Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment最新文献

Rewilding is emerging as a promising restoration strategy to tackle the challenges posed by global change and maintain natural ecosystems and their biodiversity. However, rewilding has also been criticized for the absence of a consistent definition and insufficient knowledge about its possible outcomes. Here, we explored the effects of rewilding on filling functional gaps created by the extirpation of native species. We contrasted rewilding with three other mechanisms for change in community composition—species extirpation, species introduction, and unassisted colonization—in terms of their impacts on changes in avian and mammalian diversity in the UK. We found that (i) while rewilding increases functional diversity most on average, introduced/naturalized birds contribute more functional uniqueness to native functional space than other groups of birds; and (ii) changes in functional diversity associated with “rewilded” organisms were species-dependent and idiosyncratic. Our results suggest that although rewilding can expand or infill native functional trait space to some extent, such effects require careful assessment.

The Atlantic Forest harbors one of the most diverse and threatened tropical forest biotas worldwide. Recognized as a global biodiversity hotspot, the biome extends along Brazil's Atlantic coast and into eastern Paraguay and northeastern Argentina, spanning a wide range of latitudinal, longitudinal, altitudinal, and climatic gradients. Its flora includes taxa from the Amazon Rainforest, Cerrado gallery forests, and the Andean region, encompassing approximately 25,000 species of vascular plants, 48% of which are endemic and 3400 of which are trees (Oliveira-Filho and Fontes 2000).

The degradation of the Atlantic Forest reflects centuries of human expansion triggered by the arrival of European colonizers in the 16th century CE. Over time, economic cycles, such as those associated with brazilwood, sugarcane, gold, and coffee, as well as urbanization, ranching, and railway/road construction, have severely impacted the forest (Dean 2013). Today, much of the Atlantic Forest consists of patches of secondary forests at varying stages of recovery, monoculture plantations of non-native trees, and small forest fragments surrounded by open areas dominated by anthropogenic landscapes (Tabarelli et al. 2010). An estimated ~120 million people (70% of Brazil's population) live along Brazil's Atlantic coast, exacerbating pressure on the remaining forest, which currently covers only 12% of its original extent (SOS Mata Atlântica 2023). In this context, urban expansion, industrialization, intensive agriculture, and mining not only accelerate deforestation and biodiversity loss but also erode the ancestral knowledge and cultures of Indigenous peoples who have inhabited these lands for millennia.

Currently, Brazil is home to 305 Indigenous peoples who speak 274 different languages. These groups inhabit territories composed of forests and other associated non-forest systems. The differences exhibited by these communities reflect their sociocultural variety, arising from distinct logics, conceptions, and practices specific to each people and shaped by various historical, social, and environmental contexts (Cunha et al. 2022).

Among the Indigenous peoples coexisting within the Atlantic Forest are the Guarani (Guarani Mbya), Kaingang, Pataxó, Tupinambá, and Tupiniquim. For these groups, nature and biodiversity not only are deeply connected with beliefs, knowledge, history, and culture but also depend on management techniques to better ensure their persistence over time. Embedded within multiple dimensions—social, cultural, political, economic, environmental, philosophical, and spiritual—traditional Indigenous knowledge fosters a sustainable way of relating to nature, land, and biodiversity, contributing to landscape and biodiversity conservation (Cunha et al. 2022).

Indigenous cultural practices are expressed through a diversity of songs, dances, c

Musical instruments are indispensable to music traditions worldwide and often made from natural materials derived from species that are increasingly endangered. International trade threatens the survival of some of these species, as addressed by their inclusion in the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). However, CITES regulations can substantially impact music traditions and alone are insufficient to preserve trade-relevant species from extinction, such as the pau-brasil (Paubrasilia echinata), which is used for the bows of stringed instruments. Therefore, new CITES listings of species or species products used in the manufacture of musical instruments, or potential future shifts of CITES-listed species to the strictest category, will require anticipation, preparation, and precautionary actions. In international species trade negotiations, it is crucial to target the protection of species and music traditions beyond trade regulations. We propose novel social–ecological pathways to address these challenges and reconcile conflicting stakeholder interests between species conservation and cultural conservation.

Current conceptions of “urban biodiversity” address only particular taxa, ignoring the full richness of species within cities. Despite their exclusion from these conceptions, tree-dwelling lichens, mosses, and liverworts (collectively, “epiphytes”) are recognized as bioindicators of urbanization, but their inherent contributions to biodiversity are largely unrecognized. Here, we report on a survey of epiphytes in the city of Vancouver, Canada. Using Bayesian multilevel models, we asked the following questions: how diverse are epiphytes in this large temperate city, and what urban and host-tree factors determine their distribution? We found 39 macrolichen, 32 moss, and seven liverwort species on Vancouver street trees, establishing them as rich microenvironments influenced by a network of interacting factors previously unaccounted for. Our results challenge the idea that pollution and urban heat islands primarily regulate urban epiphyte diversity; instead, we identify host-tree genus as having strong effects on all epiphytes. Expanding urban biodiversity to include epiphyte diversity recharacterizes urban landscapes as rewilded spaces of interdependent coexistence.

All cities are home to birds, which, through their activities, can either enhance or detract from human well-being. To identify such interactions, we synthesize current understanding of bird-mediated ecosystem services and disservices in cities. We find widespread evidence that birds provide cultural services, but the link between urban bird diversity and these benefits is surprisingly tenuous. Birds also have potential to provide regulating services; however, rather than being measured, these services are usually assumed from non-urban research, and may be overestimated (eg pollination, seed dispersal) or undervalued (decomposition, nutrient cycling). People's perceptions of birds are not uniform, and services are not always delivered equitably among residents. We call for moving beyond using species richness and traits as proxies, and instead explicitly measuring services and disservices across the heterogeneous urban landscape. Such information is critical to designing cities that sustain biodiversity and result in net positive, and equitable, benefits to people.

We document the importance of low-light conditions in 136 animal species and then translate the new world atlas of skyglow, which reports artificial night sky brightness, into estimates of anthropogenic illuminance (that is, artificial light reaching Earth's surface). Quantifying habitat illuminance from skyglow facilitates understanding of the disruption of natural light cycles, such as new moon conditions, which are critical to animal ecology. We corroborated this transformation of sky brightness by comparing concurrent field measurements of skyglow and illuminance. We then quantified global artificial illuminance caused by skyglow, finding that skyglow artificially doubled illuminance of new moon conditions—a critical phase for biological processes, such as foraging, courtship, and mating—for 22.9% of the Earth's terrestrial surface, 51.0% of Key Biodiversity Areas, 77.1% of Global Protected Areas, and ~20% of highly diverse areas for mammals, birds, and amphibians. We provide summaries of artificial illuminance at 750-m pixel resolution for each protected area to aid land managers and guide policy in reducing skyglow in areas that may yield the greatest benefits for conserving animal biodiversity.

Scientists have long categorized the planet's climate using the Köppen-Geiger (KG) classification to research climate-change impacts, biogeographical realms, agricultural suitability, and conservation. However, global KG maps primarily rely on macroclimate data collected by weather stations, which may not represent microclimatic conditions experienced by most life on Earth. Few studies have explored microclimate at broad scales, largely due to data and computational constraints. Here, we predicted KG classes separately from macroclimate and microclimate for more than 32 million locations across six continents. As compared to macroclimate, microclimate had 14-fold lower error and reclassified 38% of the total area. Microclimate-derived KG classes were not only more spatially variable but also encompassed a broader range of latitudes, relative to macroclimate-derived KG classes. By redrawing the lines of climate classes, our study prompts a reevaluation of the importance of meteorological drivers of ecology across scales, shedding light on how natural, agricultural, and social systems experience and respond to global change.