismal performance, and how these changes may influence processes at higher organizational levels. We argue that this can be achieved by developing ‘‘integration functions’’ which can be grouped into functional response (community level) and effect (ecosystem level) algorithms.

Landsat data are increasingly used for ecological monitoring and research. These data often require preprocessing prior to analysis to account for sensor, solar, atmospheric, and topographic effects. However, ecologists using these data are faced with a literature containing inconsistent terminology, outdated methods, and a vast number of approaches with contradictory recommendations. These issues can, at best, make determining the correct preprocessing workflow a difficult and time-consuming task and, at worst, lead to erroneous results. We address these problems by providing a concise overview of the Landsat missions and sensors and by clarifying frequently conflated terms and methods. Preprocessing steps commonly applied to Landsat data are differentiated and explained, including georeferencing and co-registration, conversion to radiance, solar correction, atmospheric correction, topographic correction, and relative correction. We then synthesize this information by presenting workflows and a decision tree for determining the appropriate level of imagery preprocessing given an ecological research question, while emphasizing the need to tailor each workflow to the study site and question at hand. We recommend a parsimonious approach to Landsat preprocessing that avoids unnecessary steps and recommend approaches and data products that are well tested, easily available, and sufficiently documented. Our focus is specific to ecological applications of Landsat data, yet many of the concepts and recommendations discussed are also appropriate for other disciplines and remote sensing platforms.