Jessica Gurevitch

Stony Brook University | Stony Brook · Department of Ecology and Evolution

Tree plantations face difficult trade-offs between production and ecological goals.

Since the early 1990s, ecologists and evolutionary biologists have aggregated primary research using meta-analytic methods to understand ecological and evolutionary phenomena. Meta-analyses can resolve long-standing disputes, dispel spurious claims, and generate new research questions. At their worst, however, meta-analysis publications are wolves...

As the effects of anthropogenic climate change become more severe, several approaches for deliberate climate intervention to reduce or stabilize Earth’s surface temperature have been proposed. Solar radiation modification (SRM) is one potential approach to partially counteract anthropogenic warming by reflecting a small proportion of the incoming s...

Meta‐analyses often encounter studies with incompletely reported variance measures (e.g., standard deviation values) or sample sizes, both needed to conduct weighted meta‐analyses. Here, we first present a systematic literature survey on the frequency and treatment of missing data in published ecological meta‐analyses showing that the majority of m...

In their correspondence about our recent Perspective article (Reproducibility of animal research in light of biological variation. Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 21, 384–393 (2020)), Richter and von Kortzfleisch support our recommendations for a paradigm shift from rigorous standardization to systematic heterogenization in animal research (It is time for an e...

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

Context- dependent biological variation presents a unique challenge to the reproducibility of results in experimental animal research, because organisms’ responses to experimental treatments can vary with both genotype and environmental conditions. In March 2019, experts in animal biology, experimental design and statistics convened in Blonay, Swit...

To further our understanding of biological invasions, it is important to evaluate hypothesized causal factors facilitating invasions using manipulative field experiments. Disturbance and density are frequently invoked as major factors operating during the process of plant invasions. Soil disturbance by mowing can increase nutrient and light availab...

Assessing the ecological and economic impacts of non-native species is crucial to providing managers and policymakers with the information necessary to respond effectively. Most non-native species have minimal impacts on the environment in which they are introduced, but a small fraction are highly deleterious. The definition of ‘damaging’ or ‘high-...

Abstract A long‐standing goal of invasion biology is to identify factors driving highly variable impacts of non‐native species. Although hypotheses exist that emphasize the role of evolutionary history (e.g., enemy release hypothesis & defense‐free space hypothesis), predicting the impact of non‐native herbivorous insects has eluded scientists for...

Menegotto and colleagues’ (2019) commentary on our paper (Kinlock et al., 2018) does not negate our findings, but by recategorizing and reanalysing a portion of our data set, advances our knowledge of the latitudinal diversity gradients (LDGs) in marine ecosystems, particularly emphasizing different findings for benthic LDGs as a result of the reca...

Most current research on land‐use intensification addresses its potential to either threaten biodiversity or to boost agricultural production. However, little is known about the simultaneous effects of intensification on biodiversity and yield. To determine the responses of species richness and yield to conventional intensification, we conducted a...

The extent to which ecological properties of restored coastal wetlands in the northern Gulf of Mexico recover to natural wetland conditions has not been synthesized. We conducted a systematic literature review and meta-analysis to evaluate whether vegetation and soil parameters at marsh sites restored through sediment addition recovered to levels f...

Support for the “biotic resistance hypothesis,” that species‐rich communities are more successful at resisting invasion by exotic species than are species‐poor communities, has long been debated. It has been argued that native–exotic richness relationships (NERR) are negative at small spatial scales and positive at large scales, but evidence for th...

A growing human population coupled with increasing per capita consumption, changing diets, increasing food waste, and ineffective regulation, have led to rising demands on ecosystems for the services they supply [1].

Centaurea stoebe is an emerging invader in northeast US, and is a major invasive plant in the northern Midwest and western USA. Although it has been present in New York State (NYS) for over 100 years, its apparent recent population increases and spread provide a rare opportunity to study a plant in the early stages of invasion. Using occurrence, de...

Peer review is widely considered fundamental to maintaining the rigour of science, but it often fails to ensure transparency and reduce bias in published papers, and this systematically weakens the quality of published inferences. In part, this is because many reviewers are unaware of important questions to ask with respect to the soundness of the...

Peer review is widely considered fundamental to maintaining the rigor of science, but it is an imperfect process. In that context, it is noteworthy that formal standards or guidelines for peer reviews themselves are rarely discussed in many disciplines, including ecology and evolutionary biology. Some may argue that a dearth of explicit guidelines...

Peer review is widely considered fundamental to maintaining the rigor of science, but it is an imperfect process. In that context, it is noteworthy that formal standards or guidelines for peer reviews themselves are rarely discussed in many disciplines, including ecology and evolutionary biology. Some may argue that a dearth of explicit guidelines...

Meta-analysis is the quantitative, scientific synthesis of research results. Since the term and modern approaches to research synthesis were first introduced in the 1970s, meta-analysis has had a revolutionary effect in many scientific fields, helping to establish evidence-based practice and to resolve seemingly contradictory research outcomes. At...

Solar geoengineering is receiving increased policy attention as a potential tool to offset climate warming. While climate responses to geoengineering have been studied in detail, the potential biodiversity consequences are largely unknown. To avoid extinction, species must either adapt or move to track shifting climates. Here, we assess the effects...

Population demography is central to fundamental ecology and for predicting range shifts, decline of threatened species, and spread of invasive organisms. There is a mismatch between most demographic work, carried out on few populations and at local scales, and the need to predict dynamics at landscape and regional scales. Inspired by concepts from...

Population demography is central to fundamental ecology and for predicting range shifts, decline of threatened species, and spread of invasive organisms. There is a mismatch between most demographic work, carried out on few populations and at local scales, and the need to predict dynamics at landscape and regional scales. Inspired by concepts from...

Plant ecology has a rich history of plant interaction experiments to measure how plants interact in plant communities based on performance in pairwise species combinations. We propose representing these plant communities as networks of competitive and facilitative interactions. This is a powerful approach that allows one to characterize community s...

Ecological and evolutionary research increasingly uses quantitative synthesis of primary research studies (meta-analysis) for answering fundamental questions, informing environmental policy and summarizing results for decision makers. Knowing how meta-analysis works is important for researchers so that their research can have broader impact. Meta-a...

We welcome the comment from Clark et al. [1xSee all References][1] and are gratified that they found value in our article. In response, we would like to state that our paper was devoted to exploring relatively well-developed empirical evidence of insufficient transparency in ecology and evolution. We did not review fraud because there is an absence...

Demographic studies of plants and animals have a rich history and literature in ecology,and are important for both fundamental and applied ecology and conservation biology. Almost all demographic work has focused on intensive studies in which births,deaths,growth of individuals,and related measures are quantified in a single population or a few pop...

Meta-analysis and meta-regression are statistical methods for synthesizing and modeling the results of different studies, and are critical research synthesis tools in ecology and evolutionary biology (E&E). However, many E&E researchers carry out meta-analyses using software that is limited in its statistical functionality and is not easily updatab...

Transparency regarding methods, data, and results is essential to scientific progress. However, in ecological, evolutionary, and ornithological research, transparency is often insufficient, and the distribution of published results may often be biased. To address this issue, we advocate adoption of editorial policies that explicitly promote transpa...

Aim Much of what is known about invasion biology is based on research conducted in North America and Europe, leading to limitations and potential biases in our knowledge. We address these limitations by conducting a systematic review to assess the literature on ecological studies of two major tropical and subtropical invasive plant species, Agerati...

Green roofs can provide environmental benefits that include increased building insulation, mitigating urban heat islands, providing aesthetic value, reducing runoff and storm water flooding in urban environments, improving air quality by sequestering pollutants, cooling photovoltaic panels to improve their function, and providing habitat for fauna...

Research synthesis provides the methodological and statistical tools for the scientific integration of results of ecological research, and consists of methods and standards for systematic review and meta-analysis. Systematic reviews use scientific approaches for searching and selecting publications, and meta-analyses provide the statistical tools t...

To make progress scientists need to know what other researchers have found and how they found it. However, transparency is often insufficient across much of ecology and evolution. Researchers often fail to report results and methods in detail sufficient to permit interpretation and meta-analysis, and many results go entirely unreported. Further, th...

Biodiversity conservation and agricultural production are often seen as mutually exclusive objectives. Strategies for reconciling them are intensely debated. We argue that harmonization between biodiversity conservation and crop production can be improved by increasing our understanding of the underlying relationships between them. We provide a gen...

Table S4. Differentially expressed genes in each study (contrast), according to individual t tests.

Table S8. Genes identified by the meta‐regression as having expression responses to water stress that are moderated by plant part, but which were not identified by even a single t test.

Table S10. Results of gene ontology enrichment analysis for genes with a significant gene expression effect only in a single deracination study.

Table S2. Genes with expression responses to stress that are significantly moderated by plant part (shoots versus roots), according to the meta‐regression.

Table S3. Genes identified by the meta‐regression with a significant effect of the type of water stress treatment on the expression response.

Figure S1. Statistical properties of meta‐analysis and meta‐regression models.

Figure S2. Plot illustrating the effect of the experimental method on which genes respond to water stress, according to the meta‐regression.

Table S1. Arabidopsis genes with a significant differential expression response to water limitation, according to our meta‐analysis of ten studies.

Table S5. Genes identified only by the meta‐analysis and not discovered by the individual t test contrasts.

Table S9. Genes identified by the meta‐regression as having expression responses to water stress that are moderated by the type of experimental method, but which were not identified by even a single t test.

Table S11. Abscisic acid pathway‐related genes identified by the meta‐analysis.

Table S6. Comparison of frequencies of gene ontology terms for genes where the plant part moderates their expression, identified either by meta‐regression or by comparison of t test results across experiments.

Table S7. Comparison of frequencies of gene ontology terms for genes where the experimental method type moderates their expression, identified either by meta‐regression or by comparison of t test results across experiments.

The large amounts of transcriptome data available for Arabidopsis thaliana makes a compelling case for the need to generalize results across studies and extract the most robust and meaningful information possible from them. Various studies seeking to identify water-stress responsive genes only partially overlap in their results. The aim of this wor...

Food waste has major consequences for social, nutritional, economic, and environmental issues, and yet the amount of food waste disposed in the U.S. has not been accurately quantified. We introduce the transparent and repeatable methods of meta-analysis and systematic reviewing to determine how much food is discarded in the U.S., and to determine i...

Green roofs can mitigate a number of urban environmental problems when green roof plant communities provide ecosystem services. However, this perspective may fail to address ecological aspects of the plant community. In particular, it does not account for the potential for green roofs to facilitate biological invasions. We consider current research...

Background/Question/Methods Riparian (or riverbank) plant communities are often thought to be more diverse than the surrounding landscape, and may contribute to regional plant biodiversity. Riparian communities may also harbor more non-native species. Riparian community composition is expected to reflect the composition of the surrounding landsca...

1. The number of published meta-analyses in plant ecology has increased greatly over the last two decades. Meta-analysis has made a significant contribution to the field, allowing review of evidence for various ecological hypotheses and theories, estimation of effects of major environmental drivers (climate change, habitat fragmentation, invasive s...

A recurrent question in meta-analyses is the validity of including both field and laboratory studies in a single analysis, given the differences in characteristics such as the duration or size of these experiments. In particular, are field studies consistently more variable, longer in duration, or do they differ from laboratory studies in other imp...

The checklist for methods reporting is available at: http://www.wiley-docs.com/Checklist_for_reporting_experimental_details.pdf

Species introductions of anthropogenic origins are a major aspect of rapid ecological change globally. Research on biological invasions has generated a large literature on many different aspects of this phenomenon. Here, we describe and categorize some aspects of this literature, to better understand what has been studied and what we know, mapping...

Meta-analysis is a powerful statistical methodology for synthesizing research evidence across independent studies. This is the first comprehensive handbook of meta-analysis written specifically for ecologists and evolutionary biologists, and it provides an invaluable introduction for beginners as well as an up-to-date guide for experienced meta-ana...

Biodiversity is the diversity of life at all scales, from genes to ecosystems. Predicting its patterns of variation across the globe is a fundamental issue in ecology and evolution. Diversity within species, that is, genetic diversity, is of prime importance for understanding past and present evolutionary patterns, and highlighting areas where cons...

Background/Question/Methods How did Joan Ehrenfeld change our perspective on plant invasions by incorporating an ecosystem perspective? Ehrenfeld’s early contributions in ecology were centered on the New Jersey pine barrens, and addressed fundamental questions, largely in plant community ecology. Even in her earlier work, however, she was interes...