Reviews & Analysis

Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) are intended to provide standardized measurements for reporting biodiversity change. Here, the authors outline the conceptual and empirical basis for the use of EBVs based on species traits, and highlight tools necessary for creating comprehensive EBV data products.

Analysis from global fisheries and the Brazilian Amazon elaborates the links between financial flows through tax havens and environmental degradation.

Information on species abundances and distributions is essential for developing conservation policy and assessing change. Yet publically available data increases exploitation potential. This Perspective presents a decision framework to assess the risks and benefits of publically sharing biodiversity data.

A checklist is presented that can be used by peer reviewers for more effective and efficient assessment of research manuscripts.

Environmental factors affect cancer incidence in humans. Here, it is argued that anthropogenic environmental disturbances are likewise responsible for cancer in wild animal populations via a range of different mechanisms.

Microbial communities may often be composed of a wide diversity of taxa that perform similar functions. Here, the authors discuss the roles of function, functional redundancy and taxonomy in microbial community assembly and coexistence.

How biotic interactions change across spatial scales is not well characterized. Here, the authors outline a theoretical framework to explore the spatial scaling of multitrophic communities, and present testable predictions on network-area relationships (NARs).

A conceptual model linking drivers of change to biodiversity loss identifies major gaps in the Aichi targets of the Convention on Biological Diversity, and provides a mechanism for developing new indicators.

Palaeoproteomics is an emerging field at the intersection of evolutionary biology, archaeology and anthropology. This Perspective provides a best practice primer for researchers, reviewers and editors.

Forests that are free of significant human-induced degradation should be accorded urgent conservation priority, it is argued, owing to evidence that they hold particular value for biodiversity, carbon sequestration and storage, water provision, and the maintenance of indigenous cultures and human health.

The concept of ecosystem multifunctionality has emerged from two distinct research fields. In this Perspective, the authors reconcile these views by redefining multifunctionality at two levels that will be relevant for both fundamental and applied researchers.

Open data is increasing rapidly, but data sets may be scattered among many repositories. Here, the authors present an overview of the open data landscape in ecology and evolutionary biology, and highlight key points to consider when reusing data.

The earliest animal diversification has been associated with increased oxygenation. Here an alternative model is proposed: hypoxia-inducible transcription factors gave animals unprecedented control of cell stemness that allowed them to cope with fluctuating oxygen concentrations.

Until recently, human dispersals out of Africa and into the Levant early in Marine Isotope Stage 5 (around 126–74 ka) were characterized as a precursor to a later, more successful out of Africa event. Recently discovered archaeological evidence from Asia challenges this story and helps challenge what we see as dispersal success.