Ulrich Brose

TL;DR: It is shown that ecological effects of habitat heterogeneity may vary considerably between species groups depending on whether structural attributes are perceived as heterogeneity or fragmentation, and possible effects may also vary relative to the structural variable measured.

TL;DR: Landscape compositions that can mitigate trade-offs under optimal land-use allocation but also show that intensive monocultures always lead to higher profits are identified, suggesting that targeted landscape planning is needed to increase land- use efficiency while ensuring socio-ecological sustainability.

TL;DR: Using a unique global database on consumer and resource body sizes, it is shown that the mean body-size ratios of aquatic herbivorous and detritivorous consumers are several orders of magnitude larger than those of carnivorous predators.

TL;DR: This work combines structural models of complex food webs with nonlinear bioenergetic models of population dynamics parameterized by biological rates that are allometrically scaled to populations' average body masses to demonstrate that the predator-prey body mass ratios found in nature may be key to enabling persistence of populations incomplex food webs and stabilizing the diversity of natural ecosystems.

TL;DR: The progression of food-web ecology and the challenges in using the food- web approach are summarized and five areas of research are identified where advances can continue, and be applied to global challenges.