We found that crowded neighborhoods reduced individual seed production via plant–plant competition, but they also made individual plants more attractive for some pollinator guilds, increasing visitation rates and, therefore, plant fitness. The balance between these two forces varied depending on the species identity and the spatial scale considered. Our results indicate that plant spatial aggregation plays an important role in defining the net effect of mutualistic and antagonistic interactions.

This study, conducted in central Portugal, shows that Eucalyptus globulus seeds are highly attractive to local fauna, including ants and rodents. Surprisingly, E. globulus seeds were as attractive as the exotic Acacia dealbata seeds and more attractive than the native Cistus salviifolius seeds. However, locations with negligible seed predation were abundant across the study area, which may help to explain the heterogeneous recruitment patterns of E. globulus seedlings found in previous studies.

If during a sunny day you spot the thousands of bright yellow flowering acacias on the coast of Portugal, then ask yourself who is spreading all of that pollen around! Even if the most common answer would be bees, when the acacia flowers it is still quite cold for them. This study highlights the so far neglected role of wind in acacia seed setting, arguing the influence this may have on acacia invasiveness and theories of pollination strategy evolution.

We conducted a greenhouse experiment with wild radish plants and found a multigenerational effect of herbivore induction on palatability for generalist slugs but not specialist caterpillars, and that the order of these inductions seemed to be important. These results are potentially meaningful for plant–herbivore ecology and evolution because a plant's ability to defend itself may be influenced by multiple previous generations and this may depend on the type of herbivore.