Article
Ecology
Joseph P. Wayman, Jonathan P. Sadler, Thomas A. M. Pugh, Thomas E. Martin, Joseph A. Tobias, Thomas J. Matthews
Summary: The aim of this study was to determine the primary drivers of compositional change in breeding bird assemblages over a 40-year period in Britain. Using morphological trait measurements and presence-absence data, the researchers calculated temporal taxonomic and functional beta diversity for each hectad, and assessed the potential drivers of beta diversity. The results showed that initial species richness and spatial autocorrelation were the most important predictors of compositional change, while climate and land-use variables had relatively low explanatory power.
GLOBAL ECOLOGY AND BIOGEOGRAPHY
(2022)
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Jeremy M. Cohen, Daniel Fink, Benjamin Zuckerberg
Summary: Due to modern climate change, the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events are increasing, making species especially vulnerable to extreme weather during winter. Research found that birds responded differently to extreme weather events, with smaller-bodied, warm-adapted passerines showing the most negative response to the polar vortex and the most positive response to the winter heat wave, while larger-bodied, cold-adapted waterbirds exhibited mild responses to both events.
Article
Ecology
Olivia L. L. Cope, Luke N. N. Zehr, Anurag A. A. Agrawal, William C. C. Wetzel
Summary: Extreme heat events, which are increasing in frequency and intensity, can have varying consequences on insect communities depending on their timing. This study found that the timing of heat waves had multiyear, timing-specific effects on plant-insect communities, with early-season heat waves having more significant and persistent effects than late-season heat waves. The study also showed that heat waves following experimental herbivory had reduced consequences. Overall, the results highlight the complex and lasting ecological effects of extreme climate events, emphasizing the importance of considering timing.
Editorial Material
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Niall P. Hanan, Anthony M. Swemmer
Summary: An analysis of carbon stored in plants and soil in an African savannah suggests that frequent fires may have less impact on atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations and global warming than previously thought.
Article
Ecology
Tuomas Kankaanpaa, Nerea Abrego, Eero Vesterinen, Tomas Roslin
Summary: In a warming world, changes in climate can impact species-level responses and community structure through ecological interactions such as predation and herbivory. Understanding the links between these responses at different levels is crucial for assessing the consequences of future climatic changes. This study in the High Arctic demonstrates that microclimatic variation drives local community structure, species interactions, and interaction outcomes in Arctic ecosystems.
JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
D. T. C. Cox, A. S. Gardner, K. J. Gaston
Summary: While most mammals are nocturnal, research shows that a significant proportion of species are more flexible in their activity patterns than previously believed, suggesting that they may have the ability to switch between different diel niches.
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
(2021)
Article
Ecology
Patrick Strutzenberger, Konrad Fiedler
Summary: The study found that plant growth form has the greatest influence on the phylogenetic structure of herbivore assemblages in the nemoral and boreal regions of the Western Palaearctic, with higher plant systematics or secondary metabolites playing a lesser role at this macroecological scale. The approach used in the study successfully identified patterns in the phylogenetic structure of herbivore assemblages, supporting the classical plant apparency hypothesis. Plant secondary compounds had limited explanatory power on the analyzed scale.
FUNCTIONAL ECOLOGY
(2022)
Editorial Material
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Moriaki Yasuhara, Curtis A. Deutsch
Summary: The increase in species diversity towards the tropics is a remarkable global phenomenon that has not been fully explained yet. Evidence from ocean microfossils suggests that this pattern emerged due to ancient climate cooling and polar-climate dynamics.
Editorial Material
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Nikki Forrester, Andrea Fischer
Summary: Glaciologist Andrea Fischer shares her firsthand experience of studying the constantly changing ice masses.
Editorial Material
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Zeljko Zgrablic
Summary: This sentence briefly introduces the work of field mycologist Zeljko Zgrablic and his dog in tracking how climate change affects truffles.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Arnaud Auber, Conor Waldock, Anthony Maire, Eric Goberville, Camille Albouy, Adam C. Algar, Matthew McLean, Anik Brind'Amour, Alison L. Green, Mark Tupper, Laurent Vigliola, Kristin Kaschner, Kathleen Kesner-Reyes, Maria Beger, Jerry Tjiputra, Aurele Toussaint, Cyrille Violle, Nicolas Mouquet, Wilfried Thuiller, David Mouillot
Summary: This study presents a functional vulnerability framework that incorporates uncertainty and reference conditions, allowing for the quantification of vulnerability to a wide range of threats. Through case studies on marine fishes and mammals, the study demonstrates the relevance and operationality of the framework, as well as the geographic and temporal patterns of functional vulnerability.
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
(2022)
Review
Ecology
Ben P. Harvey, Katie E. Marshall, Christopher D. G. Harley, Bayden D. Russell
Summary: Marine heatwaves, prolonged periods of warm seawater, can reshape marine communities and ecosystems. Researchers propose a functional trait approach to understand which species and communities are most vulnerable to these events and predict how species distribution and community composition may shift over time. This approach aims to unify extreme events and long-term environmental trends as drivers of ecological change, enhancing the ability to make informed management decisions.
TRENDS IN ECOLOGY & EVOLUTION
(2022)
Editorial Material
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Clare Watson
Summary: Due to climate change, some endangered animals may not survive in their current habitats. Researchers are conducting tests on a controversial strategy to relocate them before it becomes too late - starting with Australia's rarest reptile.
Editorial Material
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Ellen I. Damschen
Summary: To predict the risk of extinction due to climate change, it is important to understand the interactions between species. Analyzing the impact of rainfall changes on competition between plant species provides a solution to this challenge.
Article
Ecology
Katharine Keogan, Francis Daunt, Sarah Wanless, Richard A. Phillips, David Alvarez, Tycho Anker-Nilssen, Robert T. Barrett, Claus Bech, Peter H. Becker, Per-Arvid Berglund, Sandra Bouwhuis, Zofia M. Burr, Olivier Chastel, Signe Christensen-Dalsgaard, Sebastien Descamps, Tony Diamond, Kyle Elliott, Kjell-Einar Erikstad, Mike Harris, Jonas Hentati-Sundberg, Martin Heubeck, Stephen W. Kress, Magdalene Langset, Svein-Hakon Lorentsen, Heather L. Major, Mark Mallory, Mick Mellor, Will T. S. Miles, Borge Moe, Carolyn Mostello, Mark Newell, Ian Nisbet, Tone Kirstin Reiertsen, Jennifer Rock, Paula Shannon, Oystein Varpe, Sue Lewis, Albert B. Phillimore
Summary: This study investigates the shared phenological responses to environmental drivers among different seabird populations. The results show that populations of different species sharing the same breeding site or small-scale breeding region have positively correlated laying dates, suggesting shared phenological responses to the same environmental conditions. However, no positive phenological covariation was found among populations across species at larger spatial scales. The study also highlights the idiosyncratic responses of populations to local environmental conditions.
JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Ecology
Fernando Pulido, Bastien Castagneyrol, Francisco Rodriguez-Sanchez, Yonatan Caceres, Adara Pardo, Eva Moracho, Johannes Kollmann, Fernando Valladares, Johan Ehrlen, Alistair S. Jump, Jens-Christian Svenning, Arndt Hampe
Summary: By conducting a meta-analysis on global populations of plants and animals, it was found that marginal populations perform significantly worse than central populations, especially those at low latitudes. This performance difference is likely to be influenced by global climate change, and changes in demographic rates of marginal populations can serve as early-warning signals for range shifts.
GLOBAL ECOLOGY AND BIOGEOGRAPHY
(2023)
Article
Ecology
Rasmus Ostergaard Pedersen, Soren Faurby, Jens-Christian Svenning
Summary: If human-linked extinctions and extirpations had not occurred, the effects of herbivorous mammals in natural ecosystems would have been much stronger. Our study estimates that wild mammals currently consume a median of 11% of net primary productivity (NPP) in natural areas, which would have been 21% without extinctions and extirpations. These findings highlight the significant impact of species losses on ecosystem structure and functioning.
GLOBAL ECOLOGY AND BIOGEOGRAPHY
(2023)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Wu-Bing Xu, Wen-Yong Guo, Josep M. Serra-Diaz, Franziska Schrodt, Wolf L. Eiserhardt, Brian J. Enquist, Brian S. Maitner, Cory Merow, Cyrille Violle, Madhur Anand, Michael Belluau, Hans Henrik Bruun, Chaeho Byun, Jane A. Catford, Bruno E. L. Cerabolini, Eduardo Chacon-Madrigal, Daniela Ciccarelli, J. Hans C. Cornelissen, Anh Tuan Dang-Le, Angel de Frutos, Arildo S. Dias, Aelton B. Giroldo, Alvaro G. Gutierrez, Wesley Hattingh, Tianhua He, Peter Hietz, Nate Hough-Snee, Steven Jansen, Jens Kattge, Benjamin Komac, Nathan J. B. Kraft, Koen Kramer, Sandra Lavorel, Christopher H. Lusk, Adam R. Martin, Ke-Ping Ma, Maurizio Mencuccini, Sean T. Michaletz, Vanessa Minden, Akira S. Mori, Uelo Niinemets, Yusuke Onoda, Renske E. Onstein, Josep Penuelas, Valerio D. Pillar, Jan Pisek, Matthew J. Pound, Bjorn J. M. Robroek, Brandon Schamp, Martijn Slot, Miao Sun, Enio E. Sosinski Jr, Nadejda A. Soudzilovskaia, Nelson Thiffault, Peter M. van Bodegom, Fons van der Plas, Jingming Zheng, Jens-Christian Svenning, Alejandro Ordonez
Summary: Studying the impacts of past climate change on biodiversity helps to understand the risks from future climate change. This study found that larger glacial-interglacial temperature change was associated with lower species replacements and higher richness changes in beta-diversity. Furthermore, regions with large temperature change showed lower phylogenetic and functional turnover and higher nestedness than expected, indicating selective processes during glacial-interglacial oscillations. These findings suggest that future human-driven climate change could lead to local homogenization and reduction in angiosperm tree diversity.
Article
Green & Sustainable Science & Technology
Timothy M. Lenton, Chi Xu, Jesse F. Abrams, Ashish Ghadiali, Sina Loriani, Boris Sakschewski, Caroline Zimm, Kristie L. Ebi, Robert R. Dunn, Jens-Christian Svenning, Marten Scheffer
Summary: The costs of climate change are often expressed in monetary terms, but this brings up ethical concerns. This study calculates the costs in terms of the number of people excluded from the 'human climate niche', which represents the historically consistent distribution of population density with respect to temperature. It was found that current climate policies leading to 2.7 degrees C global warming by the end of the century could leave one-third of the global population outside this niche, emphasizing the urgency for decisive action to address climate change.
NATURE SUSTAINABILITY
(2023)
Article
Ecology
Cristina Argudin-Violante, Owen S. Middleton, Kathy Y. Slater, Esteban Dominguez-Bonilla, C. Patrick Doncaster
Summary: This study investigates the coexistence of jaguars, pumas, and ocelots in the southern buffer zone of the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve in southern Mexico. The researchers found that temporal segregation is unlikely to be the mechanism of coexistence, as there was little overlap in activity patterns between the three predator species and their shared prey. Jaguars had low activity overlap with species likely to be common prey, while ocelots had high overlap with their potential prey.
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Ask Lykke Herrik, Niels Mogensen, Jens-Christian Svenning, Robert Buitenwerf
Summary: African wildlife populations are declining rapidly, and more areas for wildlife are needed to stop further declines and restore ecosystems. Community-based conservation with wildlife-livestock coexistence in African rangelands presents a major opportunity, but the efficacy of conservation efforts in mixed land-use areas is still uncertain.
JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Ecology
Franz Essl, Adrian Garcia-Rodriguez, Bernd Lenzner, Jake M. Alexander, Cesar Capinha, Pierre Gauzere, Antoine Guisan, Ingolf Kuehn, Jonathan Lenoir, David M. Richardson, Sabine B. Rumpf, Jens-Christian Svenning, Wilfried Thuiller, Damaris Zurell, Stefan Dullinger
Summary: The rapid environmental changes in the Anthropocene era have caused shifts in species' spatial distributions, with lagged responses leading to disequilibrium states. The effects of different types of environmental change and time lags on species responses have not been adequately explored, which has implications for biodiversity assessments, scenarios, and models, thus impacting policymaking and conservation science. This perspective piece examines lagged species responses to environmental change and discusses ways to improve the calibration of species distribution models (SDMs) to account for time lags and enhance biodiversity science and policy.
JOURNAL OF BIOGEOGRAPHY
(2023)
Article
Ecology
Pablo Sanchez-Martinez, Maurizio Mencuccini, Raul Garcia-Valdes, William M. Hammond, Josep M. Serra-Diaz, Wen-Yong Guo, Ricardo A. Segovia, Kyle G. Dexter, Jens-Christian Svenning, Craig Allen, Jordi Martinez-Vilalta
Summary: This study integrates information on the edaphoclimatic niches, phylogeny, and hydraulic traits of woody plants to model the hydraulic risk globally. It finds that local assemblages with higher hydraulic risk have a higher probability of mortality. The methodology presented in this study improves our ability to predict potential global change impacts on vegetation by mapping functional trait distributions and elucidating global macro-evolutionary and biogeographical patterns.
NATURE ECOLOGY & EVOLUTION
(2023)
Article
Ecology
Ninad Avinash Mungi, Yadvendradev V. Jhala, Qamar Qureshi, Elizabeth le Roux, Jens-Christian Svenning
Summary: This study explores the potential of megaherbivores to control plant invasions, finding that they can facilitate the growth of native plants and reduce the abundance of alien plants. This relationship is strongest in protected areas but is lost in areas dominated by thicket-forming alien plants.
NATURE ECOLOGY & EVOLUTION
(2023)
Article
Environmental Studies
Celina Aznarez, Jens-Christian Svenning, Juan Pablo Pacheco, Frederik Have Kallesoe, Francesc Baro, Unai Pascual
Summary: Socio-economic and historical drivers shape urban nature distribution and characteristics, with luxury and legacy effects playing a role. Higher educational attainment positively correlated with urban biodiversity, confirming the luxury effect. Older areas had higher vegetation cover and ecosystem services (ES), evidencing a legacy effect with an inverse response on biodiversity. Habitat quality amplified the luxury effect, while population density strengthened the legacy effect.
NPJ URBAN SUSTAINABILITY
(2023)
Article
Plant Sciences
Christoffer Bonavent, Kent Olsen, Rasmus Ejrnaes, Camilla Flojgaard, Morten D. D. Hansen, Signe Normand, Jens-Christian Svenning, Hans Henrik Bruun
Summary: How does naturalistic grazing affect plant community composition and species richness in temperate grassland grazed by semi-feral cattle and horses? An experiment conducted in Denmark showed that grazing treatments resulted in higher plant species richness compared to mowing and full exclosure. The study also found that forbs were more prevalent under grazing, which could benefit floral resources for insects.
APPLIED VEGETATION SCIENCE
(2023)
Article
Fisheries
Anastasiia Zymaroieva, Dmytro Bondarev, Olga Kunakh, Jens-Christian Svenning, Oleksandr Zhukov
Summary: The study aimed to identify fish traits that were positively related to eutrophication and ongoing warming in the Dnipro River channel and floodplain water system. The results showed that phytophilic, limnophilic, and freshwater fish species are increasing in abundance, while rheophilic and lithophilic fish are decreasing due to global warming. Fish species with greater vulnerability and resilience have selective advantages in terms of global warming and brackish-water demersal self-settled species of marine origin dominate in the face of increasing eutrophication and a warming climate.
Article
Ecology
Marco Davoli, Sophie Monsarrat, Rasmus Ostergaard Pedersen, Paolo Scussolini, Dirk Nikolaus Karger, Signe Normand, Jens-Christian Svenning
Summary: This study estimated the diversity and functional decline of European megafauna before and after the diffusion of Homo sapiens. The results showed a significant decrease in species richness, community biomass, functional diversity, and potential vegetation and meat consumptions. The decline in megafauna diversity and associated ecological processes were likely driven by prehistoric Homo sapiens.
GLOBAL ECOLOGY AND BIOGEOGRAPHY
(2023)
Article
Environmental Studies
Cecilia Parracciani, Robert Buitenwerf, Jens-Christian Svenning
Summary: This study examines the potential effects of climate change on Kenyan vegetation and vegetation shifts for 2050 and 2100. The findings suggest that under moderate emissions, arid-associated shrubland vegetation will increase, leading to the expansion of drylands. However, under high-emission scenarios, savannas are forecasted to expand at the expense of forests. The projected shifts in major vegetation types would likely impact ecosystem functioning and biodiversity, highlighting the urgency of climate change mitigation.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Juraj Bergman, Rasmus o. Pedersen, Erick J. Lundgren, Rhys T. Lemoine, Sophie Monsarrat, Elena A. Pearce, Mikkel H. Schierup, Jens-Christian Svenning
Summary: A study reveals that there has been a widespread decline in populations of megafauna during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene, with larger species experiencing the most significant declines. This decline occurred between 32-76 thousand years ago and is more likely attributed to the expansion of Homo sapiens rather than climate changes. Over the past 50,000 years, the total abundance, biomass, and energy turnover of megafauna decreased by 92-95%, indicating a significant human-driven restructuring of global ecosystems.
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
(2023)