New papers on Ecosystems & biodiversity
50 new papers on ecosystems & biodiversity in the last 7 days, within Ecology & evolution. These are the 50 Pipette rates most worth reading, with the main result in the authors' own words.
The best of the week
Rising water is an underappreciated driver of forest mortality
Our findings identify rising waters as a widespread, underappreciated driver of forest die-off that can extend far inland, underscoring the need to reassess the impacts of climate change on the functioning, demography, and carbon-methane budgets amongst the world's most carbon-rich forests as seas rise and hydroclimate shifts globally.
PreprintReal-world useTracking human foragers and their prey reveals adaptive predator-prey dynamics
Our results show how human foragers overcome the challenges of extracting invisible, mobile and reactive prey by tightly tuning patch-selection, patch-leaving and patch-return decisions to the distribution and behaviour of their prey.
PreprintRewriting the history of the invasive spiny water flea in North America
Combining microfossil analysis from 210 Pb-dated sediments, radiocarbon dating of chitinous remains, and sediment DNA, we show Bythotrephes was present at low densities in inland lakes in Ontario, Canada, at least 100 years earlier than initially reported.
Peer-reviewed journalReal-world useWildlife depredation stabilizes ecological-economic systems and can lead to improved economic outcomes
Contrary to our predictions, however, adding bold seals neither reduced long-term fishery performance nor destabilised the system.
PreprintReal-world useSatellite-gene abundance fusion reveals global hotspots of ocean ecosystem services
We reveal putative hotspots of functional diversity, net primary productivity, and carbon export.
PreprintReal-world useAirborne DNA reveals synchronized responses of tropical forest assemblages to precipitation
All four assemblages shifted abruptly and nearly synchronously following rainfall late in the dry season, before the meteorological wet season began.
PreprintThe scents of summer: Plant-diversity and vegetation-height drive health-relevant scent exposure in urban greenspaces
Sites with greater plant richness and greater vegetation volume below 1.5 m consistently showed higher terpene/terpenoid abundance, whereas total vegetation volume, canopy cover and tree abundance were weaker and less consistent predictors.
PreprintBroad interestReal-world useConsistent determination of stability regimes in natural ecological communities from abundance time series
Here we develop a statistical framework that infers stability regimes in large ecological communities directly from abundance time series.
PreprintUbiquitous trophic niche partitioning drives species coexistence and biomass on coral reefs
Our results confirm limiting similarity and trophic complementarity as the driving forces of coexistence and ecosystem functioning in the ocean's most diverse ecological community.
PreprintBold claims, read criticallyWoody plant encroachment enhanced negative interactions in Arctic plant communities over the last 24,000 years
Our results show that plant interactions shifted from predominantly positive interactions (e.g., nurse-plant facilitation) during the glacial period to more negative interactions (e.g., competition) during the Holocene.
Peer-reviewed journalBold claims, read criticallyStochastic Field Theory of HIV Latency: Instanton Dynamics and the Path to Viral Rebound
Calibrating to clinical data---infected-cell half-life , viral burst size , clearance rate , reactivation rate , and latent reservoir size cells---we obtain a mean first-passage time (MFPT) to viral rebound of months for a typical patient, with a range of days to years depending on reservoir size.
PreprintUrbanization and wealth alter arthropod biodiversity and pollination services in community gardens
This work identifies the biophysical and social-ecological drivers of urban arthropod biodiversity and ecosystem services, revealing where crop production may be most vulnerable to decline in cities.
PreprintReal-world useLoss of a belowground mutualist disrupts a fundamental biodiversity-disease relationship
Instead, AMF inoculation increased disease risk via species-specific increases in host competence.
PreprintGlobal meta-analysis of metabolic responses to climate change in aquatic and terrestrial invertebrates
This study finds that the metabolic impact of climate change increases toward higher latitudes and is stronger in terrestrial than aquatic invertebrates.
Peer-reviewed journalToward a global chemogeography of dissolved organic matter: a molecular trait dataset across Earth systems
Here, we compile and harmonize a global dataset of DOM molecular traits comprising 3,999 samples from 337 studies published between 2005 and 2026.
PreprintEnergy quality shapes biodiversity across coastal oceans
Independent of this gradient, however, energy quality (defined via C:N ratios, {delta}C values, and amino acid profiles) was associated with higher biodiversity.
PreprintReal-world useSoil microenvironment and microbial community composition jointly regulate carbon accrual in agricultural soils
These results show that SOC accrual emerges from interactions between the soil microenvironment and microbial community composition, with fungal community assembly particularly associated with necromass accumulation and carbon retention.
PreprintReal-world useEco-evolutionary dynamics create extinction avalanches in mutualistic-antagonistic networks
While major extinction events are usually associated with external drivers, in this study, we show mechanistically how evolution can trigger abrupt extinction avalanches in ecological networks without any environmental change.
PreprintPhenotypic diversity acts as a higher-order functional trait of populations
Our findings suggest that some traits generate new functions at the population level through variation among individuals, making diversity itself a higher-order functional property.
PreprintJuveniles exhibit lower heatwave tolerance than adults in a reef-building coral
These results indicate an ontogenetic shift in physiological heat tolerance, with larger reproductively mature colonies showing enhanced tolerance.
PreprintReal-world useWho Eats Whom? A global food web derived from citizen science
We present Who Eats Whom, a database and public engagement tool for searching and visualizing thousands of feeding relationships derived from iNaturalist data.
Peer-reviewed journalBroad interestEasy to readSalt sweetens the deal: bumble bees prefer sodium-enriched nectar when its sugar concentration is low
Bees preferred sodium-enriched nectar and preference nearly doubled when sucrose concentration was low.
PreprintProbabilistic species distributions from nine large-scale gridded atlases over five decades
Here we present model-based occupancy probabilities for 1,055 bird and 58 butterfly species, derived from nine gridded atlas datasets spanning several editions over the past 50 years.
PreprintReal-world useLimitation of External Nutrient Supply Effects by Iron-Driven Internal Phosphorus Cycling in Semi-Enclosed Coastal Waters: A Case Study of Mikawa Bay
Overall, the study indicates that localized nutrient enhancement is insufficient to counter long-term oligotrophication, and effective management must integrate nitrogen limitation, internal Fe and P cycling, oceanic exchange, and seasonal variability in Ise and Mikawa Bays.
PreprintReal-world usePlants and mammals once tracked climate closely, then mammal niches shifted under human pressure
In contrast, plant niches remained largely structured by climate, highlighting stronger anthropogenic constraints on mammalian responses to climate change thus far.
PreprintOptimizing plant species selection for automated monitoring of plant-pollinator interactions
Overall, monitoring 12-15 flowering species was sufficient to characterize key network properties across varying community sizes.
PreprintReal-world useInverted trophic pyramids and transient fish community reorganization in large reservoirs
We found transient top-heaviness events (i.e., PCMR values > 1; predator accumulation), characterized by a hump-shaped trajectory of the PCMR values in two reservoirs (Opinaca and Robert Bourassa).
PreprintReal-world useAdult corals enhance juvenile recruitment through cumulative ecological niche construction
Our results show that both adult assemblages and the concurrent structural complexity, consistent with assemblage-level niche construction and ecological inheritance theory, shape coral recruitment.
PreprintMoisture structures litter faunal communities through productivity and trait filtering effects
Thus, moisture structures litter faunal communities via both proposed mechanisms: (1) a productivity effect and (2) a trait filtering effect.
PreprintDensity-Yield Relationship of an Invasive Annual Grass inCalifornia Chaparral and Its Restoration Implications
Applied to restoration in California Chaparral and other Mediterranean ecosystems, where the reduction of "weed" biomass is a common management goal, our findings suggest full removal of non-native annual grasses is likely needed to aid in the restoration of native woody seedlings.
PreprintReal-world useA systematic map of soil invertebrate biodiversity in Canada: Identifying spatial and taxonomic knowledge gaps
We found biases in sampling coverage spatially and in relation to current and projected climatic conditions.
PreprintDiffusion-enhanced spatio-temporal models for estimating spatial expansion
Here, we present a diffusion-enhanced spatio-temporal model (DESTM) that approximates diffusive process using Gaussian Markov random fields (GMRF).
PreprintComparing morphological and molecular methods for stream macroinvertebrate biodiversity assessment across seven watersheds in the southern United States
These results demonstrate that no single method captures a complete picture of stream macroinvertebrate biodiversity, and that method choice should be guided by the taxonomic resolution and community components most relevant to the goals of the bioassessment program.
PreprintReal-world useSoil nematode diversity is structured by vegetation turnover and trait-mediated dispersal limitation
The results showed that 1) nematode α- and γ-diversity were significantly and positively associated with plant β-diversity; 2) nematode β-diversity did not covary with the regional genus pool (γ-diversity) and was primarily shaped by local community assembly, dominated by body width-dependent dispersal limitation; and 3) environmental heterogeneity further contributed to β-diversity in bacterivorous, fungivorous, omnivorous, and total nematode communities.
Peer-reviewed journalPopulation density is a selective driver of urban soil microbiomes: evidence from bacteria, fungi and protozoan communities in a regional city
These results indicate that population density is a selective, rather than universal, driver of urban soil microbiomes and that responses to urbanisation differ markedly among microbial kingdoms.
PreprintPopulation genetic structure and connectivity of Glossina palpalis gambiensis and G. morsitans submorsitans in Southwestern Senegal
These findings indicate that G. p. gambiensis likely constitutes a large metapopulation comprising 3266 effective individuals on average (and up to 7765), whereas G. m. submorsitans appeared as a single and large population, scattered in small pockets that could be readily replenished by immigrants from distant areas in case of control.
PreprintReal-world useArthropod succession from deadwood to soil: increasing diversity and transitions between major forest substrates
Our results show that arthropod communities are strongly structured along the decay gradient from freshly dead wood to organic soil layers.
PreprintImputing missing counts for waterbird species: A comparison of methods for zero-inflated biodiversity monitoring data
Models that jointly account for overdispersion and zero-inflation perform best at predicting zero counts and achieving reliable prediction intervals, and the most suitable method ultimately depends on the abundance distribution of the target species. 4.
PreprintBorrowing data from other populations to forecast epidemic size
These results show that borrowing information among populations can improve forecasts under specific conditions but is not universally beneficial, highlighting the importance of matching forecasting approaches and data sources to the ecological processes being predicted.
PreprintLiving with the invader: two native deer, two outcomes along a gradient of axis deer invasion
The same invader thus drives different mechanisms, but coexistence is provisional: A. axis is still expanding, far from equilibrium, so these shifts read best as early warning signals.
PreprintSoil aggregates reveal tree species and land-use legacy effects on early carbon storage pathways during reforestation
Soil aggregates showed species-associated belowground reorganization, revealing how tree identity and former-pasture legacy may shape early soil C organization before consistent differences emerged in bulk soil C. Aggregate measures can complement bulk soil C measurements in restoration monitoring as early indicators of belowground soil C trajectories shaped by tree species identity and land-use legacy.
PreprintThe nitrification inhibitor DMPP preferentially suppresses ammonia-oxidising bacteria and reduces nitric oxide emissions in an archaeal-dominated grassland soil.
The greater reduction in NO, together with the preferential suppression of AOB, suggests that low-abundance AOB contributed disproportionately to NO production despite the numerical dominance of AOA.
PreprintReal-world useFungal:bacterial biomass balance links environmental gradients to soil respiration across a forest-to-marsh transition
Our results showed that the microbial descriptors most responsive to environmental gradients were not the ones most useful for predicting soil respiration; instead, a relatively simple biomass-partitioning metric captured respiration-relevant microbial variation more effectively than finer taxonomic and genomic descriptors.
PreprintSpecies demography, not metabolic rate, predicts community dominance independently of initial evenness
Demography was a stronger predictor of dominance than photosynthetic rates or individual size, suggesting that growth and competitive success depend on multiple metabolic processes that cannot be reduced to simpler proxies.
PreprintMathematical Modelling of Within-Host HIV Dynamics with Cytotoxic Immune Response and Antiretroviral Therapy
We show that solutions remain non-negative and bounded, identify the infection-free and endemic equilibria, and derive the basic reproduction number together with the local stability condition for the infection-free state.
PreprintPredator self limitation controls pattern formation in a predator prey system with additional food: a Turing Hopf analysis
Predator self competition therefore sets the spatial structure of the community, which is what matters when additional food is used to steer a control agent in the field.
PreprintReal-world useAssessing the impact of data uncertainty on remote sensing estimation of plant functional diversity
Results show that uncertainties stemming from random errors affect the estimation of PFD (up to three times) more than those arising from systematic errors, with spectral and spatial error correlation reducing their impact.
PreprintLate lactation represents the main window for sow-to-piglet transmission of persistent gut strains
These findings highlight the significance of maternal transmission in shaping the post-weaning microbiota and identify late lactation as a critical window for microbiota transfer.
PreprintTowards the automation of Species Distribution Modelling: The AutoMaxEnt routine
Here we present the AutoMaxEnt repository, a collection of functions and tools for the automation of maximum entropy species distribution models.
PreprintPhyllosphere bacterial communities in milkweeds: composition diverge as the season progresses, and links to cardenolides and arthropods depend on host identity
Phyllosphere assembly thus shifts from convergence to divergence in one season: young leaves recruit from a shared pool delivered by wind, rain, and arthropods, whereas exchange among ageing plants declines and communities drift apart.
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