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Analysing camera-trap data of 163 mammal species before and after the onset of COVID-19 lockdowns, the authors show that responses to human activity are dependent on the degree to which the landscape is modified by humans, with carnivores being especially sensitive.
Long-term experimental evolution and modelling show the evolution of small and large cluster-forming lineages of snowflake yeast that coexist over generations due to a trade-off between organismal size and competitiveness for dissolved oxygen.
Analysis of 1,673 sequenced Saccharomyces cerevisiae isolates identifies 3,852 sequence blocks introgressed from Saccharomyces paradoxus, most of which are recent and clade-specific. By contrast, divergent Chinese strains of S. cerevisiae show little evidence of introgression but do share ancient polymorphisms with S. paradoxus due to incomplete lineage sorting.
Analysing >14,000 pairs of plots over 10 years, the authors show that forest understorey plant communities increase their average temperature affiliations by 0.1 °C each decade. This increase was caused by the extinction of cold-adapted species, but with no visible effect on community heterogeneity.
Analysing >1,700 inventory plots from the Amazon Tree Diversity Network, the authors show that the majority of Amazon tree species can occupy floodplains and that patterns of species turnover are closely linked to regional flood patterns.
Using multiple remote-sensing datasets, the authors show that temporal and spatial scale influence the detection of tree-mortality events and explain why there has been a seemingly conflicting pattern of both overall greening but also extensive tree mortality in recent decades.
Abundance data for marine fish populations show that those shifting poleward rapidly due to climate change experience substantial population declines, suggesting that rapid range shifts are not sufficient to maintain stable populations.
Conventional agricultural intensification can lead to ‘traps’ where production actually declines because of biodiversity loss. By integrating case study archetypes, literature review and simulations, the authors show what systems are at risk of traps and how these risks can be limited.
The authors analyse 8,790 prokaryotic pangenomes to identify the ecological variables associated with recent versus old horizontal gene transfer events, finding that gene transfers are more common among co-occurring, highly abundant or host-associated species.
Combining ecophysiological growth models of >135,000 vascular plant species and information on plant growth form, the authors show that 33–68% of the global land surface will experience a significant change in the next 50 years in how climate supports the plant growth forms that define terrestrial ecosystems.
Behavioural innovation provides a key adaptive advantage to wild populations, but it is unclear which experimental assay is the best predictor for innovation. The authors administered a battery of cognitive tests to 15 passerine species to show that performance in problem-solving tasks is most closely associated with innovations in the wild.
Analysis of 210 lepidopteran chromosome-level genomes reveals stability of the 32 ancestral chromosomes and extensive reorganization, including fusion and fission events, in eight lineages over 250 million years of evolution.
Genome analysis of modern and historical elephant seals reveals impacts of a severe bottleneck on the genomes and fitness of individual seals, and the implications for recovery.
Analysing biogeographic patterns in soil viromes based on 1,824 soil metagenomes from sites around the world, the authors show that viral diversity rarely corresponds to overall microbial diversity, with soil texture and moisture being closely associated with viral diversity.
Forest ecotypes of deer mice have longer tails than prairie ecotypes. This study shows that this difference is adaptive and involves changes in six genomic regions, one of which is an allele-specific reduction in Hoxd13 expression that leads to tail elongation.
A meta-analysis of papers that relate reef fish abundance, biomass or species richness to proportion of living hard coral cover finds correlations that are predominantly positive but consistently weak.
The authors use a simulation framework to assess how the dynamics of species’ diversification changed with ecological niche shifts under historical climate conditions. Modelling scenarios with niche conservatism resulted in higher rates of net diversification, recapitulating empirical biodiversity patterns.
Conducting a simulated turtlegrass herbivory experiment across 650 experimental plots and 13 seagrass meadows, the authors show that the negative effects of herbivory increase with latitude, driven by low levels of light insolation at high latitudes.
Mismatch between the ancestry of mitochondrial and nuclear genomes can drive somatic evolution during ageing. Analysis of around 1.2 million mitochodrial somatic mutations in young and old mice shows haplotype-specific mutational patterns and hotspots, and reversion mutations that re-align mito-nuclear ancestry during an organism’s lifespan.
Analysing changes in observations of birds, butterflies and plants in Great Britain over more than 50 years, the authors show that climate change and land conversion have led to increases in richness, biotic homogenization and warmer-adapted communities over both the long and short terms.