Understanding the mechanisms controlling community diversity, functions, succession, and
biogeography is a central, but poorly understood, topic in ecology, particularly in microbial …

Evidence is increasing for positive effects of α-diversity on ecosystem functioning. We
highlight here the crucial role of β-diversity–a hitherto underexplored facet of biodiversity–for …

Unraveling the drivers controlling community assembly is a central issue in ecology.
Although it is generally accepted that selection, dispersal, diversification and drift are major …

Microorganisms in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are essential for water purification
to protect public and environmental health. However, the diversity of microorganisms and …

Understanding the community assembly mechanisms controlling biodiversity patterns is a
central issue in ecology. Although it is generally accepted that both deterministic and …

Metacommunity ecology links smaller-scale processes that have been the provenance of
population and community ecology—such as birth-death processes, species interactions …

Global concern about human impact on biological diversity has triggered an intense
research agenda on drivers and consequences of biodiversity change in parallel with …

To design robust protected area networks, accurately measure species losses, or
understand the processes that maintain species diversity, conservation science must …

Community assembly of crop-associated fungi is thought to be strongly influenced by
deterministic selection exerted by the plant host, rather than stochastic processes. Here we …

Understanding the processes that are driving variation of natural microbial communities
across space or time is a major challenge for ecologists. Environmental conditions strongly …