We have new research published in Functional Ecology that demonstrates how flight mechanics and visual systems drive dispersal limitation of tropical bird communities living in isolated forest fragments. We first used experimental release trials to show that species with low aspect ratio wings, high wing loading and large eyes are less able to cross a hostile pasture landscape when returning to the forest. We then scaled these ideas up to the community level to show how wing and eye traits predict community disassembly across a gradient of extinction debt.

I provided a Plain Language Summary, and the journal commissioned this nice editorial on the paper.