Volume 1 Issue 9, September 2017

The pernicious problem of evidence complacency, illustrated here through conservation policy and practice, results in poor practice and inefficiencies. It also increases our vulnerability to a ‘post-truth’ world dealing with ‘alternative facts’.

The actions that lead to conservation successes and failures are the result of decision-making by individuals and organizations about what to conserve and how to conserve it. The psychology of decision-making should be considered when assessing conservation outcomes.

As sea levels rise, human displacement and subsequent land-use change may be as ecologically significant as the direct impacts of climate change. New work suggesting that mean sea level will rise further and faster than previously thought calls attention to the importance of these indirect processes for ecology and conservation.

A randomized controlled trial of a ‘payments for ecosystem services’ scheme in Uganda finds a significant reduction in deforestation, with cost-of-carbon savings greater than the price of the payments.

A global spatial analysis based on biophysical modelling identifies that vast swathes of the ocean are suitable for marine aquaculture development.

Long-term research has revealed that an extraordinary heatwave marked a critical transition in the ecology of an Antarctic desert.

Historical detective work reveals the ‘mother’s curse’ phenomenon in humans.

Hunting in groups allows predators to forage more efficiently. Here, the authors outline a framework for evaluating social predation strategies according to five key behavioural dimensions.

Assessing development challenges for fisheries-dependent countries based on analyses of interactions and trade-offs between goals focusing on food, biodiversity and climate change.

Multiple interacting factors have contributed to the rapid decline of honeybee populations worldwide. Here, the authors review the impact of parasites and pathogens, and how ecological and evolutionary principles can guide management practices.

The atmosphere and biosphere are intrinsically coupled systems. Here, the authors integrate multiple datasets from hourly to decadal timescales and show that a hydrometerological envelope constrains ecosystem variability through time.

Theoretical modelling and laboratory microcosm experiments reveal that catastrophic population extinctions can actually promote metapopulation persistence via the ‘spatial hydra effect’.

East German collective farms reduced biodiversity but raised profits, in contrast to smaller private farms in West Germany, with legacy effects that continue today.

The mechanisms underlying drought-induced tree mortality are not fully resolved. Here, the authors show that, across multiple tree species, loss of xylem conductivity above 60% is associated with mortality, while carbon starvation is not universal.

Estimates of stomatal conductance are important for models of crop and ecosystem water and carbon flux. Here, data from temperate tree species show interspecific variation in stomatal function that can be accounted for to make models more accurate.

Honeybees are used for crop pollination but also spill over into nearby natural habitats. Here, the detrimental effects of this spillover on wild plants and pollinators are documented.

Thiamethoxam, a neonicotinoid pesticide, is shown to reduce the rate of colony initiation by bumblebee queens. Modelling shows that this effect could increase colony extinction rates.

Marine aquaculture has the potential to improve food security. A global analysis shows that space in coastal areas is unlikely to limit the potential for aquaculture.

Ground-nesting birds actively choose backgrounds for their nests that enhance their camouflage, refining this choice across spatial scales.

The McMurdo Dry Valleys is the largest ice-free ecosystem in Antarctica. Here, the varied community responses to an anomalous melt season are documented.

Analysing data from more than 1,000 sites globally, the authors show that palaeoclimatic legacies explain a greater amount of variation in bacterial community richness and composition than current climate.

Transfer of mobile genetic elements between bacteria is widespread, facilitating adaptation. Here, the authors show that horizontal gene transfer is inhibited in soil bacterial communities undergoing positive selection for mercury resistance.

Plasmids facilitate the evolution of antibiotic resistance but little is known about bacteria–plasmid evolution. Here, the authors show that when bacteria adapt to one plasmid, they become generally permissive to plasmid carriage.

Mobile genetic elements can confer antibiotic resistance on their bacterial hosts. However, they are often costly leading to conflict with the host chromosome, which can drive intragenomic coevolution and consequent modulation of resistance.

The use of genomic data to reconstruct phylogenetic relationships is powerful but challenging. Here, the authors develop a bioinformatics pipeline and use phylogenomic datasets to reconstruct the evolutionary relationships of jawed vertebrates.

Phylogenetic and biogeographic modelling show that high-latitude Antarctic nearshore habitats have been an evolutionary sink for species diversity of notothenioids, which dominate teleost fish diversity in the Southern Ocean.

Animals with complex life cycles experience different selection pressures across life stages. Here, the authors show drastically different morphologies and evolutionary histories of Australian frogs and their tadpoles, which suggest that they are evolving independently.

The position of limbs varies across vertebrates. Here, the authors show that GDF11 is a key factor in the integration of sacral vertebrae and hindlimb positioning and underlies diversification of the hindlimb position in vertebrates.

In evolutionary biology, ‘mother’s curse’ refers to the possibility of passing on harmful mutations through mitochondria. Here evidence is presented for the mother’s curse in action over 290 years in a human population.

Theory predicts that gene flow hinders local adaptation, unless it is coupled with habitat choice. Here, the authors show that dispersal with habitat choice favours local adaptation in ciliate microcosms.