Pub Date : 2026-02-03DOI: 10.1038/s41559-025-02969-0
Pierre Simon Garcia, Valerie De Anda, Brett J. Baker, Simonetta Gribaldo, Guillaume Borrel
The regulation of redox balance and energy conservation is fundamental to life and relies on a large evolutionary network of oxidoreductases forming homologous protein complexes, collectively termed HORBEC (homologous oxidoreductase complexes involved in redox balance and energy conservation). These include hydrogenases, respiratory complex I and electron-bifurcating complexes, central to respiration, fermentation and methanogenesis. Despite their crucial role, a comprehensive investigation of the diversity and evolutionary history of HORBEC has been lacking. Here we exhaustively identified and analysed over 50 protein families representing all HORBEC components across thousands of bacterial and archaeal genomes. We propose a unified nomenclature and classification encompassing 31 complexes and provide an annotation tool. We highlight the extensive diversity of HORBEC, especially in Archaea. We provide information on overlooked systems and identify a new one probably acting as a cation transport platform. We show that HORBEC originated via extensive tinkering of ancestral modules, driven by strong evolutionary constraints. Finally, we infer the presence of respiratory complex I in the last universal common ancestor, opening questions on its potential role in early energy metabolisms. This work provides an evolutionary framework for HORBEC, representing a fundamental resource to predict and study redox metabolisms of ecological and biotechnological significance.
{"title":"Evolution and diversity of oxidoreductases involved in redox balance and energy conservation","authors":"Pierre Simon Garcia, Valerie De Anda, Brett J. Baker, Simonetta Gribaldo, Guillaume Borrel","doi":"10.1038/s41559-025-02969-0","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-025-02969-0","url":null,"abstract":"The regulation of redox balance and energy conservation is fundamental to life and relies on a large evolutionary network of oxidoreductases forming homologous protein complexes, collectively termed HORBEC (homologous oxidoreductase complexes involved in redox balance and energy conservation). These include hydrogenases, respiratory complex I and electron-bifurcating complexes, central to respiration, fermentation and methanogenesis. Despite their crucial role, a comprehensive investigation of the diversity and evolutionary history of HORBEC has been lacking. Here we exhaustively identified and analysed over 50 protein families representing all HORBEC components across thousands of bacterial and archaeal genomes. We propose a unified nomenclature and classification encompassing 31 complexes and provide an annotation tool. We highlight the extensive diversity of HORBEC, especially in Archaea. We provide information on overlooked systems and identify a new one probably acting as a cation transport platform. We show that HORBEC originated via extensive tinkering of ancestral modules, driven by strong evolutionary constraints. Finally, we infer the presence of respiratory complex I in the last universal common ancestor, opening questions on its potential role in early energy metabolisms. This work provides an evolutionary framework for HORBEC, representing a fundamental resource to predict and study redox metabolisms of ecological and biotechnological significance.","PeriodicalId":18835,"journal":{"name":"Nature ecology & evolution","volume":"87 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":16.8,"publicationDate":"2026-02-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146102129","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) bacteria contribute to nearly half of global nitrogen loss. However, the driving force responsible for the origin of anammox bacteria remains poorly understood. Here we show that anammox bacteria can oxidize ammonium to N2 for growth using photoholes-the positive charge carriers generated from photosensitizers-potentially supporting their origin. Such photoholes could have been generated in sunlit benthic environments by cyanobacterial mats and semiconducting minerals under the intense solar radiation of the Late Archaean (3.0-2.5 billion years ago). Moreover, cyanobacterial mats absorbed harmful short-wavelength light for anammox bacteria, while allowing longer-wavelength infrared light to penetrate. Light-driven enrichment of nitrite-reductase-deficient anammox bacteria in long-term-cultured cyanobacterial mats, DNA stable-isotope probing and evolutionary analysis collectively suggest that the ancestral anammox bacteria tended to be photoelectrotrophic instead of nitrite-dependent. Our discovery provides a paradigm shift in our understanding of the origin of ammonium oxidation and may explain the nitrogen loss on early Earth.
{"title":"Photoholes within cyanobacterial mats can account for the origin of anammox bacteria and ancient nitrogen loss.","authors":"Lingrui Kong,Ru Zheng,Jinnan Feng,Yiming Feng,Baiyizhuo Chen,Yimin Mao,Jiangwei Wang,Kuo Zhang,Ansheng Cheng,Sitong Liu","doi":"10.1038/s41559-026-02976-9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-026-02976-9","url":null,"abstract":"Anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) bacteria contribute to nearly half of global nitrogen loss. However, the driving force responsible for the origin of anammox bacteria remains poorly understood. Here we show that anammox bacteria can oxidize ammonium to N2 for growth using photoholes-the positive charge carriers generated from photosensitizers-potentially supporting their origin. Such photoholes could have been generated in sunlit benthic environments by cyanobacterial mats and semiconducting minerals under the intense solar radiation of the Late Archaean (3.0-2.5 billion years ago). Moreover, cyanobacterial mats absorbed harmful short-wavelength light for anammox bacteria, while allowing longer-wavelength infrared light to penetrate. Light-driven enrichment of nitrite-reductase-deficient anammox bacteria in long-term-cultured cyanobacterial mats, DNA stable-isotope probing and evolutionary analysis collectively suggest that the ancestral anammox bacteria tended to be photoelectrotrophic instead of nitrite-dependent. Our discovery provides a paradigm shift in our understanding of the origin of ammonium oxidation and may explain the nitrogen loss on early Earth.","PeriodicalId":18835,"journal":{"name":"Nature ecology & evolution","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":16.8,"publicationDate":"2026-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146089038","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-28DOI: 10.1038/s41559-025-02959-2
Shan Huang, Andrew Morozov, Alison Eyres, Xiang-Yi Li Richter
Body size is a fundamental organismal trait, affecting a wide variety of physiological and ecological functions. Such relationships are often interactive and nonlinear, forming complex feedbacks. In terrestrial mammals, larger bodies are associated with higher mobility in trade-off with larger absolute resource demand. Here we propose a hypothesis, with support from empirical patterns and a mathematical model, that this trade-off interacts with diet specialization to drive diverging selection on body size because specialists are more efficient resource users and have lower mortality risks at extreme sizes. Our analysis of a global terrestrial mammal species dataset found significantly lower proportions of specialists at intermediate sizes, but higher proportions towards extreme sizes; this pattern also applies to species assemblages in zoographic realms. Our mathematical model of coexistence between equal-sized specialists and generalists shows that specialists of extreme sizes have higher equilibrium frequencies and likelihood of coexistence with generalists at quasi-stability. The combined results support dietary specialization as a key factor for shaping body size diversity. Our work highlights the value of connecting ecology and evolution in understanding the diversity of key traits like body size, and calls for further investigations on the related history of resource distribution and lineage diversification.
{"title":"Diverging selection on body size in specialist terrestrial mammals","authors":"Shan Huang, Andrew Morozov, Alison Eyres, Xiang-Yi Li Richter","doi":"10.1038/s41559-025-02959-2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-025-02959-2","url":null,"abstract":"Body size is a fundamental organismal trait, affecting a wide variety of physiological and ecological functions. Such relationships are often interactive and nonlinear, forming complex feedbacks. In terrestrial mammals, larger bodies are associated with higher mobility in trade-off with larger absolute resource demand. Here we propose a hypothesis, with support from empirical patterns and a mathematical model, that this trade-off interacts with diet specialization to drive diverging selection on body size because specialists are more efficient resource users and have lower mortality risks at extreme sizes. Our analysis of a global terrestrial mammal species dataset found significantly lower proportions of specialists at intermediate sizes, but higher proportions towards extreme sizes; this pattern also applies to species assemblages in zoographic realms. Our mathematical model of coexistence between equal-sized specialists and generalists shows that specialists of extreme sizes have higher equilibrium frequencies and likelihood of coexistence with generalists at quasi-stability. The combined results support dietary specialization as a key factor for shaping body size diversity. Our work highlights the value of connecting ecology and evolution in understanding the diversity of key traits like body size, and calls for further investigations on the related history of resource distribution and lineage diversification.","PeriodicalId":18835,"journal":{"name":"Nature ecology & evolution","volume":"86 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":16.8,"publicationDate":"2026-01-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146057227","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-28DOI: 10.1038/s41559-025-02972-5
Martina Dal Bello
{"title":"From death comes diversity","authors":"Martina Dal Bello","doi":"10.1038/s41559-025-02972-5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-025-02972-5","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":18835,"journal":{"name":"Nature ecology & evolution","volume":"5 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":16.8,"publicationDate":"2026-01-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146089500","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-28DOI: 10.1038/s41559-025-02967-2
Yi-Qi Hao (郝祎祺), Bo-Hui Li (李博汇), Jia-Yi Chen (陈嘉怡), Wen-Sheng Shu (束文圣), Xin-Feng Zhao (赵鑫峰)
Understanding how high species diversity is maintained in natural bacterial communities is a central question in microbial ecology. Due to the versatile heterotrophic capacities of bacteria and the rich nutrients released by deceased bacterial cells, necromass recycling plays an important role in sustaining bacterial growth. Such nutrient cycling within communities can provide additional resource niches for bacteria, but its potential effects on bacterial diversity maintenance have been neglected. Here we conducted two independent experiments and studied the assembly of 276 soil-derived bacterial communities sustained by a wide range of bacterial necromass combinations, from single-species necromass to combinations of up to nearly 1,000 species. Our results highlight the existence of a species-rich bacterial necrobiome in soil. We found that the composition of necromass-decomposing communities was determined by the various organic compounds in the different necromass combinations, and the increases in necromass-producing species constantly promoted species diversity of necromass-decomposing communities. Moreover, the average niche breadth and overlap of coexisting necromass-decomposing species in utilizing distinct single-species necromass decreased with increases in necromass diversity, supporting the hypothesis of resource partitioning in utilizing different single-species necromass. Our study provides insights into diversity maintenance in bacterial communities from a perspective of internal nutrient cycling.
{"title":"Bacterial necromass recycling promotes diversity maintenance in bacterial communities via resource partitioning","authors":"Yi-Qi Hao \u0000 (郝祎祺), Bo-Hui Li \u0000 (李博汇), Jia-Yi Chen \u0000 (陈嘉怡), Wen-Sheng Shu \u0000 (束文圣), Xin-Feng Zhao \u0000 (赵鑫峰)","doi":"10.1038/s41559-025-02967-2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-025-02967-2","url":null,"abstract":"Understanding how high species diversity is maintained in natural bacterial communities is a central question in microbial ecology. Due to the versatile heterotrophic capacities of bacteria and the rich nutrients released by deceased bacterial cells, necromass recycling plays an important role in sustaining bacterial growth. Such nutrient cycling within communities can provide additional resource niches for bacteria, but its potential effects on bacterial diversity maintenance have been neglected. Here we conducted two independent experiments and studied the assembly of 276 soil-derived bacterial communities sustained by a wide range of bacterial necromass combinations, from single-species necromass to combinations of up to nearly 1,000 species. Our results highlight the existence of a species-rich bacterial necrobiome in soil. We found that the composition of necromass-decomposing communities was determined by the various organic compounds in the different necromass combinations, and the increases in necromass-producing species constantly promoted species diversity of necromass-decomposing communities. Moreover, the average niche breadth and overlap of coexisting necromass-decomposing species in utilizing distinct single-species necromass decreased with increases in necromass diversity, supporting the hypothesis of resource partitioning in utilizing different single-species necromass. Our study provides insights into diversity maintenance in bacterial communities from a perspective of internal nutrient cycling.","PeriodicalId":18835,"journal":{"name":"Nature ecology & evolution","volume":"72 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":16.8,"publicationDate":"2026-01-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146057225","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-27DOI: 10.1038/s41559-025-02955-6
A S MacDougall,B Vanzant,J Sulik,S Bagchi,D Naidu,T O Muraina,E W Seabloom,E T Borer,P Wilfahrt,I Slette,J L Hierro,D E Pearson,M Abedi,M Akasaka,J Alberti,A Aleksanyan,A A Amisu,T M Anderson,C A Arnillas,M Ayer,J D Bakker,S Basant,S Basto,L Biederman,K J Bloodworth,F Boscutti,E H Boughton,C M Bruschetti,H L Buckley,Y M Buckley,M N Bugalho,M C Caldeira,G Campetella,N Cannone,M Carbognani,C Carbutt,M A Carniello,M Cervellini,T Chaudhary,Q Chen,A T Clark,S Cousins,M Dalle Fratte,N J Day,B Deák,J Dietrich,A Dixon,N Eisenhauer,K J Elgersma,O Eren,A Eskelinen,C Estrada,P A Fay,G Fayvush,K C Flynn,D García Meza,D Gargano,L Gherardi,N T Girkin,L González,P Graff,L W C Hagenberg,A H Halbritter,N A Havrilchak,N Herdoiza,E Hersch-Green,K Hopping,A Jentsch,S O Jimoh,J Kerby,K Kirkman,J M H Knops,S E Koerner,A Koltz,K J Komatsu,B I Koura,S Kruse,L Laanisto,L S Lannes,W Li,M Liang,A Lkhagva,L López-Olmedo,P Lorenzo,C J Lortie,A Loydi,W Luo,P Macek,F Malfasi,P Mariotte,J P Martina,A Martínez-Blancas,H Martinson,C Martorell,J A Meave,S Medina-Villar,K Z Mganga,J Monsimet,A N Nerlekar,S Niu,T Ohlert,I Oliveras Menor,G R Oñatibia,Y K Ortega,B Osborne,S Palpurina,J Pascual,S C Pennings,E Pérez-García,P L Peri,M Petit Bon,A Petraglia,F Pijcke,S M Prober,R E Quiroga,J I Ramirez,S Reed,B H P Rosado,C Roscher,D W Rowley,I Sereda,D M Small,N G Smith,Y Song,C Stevens,L E Suarez Jimenez,M Te Beest,M Tedder,R S Terry,K S Thornton,D Tian,G Titcomb,O Valkó,G F 'Ciska' Veen,R Virtanen,E A R Welti,G R Wheeler,A A Wolf,P Wolff,A L Young,H S Young,L H Zeglin,K Zhu,S Zong,M B Siewert
Land cover data are commonly used to model the terrestrial carbon (C) sink, yet these data have wide margins of error that significantly alter estimates of global C storage. Here we demonstrate this data vulnerability in grasslands, which are critical to C cycling but whose estimated distribution has varied by >50 million km2 (3.5-42% of the Earth's terrestrial surface). Comparing multiple high-resolution land cover products with expertly annotated grassland data from six continents, we show sources of mapping error and discuss C implications based on 2023 United Nations (UN) FAO estimates. Past misidentification arose from inconsistent definitions on grassland identity and classification flaws especially relating to woody plant cover. Correcting these errors adjusted grassland coverage to 22.8% of the terrestrial land base (30.1 million km2), elevating UN projections of soil C stocks to 155.02 Pg (0-30 cm depth). These findings underscore the challenges of biome mapping for ecosystem accounting and policy, when lacking field-validated remotely sensed data.
{"title":"The global extent of the grassland biome and implications for the terrestrial carbon sink.","authors":"A S MacDougall,B Vanzant,J Sulik,S Bagchi,D Naidu,T O Muraina,E W Seabloom,E T Borer,P Wilfahrt,I Slette,J L Hierro,D E Pearson,M Abedi,M Akasaka,J Alberti,A Aleksanyan,A A Amisu,T M Anderson,C A Arnillas,M Ayer,J D Bakker,S Basant,S Basto,L Biederman,K J Bloodworth,F Boscutti,E H Boughton,C M Bruschetti,H L Buckley,Y M Buckley,M N Bugalho,M C Caldeira,G Campetella,N Cannone,M Carbognani,C Carbutt,M A Carniello,M Cervellini,T Chaudhary,Q Chen,A T Clark,S Cousins,M Dalle Fratte,N J Day,B Deák,J Dietrich,A Dixon,N Eisenhauer,K J Elgersma,O Eren,A Eskelinen,C Estrada,P A Fay,G Fayvush,K C Flynn,D García Meza,D Gargano,L Gherardi,N T Girkin,L González,P Graff,L W C Hagenberg,A H Halbritter,N A Havrilchak,N Herdoiza,E Hersch-Green,K Hopping,A Jentsch,S O Jimoh,J Kerby,K Kirkman,J M H Knops,S E Koerner,A Koltz,K J Komatsu,B I Koura,S Kruse,L Laanisto,L S Lannes,W Li,M Liang,A Lkhagva,L López-Olmedo,P Lorenzo,C J Lortie,A Loydi,W Luo,P Macek,F Malfasi,P Mariotte,J P Martina,A Martínez-Blancas,H Martinson,C Martorell,J A Meave,S Medina-Villar,K Z Mganga,J Monsimet,A N Nerlekar,S Niu,T Ohlert,I Oliveras Menor,G R Oñatibia,Y K Ortega,B Osborne,S Palpurina,J Pascual,S C Pennings,E Pérez-García,P L Peri,M Petit Bon,A Petraglia,F Pijcke,S M Prober,R E Quiroga,J I Ramirez,S Reed,B H P Rosado,C Roscher,D W Rowley,I Sereda,D M Small,N G Smith,Y Song,C Stevens,L E Suarez Jimenez,M Te Beest,M Tedder,R S Terry,K S Thornton,D Tian,G Titcomb,O Valkó,G F 'Ciska' Veen,R Virtanen,E A R Welti,G R Wheeler,A A Wolf,P Wolff,A L Young,H S Young,L H Zeglin,K Zhu,S Zong,M B Siewert","doi":"10.1038/s41559-025-02955-6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-025-02955-6","url":null,"abstract":"Land cover data are commonly used to model the terrestrial carbon (C) sink, yet these data have wide margins of error that significantly alter estimates of global C storage. Here we demonstrate this data vulnerability in grasslands, which are critical to C cycling but whose estimated distribution has varied by >50 million km2 (3.5-42% of the Earth's terrestrial surface). Comparing multiple high-resolution land cover products with expertly annotated grassland data from six continents, we show sources of mapping error and discuss C implications based on 2023 United Nations (UN) FAO estimates. Past misidentification arose from inconsistent definitions on grassland identity and classification flaws especially relating to woody plant cover. Correcting these errors adjusted grassland coverage to 22.8% of the terrestrial land base (30.1 million km2), elevating UN projections of soil C stocks to 155.02 Pg (0-30 cm depth). These findings underscore the challenges of biome mapping for ecosystem accounting and policy, when lacking field-validated remotely sensed data.","PeriodicalId":18835,"journal":{"name":"Nature ecology & evolution","volume":"64 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":16.8,"publicationDate":"2026-01-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146056635","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Citizen science provides large amounts of biodiversity data. Key challenges in unlocking its full potential include engaging citizens with limited species identification skills and accelerating the transition from data collection to research and monitoring outputs. Here we use a large dataset from Finland to show how even citizens who cannot identify birds themselves can contribute to real-time predictions of avian distributions. This is achieved through a digital twin that combines smartphone-based citizen science with long-term knowledge in a continuously updating model. The app submits raw audio to a backend that classifies birds with machine learning, reducing variation in data quality and enabling validation and reclassification by continuously improving classifiers. We counteracted spatiotemporal sampling biases by interval recordings and permanent point count networks. Over 2 years, the app generated 15 million bird detections. Independent test data show that the digital-twin-informed models are more accurate at predicting bird spatiotemporal distributions. Because our approach is highly scalable and has the potential to generate biomonitoring data even in understudied areas, it could accelerate the flow of reliable biodiversity information and increase inclusivity in citizen science projects.
{"title":"A digital twin for real-time biodiversity forecasting with citizen science data.","authors":"Otso Ovaskainen,Steven Winter,Gleb Tikhonov,Patrik Lauha,Ari Lehtiö,Ossi Nokelainen,Nerea Abrego,Anni Aroluoma,Jesse Patrick Harrison,Mikko Heikkinen,Aleksi Kallio,Anniina Koliseva,Aleksi Lehikoinen,Tomas Roslin,Panu Somervuo,Allan Tainá Souza,Jemal Tahir,Jussi Talaskivi,Alpo Turunen,Aurélie Vancraeyenest,Gabriela Zuquim,Hannu Autto,Jari Hänninen,Jasmin Inkinen,Outa Kalttopää,Janne Koskinen,Matti Kotakorpi,Kim Kuntze,John Loehr,Marko Mutanen,Mikko Oranen,Riku Paavola,Risto Renkonen,Pauliina Schiestl-Aalto,Mikko Sipilä,Maija Sujala,Janne Sundell,Saana Tepsa,Esa-Pekka Tuominen,Joni Uusitalo,Mikko Vallinmäki,Emma Vatka,Silja Veikkolainen,Phillip C Watts,David Dunson","doi":"10.1038/s41559-025-02966-3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-025-02966-3","url":null,"abstract":"Citizen science provides large amounts of biodiversity data. Key challenges in unlocking its full potential include engaging citizens with limited species identification skills and accelerating the transition from data collection to research and monitoring outputs. Here we use a large dataset from Finland to show how even citizens who cannot identify birds themselves can contribute to real-time predictions of avian distributions. This is achieved through a digital twin that combines smartphone-based citizen science with long-term knowledge in a continuously updating model. The app submits raw audio to a backend that classifies birds with machine learning, reducing variation in data quality and enabling validation and reclassification by continuously improving classifiers. We counteracted spatiotemporal sampling biases by interval recordings and permanent point count networks. Over 2 years, the app generated 15 million bird detections. Independent test data show that the digital-twin-informed models are more accurate at predicting bird spatiotemporal distributions. Because our approach is highly scalable and has the potential to generate biomonitoring data even in understudied areas, it could accelerate the flow of reliable biodiversity information and increase inclusivity in citizen science projects.","PeriodicalId":18835,"journal":{"name":"Nature ecology & evolution","volume":"42 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":16.8,"publicationDate":"2026-01-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146056638","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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