Creative publishing in community ecology

The course is taught by a group of tutors which includes Jan Leps, Francesco de Bello, Lars Goetzenberger, Jan Hrcek, Jules Segrestin and usually, one of postdocs or visiting scientists.

In the creative publishing course, initial presentations provide students with information on publication strategy, and on basics of writing scientific publications. Nevertheless, the hands-on experience is the main topic of the course. Thus, students are given data, and the aim of the group (depending on the number of registered students, there can be also more groups) is, with the support of the tutors, to analyze the data, draw conclusions, and write a manuscript, which is then submitted to a journal. As a rule, one of the students takes lead and is the first author of the publication. Read Behing the paper section of the Vegetation Science Blog about writing the Pan et al. 2024 paper. Previous runs of the course resulted in quite interesting publications in well respected journals:

Pan, X., Ferris, N.D., Applova, M., Gresse, J., Iamba, K.S., Khum, W., Svancarova, T. Wipulasena, A. Y. Ayesh Piyar, Hrcek, J., Leps, J. 2024. The convex relationship between plant cover and biomass: Implications for assessing species and community properties. Journal of Vegetation Science, 35, e13288.

Alida A. Habenczyus, Iva Weiterova, Kacper Foremnik, Aljaz Jakob, Siddharth Khopkar, Agnishikhe Kumar, Anamaria Lazar, Bruno Paganeli, Kenz Raouf Samraoui, Jeni Sidwell, Jan Hrcek, Jan Leps, Jules Segrestin 2024. Long-term effects of meadow management on seed bank diversity and composition. Journal of Vegetation Science, 35,e13282

Mugnai, M., Trindade, D. P., Thierry, M., Kaushik, K., Hrcek, J., & Gotzenberger, L. (2022). Environment and space drive the community assembly of Atlantic European grasslands: Insights from multiple facets. Journal of Biogeography, 49(4), 699-711.

Tammaru, K., Košnar, J., Abbas, A. F., Barta, K. A., de Bello, F., Harrison, S., ... & Lepš, J. (2021). Ecological differentiation of Carex species coexisting in a wet meadow: Comparison of pot and field experiments. Acta Oecologica, 110, 103692.

Backhaus, L., Albert, G., Cuchietti, A., Jaimes Nino, L. M., Fahs, N., Lisner, A., ... & García Medina, N. Shift from trait convergence to divergence along old field succession. Journal of Vegetation Science, e12986.

Galland, T., Adeux, G., Dvořáková, H., E‐Vojtkó, A., Orbán, I., Lussu, M., Puy, J., Blažek, P., Lanta, V., Lepš, J., de Bello, F., Carmona, C.P., Valencia, E., Götzenberger.L. (2019). Colonization resistance and establishment success along gradients of functional and phylogenetic diversity in experimental plant communities. Journal of Ecology, 107(5), 2090-2104.

Brown, J.B., Mennicken, S., Massante, J.C., Dijoux, S., Telea, A., Benedek, A.M., Götzenberger, L., Májeková, M. Lepš, J., Šmilauer, P., Hrček, J., de Bello, F. 2019. A novel method to predict dark diversity using unconstrained ordination analysis. Journal of Vegetation Science, 30: 610-619.

Anna E.-Vojtkó & Martin Freitag & Alessandro Bricca & Felipe Martello & Joaquín Moreno Compañ & Martin Küttim & Róbert Kun & Francesco de Bello & Jitka Klimešová & Lars Götzenberger: in press. Clonal vs leaf-height-seed (LHS) traits: which are filtered more strongly across habitats? Folia Geobotanica

Szefer, P., Carmona, C. P., Chmel, K., Konečná, M., Libra, M., Molem, K., Novotný V., Segar S.T., Švamberková E., Topliceanu S-T., & Lepš, J. 2017. Determinants of litter decomposition rates in a tropical forest: functional traits, phylogeny and ecological succession. Oikos.

Volf, M., Redmond, C., Albert, Á. J., Le Bagousse‐Pinguet, Y., Biella, P., Götzenberger, L., Hrázský Z., Janecek S., Klimešová J., Lepš J., Šebelíková L., Vlasatá T., de Bello F. 2016. Effects of long-and short-term management on the functional structure of meadows through species turnover and intraspecific trait variability. Oecologia,

Májeková, M., Paal, T., Plowman, N. S., Bryndová, M., Kasari, L., Norberg, A., Weiss, M., Bishop, T.R., Luke, S.H., Sam, K., Le Bagousse-Pinguet, Y., Lepš, J., Götzenberger, L., de Bello F. 2016. Evaluating Functional Diversity: Missing Trait Data and the Importance of Species Abundance Structure and Data Transformation. PloS one, 11(2), e0149270.

Kelemen, A., Lazzaro, L., Besnyői, V., Albert, A-J., Konečná, M., Dobay, G., Memelink, I., Adamec, V., Götzenberger, L., de Bello, F., Le Bagousse-Pinguet, Y., Lepš, UJ. 2015. Net outcome of competition and facilitation in a wet meadow changes with plant’s life stage and community productivity. - Preslia 87(4):347-361