Ecology articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Animals can obtain information on predation risk directly from observing predators or indirectly from the alarm calls of others. Here, the authors show that red-breasted nuthatches encode information on risk in their own alarm calls differently depending on the source of the information.

    • Nora V Carlson
    • , Erick Greene
    •  & Christopher N Templeton

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Ecologists continue to debate whether local species assemblages result from habitat filtering or from turnover among the regional species pool. Here the authors develop a “dispersion field” method to mapping species range overlaps, showing that regional turnover processes are key to local assembly.

    • Michael K. Borregaard
    • , Gary R. Graves
    •  & Carsten Rahbek

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Egyptian rousette bats (ERBs) are natural reservoirs for Marburg virus (MARV), but these bats have not been linked to the MARV Angola strain that caused the largest and deadliest outbreak on record. Here, Amman et al., in a multi-institutional surveillance effort, identify and isolate Angola-like MARV in ERBs in West Africa.

    • Brian R. Amman
    • , Brian H. Bird
    •  & Aiah Lebbie

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Despite growing aquaculture production and environmental concerns on phosphorus (P) enrichment, the P budgets of fisheries have been largely overlooked. Here, Huang et al. calculate global fishery P budgets and estimate P use efficiency for a wide range of aquaculture systems.

    • Yuanyuan Huang
    • , Phillipe Ciais
    •  & Haicheng Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Acoustic communication is widespread, but not universal, across terrestrial vertebrates. Here, the authors show that acoustic communication evolved anciently, but independently, in most tetrapod groups and that these origins were associated with nocturnal activity.

    • Zhuo Chen
    •  & John J. Wiens

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Wetlands are global hotspots of carbon storage, but errors exist with current estimates of the extent of their carbon density. Here the authors show that mangrove sediment organic carbon stock has previously been overestimated, while ecosystem carbon stock has been underestimated.

    • Xiaoguang Ouyang
    •  & Shing Yip Lee

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Yersinia pestis, the causative agent of plague, can change its biofilm production to influence the dynamics of flea-borne transmission. Here, the authors sequence Y. pestis isolates sampled over 40 years in China and show evidence for climate-associated selection on rpoZ to increase biofilm production.

    • Yujun Cui
    • , Boris V. Schmid
    •  & Ruifu Yang

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    Gardner and colleagues argue that efforts to conserve biodiversity should capitalise on current momentum in the realm of climate change policy.

    • Charlie J. Gardner
    • , Matthew J. Struebig
    •  & Zoe G. Davies

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Increasingly, eDNA is being used to infer ecological interactions. Here the authors sample eDNA over 18 months in a marine environment and use co-occurrence network analyses to infer potential interactions among organisms from microbes to mammals, testing how they change over time in response to oceanographic factors.

    • Anni Djurhuus
    • , Collin J. Closek
    •  & Mya Breitbart

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Market integration may loosen the dense kinship networks maintaining high fertility among agriculturalists, but data are lacking. Here, Colleran shows that in 22 rural Polish communities, women’s ego networks are less kin-oriented, but not less dense, as market integration increases, potentially enabling low fertility values to spread.

    • Heidi Colleran

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Species richness is often reported to enhance ecosystem functioning, but it is unclear whether similar diversity-functioning relationships occur at larger scales. Here Oehri et al. combine land cover survey and remote sensing data to show a positive relationship between landscape diversity and landscape functioning.

    • Jacqueline Oehri
    • , Bernhard Schmid
    •  & Pascal A. Niklaus

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Forest management may play an important role in climate change mitigation. Here, Tong et al. combine remote sensing and machine learning modelling to map forest cover dynamics in southern China during 2002–2017, showing effects on carbon sequestration that are extensive but of uncertain longevity and possible negative impact on soil water.

    • Xiaowei Tong
    • , Martin Brandt
    •  & Rasmus Fensholt

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The relationship between the coral animal and symbiotic algae is essential to coral health, and researchers are turning to Exaiptasia, a model cnidarian system, to study this relationship mechanistically. Here the authors find that endosymbiotic algae become limited by nitrogen at high population densities and provide the host with high levels of fixed carbon.

    • Tingting Xiang
    • , Erik Lehnert
    •  & Arthur R. Grossman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Fungal community assembly on crop plants is thought to be driven by deterministic selection exerted by the host. Here Gao et al. use a sorghum system to show that stochastic forces act on fungal community assembly in leaves and roots early in host development and when sorghum is drought stressed.

    • Cheng Gao
    • , Liliam Montoya
    •  & John W. Taylor

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Pheromones are an essential cue for species recognition and mate selection in many insects including the butterfly Bicyclus anynana. Here the authors show that females with a short social experience of a new male learn preferences for novel pheromone blends, a preference which also occurs in their daughters.

    • Emilie Dion
    • , Li Xian Pui
    •  & Antónia Monteiro

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Reductions in seawater pH are affecting marine ecosystems globally. Here, the authors describe phenotypic and genetic modifications associated with rapid adaptation to reduced seawater pH in the mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis, and suggest that standing variation within natural populations plays an important role in bolstering species’ adaptive capacity to global change.

    • M. C. Bitter
    • , L. Kapsenberg
    •  & C. A. Pfister

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Dengue and Zika virus are related flaviviruses, and introduction of Zika in the Americas may have impacted dengue epidemiology. Here, Borchering et al. show that dengue incidence was unusually low in 2017 in Brazil and Colombia, and simulations incorporating immune-mediated interactions predict reductions in dengue following Zika outbreaks with subsequent rebounds.

    • Rebecca K. Borchering
    • , Angkana T. Huang
    •  & Derek A. T. Cummings

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The relationships between ecosystem productivity and plant diversity are complex. Here, the authors show that sites with high productivity typically have reduced species diversity but high functional and phylogenetic diversity, potentially owing to the creation of additional niche space.

    • Philipp Brun
    • , Niklaus E. Zimmermann
    •  & Wilfried Thuiller

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The contribution of symbiotic dinitrogen fixation to the forest carbon sink could change throughout forest succession. Here the authors model nitrogen cycling and light competition between trees based on data from Panamanian forest plots, showing that fixation contributes substantially to the carbon sink in early successional stages.

    • Jennifer H. Levy-Varon
    • , Sarah A. Batterman
    •  & Lars O. Hedin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Numerous feathered dinosaurs and early birds have been discovered from the Jurassic and Cretaceous, but the early evolution of feather-feeding insects is not clear. Here, Gao et al. describe a new family of ectoparasitic insects from 10 specimens found associated with feathers in mid-Cretaceous amber.

    • Taiping Gao
    • , Xiangchu Yin
    •  & Dong Ren

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Prior studies have examined fixed traits that correlate with plant invasiveness. Here the authors use a database of population matrices to compare demographic traits of invasive species in their native and invaded ranges, finding that demographic amplification is an important predictor of invasiveness.

    • Kim Jelbert
    • , Danielle Buss
    •  & Dave Hodgson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Photosynthesis generates reactive oxygen species that can damage cells. Here, the authors show that unicellular predators of photosynthetic prey have shared responses to photosynthetic oxidative stress and these may also have been important for the evolution of endosymbiosis.

    • Akihiro Uzuka
    • , Yusuke Kobayashi
    •  & Shin-ya Miyagishima

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Climate affects dynamics of infectious diseases, but the impact on respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) epidemiology isn’t well understood. Here, Baker et al. model the influence of temperature, humidity and rainfall on RSV epidemiology in the USA and Mexico and predict impact of climate change on RSV dynamics.

    • Rachel E. Baker
    • , Ayesha S. Mahmud
    •  & Bryan T. Grenfell

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Recent studies have suggested that hybridization can facilitate adaptive radiations. Here, the authors show that opportunity for hybridization differentiates Lake Mweru, where cichlids radiated, and Lake Bangweulu, where cichlids did not radiate despite ecological opportunity in both lakes.

    • Joana I. Meier
    • , Rike B. Stelkens
    •  & Ole Seehausen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Abrupt land changes may have long-lasting effects on local biodiversity. Here, Jung et al. show that past abrupt land change reduces species richness and abundance, and alters assemblage composition, with recovery often taking more than 10 years.

    • Martin Jung
    • , Pedram Rowhani
    •  & Jörn P. W. Scharlemann

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Healthy coral reefs have an acoustic signature known to be attractive to coral and fish larvae during settlement. Here the authors use playback experiments in the field to show that healthy reef sounds can increase recruitment of juvenile fishes to degraded coral reef habitat, suggesting that acoustic playback could be used as a reef management strategy.

    • Timothy A. C. Gordon
    • , Andrew N. Radford
    •  & Stephen D. Simpson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Viral genomic DNA is often modified to evade the host bacterial restriction system. Here the authors identified 2′-deoxy-7-deazaguanine modifications on phage DNA by comparative genomics and experimental validation, showing their role in genome protection.

    • Geoffrey Hutinet
    • , Witold Kot
    •  & Valérie de Crécy-Lagard

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Climate-induced poleward shifts in plant distributions could flatten latitudinal diversity gradients. However, here the authors show that the spread of forests after the last ice age reduced diversity in central and northern Europe, and that human land-use over the past 5000 years strengthened the latitudinal gradient in plant diversity.

    • Thomas Giesecke
    • , Steffen Wolters
    •  & Simon Brewer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It remains challenging to estimate carbon accumulation rates in tidal wetlands on a scale as large as the conterminous US. Here, the authors find that mean C accumulation rates vary greatly among watershed regions but not among vegetation types, and that tidal wetlands’ C sequestration capability will remain or increase by 2100, suggesting a resilience to sea level rise.

    • Faming Wang
    • , Xiaoliang Lu
    •  & Jianwu Tang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Whether Australia’s Pleistocene megafauna extinctions were caused by climate change, humans, or both is debated. Here, the authors infer the spatio-temporal trajectories of regional extinctions and find that water availability mediates the relationship among climate, human migration and megafauna extinctions.

    • Frédérik Saltré
    • , Joël Chadoeuf
    •  & Corey J. A. Bradshaw

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Asian summer monsoons and their links to global temperature changes have been the subject of intense debate. Here the authors reconstruct the Asian monsoon climate since the late Miocene, using plant silica records of C4 and C3 grasses in central China, and find that global cooling caused Asian monsoon rainfall to decrease markedly in the late Pliocene.

    • Hanlin Wang
    • , Huayu Lu
    •  & Yichao Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Greenhouse gas mitigation can involve land-use changes that alter the habitat available for wildlife. Here, Ohashi et al. perform an integrated assessment showing that climate mitigation can be beneficial for global biodiversity but may entail local biodiversity losses where land-based mitigation is implemented.

    • Haruka Ohashi
    • , Tomoko Hasegawa
    •  & Tetsuya Matsui

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Exceptional alpine plant diversity exists in the Hengduan Mountains. Here, through genome assembly and population genomics studies, the authors find notable intraspecific divergence among Cushion willow populations isolated by the sky island-like habitats and consider it contributes to speciation and biodiversity.

    • Jia-hui Chen
    • , Yuan Huang
    •  & Hang Sun

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Broad scale patterns in the distribution of animal community functional properties could be determined by climate and disrupted by human activities. Here the authors show global patterns in large-mammal trophic structure related to climate variation, which human activities simplify in predictable ways.

    • Manuel Mendoza
    •  & Miguel B. Araújo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Modelling collective behaviour in different circumstances remains a challenge because of uncertainty related to interaction rule changes. Here, the authors report plasticity in local interaction rules in flocks of wild jackdaws with implications for both natural and artificial collective systems.

    • Hangjian Ling
    • , Guillam E. Mclvor
    •  & Nicholas T. Ouellette

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors assemble and analyse previously generated mycobiome data linked to geographical locations across the world. They describe the distribution of fungal taxa and show that climate is an important driver of fungal biogeography and that fungal diversity appears to be concentrated at high latitudes.

    • Tomáš Větrovský
    • , Petr Kohout
    •  & Petr Baldrian

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Warmer temperatures could increase the growth and metabolic rates of microbes. Here, the authors assemble a dataset of thermal performance curves for over 400 bacteria and archaea, showing that metabolic rates are likely to increase under warming, with implications for global carbon cycling.

    • Thomas P. Smith
    • , Thomas J. H. Thomas
    •  & Samrāt Pawar

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Improving estimates of forest biomass based on remote sensing data is important to assess global carbon cycling. Here the authors develop an approach to use forest gap models to simulate lidar waveforms and compare the outputs with ICESAT-1 GLAS profiles, showing improved estimates across the Amazon basin.

    • Edna Rödig
    • , Nikolai Knapp
    •  & Andreas Huth

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Mycorrhizas—mutualistic relationships formed between fungi and most plant species—are functionally linked to soil carbon stocks. Here the authors map the global distribution of mycorrhizal plants and quantify links between mycorrhizal vegetation patterns and terrestrial carbon stocks.

    • Nadejda A. Soudzilovskaia
    • , Peter M. van Bodegom
    •  & Leho Tedersoo

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