Using avian trait data and genomic data, the authors infer whether changes in net effective population size over time in response to climate change are correlated with multiple morphological and life history traits; they find that larger-bodied, slower-reproducing species with limited dispersal capacity are most sensitive to changes in warming and cooling climates.

This study shows that environmental conditions promote multicellular group formation in green algae and that retention of daughter cells reliant on nitrogen availability promotes fitness in the lab and in natural lake systems in Sweden.

Most comparative animal cognition studies assume that results are stable in individuals and groups, but this is not often tested. Here the authors assess repeatability of cognitive tasks in several species of captive great apes, finding that individual performance over time is stable and predicted by fixed differences among individuals rather than transient experimental conditions.

Using data from the BEF-China tree diversity experiment, the authors demonstrate that the diversity of arthropods is higher in plots with higher tree diversity and that the suppression of herbivores by enemy arthropods could be a potential mechanism through which higher tree diversity promotes productivity.

Field survey data from 1,034 bird species worldwide are used to show that species’ sensitivities to habitat fragmentation are more strongly related to their dispersal ability than to latitude and past habitat disturbance, and that variation in dispersal ability is in turn strongly associated with climate.

A synthetic control approach to model avoided forest loss shows that a protected-areas programme in India aimed at tiger conservation is associated with significant reductions in carbon emissions.

Insects rely on symbiotic microbes for nutrition and defence. Analysing a large dataset of microbe–insect symbioses, the authors show that symbiosis evolved in response to nutrient deficiencies but its impacts on insect diversification depend on their feeding niche.

Using geographical data for approximately 36,000 marine and terrestrial species and climate projections to 2100, the authors show that the area of each species’ geographical range at risk of thermal exposure will expand abruptly, highlighting the urgency of mitigation and adaptation actions.

Using DNA barcoding to analyse flying insect diversity of >225,000 specimens from five biogeographic regions, the authors show that more than half of local species diversity is represented by only 20 insect families, most of which suffer from taxonomic neglect.

A new phylogenomic tree for butterflies is constructed using 391 genes from 2,300 species, representing 92% of genera. It suggests that butterflies originated around 100 million years ago in what is now the Americas and originally fed on Fabaceae.

Global biodiversity loss has been disproportionately driven by consumption of people in rich nations. The concept of ‘loss and damage’ — familiar from international agreements on climate change — should be considered for the effects of biodiversity loss in countries of the Global South.

Determined and generous champion of protected-areas science and policy

SARS-CoV-2 lineages circulating in animal reservoirs may broaden the evolutionary potential of the virus and increase the risk of novel variants emerging. There is an urgent need for more-comprehensive surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 circulating in nonhuman hosts.

An inspirational advocate for adaptation, animal behaviour and natural history.