The study of positive species interactions is a rapidly evolving field in ecology. Despite
decades of research, controversy has emerged as to whether positive and negative …

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 …

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

Traditional ecological models have focused mainly on competition between plants, but
recent research has shown that some plants benefit from closely associated neighbors, a …

Viewing facilitation through the lens of the niche concept is one way to unify conceptual and
empirical advances about the role of facilitation in community ecology. We clarify …

Traditionally, techniques of plant manipulation during restoration have focused on the
reduction of competition by 'problematic'existing vegetation. However, the increasing …

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

Climate change is rapidly altering natural habitats and generating complex patterns of
environmental stress. Ferns are major components of many forest understories and, given …

Once seen as anomalous, facilitative interactions among plants and their importance for
community structure and functioning are now widely recognized. The growing body of …

to quantify ('soft'traits; Hodgson et al. 1999),(iii) using measurements that can be
standardized across a wide range of species and growing conditions (Cornelissen et al …