Global COVID-19 lockdown highlights humans as both threats and custodians of the environment.

The global lockdown to mitigate COVID-19 pandemic health risks has altered human interactions with nature. Here, we report immediate impacts of changes in human activities on wildlife and environmental threats during the early lockdown months of 2020, based on 877 qualitative reports and 332 quantitative assessments from 89 different studies. Hundreds of reports of unusual species observations from around the world suggest that animals quickly responded to the reductions in human presence.

How well do the spring indices predict phenological activity across plant species?

The spring indices, models that represent the onset of spring season biological activity, were developed using a long-term observational record from the mid-to-late twentieth century of three species of lilacs and honeysuckles contributed by volunteer observers across the nation. The USA National Phenology Network (USA-NPN) produces and freely delivers maps of spring index onset dates at fine spatial scale for the USA. These maps are used widely in natural resource planning and management applications.

Correction: Differential changes in the onset of spring across US National Wildlife Refuges and North American migratory bird flyways.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.

Differential changes in the onset of spring across US National Wildlife Refuges and North American migratory bird flyways.

Warming temperatures associated with climate change can have indirect effects on migratory birds that rely on seasonally available food resources and habitats that vary across spatial and temporal scales. We used two heat-based indices of spring onset, the First Leaf Index (FLI) and the First Bloom Index (FBI), as proxies of habitat change for the period 1901 to 2012 at three spatial scales: the US National Wildlife Refuge System; the four major bird migratory flyways in North America; and the seasonal ranges (i.e.

Red squirrel middens influence abundance but not diversity of other vertebrates.

Some animals modify the environment in ways that can influence the resources available to other species. Because red squirrels (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus) create large piles of conifer-cone debris (middens) in which they store cones, squirrels concentrate resources that might affect biodiversity locally. To determine whether other animals are attracted to midden sites beyond their affinity for the same resources that attract red squirrels, we assessed associations between middens, mammals, and birds at population and community levels.