Evaluating the factors that promote invasive ant abundance is critical to assess their ecological impact and inform their management. Many invasive ant species show reduced nestmate recognition and an absence of boundaries between unrelated nests, which allow populations to achieve greater densities due to reduced intraspecific competition. We examined nestmate discrimination and colony boundaries in introduced populations of...

Soil carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus cycles are strongly interlinked and controlled through biological processes, and the phosphorus cycle is further controlled through geochemical processes. In dryland ecosystems, woody encroachment often modifies soil carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus stores, although it remains unknown if these three elements change proportionally in response to this vegetation change. We evaluated proporti...

The geographically extensive phenomenon of woody plant encroachment into grass‐dominated ecosystems has strong potential to influence biogeochemical cycles at ecosystem to global scales. Previous research has focused almost exclusively on quantifying pool sizes and flux rates of soil carbon and nitrogen (N), while few studies have examined the impact of woody encroachment on soil phosphorus (P) cycling. Moreover, little is kno...

The invasion of woody plants into grass‐dominated ecosystems has occurred worldwide during the past century with potentially significant impacts on soil organic carbon (SOC) storage, ecosystem carbon sequestration and global climate warming. To date, most studies of tree and shrub encroachment impacts on SOC have been conducted at small scales and results are equivocal. To quantify the effects of woody plant proliferation on S...

Widely occurred woody encroachment in grass‐dominated ecosystems has the potential to influence soil organic carbon (SOC) and total nitrogen (TN) pools at local, regional, and global scales. Evaluation of this potential requires assessment of both pool sizes and their spatial patterns. We quantified SOC and TN, their relationships with soil and vegetation attributes, and their spatial scaling along a catena (hill‐slope) gradie...

The general lack of significant changes in mineral soil C stocks during CO 2 ‐enrichment experiments has cast doubt on predictions that increased soil C can partially offset rising atmospheric CO 2 concentrations. Here, we show, through meta‐analysis techniques, that these experiments collectively exhibited a 5.6% increase in soil C over 2–9 years, at a median rate of 19 g C m −2 yr −1 . We also measured C accrual in deciduous...

We evaluated the influences of CO 2 [Control, ∼ 370 µ mol mol − 1 ; 200 µ mol mol − 1 above ambient applied by free‐air CO 2 enrichment (FACE)] and soil water (Wet, Dry) on above‐ and below‐ground responses of C 3 (cotton, G ossypium hirsutum ) and C 4 (sorghum, Sorghum bicolor ) plants in monocultures and two density mixtures. In monocultures, CO 2 enrichment increased height, leaf area, above‐ground biomass and reproductive...