Volume 6 Issue 9, September 2022

Nature Positive is an aspirational term that is increasingly being used by businesses, governments and NGOs, but there is a danger that its meaning is being diluted away from measurable overall net gain in biodiversity towards merely any action that benefits nature, argues E.J. Milner-Gulland.

Recent breakthroughs have led to the development of biodegradable sensors which, after collecting data, break down into byproducts that are harmless to their surroundings. Using these sensors to collect ecological data on vast scales and in fine resolution could transform our management and understanding of natural ecosystems.

A large dataset of aquatic biodiversity across multiple trophic levels from several wetlands in Brazil reveals that biodiversity–multifunctionality relationships break down with human pressures.

Distribution data from the North American Breeding Bird Survey shows an increasing mismatch between species distribution and climate.

A modelling study suggests that the proposed energetic barrier between prokaryotes and eukaryotes may not be relevant to the complexity gap between the two domains. The energetic advantage of early mitochondria was probably small, and eukaryotes likely emerged without the help of an endosymbiont.

The authors use a theoretical model along with competition experiments between two aquatic plant species to show that phenotypic plasticity affects the outcome of competition.

A panel of scientists, policymakers and practitioners have used an iterative voting process to collate a list of 15 priority emerging issues likely to affect marine and coastal biodiversity over the next 5–10 years.

A ten-year dataset from the Tibetan Plateau shows a general increase in tree-ring growth that is largely explained by enhanced nitrogen recycling through increased litterfall under elevated atmospheric CO₂.

Analysis of the species richness and functional diversity among species across 72 lakes finds that both variables are positively associated with ecosystem multifunctionality, but that—for smaller organisms only—these positive relationships break down with increasing human pressure.

A NutNet experiment in 57 grasslands across six continents shows that when herbivores are excluded from grasslands with a long coevolutionary history of grazing plant diversity is reduced, while in grasslands without a long grazing history the evolutionary history of the plant species regulates the response of plant diversity.

Using a 30-year dataset of North American bird species, the authors show that species’ abundances and distributions have become more decoupled from climate over time and that this is associated with ecological traits; the effect is particularly strong in threatened species.

Analysing the energetic constraints on prokaryotic cell size, the energetic implications of eukaryotic genome architecture, and the presence of endosymbionts, the authors suggest that mitochondria were not required for the initial origin of eukaryotes, but did facilitate their subsequent diversification and expansion.

Several cases of replicated radiations (in which sets of similar forms evolve repeatedly within different regions) have been described in animals. Here the authors provide a well-documented example in plants, specifically the Oreinotinus lineage within the angiosperm clade Viburnum in its spread from Mexico to Argentina through disjunct cloud forest environments.

Populations of a bulb mite that were experimentally selected for a male weapon showed reduced diversity across the genome, indicating that strong sexual selection increases the strength of purifying selection.

Studying the odorant receptor subfamily Or67a in Drosophila melanogaster and closely related species, the authors show that independent selection on co-expressed receptors has contributed to species-specific peripheral coding of olfactory information.

Genome sequencing and haplotype assembly of two cyprinid teleosts, a sexual tetraploid and an unisexual hexaploid, reveal insights into the evolutionary mechanisms underpinning the reproductive success of unisexual polyploid vertebrates.

Analysing whole-genome sequences from 68 rattlesnakes, the authors show a role of long-term balancing selection in maintaining diversity of multiple venom gene families and find reduced selective interference of venom genes with neighbouring loci.

Using estimation data on neuron numbers in 111 bird species across 24 families, the authors show that number of neurons is positively associated with innovation propensity and encephalization.

Using a literature review and meta-analysis, the authors quantify the proportion of ecological research that is wasted because of poor study design and implementation, or because the work remains unpublished.