Purpose of review Forests are frequently exposed to natural disturbances, which are likely to
increase with global change, and may jeopardize the delivery of ecosystem services. Mixed …

For hundreds of millions of years, large vertebrates (megafauna) have inhabited most of the
ecosystems on our planet. During the late Quaternary, notably during the Late P leistocene …

Plant functional traits are the features (morphological, physiological, phenological) that
represent ecological strategies and determine how plants respond to environmental factors …

Bark is a vital and very visible part of woody plants, yet only recently has bark characteristics
started to be considered as key traits structuring communities and biomes. Bark thickness is …

Aim Biomes worldwide are shifting with global change. Biomes whose extents are limited by
temperature or precipitation, such as the tundra and savanna, may be particularly strongly …

It is difficult to find references to fire in general textbooks on ecology, conservation biology or
biogeography, in spite of the fact that large parts of the world burn on a regular basis, and …

Trophic cascades—the top-down regulation of ecosystems by predators—are an essential
aspect of ecosystem function and well-being. Trophic cascades are often drastically …

Though the distribution of global vegetation can generally be predicted from climate,
grasslands are an exception. C4 grassy biomes cover vast areas that are warm enough and …

Savannas are defined based on vegetation structure, the central concept being a
discontinuous tree cover in a continuous grass understorey. However, at the high‐rainfall …

Tropical savannas have a ground cover dominated by C4 grasses, with fire and herbivory
constraining woody cover below a rainfall‐based potential. The savanna biome covers 50 …