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Virtual Issues

Life after death: the role of litter in ecosystems

Edited by Ken Thompson
DECEMBER 2011

Virtual Issue on the role of litter in ecosystems Plant organs die, and ultimately whole plants die, but dead plant material, or litter, continues to have powerful effects on ecosystems, driving nutrient turnover, soil formation and atmospheric composition. Soil properties in turn have strong impacts on plant community composition, diversity and productivity.
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Virtual Issue on Open Access

OCTOBER 2011

Virtual Issue on open access To coincide with the 5th Annual Open Access Week, the five journals of the British Ecological Society are pleased to publish a virtual issue of open access papers recently published in the Journal of Ecology, Journal of Animal Ecology, Journal of Applied Ecology, Functional Ecology and Methods in Ecology and Evolution.

Virtual Issue on the Evolutionary Ecology of Mutualisms

Edited by Frank Messina
JULY 2011
This virtual issue of Functional Ecology gathers 17 recent Functional Ecology papers that address the evolutionary ecology of mutualisms. The compilation is in part intended to coincide with two symposia (“Mutualistic Interactions: Causes and Consequences” and “Coevolution across the Parasitism-Mutualism Continuum”) at the 13th Congress of the European Society for Evolutionary Biology in 2011.
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Virtual Issue BES Young Investigator Prizes

MARCH 2011
Each year the BES awards a prize for the best paper, in each of its journals, by an author at the start of their research career. This virtual issue brings together the winning papers and those selected by the editors as worthy of special mention as runners up. Congratulations to all concerned.
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Virtual Issue on Antioxidants and Oxidative Stress in Animals

Edited by Kevin McGraw, Peeter Hõrak, David Costantini & Alan Cohen
SEPTEMBER 2010
This virtual issue of Functional Ecology highlights a selection of articles that have appeared in the journal and that have contributed to the rapid expansion of knowledge about how natural variation in antioxidant supplies and oxidative-stress demands interact to shape the life-history adaptations of many organisms.
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Virtual Issue on the Ecology and Evolution of Plant Volatiles

Edited by Rob Raguso
JULY 2010
In the last decade, tantalizing glimpses of the invisible world of plant volatiles have been revealed through studies that have probed the functional ecology and evolutionary dynamics of chemical phenotypes. In this virtual special feature, the 6 original papers and introductory essay published in the special feature “Floral scent in a whole-plant context” are supplemented with 8 additional papers of topical relevance.
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Virtual Issue on Biodiversity

JUNE 2010
In recognition of International Year of Biodiversity, 2010, the five journals of the British Ecological Society - Journal of Ecology, Journal of Animal Ecology, Journal of Applied Ecology, Functional Ecology and Methods in Ecology and Evolution - are pleased to publish a Virtual Issue of papers with biodiversity as a common theme.
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Virtual Issue on Food Webs

Edited by Andrew Beckerman & Owen Petchey
JANUARY 2010
Optimal foraging theory was originally developed as a tool to explore how to link animal and plant behaviour to the population dynamics and distribution of species, and the ecology of natural communities. This virtual issue of Functional Ecology highlights a selection of articles appearing in the journal that focus broadly on adaptive behaviour, trait responses to climate or other species and food webs.
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This virtual issue accompanied the Functional Ecology special feature on Adaptive Foragers and Community Ecology

Virtual Issue on Causes and Consequences of Adaptive Evolution

Edited by Scott Carroll
JUNE 2009
Biologists define and describe organisms by their traits, and through the ecological and evolutionary consequences of those traits. As we enter an era dominated by rapid evolution in response to anthropogenically caused environmental change, understanding the functional significance of traits – how, through facilitation and constraint, they determine performance in the adaptive landscape – is an imperative charge of evolutionary biology, and one that Functional Ecology actively serves.
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Virtual Issue on Nutritional Ecology

Edited by Carol Boggs & David Raubenheimer
January 2009
Research on nutritional ecology is extensive, yet the area is under-recognized as a distinct field (Raubenheimer & Boggs, 2009). This virtual issue of Functional Ecology highlights a selection of the articles appearing in the journal over the past two years that focus on nutritional ecology.
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This virtual issue accompanied the Functional Ecology special feature by Carol and David on Nutritional Ecology.