This year, we selected the best papers from all the articles published in the year of 2020. Here, we are delighted to announce the three winners of a ‘JPE Best Paper’ award and highlight the significance of these papers below.

Spatiotemporal variation in leaf size and shape in response to climate (Li et al. 2020)

Based on a study of >6000 herbarium specimens of seven plant species collected from 1910 to 2008 in China, the authors could show that intraspecific variation in leaf size (length, width, length × width product) was positively correlated with precipitation while variation in leaf shape (length/width ratio) was more strongly correlated with temperature. These climatic effects explained within-species changes in leaf size and shape across geographical regions and over time.

Effects of warming on soil respiration during the non-growing seasons in a semiarid temperate steppe (Miao et al. 2020)

In a grassland field experiment with 10 paired control and warming plots, the authors measured soil respiration, soil temperature and soil moisture from November to April in two subsequent non-growing seasons. The warming treatment increased soil respiration by more than 40%; and in the second non-growing season, it increased microbial biomass carbon and nitrogen by around 20%. These findings suggest that climate warming may affect soil carbon dynamics in grassland ecosystems even during times when plant do not grow.

In the beginning, there was only bare regolith—then some plants arrived and changed the regolith (Zhou et al. 2020)

The authors discuss how plants may dissolve rock during early stages of primary succession. They propose experimental designs to distinguish between plant species (such as sedges without mycorrhizal fungi) that release carboxylates to mobilize phosphorus bound to soil particles for plant acquisition, which also facilitates other plant species in the community. The proposed designs can support ecological research and applications in habitat with low P availability.