Ecology Letters最新文献

The temperature-size rule states that species living in warmer temperatures will grow faster and mature earlier at smaller sizes. While several studies have documented patterns in average body size consistent with the temperature-size rule in wild populations, a comprehensive test is lacking. Here, we use age and length data of 1.4 million fish across 7 species from 2704 lakes to quantify temperature-related variation in growth across ontogeny. Our results show that no species fully conforms to the temperature-size rule; despite patterns of juvenile growth rate and age at maturity typically aligning with the temperature-size rule, these changes seldom translate to reduced size at maturity or maximum size. We also found evidence that faster life histories in warmer environments are associated with reduced lifespans. A deeper understanding of how temperature shapes growth in natural systems is needed to accurately predict the effects of global warming on wildlife.

The cover image is based on the article Interspecific Competition Reduces Energy Expenditure by Decreasing Intragroup Conflict in a Social Burying Beetle by Bo-Fei Chen et al., https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.70300.

Widespread aquaculture escapes have led to domestication-admixture in many wild Atlantic salmon populations, widely regarded as a threat to their evolutionary trajectory and persistence amid historically low population numbers. Although decades of research document reduced fitness of domesticated-admixed offspring in the wild, productivity measurements of domestication-admixed or feral salmon populations are lacking. Over a 10-year period, we document colonisation of a river by highly (average 37%) domestication-admixed salmon using up- and downstream traps, genomic data and genetic identification of over 4000 spawners and smolts. Colonisers were identified as strays originating from admixed neighbouring rivers. The resulting population now displays freshwater and marine productivity within ranges observed in wild populations. Our data therefore demonstrate that domestication-admixed individuals can rapidly establish populations in the wild, likely facilitated in this case by an absence of local competition. Furthermore, high levels of domestication admixture do not preclude a productive population trajectory.

The maintenance of diversity, the ‘commonness of rarity’, and compositional turnover are ubiquitous features of species-rich communities. Through a minimal model, we consider how these features reflect the interplay between environmental stochasticity, intra- and interspecific competition, and dispersal. We show that, even if species have the same time-average fitness, fluctuations tend to drive the community towards ever-growing unevenness and species extinctions, but self-limitation and/or dispersal allow species-rich states to be sustained. Species abundance–distributions vary systematically in a Buffering–Stabilisation parameter plane that describes the relative strength of the underlying ecological processes, and cover different empirically relevant power-law and unimodal shapes. A model describing the effective dynamics of a focal species relates static abundance distributions with turnover dynamics, also when species have different mean fitness. The model suggests how community statistics and time series of individual species can inform on the relative importance of the ecological processes that structure diversity.

Species-specific feedback between plants and soil microbial communities is an important driver of vegetation dynamics. Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi colonise most terrestrial plants but are not expected to generate specific feedbacks due to low host specificity. We tested whether variation in mycorrhizal associations and associated rhizosphere metabolomes among co-existing temperate grassland species leads to species-specific plant–soil feedback. More mycorrhizal plant species showed more divergent plant–soil feedback: they experienced reduced growth and mycorrhizal colonisation in soils originating from weakly mycorrhizal species, but feedback became neutral in soil from species with similar mycorrhizal strategies. The species with the most self-promoting soil feedback was characterised by strong metabolome shifts related to stress and immune responses following soil inoculum manipulation, while the metabolomes of species with more negative feedback were unresponsive. This study demonstrates that AM fungi can generate species-specific plant–soil feedback, which can be predicted from plant mycorrhizal strategies and rhizosphere chemistry.

The grey wolf exemplifies ecological resilience, having survived major climatic fluctuations since the Middle Pleistocene. Once the world's most widely distributed mammal, its range has been drastically reduced by human-driven habitat loss, persecution and competition for resources. Although listed as of Least Concern globally by the IUCN, the omission of climate change as a threat raises critical questions about its future persistence. This study examines dietary flexibility in European grey wolves (Canis lupus) using dental microwear texture analysis (DMTA). We compare British Pleistocene wolves from the Last Interglacial (MIS 5e) and the penultimate interglacial (MIS 7a–c) and contemporary wolves from Poland. Results suggest that during periods of elevated global temperatures, wolves exhibit evidence of increased durophagy. These data demonstrate deep-time dietary plasticity and recurrent behavioural shifts, indicating that while the grey wolf is resilient, future warming winters may significantly reshape wolf diets in the mid-latitude ecosystems.

Historical land-use changes shape present-day biodiversity through legacy effects, but the duration and mechanisms of these legacies are poorly understood. We used historical land-use maps in two Swedish landscapes across three centuries to examine the persistent influence of historical land use on plant and soil microbial communities. Overall, bacteria showed stronger legacy effects than fungi, but effects varied across functional groups of plant-associated and free-living taxa. However, soil-borne plant pathogenic fungi showed a persisting influence of arable land use which gradually disappeared after ~150 years, suggesting that land-use legacies decay over time. This dilution could relate to changing plant communities but also to changes in microbial associations, as suggested by species co-occurrence patterns over time. Our findings provide novel and crucial information on the duration of land-use legacies and single out soil-borne plant pathogens as key indicator groups of historical land use in present-day ecosystems.

Mosquito-borne diseases are rising globally, driven in part by the expanding range of invasive vector species. However, the mechanisms underlying their spread remain poorly understood, largely due to limited and inconsistent data. Here, we integrate high-resolution human mobility data with a thermo-biologically realistic metapopulation model to investigate the colonisation dynamics of the dengue vector, Aedes albopictus, using 20 years of invasion data from Spain. Our results reveal the dual role of humans: as architects of climate change, making local environments increasingly suitable, and as vehicles of dispersal, inadvertently transporting this vector across regions. The spread occurs through a fragmented human mobility network, while natural dispersal bridges gaps between connected areas, enabling faster and more continuous expansion. These findings underscore the importance of considering the synergistic effects of climate, human movement, and natural dispersal when forecasting future range expansions and designing coordinated, multi-scale vector control strategies in an era of rapid environmental change.

Schweiger and Schweiger (2024) recently proposed that the evolution of greater photosynthetic capacity in C₃ plant species may be linked to increased species diversification. This conclusion is premature because their methods cannot reliably estimate diversification rates or ancestral trait values. Reanalyzing the data set using model-based phylogenetic comparative methods reveals no evidence that photosynthetic capacity is associated with diversification rates among C₃ plant genera.