Evidence for a chemical arms race between cuckoo wasps of the genus Hedychrum and their distantly related host apoid wasps.

Background: Brood parasites can exert strong selection pressure on their hosts. Many brood parasites escape their detection by mimicking sensory cues of their hosts. However, there is little evidence whether or not the hosts are able to escape the parasites' mimicry by changing these cues.

Grazing and ecosystem service delivery in global drylands.

Grazing represents the most extensive use of land worldwide. Yet its impacts on ecosystem services remain uncertain because pervasive interactions between grazing pressure, climate, soil properties, and biodiversity may occur but have never been addressed simultaneously. Using a standardized survey at 98 sites across six continents, we show that interactions between grazing pressure, climate, soil, and biodiversity are critical to explain the delivery of fundamental ecosystem services across drylands worldwide.

A poisoned apple: First insights into community assembly and networks of the fungal pathobiome of healthy-looking senescing leaves of temperate trees in mixed forest ecosystem.

Despite the abundance of observations of foliar pathogens, our knowledge is severely lacking regarding how the potential fungal pathobiome is structured and which processes determine community assembly. In this study, we addressed these questions by analysing the potential fungal pathobiome associated with the senescing leaves and needles of 12 temperate tree species. We compared fungal plant pathogen load in the senescing leaves/needles and demonstrated that healthy-looking leaves/needles are inhabited by diverse and distinct fungal plant pathogens.

The fate of terrestrial biodiversity during an oceanic island volcanic eruption.

Volcanic activity provides a unique opportunity to study the ecological responses of organisms to catastrophic environmental destruction as an essential driver of biodiversity change on islands. However, despite this great scientific interest, no study of the biodiversity at an erupting volcano has yet been undertaken. On La Palma (Canary archipelago), we quantified the main species affected and their fate during the 85-day eruption (September-December 2021).

Dark side of a bio-based and biodegradable plastic? Assessment of pathogenic microbes associated with poly(butylene succinate-co-adipate) under ambient and future climates using next-generation sequencing.

Bio-based and biodegradable plastic mulching films have been proposed to replace the non-biodegradable plastic mulch films to solve plastic pollution problems in agricultural soils. However, the impact of bio-based and biodegradable plastics on plant and human health remains largely unexplored. Here, we aimed to assess the risk under field conditions of a bio-based and biodegradable poly(butylene succinate-co-adipate; PBSA), a widely used mulching film as carrier of potential pathogenic microorganisms (bacteria and fungi) at ambient and future climate conditions.

Capture of mammal excreta by Nepenthes is an effective heterotrophic nutrition strategy.

Background And Aims: While isotopic enrichment of nitrogen (15N) and carbon (13C) is often used to determine whether carnivorous plant species capture and assimilate nutrients from supplemental sources such as invertebrate prey or mammal excreta (heterotrophic nutrition), little is known about how successful the different strategies deployed by carnivorous plants are at obtaining supplemental nutrition. The collection of mammalian faeces by Nepenthes (tropical pitcher plants) is the result of a highly specialized biological mutualism that results in heterotrophic nitrogen gain; however, it remains unknown how effective this strategy is in comparison to Nepenthes species not known to collect mammalian faeces.

Methods: We examined how isotopic enrichment varied in the diverse genus Nepenthes, among species producing pitchers for invertebrate capture and species exhibiting mutualisms for the collection of mammal excreta.

On the path from xylem hydraulic failure to downstream cell death.

Xylem hydraulic failure (HF) has been identified as a ubiquitous factor in triggering drought-induced tree mortality through the damage induced by the progressive dehydration of plant living cells. However, fundamental evidence of the mechanistic link connecting xylem HF to cell death has not been identified yet. The main aim of this study was to evaluate, at the leaf level, the relationship between loss of hydraulic function due to cavitation and cell death under drought conditions and discern how this relationship varied across species with contrasting resistances to cavitation.

Perceptions of ecosystem services: Comparing socio-cultural and environmental influences.

Ecosystem services such as food provisioning, climate regulation, nutrient cycling, or recreation in open landscapes underpin human wellbeing. They are highly dependent on land use, land cover and utilization pattern as well as environmental factors like climate, topography and soil. In consequence, ecosystem services supply shows a high spatial variability.

A novel approach to extract, purify, and fractionate microplastics from environmental matrices by isopycnic ultracentrifugation.

The increasing accumulation of microplastics (MP) in the environment is considered one of the most important environmental challenges of our times. Reliable extraction and detection methods for MP in environmental samples are essential for determining the extent of pollution and assessing ecological risks. However, extraction of MP from complex environmental matrices such as soil remains technically challenging.

More losses than gains during one century of plant biodiversity change in Germany.

Long-term analyses of biodiversity data highlight a 'biodiversity conservation paradox': biological communities show substantial species turnover over the past century, but changes in species richness are marginal. Most studies, however, have focused only on the incidence of species, and have not considered changes in local abundance. Here we asked whether analysing changes in the cover of plant species could reveal previously unrecognized patterns of biodiversity change and provide insights into the underlying mechanisms.

ReSurveyGermany: Vegetation-plot time-series over the past hundred years in Germany.

Vegetation-plot resurvey data are a main source of information on terrestrial biodiversity change, with records reaching back more than one century. Although more and more data from re-sampled plots have been published, there is not yet a comprehensive open-access dataset available for analysis. Here, we compiled and harmonised vegetation-plot resurvey data from Germany covering almost 100 years.

Dung-visiting beetle diversity is mainly affected by land use, while community specialization is driven by climate.

Dung beetles are important actors in the self-regulation of ecosystems by driving nutrient cycling, bioturbation, and pest suppression. Urbanization and the sprawl of agricultural areas, however, destroy natural habitats and may threaten dung beetle diversity. In addition, climate change may cause shifts in geographical distribution and community composition.

Increase in carbon input by enhanced fine root turnover in a long-term warmed forest soil.

Fine root litter represents an important carbon input to soils, but the effect of global warming on fine root turnover (FRT) is hardly explored in forest ecosystems. Understanding tree fine roots' response to warming is crucial for predicting soil carbon dynamics and the functioning of forests as a sink for atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO). We studied fine root production (FRP) with ingrowth cores and used radiocarbon signatures of first-order, second- to third-order, and bulk fine roots to estimate fine root turnover times after 8 and 14 years of soil warming (+4 °C) in a temperate forest.

Global patterns of vascular plant alpha diversity.

Global patterns of regional (gamma) plant diversity are relatively well known, but whether these patterns hold for local communities, and the dependence on spatial grain, remain controversial. Using data on 170,272 georeferenced local plant assemblages, we created global maps of alpha diversity (local species richness) for vascular plants at three different spatial grains, for forests and non-forests. We show that alpha diversity is consistently high across grains in some regions (for example, Andean-Amazonian foothills), but regional 'scaling anomalies' (deviations from the positive correlation) exist elsewhere, particularly in Eurasian temperate forests with disproportionally higher fine-grained richness and many African tropical forests with disproportionally higher coarse-grained richness.

The spatial distribution of rhizosphere microbial activities under drought: water availability is more important than root-hair-controlled exudation.

Root hairs and soil water content are crucial in controlling the release and diffusion of root exudates and shaping profiles of biochemical properties in the rhizosphere. But whether root hairs can offset the negative impacts of drought on microbial activity remains unknown. Soil zymography, C imaging and neutron radiography were combined to identify how root hairs and soil moisture affect rhizosphere biochemical properties.

A novel methanotroph potentially couples methane oxidation to iodate reduction.

Methane oxidizing microbes play a key role in reducing the emission of this potent greenhouse gas to the atmosphere. The known versatility of the recently discovered anaerobic methanotrophs is limited. Here, we report a novel uncultured species, , with the genetic potential of iodate respiration from biofilm in iodine-rich cavern spring water.

Distance decay 2.0 - A global synthesis of taxonomic and functional turnover in ecological communities.

Aim: Understanding the variation in community composition and species abundances (i.e., β-diversity) is at the heart of community ecology.

Associated bacterial microbiome responds opportunistic once algal host Scenedesmus vacuolatus is attacked by endoparasite Amoeboaphelidium protococcarum.

The interactions of microalgae and their associated microbiomes have come to the fore of applied phycological research in recent years. However, the functional mechanisms of microalgal interactions remain largely unknown. Here, we examine functional protein patterns of the microalgae Scenedesmus vacuolatus and its associated bacterial community during algal infection by the endoparasite Amoeboaphelidium protococcarum.

Ectomycorrhizal and non-mycorrhizal rhizosphere fungi increase root-derived C input to soil and modify enzyme activities: A C pulse labelling of Picea abies seedlings.

Consequences of interactions between ectomycorrhizal fungi (EcMF) and non-mycorrhizal rhizosphere fungi (NMRF) for plant carbon (C) allocation belowground and nutrient cycling in soil remain unknown. To address this topic, we performed a mesocosm study with Norway spruce seedlings [Picea abies (L.) H.

Links among Microbial Communities, Soil Properties and Functions: Are Fungi the Sole Players in Decomposition of Bio-Based and Biodegradable Plastic?

The incomplete degradation of bio-based and biodegradable plastics (BBPs) in soils causes multiple threats to soil quality, human health, and food security. Plastic residuals can interact with soil microbial communities. We aimed to link the structure and enzyme-mediated functional traits of a microbial community composition that were present during poly (butylene succinate-co-butylene adipate (PBSA) decomposition in soil with (PSN) and without (PS) the addition of nitrogen fertilizer ((NH)SO).

Reproductive Isolation Among Three Nocturnal Moth-Pollinated Sympatric Species (Orchidaceae).

Comparison and quantification of multiple pre- and post-pollination barriers to interspecific hybridization are important to understand the factors promoting reproductive isolation. Such isolating factors have been studied recently in many flowering plant species which seek after the general roles and relative strengths of different pre- and post-pollination barriers. In this study, we quantified six isolating factors (ecogeographic isolation, phenological isolation, pollinator isolation, pollinia-pistil interactions, fruit production, and seed development) that could possibly be acting as reproductive barriers at different stages among three sympatric species (, , and ).

Future climate change enhances the complexity of plastisphere microbial co-occurrence networks, but does not significantly affect the community assembly.

Biobased and biodegradable plastics have been intensively used in agriculture as mulching films. They provide a distinctive habitat for soil microbes, yet much less is known about the community assembly and interactions of plastisphere microbiota in soils under future climate change. For the first time, we explored the relative importance of ecological processes and the co-occurrence networks of plastic-associated microbes under ambient and future climates.

Trace elements in public drinking water in Chinese cities: Insights from their health risks and mineral nutrition assessments.

The trace elements in the public drinking water have a duality: on the one hand, trace elements play an important role in maintaining human metabolism; on the other hand, high trace elements levels lead to significant health risks. To determine the impacts of trace elements in the public drinking water on physical health in China, water samples were collected from 314 Chinese cities to analyze the concentrations and spatial distributions of trace elements on a national scale. On this basis, the non-carcinogenic health risk assessments and the nutrient-based scores of trace elements (NSTEs) were applied to evaluate the public drinking water quality in terms of safety and nutrition.

In-depth characterization revealed polymer type and chemical content specific effects of microplastic on Dreissena bugensis.

In aquatic ecosystems, filter feeders like mussels are particularly vulnerable to microplastics (MP). However, little is known about how the polymer type and the associated properties (like additives or remaining monomers) of MP impact organisms, as the predominant type of MP used for effect studies on the organismic level are micron grade polystyrene spheres, without considering their chemical composition. Therefore, we exposed the freshwater mussel Dreissena bugensis (D.