Oscar Godoy

TL;DR: The magnitude of species-driven differences is much larger than previously thought and greater than climate-driven variation, and the decomposability of a species' litter is consistently correlated with that species' ecological strategy within different ecosystems globally, representing a new connection between whole plant carbon strategy and biogeochemical cycling.

TL;DR: It is suggested that the evidence used in many studies to assess environmental filtering is insufficient to distinguish filtering from the outcome of biotic interactions, and a simple framework for considering the role of the environment in shaping community membership is presented.

TL;DR: These complex relationships between phenotypic differences and the dynamics of competing species argue against the simple use of single functional traits to infer community assembly processes but lay the groundwork for a theoretically justified trait-based community ecology.

TL;DR: This work field parameterised models of competitor dynamics with pairs of California annual plant species, and finds that coexistence proved unrelated to phylogeny, due in part to increasing variance in fitness differences with phylogenetic distance.

TL;DR: The mechanisms by which phenology determines invasion success in a California annual plant community are explored by quantifying how the seasonal timing of growth relates to niche differences that stabilize coexistence, and the competitive ability differences that drive dominance and exclusion.