Cover Picture and Issue Information

This issue’s cover shows an experimental array of Silene latifolia flowers, used to study the spread of the anther‐smut pathogen, Microbotryum lychnidis‐dioicae . The array contains a mixture of healthy and diseased flowers, where the influence of the pathogen is to replace the pollen with dark‐colored fungal spores that are conspicuous against the white flower background. Pollinators then pick up and distribute the spores during normal foraging visits. In their article, Rozins et al. address the difficulty in designing experimental arrays that examine species interactions with a combination of densityand frequency‐dependent effects. In addition to such vector‐borne disease transmission, local competition within plant communities are strongly influenced by density and frequency‐dependent responses to species composition and abundance. The authors demonstrate the merit of radial hexagonal fan designs over more traditional systematic grid arrays. To facilitate experimental studies and to ease implementation, they present an R program whereby the user can rapidly view a variety of designs and determine the configurations that work best with their space and material constraints. Photo credit: ©Michael E. Hood, Amherst College