Analysis of North American landbirds compares their latitudinal, elevational and phenological responses to climate change. Species have tracked 33% of current temperature change, with phenological change accounting for the majority (64%) of this.

Socio-bioeconomies are essential to sustainable use and restoration of ecosystems and to justice and livelihoods for Indigenous and local people. This Perspective details the transformative changes that are needed across multifaceted existing barriers to enable socio-bioeconomies to be scaled out and up across the Amazon.

Geographic patterns in plant growth are probably influenced by soil abiotic and biotic conditions. Here, the authors assess the relationship of a composite soil health index to primary productivity and the underlying environmental predictors across major land-use types in Europe.

Analysis of gamete transcriptomes of sexual and asexual individuals of the brown alga Scytosiphon shows decay of female functions but no signature of relaxation of sexual antagonism in the evolution of asexual reproduction in this haploid sexual system.

Analysis of more than 7,000 quotas for reptile trade from around the world identifies that few quotas are exceeded, although quotas often exceed pre-quota trade volumes, and that many quotas remain unchanged, with the longest-running quotas proportionately changing the least.

A controlled greenhouse study that manipulated the presence of both ectomycorrhizal fungi and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi at a range of conspecific and heterospecific plant competitor densities shows that arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi promote plant species coexistence by equalizing fitness differences and stabilizing competition.

Seed predation increases from the Arctic to the tropics, but it is unknown whether urbanization disrupts this latitudinal pattern. An experimental study conducted across the Americas shows that the latitudinal gradient in predation holds in urban areas, even though total seed predation is reduced.

Constructing and exploring a global database, the authors find that 10% of the world’s languages are endemic to islands (a disproportionately large amount) and island area predicts number of languages. However, languages appear not to conform to all predictions of island biogeography theory.

Data from 1,279 time series across 29 taxonomic classes analysed with a Bayesian phylogenetic model shows that species phenology has advanced by 3.1 days per decade on average, with the timing of events varying by phylogeny but no evidence of differences in phenological shifts by trophic level.

A synthesis of empirical and theoretical literature shows the extent to which food production has homogenized and rewired food webs to increase productivity but with negative consequences for stability.

Cecilia Apaldetti’s palaeontological journey began with a turkey-sized dinosaur.

Climate change is causing an increase in extreme events, and this is a major concern for biodiversity.