Experimentally induced community assembly of polypores reveals the importance of both environmental filtering and assembly history

The community assembly of wood-inhabiting fungi follows a successional pathway, with newly emerging resource patches being colonised by pioneer species, followed by those specialised on later stages of decay. The primary coloniser species have been suggested to strongly influence the assembly of the later-arriving community. We created an artificial resource pulse and studied the assembly of polypores over an 11yr period to ask how the identities of the colonising species depend on the environmental characteristics and the assembly history of the dead wood unit. Our results support the view that community assembly in fungi is a highly stochastic process, as even detailed description of the characteristics of dead wood (host tree species, size, decay class of the resource unit, its bark cover and how sunken it is to the ground) and the prior community structure provided only limited predictive power on the newly colonising species. Yet, we identified distinct links between primary and secondary colonising species and showed how the spatial aggregation of dead wood had a great impact on the community assembly. © 2019 Elsevier Ltd and British Mycological SocietyPeer reviewe

Combining spatial prioritization and expert knowledge facilitates effectiveness of large-scale mire protection process in Finland

Conservation resource allocation involves a complex set of considerations including species, habitats, connectivity, local to global biodiversity objectives, alternative protection and restoration actions, while requiring cost-efficiency and effective implementation. We present a national scale spatial conservation prioritization analysis for complementing the network of protected mires in Finland. We show how spatial prioritization coupled with regional targets and expert knowledge can facilitate structured decision-making. In our application, discussion between experts was structured around the prioritization model enabling integration of quantitative analysis with expert knowledge. The used approach balances requirements of many biodiversity features over large landscapes, while aiming at a cost-effective solution. As a special analytical feature, mire complexes were defined prior to prioritization to form hydrologically functional planning units, including also their drained parts that require restoration for the planning unit to remain or potentially increase in value. This enabled selection of mires where restoration effort is supporting and benefitting from the core mire areas of high conservation value. We found that a key to successful implementation was early on structured co-producing between analysts, mire experts, and decision-makers. This allowed effective multidirectional knowledge transfer and evaluation of trade-offs related to the focal conservation decisions. Quantitative trade-off information was seen especially helpful by the stakeholders to decide how to follow the analysis results. Overall, we illustrate a realistic and applicable spatial conservation prioritization case supporting real world conservation decision-making. The introduced approach can be applied globally to increase effectiveness of large-scale protection and management planning of the diverse wetland ecosystem complexes.peerReviewe

Debating sexual selection and matings strategies

Published at full length with the title 'Reproductive behaviour: sexual selection remains the best explanation' in Science E-letters, 6 April 2006