Trends in ecology & evolution最新文献

While forest degradation persists across many regions, restoration efforts have predominantly targeted aboveground carbon, often overlooking critical belowground ecosystem functions. Plant-mycorrhizal associations - key connectors between aboveground and belowground biodiversity - can help to enhance both carbon storage and forest multifunctionality; yet their explicit integration into restoration frameworks remains limited. By synthesizing recent advancements, we highlight the role of plant-mycorrhizal diversity in enhancing soil carbon pools and supporting multiple ecosystem functions. By examining evidence-based restoration cases, we propose a framework linking plant-mycorrhizal associations to sustainably restore resilient and multifunctional forest ecosystems. Incorporating the functional traits of plant-mycorrhizal associations into restoration strategies provides a pathway to effectively address the interconnected biodiversity and climate crises.

Non-native plants often outperform native plants by escaping natural enemies and forming mutualistic relationships in new ranges. However, the causal relationships and mechanisms linking these interactions remain largely unclear. Metabolite reallocation may play a crucial role in linking ecological and evolutionary shifts between antagonistic and mutualistic interactions of non-native plants.

The 'equilibrium assumption' underlying biodiversity trends assessments in response to environmental changes is rarely challenged, the traditional assumption being that biodiversity is in an equilibrium state with its contemporary drivers. Existing non-equilibrium biodiversity frameworks still rely on the assumption that biodiversity is, at a given moment in time, in an equilibrium state with its contemporary drivers. In this opinion article we consider multiple trajectories of changes due to long-term disturbances that push biodiversity into a quasi-permanent non-equilibrium state. We propose a conceptual framework based on the use of temporal influence functions that can be integrated into a wide range of ecological models. The complete paradigm shift we provide can hindcast past, and project future, non-equilibrium biodiversity trends.

Taphonomy, a subdiscipline of paleontology, is generally concerned with everything that happens from the death of an organism through to the discovery of its fossil. Here we propose the concept of fossilisation ecology, which extends taphonomy by formalising the idea that the ecology of an organism may affect its fossilisation.

A long-standing goal in ecological, evolutionary, and conservation genetics is to identify genomic correlates of fitness and inbreeding depression. Over the past several years, a growing body of theoretical and empirical work in diverse mammal and bird taxa has established a strong link between long runs of homozygosity (ROH) and inbreeding depression. Here, we develop a new statistic, ID_risk, which quantifies how long ROH together with heterozygosity in non-ROH regions can be used to predict the risk of inbreeding depression in a population. We highlight the broad utility of the ID_risk statistic when applied to 24 bird and mammal populations, providing critical information to guide conservation decisions in cases where more direct measures of fitness are not available.

Invasive species threaten native populations in various ways, including through reproductive interference, but this remains understudied. Here, we present evidence that this interference reduces native fitness through courtship and mating. We emphasize the need for further research and highlight potential risks of using this mechanism as a management tool.

The scientific study of animal venoms covers a broad phylogenetic domain. We argue that the true extent of this domain has been obscured by researchers having overlooked the biological essence of venom. Venoms manipulate the physiological functioning of recipients to produce extended phenotypes that are beneficial to the venom producer and detrimental to its victim. The ability to produce extended phenotypes in living victims, such as prey paralysis, distinguishes venom from saliva. Understanding venom from this perspective substantially broadens the phylogenetic domain of venom to include taxa that use toxic secretions to feed on plants and manipulate sexual partners, and it paves the way for unifying the field of venomics with the fields that study invertebrate-plant interactions and sexual conflict.

Climate change is altering species' distributions globally. Increasing frequency of extreme weather and climate events (EWCEs) is one of the hallmarks of climate change. Despite species redistribution being widely studied in response to long-term climatic trends, the contribution of EWCEs to range shifts is not well understood. We outline how EWCEs can trigger rapid and unexpected range boundary fluctuations by impacting dispersal, establishment, and survival. Whether these mechanisms cause temporary or persistent range shifts depends on the spatiotemporal context and exposure to EWCEs. Using the increasing availability of data and statistical tools to examine EWCE impacts at fine spatiotemporal resolutions on species redistribution will be critical for informing conservation management of ecologically, economically, and culturally important species.