Climatic disequilibrium of recruit communities across a drought‐induced die‐off gradient in Mediterranean shrubland
Positive plant–plant interactions (facilitation) may enhance the recruitment and establishment of species less adapted to local macroclimatic conditions. A major cause of this effect is climatic buffering, which implies an increased mismatch between the macroclimatic conditions and the climatic requ…
Machine learning applied to global scale species distribution models (SDMs)
Species Distribution Models (SDMs) have been widely applied in ecology to analyze the historical and future patterns of marine species' distributions. With the increasing impact of climate change in recent decades, understanding potential shifts in species distributions has become a crucial challeng…
Climate change may alter the availability of wild food plants in the Brazilian semiarid
Wild food plants (WFPs) are important components of the diet and a source of income for local communities in semiarid regions, given that these populations are commonly characterized by high socioeconomic vulnerability and dependence on natural resources for subsistence. In periods of food scarcity …
Generalization Method and System for Recommending Native Bee Species for Meliponiculture Practice
Context: Native stingless bees are essential pollinators for native flora and crops, but their populations decline due to human activities like deforestation and urbanization. Meliponiculture, the breeding of stingless bees for honey production, is a potential solution to the declining populations o…
Enhancing in Situ Conservation of Crop Wild Relatives for Food and Agriculture in Lithuania
The crop and CWR checklist of Lithuania was created containing 2,630 taxa. The checklist comprises 1,384 native taxa including archaeophytes and 1,246 neophytes. In total, 699 taxa (26.6%) could be quite strictly defined as of food or forage use. A list of 144 CWR priority species with 135 native sp…
Present and future distribution of endangered and economically important Ocotea species in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest: Implications for conservatio…
Habitat destruction and climate change are major threats to global biodiversity. Economically important species are even more susceptible to these drivers, as their already vulnerable populations experience additional stress. This is exemplified by species such as Ocotea catharinensis, O. odorifera,…
Pulsed plant evolution in mountain ecosystems: identifying rate changes of range shift and morphology
Understanding the origin of plant diversity remains a central and relevant scientific goal. This statement is reflected by a survey conducted by Grierson et al. (2011), where the one hundred most important and urgent questions in plant science were collected. Here, the listed questions were grouped …
Using habitat modeling to locate new populations of Dunn's Salamander (Plethodon dunni) near its southern geographic range limit
Habitat suitability models were utilized to direct survey efforts for Plethodon dunni in Northern California. Two models were created, one using traditional statistical methods (GLM or Generalized Linear Modeling) and the other using a machine learning method (MaxEnt or Maximum Entropy modeling). Pl…
Radiating diversification and niche conservatism jointly shape the inverse latitudinal diversity gradient of Potentilla L. (Rosaceae)
Background The latitudinal diversity gradient (LDG), characterized by an increase in species richness from the poles to the equator, is one of the most pervasive biological patterns. However, inverse LDGs, in which species richness peaks in extratropical regions, are also found in some lineages and …
Riverscape features determining the genetic structure of the Yellow‐Spotted Amazon River Turtle (Podocnemis unifilis) in Brazilian Amazonia
Landscape characteristics can influence gene flow depending on the species ability to disperse. This imposes different levels of resistance to movement, determining the genetic structure and diversity of populations. Waterfalls and rapids in the Amazon basin have been suggested as contributing facto…
The cynipid gall wasp Diplolepis rosae is more successful in North America than in Europe because of enemy release
The Enemy Release Hypothesis predicts that introduced species in their new range are freed from natural enemies (e.g., pathogens, parasitoids and predators) that control their populations.Diplolepis rosae (Hymenoptera, Diplolepididae), native to the Western Palearctic, induces readily apparent galls…
What remains to be discovered: A global assessment of tree species inventory completeness
Aim Recent unprecedented efforts to digitise and mobilise biodiversity data have resulted in the generation of ‘biodiversity big data’, enabling ecological research at scales previously not possible. However, gaps, biases and uncertainties in these data influence analytical outcomes and the validity…
Connectivity and climate change drive the global distribution of highly invasive termites
Termites are amongst the most abundant and ecologically-important groups of insects in tropical forests. However, the destructive potential of some species amounts to billions of dollars in damage each year. Despite their economic and ecological impacts, only a limited number of invasive termite spe…
Ecological niche divergence or ecological niche partitioning in a widespread Neotropical bird lineage
Ecological niche divergence is generally considered to be a facet of evolution that may accompany geographic isolation and diversification in allopatry, contributing to species’ evolutionary distinctiveness through time. The null expectation for any two diverging species in geographic isolation is t…
When species don’t move together: Non-concurrent range shifts in Eastern Pacific kelp forest communities
Species range shifts due to changing ocean conditions are occurring around the world. As species move, they build new interaction networks as they shift from or into new ecological communities. Typically, species ranges are modeled individually, but biotic interactions have been shown to be importan…
Amphipod Distribution: Revisiting Latitudinal Patterns and Environmental Drivers
Amphipods are known as umbrella species in conservation biology. Recent hypotheses suggested a bimodal latitudinal global distribution pattern for amphipods, irrespective of species' depth or habitat type. This study revisited this hypothesis with a comprehensive database collected from all open-acc…
Effect of Land Use Dynamics on the Distribution of Chromolaena Odorata (Asteraceae) and Mesosphaerum Suaveolens (Lamiaceae), Two Invasive Alien Specie…
Invasive plants are now a major threat to biodiversity, agriculture and natural habitats around the world. It is now increasingly recognized that land uses are linked to invasion processes. Despite the various mutations and land cover changes observed in Benin, the expansion of invasive alien specie…
Assisted colonisation prospects for the black-veined white butterfly in England
The black-veined white butterfly, Aporia crataegi, reached the north-western edge of its European geographic distribution in the British Isles in the 19th century, but became extinct in the early 20th century, following several cold decades. Substantial areas of potential breeding habitat in souther…
Ontogenetic colour change and distributional aspects of Lepidion guentheri (Giglioli 1880) (Gadiformes, Moridae)
The occurrence of a small specimen of Lepidion guentheri (Giglioli, 1880) (Gadiformes: Moridae) with an unusual dark colouration in the Porcupine Bank is reported. A single specimen of 114.2 mm of total length was caught in 2023 in a bottom trawl at a depth of 1168 m. The specimen was initially iden…
Common bully ( Gobiomorphus cotidianus ) and mosquitofish ( Gambusia affinis ) shift littoral zooplankton community composition to smaller bodied taxa…
We investigated the effects of native common bully (Gobiomorphus cotidianus) and non-native western mosquitofish (Gambusia affinis) on zooplankton assemblages in an outdoor mesocosm experiment. Twenty-one 100 L mesocosms containing zooplankton were assigned either four G. cotidianus, four G. affinis…
(3006) Proposal to conserve the name Sticherus (Gleicheniaceae) with a conserved type
(no abstract available)
Potential range shift of a long-distance migratory rice pest, Nilaparvata lugens, under climate change
The biogeographical range shift of insect pests is primarily governed by temperature. However, the range shift of seasonal long-distance migratory insects may be very different from that of sedentary insects. Nilaparvata lugens (BPH), a serious rice pest, can only overwinter in tropical-to-subtropic…
How sensitive are species distribution models to different background point selection strategies? A test with species at various equilibrium levels
Species distribution models (SDMs) have become central tools in ecology and biogeography. Although they can be fitted with different types of species data (e.g. presence-absence, abundance), the most common approach, based on data from large species repositories, is to use simple occurrences (i.e. p…
Progress in systematics and biogeography of Orchidaceae
Orchidaceae are one of the largest families of angiosperms in terms of species richness. In the last decade, numerous studies have delved into reconstructing the phylogenetic framework of Orchidaceae, leveraging data from plastid, mitochondrial and nuclear sources. These studies have provided new in…