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Here we introduce the BIODESERT survey, the first systematic field survey devoted to evaluating the joint impacts of grazing by domestic livestock and climate on the structure and functioning of dryland ecosystems worldwide. We describe the major characteristics and the field protocols used in this survey and the organizational aspects followed to carry it out succesfully.

In this work, we attempted to contrast three different modeling approaches to understand the population dynamics of immature bees, adult bees and the honey produced in the hive. From these three modeling approaches, we conclude that honey production is reduced due to the decrease in the total number of bees within the colony and due to an external stress factor, which could be climate variability, pesticides, parasites such as the Varroa mite, or habitat loss, among others.

Larvae of phantom midges are very sensitive to some pesticides, and populations can be severely affected by relatively low doses. The number of generations these flies produce each year is critical to their potential to recover from pesticide exposure, but this information has not been confirmed precisely. We found strong evidence that one species of phantom midge can have at least four generations per year. This evidence can be used to improve regulatory assessment of pesticides.

Our work presents a novel set of analyses to understand the geographic distribution of the disease vector ticks Dermacentor marginatus and D. reticulatus and summarize model uncertainties for interpreting results and identifying appropriate public health actions. We estimate the current potential distribution of important disease vectors, D. marginatus and D. reticulatus, and more importantly the future potential distribution of the species in response to global climate change in coming decades.

Landscape ecologists often use virtual or imaginary landscapes to explore how landscapes can effect ecological processes. In a similar manner, procedural modelling algorithms are used in computer graphics for the creation of virtual or imaginary worlds used in movies and computer games. Perlin noise is a procedural modelling algorithm that could be very useful for landscape ecologists, and this work explains and translates Perlin noise for landscape ecologists.

Biocrusts in arid and semiarid regions interact with soil microbes and plants. The knowledge of the spatial scale of the interactions adds value to crusts' use for plant and soil restoration. Soil sampling was confined to an area with Erica spp. shrubs interspaced by crust cover (Cladonia rangiformis) or uncovered at different distances from the base of the shrubs towards the periphery. The community composition and the microbial networks showed response to spatial heterogeneity.

We conducted a study on the response of plantation forests to climate change in the eastern Tibetan Plateau. Our study combined dendrochronology (basal area increment, BAI) and remote sensing (normalized difference vegetation index, NDVI) and found that tree growth was significantly correlated with drought index and temperature, and there was a significant positive correlation between BAI and NDVI. NDVI can be used to study the response of plantations to climate change.

We highlight the arrival of 24 655 seeds in the experiment. We found that depending on how far the artificial perches are from the forest fragment, different seed communities are formed. It is also worth mentioning the extensive deposition of the alien species Australian cheesewood. The Tyrannidae bird family was the most represented. Artificial perches are efficient to increase seed rain in the fallow area but should be used with caution in landscapes with the presence of alien species.

We re-evaluate a recently published observation of a spider preying on a bat which made the news internationally and highlighted the potential negative impact of the spider. Spiders are not well loved creatures and often fall victim to false or exaggerated claims in the media. In the current case, we believe the authors' lack of familiarity with bat biology led them to an erroneous conclusion of predation, which was echoed by the media, when no evidence was shown to support this.

The dispersal of soil nematodes was not affected by plant spatial configurations, which mostly varied according to their life-history strategy. However, creeping bentgrass grown in a more clustered spatial configuration developed a larger aboveground biomass, which was coupled with a reduction in biomass of subsequently grown ryegrass and plantain. The negative plant–soil feedback may be attributed to the depleted soil nutrients by the stimulated plant growth due to plant–nematode interactions.