Plant Ecology

Understanding plant population dynamics is important in ecology and conservation biology including basic (coexistence vs. competitive exclusion) and applied (management of endangered or invasive species) perspectives. We apply experiments and theoretical models to increase understanding of natural and managed plant populations.

Spatial patterns within and among plant species play an important role modifying the relative strength of intra- vs. interpsecific competition. However, empirical knowledge lacks behind theoretical developments and one of our main aims is to experimentally test theoretical models of plant population and community dynamics. In this context, experimentally testing effects of genetic relatedness between individuals is of particular recent interest.

• Chronic intermittent stress exposure and access to grass silage interact differently in their effect on behaviour, gastric health and stress physiology of entire or castrated male growing-finishing pigs
  Holinger, M; Fruh, B; Stoll, P; Graage, R; Wirth, S; Bruckmaier, R; Prunier, A; Kreuzer, M; Hillmann, E
  PHYSIOLOGY & BEHAVIOR, 195 58-68; 10.1016/j.physbeh.2018.07.019 OCT 15 2018
• Experimental disconnection from common mycorrhizal networks has little effect on competitive interactions among common temperate grassland species
  Milkereit, J; Frossard, E; Stoll, P; Wagg, C; Niklaus, PA
  JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY, 106 (6):2332-2343; 10.1111/1365-2745.12984 NOV 2018
• Colonization dynamics of a clonal pioneer plant on a glacier foreland inferred from spatially explicit and size-structured matrix models 
  Scherrer, Daniel; Stoll, Peter; Stocklin, Jurg 
  FOLIA GEOBOTANICA, 52 (3-4): 353-366 DEC 2017 Article (Details)
• Effect sizes and standardization in neighbourhood models of forest stands: potential biases and misinterpretations 
  Stoll, Peter; Murrell, David J.; Newbery, David M. 
  METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION, 6 (10): 1117-1125 OCT 2015 Article (Details)
• A Neighborhood Analysis of the Consequences of Quercus suber Decline for Regeneration Dynamics in Mediterranean Forests 
  Ibanez, Beatriz; Gomez-Aparicio, Lorena; Stoll, Peter; et al. 
  PLOS ONE, 10 (2): FEB 23 2015 Article (Details)
• Relaxation of species-specific neighborhood effects in Bornean rain forest under climatic perturbation 
  Newbery, David M.; Stoll, Peter 
  ECOLOGY, 94 (12): 2838-2851 DEC 2013 Article (Details)
• Heritability of sperm length and adult shell size in the land snail Arianta arbustorum (Linnaeus, 1758) 
  Minoretti, Nicole; Stoll, Peter; Baur, Bruno 
  JOURNAL OF MOLLUSCAN STUDIES, 79 (): 218-224 AUG 2013 Article (Details)

• Plant competition and coexistence mechanisms
• Matrix models and population viability analyses (PVA)
• Experimental tests of theoretical predictions

• Genotyping of individual plants
• Computer based simulation models