Ecology articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Ammonia-oxidizing bacteria and archaea are major producers of the gases nitrous oxide and nitric oxide. Here, Kits et al. show that a complete ammonia-oxidizing (comammox) bacterium emits nitrous oxide at levels that are comparable to those produced by ammonia-oxidizing archaea.

    • K. Dimitri Kits
    • , Man-Young Jung
    •  & Holger Daims

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Conservation decisions to protect land used by migratory birds rely on understanding species’ dynamic habitat associations. Here the authors identify conservation scenarios needed to maintain >30% of the abundances of 117 migratory birds across the Americas, considering spatial and temporal patterns of species abundance.

    • Richard Schuster
    • , Scott Wilson
    •  & Joseph. R. Bennett

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Whether or not China can be rice self-sufficient in the future is in question. Here the authors provide a spatially explicit yield-gap analysis of Chinese rice production under future scenarios, identifying priority areas for improving yields to meet demands by 2030.

    • Nanyan Deng
    • , Patricio Grassini
    •  & Shaobing Peng

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Microbes structure biogeochemical cycles and food webs in the marine environment. Here, the authors sample coral reef-associated microbes across a 24-hour period, showing clear day–night patterns of microbial populations and thus calling for more studies to consider temporal variation in microbiomes at this scale.

    • Linda Wegley Kelly
    • , Craig E. Nelson
    •  & Forest Rohwer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    While several studies have documented early warning signals of population collapse, the use of such signals as indicators of population recovery has not been investigated. Here the authors use models and empirical fisheries data to show that there are statistical indicators preceding recovery of cod populations.

    • Christopher F. Clements
    • , Michael A. McCarthy
    •  & Julia L. Blanchard

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here the authors holistically examine prokaryote communities associated with diverse coral reef hosts, including sponges, nudibranchs, sea cucumbers, and corals. The results show that sponges have a relatively low diversity of prokaryotes, most of which are shared across a wide range of host taxa rather than being sponge-specific.

    • Daniel F. R. Cleary
    • , Thomas Swierts
    •  & Nicole J. de Voogd

  • Article
    | Open Access

    For phenotypic plasticity to evolve to a changing world, there must be variation in plasticity. Here, the authors show that whether great tits advance or delay breeding in response to perceived predation risk depends on their personality, linking variation in plasticity with that in personality.

    • Robin N. Abbey-Lee
    •  & Niels J. Dingemanse

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Extreme climate events can cause population crashes and may threaten population persistence. Here, the authors model reindeer population dynamics and find that more frequent extremely icy winters can actually reduce extinction risk due to density dependence and a demographic shift to resilient ages.

    • Brage B. Hansen
    • , Marlène Gamelon
    •  & Vidar Grøtan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Many abiotic and biotic factors shape the macroevolution of phenotype, but these factors are rarely disentangled across large radiations. Here, Miller et al. investigate plumage evolution across woodpeckers, finding influences of habitat and climate, but also convergence apparently driven by mimicry

    • Eliot T. Miller
    • , Gavin M. Leighton
    •  & Russell A. Ligon

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Findings regarding the impacts of ocean acidification (OA) on the growth and N2 fixation of Trichodesmium are conflicted. Here, the authors find that Trichodesmium growth rates decrease under OA primarily due to reduced nitrogenase efficiency and OA under RCP 8.5 could reduce the N2 fixation potential of Trichodesmium by 27%.

    • Ya-Wei Luo
    • , Dalin Shi
    •  & Futing Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, Schuldt et al. collate data from two long-term grassland and forest biodiversity experiments to ask how plant diversity facets affect the diversity of higher trophic levels. The results show that positive effects of plant diversity on consumer diversity are mediated by plant structural and functional diversity, and vary across ecosystems and trophic levels.

    • Andreas Schuldt
    • , Anne Ebeling
    •  & Nico Eisenhauer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Attaining global biodiversity projections requires the use of various species distribution and climate modelling and scenario approaches. Here the authors report that model choice can significantly impact results, with particularly uncertainty arising from choice of species distribution model and emission scenario.

    • Wilfried Thuiller
    • , Maya Guéguen
    •  & Niklaus E. Zimmermann

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Nitrogen pollution is influenced by many stressors, and their combined effects are poorly constrained. Here the authors used a global land biosphere model to analyse the past two and a half centuries of land N pollution budgets and fluxes to the ocean and atmosphere and found that land sequesters 11% of global annual reactive N inputs.

    • Minjin Lee
    • , Elena Shevliakova
    •  & P. C. D. Milly

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Pollinator loss is a concern but data on their status is lacking. Here Powney et al. use occupancy modelling to estimate the degree of loss in wild bee and hoverfly species across Great Britain, and report a 55% decline in upland species and a 12% increase in dominant crop pollinators.

    • Gary D. Powney
    • , Claire Carvell
    •  & Nick J. B. Isaac

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Given the potential for increasingly common and intense tropical storms, it is important to understand their effects on island forest communities. Here, the authors show that Hurricane María’s strength and rainfall had larger effects on tree mortality than other less severe storms, and that large trees and species with low-density wood were most susceptible.

    • María Uriarte
    • , Jill Thompson
    •  & Jess K. Zimmerman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The effect of plant biodiversity on microbial function has been tested in limited studies and is likely to be context-dependent. In this meta-analysis of 106 prior studies comparing plant monocultures to mixtures, the authors find that plant diversity increases microbial biomass and respiration rates, an effect moderated by stand age.

    • Chen Chen
    • , Han Y. H. Chen
    •  & Zhiqun Huang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Sociality explains substantial variation in ageing across species, but less is known about this relationship within species. Here, the authors show that female dominant Seychelles warblers with helpers at the nest have higher late-life survival and lower telomere attrition and the probability of having helpers increases with age.

    • Martijn Hammers
    • , Sjouke A. Kingma
    •  & David S. Richardson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Although male genital shape is known to evolve rapidly in response to sexual selection, relatively little is known about the evolution of female genital shape. Here, the authors show that across onthophagine dung beetles, female genital shape has diverged much more rapidly than male genital shape.

    • Leigh W. Simmons
    •  & John L. Fitzpatrick

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Separating anthropogenic and climatic impacts on forest compositions can be challenging due to a lack of data. Here the authors look at forest compositional changes in eastern Canada since the 19th century and find land use has most strongly shaped communities towards disturbance-adapted species.

    • Victor Danneyrolles
    • , Sébastien Dupuis
    •  & Dominique Arseneault

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Coral bleaching is generally linked to higher sea temperatures, but there may be geographic variation in this effect. Here, in a synthesis of global coral bleaching data, the authors show that bleaching probability is highest at mid-latitude sites despite equivalent thermal stress at equatorial sites.

    • S. Sully
    • , D. E. Burkepile
    •  & R. van Woesik

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Leaf-feeding insect microbiomes could be influenced by the soil, the plant, or a product of the two. Here, the authors conduct a series of experiments to show that an herbivorous insect predominantly acquires its microbiome from the soil rather than the plant, and that these insect microbiomes reflect soil legacies of earlier growing plants.

    • S. Emilia Hannula
    • , Feng Zhu
    •  & T. Martijn Bezemer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Tackling wildlife crimes requires determining their occurrence and distribution, but they are often difficult to detect. Here, the authors use hen harrier tracking data to show patterns of unexpected tag failure that suggest widespread illegal killing on moors managed for recreational shooting of red grouse.

    • Megan Murgatroyd
    • , Stephen M. Redpath
    •  & Arjun Amar

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Plant diversity affects ecosystem function in myriad ways, but the effect on food webs has received less investigation. Here, the authors use high-resolution food web data from a grassland diversity experiment to show that apparent and exploitative competition motifs increase with plant diversity.

    • Darren P. Giling
    • , Anne Ebeling
    •  & Jes Hines

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, Sieradzki et al. use metatranscriptomics to study active community-wide viral infections at three coastal California sites throughout a year, identify potential viral hosts, and show that viruses can contribute a substantial amount to photosystem-II psbA expression.

    • Ella T. Sieradzki
    • , J. Cesar Ignacio-Espinoza
    •  & Jed A. Fuhrman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Neural architecture may be shaped by selection, but is likely also constrained by development. Here, Keesey and colleagues find an inverse relationship between allocation towards visual and olfactory sensory systems across the genus Drosophila, which may reflect a developmental trade-off.

    • Ian W. Keesey
    • , Veit Grabe
    •  & Bill S. Hansson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Obtaining data on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) from healthy human populations is difficult. Here, Hendriksen et al. use metagenomic analysis to obtain AMR data from untreated sewage from 79 sites in 60 countries, finding correlations with socio-economic, health and environmental factors.

    • Rene S. Hendriksen
    • , Patrick Munk
    •  & Frank M. Aarestrup

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It is unclear whether microbes and animals residing in soils follow similar distribution patterns. Here, the authors report richness and diversity of soil microbes and invertebrates across soil, vegetation, and land use gradients in Wales, showing that land use affects animals while soil traits affect microbes.

    • Paul B. L. George
    • , Delphine Lallias
    •  & Davey L. Jones

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The fossil record shows a decline in dinosaur diversity preceding their mass extinction. Here, the authors apply ecological niche modelling to show that suitable dinosaur habitat was declining in areas with present-day rock-outcrop, but not across North America as a whole, possibly generating sampling bias in the fossil record.

    • Alfio Alessandro Chiarenza
    • , Philip D. Mannion
    •  & Peter A. Allison

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Lurgi et al. analyse the distribution of microbial symbionts across many sponge species and reveal modules of non-random associations which are primarily driven by host features and microbial phylogenies, and less by the environment. Results also show that metabolic functions are distinct across modules.

    • Miguel Lurgi
    • , Torsten Thomas
    •  & Jose M. Montoya

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Antarctic biodiversity is increasingly under threat. Here, Wauchope et al. provide a continent-wide assessment of its terrestrial biodiversity, and find biodiversity protection is regionally uneven and biased towards easily detectable and charismatic species.

    • Hannah S. Wauchope
    • , Justine D. Shaw
    •  & Aleks Terauds

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Forecasting of infectious disease outbreaks can inform appropriate intervention measures, but whether fundamental limits to accurate prediction exist is unclear. Here, the authors use permutation entropy as a model independent measure of predictability to study limitations across a broad set of infectious diseases.

    • Samuel V. Scarpino
    •  & Giovanni Petri

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Ediacara biota—the first large, complex organisms to evolve on Earth—disappeared prior to the radiation of animals during the Cambrian Period. Here, Muscente et al. perform network analysis of Ediacaran fossils and show that there were two global extinction events before the Cambrian radiation.

    • A. D. Muscente
    • , Natalia Bykova
    •  & Andrew H. Knoll

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Viruses can encode genes that regulate the host's translational machinery to their advantage. Here, the authors show that viruses encode ribosomal proteins that can be incorporated into the host’s ribosome and may affect translation.

    • Carolina M. Mizuno
    • , Charlotte Guyomar
    •  & Mart Krupovic

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Abandoned and degraded agricultural lands undergo ecological succession that sequesters atmospheric CO2 as soil carbon, but at low rates. Here the authors show that restoration of high plant diversity provides a greenhouse gas benefit by greatly increasing the rate of soil carbon sequestration on such lands.

    • Yi Yang
    • , David Tilman
    •  & Clarence Lehman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    There has been a lack of multi-year landscape-scale studies on the effect of neonicotinoids on honeybee health. Here, Osterman et al. show that clothianidin exposure via seed-treated rapeseed has no negative impact on honeybee colony development, microbial pathogens/symbionts or immune gene expression.

    • Julia Osterman
    • , Dimitry Wintermantel
    •  & Joachim R. de Miranda

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa undergoes complex trait adaptation within cystic fibrosis patients. Here, Bartell, Sommer, and colleagues use statistical modeling of longitudinal isolates to characterize the joint genetic and phenotypic evolutionary trajectories of P. aeruginosa within hosts.

    • Jennifer A. Bartell
    • , Lea M. Sommer
    •  & Helle Krogh Johansen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Reversible phenotypic plasticity is expected to be favoured by long lifespan, as this increases the environmental variation individuals experience. Here, the authors develop a model showing how phenotypic plasticity can drive selection on lifespan, leading to coevolution of these traits.

    • Irja I. Ratikainen
    •  & Hanna Kokko

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