Analysis of resting status reveals distinct elevational variation in metabolisms of lizards.

Animals spend a considerable proportion of their life span at rest. However, resting status has often been overlooked when investigating how species respond to environmental conditions. This may induce a large bias in understanding the local adaptation of species across environmental gradients and their vulnerability to potential environmental change.

Cropland Microclimate and Leaf-nesting Behavior Shape the Growth of Caterpillar under Future Warming.

Predicting performance responses of insects to climate change is crucial for biodiversity conservation and pest management. While most projections on insects' performance under climate change have used macro-scale weather station data, few incorporated the microclimates within vegetation that insects inhabit and their feeding behaviors (e.g.

Global contribution of invertebrates to forest litter decomposition.

Forest litter decomposition is an essential component of global carbon and nutrient turnover. Invertebrates play important roles in litter decomposition, but the regional pattern of their effects is poorly understood. We examined 476 case studies across 93 sites and performed a meta-analysis to estimate regional effects of invertebrates on forest litter decomposition.

The life history of Hayesiana triopus (Westwood, 1847), with taxonomic notes on both present and former species of the genus Hayesiana Fletcher, 1982 (Lepidoptera: Sphingidae).

The two species previously included in the genus Hayesiana Fletcher, 1982 were studied. The life history of the sole currently included species, Hayesiana triopus (Westwood, 1847) is illustrated in colour for the first time. Field records of Hayesiana triopus and Dahira farintaenia (Zhu & Wang, 1997) (previously Hayesiana farintaenia) are given, with the first description of the female genitalia of the latter.

Season and herbivore defence trait mediate tri-trophic interactions in tropical rainforest.

Bottom-up effects from host plants and top-down effects from predators on herbivore abundance and distribution vary with physical environment, plant chemistry, predator and herbivore trait and diversity. Tri-trophic interactions in tropical ecosystems may follow different patterns from temperate ecosystems due to differences in above abiotic and biotic conditions. We sampled leaf-chewing larvae of Lepidoptera (caterpillars) from a dominant host tree species in a seasonal rainforest in Southwest China.

Heat tolerance variation reveals vulnerability of tropical herbivore-parasitoid interactions to climate change.

Assessing the heat tolerance (CTmax) of organisms is central to understand the impact of climate change on biodiversity. While both environment and evolutionary history affect CTmax, it remains unclear how these factors and their interplay influence ecological interactions, communities and ecosystems under climate change. We collected and reared caterpillars and parasitoids from canopy and ground layers in different seasons in a tropical rainforest.

Cross-regional scale pollution of freshwater biofilms unveiled by antibiotic resistance genes.

A comprehensive global profile of the distribution of ARGs in freshwater biofilms is lacking. We utilized metagenomic approaches to reveal the diversity, abundance, transferability and hosts of ARGs in 96 freshwater biofilm samples from 38 sampling sites across four countries. The abundant ARGs were associated with bacitracin, multidrug, polymyxin macrolide-lincosamide-streptogramin (MLS) aminoglycoside, β-lactam, chloramphenicol, sulfonamide and tetracycline resistance, consistent with the spectrum of antibiotics commonly used in human or veterinary medicine.

Morphological and behavioural differences facilitate tropical butterfly persistence in variable environments.

The thermal biology of ectotherms largely determines their abundance and distributions. In general, tropical species inhabiting warm and stable thermal environments tend to have low tolerance to cold and variable environments, which may restrict their expansion into temperate climates. However, the distribution of some tropical species does extend into cooler areas such as tropical borders and high elevation tropical mountains.

Positive abundance-elevational range size relationship weakened from temperate to subtropical ecosystems.

Describing the patterns and revealing the underlying mechanisms responsible for variations in community structure remain a central focus in ecology. However, important gaps remain, including our understanding of species abundance. Most studies on abundance-based relationships are from either temperate ecosystems or tropical ecosystems, and few have explicitly tested abundance-based relationships across a temperate to tropical ecotone.

Cool habitats support darker and bigger butterflies in Australian tropical forests.

Morphology mediates the relationship between an organism's body temperature and its environment. Dark organisms, for example, tend to absorb heat more quickly than lighter individuals, which could influence their responses to temperature. Therefore, temperature-related traits such as morphology may affect patterns of species abundance, richness, and community assembly across a broad range of spatial scales.