Trends in ecology & evolution最新文献

In scavenging assemblages, the functional traits of scavengers that impact the structure and function of ecological communities are becoming clearer. However, there are multiple terms for influential scavenger species that lack established definitions. As such, we propose a standardized terminology encompassing five functional roles: frequent scavenger, main biomass consumer, and keystone scavenger, as well as apex scavenger and mesoscavenger (defined through ecological roles and hierarchical positions). Furthermore, we identify and describe five key behaviors, and its actors related to competitive and facilitative interactions among scavengers - signaling scavenger, carrion broker, dominant scavenger, carcass cacher, and carrion transporter - which drive species' roles. We unify concepts of scavenger roles to facilitate comparisons among studies on scavenging.

Climate change and biodiversity loss decrease ecosystem functioning and compromise the delivery of nature's contributions to people. Restoration may help address these global challenges, but systems are unique and goals diverse. We review how translating complementarity theory into restoration practice in terrestrial, coastal, and wetland ecosystems can help to meet functional restoration goals. Using the mechanisms that drive complementarity - resource partitioning, abiotic facilitation, and biotic feedbacks - can improve restoration outcomes. These mechanisms can increase functioning by guiding site preparation and species selection, enhancing establishment, and limiting dominant species. We propose a decision tool to match mechanisms with suitable contexts. Degraded ecosystems offer unique opportunities to intentionally reintroduce these processes and observe how they rebuild complexity and function.

Cell size shapes how organisms interact with their environment, yet our understanding of these effects remains fragmented. We synthesise these effects into a Theory of Optimal Cell Size (TOCS), predicting that the size of single-cell organisms, as well as the number and size of cells in multicellular organisms, is subject to strong selection. At the heart of TOCS lies a trade-off between power and energy conservation: cell size acts as a 'double-edged sword', influencing both resource acquisition and maintenance costs. Major evolutionary transitions across the tree of life are connected with innovations in cellular organisation. A unified framework for cell size adaptation is essential for revealing the fundamental principles governing the ecology and evolution of life.

Conservation of deep-sea ecosystems is often hindered by insufficient data on biodiversity composition, distribution, and ecological status. As global efforts to expand deep-sea exploration continue, we illustrate how cost-effective deep-sea research can build local capacity; promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in deep-sea science; and generate essential data for conservation initiatives.

For flying animals, including many birds, bats, and insects, the air is a crucial arena for a range of behaviors. Technological advances, such as year-round tracking of flight altitudes and expanded use of radar, increasingly show how flying animals use the aerial habitat. This enables us to answer questions about the environmental patterns and ecological processes that shape aerial niches, including energetics, biotic interactions, and risk due to growing anthropogenic conflicts. In this review, we identify environmental conditions and biological interactions influencing where animals occur in the airspace throughout their life cycles. We outline an ecological framework to advance understanding of how different properties of the airspace shape fundamental aerial habitat niches and how biotic interactions influence the realized niches.

Growing global demands for food, energy, and resources drive competition for space while increasing pressure on natural systems, highlighting the need to balance sustainable resource use with biodiversity conservation. While multiple-use spatial planning provides a pathway to balance this trade-off, there is limited guidance for selecting appropriate optimization approaches and their integration into terrestrial, freshwater, and marine planning processes. Here we explore the current state of multiple-use spatial planning and the challenges that hinder its adoption, including the timing of interventions, economic impacts of planning decisions, capacity building, and alignment with development priorities. We aim to make multiple-use planning more accessible to researchers and practitioners and stimulate its wider uptake to help meet international ecological, economic, and social goals.

The spread of millet and rice agriculture has significantly impacted human societies in Asia and the Pacific. Recent ancient genomic studies by Xiong et al. and Wang et al. uncover three East Asian farmer ancestries and their migrations during the Middle Neolithic. These underscore interactions between diverse ancestries and update the farming/language dispersal hypothesis.

Understanding the role of humans as 'ecosystem engineers' requires a deep-time perspective rooted in evolutionary history and the fossil record. However, no conceptual framework exists for studying the rise of ecosystem engineering in deep time, requiring us to consider effects that fall outside the scope of traditional definitions. Here, we present a new framework applicable to both modern and ancient engineering-type effects. We propose a new term - 'Earth system engineering' - to describe biological processes that alter the structure and function of planetary spheres, and which combines core tenets of ecosystem engineering, niche construction, and legacy effects. We illustrate this framework using the fossil record, and show how it can be applied across the tree of life, and throughout Earth history.