Transitions between regimes with radically different properties are ubiquitous in nature. Such
transitions can occur either smoothly or in an abrupt and catastrophic fashion. Important …

In ecology, species can mitigate their extinction risks in uncertain environments by diversifying
individual phenotypes. This observation is quantified by the theory of bet-hedging, which …

Quenched disorder affects significantly the behavior of phase transitions. The Imry-Ma-Aizenman-Wehr-Berker
argument prohibits first-order or discontinuous transitions and their …

The evolutionary processes that drive variation in genome size across the tree of life remain
unresolved. Effective population size (N e ) is thought to play an important role in shaping …

Our knowledge of ecological stability is built on assumptions of scale. These assumptions
limit our ability to reach a generalizable and mechanistic understanding of stability under …

Intracellular endosymbionts have reduced genomes that progressively lose genes at a timescale
of tens of million years. We previously reported that gene loss rate is linked to mutation …

Oceans host communities of plankton composed of relatively few abundant species and
many rare species. The number of rare protist species in these communities, as estimated in …

Evolutionary and ecosystem dynamics are often treated as different processes –operating at
separate timescales– even if evidence reveals that rapid evolutionary changes can feed …

Understanding the causes and effects of spatial vegetation patterns is a fundamental problem
in ecology, especially because these can be used as early predictors of catastrophic shifts …

The observation of critical-like behavior in cortical networks represents a major step forward
in elucidating how the brain manages information. Understanding the origin and …