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Climate warming is triggering a steady increase in the mean thermal optimum of plant communities. We show that this increase reflects the dieback of cold-adapted species rather than the arrival of warmer-adapted species, with negative effects on local diversity and mutually cancelling effects on community heterogeneity.
In this Perspective, the authors discuss current knowledge of deep-time protein preservation and how the chemical changes undergone by proteins affect taphonomic and palaeoproteomic analyses.
Combining species range-shift estimates with population trends for 146 marine species reveals that population abundances tend to decline as the velocity with which the species’ range is shifting poleward increases. The findings suggest widespread transient population dynamics rather than a simple dichotomy between climate-change ‘winners’ and ‘losers’.
We evaluate the drivers of intensification traps — the combined loss of biodiversity and crop production that results from too-intensive agriculture. Our results reveal the conditions under which these lose–lose situations emerge and highlight the strong ramifications of disregarding biodiversity in agricultural management.
Using over 200 chromosomal genomes to reconstruct 250 million years of evolutionary history, we define the 32 linkage groups (Merian elements) that were present in the ancestor of Lepidoptera. We chart the dynamics of chromosome fusion and fission that accompanied the global diversification of Lepidoptera.
Within-species adaptation of locomotor capacity in deer mice and defensive structures in stickleback fish is associated with changes in Hox gene regulation.
A cross-validation approach with acoustic and bird datasets from four regions shows that acoustic indices produce inconsistent and non-generalizable estimates of biodiversity.
Cryptic lineages of morphologically similar but genetically distinct coral taxa occur in many reef systems. This Perspective discusses the relevance of this genetic diversity to studies of coral responses to climate change and to reef conservation and restoration.
A meta-analysis of research on megaherbivore effects on ecosystems shows that large wild mammals influence heterogeneity in plant, soil and animal community responses.
The Red List of Ecosystems is a headline indicator in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. This Progress illustrates how the Red List of Ecosystems can be used by Parties to the Framework to contribute to its implementation and monitoring.
An assessment of time series of riverine fish communities from several continents finds positive trends in abundance and richness but also strong changes in community composition, driven in part by increased proportions of non-native species.
Systematic conservation planning in the European Alps suggests that priorities to safeguard multifaceted plant diversity will shift from low to high elevations and across latitudes, necessitating a coordinated and transboundary conservation strategy.
This Perspective proposes that the driving force of photoreceptor diversity was visual–motor perception with colour discrimination evolving as a secondary function.
A multidisciplinary study of the Shiyu archaeological site in northern China reveals a complex human behavioural record that currently is the oldest of its kind in Northeast Asia and provides insight into the nature of the northward dispersal of modern humans across Asia.
Efforts to monitor genetic diversity in populations vary greatly among European countries. The populations and species that are most likely to experience the greatest impacts of climate change are not well covered by these efforts, which suggests an urgent need for a substantial expansion in their monitoring.
Floristic homogenization — an increase in plant similarity within a given region — threatens biodiversity. By studying the taxonomic similarity of the floras of South Pacific islands over the past 5,000 years, we find that initial human settlement was probably a major driver of floristic homogenization.
Sequencing of a hagfish genome — one of the two jawless vertebrate lineages (cyclostomes) — constrains the timing and nature of genome duplication events that characterize early vertebrate evolution. Genome duplications occurred among ancestral vertebrates and cyclostomes, but genome-doubling in ancestral jawed vertebrates was caused by hybridization, which resulted in an unparalleled morphological diversification.