How do interactions among plants, fungi, and environmental conditions shape ecological communities?
Competition, facilitation, symbiosis, traits, and environmental gradients contribute to community structure.
COMMUNITIES · IMAGES · CURRENTS
The most revealing processes often happen between layers.
Between Layers connects community ecology, biomedical imaging, and cellular electrophysiology to explore how researchers identify interfaces, measure structure, and interpret interactions across biological scales.
Independent educational resource
SECTION VIEW / THREE SCALES
SCALE LINECOMMUNITYSTRUCTURECELL
INTERFACE 01
INTERFACE 02
How can anatomical structures become measurable through images?
Segmentation, registration, geometry, and image analysis turn visual information into quantitative descriptions.
How do ion channels shape electrical behavior across cell membranes?
Channel opening, ion selectivity, voltage, and pharmacology influence cellular electrical activity.
LOOK BETWEEN THE LAYERS
A boundary can separate structures—and also reveal how they interact.
Communities emerge through interaction.
Images depend on representation.
Membranes regulate exchange.
Interpretation depends on scale.
FOUR WAYS TO READ BIOLOGICAL STRUCTURE
Different layers require different evidence.
Explore how ecological communities, biomedical images, and cellular systems become observable through different research methods.
Community Structure
Explore how competition, facilitation, plant traits, environmental conditions, and species interactions contribute to the composition and diversity of ecological communities.
- Community ecology
- Biodiversity
- Plant interactions
- Environmental gradients
Symbiotic Networks
Study relationships between plant roots and mycorrhizal fungi, including mutualistic interactions, fungal communities, plant distribution, and ecological assembly across local and global scales.
- Mycorrhiza
- Plant-fungal interactions
- Mutualism
- Community assembly
Biomedical Images
Examine how image processing, segmentation, registration, geometry, pattern recognition, and quantitative analysis can transform medical images into measurements of biological structure.
- Medical imaging
- Image analysis
- Segmentation
- Registration
Cellular Currents
Explore membrane physiology, ion channels, cardiac electrical activity, channelopathies, pharmacology, and the movement of ions that contributes to cellular signaling.
- Ion channels
- Electrophysiology
- Channelopathies
- Membrane physiology
WHAT HAPPENS AT AN INTERFACE?
Interfaces are places where structure, exchange, and measurement meet.
INTERFACE 01
ROOT ↔ FUNGUS
How can below-ground symbiosis influence plant community structure?
PLANT TRAITSINTERFACEFUNGAL COMMUNITY
The interface is ecological and biological. It is shaped by species, environmental conditions, traits, and reciprocal exchange.
INTERFACE 02
IMAGE ↔ ANATOMY
How does an image representation become a measurement of anatomy?
IMAGE DATAINTERPRETATIONQUANTITATIVE STRUCTURE
An image is a representation, not the biological structure itself. Analysis choices influence the measurements researchers obtain.
INTERFACE 03
MEMBRANE ↔ ION
How can selective ion movement alter cellular electrical activity?
CONCENTRATION / VOLTAGEION CHANNELCELLULAR CURRENT
Ion channels are membrane proteins whose properties influence ionic currents and cellular electrical behavior.
THE CROSS-SCALE METHOD
Start with the layer, then test what survives when the scale changes.
LOCATE
Identify the biological structure, representation, or membrane interface being studied.
DESCRIBE
Define the elements on each side of the interface and how they can interact.
MEASURE
Specify which observations are direct and which require processing, modeling, classification, or inference.
COMPARE
Examine variation across organisms, images, cells, environments, samples, or experimental conditions.
CHANGE SCALE
Ask whether conclusions remain valid when moving from local interactions to community patterns, image-level structure, or cellular function.
CHALLENGE
Identify uncertainty, alternative explanations, representation limits, and evidence that could contradict the interpretation.
EDUCATIONAL REFERENCE POINTS
Six researchers across ecology, biomedical imaging, and cellular electrophysiology.
These profiles are presented as educational reference points for exploring public academic work. They are not presented as members, employees, partners, collaborators, representatives, endorsers, or affiliates of Between Layers.
Platform contact note The first three email addresses are platform contact addresses supplied for this site and are not presented as verified university or institutional email accounts.
COMMUNITY · ESTONIA
Mari Moora
University of Tartu · Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences · Department of Botany
Vice Rector for Research · Professor in Community Ecology
Research on ecological interactions underlying plant-community diversity and composition, including competition and facilitation among plants, mycorrhizal symbiosis, plant-fungal relationships, fungal community composition, plant traits, biodiversity, community assembly, environmental gradients, plant invasion, and ecological patterns across local and global scales.
ORCID 0000-0002-4819-7506
Platform contactmarimoora@cloudforlaw.org
IMAGE · SLOVENIA
Tomaž Vrtovec
University of Ljubljana · Faculty of Electrical Engineering · Laboratory of Imaging Technologies
Professor
Research and teaching in biomedical imaging, medical image analysis, image and video processing, pattern recognition, quantitative analysis of anatomical structures, biomedical informatics, and computational methods for extracting clinically and scientifically useful information from images.
ORCID 0000-0002-6625-0307
Platform contacttomazvrtovec@cloudforlaw.org
CURRENT · OMAN
Majid K. Al Salmani
Sultan Qaboos University · College of Medicine and Health Sciences · Department of Physiology
Assistant Professor
Research in cellular and molecular physiology with emphasis on ion channel physiology and pharmacology, genetically inherited ion channel diseases, cardiac arrhythmias including Long QT syndrome, cystic fibrosis, membrane electrical activity, cellular models, and the physiological consequences of altered channel function.
ORCID 0000-0003-1909-0141
Platform contactmajidk.alsalmani@cloudforlaw.org
COMMUNITY · ESTONIA
John Davison
University of Tartu · Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences · Plant Ecology Laboratory
Associate Professor of Plant Ecology · Doctoral tutor
Research on plant ecology, biodiversity, community assembly, plant-mycorrhizal interactions, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, microbial biogeography, ecological niches, high-throughput sequencing, phylogenetic information, organism traits, and quantitative methods for understanding plant and fungal communities.
ORCID 0000-0002-0161-6195
Educational reference point
IMAGE · SLOVENIA
Žiga Špiclin
University of Ljubljana · Faculty of Electrical Engineering · Laboratory of Imaging Technologies
Professor · Medical Image Analysis · Robot Vision
Research in medical image analysis, computer vision, image processing, biomedical image interpretation, quantitative imaging, image-derived measurements, computational methods, pattern analysis, and systems for extracting structured information from biomedical and visual data.
ORCID 0000-0001-8300-0417
Educational reference point
CURRENT · UNITED KINGDOM
Jules C. Hancox
University of Bristol · Bristol Medical School
Professor of Cardiac Electrophysiology
Research on cardiac electrophysiology and membrane proteins involved in electrical activity, including ion channels, ion exchangers, cardiac action potentials, atrioventricular node physiology, electrophysiological techniques, calcium cycling, acidosis, arrhythmia mechanisms, and the cellular basis of cardiac electrical function.
ORCID 0000-0002-2055-6482
Educational reference point
REFERENCE STATUS
Academic reference does not imply participation.
Between Layers is an independent educational prototype. Academic names and institutional references are included solely to help readers discover relevant areas of public scholarship.
The first three platform contact addresses were supplied specifically for this site. They are not presented as verified personal, university, institutional, or employer-provided email accounts.
The remaining profiles are educational reference points only and are not presented as participants in, contributors to, endorsers of, or affiliates of this resource.
STUDY SHEETS
Open a layer and inspect the evidence inside it.
Browse educational notes across community ecology, mycorrhizal interactions, biomedical image analysis, ion channels, and cellular electrophysiology.
10 sheets
Community EcologyWhat makes an ecological community more than a list of species?Explore why interactions, abundance, environment, and spatial scale matter when studying biological communities.
Species composition, abundance, competition, facilitation, environmental filtering, dispersal, functional traits, spatial variation, community assembly, disturbance, and sampling all matter. The presence of the same species does not necessarily imply the same ecological community structure.
Plant InteractionsWhen does a neighboring plant help rather than compete?Explore how plant interactions can shift between competition and facilitation.
Resource competition, light, water, nutrients, environmental stress, plant size, spatial proximity, facilitation, microclimate, life stage, density, and species traits can shift ecological interactions across environmental conditions.
MycorrhizaWhat happens at the interface between a root and a mycorrhizal fungus?Explore one of the most widespread symbiotic relationships in terrestrial ecosystems.
Mycorrhizal fungi interact with plant roots, fungal networks can influence nutrient acquisition, and plants supply carbon compounds. Associations differ among species and can influence plant performance, community assembly, and ecosystem processes; they are not universally beneficial.
Ecological ScaleWhy can an ecological pattern change when the scale changes?Explore how local observations and global distributions can reveal different patterns.
Sampling grain, spatial extent, local communities, regional species pools, biogeography, environmental gradients, species distribution, statistical aggregation, and nested scales shape conclusions. A finding at one spatial scale may not apply at another.
Biomedical ImagingWhat makes a medical image a scientific measurement?Explore why producing an image is only the beginning of quantitative analysis.
Image acquisition, resolution, contrast, noise, reconstruction, preprocessing, anatomical interpretation, measurement, calibration, observer variation, and computational processing matter. Image-derived quantities depend on both biological structure and the imaging process.
Image SegmentationWhat does it mean to segment an anatomical structure?Explore how researchers define boundaries between regions in a medical image.
Pixels or voxels, anatomical regions, manual and automatic segmentation, machine-learning approaches, boundary uncertainty, class imbalance, reference annotations, Dice-style overlap, and clinical context make segmentation an interpretive and computational task—not simply drawing a line.
Image RegistrationWhy do biomedical images need to be aligned?Explore how researchers compare structures acquired at different times, positions, subjects, or imaging modalities.
Rigid and non-rigid transformations, landmarks, similarity measures, coordinate systems, deformation, multimodal imaging, longitudinal studies, interpolation, and validation affect alignment. A successful visual alignment is not automatically anatomically correct.
Ion ChannelsHow can a protein control an electrical current?Explore how membrane ion channels regulate selective movement of charged particles.
Lipid membranes, ionic gradients, channel proteins, selectivity, gating, voltage dependence, conductance, membrane potential, electrophysiological measurement, and pharmacology shape current. It depends on both the channel and surrounding electrochemical conditions.
Cardiac ElectrophysiologyWhy can altered potassium-channel function affect heart rhythm?Explore the relationship between ion currents and cardiac electrical repolarization.
Cardiac action potentials, potassium currents, hERG channels, repolarization, Long QT syndrome, inherited variants, drug effects, arrhythmia risk, cellular models, and electrophysiology connect molecular change to function. Clinical risk requires multiple levels of evidence.
Cross-Scale ReasoningCan an interface explain an entire biological system?Compare ecological interactions, image boundaries, and membrane currents without treating them as equivalent mechanisms.
An ecological interface describes relationships among organisms and environments, an image boundary belongs to a representation of biological structure, and a membrane interface is a physical cellular structure. Scale, abstraction, measurement, models, causal inference, representation, and uncertainty limit extrapolation from one layer of evidence.
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ABOUT BETWEEN LAYERS
Understanding a system often means deciding which layer to observe.
Between Layers is an independent educational prototype connecting community ecology, biomedical imaging, and cellular physiology.
It does not suggest that ecological communities, image-analysis boundaries, and membrane ion channels are equivalent biological phenomena.
Instead, it compares a shared research challenge: identifying interfaces, measuring structure and interaction, and deciding how evidence changes when researchers move between scales.
It is not a university, research institute, hospital, medical company, environmental organization, imaging company, pharmaceutical company, laboratory, professional association, or commercial service.
Interfaces organize interaction
Biological systems often depend on relationships across physical, ecological, or analytical boundaries.
Representations are selective
Biomedical images make structures visible, but the representation does not contain every property of the underlying biology.
Scale changes interpretation
A local interaction, image measurement, or cellular current may be important without being sufficient to explain the entire system.
CHANGE THE VIEW
Choose one layer, then ask what becomes visible from the next.
Browse study sheets, compare interfaces, and examine how ecological interactions, biomedical representations, and cellular currents require different kinds of evidence.