Biological Reviews最新文献

Desert ecosystems, once considered biologically inert, are increasingly recognized for their untapped potential in global carbon sequestration (CS). This review addresses a central research question: how do precipitation patterns, vegetation dynamics, and soil processes influence carbon cycling and storage in arid environments, and what is the role of inorganic CS mechanisms in these systems? We synthesize current knowledge on the physicochemical and hydrological processes that regulate carbon dynamics in deserts, with a focus on both organic and inorganic pathways. Key findings reveal that while deserts can function as significant carbon sinks, their CS capacity is highly modulated by sparse rainfall, episodic vegetation growth, and carbonate formation processes in soils. Furthermore, we critically evaluate advanced carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies and soil carbon enhancement techniques tailored to arid regions, identifying both their potential and limitations. Persistent challenges, such as water scarcity, nutrient limitation, and soil degradation, pose constraints but also present opportunities for innovation in CS strategies. Our synthesis highlights deserts as dynamic, if underutilized, components of the global carbon cycle. We conclude that targeted interventions and integrated land management approaches could substantially improve CS in desert ecosystems, making them valuable assets in climate change mitigation, energy transition planning, and long-term environmental resilience.

Facilitative interspecific interactions (FIIs) confer benefits to at least one participant without detriment to others. Although often less emphasised than antagonistic interactions in ecological studies, this review highlights the significant ecological role of FIIs across biological scales – from individual behaviours to population, community, and ecosystem-level effects – with a focus on mobile marine vertebrates such as birds, mammals, and fish. These interactions enhance foraging success, shape predator–prey dynamics and contribute to the structure and function of marine ecosystems. FIIs include diverse associations such as multi-species aggregations among marine apex predators (e.g. dolphins, seabirds, and surface-feeding fish), mixed-species shoals, fish cleaning mutualisms, and cooperative foraging involving predators, including humans. At the population level, FIIs can improve survival and fitness, impacting the life histories and population dynamics of marine apex predators, with some species exhibiting a clear dependence on heterospecific facilitation. Despite recent advances, gaps remain in our understanding of how FIIs scale up to influence marine communities and ecosystem processes, limiting their integration into management tools. Ecosystem models – often used to inform management decisions – typically focus on principles of resource flow and species interactions driven by predation and competition, often overlooking facilitation. Integrating FIIs into ecosystem modelling could enhance Ecosystem-Based Fisheries Management, particularly for conserving vulnerable apex predators that may rely on facilitative interactions. Furthermore, FIIs involving humans and apex predators offer unique opportunities for data collection and model development, improving our understanding of the broader impacts of FII in marine environments, from individual behaviours to ecosystem functioning.

The nervous system's capacity to process complex stimuli has long intrigued neuroscientists, with multiplexing now recognized as a fundamental neural coding strategy. Multiplexing refers to the simultaneous encoding of multiple stimulus features via vi distinct components of neuronal responses, such as firing rates and precise temporal spike patterns. This paper reviews the neural coding mechanisms underlying multiplexing, with a particular emphasis on the somatosensory system and its ability to represent tactile stimuli. The encoding of various sensory attributes, including vibration, texture, motion, and shape, is examined, highlighting the complementary roles of rate and temporal codes in capturing these features. The discussion further addresses how intrinsic and extrinsic noise, often viewed as detrimental, can facilitate multiplexed coding by supporting the concurrent encoding of both stimulus frequency and intensity. The relevance of multiplexing is also considered in translational contexts, such as the development of brain–machine interfaces. By synthesizing recent advances and integrating insights from empirical and theoretical studies, this review establishes multiplexing as a foundational principle in sensory neuroscience and identifies key directions for future research in both basic science and neuroengineering applications.

If brain anatomy and dynamics have a complex network structure as it has become standard to posit, it is reasonable to assume that such a structure should play a key role not only in brain function but also in brain dysfunction. However, exactly how network structure is implicated in brain damage and whether at least some pathologies can be thought of as ‘network diseases’ is not yet clear. Here we discuss ways in which a complex network representation can help in characterising brain pathology, but also in assessing subjects' vulnerability to and likelihood of recovery from disease. We show how the way disease is defined is related to the way function is defined and this, in turn, determines which network property may be functionally relevant to brain disease. Thus, addressing brain disease ‘networkness’ may shed light not only on brain pathology, with potential clinical implications, but also on functional brain activity, and what is functional in it.

Coexistence is simultaneously one of the most fundamental concepts of ecology, and one of the most difficult to define. A particular challenge is that, despite a well-developed body of research, several different schools of thought have developed over the past century, leading to multiple independent, and largely isolated, branches of literature with distinct methodologies. Here, we provide a broad overview of the most common concepts and metrics currently used to detect and characterise ecological coexistence. We first introduce four classes of behaviour, which jointly describe the ways in which community dynamics can unfold: (i) the existence of a feasible steady state (or invariant set), i.e. where all coexisting species retain positive abundances in the long-term in the absence of interference by external forces; (ii) the existence of a local attractor that draws the community towards a feasible steady state from within a restricted set of starting conditions; (iii) the existence of a global attractor that draws the community towards feasible steady states from any non-zero starting condition; and (o) a null transient state, where species abundances vary over time irrespective of steady states and attractors. Next, we explain how these classes of behaviour relate to commonly used metrics for identifying and characterising coexistence, including analyses of parameter sensitivity, asymptotic return rates, invasion growth rates, and time to extinction. We then discuss the scope and limitations of each of these behavioural classes and corresponding metrics, with a particular focus on applications in empirical systems. Finally, we provide a potential workflow for matching empirical questions to theoretical tools, and present a brief prospectus looking forward to opportunities for advancing and integrating research on coexistence.

Fire is a major form of environmental disturbance, and in recent years, due to anthropogenic climate change and anthropogenic land management, we are seeing increases in the frequency and intensity of fires. With bees being an important, diverse group of pollinators that is facing declines globally, understanding how they respond to fires is critical. Here, we conduct a literature review to understand what is known from the literature on how bees respond to fire, and how such responses to fire can vary depending on species life-history traits and aspects of fire regimes. Our literature review yielded 148 studies from 140 publications. Bee responses to fire were extremely variable, with no consistent pattern in abundance or species richness increasing, decreasing, or showing no significant change under fire. Different families and taxa responded differently and to different aspects of fire regimes. Generally, regarding taxonomic vulnerability, andrenids and colletids were vulnerable to fire, whereas halictids responded favourably to fire. In terms of guild, ground-nesting generalists responded favourably to fire, whereas cavity-nesting specialists were most vulnerable to fire. We revealed major gaps in research in the Southern Hemisphere and in tropical landscapes dominated by flowering trees, with most studies conducted in pine-forested, fire-prone landscapes in the Northern Hemisphere. Additionally, only a few studies used manipulative experiments, or have considered how to maximise bee recovery after fires. Overall, fire is an important disturbance affecting bee communities, and while some species may benefit from certain fire regimes, other species are vulnerable, and management to preserve such species under predictions of increasingly frequent and severe fires is required.

Over a century of research has revealed an amazing complexity of behaviours and physiological adaptations that allow tiny bark beetles to overcome large trees, sometimes resulting in outbreaks that kill millions of trees. Turning a tree into a home and successfully raising offspring involves constant interactions among the beetles, the tree, its microbiome, and the beetles' associated microbes, all influenced by abiotic factors that can determine success or failure. While we have learned much about these systems, substantial knowledge gaps remain. This synthesis aims to clarify and integrate current understanding, identify gaps, challenge long-held assumptions, and address interpretative issues that impede progress toward a holistic understanding of these systems. We advocate for expanding perspectives using synecological approaches to understand these complex systems better. We encourage expanding research into how colonization by the bark beetle–fungi complex influences subsequent tree decay and forest carbon dynamics. An explicit goal is to provide a comprehensive resource for new researchers while encouraging them to question established hypotheses and to explore new avenues of enquiry.

Humans play key roles in shaping the structure and processes of ecosystems globally, especially in cities. This recognition has prompted a recent focus on understanding urban systems via interactions between human social systems and ecological and evolutionary processes. Most research has focused on interactions between two of these three domains. Here we present a framework for linking all three – social, ecological, and evolutionary – by focusing on phenotypic response and effect traits, illustrating the framework's utility in understanding wildlife dynamics in urban systems. We first present a generalized model for the social–ecological–evolutionary–phenotypic (SEEP) framework, then use urban climate as a specific example, provide guidance on how to implement this approach, and finally discuss emerging questions motivated by the framework and challenges in utilizing the approach.