September 30 - October 4 2024

Woodstoich 5

A workshop to advance synthesis and integration in ecology and evolution

Biologische Anstalt Helgoland, Germany

The goal of Woodstoich 5 is to empower early career scientists to invigorate ecology by improving and expanding theory and knowledge in the field of Ecological Stoichiometry. Approximately 25 early-career scientists, organized into 5 working groups, will meet for an intensive, 5-day workshop at Biologische Anstalt Helgoland (BAH; Alfred-Wegener-Institut, Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung) in Helgoland, Germany which will culminate in the publication of peer-reviewed journal articles written by each of the working groups.

History

The event has now been held four times, every five-years approximately on the same dates of the legendary Woodstock concert: in Norway in 2004, in Japan in 2009, in Australia in 2014, and in Montana, USA in 2019. In each case, manuscripts resulting from the workshop have received at least two and usually three (and up to five) rigorous peer reviews and, after acceptance, appeared online in the journals Oikos (2004-2014) and Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution (2019) within a few months of the workshop.

Workshop structure

Woodstoich 5 will follow the highly successful blueprint of the four previous Woodstoich events. In the Woodstoich approach, each group’s project focuses on a specific topic to be studied and presented in a given product (e.g. meta-analysis, review paper, opinion paper, data product). During the months leading up to the workshop, the groups advance their projects with the strongly-stated goal that they should arrive at the workshop with a full written draft of their product. During the workshop itself, most of the first two days is allocated for working time as the groups work to complete and polish their drafts. The groups will present an overview of their projects to receive feedback from all participants and organizers. Upon submitting their manuscripts in the morning of day 3, a field trip takes place followed by an evening celebration of completion. Reviews are received on day 4, and, pending recommendation, the authors proceed to revise and resubmit. With online publication, final versions of the products are available online within a few months of the workshop. This accelerated delivery schedule is highly advantageous to early career researchers who are building their CVs.

The Woodstoich papers

Woodstoich 1 (2004):

Hessen, D. O., and J. J. Elser. 2005. Elements of ecology and evolution. Oikos 109: 3–5.

Kay, A. D., I. W. Ashton, E. Gorokhova, A. J. Kerkhoff, A. Liess, and E. Litchman. 2005. Toward a stoichiometric framework for evolutionary biology. Oikos 109: 6–17.

Frost, P. C., M. A. Evans-White, Z.V. Finkel, T.C. Jensen, and V. Matzek. 2005. Are you what you eat? Physiological constraints on organismal stoichiometry in an elementally imbalanced world. Oikos 109: 18–28.

Moe, S. J., R. S. Stelzer, M. R. Forman, W. S. Harpole, T. Daufresne, and T. Yoshida. 2005. Recent advances in ecological stoichiometry: insights for population and community ecology. Oikos 109: 29–39.

Schade, J. D., J. F. Espeleta, C. A. Klausmeier, M. E. McGroddy, S. A. Thomas, and L. Zhang. 2005. A conceptual framework for ecosystem stoichiometry: balancing resource supply and demand. Oikos 109: 40–51.

Ptacnik, R., G. D. Jenerette, A. M. Verschoor, A. F. Huberty, A. G. Solimini, and J. D. Brookes. 2005. Applications of ecological stoichiometry for sustainable acquisition of ecosystem ser-vices. Oikos 109: 52–62.


Woodstoich 2 (2009):

Urabe, J., S. Naeem, D. Raubenheimer, and J. J. Elser. 2010. The evolution of biological stoichiom-etry under global change. Oikos 119: 737–740.

Persson, J., P. Fink, A. Goto, J. M. Hood, J. Jonas, and S. Kato. 2010. To be or not to be what you eat: regulation of stoichiometric homeostasis among autotrophs and heterotrophs. Oikos 119: 741–751.

Doi, H., M. Cherif, T. Iwabuchi, I. Katano, J. C. Stegen, and M. Striebel. 2010. Integrating elements and energy through the metabolic dependencies of gross growth efficiency and the threshold el-emental ratio. Oikos 119: 752–765.

Morehouse, N. I., T. Nakazawa, C. M. Booher, P. D. Jeyasingh, and M. D. Hall. 2010. Sex in a ma-terial world: why the study of sexual reproduction and sex-specific traits should become more nutritionally-explicit. Oikos 119: 766–778.

González, A. L., J. S. Kominoski, M. Danger, S. Ishida, N. Iwai, and A. Rubach. 2010. Can ecologi-cal stoichiometry help explain patterns of biological invasions? Oikos 119: 779–790.


Woodstoich 3 (2014):

Sterner, R. W., J. M. Hood, M.R. Kearney, J. Urabe, and D. Raubenheimer. 2015. Couples that have chemistry: when ecological theories meet. Oikos 124: 917–919.

Sitters, J., C. L. Atkinson, N. Guelzow, P. Kelly, and L. L. Sullivan. 2015. Spatial stoichiometry: cross-ecosystem material flows and their impact on recipient ecosystems and organisms. Oikos 124: 920–930.

Cease, A. J., K. A. Capps, K. K. Gates, M. L. McCrackin, and D. A. Nidzgorski. 2015. Consumer-driven nutrient dynamics in urban environments: the stoichiometry of human diets and waste management. Oikos 124: 931–948.

Yamamichi, M., C. L. Meunier, A. Peace, C. Prater, and M. A. Rúa. 2015. Rapid evolution of a con-sumer stoichiometric trait destabilizes consumer-producer dynamics. Oikos 124: 960–969.

Sistla, S. A., A. P. Appling, A. M. Lewandowska, B. N. Taylor, and A. A. Wolf. 2015. Stoichiometric flexibility in response to fertilization along gradients of environmental and organismal nutrient richness. Oikos 124: 949–959.

Sperfeld, E., H. M. Halvorson, M. Malishev, F. J. Clissold, and N. D. Wagner. 2016. Woodstoich III: Integrating tools of nutritional geometry and ecological stoichiometry to advance nutrient budg-eting and the prediction of consumer-driven nutrient recycling. Oikos 125: 1539–1553.


Woodstoich 4 (2019):

Evans-White, M. A., Z. G. Cardon, J. A. Schweitzer, J. Urabe, and J. J. Elser. 2019. Emerging Frontiers in Ecological Stoichiometry. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 7: 463.

Paseka, R. E., A. R. Bratt, K. L. MacNeill, A. Burian and C. R. See. 2019. Elemental ratios link envi-ronmental change and human health. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 7: 378.

Ren, Z., N. Martyniuk, I. A. Oleksy, A. Swain and S. Hotaling. 2019. Ecological stoichiometry of the mountain cryosphere. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution. 7: 360.

Buchkowski, R. W., A. N. Shaw, D. Sihi, G. R. Smith and A. D. Keiser. 2019. Constraining carbon and nutrient flows in soil with ecological stoichiometry. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution. 7: 382.

Carey, J. C., K. Jankowski, P. Julian, L. R. Sethna, P. K. Thomas and J. Rohweder. 2019. Exploring silica stoichiometry on a large floodplain riverscape. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution. 7: 346.

Lemmen, K. D., O. M. Butler, T. Koffel, S. M. Rudman and C. C. Symons. 2019. Stoichiometric traits vary widely within species: A meta-analysis of common garden experiments. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution. 7: 339.

Questions regarding Woodstoich 5 should be directed to Cédric Meunier at cedric.meunier@awi.de