Monitoring Terrestrial Ecosystem Resilience Using Earth Observation Data: Identifying Consensus and Limitations Across Metrics.

Resilience is a key feature of ecosystem dynamics reflecting a system's ability to resist and recover from environmental perturbations. Slowing down in the rate of recovery has been used as an early-warning signal for abrupt transitions. Recent advances in Earth observation (EO) vegetation data provide the capability to capture broad-scale resilience patterns and identify regions experiencing resilience loss.

Genomic architecture of the clownfish hybrid Amphiprion leucokranos.

Natural hybridisation is increasingly recognized as playing a significant role in species diversification and adaptive evolution. Amphiprion leucokranos, the naturally occurring clownfish hybrid between A. chrysopterus and A.

Eukaryotic biodiversity of sub-ice water in the marginal ice zone of the European Arctic: A multi-marker eDNA metabarcoding survey.

The effects of climate change, including warming waters, loss of sea ice habitat and the resulting changes in primary production, are inducing shifts in marine communities across the Arctic Ocean. The Arctic marginal ice zone (MIZ) is a highly dynamic ecosystem and is a transition zone between pack ice and the open ocean. It is habitat for a wide range of organisms, including sympagic and pelagic taxa, all of which are affected by the changing physical dynamics of the MIZ.

Continuity in morphological disparity in tropical reef fishes across evolutionary scales.

Tropical reef fishes exhibit a large disparity of organismal morphologies contributing to their astonishing biodiversity. Morphological disparity, scaling from differences among individuals within populations to differences among species, is governed by ecological and evolutionary processes. Here, we examined the relationship between intra- and interspecific disparity in 1111 individuals from 17 tropical reef fish species, representing 10 families with different dispersal abilities, across four Indian Ocean regions.

Vessel anatomy of urban trees varies to favour safety or efficiency depending on site conditions.

Key Message: Urban trees can acclimate to their growth environment through changes in vessel anatomy. Vessel lumen area and vessel frequency following a gradient from park trees to inner-city street trees.

Abstract: Urban trees stand in potentially stressful growth environments occurring along gradients of urban heat and impermeable surface cover and, to survive, can adjust their function and structure.

Environmental DNA Epigenetics Accurately Predicts the Age of Cultured Fish Larvae.

While acquiring age information is crucial for efficient stock management and biodiversity conservation, traditional aging methods fail to offer a universal, non-invasive, and precise way of estimating a wild animal's age. DNA methylation from tissue DNA (tDNA) was recently proposed as a method to overcome these issues and showed more accurate results than telomere-length-based age assessments. Here, we used environmental DNA (eDNA) for the first time as a template for age estimation, focusing on the larval phase (10-24 days post-hatch) of cultured (seabass), a species of major economic and conservation interest.

Unmute biodiversity risks of free trade? The EFTA-Mercosur Agreement (Swiss) case study.

Unlabelled: Sustainability and environmental impact assessments of trade and investment agreements need to address biodiversity more effectively. To showcase this, we examined a report, commissioned by Switzerland, on potential environmental impacts and risks of the trade between Switzerland and the Mercosur under the EFTA-Mercosur Free Trade Agreement. Our analysis focuses on chemical pollution, regulatory impact, duty-free precious minerals, deforestation, and greenhouse gas emission to develop a roadmap for (re-)interpreting (muted) risks on biodiversity in light of the Global Biodiversity Framework.

Functional traits mediate the effect of land use on drivers of community stability within and across trophic levels.

Understanding how land use affects temporal stability is crucial to preserve biodiversity and ecosystem functions. Yet, the mechanistic links between land-use intensity and stability-driving mechanisms remain unclear, with functional traits likely playing a key role. Using 13 years of data from 300 sites in Germany, we tested whether and how trait-based community features mediate the effect of land-use intensity on acknowledged stability drivers (compensatory dynamics, portfolio effect, and dominant species variability), within and across plant and arthropod communities.

Declining precipitation frequency may drive earlier leaf senescence by intensifying drought stress and enhancing drought acclimation.

Precipitation is an important factor influencing the date of foliar senescence, which in turn affects carbon uptake of terrestrial ecosystems. However, the temporal patterns of precipitation frequency and its impact on foliar senescence date remain largely unknown. Using both long-term carbon flux data and satellite observations across the Northern Hemisphere, we show that, after excluding impacts from of temperature, radiation and total precipitation by partial correlation analysis, declining precipitation frequency may drive earlier foliar senescence date from 1982 to 2022.

Global increase in the occurrence and impact of multiyear droughts.

Persistent multiyear drought (MYD) events pose a growing threat to nature and humans in a changing climate. We identified and inventoried global MYDs by detecting spatiotemporally contiguous climatic anomalies, showing that MYDs have become drier, hotter, and led to increasingly diminished vegetation greenness. The global terrestrial land affected by MYDs has increased at a rate of 49,279 ± 14,771 square kilometers per year from 1980 to 2018.

Hydraulic Properties of a Rock-Soil-Root System: Insights From Fraxinus ornus L. Saplings Growing on Different Carbonate Rocks.

Drought impacts trees in varied temporal and spatial patterns, suggesting that heterogeneity of below-ground water stores influences the fate of trees under water stress. Karst ecosystems rely on shallow soil overlying bedrock that can store available water in primary pores. A contribution of rock moisture to tree water status has been previously demonstrated, but actual mechanisms and rates of rock-to-root water delivery remain unknown.

Inflow-modulated inputs of dissolved organic matter fuel carbon dioxide emissions from a large hyper-eutrophic lake.

Terrestrial dissolved organic matter (DOM) is potentially reactive and, upon entering lake ecosystems, can be readily degraded to low-molecular-weight organic matter and dissolved CO. However, to date, there has been limited research on the links between long-term variation in the composition of DOM and CO emissions from lakes. Lake Taihu is a large, shallow, and hyper-eutrophic lake where DOM composition is strongly influenced by inputs from the rivers draining cultivated and urbanized landscapes.

The memory of past water abundance shapes trees 7 years later.

Premise: Tree structure and function are constrained by and acclimate to climatic conditions. Drought limits plant growth and carbon acquisition and can result in "legacy" effects that last beyond the period of water stress. Leaf and twig-level legacy effects of past water abundance, such as that experienced by trees that established under wetter conditions are unknown.

A global comparison of surface and subsurface microbiomes reveals large-scale biodiversity gradients, and a marine-terrestrial divide.

Subsurface environments are among Earth's largest habitats for microbial life. Yet, until recently, we lacked adequate data to accurately differentiate between globally distributed marine and terrestrial surface and subsurface microbiomes. Here, we analyzed 478 archaeal and 964 bacterial metabarcoding datasets and 147 metagenomes from diverse and widely distributed environments.

Opportunities and challenges of using human excreta-derived fertilizers in agriculture: A review of suitability, environmental impact and societal acceptance.

Human excreta-derived fertilizers (HEDFs) are organic fertilizers made from human excreta sources such as urine and feces. HEDFs can contribute to a sustainable and circular agriculture by reuse of valuable nutrients that would otherwise be discarded. However, HEDFs may contain contaminants such as pharmaceuticals, persistent organic compounds, heavy metals and pathogens which can negatively affect plant, water and soil quality.

Decoupling of Tree-Ring Cellulose δO and δH Highlighted by Their Contrasting Relationships to Climate and Tree Intrinsic Variables.

Oxygen (δO) and hydrogen (δH) stable isotope ratios are tightly coupled in precipitation and, albeit damped, in leaf water, but are often decoupled in tree-ring cellulose. The environmental and physiological conditions in which this decoupling occurs are not yet well understood. We investigated the relationships between δO and δH and tree-ring width (TRW), tree crown volume, tree age and climate in silver fir and Douglas-fir and found substantial differences between δO and δH.

Projecting Untruncated Climate Change Effects on Species' Climate Suitability: Insights From an Alpine Country.

Climate projections for continental Europe indicate drier summers, increased annual precipitation, and less snowy winters, which are expected to cause shifts in species' distributions. Yet, most regions/countries currently lack comprehensive climate-driven biodiversity projections across taxonomic groups, challenging effective conservation efforts. To address this gap, our study evaluated the potential effects of climate change on the biodiversity of an alpine country of Europe, Switzerland.

Community standards and future opportunities for synthetic communities in plant-microbiota research.

Harnessing beneficial microorganisms is seen as a promising approach to enhance sustainable agriculture production. Synthetic communities (SynComs) are increasingly being used to study relevant microbial activities and interactions with the plant host. Yet, the lack of community standards limits the efficiency and progress in this important area of research.

No Future Growth Enhancement Expected at the Northern Edge for European Beech due to Continued Water Limitation.

With ongoing global warming, increasing water deficits promote physiological stress on forest ecosystems with negative impacts on tree growth, vitality, and survival. How individual tree species will react to increased drought stress is therefore a key research question to address for carbon accounting and the development of climate change mitigation strategies. Recent tree-ring studies have shown that trees at higher latitudes will benefit from warmer temperatures, yet this is likely highly species-dependent and less well-known for more temperate tree species.

Global influence of soil texture on ecosystem water limitation.

Low soil moisture and high vapour pressure deficit (VPD) cause plant water stress and lead to a variety of drought responses, including a reduction in transpiration and photosynthesis. When soils dry below critical soil moisture thresholds, ecosystems transition from energy to water limitation as stomata close to alleviate water stress. However, the mechanisms behind these thresholds remain poorly defined at the ecosystem scale.

Enhancing economic multifunctionality without compromising multidiversity and ecosystem multifunctionality via forest enrichment.

Enriching tree species-poor and less productive forests by introducing economically valuable species is a strategy proposed for achieving multipurpose forest management. However, empirical evidence from managed and mature forests on the impact of this enrichment on ecological (multidiversity and ecosystem multifunctionality) and economic dimensions remains scarce, particularly when nonnative species are used. Here, we propose and test a framework that integrates economic multifunctionality, encompassing timber production-oriented goals and resistance against disturbances, with multidiversity and ecosystem multifunctionality in European beech forest stands enriched with conifers.

Early-successional species show higher tolerance of drought than late-successional species across Europe.

Climate change is exacerbating forest disturbances through more frequent and more intense droughts and fires, undermining their ability to recover from such disturbances. The response of fast-growing early-successional species to drought is poorly understood, despite their key role in ecological succession and their ability to enhance ecosystem resilience. Here, we compared the growth responses to drought events of three early-successional species (silver birch, black poplar, and Scots pine) with that of one late-successional species (European beech) across their natural distribution ranges in Europe.

Consumer biodiversity increases organic nutrient availability across aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems.

Human land-use intensification threatens arthropod (for example, insect and spider) biodiversity across aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. Insects and spiders play critical roles in ecosystems by accumulating and synthesizing organic nutrients such as polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs). However, links between biodiversity and nutrient content of insect and spider communities have yet to be quantified.