Land cover change is a threat to wildlife globally. It may also impact the gut microbiome harbored by wildlife, with implications for their health, conservation, and One Health more broadly. Bats are a diverse group of mammals that can be found in a range of habitats, with differing degrees of anthropogenic disturbance. Here, we analyzed the V3–V4 region of 16S rRNA from fecal samples from 109 individual little free-tail bats (Mops pumilus) in northeastern Eswatini. We aimed to describe the species composition, richness, and community structure of the gut microbiome and identify and potentially pathogenic bacteria that M. pumilusMycoplasmaRickettsiaSalmonellaBartonellaCampylobacter
We studied the growth and bud formation of an evergreen and a deciduous oak species in a Mediterranean area. The phenology of 15 individuals per species was recorded over 4 years and organogenesis in apical buds in two individuals per species over 1 year. Both species showed similar seasonal patterns, although bud opening was later in the evergreen. Summer growth competed with bud formation, and heavy fruit crops reduced bud size and flower number the following year, influencing growth and reproduction.
Vegetative growth is a two-phase process involving slow cell division followed by potentially rapid cell expansion. In seasonal climates, trees adjust these developmental sequences to exploit favourable growth periods optimally. However, elucidating the precise mechanistic links between environmental drivers and developmental processes in trees remains challenging.Detailed analyses of apical bud organogenesis, and phenology, are used to study the coexistence of the evergreen Quercus ilexballotaQ. fagineaQ. ilexQ. faginea. Nevertheless, in both species, organogenesis commenced in early spring (bud swelling or bud burst) and had finished by mid-September, with bud development completed by November. Winter buds contained fully preformed embryonic shoots with well-developed male inflorescences and initiated female inflorescence meristems.The results suggest that organogenesis and shoot extension may compete for resources during summer, potentially explaining the alternating pattern of years of vigorous primary growth observed in Q. ilexQ. faginea. Moreover, the unexpectedly early initiation of female inflorescence meristems in both species – relative to key phases of bud and fruit development – suggests that the advanced stages of fruit development described in mast years may overlap with the initiation of inflorescence meristems and the formation of new buds. This could explain the occurrence of smaller buds and reduced flowering in the year following mast events – a pattern not observed in years of normal fruiting.
Island ecosystems often harbour unique and vulnerable species, yet many remain poorly documented. In the Azores archipelago, two extant bat species are known to occur: the endemic Nyctalus azoreumPipistrellus maderensis. On Flores Island, part of the remote western group, only unidentified pipistrelle bats had previously been recorded. Here, we combined acoustic monitoring and genetic analysis to assess the occurrence, identity, and ecological patterns of bats on Flores. A pipistrelle specimen was genetically analysed, confirming its identity as P. maderensisPipistrellus maderensisNyctalus azoreumN. azoreum
Understanding reproductive phenology in tropical rainforests is important for predicting forest dynamics, ecosystem processes, and forest vulnerability. Long-term plant phenology datasets from tropical rainforests are relatively rare, particularly in Oceania. Here, canopy observations collected by a single observer using a forest gondola system generated a 15-year weekly flowering and fruiting dataset of 132 species in the Wet Tropics of Queensland, Australia. Using this dataset, we investigated seasonal and long-term reproductive phenology at the community and species level. At the community level, flowering was strongly seasonal and concentrated in the wet season, while fruiting showed weaker seasonality and was generally concentrated in the dry season. The timing of peak flowering and fruiting activity differed between abiotic and biotic groups. Over the 15-year study period, some species advanced or delayed flowering and fruiting. Flowering timing was largely stable across both biotically and abiotically dispersed species, with most species showing no significant change. Changes in fruiting timing were more common among biotically dispersed species, including both advances and delays, whereas most abiotically dispersed species showed no significant change. Annual cycles were most common in flowering, whereas supra-annual cycles were predominant in fruiting. At the species level, reproductive activity occurred throughout the year but varied markedly in timing, with many species displaying supra-annual flowering and fruiting. Supra-annual flowering was more likely in biotically dispersed species, while supra-annual fruiting was more likely in species with larger seeds. Finally, we present the first comprehensive phenological calendar for 81 tree species in the Wet Tropics rainforests of Queensland. These findings provide a foundation for future ecological research and restoration practice in the region.
Frugivorous bats of the genus VampyrodesV. majorV. caraccioliV. majorV. caraccioliV. caraccioli, raising concerns about their long-term viability and the potential disruptions to seed dispersal networks. Conversely, while V. majorVampyrodes
In exchange for the carbon assimilated by plants, mycorrhizal fungi increase plant nutrient supply, protect them against pathogens and drought, and influence soil formation and aggregation, among other benefits. These processes, in turn, affect the diversity of vegetation and various ecosystem functions, including biomass production. While plant functional diversity is known to mediate mycorrhizal effects on dryland diversity and functioning, experimental tests of such effects are scarce. We conducted an experiment using simplified grassland communities with forbs and grasses to evaluate the effect of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) and their diversity on plant biomass production. At the community level, the impact of AMF richness on plant biomass production was negative, with shoot and root production consistently decreasing with higher AMF richness. However, the biomass response was somewhat mediated by plant functional group identity, revealing that forb species benefit more than grasses from a diverse AMF community. Specifically, leaf production was controlled by grass dominance, leading to grass-dominant communities with low-diversity AMF inoculum producing the most shoot biomass. This research suggests that a full understanding of AMF–plant interactions requires accounting for the complexities of nutrient economy mechanisms, and joint assessment of AMF community diversity and plant functional traits or groups enables us to disentangle these mechanisms in semi-arid grasslands.
Understanding how local management and landscape structure influence biodiversity in tropical croplands is crucial for reconciling food production and conservation. Here, we examined how field- and landscape-scale characteristics relate to bird species richness in lowland rain-fed rice fields of northern Guinea-Bissau. Birds were surveyed along nine transects repeatedly sampled during two rice-growing cycles (2021–2022), and species were assigned to four trophic guilds: frugivores, granivores, invertivores, and omnivores. Field variables (parcel area, tree cover, field width) and landscape metrics (fragmentation, diversity, edge complexity) were derived from satellite imagery across multiple spatial scales. Species richness for each transect survey was estimated using Bayesian models, and linear mixed models were used to relate richness to environmental predictors and to principal ecological gradients summarizing field- and landscape-level structure.A total of 150 bird species were identified, with an estimated mean species richness of 18.2 species per transect survey. At the field scale, tree cover increased invertivore and frugivore richness by 17.0 % and 16.4 % of the standard deviation, respectively, while wider fields supported higher overall richness and higher richness of granivores and omnivores, with increases of 2.9 %, 5.6 %, 18.4 %, and 14.0 % of the standard deviation, respectively. At the landscape level, bird richness varied with composition and configuration in a scale- and guild-dependent manner: frugivores, invertivores, and omnivores responded primarily at broader scales (1600 mm
Extremely small and isolated remnant populations represent an overlooked but critical conservation challenge for many threatened plant species. Although such populations may still be recorded as extant, demographic collapse and regeneration failure often place them at high risk of local extinction. Here we report the rapid decline of a micro-population of Glyptostrobus pensilis, a globally threatened relict conifer, discovered in a sacred forest associated with the millennium-old Nanhua Temple in southern China. Field observations identified only nine mature individuals, all of which were centuries old and showed signs of physiological deterioration. At least two trees had already died, and no seedlings or saplings were observed, indicating long-term recruitment failure and demographic non-viability. Despite its location within a culturally protected landscape, the population lacks ecological management and habitat restoration. This case highlights the limitations of passive protection and illustrates the risk of “invisible extinction” in sacred or cultural refugia. We argue that micro-populations should be recognized as high-priority conservation units and recommend the establishment of monitoring thresholds, emergency demographic interventions, habitat restoration, and integration of cultural landscapes into science-based conservation strategies.
The blueberry is a globally important fruit crop with growing demand that depends on insect pollinators for market-quality fruits. However, pollination is far from a simple process and is affected by several interacting factors. Among these, flower morphology plays a key role in determining which visitors are pollinators, the visitation rates and the occurrence of nectar robbing. In this study, we seek to identify the main pollinators for several blueberry cultivars, and relate insect floral visitors and visitation rates to flower morphology. To this end, we conducted a study in an experimental field in the Centro region of Portugal, with 19 blueberry cultivars growing under the same conditions. Flower visitors were observed, and their identity and the number of flowers visited were recorded in 5 min periods distributed throughout the day. Flower morphological traits related to pollination were measured using 6–10 flowers per individual bush. Analysis of flower morphological traits reveals variation among cultivars. Data also indicate that flower morphology influences the behaviour of insect visitors. We found three main visitors: Apis mellifera, which tended to visit cultivars with smaller flowers; Anthophora plumipes, which tended to visit cultivars with larger flowers; and Bombus terrestris, which visited cultivars with intermediate-sized flowers. Overall, our findings indicate that cultivar flower morphology and pollinator proboscis size are important in blueberry pollination, and corolla size variation should be considered in the selection of cultivars for field design. Selecting cultivars that best suit local pollination services and pollination management strategy (managed pollinators or a natural pollinator community) is key to improving production.
The spatial arrangement of individuals within plant populations is largely shaped by seed dispersal mechanisms, resulting in characteristic patterns of individual and genetic aggregation. These configurations can directly influence individual fitness, especially in insect-pollinated and self-incompatible species, where neighbourhood density and genetic relatedness may influence pollinator visitation and the likelihood of compatible mating events. In this study, we analysed a natural population of Moricandia moricandioides, a hermaphroditic, self-incompatible, and insect-pollinated species. All individuals in a 15 m×15 mM. moricandioides, contributing to our understanding of how ecological and genetic neighbourhoods shape plant reproductive strategies.
In studies of the germination of species with indehiscent fruits containing a single seed, it is often assumed that all ripe fruits contain a seed capable of germinating. This is not always the case, and through experiments with Salvia rosmarinus, we demonstrate that using data from seeded fruits allows for more robust and reliable conclusions to be drawn about the factors affecting reproduction or germination than when data from all fruits are used.
In studies on the reproduction and germination of species with indehiscent fruits containing a single seed, it is often assumed that all fruits that reach maturity contain a seed capable of generating a new plant. This is not always the case, and failing to take this into account can lead to erroneous conclusions regarding the factors affecting reproduction or germination in plants.The research team illustrates this issue by analysing the effects of temperature, soil water potential and light exposure on the germination of Salvia rosmarinus
Fungal ecology is often studied using short fragments of Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). These DNA fragments can approximate fungal species using different computational methods but the best choice is not clear. We analysed large, simulated fungal communities to overcome the limitations of experimental work and compare different analysis workflows. Our results identify the analysis choices which give the closest match to reality. This should help guide study design in fungal ecology.
To capture the complexity of fungal communities, microbial ecologists must often resort to amplicon sequencing. Amplicon sequences are obtained from the nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (ITS), which is currently used as a marker for fungal taxonomic identity. Raw amplicon sequences are analysed using either amplicon sequence variants (ASVs) or operational taxonomic units (OTUs). However, these two approaches are conceptually different, and there is disagreement over which is more suitable for fungal sequence data.In order to address this problem, we used published fungal genomes to simulate amplicon sequencing of the ITS1 and ITS2 regions of fungal communities with diversity spanning 50 to 800 strains. These data were then analysed via six pipelines with differences at key steps in read processing and ASV/OTU retrieval. In addition, we confirmed the results with sequencing data from a previously published 189-strain mock community.Our results show that the choice between ASV and OTU has only a minor effect on the end result and that the most important step in the analysis pipeline is the extraction of the ITS region from the short-read sequences. Moreover, we recommend sequencing with as large a library size as possible, joining the reads to perform ITS extraction and then clustering the sequences into OTUs. We hope that this will help microbial ecologists choose the most appropriate approach to answer their specific questions.
Urban soil plays a fundamental role in supporting a range of ecosystem services important for both human health and urban resilience. While many ecosystem services rely on soil microbial communities, studies on urban soil microbes have remained scarce. A major complexity in understanding urban soil bacteria is the heterogeneity of soil throughout the city. In this study, we investigated the urban soil bacterial communities of street tree areas in relation to soil characteristics. We sampled soils under London plane trees at 20 street sites throughout the city of Antwerp (Belgium) and looked into the horizontal and vertical spatial variation in soil bacterial communities. Using 16S  rRNA gene amplicon sequencing, we found great bacterial diversity (over 1800 bacterial genera) and heterogeneity in the urban soil of a single city. Our findings suggest that, first and foremost, urban soil community variation is determined by the sampling site, indicating that samples grouped together in space are more similar. Additionally, but to a smaller extent, the bacterial communities are affected by soil characteristics as is the case for non-urban soils. Significant relationships were observed between composition and soil pH, moisture, density, depth, air pollution, and land use class (all p< 0.01). We found that soils, especially those with relatively low moisture content in the city under study, showed a decline in soil bacterial biodiversity with decreasing moisture content (p= 0.047), indicating that soil moisture content may be an important aspect of sustainable urban soil management. Furthermore, soils under trees with a smaller circumference varied greatly in bacterial community composition relative to soils under trees with a bigger circumference, which were significantly more alike in bacterial composition. This indicates that, to better predict urban resilience, factors such as soil and vegetation development should be taken into account. In conclusion, we recommend including microbial soil diversity in urban sustainable soil management and focusing future urban soil research on understanding what the desired microbial functions and compositions for urban soils are.
Global nutrient cycles (biogeochemical flows of nitrogen and phosphorus; N, P) are at a tipping point. In aquatic systems, natural food webs facilitate nutrient digestion and decomposition, but nutrient assimilation is poor. The current approach to understanding and managing nutrient cycles in aquatic systems needs to integrate animal nutritionist thinking. It is not the supply or stoichiometry of elements (carbon (C), N, P) in the food web but the supply and stoichiometry of specific biomolecular packages in which they come (aka Rings of Power) that decides the state of nutrient cycles (slow/fast, low/high) in all trophic levels above primary producers. Animal nutritionists often maximize N and P retention efficiency in animal production systems by expanding the scope of homeostatic control of nutrient deposition in animals. By spiking specific biomolecular packages in the diet (e.g., Rings of Power, such as specific amino acids, lipid classes, carbohydrate subfractions like starch), it is possible to alleviate energy–nutrient transfer barriers from food to biomass. Under the influence of “Rings of Power”, free N and P excretion is minimized and protein (N-bound), phospholipid, and apatite-rich (P-bound) biomass is maximized. Combining such expertise with food web (plankton) ecology, we can develop nature-based, regenerative aquaculture solutions in hypertrophic inland standing waterbodies (which accumulate nutrients) to slow down N and P cycles by curbing the metabolic N and P throughput of consumer communities (omnivorous fish, zooplankton) and suppress eutrophication.
Hedgerows are key components in the ecological functionality of mid-western European agricultural landscapes that have seen significant decline in the last 100 years due to intensive agriculture management. These infrastructures promote certain species in and around themselves that contribute to ecosystem services and disservices in farmland that have great socioeconomic fallouts. Few studies have explored how hedgerows shape biological communities and ecosystem (dis)services. Particularly, no study seems to have focused on ants (Formicidae). In the present research work, we explored the effects of both the distance from and management of hedgerows on ant communities. Ants were sampled in Allier, France, using 300 pitfall traps set at five different distances from 20 different hedgerows, categorized as either shrubby or arboreal. To perform taxonomic and functional analysis, we identified ants at the species level and built a functional traits database. We first observed that species richness was higher in arboreal hedgerows compared to shrubby ones. Factorial correspondence analysis (FCA) and redundancy analysis (RDA) also revealed a distance gradient, with greater compositional differences between communities near the hedgerows than those further away. Three functional indices, functional evenness (FEve), functional mean nearest neighbor distance (FNND) and functional dispersion (FDis), were correlated either with the distance gradient or the hedgerow type (arboreal or shrubby). We then identified several functional response traits that drive the functional diversity differences, such as behavioral dominance, worker polymorphism and colony foundation type. Four effect traits we presumed to be ecosystem (dis)services were studied and three of them – soil tilling, insect predation and aphid breeding/nectar thief – were affected in different ways by the distance from and management of hedgerows. This study offers valuable insights into how hedgerows shape agrobiodiversity, generally promoting outcomes beneficial to agriculture. While arboreal hedgerows may support greater ant diversity, shrubby hedgerows appear to provide (dis)services more closely aligned with agroecosystem needs. As a significantly more resilient alternative to intensive agricultural practices, which also threaten biodiversity, we argue that hedgerows will hold a strategic role in the necessary agroecological transition.
Background and aims:Scope:Results:Conclusions:
Climate change may reduce available habitat for native species, while simultaneously increasing suitable habitat for invasive species, which then compete with or predate on native species. Thus, climate change and invasive species can interact synergistically to negatively affect native species. It is important to identify climate refugia that are likely to be both suitable for native species and unsuitable for invasive species, under both present and future climate conditions. We propose a refugia habitat metric (RHM) based on ecological niche modelling. We demonstrate the utility of the metric via a case study of an endemic freshwater crayfish, or kōura (Paranephrops planifrons), which is threatened by both climate change and predation from the invasive brown bullhead catfish (Ameiurus nebulosus) in Aotearoa / New Zealand. We used maximum entropy (MaxEnt) ecological niche models to predict current and future habitat suitability for the two species across Aotearoa / New Zealand. By the period 2080–2100, suitable habitat will increase across the northern and western North Island for catfish, while suitable habitat for kōura will decrease overall and shift southwards and towards more mountainous regions. Using the refugia habitat metric, we identified areas of habitat within the current range of kōura, with significant potential refugia habitat outside the species current range. Using the refugia prioritization metric will allow conservation managers to identify habitat for protection and potentially translocation target sites for vulnerable native species.
Reproductive behavior in sharks remains poorly understood, with direct observations of mating reported in only a few species. The blue shark (Prionace glauca) is a widely distributed, placental viviparous species, yet direct evidence of mating behavior remains undocumented. Here, we describe the first visual documentation of a putative mating attempt involving blue sharks in the Bay of Biscay, off the Basque coast, observed during a shark ecotourism dive in July 2023. An adult male and an immature female exhibited a sequence of behaviors consistent with shark courtship, including parallel swimming, following, a courtship bite, and an inversion of both individuals. Additionally, we documented females with mating scars across 4 consecutive years, the majority of which were considered immature. These observations align with prior reports suggesting mating attempts between adult males and immature females. The combination of direct behavioral observation and repeated evidence of mating scars highlights the potential reproductive significance of the region and underscores the need for further research on the demographics, habitat use, and reproductive ecology of blue sharks in the Northeast Atlantic.
Citizen science, where participants from outside of academia contribute to data collection or analysis, is an important approach in ecological studies that can significantly improve both modelling outcomes and community participation. However, all ecological citizen science platforms developed to date rely on centralised server architecture for data storage and communication with citizen scientists, which can lead to unsustainable server maintenance costs for project managers as well as data sovereignty issues for the concerned communities, thereby endangering project resilience and sustainability after the end of a funded project. Distributed databases, which rely on peer-to-peer technology to store and share data, can address these concerns, but they are complex and conceptually different from centralised systems. As such, their use involves a very steep learning curve that hinders their adoption by citizen science practitioners in ecology, where neither project leaders nor end users are experts in peer-to-peer technologies. In this article, the authors use formal and open-ended feedback from workshops with academics to discuss how well-planned user interface design can be used to facilitate the adoption of peer-to-peer distributed databases in citizen science and provide generalisable key recommendations for the implementation of user interfaces in citizen science applications. In particular, we discuss several key conceptual differences between centralised and distributed applications, such as key-pair authentication and eventual consistency, that must be efficiently and visually communicated to end users. While there is extremely limited literature available on user interface design for distributed systems (and none so far in the ecological field), we find that lessons learned from other fields transfer well to the field of ecological citizen science, that well-designed user interfaces are key to the adoption of new technologies, and that simplicity and efficiency in interface design are more important than showing average users the details of how the underlying technology works. We propose these recommendations as a blueprint for future research and development of citizen science applications based on peer-to-peer distributed database technologies.
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has been conducting horizon scanning (HS) activity in the field of plant health, in collaboration with the EC Joint Research Centre (JRC) and the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety (ANSES), since 2017. As of 2024, this activity has produced 130 reports, named newsletters. The aim of this activity is to capture signals from the web about potential threats caused by plant pests from all around the world and to convey them to European Union risk managers in support of their preparedness and timely reactions. The tool used was the Medical Information System (MedISys), a public health surveillance system that continuously monitors the content of more than 3200 scientific and media sources worldwide. The items selected for inclusion in the monthly newsletters are reviewed and validated by a team of experts, while another team carries out further analysis on specific “not-listed” pests. This analysis, PeMoScoring (short for pest and monitoring scoring), is a fast procedure based on a ranking system that warns risk managers of the potential new threats by unknown or not-listed pests. These signals can then trigger actions by risk managers: requests for more assessments by EFSA or facilitation of preventive measures. Recently, a series of workshops and webinars have been organised to foster collaboration among institutions engaged in horizon scanning activities in the field of plant health and to broaden the applicability of this service to other contexts and areas of focus. This article presents an analysis of the data collected from the newsletters, along with a detailed examination of the PeMoScoring outcomes and potential directions for future development. The results highlight the potential of horizon scanning tools in the prevention of emerging threats for plant health and their capacity to support risk management decisions by anticipating challenges and facilitating timely interventions.