While horizontal gradients of biodiversity have been examined extensively in the past, vertical diversity gradients (elevation, water depth) are attracting increasing attention. We compiled data from 443 elevational gradients involving diverse organisms worldwide to investigate how elevational diversity patterns may vary between the Northern and Southern hemispheres and across latitudes. Our results show that most elevational diversity curves are positively skewed (maximum diversity below the middle of the gradient) and the elevation of the peak in diversity increases with the elevation of lower sampling limits and to a lesser extent with upper limit. Mountains with greater elevational extents, and taxonomic groups that are more inclusive, show proportionally more unimodal patterns whereas other ranges and taxa show highly variable gradients. The two hemispheres share some interesting similarities but also remarkable differences, likely reflecting differences in landmass and mountain configurations. Different taxonomic groups exhibit diversity peaks at different elevations, probably reflecting both physical and physiological constraints.

Nonnative pests often cause cascading ecological impacts, leading to detrimental socioeconomic consequences; however, how plant diversity may influence insect and disease invasions remains unclear. High species diversity in host communities may promote pest invasions by providing more niches (i.e., facilitation), but it can also diminish invasion success because low host dominance may make it more difficult for pests to establish (i.e., dilution). Most studies to date have focused on small-scale, experimental, or individual pest/disease species, while large-scale empirical studies, especially in natural ecosystems, are extremely rare. Using subcontinental-level data, we examined the role of tree diversity on pest invasion across the conterminous United States and found that the tree-pest diversity relationships are hump-shaped. Pest diversity increases with tree diversity at low tree diversity (because of facilitation or amplification) and is reduced at higher tree diversity (as a result of dilution). Thus, tree diversity likely regulates forest pest invasion through both facilitation and dilution that operate simultaneously, but their relative strengths vary with overall diversity. Our findings suggest the role of native species diversity in regulating nonnative pest invasions.

Habitat invasibility is a central focus of invasion biology, with implications for basic ecological patterns and processes and for effective invasion management. “Invasibility” is, however, one of the most elusive metrics and misused terms in ecology. Empirical studies and meta‐analyses of invasibility have produced inconsistent and even conflicting results. This lack of consistency, and subsequent difficulty in making broad cross‐habitat comparisons, stem in part from (1) the indiscriminant use of a closely related, but fundamentally different concept, that of degree of invasion (DI) or level of invasion; and (2) the lack of common invasibility metrics, as illustrated by our review of all invasibility‐related papers published in 2013. To facilitate both cross‐habitat comparison and more robust ecological generalizations, we clarify the definitions of invasibility and DI, and for the first time propose a common metric for quantifying invasibility based on a habitat's resource availability as inferred from relative resident species richness and biomass. We demonstrate the feasibility of our metric using empirical data collected from 2475 plots from three forest ecosystems in the eastern United States. We also propose a similar metric for DI. Our unified, resource‐based metrics are scaled from 0 to 1, facilitating cross‐habitat comparisons. Our proposed metrics clearly distinguish invasibility and DI from each other, which will help to (1) advance invasion ecology by allowing more robust testing of generalizations and (2) facilitate more effective invasive species control and management.

Understanding biodiversity-productivity relationships (BPRs) is of theoretical importance, and has important management implications. Most work on BPRs has focused on simple and/or experimentally assembled communities, and it is unclear how these observed BPRs can be extended to complex natural forest ecosystems. Using data from over 115,000 forest plots across the contiguous United States, we show that the bivariate BPRs are positive in dry climates and hump-shaped in mesic climates. When considering other site characteristics, BPRs change to neutral in dry climates and remain hump-shaped in humid sites. Our results indicate that climatic variation is an underlying determinant of contrasting BPRs observed across a large spatial extent, while both biotic factors (e.g., stand age and density) and abiotic factors (e.g., soil properties) can impact BPRs within a given climate unit. These findings suggest that tradeoffs need be made when considering whether to maximize productivity vs. conserve biodiversity, especially in mesic climates.