A new species of the extant staphylinid genus Vicelva Moore & Legner, V. rasilis sp. nov., is reported from mid-Cretaceous Kachin amber of northern Myanmar. The pollen-containing coprolite attached to the beetle and the crystals within the beetle body provide valuable information about the biology and taphonomy of the fossil.

This study provides information that may contribute to unravel the actual role of the cosmopolitan house sparrow as disperser of a likely broad spectrum of wild, cultivated and exotic plants, an unexplored aspect that open up eco-evolutionary and applied questions.

The phenological variations of an aquatic insect within the same temperate mountain massif were compared between alpine and sub-alpine populations. Differences in phenological variations due to environmental differences were indicated between populations from different altitudinal zones.

This study investigates the relationship between the vgll3 genotype and behaviors like boldness and exploration in Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar). It challenges the pace-of-life syndrome (POLS) predictions by revealing that salmon with the late maturation genotype (vgll3*LL), contrary to expectations, displayed greater boldness and exploratory behavior. The study also highlights sex-specific differences in these behaviors, extending the understanding of behavioral syndromes to include genetic factors linked to life-history traits.

This article presents a description of the development of a web-based platform for data sharing and integrating biodiversity historical data of wild plants, fruits, associated insects, and their molecular barcodes (WiPFIM) while leveraging data science technologies. The platform holds invaluable potential in understanding fruit–insect interactions and can function as a decision-making tool.

The activity budget of the giraffe in various African populations has been studied extensively, revealing that it is affected by body size, foraging patterns, and sex. Our study focused on evaluating the seasonal activity budgets and foraging patterns of the Nubian giraffe in Lake Nakuru National Park, Kenya using scan sampling. Overall, seasons had little impact on giraffe activity time budgets and foraging patterns in Lake Nakuru National Park.

In this paper, we delved into the diversification and evolutionary history of endemic copepod crustacean Harpacticella inopinata from the ancient Lake Baikal. We found a complex of five cryptic species with deep levels of mitochondrial divergence and long independent evolutionary histories.

This study aims to assess the threat to the habitats of Chinese alligators under climate change by utilizing species distribution models and barycenter migration analyses. In addition, this study combined species distribution models and systematic conservation planning tools to identify priority protection areas for Chinese alligators under climate change and provide data support for the protection of Chinese alligators under climate change.

Vertebrae of the cervical region are more diverse in shape among species than other regions. Evolutionary allometry plays a stronger role than locomotion in driving shape variation in small- to medium-sized terrestrial mammals.

Despite their diverse predatory tactics, spider predation on bats remains understudied, particularly in temperate regions. This article provides detailed observations of bat predation and mortality by spiders in Europe, including the first record of a spider capturing and consuming a bat pup in Spain, as well as accounts of bats entangled in spider webs on a building and inside bat boxes in the United Kingdom. These findings offer new insights into unknown predator–prey interactions and emphasise the need for further research on the ecological relationship between these elusive nocturnal taxa.

Predation is an important ecological process, particularly in arctic environments, which undergo rapid environmental change. Vertebrate trophic networks from a fragmented terrestrial ecosystem on northern Ellesmere Island and north Greenland were less complex, had more specialized interactions, and were more nested and more modular than random expectations. Networks also varied among several isolated peninsulas, which highlights the often-complex ecological responses to environmental characteristics.

This paper shows by example that developing new research directions in ecology and evolution is not an impersonal process of sequential hypothesis testing but necessarily includes a strong human dimension where timelines and diversity of people and places play major roles. These aspects cannot be deduced from the published literature. This account will be useful for teachers and aspiring scientists and challenge standard perceptions about how science operates in reality.

Majority of woodland caribou expressed some type of fidelity during the calving period with habitat fidelity (50%) being more frequently expressed in calving sequences than spatial fidelity (29%). Older individuals were more likely to express spatial fidelity, whereas lower availability of high-quality habitat increased the probability an individual expressed habitat fidelity. Our results indicate that protecting not only specific sites, but preferred calving habitat may be essential for enhancing opportunities for caribou calving.

Abundant and rare bacterial communities exhibited differing biogeographic patterns, and Proteobacteria was the dominant phylum for both abundant and rare taxa in the paddy soils along the middle and lower of the Yangtze River. The assembly of the abundant community was more influenced by stochastic processes, although both the abundant and rare communities were governed by stochastic processes.

Sailfin mollies from South Carolina display a countergradient pattern of variation in growth and development compared to mollies from north Florida. Some patterns of plasticity to temperature and salinity variation are similar between fish from the two regions but others are different, with the South Carolina fish displaying, overall, less plasticity because of their more rapid growth and maturation at lower temperatures. Males are much less plastic than females.

This study investigates how landscape diversity and climatic factors affect the populations and nutritional health of honey bee colonies in Mexico. It was found that greater landscape diversity correlates with higher pollen diversity, while areas with more agriculture and urbanization show lower bee densities. The results underscore the importance of preserving diverse habitats to support bee health and, by extension, human food security.

In this paper, we employed harmonic regression analysis to fit time series data of vegetation indices based on Landsat 7/8 images and achieved the mapping of Spartina alterniflora in coastal zone of Guangxi from 2009 to 2020 by combining the extracted phenological features with random forest model. We used the Maxent model to evaluate the influence of natural environmental factors on the distribution ofS. alterniflora and analyzed the potential distribution.

Climate change alters environmental conditions in ways that directly and indirectly affect plants. We investigated how warming and drought impacted reproduction in bee-pollinated squash using a fully crossed factorial temperature by irrigation manipulation experiment. By teasing apart the direct (in hand-pollinated plants) and indirect (in bee-pollinated plants) effects on plant reproductive success, we found that pollinators likely mediated drought-induced pollen limitation by transporting and depositing pollen from plants experiencing soil-moisture limitation.

In this paper, we present two individuals of the bluespotted ribbontail ray, Taeniura lymma (Forsskål, 1775), with symmetrically deformed posterior pectoral fins. Both individuals were observed through aerial imagery on a coastal sandflat in the central Red Sea (22.30° N, 39.09° E). Our observations constitute the first report of a morphological abnormality in T. lymma.

Potential planting regions of Pterocarpus santalinus under current and future climate in China based on MaxEnt model. This study is vital for developing adaptive strategies for the cultivation and conservation of this economically significant species in the face of ongoing climatic shifts.

Open science skills are becoming increasingly important in academic and industry working environments in the fields of ecology and evolutionary biology (EEB). Yet, learning EEB concepts alongside open science skills such as programming is challenging for undergraduate students. To address this issue, we developed six open-access interactive tutorials integrating open science tools, programming, and data literacy into undergraduate teaching on topics of ecology and evolution.

To address our climate emergency, “we must rapidly, radically reshape society”—Johnson & Wilkinson, All We Can Save. In science, reshaping requires formidable technical (cloud, coding, and reproducibility) and cultural shifts (mindsets, hybrid collaboration, and inclusion). We are a group of cross-government and academic scientists who are exploring better ways of working and not being too entrenched in our bureaucracies to do better science, support colleagues, and change the culture at our organizations, and we share much-needed success stories and action for what we can all do to reshape science as part of the Open Science movement and 2023 Year of Open Science.

Disturbance is a central theme in ecosystem ecology. Equal measures viewpoint and review, our article concisely highlights and recommends how the concepts and findings of other biological disciplines can enrich the understanding and interpretation of how disturbance affects ecosystem processes.

In Costa Rica, Canthidium and Onthophagus have abrupt diversity declines above 1500 m a.s.l. Endemic species showed narrower vertical distribution when compared to non-endemic ones.

Maps of 95% isopleths of utilization distributions of blue-winged teal, mallard, and northern pintail bands recovered in the Central and Mississippi flyways of North America between 1960 and 2019 for the banding region and month in which species-specific shifts were greatest. Shown are isopleths (polygons) and centroid locations (points) of bands recovered during 1960–1969 (gray/black) or 2010–2019 (red).

We investigated potential factors affecting embryonic heart rate (EHR), a proxy of development, in 14 wild songbird species in east-central Illinois, USA. Within species we found that EHR was positively associated with embryonic age and egg temperature, while EHR among species were positively associated with nest predation risk. Consistent with past research on avian life histories, our findings suggest that predation risk plays an important role in governing variation in EHR (and developmental rates) among songbird species.

Here, we present the first GPS data describing the movement ecology and spatial use of mammals on an airfield, using the Irish hare (Lepus timidus hibernicus), at Dublin International Airport, through the deployment of five GPS collars. A total of 4571 active area interactions were recorded between December 2021 and August 2022, with all five hares engaging with manoeuvring areas. This research has important implications for wildlife hazard management.

We tested the utility of on-animal acoustic recorders for recording animal behaviours and documenting the rutting activity of reindeer through their acoustic repertoires. We used machine learning to process the acoustic recordings of mobile animals wearing recorders. We were able to effectively use convolutional networks to describe the rutting activity of reindeer who were wearing on-animal acoustic recorder.

We present a mathematical model of within-host, immune-parasite dynamics. We investigate how host nutrition, parasite life-history and immune strategies interact to determine host outcomes. We find that hosts do best when prioritising tolerance of infection by repairing damage, combined with a low level of parasite resistance.

We describe a novel species interaction in which coyotes (Canis latrans) kleptoparasitize North American river otters (Lontra canadensis) in a region of river otter recovery along the north-central California coast, USA. We describe eight observations of coyotes scavenging otter-killed waterbird carrion, including one observation in which river otters aggressively defended their prey from a coyote kleptoparasite. These observations highlight the importance of carrion provisioning as an overlooked pathway through which river otters facilitate nutrient subsidies to terrestrial scavengers, and we outline hypotheses and questions regarding the ecological consequences of this cross-ecosystem linkage.

This study introduces a computational framework to analyze the causes of cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms (cyanoHABs) in Lake Kinneret. By integrating CCM and Extended CCM (ECCM) causal networks with Bayesian Network (BN) model, we uncovered significant interactions among various factors influencing cyanoHAB formation. The framework provides a more comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms driving cyanoHABs, capturing complex interactions and offering explainable prediction models by considering causal relationships, temporal dynamics, and joint probabilities of environmental factors.

We found a large number of breeding colonies of Asian openbill across human-dominated landscapes in eastern lowland Nepal. The Asian openbill showed a preference for large trees, with Bombax ceiba being the most favored species. Our research provides valuable baseline data for the development of comprehensive conservation plans and policies for these storks in eastern Nepal.

This study examines the impact of extreme heat on the behaviour of three African antelope species in a dryland savanna. It finds that extreme afternoon heat reduces feeding time, increases ruminating and resting time, but minimally affects walking time across all species, while affecting energy expenditure on active behaviours. While some compensations for heat-driven behavioural changes occur over the 24-hour cycle, significant differences persist, suggesting potential fitness consequences.

Due to remarkable architectural design featuring rosette-like leaf arrangements, bromeliads serve as habitats for various species. Bromeliad architecture is a key factor in the spatial distribution and occurrence of the Tityus neglectus scorpion. Furthermore, T. neglectus is able to use the water accumulated in the phytotelm to escape potential predators.

We apply a recently developed Bayesian machine learning model to both increase the accessibility of complex animal movement models and simultaneously achieve advanced modeling of highly varied telemetry data. By nesting this model within a widely applicable inferential framework and utilizing an accessible R package for modeling, we facilitate application by practitioners to model trajectories, estimate movement descriptors, and answer applied management questions.

Warming temperatures may benefit invasive parasites that originate from warmer climates. We found that warming does enable faster parasite life cycles and a recent invader from a warm climate tolerated heat wave temperatures better than an established congener.

According to the study, the natural forest in the study area has significant carbon storage, which is essential for reducing climate change's effects and preparing for them. However, forest management practices like area enclosures boost the forest's ability to store carbon, while anthropogenic pressure declines the value of forest resources.

In this study, we investigated the distribution patterns of understory bird communities in southern China, elucidating the factors influencing their diversity. Our research fills a knowledge gap in understanding large-scale diversity patterns in songbird communities, thereby making a substantial contribution to the literature on avian ecology and evolution.

We examined germination, growth, and survival of six arbuscular mycorrhizal and six ectomycorrhizal tree species on three substrates (brown rot logs, white rot logs, and soil) by seed sowing experiments. The decay type (brown rot and white rot) affected seedling performance, depending on the seedling species, and the difference between the two mycorrhizal types was not clear. The effects of fungal wood decay type on nurse log regeneration of tree seedlings might be partly attributable to the difference in microbial communities within logs.

For 16 species, we monitored leaf and flowering phenology weekly for 133 populations in the botanical garden of Jena and semi-dry and mesophilic grasslands and compared them across habitats for whole plant, leaf and flower traits, across and phenological stages. Multivariate analyses showed that habitat conditions filtered stronger for functional traits than for phenology and populations on MG showed temporal niche segregation, whereas populations on SDG showed flowering synchrony. Our results show that species phenology was broadly similar between botanical gardens and local habitats but that for functional trait and for trait-phenology associations, habitat should not be neglected.

The life-history traits of ectothermic animals can be influenced by many abiotic factors, including climate. As an ectothermic species, we questioned whether the life-history characteristics of the orange-tailed skink (Eumeces schneiderii) populations differ between two different environments/climates. Our findings showed that lizards living in habitats characterized by milder Mediterranean climates had larger body sizes than continental populations, but both populations were similar in terms of mean age.

Weapon traits possessed by males of many species play an important role in male–male combat for reproduction, but it was unclear whether they affect reproduction in other species. We compared the reproductive success of each other using Gnatocerus cornutus, whose males have the weapon, and its close relative, Tribolium castaneum, whose males do not have weapon. We found that the presence of G. cornutus males reduced the reproductive success of T. castaneum, but not vice versa.

The interspecific relationships between 3 invasive plants and 10 native plants. >0 meant that the native plant took competitive superiority in the mixture, while <0 meant the invasive plant took competitive superiority in the mixture.

This research offered a clear and applicable research paradigm for the specific administrative level at which China operates, particularly pertinent to county-level jurisdictions with established protected areas. Given the constraints of the existing data and in order to more precisely evaluate the pangolin's situation at the county scale, the study underscored the paramount importance of conducting field surveys, deemed as the most urgent task at the time.

The interplay between geodiversity and organismal characteristics shapes biodiversity patterns and by superimposing genetic structure on landscape heterogeneity, one can disentangle these interactions to better understand population structure and dynamics. The sub-Antarctic Islands offer unique opportunities to study fundamental concepts in biology given their heterogeneous landscapes shaped by repeated large-scale volcanic and glacial events. The present study focuses on the springtail Cryptopygus antarcticus travei, a soil arthropod endemic to Marion Island and uses a species-specific suite of microsatellite markers and a fine-scale sampling design incorporating landscape complexity. This study illustrates that the fine-scale genetic patterns in soil arthropods are markedly more structured than anticipated, given the homogeneity of the vegetation complexes at the scale of tens to hundreds of metres. This work adds valuable new information to better understand the effects of local-scale landscape heterogeneity on the population genetic structure of the island's unique biota.

We extend a recent mechanistic, process-based, spatially implicit population model for the well-studied fire-killed and serotinous shrub species to a spatially explicit metapopulation model. Our model results demonstrate that the impacts of ongoing climate change on plant demographics are so severe that even under optimistic assumptions, the existing metapopulation dynamics shift to an unstable source-sink dynamic state.

To understand how persisting host populations change in the face of disease, we quantified changes to the capture rates of Eptesicus fuscus (big brown bats), a species that is annualy exposed and infected by the invasive fungal pathogen Pseudogymnoascus destructans (Pd); causative agent for white-nose syndrome), using a 30-year dataset across the eastern US. Here, the overall capture rates of adult E. fuscus increased from preinvasion to Pd establishment years across the eastern US. In conclusion, our work highlights the need to better understand how host populations change across broad spatial scales with continued pathogen exposure.

Our findings challenge the positive association between body weight and diapause (dormancy) phenotypes in the model flesh fly, Sarcophaga crassipalpis. Nutrient limitation alters the relationship between body weight and diapause phenotypes, suggesting that the relationships between body-weight and phenotypes need to be considered within ecological contexts.

Understanding the interacting factors that lead to pathogen transmission in a zoonotic cycle could help identify novel hosts of pathogens and the patterns that lead to disease emergence. We use parasite ecology, phylogenetics, and geography to predict known and unknown hosts of hantavirus. This improves our knowledge of how host interaction influences disease transmission and can be used to inform targeted surveillance programs.

Using field-observed plot-level carbon pool estimates from Nepal's national forest inventory, the study investigates the role of climate and disturbance in the spatial variation of aboveground carbon (AGC) and soil organic carbon (SOC) in the Central Himalayas. The climatic availability of water and energy in broad-scale gradients combined with the fine-scale gradients of terrain and disturbance intensity were found to influence forest carbon stocks. The results provide some important insights for forest carbon management and conservation in the Central Himalayas.

Close-kin mark-recapture is a novel method to estimate animal abundance based on the type and frequency of observed kinship. Through simulation, we tested the effects of misspecified age and length measurement on close-kin mark-recapture population size estimates. We found that length measurement had negligible effect, but that the method was sensitive to biased ageing.

In most ecosystems, prey must avoid capture by multiple species of predator. Prey minimizes movement and avoids high-use areas when top predators are most active. Considering multiple species of predator and prey is advantageous in ecology.

Behavioural flexibility in animal constructions has been hypothesized to be linked with advanced cognitive abilities. In this paper, we compare two species of Tanganyikan bower-building cichlids and show that the species building more flexible sand bowers also demonstrated better performances in a choice-against-preference task assessing inhibitory control.

New occurrences of bats in the Brazilian Amazon.

This study investigated the morphological and life-history trait plasticity of two Daphnia species (Daphnia pulex and Daphnia sinensis) induced by fish kairomones. The inducible mechanisms of the two Daphnia species exposed to fish kairomones differ significantly, and their offspring also develop morphological defenses to reduce the risk of fish predation.

This study highlights the potential extinction threat faced by semi-terrestrial crabs. We analyzed the population genetics of these species distributed along the coast of the Japanese archipelago using modern high-resolution genome-wide SNP analysis. We found that one crab species had clear spatial genetic differentiation among populations, despite its ability to disperse long distances during larval stages. In addition, a population of another species was isolated at the edge of its range. Based on these results, we emphasized the need to conserve local populations of these species, as their local populations have evolved independently.

In our study, we were able to show in a subtropical tree diversity experiment (BEF-China) that soil microbial biomass and respiration show a fine spatial distribution pattern between trees. This suggests that tree–tree interactions are driving soil functioning when zooming to the appropriate scale. Our study highlights the need to focus on fine-scale variability in future research.

Resource competition is predicated on resource limitation, which can be represented by the proxy of resource depletion rate. We used a pollinator exclusion experiment to estimate nectar depletion rates in an orchard meadow landscape during the early spring flowering of rosaceous trees. In contrast to our recent work in summer grasslands, we found relatively low depletion rates, suggesting that in spring, abiotic conditions (temperature, precipitation) are more important than competition as constraints on pollinator fitness.

This study evaluates how urbanization affects multiple aspects of the pollination process in common milkweed populations, including community composition, pollinator visitation rate, pollen removal, and deposition on stigmas. We found differential effects of urbanization on the varied components of pollination, hence highlighting the complexity of evaluating overall urbanization effects on pollination.

This research investigates maximum body sizes in 27,581 marine species from 24 phyla globally in the modern oceans. Analyzing size data and factors like taxonomy, habitat, and measurement methods revealed significant variation in reported maximum sizes. Despite variations, only about 5% of species experienced significant errors, emphasizing the need for standardized measurement protocols to minimize discrepancies in maximum size reporting without significantly altering species rankings in macroecological and macroevolutionary studies.

Constitutive immune function is not linked to fuel stores in spring migrating birds. However, there is a negative relationship between immune function (% Escherichia coli killed) and arrival date. This suggests that there are seasonal variations in pathogen pressures and migratory speed which could impact the resource trade-off between investment in immune function and demands of migration.

In the present study, we newly sequenced mtgenomes from 19 species belonging to Tenebrionoidea, and a total of 90 mitochondrial genomes from 16 families of Tenebrionoidea were used for phylogenetic analysis. The divergence time analysis suggests that Tenebrionoidea originated in the late Jurassic, Meloidae Mordellidae, Lagriidae, and Tenebrionidae in the Cretaceous, Oedemeridae in Paleogene.

Using data from more than 2000 Alpine swift nestlings with measurements spanning more than 20 years, we show that adverse weather conditions during the sensitive developmental windows for wing and sternum length result in slower growth, reduced size at 50 days (i.e. close to fledging), delayed fledging and lowered fledging success. Variation in nestling body mass at 50 days was explained by the weather in the two days before measurement rather than during peak growth. Overall, our results suggest that measures of feather growth and, to some extent, skeletal growth best capture the consequences of adverse weather conditions throughout the whole development of offspring, while body mass better reflects the short, instantaneous effects of weather conditions on their body reserves.

We present notable distributional updates for 14 species from western Ecuador (seven amphibians and seven reptiles).

Although species rarity is often considered to be a stochastic response to environmental and ecological constraints, we examined the hypothesis that plant rarity is a consequence of natural selection acting on performance traits that affect a species range size, habitat specificity, and population aggregation; three primary descriptors of rarity. Using a common garden of 25 species of Tasmanian Eucalyptus, we find a negative phylogenetic autocorrelation underlying the significantly lower biomass of rare versus common species, indicating that traits associated with rarity have diverged within subgenera as a result of environmental factors to reach different associated optima. These results demonstrate repeated convergent evolution of the trait-based determinants of rarity across the phylogeny in Tasmanian eucalypts and suggest that we may need to revise conservation efforts to reconsider the abiotic and biotic factors that underlie the distributions of rare plant species.

The dietary structure can significantly impact the diversity and community composition of gut microbiota in Cricetulus longicaudatus, which primarily inhabits dryland farming areas. The abundance of specific microbiota is closely correlated with the nutrient content of the diet. Gut microbiota plays a pivotal role in regulating nutrient assimilation and metabolic homeostasis in animals.

The ecological effects of the variation in the plant life history of specific species (e.g., foundation species) and genetic underpinnings therein were rarely studied. We found that geographic populations of invasive Spartina alterniflora had different plasticity in the reproductive phase in response to warming, and the lowest plasticity and fitness of southernmost population may suggest the slowdown of rapid dispersion of S. alterniflora in China. Our study provided a novel view to test the center–periphery hypothesis by integration across a plant's life history.

In this study, we provide clear evidence that the leaf aqueous extracts of three Mediterranean native species (Cistus albidus, Cistus ladanifer and Cotinus coggygria) exhibit negative allelopathic effects on seed germination and seedling growth of the two invasive plant species (Acacia dealbata and Ailanthus altissima). These allelopathic effects increased with dose extract but are greatly reduced and even canceled in the presence of soil amendment.

The photogrammetric method was adopted to document the wounds of A. sinensis in the form of 3D models, and a new wound classification system was established based on 752 wound records from 484 A. sinensis individuals in Hong Kong. The study deliverables could facilitate the law enforcement, education, and conservation of A. sinensis.

Stress response in juvenile anadromous brown trout was investigated to determine differences between individuals born upstream and downstream. Several organ morphology parameters relating to aerobic capacity were also assessed. Juveniles born upstream had larger spleens and a lower acute stress response compared with those born downstream.

This study assesses the adaptability of threatened bird species in Northeast China by analyzing their geographic distribution and functional traits. Utilizing the Biomod2 model, it predicts changes in suitable habitats under various climate scenarios, identifying key environmental drivers like temperature, altitude, and water systems. The research offers critical insights for conservation efforts, highlighting a stronger phylogenetic signal among these species and projecting habitat shifts due to climate change.

Tooth morphometrics and mineralogy infer inter- and intraspecific differences in feeding habits. Abiotic factors might regulate this relationship.

The equilibrium theory of island biogeography is a widely applied dynamic theory proposed in the 1960s to explain why islands have coherent differences in species richness. Here, we show that the number of climatic niches on islands is also an important predictor of the species richness of plants, herpetofauna and land birds, and we therefore propose a model called the niche-based theory of island biogeography.

The fork length of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) increased during the 1980s and 1990s for six of 19 rivers in Eastern Canada. Fork length changes were related to exploitation rates from size-selective fisheries and temperature for salmon that spent 1 or 2 years in the marine environment, respectively.

We established for the first time comprehensive analysis of Y and mtDNA lineages in Rangifer tarandus, representing reindeer and caribou across North America, Eurasia, and the Arctic Islands. Our results highlight migrations over long distances after the Last Glacial Maximum, subsequent recolonizations, and human-mediated trajectories, especially the domestication process.

Using dynamic occupancy modeling, we explored drivers of colonization and extinction dynamics of an invasive species, Hydrilla verticillata, within a novel complex landscape of 500+ riverine rock pools. We found that landscape and patch level characteristic, along with disturbance via flooding, influenced the probabilities of both colonization and extinction. Larger, less frequently flooded pools had high colonization probabilities, while smaller, more frequently flooded pools had higher extinction probabilities.

Identifying habitat for a population no longer occupying large swaths of historical areas poses a number of problems for ecologists. We used a suite of modeling approaches to compare estimates of contemporary and future habitat for pronghorn in California. Large areas will remain suitable for the species, but manipulation of local habitat for increased movement and water availability, and a better understanding of historical migration patterns are needed.

A multi-location common garden experiment revealed that stomata density was equally determined by both genetic and environmental factors, while genetic factors played a more significant role in stomatal size than environmental factors. Additionally, it became clear that the plasticity of stomatal size was lower in populations from relatively harsh environments, and the responses of stomatal density and size to mean annual temperature, annual precipitation, and aridity index were different among populations. These results indicate the possibility of population-specific fitness implications for B. ermanii under future climate change scenarios.

Although the energy landscape approach solely considers the topographic obstacles faced by animals, its suitability compared to previous methods for constructing resistance maps and delineating corridors has not been comprehensively examined.

Life-history traits, such as age and body size, can evolve in response to climate variations along elevational gradients. We found the Tibetan toad (Bufo tibetanus) exhibits a slow life history at high elevations, with females being older and larger than males, and individuals from higher elevations being older and larger than those from lower elevations. This suggests that factors other than age, such as elevation-associated temperature, can influence latitudinal patterns in body size.

We applied telemetry data of a mobile and widespread species in a combined distribution modeling framework (distribution was modeled at the population-level and individual-level). In our northern Chile study system, the combined predictions of South American sea lions revealed unique patterns of habitat use across scales. The refined suitability map was integrated with fisheries data in a spatial bycatch risk assessment, identifying areas of greater interaction risk at the interface of industrial and artisanal fleet operational areas.

Stewartia ovata, commonly known as mountain stewartia, is a native shrub of the southeastern United States. Their growth is relatively slow and, due to long seed dormancy, they are difficult to propagate and their natural populations appears to be shrinking. Here, we employ a genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS) approach to characterize the genetic structure and diversity of mountain stewartia in the Smokey Mountain region of the eastern United States.

We measured ecosystem carbon fluxes and their associations in response to a long-term (16-year) grazer manipulation experiment in a desert steppe grassland in Inner Mongolia, China. Our results show that grazers alter patterns of net ecosystem exchange primarily via their negative influence on the biomass of shrubs and subshrubs, which play a prominent role in ecosystem functions.

This study used species distribution models for 312 bird species to find patterns of bird species richness and identify hotspots in Jiangsu Province. The results showed that most hotspots are well protected, but some areas, like parts of Sheyang County and regions along the Yangtze River, have weak protection measures.

In this study, we investigate the taxonomic and functional beta diversity patterns of ground beetle communities along the altitudinal gradient of warm-temperature forests in eastern China. We get the conclusion that dispersal limitation and environmental filtering jointly drive the taxonomic and functional β-diversity of ground beetles. This study provides insight into carabid community assembly in Chinese warm-temperature forests.

Recently, some researchers have raised concerns over the apparent rise of big data studies and the decline of field observations in ecology. But to what extent is this change occurring? Using plant ecology dissertations as a test case, we quantified trends in research methodologies and found that observational studies continue to dominate, even though newer methods have nudged their way in.

This chromosome-level genomic resource provides crucial biological insights to elucidate the functional roles of expanded CYPs in environmental adaptation, sexual development, early life history, and conservation in the anthropogenically impacted mangrove habitats of O. curvinotus.

Sexual cannibalism is a form of conspecific predation among adults, typically committed by females that consume potential or actual mating partners. We provide an observation of cannibalism involving an adult female green and golden bell frog, Litoria aurea, preying on a conspecific adult male during the species' breeding season. By comparing our observation to the available literature, we show that adult–adult cannibalism among amphibians is rare but tends to be committed by females against their male counterparts and propose that amphibians possess traits that may promote the evolution of sexual cannibalism.

Here, we examine how ecological factors shape invertebrate diversity in ponds found in lava caves in Iceland. We specially focus on the importance of neutral and niche-based processes.

We explore the effects of watercourse position, common and rare species on taxonomic and functional alpha, and beta diversity in a large near-natural catchment. In addition, we also reveal the underlying potential mechanisms.

Isotopic enrichment offers a non-invasive approach to label macroinvertebrates and contributes to our understanding of dispersal dynamics in aquatic ecosystems. By releasing ¹⁵NH₄Cl into stream reaches, we successfully labelled 3 million individuals of 12 macroinvertebrate taxa and observed significant enrichment up to 2000 m downstream, demonstrating the method's general applicability for labelling large amounts of macroinvertebrates.

We sampled 1086 bats from two, adjacent Puerto Rican caves and tested them for infection by herpesviruses, resulting in 3131 short, viral sequences. Using percent identity of nucleotides and a machine learning algorithm (affinity propagation), we categorized herpesviruses into 43 operational taxonomic units (OTUs). We describes the natural history of herpesvirus metacommunities in Puerto Rican bats, suggest that viruses follow general laws of community ecology, and guide future efforts in the field of viral ecology by presenting hypotheses regarding mechanisms that contribute to demonstrated patterns.

We tested how temperature and resource density affect survival and growth in the larval stage of two coexisting odonates, the damselfly Lestes sponsa and the dragonfly Sympetrum vulgatum. Our results imply that resource levels interact with temperature to affect interactions between the species. Theoretical studies should consider these effects when making predictions on changes in species distribution in light of climate change.

Using image recognition with a series of convolutional networks and machine learning, we automatically measure the size of fossil birch pollen from sediment samples. The measurements are useful for determining the presence of dwarf birches versus tree birches in the past.

Opportunities for eco-evolutionary experiments are rare but they do arise in the context of restoration ecology. Designing such experiments requires wrestling with several consequential questions. We recently grappled with these questions when designing an eco-evolutionary experiment with threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) introduced into nine small lakes and ponds on the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska that required restoration. We ended up using benthic versus limnetic ecotypes from a mixture of four source populations per ecotype (selected based on trophic morphology) that were then introduced in various combinations into the nine restoration lakes.

In this study, we investigated the movement behaviour of brown bears in response to roads and human disturbances by using linear mixed-effect models. We found that females with dependant offspring increase their movement speed when located close to roads during the bear hunting season.

This study uses citizen-scientist photographic records to examine pollinator-plant interactions of the wasp Isodontia mexicana in its native and introduced range. We use a data sharing method by identifying the plants on iNaturalist images of the wasp using the Pl@ntNet API, a plant species identification application. We validated this method by simultaneously identifying the plants by experts and summarizing other interactions seen in the photographs to support the added value of the image data contributed by the public for ecological research.

Plant populations in different eco-regions differed in pollination ecology strategies. These population differences are not explained by differences in pollinator assembly, but by environmental heterogeneity.

The study investigates Tarebia granifera, a highly successful aquatic invader, in South Africa's Limpopo and Phongolo River systems. The study revealed that T. granifera dominates in habitats where it is present, negatively impacting native molluscan species. Interestingly, the study did not find significant correlations between T. granifera and water quality parameters and observed higher densities during spring, providing valuable insights for managing this invasive species in newly invaded regions like southern Africa.

Nektonic macroinvertebrate density varies across wetland types and over time during the waterfowl breeding season, with basin wetlands harboring the highest density and the most stable resources. Waterfowl pairs are able to track these densities and are found in the greatest numbers in the wetlands with the highest food density during the breeding season.

Bats are reservoirs for emerging pathogens and may pose significant risks to human health. Understanding spatial overlap between bats and humans across landscapes is a necessary requirement for developing exposure prevention strategies against bat-borne zoonotic pathogens. We explored environmental correlates of occurrence for a widely distributed synanthropic African bat, Mops pumilus—a species associated with potential zoonotic viruses—and estimated current and future environmental suitability in Taita–Taveta County in southeast Kenya. Current suitable environments were located southwards from central Taita Hills overlapping with urban centers, and future predictions demonstrate how these areas will change—first, the localized range of M. pumilus will increase in human-dominated areas by 2050, and thereafter, environmental suitability will decrease and become more fragmented indicating the potential negative impact of higher temperature increase on the species. The results show how environmental changes are likely to impact human exposure risk of bat-borne pathogens and could help public health officials develop strategies to prevent these risks in Taita–Taveta County, Kenya, and other parts of Africa. Figure was created with Biorender.com.

Wildlife observation is a popular recreation worldwide, and sightings of rare animals are often highly desired. We developed user-friendly forecast systems of the daily observation probabilities of a rare seabird species (Ross's Gull Rhodostethia rosea) in a coastal area in northern Japan. The developed forecast systems are useful for the cost-effective observation of this beautiful bird.

The present study assessed the inter-and intra-specific diet variation of rabbitfishes factored by morphological relatedness among populations from western Australia, the Great Barrier Reef and Okinawa. Results showed that region had a strong effect on diet, effectively reducing the expected effect of morphologic similitude, indicating that rabbitfishes possess high diet plasticity, and hence their functional role as mediators of competition between macroalgae and corals can change across biogeographic regions. Local context is therefore important for an accurate assessment of the diet and functional role of herbivorous fishes.

Our study is the first to our knowledge exploring consequences for specialised low-elevation insect herbivores facing novel, congeneric, high-elevation plants. Importantly, our study highlights that considering altered biotic interactions, such as those between specialised insects and their host plants, is crucial to predict how species will respond to climate change.

We investigated the genetic diversity and population structure of the common duckweed Lemna minor. Through whole-genome sequencing of 23 natural populations in Switzerland, we identified two genetic clusters, including a cryptic species, L. japonica. While L. minor showed a well-defined population structure, L. japonica showed weaker population structure. The findings highlight the widespread distribution of L. japonica and underscore the importance of genetic studies in improving our understanding of duckweed ecology and evolution, particularly when it comes to leveraging L. minor for eco-evolutionary research.

The temporal activity of chillas in Tierra del Fuego by (a) clock time and (b) sun time.

We present the results of an empirical study that evaluates the effect of plant sex on its associated arthropod communities. Our results indicate that plant sex has a seasonal and alternating effect on the arthropod community diversity—male plants hosting a more diverse community of arthropods during the flowering season, while female plants do during the fructification season—and that this effect is stronger in higher trophic levels (i.e. carnivores). We discuss these results in the context of the resources and conditions that male and female plants offer. Our results highlight the fact that plant sex-effects can vary with the phenology of the plant. This temporal axis of variation has been poorly explored when studying plant-arthropod interactions, but we argue that given our observations it has the potential to clarify inconsistent patterns observed in the literature, for example the one regarding sex-bias in arthropod herbivores preference.

Vertebrate scavenging in Australia significantly contributes to carcass removal and suppresses the breeding of agriculturally harmful blowflies. Levels of carcass removal are higher in areas associated with higher densities of native reptiles and lower densities of invasive mammals. Therefore, augmentation of reptile populations and control of invasive mammals represents a promising management strategy to restore and maximize scavenging ecosystem services and reduce the incidence of blowfly induced diseases.

Maintenance metabolism under homeothermy, costly behavior, and energy-saving strategies (heterothermy as torpor use) are considered to be shaped by food resources, but those conclusions came from studies considering these traits in isolation. We aimed to test the effects of food availability (and predatory pressure) on the interplay between maintenance costs of homeothermy, torpor use, and exploration in a wild mammal. We found that the heterothermy as a compensation strategy is more important than the maintenance costs of homeothermy in the context of the behavioral expression under environmental challenges.

Plateau pika has a clear preference hierarchy in the ground covers for their burrow entrances: sedge > forb > grass > bare soil. However, the population density of plateau pikas often reaches its maximum on almost nonvegetated “black soil beaches.” We hypothesize the reproductive benefits brought about by vegetation degradation are higher than the maintenance costs of burrow entrances.

Pomacea canaliculata affected bioturbators' behavior, antioxidant system, and gut microbiota; Secretions changed the intestinal microbiota community structure of bioturbators; Limnodrilus hoffmeister is a more sensitive bioturbator to the invasion of P. canaliculata.