AoB PLANTS announces a new special issue: Interactions between White-Tailed Deer and Invasive Plants in North America, edited by David L. Gorchov (Miami University) and Bernd Blossey (Cornell University).
White-tailed deer are emblematic ungulates that currently occur at elevated densities due to anthropogenic modification of landscapes. Although elevated deer densities often co-occur with non-native plants, it is not known whether plant invasions are a consequence, or occur independent of deer impacts on ecosystems, or whether these two stressors are synergistic. Speakers at a 2016 colloquium on “Interactions of white-tailed deer and invasive plants in forests of eastern North America” explored these topics, and nine of their presentations are published in this Special Issue of AoB PLANTS. Using long-term studies of deer and invasive plants, the papers describe interactive effects, explain the mechanisms underlying those effects, and introduce new research approaches. AoB PLANTS is an open-access, nonprofit journal established in 2010 and published by Oxford University Press. The journal has a strong focus on environmental and evolutionary biology and its current impact factor is 2.238. All papers published in this special issue are freely available online at http://bit.ly/2DrRD9Y
