Article
Ecology
Cas F. Carroll, Jacquelyn L. Gill, Caitlin McDonough MacKenzie
Summary: Identifying refugia, where species can survive during unsuitable climate, is crucial for conservation in a warming world. Conservation paleobiology combines fossil records with modeling to locate refugia and understand vulnerability to climate change. A case study in Acadia National Park demonstrates the importance of using plant macrofossils and pollen to update vulnerability assessments and locate potential future refugia.
FRONTIERS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
(2023)
Review
Plant Sciences
Courtney P. P. Leisner, Neha Potnis, Alvaro Sanz-Saez
Summary: As sessile organisms, plants face constant challenges from a changing environment, including fluctuations in temperature, water availability, light levels, and changes in atmospheric constituents such as CO2 and O3. They also experience biotic stress from plant pathogens and herbivores. Increased atmospheric CO2 levels and climate change are impacting plant growth environments and the prevalence and virulence of plant pathogens. Closing the knowledge gap in plant responses to biotic and abiotic stress is crucial for developing climate resilient crops in the future.
PLANT CELL AND ENVIRONMENT
(2023)
Article
Biology
Emma Dawson-Glass, Anna L. Hargreaves
Summary: Sexual reproduction often declines towards range edges, reducing fitness, dispersal and adaptive potential. For plants, sexual reproduction is frequently limited by inadequate pollination. However, this study found little evidence that pollen limitation commonly increases towards plant range edges. Pollination is one of the potential ecological factors that can contribute to range limits, but it is not a generally important constraint on plant distributions.
PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2022)
Article
Ecology
Filipa C. Soares, Ricardo F. Lima, Jorge M. Palmeirim, Pedro Cardoso, Ana S. L. Rodrigues
Summary: This study analyzes the impacts of species extinctions and introductions on the functional diversity and composition of island bird assemblages. The results show that introduced species compensate for the loss of species richness and increase the prevalence of functional traits, but they do not compensate for the loss of functional richness due to extinctions. The current island bird assemblages are becoming functionally poorer.
GLOBAL ECOLOGY AND BIOGEOGRAPHY
(2022)
Article
Plant Sciences
Takehiro Sasaki, Naohiro I. Ishii, Daichi Makishima, Rui Sutou, Akihito Goto, Yutaka Kawai, Hayami Taniguchi, Kunihiro Okano, Ayumi Matsuo, Alfred Lochner, Simone Cesarz, Yoshihisa Suyama, Kouki Hikosaka, Nico Eisenhauer
Summary: This study provides observational evidence that plant and microbial community composition, rather than diversity, are crucial for sustaining multifunctionality in subalpine moorlands. Furthermore, plant and bacterial beta diversity enhance the dissimilarity of moorland multifunctionality.
JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Plant Sciences
Christoph Schworer, Erika Gobet, Jacqueline F. N. van Leeuwen, Sarah Bogli, Rachel Imboden, W. O. van der Knaap, Nadezhda Kotova, Sergej Makhortykh, Willy Tinner
Summary: The study demonstrates significant changes in vegetation and fire dynamics around Lake Svityaz during the Holocene. A boreal forest was established around 13,450 years ago, followed by the expansion of temperate tree species. Fire activity was highest during the Early Holocene, while human impact on vegetation began to increase around 3,400 years ago.
VEGETATION HISTORY AND ARCHAEOBOTANY
(2022)
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Grace J. Di Cecco, Allen H. Hurlbert
Summary: Anthropogenic change has significantly impacted ecological communities globally, leading to a need for studies on community compositional change and the influence of anthropogenic drivers. Research on avian communities in North America showed that at local scales, land use change had a greater impact on turnover than climate change, with temperature variables becoming more influential at larger scales. Individual species undergoing population shifts were found to drive compositional change in avian communities in the region, highlighting the importance of selecting appropriate community turnover metrics.
GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Ecology
Antonio R. Castilla, Alissa Brown, Sean Hoban, Everett Andrew Abhainn, John D. Robinson, Jeanne Romero-Severson, Adam B. Smith, Allan E. Strand, John R. Tipton, Andria Dawson
Summary: Biogeographers have compared estimates of range shift rates using different data types and found that integrating genetic data with other data types can reduce uncertainty and improve consistency in estimates. By integrating these three lines of biogeographical evidence, our understanding of past species distribution can be enhanced.
JOURNAL OF BIOGEOGRAPHY
(2023)
Article
Allergy
Kyung Suk Lee, Kyunghoon Kim, Young-Jin Choi, Seung Yang, Chang-Ryul Kim, Jin-Hwa Moon, Kyu Rang Kim, Yung-Seop Lee, Jae-Won Oh
Summary: This study investigated the relationship between allergenic pollen sensitization rates in children living in the Seoul metropolitan area and changes in pollination associated with weather changes. Results showed that the sensitization rates to oak, hazel, and alder pollen increased annually, especially in younger age groups. The duration of the pollen season and increasing temperatures were found to be positively correlated with sensitization rates to tree pollens.
PEDIATRIC ALLERGY AND IMMUNOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Plant Sciences
Camila S. Souza, Pietro K. Maruyama, Karen C. B. S. Santos, Isabela G. Varassin, Caroline L. Gross, Andrea C. Araujo
Summary: Plant-centred networks showed higher beta-diversity of interactions in space compared to animal-centred networks, with turnover being the main explanatory factor for beta-diversity in both methods. However, rewiring was proportionately more important in the animal-centred method. Plant-centred method indicated lower network modularity and specialization, while floral traits modulated the effects of sampling method on species-level network metrics. Combining animal- and plant-centred approaches returned intermediate values for beta-diversity of interactions and network metrics, suggesting that different methods may be better suited for answering questions at different scales.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Barnabas H. Daru, T. Jonathan Davies, Charles G. Willis, Emily K. Meineke, Argo Ronk, Martin Zobel, Meelis Partel, Alexandre Antonelli, Charles C. Davis
Summary: The study reveals a widespread and temporal decrease in species and phylogenetic turnover, leading to increased biotic homogenization at different scales and spatial extents. The homogenization within major biomes is largely driven by non-native species introductions, with Asia and North America being major sources. However, Australia, the Pacific and Europe contribute disproportionately to phylogenetic diversity in the global pool of non-native species.
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
(2021)
Review
Plant Sciences
Seungmin Son, Sang Ryeol Park
Summary: Organisms regulate gene expression to produce essential proteins for biological processes. Transcription and translation are the major processes of gene expression. Plants have evolved transcription factors and mechanisms to modulate transcription in response to environmental cues. However, proper biosynthesis of transcripts into proteins is crucial for their function. This review highlights the translation mechanisms modulated by biotic and abiotic stresses, such as hypoxia, heat, and drought, and provides a strategy to improve stress tolerance in crops through translational regulation.
FRONTIERS IN PLANT SCIENCE
(2023)
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Rodney T. Richardson, Tyler D. Eaton, Chia-Hua Lin, Garrett Cherry, Reed M. Johnson, Douglas B. Sponsler
Summary: Metagenetic pollen analysis was used to study the foraging ecology of honeybee colonies in urban, suburban, mixed suburban-agricultural, and rural agricultural sites in central Ohio. Results showed that agricultural sites had lower taxonomic diversity and temporal turnover compared to urban and suburban sites, while urban sites exhibited higher forage diversity and compositional turnover, indicating fine-grain heterogeneity and high beta diversity in urban floral landscapes. This study demonstrates the potential of honeybees as environmental samplers for distinguishing floral community composition associated with different land uses and provides insight for future research on the relationship between urbanization and pollinator health.
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Antonio Archidona-Yuste, Thorsten Wiegand, Nico Eisenhauer, Carolina Cantalapiedra-Navarrete, Juan E. Palomares-Rius, Pablo Castillo
Summary: The study focuses on how environmental changes drive the homogenization of ecological communities, specifically looking at the diversity of soil nematodes. Results show that transitioning from natural to agricultural systems and increasing land-use intensity can significantly enhance the functional similarities of plant-feeding nematode communities.
JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Ecology
Alice E. Stears, Peter B. Adler, Dana M. Blumenthal, Julie A. Kray, Kevin E. Mueller, Troy W. Ocheltree, Kevin R. Wilcox, Daniel C. Laughlin
Summary: A major goal in ecology is to predict organism responses to environmental variation based on their traits. In this study, the researchers examined the effects of leaf and root traits on growth and survival in a shortgrass steppe and found that traits significantly mediated the impact of drought on survival but not on growth.
Article
Ecology
Sophia I. Passy, Joseph L. Mruzek, William R. Budnick, Thibault Leboucher, Aurelien Jamoneau, Jonathan M. Chase, Janne Soininen, Eric R. Sokol, Juliette Tison-Rosebery, Annika Vilmi, Jianjun Wang, Chad A. Larson
Summary: This study is the first spatially explicit examination of the species-area relationship (SAR) in subcontinental freshwater ecosystems, focusing on the shape and origins of the SAR across different organismal groups (diatoms, insects, and fish) with varying body size and dispersal capacity. The results show that scale and species group are the most important predictors of the SAR shape, while climatic factors and metacommunity properties are secondary predictors. Different models are applicable to different organismal groups, scales, and metacommunity properties. Therefore, future research should investigate how climate change affects metacommunity properties and alters the SAR.
Article
Ecology
Siwen He, Beixin Wang, Kai Chen, Janne Soininen
Summary: Metacommunity structure is influenced by both deterministic and stochastic factors, with their importance varying depending on environmental and trait heterogeneity. Environmental filtering is most strongly associated with regions of moderate environmental heterogeneity and high trait heterogeneity. Associations with stochastic factors are more variable and difficult to predict.
FRESHWATER BIOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Ecology
Janne Soininen
Summary: This study aimed to investigate the variation of stream diatom community assembly processes at different spatial scales. It was found that environmental filtering dominated the assembly of diatom communities, especially at small scales, while stochastic factors such as random dispersal and ecological drift became more influential at larger scales.
FRESHWATER BIOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Biology
Diego P. F. Trindade, Carlos P. Carmona, Triin Reitalu, Meelis Partel
Summary: Global change drivers impact both the observed species and functional traits in a local site and its dark diversity. Long-term temporal dynamics in observed and dark diversity are relevant for assessing and predicting biodiversity change. A study examining sedimentary pollen data in northern Europe found that taxonomic and functional observed and dark diversity increased over time, but dark diversity revealed expansion lags and extensive functional redundancy.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2023)
Editorial Material
Ecology
Triin Reitalu, Sandra Nogue
Summary: An analysis of pollen data from southeast Australia spanning the Holocene epoch reveals significant temporal and spatial variability in plant functional diversity. Adopting a functional perspective on palaeoecological data can enhance our understanding of the ongoing climate-biodiversity crisis and aid in predicting future changes.
NATURE ECOLOGY & EVOLUTION
(2023)
Editorial Material
Ecology
Laurent Marquer, Andrea Seim, Niina Kuosmanen, Triin Reitalu, Olga Solomina, Miikka Tallavaara
FRONTIERS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
(2023)
Article
Plant Sciences
Regina Lindborg, Tibor Hartel, Aveliina Helm, Elisabeth Prangel, Ttriin Reitalu, Raimon Ripoll-Bosch
Summary: This study explores the ability of semi-natural grasslands (SNG) and intensified grasslands (IG) to provide ecosystem services (ES) in farmland. The results show that SNG can provide a wider range of ES compared to IG, including biodiversity, pollination, and cultural services. SNG also have more plant functional traits and functional richness, which may contribute to their ability to provide ES.
APPLIED VEGETATION SCIENCE
(2023)
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Tuuli Rissanen, Pekka Niittynen, Janne Soininen, Anna-Maria Virkkala, Miska Luoto
Summary: The relationships between key environmental drivers and plant functional traits in the tundra are largely consistent across spatial scales. Summer temperature and snow persistence are the most important variables explaining community trait composition. Snow has significant impacts on seed mass, specific leaf area, and vegetation height.
Article
Ecology
Bjoern Kroger, Geza B. Selmeczy, Peter Casper, Janne Soininen, Judit Padisak
Summary: Climate warming and legacy phosphorus in sediments are counteracting efforts to prevent eutrophication of freshwater lakes and reservoirs. Lake Stechlin in Germany shows that even when external phosphorus sources are blocked, legacy phosphorus from sediments can still drive eutrophication. The study highlights the challenges of managing freshwater ecosystems in the context of climate warming.
FRESHWATER BIOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Archaeology
Normunds Stivrins, Inga Donina, Muntis Auns, Ansis Blaus, Merlin Liiv, Dace Steinberga, Nauris Jasiunas, Ieva Grudzinska
Summary: Through the use of well-established geoarchaeological research methods and historical context, this study reconstructs human-induced activities over a 1300-year period in the Lake Lilaste area of central Latvian sandy coastal area. The study reveals a significant human impact on the terrestrial environment since the 14th century, including deforestation and changes in species composition. The findings of this study provide evidence of a recognizable human-driven legacy in the current seacoast landscape.
GEOARCHAEOLOGY-AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL
(2023)
Article
Ecology
Heidi K. Mod, Tuuli Rissanen, Pekka Niittynen, Janne Soininen, Miska Luoto
Summary: By assessing the relationships between species occupancy and niche metrics, as well as trait variability, at different spatial scales in four study areas north of the Arctic Circle, this study found that species' traits were more important at fine scales, while abiotic filtering played a larger role at broad scales. These findings highlight the scale-dependency of factors driving species occupancy.
JOURNAL OF BIOGEOGRAPHY
(2023)
Article
Geography, Physical
Thomas G. Sim, Graeme T. Swindles, Paul J. Morris, Andy J. Baird, Angela V. Gallego-Sala, Yuwan Wang, Maarten Blaauw, Philip Camill, Michelle Garneau, Mark Hardiman, Julie Loisel, Minna Valiranta, Lysanna Anderson, Karina Apolinarska, Femke Augustijns, Liene Aunina, Joannie Beaulne, Premysl Bobek, Werner Borken, Nils Broothaerts, Qiao-Yu Cui, Marissa A. Davies, Ana Ejarque, Michelle Farrell, Ingo Feeser, Angelica Feurdean, Richard E. Fewster, Sarah A. Finkelstein, Marie-Jose Gaillard, Mariusz Gaika, Liam Heffernan, Renske Hoevers, Miriam Jones, Teemu Juselius-Rajamaki, Edgar Karofeld, Klaus-Holger Knorr, Atte Korhola, Dmitri Kupriyanov, Malin E. Kylander, Terri Lacourse, Mariusz Lamentowicz, Martin Lavoie, Geoffrey Lemdahl, Dominika Lucow, Gabriel Magnan, Alekss Maksims, Claudia A. Mansilla, Katarzyna Marcisz, Elena Marinova, Paul J. H. Mathijssen, Dmitri Mauquoy, Yuri A. Mazei, Natalia Mazei, Julia McCarroll, Robert D. McCulloch, Alice M. Milner, Yannick Miras, Fraser J. G. Mitchell, Elena Novenko, Nicolas Pelletier, Matthew C. Peros, Sanna R. Piilo, Louis-Martin Pilote, Guillaume Primeau, Damien Rius, Vincent Robin, Mylene Robitaille, Thomas P. Roland, Eleonor Ryberg, A. Britta K. Sannel, Karsten Schittek, Gabriel Servera-Vives, William Shotyk, Michal Slowinski, Normunds Stivrins, Ward Swinnen, Gareth Thompson, Alexei Tiunov, Andrey N. Tsyganov, Eeva-Stiina Tuittila, Gert Verstraeten, Tuomo Wallenius, Julia Webb, Debra Willard, Zicheng Yu, Claudio Zaccone, Hui Zhang
Summary: Northern peatlands store globally-important amounts of carbon, but drying and land-use change may increase fire frequency and carbon loss. Our study reveals regional variation in peatland burning during the Holocene, with long-term trends driven mostly by climate and human activities. Peatland burning has declined in some areas since the Little Ice Age, possibly due to fire-suppression policies and landscape fragmentation. However, widespread drying and degradation of peatlands have increased their vulnerability to burning in recent centuries.
QUATERNARY SCIENCE REVIEWS
(2023)
Review
Ecology
Kerry A. A. Brown, M. Jane Bunting, Fabio Carvalho, Francesco de Bello, Luke Mander, Katarzyna Marcisz, Ondrej Mottl, Triin Reitalu, Jens-Christian Svenning
Summary: Research has shown that quantifying spatial variation in ecosystem properties is effective for investigating the effects of environmental change, but there is a need for better understanding of temporal variation. Trait-based approaches can be used to reconstruct long-term variation in ecosystems, but there are challenges in translating palaeoecological datasets into functional traits. Despite these challenges, palaeo-trait research offers insights into ecosystem functioning and environmental change across time and can improve understanding of present-day and future ecosystem management.
FUNCTIONAL ECOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Microbiology
Tiia Luostarinen, Sofia Ribeiro, Heike H. Zimmermann, Anna B. Kvorning, Maija Heikkilae
Summary: This study presents the first indication of Protoperidinium tricingulatum in the Arctic based on single-cell LSU rDNA sequencing. The morphology of the sequenced cysts resembles the sea-ice indicator Islandinium? cezare morphotype 1. Furthermore, the study suggests that Arctic spiny brown dinoflagellate cyst species may be morphologically diverse and taxonomically complex, requiring further genetic and morphological studies.
JOURNAL OF EUKARYOTIC MICROBIOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Ecology
Tuuli Rissanen, Aino Aalto, Heli Kainulainen, Olli Kauppi, Pekka Niittynen, Janne Soininen, Miska Luoto
Summary: This study examined the relationship between plant diversity and environmental factors in northern Norway. The results revealed that snow and fluvial conditions were strongly linked to taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic plant diversity in tundra ecosystems. The study emphasized the importance of investigating multiple facets of biodiversity and addressing local hydrological conditions in understanding vegetation patterns.
