Multi-habitat landscapes are more diverse and stable with improved function.

Conservation, restoration and land management are increasingly implemented at landscape scales. However, because species interaction data are typically habitat- and/or guild-specific, exactly how those interactions connect habitats and affect the stability and function of communities at landscape scales remains poorly understood. We combine multi-guild species interaction data (plant-pollinator and three plant-herbivore-parasitoid communities, collected from landscapes with one, two or three habitats), a field experiment and a modelling approach to show that multi-habitat landscapes support higher species and interaction evenness, more complementary species interactions and more consistent robustness to species loss.

Potential drivers of changing ecological conditions in English and Welsh rivers since 1990.

River invertebrate communities across Europe have been changing in response to variations in water quality over recent decades, but the underlying drivers are difficult to identify because of the complex stressors and environmental heterogeneity involved. Here, using data from ∼4000 locations across England and Wales, collected over 29 years, we use three approaches to help resolve the drivers of spatiotemporal variation in the face of this complexity: i) mapping changes in invertebrate richness and community composition; ii) structural equation modelling (SEM) to distinguish land cover, water quality and climatic influences; and iii) geographically weighted regression (GWR) to identify how the apparent relationships between invertebrate communities and abiotic variables change across the area. Mapping confirmed widespread increases in richness and the proportion of pollution-sensitive taxa across much of England and Wales.

Networking nutrients: How nutrition determines the structure of ecological networks.

Nutrients can shape ecological interactions but remain poorly integrated into ecological networks. Concepts such as nutrient-specific foraging nevertheless have the potential to expose the mechanisms structuring complex ecological systems. Nutrients also present an opportunity to predict dynamic processes, such as interaction rewiring and extinction cascades, and increase the accuracy of network analyses.

Quantifying the production of plant pollen at the farm scale.

Plant pollen is rich in protein, sterols and lipids, providing crucial nutrition for many pollinators. However, we know very little about the quantity, quality and timing of pollen availability in real landscapes, limiting our ability to improve food supply for pollinators. We quantify the floral longevity and pollen production of a whole plant community for the first time, enabling us to calculate daily pollen availability.

Spillover effects from invasive alter the plant-pollinator networks and seed production of native plants.

Invasive flowering plants can disrupt plant-pollinator networks. This is well documented where invasives occur amongst native plants; however, the potential for 'spillover' effects of invasives that form stands in adjacent habitats are less well understood. Here we quantify the impact of two invasive Australian species, and , on the plant-pollinator networks in fynbos habitats in South Africa.

Non-native ants drive dramatic declines in animal community diversity: A meta-analysis.

Non-native ants can cause ecosystem-wide ecological change, and these changes are generally assumed to be negative. Despite this, the evidence base has never been holistically synthesised to quantify whether and to what degree non-native ants impact native species diversity.In this study, we performed a meta-analysis of the effects of ant invasion on animal communities.

Climatic effects on the synchrony and stability of temperate headwater invertebrates over four decades.

Important clues about the ecological effects of climate change can arise from understanding the influence of other Earth-system processes on ecosystem dynamics but few studies span the inter-decadal timescales required. We, therefore, examined how variation in annual weather patterns associated with the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) over four decades was linked to synchrony and stability in a metacommunity of stream invertebrates across multiple, contrasting headwaters in central Wales (UK). Prolonged warmer and wetter conditions during positive NAO winters appeared to synchronize variations in population and community composition among and within streams thereby reducing stability across levels of ecological organization.

Multi-marker DNA metabarcoding reveals spatial and sexual variation in the diet of a scarce woodland bird.

Avian diet can be affected by site-specific variables, such as habitat, as well as intrinsic factors such as sex. This can lead to dietary niche separation, which reduces competition between individuals, as well as impacting how well avian species can adapt to environmental variation. Estimating dietary niche separation is challenging, due largely to difficulties in accurately identifying food taxa consumed.

Herbivorous dietary selection shown by hawfinch () within mixed woodland habitats.

Knowledge of diet and dietary selectivity is vital, especially for the conservation of declining species. Accurately obtaining this information, however, is difficult, especially if the study species feeds on a wide range of food items within heterogeneous and inaccessible environments, such as the tree canopy. Hawfinches (), like many woodland birds, are declining for reasons that are unclear.

Evidence of biological recovery from gross pollution in English and Welsh rivers over three decades.

Uncertainty around the changing ecological status of European rivers reflects an evolving array of anthropogenic stressors, including climate change. Although previous studies have revealed some recovery from historical pollution in the 1990s and early-2000s, there are contrasting trends among pollutants across Europe and recovery may have stalled or been reversed. To provide more contemporary evidence on trends and status, here we investigate changes in English and Welsh river macroinvertebrate communities over almost 30 years (1991-2019) using a network of nearly 4000 survey locations.

A Review of Digital Interventions to Decrease Cannabis Use Among Patients With Comorbid Psychiatric Disorders.

Objective: Cannabis use disorder (CUD) is associated with an elevated risk for psychiatric disorders and symptoms, contributing to poor health outcomes and increased medical costs. Unfortunately, interventions that simultaneously address cannabis use and co-occurring psychiatric disorders are limited in availability. Targeted digital interventions to reduce cannabis use could be beneficial for patients with psychiatric disorders.

Seasonal and ontological variation in diet and age-related differences in prey choice, by an insectivorous songbird.

The diet of an individual animal is subject to change over time, both in response to short-term food fluctuations and over longer time scales as an individual ages and meets different challenges over its life cycle. A metabarcoding approach was used to elucidate the diet of different life stages of a migratory songbird, the Eurasian reed warbler () over the 2017 summer breeding season in Somerset, the United Kingdom. The feces of adult, juvenile, and nestling warblers were screened for invertebrate DNA, enabling the identification of prey species.

MEDI: Macronutrient Extraction and Determination from invertebrates, a rapid, cheap and streamlined protocol.

Macronutrients, comprising carbohydrates, proteins and lipids, underpin many ecological processes, but their quantification in ecological studies is often inaccurate and laborious, requiring large investments of time and bulk samples, which make individual-level studies impossible. This study presents Macronutrient Extraction and Determination from Invertebrates (MEDI), a protocol for the direct, rapid and relatively low-cost determination of macronutrient content from single small macroinvertebrates.Macronutrients were extracted by a sequential process of soaking in 1:12 chloroform:methanol solution to remove lipid and then solubilising tissue in 0.

Interaction generalisation and demographic feedbacks drive the resilience of plant-insect networks to extinctions.

Understanding the processes driving ecological resilience, that is the extent to which systems retain their structure while absorbing perturbations, is a central challenge for theoretical and applied ecologists. Plant-insect assemblages are well-suited for the study of ecological resilience as they are species-rich and encompass a variety of ecological interactions that correspond to essential ecosystem functions. Mechanisms affecting community response to perturbations depend on both the natural history and structure of ecological interactions.

Using Climatic Credits to Pay the Climatic Debt.

Many organisms are accumulating climatic debt as they respond more slowly than expected to rising global temperatures, leading to disequilibrium of species diversity with contemporary climate. The resulting transient dynamics are complex and may cause overoptimistic biodiversity assessments. We propose a simple budget framework to integrate climatic debt with two classes of intervention: (i) climatic credits that pay some of the debt, reducing the overall biological change required to reach a new equilibrium; and (ii) options to adjust the debt repayment rate, either making a system more responsive by increasing the rate or temporarily reducing the rate to buy more time for local adaptation and credit implementation.

Water quality improvements offset the climatic debt for stream macroinvertebrates over twenty years.

Many species are accumulating climatic debt as they fail to keep pace with increasing global temperatures. In theory, concomitant decreases in other stressors (e.g.

A systems approach reveals urban pollinator hotspots and conservation opportunities.

Urban areas are often perceived to have lower biodiversity than the wider countryside, but a few small-scale studies suggest that some urban land uses can support substantial pollinator populations. We present a large-scale, well-replicated study of floral resources and pollinators in 360 sites incorporating all major land uses in four British cities. Using a systems approach, we developed Bayesian network models integrating pollinator dispersal and resource switching to estimate city-scale effects of management interventions on plant-pollinator community robustness to species loss.

Spatial and temporal behavioural responses of wild cattle to tropical forest degradation.

Identifying the consequences of tropical forest degradation is essential to mitigate its effects upon forest fauna. Large forest-dwelling mammals are often highly sensitive to environmental perturbation through processes such as fragmentation, simplification of habitat structure, and abiotic changes including increased temperatures where the canopy is cleared. Whilst previous work has focused upon species richness and rarity in logged forest, few look at spatial and temporal behavioural responses to forest degradation.

The effects of pastoral intensification on the feeding interactions of generalist predators in streams.

Land-use change can alter trophic interactions with wide-ranging functional consequences, yet the consequences for aquatic food webs have been little studied. In part, this may reflect the challenges of resolving the diets of aquatic organisms using classical gut contents analysis, especially for soft-bodied prey. We used next-generation sequencing to resolve prey use in nearly 400 individuals of two predatory invertebrates (the Caddisfly, Rhyacophila dorsalis, and the Stonefly Dinocras cephalotes) in streams draining land with increasingly intensive livestock farming.

Evaluating methods for estimating home ranges using GPS collars: A comparison using proboscis monkeys (Nasalis larvatus).

The development of GPS tags for tracking wildlife has revolutionised the study of home ranges, habitat use and behaviour. Concomitantly, there have been rapid developments in methods for estimating habitat use from GPS data. In combination, these changes can cause challenges in choosing the best methods for estimating home ranges.

Resolving large-scale pressures on species and ecosystems: propensity modelling identifies agricultural effects on streams.

Although agriculture is amongst the world's most widespread land uses, studies of its effects on stream ecosystems are often limited in spatial extent. National monitoring data could extend spatial coverage and increase statistical power, but present analytical challenges where covarying environmental variables confound relationships of interest.Propensity modelling is used widely outside ecology to control for confounding variables in observational data.

Modest enhancements to conventional grassland diversity improve the provision of pollination services.

Grassland for livestock production is a major form of land use throughout Europe and its intensive management threatens biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in agricultural landscapes. Modest increases to conventional grassland biodiversity could have considerable positive impacts on the provision of ecosystem services, such as pollination, to surrounding habitats.Using a field-scale experiment in which grassland seed mixes and sward management were manipulated, complemented by surveys on working farms and phytometer experiments, the impact of conventional grassland diversity and management on the functional diversity and ecosystem service provision of pollinator communities were investigated.

The Effects of Supplementary Food on the Breeding Performance of Eurasian Reed Warblers Acrocephalus scirpaceus; Implications for Climate Change Impacts.

Understanding the mechanisms by which climate variation can drive population changes requires information linking climate, local conditions, trophic resources, behaviour and demography. Climate change alters the seasonal pattern of emergence and abundance of invertebrate populations, which may have important consequences for the breeding performance and population change of insectivorous birds. In this study, we examine the role of food availability in driving behavioural changes in an insectivorous migratory songbird; the Eurasian reed warbler Acrocephalus scirpaceus.

High Resilience of Seed Dispersal Webs Highlighted by the Experimental Removal of the Dominant Disperser.

The pressing need to conserve and restore habitats in the face of ongoing species loss [1, 2] requires a better understanding of what happens to communities when species are lost or reinstated [3, 4]. Theoretical models show that communities are relatively insensitive to species loss [5, 6]; however, they disagree with field manipulations showing a cascade of extinctions [7, 8] and have seldom been tested under field conditions (e.g.