Plant growth is often characterised as a single rate parameter, yet this obscures strategic variation in not only the magnitude of peak growth, but also its timing and duration. We document growth of tree seedlings in rain forest gaps in Malaysia over ten years and illustrate variation across species and with respect to resource conditions. 

Most ant communities are thought to be strongly structured by competition. We investigated this in the high canopy (>40m) of tropical rainforest in Borneo. Using null models of species co-occurrence we demonstrate that ant communities show competitive structuring both spatially (within and between trees), and temporally (24-hour periods). Ant communities are competitively structured, even in this extreme environment.

Agricultural practices rely on the use of monocultures to achieve high yields. Genetic mixtures may provide a response to the challenge of increasing yield stability in unpredictable environments, without high dependence on chemical inputs. Data from large scale experiments indicate a positive effect of mixtures in stabilising yield across environments through compensatory interactions.

Burying beetles rear their offspring on carrion, providing high levels of parental care.  Larvae face severe competition from microbes during development and this competition affects reproductive success.  We find that poor natal environment negatively affects parental performance in adulthood, but beetles can partially mitigate this effect via changes in investment. 

Foraging time is an important constraint on social animals’ ability to invest in other fitness-linked activities. We develop and validate a model of individual baboon foraging behaviour predicting the time they need to spend foraging in differing environments. In deteriorating environments this model predicts a rapid increase in foraging time to the point where individuals cannot gather enough resources.

At the end of snowmelt, plant rates of N uptake exceeded those of microbes due to either a crash in microbial communities or to their compositional turnover. While vegetation dominated by conservative plants grew steadily until biomass peak, exploitative communities maximised growth in response to the soil N pulse at snowmelt.

The mechanisms by which plants detect the presence and identity of competitors remain largely unknown. We found that plant root exudates can carry very specific information about the genetic relatedness, species identity and population origin of neighbours. Moreover, exudates can trigger far more complex behavioural changes than has previously been shown.