Relationships of the competitor, stress tolerator, ruderal functional strategies of grass species with lifespan, photosynthetic type, naturalization and climate.

Grass species (family Poaceae) are globally distributed, adapted to a wide range of climates and express a diversity of functional strategies. We explored the functional strategies of grass species using the competitor, stress tolerator, ruderal (CSR) system and asked how a species' strategy relates to its functional traits, climatic distribution and propensity to become naturalized outside its native range. We used a global set of trait data for grass species to classify functional strategies according to the CSR system based on leaf traits.

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 adaptive challenge of extreme conditions shapes evolutionary diversity of plant assemblages at continental scales.

The tropical conservatism hypothesis (TCH) posits that the latitudinal gradient in biological diversity arises because most extant clades of animals and plants originated when tropical environments were more widespread and because the colonization of colder and more seasonal temperate environments is limited by the phylogenetically conserved environmental tolerances of these tropical clades. Recent studies have claimed support of the TCH, indicating that temperate plant diversity stems from a few more recently derived lineages that are nested within tropical clades, with the colonization of the temperate zone being associated with key adaptations to survive colder temperatures and regular freezing. Drought, however, is an additional physiological stress that could shape diversity gradients.

Two cryptic species of California mustard within Caulanthus lasiophyllus.

Premise: Cryptic species are evolutionarily distinct lineages lacking distinguishing morphological traits. Hidden diversity may be lurking in widespread species whose distributions cross phylogeographic barriers. This study investigates molecular and morphological variation in the widely distributed Caulanthus lasiophyllus (Brassicaceae) in comparison to its closest relatives.

Microfluidic Platform for the Isolation of Cancer-Cell Subpopulations Based on Single-Cell Glycolysis.

High rates of glycolysis in tumors have been associated with cancer metastasis, tumor recurrence, and poor outcomes. In this light, single cells that exhibit high glycolysis are specific targets for therapy. However, the study of these cells requires efficient tools for their isolation.

Similar factors underlie tree abundance in forests in native and alien ranges.

Aim: Alien plant species can cause severe ecological and economic problems, and therefore attract a lot of research interest in biogeography and related fields. To identify potential future invasive species, we need to better understand the mechanisms underlying the abundances of invasive tree species in their new ranges, and whether these mechanisms differ between their native and alien ranges. Here, we test two hypotheses: that greater relative abundance is promoted by (a) functional difference from locally co-occurring trees, and (b) higher values than locally co-occurring trees for traits linked to competitive ability.

The commonness of rarity: Global and future distribution of rarity across land plants.

A key feature of life's diversity is that some species are common but many more are rare. Nonetheless, at global scales, we do not know what fraction of biodiversity consists of rare species. Here, we present the largest compilation of global plant diversity to quantify the fraction of Earth's plant biodiversity that are rare.

Wild Steps in a semi-wild setting? Habitat selection and behavior of European bison reintroduced to an enclosure in an anthropogenic landscape.

Recently, several wild or semi-wild herds of European bison have been reintroduced across Europe. It is essential for future successful bison reintroductions to know how the European bison use different habitats, which environmental parameters drive their habitat selection, and whether their habitat use and behavioural patterns in new reintroduction sites differ from habitats where European bison have been roaming freely for a long time. Here, we address these questions for a 40-ha enclosed site that has been inhabited by semi-free ranging European bison since 2012.

Late Quaternary climate change explains soil fungal community composition rather than fungal richness in forest ecosystems.

The dramatic climate fluctuations of the late Quaternary have influenced the diversity and composition of macroorganism communities, but how they structure belowground microbial communities is less well known. Fungi constitute an important component of soil microorganism communities. They play an important role in biodiversity maintenance, community assembly, and ecosystem functioning, and differ from many macroorganisms in many traits.

Trophic Rewilding Advancement in Anthropogenically Impacted Landscapes (TRAAIL): A framework to link conventional conservation management and rewilding.

A variety of rewilding initiatives are being implemented across Europe, generally characterized by a more functionalist approach to nature management compared to the classic compositional approach. To address the increasing need for a framework to support implementation of rewilding in practical management, we present TRAAIL-Trophic Rewilding Advancement in Anthropogenically Impacted Landscapes. TRAAIL has been co-produced with managers and other stakeholders and provides managers with a framework to categorize rewilding initiatives and to link conventional nature management and rewilding by guiding steps towards a higher degree of self-regulation.

Temperature shapes opposing latitudinal gradients of plant taxonomic and phylogenetic β diversity.

Latitudinal and elevational richness gradients have received much attention from ecologists but there is little consensus on underlying causes. One possible proximate cause is increased levels of species turnover, or β diversity, in the tropics compared to temperate regions. Here, we leverage a large botanical dataset to map taxonomic and phylogenetic β diversity, as mean turnover between neighboring 100 × 100 km cells, across the Americas and determine key climatic drivers.

Plant functional trait change across a warming tundra biome.

The tundra is warming more rapidly than any other biome on Earth, and the potential ramifications are far-reaching because of global feedback effects between vegetation and climate. A better understanding of how environmental factors shape plant structure and function is crucial for predicting the consequences of environmental change for ecosystem functioning. Here we explore the biome-wide relationships between temperature, moisture and seven key plant functional traits both across space and over three decades of warming at 117 tundra locations.

Predictability in community dynamics.

The coupling between community composition and climate change spans a gradient from no lags to strong lags. The no-lag hypothesis is the foundation of many ecophysiological models, correlative species distribution modelling and climate reconstruction approaches. Simple lag hypotheses have become prominent in disequilibrium ecology, proposing that communities track climate change following a fixed function or with a time delay.

Late Quaternary climate stability and the origins and future of global grass endemism.

Background And Aims: Earth's climate is dynamic, with strong glacial-interglacial cycles through the Late Quaternary. These climate changes have had major consequences for the distributions of species through time, and may have produced historical legacies in modern ecological patterns. Unstable regions are expected to contain few endemic species, many species with strong dispersal abilities, and to be susceptible to the establishment of exotic species from relatively stable regions.

Phylogenetic assemblage structure of North American trees is more strongly shaped by glacial-interglacial climate variability in gymnosperms than in angiosperms.

How fast does biodiversity respond to climate change? The relationship of past and current climate with phylogenetic assemblage structure helps us to understand this question. Studies of angiosperm tree diversity in North America have already suggested effects of current water-energy balance and tropical niche conservatism. However, the role of glacial-interglacial climate variability remains to be determined, and little is known about any of these relationships for gymnosperms.

Species introductions and the phylogenetic and functional structure of California's grasses.

Many species assemblages represent a nonrandom subset of a larger species pool. When an assemblage tends to contain close evolutionary relatives or species with similar functional traits, it can be described as phylogenetically or functionally clustered. Clustering is often interpreted as evidence for filtering by some combination of environmental and biotic factors.