Macroecology articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Bergmann’s Rule predicts larger body sizes in colder climates. Here, the authors examine extinct and extant dinosaurs (birds) and mammaliaforms, finding no evidence of body size variation with latitude in any group, but a small variation with temperature in extant birds.

    • Lauren N. Wilson
    • , Jacob D. Gardner
    •  & Chris L. Organ

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The effect of biogeographic isolation on biodiversity remains unclear. Assessing global mammal and bird assemblages, the authors show that long-term biogeographic barriers explain reduced species richness and divergent ecological function, while environment determines diversity in most of the world.

    • Peter J. Williams
    • , Elise F. Zipkin
    •  & Jedediah F. Brodie

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Predicting species responses to climate change may be complicated by the influence of other factors. Here, the authors report that warming is linked to terrestrial and freshwater community shifts towards warm-adapted species overall, but body size, thermal niche breadth, species richness and baseline temperature modulate the trends.

    • Imran Khaliq
    • , Christian Rixen
    •  & Anita Narwani

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Extinction threatens to erode the Tree of Life. Here, the authors calculate extinction risk for jawed vertebrates, predicting a loss of 86–150 billion years (11–19%) of evolutionary history through the next 50–500 years and indicating that cartilaginous fish, ray-finned fish, and turtles are most at risk from a phylogenetic perspective.

    • Rikki Gumbs
    • , Oenone Scott
    •  & James Rosindell

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Whether non-native species are more or less likely to become established in communities that host close relatives is debated. This global study shows that non-native fish species phylogenetically close to native species are more likely to establish in freshwater ecosystems.

    • Meng Xu
    • , Shao-peng Li
    •  & Xidong Mu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Tree species may be vulnerable to multiple global change factors. Here, the authors find that more than 17 thousand tree species are exposed to increasing anthropogenic threats, including many species classified as data-deficient in the IUCN Red List.

    • Coline C. F. Boonman
    • , Josep M. Serra-Diaz
    •  & Jens-Christian Svenning

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Twice a year, billions of nocturnal avian migrants traverse landscapes that are changing through natural and anthropogenic forces. Here, the authors identify light pollution as an influential predictor of bird migration stopover density across the USA.

    • Kyle G. Horton
    • , Jeffrey J. Buler
    •  & Geoffrey M. Henebry

  • Article
    | Open Access

    This study compiled a comprehensive global database on live terrestrial vertebrate trade and used it to investigate traded alien species. The authors identify 7,780 species involved in trade globally and show that countries with greater trading power, higher incomes and larger human populations import more alien species, which emerge as hotspots for establishment richness of aliens.

    • Yiming Li
    • , Tim M. Blackburn
    •  & Siqi Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Extinction of megafauna is a defining trend of the last 50,000 years. Here, the authors use genomic data to infer population histories of 139 extant megafauna, suggesting that their population decline is better explained by Homo sapiens expansion than by climate change.

    • Juraj Bergman
    • , Rasmus Ø. Pedersen
    •  & Jens-Christian Svenning

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Elasmobranchs (sharks, rays and skates) are among the most threatened marine vertebrates, yet their global functional diversity remains largely unknown. This study uses a trait dataset of over 1,000 species to assess elasmobranch functional diversity and compare it against other previously studied biodiversity facets to identify global conservation priorities.

    • Catalina Pimiento
    • , Camille Albouy
    •  & Fabien Leprieur

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Global spatiotemporal patterns of plant diversification are unclear. Here, the authors use a genus-level phylogeny and global distribution data for 14,244 flowering plant genera, finding a negative correlation between spatial patterns of diversification and genus diversity.

    • Dimitar Dimitrov
    • , Xiaoting Xu
    •  & Zhiheng Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Energetic tradeoffs help determine where individual traits confer a competitive advantage. Here, the authors grow ten Eucalyptus species at four common gardens along a rainfall gradient and show that 50 traits mostly vary as predicted, and that species in their native ranges generally outperform others in height growth.

    • Duncan D. Smith
    • , Mark A. Adams
    •  & Thomas J. Givnish

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Ecogeographic rules link spatial patterns in phenotype and environment, potentially reflecting adaptation. This study identifies nine genes associated with body mass variation in song sparrow populations, supporting Bergmann’s Rule and highlighting the role of natural selection in local adaptation.

    • Katherine Carbeck
    • , Peter Arcese
    •  & Jennifer Walsh

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Species that are evolutionary distinct and have geographically narrow or isolated distributions may be in particular need of conservation. Here, the authors identify global patterns of tree phylogenetic endemism and their linkages with climate and land use, and estimate future trends.

    • Wen-Yong Guo
    • , Josep M. Serra-Diaz
    •  & Jens-Christian Svenning

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Climate change and land use change may have independent or interactive effects on species’ distributions. Here, the authors show that changes in bird, lepidopteran and plant ranges across Great Britain are often explained by individual or additive effects of land conversion and temperature change.

    • Andrew J. Suggitt
    • , Christopher J. Wheatley
    •  & Alistair G. Auffret

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The relationship between stomatal traits and environmental drivers across plant communities has important implications for ecosystem fluxes. Here, the authors explore community-scale stomatal trait-environment relationships, which are important for predicting future water and carbon cycles.

    • Congcong Liu
    • , Lawren Sack
    •  & Guirui Yu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Do species with large ranges diversify faster? While there have been some studies suggesting the opposite pattern, this study indicates that large-ranged mammals indeed diversify faster in general, but that there are important geographic domains deviating from this pattern.

    • Jan Smyčka
    • , Anna Toszogyova
    •  & David Storch

  • Article
    | Open Access

    This study presents a global map of predicted insect mitochondrial genetic diversity from cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 sequences. From over 2 million mtDNA sequences, they find a negative quadratic latitudinal gradient in genetic diversity evenness, peaking in the subtropics and correlating with hot, stable environments.

    • Connor M. French
    • , Laura D. Bertola
    •  & Michael J. Hickerson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Marine bivalves are important components of ecosystems and are exploited for food across the world. This study expands the list of marine bivalves known to be exploited worldwide and then uses a trait-based approach to identify intrinsically vulnerable species and to pinpoint regions with high levels of extinction-prone exploited species, helping to prioritize areas for conservation effort.

    • Shan Huang
    • , Stewart M. Edie
    •  & David Jablonski

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cities may host surprisingly diverse and functionally distinct biological communities. This global analysis on 5302 vertebrate and invertebrate species finds evidence of 4 trait syndromes in urban animal assemblages, modulated by spatial and geographic factors.

    • Amy K. Hahs
    • , Bertrand Fournier
    •  & Marco Moretti

  • Article
    | Open Access

    common assumption of evolution is that of an ecological limit to species diversity. This study tests whether sympatry with closely-related species leads to decreasing speciation rates. They find that, for terrestrial vertebrates, the probability of speciation seems to be unaffected by the number of other species of that lineage already present

    • Marcio R. Pie
    • , Raquel Divieso
    •  & Fernanda S. Caron

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Mammalian megafaunal biodiversity has declined since the Plio-Pleistocene. Here, the authors apply ecometric methods to evaluate the functional link between eastern African herbivorous megafauna and their environments, showing that some biodiversity loss coincided with community ecological function disturbance.

    • Daniel A. Lauer
    • , A. Michelle Lawing
    •  & Jenny L. McGuire

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Birds can adapt to temperature gradients by changing body size (Bergmann’s rule) or bill size (Allen’s rule), but many groups don’t conform to these patterns. Here the authors show that most bird families show subtle and complementary changes in bill and body size, while also being constrained by feeding ecology.

    • Justin W. Baldwin
    • , Joan Garcia-Porta
    •  & Carlos A. Botero

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Functional trait data could guide predictions of species responses to environmental change. Here, the authors show that winner and loser shrub species in the warming tundra biome overlap in trait space and may therefore be difficult to predict based on commonly measured traits.

    • Mariana García Criado
    • , Isla H. Myers-Smith
    •  & Anna-Maria Virkkala

  • Article
    | Open Access

    This study updates the floristic realms of the world by integrating global distributions and mega-phylogenies of 12,664 angiosperm genera. Eight realms and 16 sub-realms are identified, most of which have formed since the Paleogene, and their formation is dominated by geographic isolation induced by plate tectonics rather than current or historical climate.

    • Yunpeng Liu
    • , Xiaoting Xu
    •  & Zhiheng Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Forecasts of risks of invasion by non-native species are challenging to obtain. Here, the authors show that mechanistic models based on functional traits related to species’ capacity to generate and retain body heat identify areas at risk of invasion by non-native birds in Europe.

    • Diederik Strubbe
    • , Laura Jiménez
    •  & Carsten Rahbek

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Anthropogenic habitat modification is considered a driver of non-native species establishment. Here, the authors quantify the occurrence of non-native species in local assemblages of vascular plants, ants, spiders, birds and mammals, finding generally greater presence and frequency under disturbed land-use types.

    • Daijun Liu
    • , Philipp Semenchuk
    •  & Stefan Dullinger

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Bergmann’s and Allen’s rules are speculated to describe alternative strategies of thermal adaptation. Here, Frӧhlich et al. explore global variation across avian species to show that the way in which relative length of beaks and tarsi co-vary with ambient temperature depends on body mass and vice versa.

    • Arkadiusz Frӧhlich
    • , Dorota Kotowska
    •  & Matthew R. E. Symonds

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Modelling diverse ecological phenomena across scales with a single mathematical framework is challenging. Here, the authors draw on density functional theory to develop a framework that bridges between mechanistic theories at fine scales and statistical models at large scales.

    • Martin-I. Trappe
    •  & Ryan A. Chisholm

  • Article
    | Open Access

    This study finds that high-latitude fish clades with the fastest speciation rates also exhibit elevated rates of depth evolution, creating a prevailing latitudinal gradient of deep-sea invasions concentrated in poleward regions. These results advance our understanding of how niche lability and climate shape global patterns of species distributions.

    • Sarah T. Friedman
    •  & Martha M. Muñoz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Springtails are omnipresent soil arthropods, vital for ecosystems. In the first global assessment of springtails, this study shows a 20-fold biomass difference between the tundra and the tropics, with distinct temperature-related patterns for diversity and metabolism that suggest climate change may restructure the functioning of soil biodiversity.

    • Anton M. Potapov
    • , Carlos A. Guerra
    •  & Stefan Scheu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Predicting which species will become invasive is vital because the harm they cause cannot always be mitigated once populations establish. Street et al. show that traded and introduced species have distinctive life histories with high invasion potential, helping to identify future invasion risks.

    • Sally E. Street
    • , Jorge S. Gutiérrez
    •  & Isabella Capellini

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Land use change has been the dominant anthropogenic driver of plant distribution change, but climate change has also become a major factor. This analysis of long-term data shows that warming likely reinforced the impact of grassland abandonment on plant species distribution change in Sweden.

    • Alistair G. Auffret
    •  & Jens-Christian Svenning

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Many rodent species are known as hosts of zoonotic pathogens, but the ecological conditions that trigger spillover are not well-understood. Here, the authors show that population fluctuations and association with human-dominated habitats explain the zoonotic reservoir status of rodents globally.

    • Frauke Ecke
    • , Barbara A. Han
    •  & Richard S. Ostfeld

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The impact of three extinction events during the Permo–Triassic interval on terrestrial invertebrates is unclear. Here, the authors find that key abiotic and biotic factors, including changes in floral assemblages, were correlated with changes in insect diversity through this interval.

    • Corentin Jouault
    • , André Nel
    •  & Fabien L. Condamine

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Global patterns of regional plant diversity are relatively well known, but whether they hold for local communities is debated. This study created multi-grain global maps of alpha diversity for vascular plants to provide a nuanced understanding of plant diversity hotspots and improve predictions of global change effects on biodiversity.

    • Francesco Maria Sabatini
    • , Borja Jiménez-Alfaro
    •  & Helge Bruelheide

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The ratio of predator-to-prey biomass is a key element in food webs. Here, the authors report a unified analysis of predator-prey biomass scaling in complex food webs, finding general patterns of sub-linear scaling across ecosystems and levels of organization.

    • Daniel M. Perkins
    • , Ian A. Hatton
    •  & Ulrich Brose

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Biotic homogenization, which is increased similarity in the composition of species among communities, is rising due to human activities. Using North American mammal fossil records from the past 30,000 years, this study shows that this phenomenon is ancient, beginning between 12,000 and 10,000 years ago with the extinction of the mammal megafauna.

    • Danielle Fraser
    • , Amelia Villaseñor
    •  & S. Kathleen Lyons

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Warm-water coral reefs are limited to tropical and subtropical latitudes today but extended poleward in the geological past. This study shows that climatic and tectonic drivers explain the past distribution of coral reefs and associated biodiversity.

    • Lewis A. Jones
    • , Philip D. Mannion
    •  & Daniel J. Lunt

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    Several rankings of the relative importance of global threats to biodiversity have been proposed. This Comment argues that relative rankings of biodiversity threats have little application for conservation and might even mislead policymaking.

    • Céline Bellard
    • , Clara Marino
    •  & Franck Courchamp

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