Trends in ecology & evolution最新文献

Disruption of the temperature-humidity balance poses a threat to global ecosystems and affects the spread of infectious diseases. A long-term study by Theodosopoulos et al. on a wild bird population in a temperate region of Northern Europe reveals a significant increase in avian malaria parasite prevalence under a climate-warming scenario.

Animal behavior is often viewed as stemming from predictable genetic and environmental factors. However, despite our best attempts to control genetic and environmental influences on behavior, variation among individuals still persists: what we call 'stochastic individuality'. Increasing research suggests that this might be more than just measurement error, and might instead be rich in biological insights. In this review we examine what is known about stochastic individuality, including potential biological mechanisms and its potential adaptive value, and we provide guidance for how to quantify and test outstanding questions about its role in driving patterns of behavioral diversity. Incorporating stochasticity may be a key missing component in mapping the links from genotype to phenotype and predicting the interplay between phenotype and fitness.

First defined by Arthur Tansley approximately 90 years ago, ecosystems arguably remain less monitored and understood than other dimensions of biodiversity. While our characterisation and understanding of ecosystems has improved, many of the issues pointed out by Tansley remain unresolved. We highlight how combining geodiversity research and complex system science, while better integrating cultural diversity and research outcomes across biodiversity dimensions, could help to address these issues and rapidly improve our ability to predict long-term ecosystem behaviour and dynamics. As ecosystems continue to gain traction in policy spheres, such knowledge will be key to strengthening the legal framing for biodiversity conservation, use, and management.

Bioengineering offers potential advancements in health, manufacturing, and environmental remediation, but without involvement from ecologists and evolutionary biologists the impact of environmental biotechnologies will remain understudied. Ecologists and evolutionary biologists can assess risks and benefits posed by bioengineered organisms in the environment, and develop new technologies that are ecologically and evolutionarily informed.

Co-producing knowledge with Indigenous partners may be required for research on Indigenous Lands and Waters. However, academic paradigms challenge the development and maintenance of partnerships with Indigenous communities. As researchers with experience co-producing knowledge with Indigenous partners, we share challenges to this work and provide actionable solutions for academic institutions.

We present outcomes from our 17th horizon scan of issues potentially impacting global biodiversity conservation in the next decade. Issues are novel, or represent a significant step-change in impact, and are currently not well-known or understood within the conservation community. Our panel of 26 scientists, practitioners, and policymakers scored an initial list of 96 issues, discussed the highest ranked 35 issues at a workshop, and identified the 15 top-ranked issues. This year, technology innovations, including low-power optic artificial intelligence (AI) chips and tiny machine learning (TinyML) models, could revolutionize biodiversity monitoring. We highlight impacts from changes in land-use driven by appetite-suppressing pharmaceuticals and the unknown effects of mirror biomolecules. Highlighting these issues may increase awareness of any impacts on global biodiversity conservation.

The established paradigm that terrestrial decomposition is driven mainly by substrate quality and climate relies heavily on studies of microbial decomposers in mesic environments. We argue that this strong regulation is mitigated by macrofaunal detritivores. Larger body size, lower sensitivity to desiccation, nutritional adaptations, and greater mobility allow macro-detritivores to decompose detrital resources when decomposition by smaller organisms is limited. Furthermore, macro-detritivores enhance microbial decomposition under stressful conditions through the fragmentation and translocation of recalcitrant detritus to nutrient-enriched and climate-buffered locations. Incorporating macro-detritivores into decomposition theory will generate a more comprehensive understanding of elemental cycling and reveal understudied pathways that could become influential in a warmer and drier world.

Recent advances in climate modeling and remote sensing have increased the expectation that finer-grained climate data will improve biological relevance. However, the appropriate scale for biology depends on the system and the question posed, and finer-grained data do not always improve inference in ecology and evolution. In this review we synthesize knowledge from micrometeorology, physiology, and landscape ecology to develop a framework integrating climatic and biological lenses for understanding the scales of climate exposure. This framework can aid multiscale investigation of microclimate effects on individuals, populations, and communities. We newly conceptualize systems of climate scale, provide recommendations for trait-based approaches to determine the scales relevant to climate-biology interactions, and highlight opportunities offered by novel methods and technologies.