Ecology Letters (2011) 14: 709–722 Abstract Encroachment of woody plants into grasslands
has generated considerable interest among ecologists. Syntheses of encroachment effects …

1. Once neglected, the role of facilitative interactions in plant communities has received
considerable attention in the last two decades, and is now widely recognized. It is timely to …

Woody vegetation in grasslands and savannas has increased worldwide over the past 100–
200 years. This phenomenon of “woody plant encroachment”(WPE) has been documented …

The biogeochemical cycles of carbon (C), nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) are interlinked
by primary production, respiration and decomposition in terrestrial ecosystems. It has been …

Summary 1 The stress‐gradient hypothesis (SGH) predicts that the frequency of facilitative
and competitive interactions will vary inversely across abiotic stress gradients, with …

Grasslands, in particular managed pastures and rangelands, are widespread, covering
approximately 40%(52 million km²) of the Earth's land surface. They are dominated by …

Most ecologists are not card-carrying members of either individualistic or interdependent
guilds, but our perception of plant community organization, and the way we conduct …

Since the first edition of this book published in 2005, there has been an immense amount of
new and fascinating work on the history, ecology, and evolution of the Mediterranean flora …

A humped‐back relationship between species richness and community biomass has
frequently been observed in plant communities, at both local and regional scales, although …

Summary 1 Theoretical models have predicted that the relative importance of facilitation and
competition will vary inversely across gradients of abiotic stress, with facilitation being the …