Ecology Letters最新文献

Anticipating ecosystem responses to global change requires identifying the isolated and combined effects of environmental disturbance across both space and time. Examining the coordinated responses of ecosystems has recently emerged as a powerful approach to advance this understanding. We conducted two complementary experiments to identify whether, and if so how, warming temperatures, nutrient enrichment, predator overexploitation (i.e., reduced apex predator abundance) and their combination drive coordinated responses of freshwater ecosystems by evaluating the dynamics of synchrony between control and disturbed mesocosms using high-frequency dissolved oxygen saturation measurements, an integrative parameter of the metabolic balance of ecosystems. Nutrient enrichment desynchronized the oxygen dynamics and their component cycles between treatments, likely arising from elevated primary production. Warming and overexploitation tended to desynchronize oxygen cycles from the control, particularly at short time scales. Nutrient enrichment combined with warming dampened desynchronization between control (ambient) and treatment mesocosms, whereas desynchronization was enhanced when simultaneously subject to predator overexploitation. As one of the first experimental demonstrations of global change impacts on ecosystem synchrony, this study highlights the need—and opens new avenues—to detect alterations in ecosystem functioning across previously unexplored spatial and temporal scales.

Lalechère, E. Marrec, R. Lenoir, J. 2025 A Non-Equilibrium Species Distribution Model Reveals Unprecedented Depth of Time Lag Responses to Past Environmental Change Trajectories Ecology Letters 28(1), e70040. https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.70040

To map the extinction debt and the immigration credit in Figure 3B, we subtracted the effective number of species as predicted by stacking all species binary maps based on the equilibrium SDMs from that obtained by the non-equilibrium SDMs. This implies that the negative values indicate an immigration credit and the positive values indicate an extinction debt.

The revised results and discussion are:

‘We found evidence for immigration credits to be particularly pronounced in boreal forests, near the Carpathians, and north of the Black Sea while evidence for extinction debts was mostly pronounced in secondary forests in the Mediterranean part of the Alps and Pyrenees, as well as in the Caucasus and in the mountainous areas north of the Caspian sea’.

‘We have shown that European bird communities are mostly affected by an immigration credit and not so much by an extinction debt. The immigration credit is particularly pronounced in boreal forests, which is consistent with the increase in average temperature therein. Overall, the extinction debt is mostly located in Mediterranean forests, the Caucasus and the mountainous areas north of the Caspian Sea’.

We apologise for the error.

Gjoni, V., F. Altermatt, A. Garnier, et al. 2025. “Biodiversity Modulates the Cross-Community Scaling Relationship in Changing Environments.” Ecology Letters 28, no. 9: e70208. https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.70208.

In the author affiliations, for the corresponding author Vojsava Gjoni, the third and current affiliation “Institute for Marine Biological Resources and Biotechnology, National Research Council (CNR), Mazara del Vallo, Italy,” is missing.

We apologise for this error.

Trophic interactions can strongly influence metacommunity dynamics and patterns of biodiversity in spatially heterogeneous environments. Theory predicts that herbivory facilitates plant species coexistence at small scales by reducing extinctions and promoting colonisations but reduces diversity at larger scales by promoting dominance of herbivore-resistant species. We examined how mammalian herbivory interacts with habitat size and connectivity to affect plant diversity in a unique, naturally fragmented grassland metacommunity system located in Southern Finland. We found that herbivory increased plant diversity across scales of measurement. In addition, herbivory reversed the diversity–area relationship such that there was a positive diversity–area relationship in grazed grasslands, but a negative relationship in ungrazed grasslands. Connectivity exhibited a unimodal relationship with diversity but did not interact with herbivory. Our empirical results demonstrate that herbivores can promote plant coexistence across scales and highlight the interplay between habitat area and trophic interactions in facilitating plant biodiversity in grassland metacommunities.

Landscape-scale ecological restoration is a key strategy for halting and reversing biodiversity decline. However, ensuring the long-term sustainability of restoration efforts requires guiding the recovery of complex ecological systems with many interdependent species at a landscape scale. Due to these challenges, our understanding of recovery trajectories remains limited. Using metacommunity models and experiments, we explore how the spatial configuration of communities and food-web complexity jointly influence species recovery at different spatial scales. We find that the number and spatial placement of communities affect the colonisation of empty habitat patches, but do not influence population recovery in patches where communities are introduced. Food-web complexity reduces the recovery of lower trophic levels. However, this negative effect may be partially mitigated at higher levels of food-web complexity. Our results demonstrate that the joint consideration of spatial configuration and species interactions could enhance the effectiveness of restoration actions.

Climate change-amplified extreme weather events are reshaping ecological communities globally. On coral reefs, heatwaves typically disrupt the obligate coral–algal symbiosis, with symbiont identity a prime determinant of coral resilience to these thermal extremes. Yet, whether heatwaves have long-term effects on coral symbioses remains unclear due to a lack of longitudinal symbiont data. Here, we report on a decadal coral symbiont survey (2013–2023), spanning the most prolonged tropical marine heatwave on record (2015–2016) and its aftermath. Concomitant with mass coral mortality, we document wholesale transformation of the symbiont assemblages in two coral species, the legacy of which was persistent for 7 years post heatwave. We also found evidence suggestive of a symbiont's local extinction, of local human disturbance impeding symbiont recovery, and of new coral recruits hosting symbiont assemblages distinct from survivors. Our study demonstrates heatwaves can have long-lasting impacts on symbioses raising concern for coral resilience to future heatwaves.

Microbial communities are fundamental to host health, yet their assembly dynamics under environmental change remain poorly understood. We analysed individual-level host-microbe networks in the non-native wild black rats (Rattus rattus) across a land-use gradient in Madagascar. By applying a moving prevalence threshold, we distinguished between core and non-core microbes and compared the assembly drivers shaping their network structures. Non-core microbes formed fragmented, modular networks shaped mainly by heterogeneous selection, reflecting environmental filtering. In contrast, core microbes exhibited stable, less modular networks driven primarily by stochastic ecological drift. These distinct assembly processes persisted across thresholds, highlighting fundamental differences in microbial structuring. Land-use change significantly influenced the modular structure of non-core microbes but had minimal effects on core microbes, demonstrating the differential sensitivity of microbial groups to environmental variation. This study advances our understanding of host–microbe interactions and provides a framework for assessing microbiome assembly under anthropogenic change.