Pub Date : 2026-03-06DOI: 10.1038/s41559-026-03005-5
Maria Stager,Phred M Benham,Nathan R Senner,Robert R Fitak,Kay Denmead,R Keith Andringa,Jacquelyn K Grace,Donna L Dittmann,Joe Siegrist,Anna M Forsman
Extreme weather events are occurring more often, resulting in increasingly frequent mass mortality events for plants and animals. Identifying why individuals die during these events and their long-term consequences for populations can enable a mechanistic understanding of species' vulnerability to global change. Here we report on early-arriving purple martins (Progne subis)-a migratory songbird-that were killed at >50% of their breeding sites across two US states during a severe winter storm event in 2021. Victims exhibited substantial allelic differences from individuals sampled before and after the storm event. The surviving population suffered delayed breeding, reproductive failure and, in 2022, late breeding-ground arrival. Phenological trait values returned to the mean by 2024, yet the population may be unlikely to recover demographically until at least 2027. Purple martins are markedly declining in the region and signatures of past events suggest that frequent mass mortality events may be challenging their resiliency.
{"title":"Storm-induced mass mortality results in both immediate and long-term consequences for a migratory songbird.","authors":"Maria Stager,Phred M Benham,Nathan R Senner,Robert R Fitak,Kay Denmead,R Keith Andringa,Jacquelyn K Grace,Donna L Dittmann,Joe Siegrist,Anna M Forsman","doi":"10.1038/s41559-026-03005-5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-026-03005-5","url":null,"abstract":"Extreme weather events are occurring more often, resulting in increasingly frequent mass mortality events for plants and animals. Identifying why individuals die during these events and their long-term consequences for populations can enable a mechanistic understanding of species' vulnerability to global change. Here we report on early-arriving purple martins (Progne subis)-a migratory songbird-that were killed at >50% of their breeding sites across two US states during a severe winter storm event in 2021. Victims exhibited substantial allelic differences from individuals sampled before and after the storm event. The surviving population suffered delayed breeding, reproductive failure and, in 2022, late breeding-ground arrival. Phenological trait values returned to the mean by 2024, yet the population may be unlikely to recover demographically until at least 2027. Purple martins are markedly declining in the region and signatures of past events suggest that frequent mass mortality events may be challenging their resiliency.","PeriodicalId":18835,"journal":{"name":"Nature ecology & evolution","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":16.8,"publicationDate":"2026-03-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147368467","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}
Forest resilience characterizes the capability of forest ecosystems to recover from perturbations. With the global increase in the occurrence of multi-year drought (MYD) events and anthropogenic pressures on terrestrial ecosystems, the resilience of forest ecosystems to extreme multi-year droughts and how it interferes with human pressures is, however, largely unexplored. On the basis of the temporal autocorrelation of the kernel-normalized difference vegetation index, we mapped the spatial patterns of resilience of global forests before and after MYDs. We found diminished resilience in over 70.9% of forests after the top-10 MYDs as compared to the prior situation. Species richness was the primary factor of the spatial variation of forest resilience, followed by vapour pressure deficit, temperature and soil moisture. Across different forest types, plant species richness showed distinct relationships with resilience, exhibiting both positive and negative associations. However, after accounting for human footprint, its contribution became consistently and strongly negative. Managed forests had lower resilience than undisturbed forests to MYDs, especially in the deciduous needle-leaved forest of the boreal regions. These findings underscore the importance of mitigating human pressure for maintaining forest resilience under extreme climatic disturbances.
{"title":"Human pressure and biodiversity modify forest resilience after extreme multi-year droughts","authors":"Tianjing Wu, Yanxu Liu, Liangzhi Chen, Zheng Fu, Bojie Fu, Yan Li, Xutong Wu, Jingyi Ding, Changjia Li, Shuai Wang, Wenwu Zhao, Arthur Gessler","doi":"10.1038/s41559-026-03015-3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-026-03015-3","url":null,"abstract":"Forest resilience characterizes the capability of forest ecosystems to recover from perturbations. With the global increase in the occurrence of multi-year drought (MYD) events and anthropogenic pressures on terrestrial ecosystems, the resilience of forest ecosystems to extreme multi-year droughts and how it interferes with human pressures is, however, largely unexplored. On the basis of the temporal autocorrelation of the kernel-normalized difference vegetation index, we mapped the spatial patterns of resilience of global forests before and after MYDs. We found diminished resilience in over 70.9% of forests after the top-10 MYDs as compared to the prior situation. Species richness was the primary factor of the spatial variation of forest resilience, followed by vapour pressure deficit, temperature and soil moisture. Across different forest types, plant species richness showed distinct relationships with resilience, exhibiting both positive and negative associations. However, after accounting for human footprint, its contribution became consistently and strongly negative. Managed forests had lower resilience than undisturbed forests to MYDs, especially in the deciduous needle-leaved forest of the boreal regions. These findings underscore the importance of mitigating human pressure for maintaining forest resilience under extreme climatic disturbances.","PeriodicalId":18835,"journal":{"name":"Nature ecology & evolution","volume":"11 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":16.8,"publicationDate":"2026-03-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147346795","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 : 2026-03-04DOI: 10.1038/s41559-026-03035-z
Shi-Xia Yang, María Martinón-Torres, Michael Petraglia
{"title":"Publisher Correction: Palaeoanthropological evidence from China is changing the picture of hominin evolutionary history.","authors":"Shi-Xia Yang, María Martinón-Torres, Michael Petraglia","doi":"10.1038/s41559-026-03035-z","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41559-026-03035-z","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":18835,"journal":{"name":"Nature ecology & evolution","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":13.9,"publicationDate":"2026-03-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147355880","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 : 2026-03-03DOI: 10.1038/s41559-026-03034-0
Lingrui Kong, Ru Zheng, Jinnan Feng, Yiming Feng, Baiyizhuo Chen, Yimin Mao, Jiangwei Wang, Kuo Zhang, Ansheng Chen, Sitong Liu
{"title":"Author Correction: 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 Chen, Sitong Liu","doi":"10.1038/s41559-026-03034-0","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41559-026-03034-0","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":18835,"journal":{"name":"Nature ecology & evolution","volume":"10 3","pages":"608-608"},"PeriodicalIF":13.9,"publicationDate":"2026-03-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.comhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-026-03034-0.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147348532","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-03-03DOI: 10.1038/s41559-025-02973-4
Mariken M de Wit,Gaël Beaunée,Martha Dellar,Emmanuelle Münger,Louie Krol,Nnomzie Atama,Jurrian van Irsel,Henk van der Jeugd,Judith M A van den Brand,Chantal B E M Reusken,Marion Koopmans,Mart C M de Jong,Reina S Sikkema,Quirine A Ten Bosch
Disentangling the contributions of different hosts to disease transmission is highly complex but critical for improving predictions, surveillance and response. This is particularly challenging in wildlife, with pathogens often infecting multiple species and data collection being difficult. Using the emergence of Usutu virus (USUV) in the Netherlands as a case study, we demonstrate the use of an approximate Bayesian computation framework on diverse data sources to uncover drivers of spatiotemporal wildlife disease emergence. We calibrated single- and multi-host mechanistic transmission models to five types of wildlife surveillance and research data, describing molecular and serological evidence of USUV in birds. Although Eurasian blackbirds, the primary target species for surveillance, were most severely affected, our models indicated that USUV could not persist in blackbirds alone. Our framework provided statistical support for additional, unobserved bird species to have contributed to transmission. This population of bird species is characterized by limited infection mortality, a longer lifespan and likely further dispersal than blackbirds. Immunity in this population appears to have protected blackbirds from further USUV-related population decline. Our results underscore the importance of considering multiple host populations to understand outbreak dynamics. Neglecting the multi-host context of transmission can impact the reliability of predictions and projected impact of interventions.
{"title":"Silent reservoir species are shaping the emergence of Usutu virus.","authors":"Mariken M de Wit,Gaël Beaunée,Martha Dellar,Emmanuelle Münger,Louie Krol,Nnomzie Atama,Jurrian van Irsel,Henk van der Jeugd,Judith M A van den Brand,Chantal B E M Reusken,Marion Koopmans,Mart C M de Jong,Reina S Sikkema,Quirine A Ten Bosch","doi":"10.1038/s41559-025-02973-4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-025-02973-4","url":null,"abstract":"Disentangling the contributions of different hosts to disease transmission is highly complex but critical for improving predictions, surveillance and response. This is particularly challenging in wildlife, with pathogens often infecting multiple species and data collection being difficult. Using the emergence of Usutu virus (USUV) in the Netherlands as a case study, we demonstrate the use of an approximate Bayesian computation framework on diverse data sources to uncover drivers of spatiotemporal wildlife disease emergence. We calibrated single- and multi-host mechanistic transmission models to five types of wildlife surveillance and research data, describing molecular and serological evidence of USUV in birds. Although Eurasian blackbirds, the primary target species for surveillance, were most severely affected, our models indicated that USUV could not persist in blackbirds alone. Our framework provided statistical support for additional, unobserved bird species to have contributed to transmission. This population of bird species is characterized by limited infection mortality, a longer lifespan and likely further dispersal than blackbirds. Immunity in this population appears to have protected blackbirds from further USUV-related population decline. Our results underscore the importance of considering multiple host populations to understand outbreak dynamics. Neglecting the multi-host context of transmission can impact the reliability of predictions and projected impact of interventions.","PeriodicalId":18835,"journal":{"name":"Nature ecology & evolution","volume":"19 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":16.8,"publicationDate":"2026-03-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147346354","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 : 2026-02-27DOI: 10.1038/s41559-026-02999-2
Yu-Hsien Lin, Bulah Chia-Hsiang Wu, Abdoallah Sharaf, Sophie Maartje Elisabeth Heijblom, Ilias Prattis, Ching-Wen Tan, Rudolf J Schilder, Jared Gregory Ali, Silke Allmann
Green leaf volatiles (GLVs) are six-carbon volatile organic compounds that mediate plant responses to environmental stresses. The quantity and composition of emitted GLVs can vary with stress type, allowing plants to fine-tune their volatile blends. In addition, insect herbivores are capable of modulating these emissions. A key mechanism underlying this plasticity is the conversion of Z-3-hexenal to E-2-hexenal by the enzyme (3Z):(2E)-hexenal isomerase (Hi), which reshapes GLV profiles and may influence multitrophic interactions. Here we investigate the evolutionary origin, functional diversification and catalytic mechanisms of lepidopteran Hi homologues, which belong to the glucose-methanol-choline oxidoreductase family. Phylogenetic analysis of 34 lepidopteran species identified a distinct glucose-methanol-choline-β subclade enriched in Hi homologues, largely confined to the Apoditrysia lineage. Functional assays showed species-specific variation in Hi activity, with Manduca sexta Hi-1 displaying the highest activity among tested homologues under identical protein concentrations, both in vitro and in planta. Structural modelling and site-directed mutagenesis revealed that Hi activity requires a flavin adenine dinucleotide cofactor enabling the identification of key residues critical for flavin adenine dinucleotide binding. Comparative phylogenetics further suggests that Hi enzymes in plants and Lepidoptera evolved independently from unrelated enzyme families, representing a case of functional convergence coinciding with the Cretaceous angiosperm radiation.
{"title":"Convergent evolution of hexenal isomerases in Lepidoptera and plants.","authors":"Yu-Hsien Lin, Bulah Chia-Hsiang Wu, Abdoallah Sharaf, Sophie Maartje Elisabeth Heijblom, Ilias Prattis, Ching-Wen Tan, Rudolf J Schilder, Jared Gregory Ali, Silke Allmann","doi":"10.1038/s41559-026-02999-2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-026-02999-2","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Green leaf volatiles (GLVs) are six-carbon volatile organic compounds that mediate plant responses to environmental stresses. The quantity and composition of emitted GLVs can vary with stress type, allowing plants to fine-tune their volatile blends. In addition, insect herbivores are capable of modulating these emissions. A key mechanism underlying this plasticity is the conversion of Z-3-hexenal to E-2-hexenal by the enzyme (3Z):(2E)-hexenal isomerase (Hi), which reshapes GLV profiles and may influence multitrophic interactions. Here we investigate the evolutionary origin, functional diversification and catalytic mechanisms of lepidopteran Hi homologues, which belong to the glucose-methanol-choline oxidoreductase family. Phylogenetic analysis of 34 lepidopteran species identified a distinct glucose-methanol-choline-β subclade enriched in Hi homologues, largely confined to the Apoditrysia lineage. Functional assays showed species-specific variation in Hi activity, with Manduca sexta Hi-1 displaying the highest activity among tested homologues under identical protein concentrations, both in vitro and in planta. Structural modelling and site-directed mutagenesis revealed that Hi activity requires a flavin adenine dinucleotide cofactor enabling the identification of key residues critical for flavin adenine dinucleotide binding. Comparative phylogenetics further suggests that Hi enzymes in plants and Lepidoptera evolved independently from unrelated enzyme families, representing a case of functional convergence coinciding with the Cretaceous angiosperm radiation.</p>","PeriodicalId":18835,"journal":{"name":"Nature ecology & evolution","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":13.9,"publicationDate":"2026-02-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147317809","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 : 2026-02-25DOI: 10.1038/s41559-026-02981-y
Kate T. Snyder, Aleyna Loughran-Pierce, Nicole Creanza
Birdsong has historically been characterized as a sexually selected, primarily male behaviour. Recent findings suggest that female song is widespread, raising questions about how social functions of birdsong shape song evolution. Certain social behaviours, such as cooperative breeding, could alter selection pressures on both sexes and potentially influence the evolution of both female and male song. Here we use phylogenetic comparative analyses across 1,041 songbird species to examine relationships between cooperative breeding, female song and male song characteristics. We show robust bidirectional coevolutionary dynamics between cooperative breeding and female song that persist when controlling for territoriality, allometry, phylogenetic uncertainty, geographical sampling and analytical biases. While cooperative breeding and female song commonly co-occur in strongly territorial systems, their association is especially pronounced in weakly territorial systems, where they co-occur much more often than expected by chance. Additionally, we observe that male song repertoire size evolves more slowly in cooperative breeding lineages. These findings demonstrate that cooperative breeding shapes the evolution of vocal communication differently based on territorial context and sex, with female song potentially serving crucial but understudied functions related to social cohesion in cooperative systems, particularly in species where territorial conflict is reduced. Comparative phylogenetic analysis of song features and social behaviours across songbirds shows a coevolutionary relationship between cooperative breeding and presence of female song that is more pronounced in species with weak territoriality.
{"title":"Territoriality modulates the coevolution of cooperative breeding and female song in songbirds","authors":"Kate T. Snyder, Aleyna Loughran-Pierce, Nicole Creanza","doi":"10.1038/s41559-026-02981-y","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41559-026-02981-y","url":null,"abstract":"Birdsong has historically been characterized as a sexually selected, primarily male behaviour. Recent findings suggest that female song is widespread, raising questions about how social functions of birdsong shape song evolution. Certain social behaviours, such as cooperative breeding, could alter selection pressures on both sexes and potentially influence the evolution of both female and male song. Here we use phylogenetic comparative analyses across 1,041 songbird species to examine relationships between cooperative breeding, female song and male song characteristics. We show robust bidirectional coevolutionary dynamics between cooperative breeding and female song that persist when controlling for territoriality, allometry, phylogenetic uncertainty, geographical sampling and analytical biases. While cooperative breeding and female song commonly co-occur in strongly territorial systems, their association is especially pronounced in weakly territorial systems, where they co-occur much more often than expected by chance. Additionally, we observe that male song repertoire size evolves more slowly in cooperative breeding lineages. These findings demonstrate that cooperative breeding shapes the evolution of vocal communication differently based on territorial context and sex, with female song potentially serving crucial but understudied functions related to social cohesion in cooperative systems, particularly in species where territorial conflict is reduced. Comparative phylogenetic analysis of song features and social behaviours across songbirds shows a coevolutionary relationship between cooperative breeding and presence of female song that is more pronounced in species with weak territoriality.","PeriodicalId":18835,"journal":{"name":"Nature ecology & evolution","volume":"10 3","pages":"536-549"},"PeriodicalIF":13.9,"publicationDate":"2026-02-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.comhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-026-02981-y.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147279314","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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