Recent evolution of flowering time across multiple European plant species correlates with changes in aridity.

Ongoing global warming and increasing drought frequencies impact plant populations and potentially drive rapid evolutionary adaptations. Historical comparisons, where plants grown from seeds collected in the past are compared to plants grown from freshly collected seeds from populations of the same sites, are a powerful method to investigate recent evolutionary changes across many taxa. We used 21-38 years old seeds of 13 European plant species, stored in seed banks and originating from Mediterranean and temperate regions, together with recently collected seeds from the same sites for a greenhouse experiment to investigate shifts in flowering phenology as a potential result of adaptive evolution to changes in drought intensities over the last decades.

Assembly of functional diversity in an oceanic island flora.

Oceanic island floras are well known for their morphological peculiarities and exhibit striking examples of trait evolution. These morphological shifts are commonly attributed to insularity and are thought to be shaped by the biogeographical processes and evolutionary histories of oceanic islands. However, the mechanisms through which biogeography and evolution have shaped the distribution and diversity of plant functional traits remain unclear.

Mason bees and honey bees synergistically enhance fruit set in sweet cherry orchards.

Mason bees ( spp.) are efficient fruit tree pollinators that can be encouraged to occupy and breed in artificial nesting material. In sweet cherry orchards, they are occasionally used as an alternative managed pollinator as a replacement for or in addition to honey bees ().

Prenylated Isoflavanones with Antimicrobial Potential from the Root Bark of .

Guill. & Perr (Fabaceae) is widely utilized in the traditional medicine of East Africa, showing effects against a variety of ailments including microbial infections. Phytochemical investigation of the root bark led to the isolation of six previously undescribed prenylated isoflavanones together with eight known secondary metabolites comprising isoflavanoids, neoflavones and an alkyl hydroxylcinnamate.

When lizards shift to a more plant-based lifestyle: The macroevolution of mutualistic lizard-plant-interactions (Squamata: Sauria/Lacertilia).

Pollination and seed dispersal of plants by animals are key mutualistic processes for the conservation of plant diversity and ecosystem functioning. Although different animals frequently act as pollinators or seed dispersers, some species can provide both functions, so-called 'double mutualists', suggesting that the evolution of pollination and seed dispersal may be linked. Here, we assess the macroevolution of mutualistic behaviours in lizards (Lacertilia) by applying comparative methods to a phylogeny comprising 2,838 species.

Digital twins: dynamic model-data fusion for ecology.

Digital twins (DTs) are an emerging phenomenon in the public and private sectors as a new tool to monitor and understand systems and processes. DTs have the potential to change the status quo in ecology as part of its digital transformation. However, it is important to avoid misguided developments by managing expectations about DTs.

Microhabitat conditions remedy heat stress effects on insect activity.

Anthropogenic global warming has major implications for mobile terrestrial insects, including long-term effects from constant warming, for example, on species distribution patterns, and short-term effects from heat extremes that induce immediate physiological responses. To cope with heat extremes, they either have to reduce their activity or move to preferable microhabitats. The availability of favorable microhabitat conditions is strongly promoted by the spatial heterogeneity of habitats, which is often reduced by anthropogenic land transformation.

Global conservation prioritization for the Orchidaceae.

Quantitative assessments of endemism, evolutionary distinctiveness and extinction threat underpin global conservation prioritization for well-studied taxa, such as birds, mammals, and amphibians. However, such information is unavailable for most of the world's taxa. This is the case for the Orchidaceae, a hyperdiverse and cosmopolitan family with incomplete phylogenetic and threat information.

Challenging Structure Elucidation of Lumnitzeralactone, an Ellagic Acid Derivative from the Mangrove .

The previously undescribed natural product lumnitzeralactone (), which represents a derivative of ellagic acid, was isolated from the anti-bacterial extract of the Indonesian mangrove species Willd. The structure of lumnitzeralactone (), a proton-deficient and highly challenging condensed aromatic ring system, was unambiguously elucidated by extensive spectroscopic analyses involving high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS), 1D H and C nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR), and 2D NMR (including 1,1-ADEQUATE and 1,n-ADEQUATE). Determination of the structure was supported by computer-assisted structure elucidation (CASE system applying ACD-SE), density functional theory (DFT) calculations, and a two-step chemical synthesis.

DivBrowse-interactive visualization and exploratory data analysis of variant call matrices.

Background: The sequencing of whole genomes is becoming increasingly affordable. In this context, large-scale sequencing projects are generating ever larger datasets of species-specific genomic diversity. As a consequence, more and more genomic data need to be made easily accessible and analyzable to the scientific community.

Hypotheses in urban ecology: building a common knowledge base.

Urban ecology is a rapidly growing research field that has to keep pace with the pressing need to tackle the sustainability crisis. As an inherently multi-disciplinary field with close ties to practitioners and administrators, research synthesis and knowledge transfer between those different stakeholders is crucial. Knowledge maps can enhance knowledge transfer and provide orientation to researchers as well as practitioners.

Global beta-diversity of angiosperm trees is shaped by Quaternary climate change.

As Earth's climate has varied strongly through geological time, studying the impacts of past climate change on biodiversity helps to understand the risks from future climate change. However, it remains unclear how paleoclimate shapes spatial variation in biodiversity. Here, we assessed the influence of Quaternary climate change on spatial dissimilarity in taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional composition among neighboring 200-kilometer cells (beta-diversity) for angiosperm trees worldwide.

Capacity of countries to reduce biological invasions.

Unlabelled: The extent and impacts of biological invasions on biodiversity are largely shaped by an array of socio-economic and environmental factors, which exhibit high variation among countries. Yet, a global analysis of how these factors vary across countries is currently lacking. Here, we investigate how five broad, country-specific socio-economic and environmental indices (Governance, Trade, Environmental Performance, Lifestyle and Education, Innovation) explain country-level (1) established alien species (EAS) richness of eight taxonomic groups, and (2) proactive or reactive capacity to prevent and manage biological invasions and their impacts.

MtEIN2 affects nitrate uptake and accumulation of photosynthetic pigments under phosphate and nitrate deficiency in Medicago truncatula.

Ethylene (ET) controls many facets of plant growth and development under abiotic and biotic stresses. MtEIN2, as a critical element of the ET signaling pathway, is essential in biotic interactions. However, the role of MtEIN2 in responding to abiotic stress, such as combined nutrient deficiency, is less known.

Carbon-biodiversity relationships in a highly diverse subtropical forest.

Carbon-focused climate mitigation strategies are becoming increasingly important in forests. However, with ongoing biodiversity declines we require better knowledge of how much such strategies account for biodiversity. We particularly lack information across multiple trophic levels and on established forests, where the interplay between carbon stocks, stand age, and tree diversity might influence carbon-biodiversity relationships.

Coastal El Niño triggers rapid marine silicate alteration on the seafloor.

Marine silicate alteration plays a key role in the global carbon and cation cycles, although the timeframe of this process in response to extreme weather events is poorly understood. Here we investigate surface sediments across the Peruvian margin before and after extreme rainfall and runoff (coastal El Niño) using Ge/Si ratios and laser-ablated solid and pore fluid Si isotopes (δSi). Pore fluids following the rainfall show elevated Ge/Si ratios (2.

Rethinking the nature of intraspecific variability and its consequences on species coexistence.

Intraspecific variability (IV) has been proposed to explain species coexistence in diverse communities. Assuming, sometimes implicitly, that conspecific individuals can perform differently in the same environment and that IV increases niche overlap, previous studies have found contrasting results regarding the effect of IV on species coexistence. We aim at showing that the large IV observed in data does not mean that conspecific individuals are necessarily different in their response to the environment and that the role of high-dimensional environmental variation in determining IV has largely remained unexplored in forest plant communities.

Impact of in vitro phytohormone treatments on the metabolome of the leafy liverwort Radula complanata (L.) Dumort.

Introduction: Liverworts are a group of non-vascular plants that possess unique metabolism not found in other plants. Many liverwort metabolites have interesting structural and biochemical characteristics, however the fluctuations of these metabolites in response to stressors is largely unknown.

Objectives: To investigate the metabolic stress-response of the leafy liverwort Radula complanata.

Untargeted Metabolomics for Integrative Taxonomy: Metabolomics, DNA Marker-Based Sequencing, and Phenotype Bioimaging.

Integrative taxonomy is a fundamental part of biodiversity and combines traditional morphology with additional methods such as DNA sequencing or biochemistry. Here, we aim to establish untargeted metabolomics for use in chemotaxonomy. We used three thallose liverwort species , , and (order Marchantiales, Ricciaceae) with (order Marchantiales, Lunulariacea) as an outgroup.