Volume 5 Issue 4, April 2021

We talk to Dr Swanne Gordon, a Jamaican-Canadian Assistant Professor of Biology at Washington University in St. Louis, United States, about her research on natural diversity and experience as a Black person in academia.

Phylogenetic analysis of oxygen-utilizing and -producing enzymes indicates an early emergence of an oxygenated biosphere, providing phylogenetic insight into a question that has more commonly been approached from the basis of fossils and geochemical tracers.

A collation of national spending on biodiversity presents new data and explores the relationship with biodiversity loss, while also highlighting the difficulty in generating indicators for cross-national biodiversity assessment.

Learning from the failure to meet the Aichi Biodiversity Targets, the authors recommend effective global and national targets and other measures to ensure the post-2020 targets are more successful.

Research on the evolution of cooperation has been revolutionized by advances in genetic, microbiological and analytical techniques. This Perspective highlights recent insights and considers future directions in research on cooperation.

This Perspective draws on emerging ecological coexistence theory to illustrate how changes in both competitive ability and niche overlap are critical for understanding the costs of antibiotic resistance and the persistence of pathogens in microbial communities.

Phylogenetic dating of O₂-utilizing enzymes indicates a burst of emergence several hundred million years before the Great Oxidation Event.

Using a novel Bayesian method, the authors infer a pre-Cretaceous origin for multiple angiosperm families on the basis of their fossil record and present-day diversity.

Using plant community trait composition data and microclimate and soil chemistry data from four distinct tundra regions, the authors demonstrate strong, consistent trait–environment relationships across Arctic and Antarctic regions.

Altruism towards distantly related recipients appears to reduce inclusive fitness and is difficult to understand. Here, the authors quantify cooperative payoffs in a Neotropical wasp with high levels of movement between colonies and use inclusive fitness theory to show that diminishing returns to cooperation explain this behaviour.

Ecological factors affect host–parasite coevolution. This study shows how biotic and abiotic forces influence the evolutionary trajectories of Daphnia and its obligate bacterial parasite in 16 replicate ponds.

The authors test for temperature dependency of ecosystem respiration rates across globally distributed eddy covariance sites, revealing consistent temperature thresholds where ecosystem metabolism changes.

Coral bleaching could leave a lasting impact on the physiological functioning of corals. The authors show divergent metabolomic profiles in coral hosts and algal symbionts associated with bleaching history.

Using tree community data from 29 tropical and temperate sites that have experienced multi-decadal alterations in fire frequency, the authors show repeated burning generally reduces stem density and basal area, with most pronounced effects in savanna ecosystems and in sites with strong wet seasons or strong dry seasons.

A meta-analysis pinpoints the severity with which human disturbances, ranging from hunting to habitat modification, affect the movements and home ranges of terrestrial and aquatic animals around the globe.

A global analysis of deforestation rates in more than 18,000 terrestrial protected areas shows that, once protected area effectiveness is taken into account, only 6.5%—rather than 15.7%—of the world’s forests are protected, well below the Aichi Target of 17%.

Using the Biodiversity Finance Initiative methodology, the authors assess the extent and effectiveness of biodiversity investment across different economies. Larger economies invest more in absolute terms and proportional to GDP but invest less once GDP is controlled for, and all biodiversity variables correlated positively with investment.

A meta-analysis of 31 mammal, bird and reptile studies reveals that hunting or trapping for the wildlife trade is associated with decreased abundances, even where harvesting for trade occurs in protected areas.