Reef Adapt: A tool to inform climate-smart marine restoration and management decisions.

A critical component of ecosystem restoration projects involves using genetic data to select source material that will enhance success under current and future climates. However, the complexity and expense of applying genetic data is a barrier to its use outside of specialised scientific contexts. To help overcome this barrier, we developed Reef Adapt ( www.

Sonic restoration: acoustic stimulation enhances plant growth-promoting fungi activity.

Ecosystem restoration interventions often utilize visible elements to restore an ecosystem (e.g. replanting native plant communities and reintroducing lost species).

Ecotypic Variation in Leaf Thermoregulation and Heat Tolerance but Not Thermal Safety Margins in Tropical Trees.

To avoid reaching lethal temperatures during periods of heat stress, plants may acclimate either their biochemical thermal tolerance or leaf morphological and physiological characteristics to reduce leaf temperature (T). While plants from warmer environments may have a greater capacity to regulate T, the extent of intraspecific variation and contribution of provenance is relatively unexplored. We tested whether upland and lowland provenances of four tropical tree species grown in a common garden differed in their thermal safety margins by measuring leaf thermal traits, midday leaf-to-air temperature differences (∆T) and critical leaf temperatures defined by chlorophyll fluorescence (T).

Terrestrial invertebrate hosts of human pathogens in urban ecosystems.

Terrestrial invertebrates in urban ecosystems are extremely species-rich, have many important roles in material flow and energy circulation, and are host to many human pathogens that pose threats to human health. These invertebrates are widely distributed in urban areas, including both out- and in-door environments. Consequently, humans are frequently in contact with them, which provides many opportunities for them to pose human health risks.

Monitoring soil fauna with ecoacoustics.

Ecoacoustics-or acoustic ecology-aids in monitoring elusive and protected species in several ecological contexts. For example, passive acoustic monitoring (PAM), which involves autonomous acoustic sensors, is widely used to detect various taxonomic groups in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, from birds and bats to fish and cetaceans. Here, we illustrate the potential of ecoacoustics to monitor soil biodiversity (specifically fauna)-a crucial endeavour given that 59% of species live in soil yet 75% of soils are affected by degradation.

Ecological phage therapy: Can bacteriophages help rapidly restore the soil microbiome?

Soil microbiota underpin ecosystem functionality yet are rarely targeted during ecosystem restoration. Soil microbiota recovery following native plant revegetation can take years to decades, while the effectiveness of soil inoculation treatments on microbiomes remains poorly explored. Therefore, innovative restoration treatments that target soil microbiota represent an opportunity to accelerate restoration outcomes.

Practical applications of soil microbiota to improve ecosystem restoration: current knowledge and future directions.

Soil microbiota are important components of healthy ecosystems. Greater consideration of soil microbiota in the restoration of biodiverse, functional, and resilient ecosystems is required to address the twin global crises of biodiversity decline and climate change. In this review, we discuss available and emerging practical applications of soil microbiota into (i) restoration planning, (ii) direct interventions for shaping soil biodiversity, and (iii) strategies for monitoring and predicting restoration trajectories.

Urban sports fields support higher levels of soil butyrate and butyrate-producing bacteria than urban nature parks.

Butyrate-producing bacteria colonise the gut of humans and non-human animals, where they produce butyrate, a short-chain fatty acid with known health benefits. Butyrate-producing bacteria also reside in soils and soil bacteria can drive the assembly of airborne bacterial communities (the aerobiome). Aerobiomes in urban greenspaces are important reservoirs of butyrate-producing bacteria as they supplement the human microbiome, but soil butyrate producer communities have rarely been examined in detail.

Distribution patterns of soil bacteria, fungi, and protists emerge from distinct assembly processes across subcommunities.

Environmental change exerts a profound effect on soil microbial domains-including bacteria, fungi, and protists-that each perform vital ecological processes. While these microbial domains are ubiquitous and extremely diverse, little is known about how they respond to environmental changes in urban soil ecosystems and what ecological processes shape them. Here we investigated the community assembly processes governing bacteria, fungi, and protists through the lens of four distinct subcommunities: abundant, conditionally rare, conditionally abundant, and rare taxa.

Food webs in food webs: the micro-macro interplay of multilayered networks.

Food webs are typically defined as being macro-organism-based (e.g., plants, mammals, birds) or microbial (e.

Innate protection against intrarectal SIV acquisition by a live SHIV vaccine.

Identifying immune correlates of protection is a major challenge in AIDS vaccine development. Anti-Envelope antibodies have been considered critical for protection against SIV/HIV (SHIV) acquisition. Here, we evaluated the efficacy of an SHIV vaccine against SIVmac251 challenge, where the role of antibody was excluded, as there was no cross-reactivity between SIV and SHIV envelope antibodies.

Bioenergetic mapping of 'healthy microbiomes' via compound processing potential imprinted in gut and soil metagenomes.

Despite mounting evidence of their importance in human health and ecosystem functioning, the definition and measurement of 'healthy microbiomes' remain unclear. More advanced knowledge exists on health associations for compounds used or produced by microbes. Environmental microbiome exposures (especially via soils) also help shape, and may supplement, the functional capacity of human microbiomes.

Restoring soil biodiversity.

Soil health is crucial for all terrestrial life, supporting, among other processes, food production, water purification and carbon sequestration. Soil biodiversity - the variety of life within soils - is key to these processes and thus key to soil restoration. Human activities that degrade ecosystems threaten soil biodiversity and associated ecosystem processes.

The macroecology of butyrate-producing bacteria via metagenomic assessment of butyrate production capacity.

Butyrate-producing bacteria are found in many outdoor ecosystems and host organisms, including humans, and are vital to ecosystem functionality and human health. These bacteria ferment organic matter, producing the short-chain fatty acid butyrate. However, the macroecological influences on their biogeographical distribution remain poorly resolved.

Childcare centre soil microbiomes are influenced by substrate type and surrounding vegetation condition.

Urban development has profoundly reduced human exposure to biodiverse environments, which is linked to a rise in human disease. The 'biodiversity hypothesis' proposes that contact with diverse microbial communities (microbiota) benefits human health, as exposure to microbial diversity promotes immune training and regulates immune function. Soils and sandpits in urban childcare centres may provide exposure to diverse microbiota that support immunoregulation at a critical developmental stage in a child's life.

Short-term passive greenspace exposures have little effect on nasal microbiomes: A cross-over exposure study of a Māori cohort.

Indigenous health interventions have emerged in New Zealand aimed at increasing people's interactions with and exposure to macro and microbial diversity. Urban greenspaces provide opportunities for people to gain such exposures. However, the dynamics and pathways of microbial transfer from natural environments onto a person remain poorly understood.

Probiotic Cities: microbiome-integrated design for healthy urban ecosystems.

Combining microbiome science and biointegrated design offers opportunities to help address the intertwined challenges of urban ecosystem degradation and human disease. Biointegrated materials have the potential to combat superbugs and remediate pollution while inoculating landscape materials with microbiota can promote human immunoregulation and biodiverse green infrastructure, contributing to 'probiotic cities'.

Light-dark cycles may influence in situ soil bacterial networks and diurnally-sensitive taxa.

Soil bacterial taxa have important functional roles in ecosystems (e.g. nutrient cycling, soil formation, plant health).

Comparative gene co-expression networks show enrichment of brassinosteroid and vitamin B processes in a seagrass under simulated ocean warming and extreme climatic events.

Introduction: Ocean warming combined with extreme climatic events, such as marine heatwaves and flash flooding events, threaten seagrasses globally. How seagrasses cope with these challenges is uncertain, particularly for range-edge populations of species such as in Shark Bay, Western Australia. Analyzing gene expression while manipulating multiple stressors provides insight into the genetic response and resilience of seagrasses to climate change.

The eco-evolutionary risks of not changing seed provenancing practices in changing environments.

Sourcing seed from local populations has been the long-standing default for native restoration plantings for numerous eco-evolutionary reasons. However, rapidly changing environments are revealing risks associated with both non-local and local provenancing. As alternative strategies gain interest, we argue to progress seed sourcing discussions towards developing risk-based decision-making that weighs the risks of changing and not changing in a changing environment, transcending historic default positions and local versus non-local debates.

Biodiversity and human health: A scoping review and examples of underrepresented linkages.

Mounting evidence supports the connections between exposure to environmental typologies(such as green and blue spaces)and human health. However, the mechanistic links that connect biodiversity (the variety of life) and human health, and the extent of supporting evidence remain less clear. Here, we undertook a scoping review to map the links between biodiversity and human health and summarise the levels of associated evidence using an established weight of evidence framework.

In Vivo Treatment with Insulin-like Growth Factor 1 Reduces CCR5 Expression on Vaccine-Induced Activated CD4 T-Cells.

At the heart of the DNA/ALVAC/gp120/alum vaccine's efficacy in the absence of neutralizing antibodies is a delicate balance of pro- and anti-inflammatory immune responses that effectively decreases the risk of SIV acquisition in macaques. Vaccine efficacy is linked to antibodies recognizing the V2 helical conformation, DC-10 tolerogenic dendritic cells eliciting the clearance of apoptotic cells via efferocytosis, and CCR5 downregulation on vaccine-induced gut homing CD4 cells. RAS activation is also linked to vaccine efficacy, which prompted the testing of IGF-1, a potent inducer of RAS activation with vaccination.

Policy implications of the microbiota-gut-brain axis.

The microbiota-gut-brain axis facilitates communication between the gut microbiota and the brain. It has implications for health and environmental policy. Microbiota are linked to neurological and metabolic disorders, and our exposure to health-promoting microbiota depends on environmental quality.