Temporal trends in pesticide pressure differ among non-target species groups but show spatially consistent patterns across France.

The negative impacts of pesticides on biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, and human health are broadly documented and numerous policies have been proposed to reduce their use and associated risks. A key challenge is to provide relevant metrics of pesticide use that account for toxicity variation between pesticides to inform public policy. Here, we estimated temporal and spatial trends in pesticide pressure in France between 2008 and 2022 using the total applied toxicity (TAT) measure.

Local people enhance our understanding of Afrotropical frugivory networks.

Afrotropical forests are undergoing massive change caused by defaunation, i.e., the human-induced decline of animal species, most of which are frugivorous species.

Müllerian mimicry among bees and wasps: a review of current knowledge and future avenues of research.

Many bees and stinging wasps, or aculeates, exhibit striking colour patterns or conspicuous coloration, such as black and yellow stripes. Such coloration is often interpreted as an aposematic signal advertising aculeate defences: the venomous sting. Aposematism can lead to Müllerian mimicry, the convergence of signals among different species unpalatable to predators.

Mutualistic interactions shape global spatial congruence and climatic niche evolution in Neotropical mimetic butterflies.

Understanding the mechanisms underlying species distributions and coexistence is both a priority and a challenge for biodiversity hotspots such as the Neotropics. Here, we highlight that Müllerian mimicry, where defended prey species display similar warning signals, is key to the maintenance of biodiversity in the c. 400 species of the Neotropical butterfly tribe Ithomiini (Nymphalidae: Danainae).

Mechanisms underpinning community stability along a latitudinal gradient: Insights from a niche-based approach.

At large scales, the mechanisms underpinning stability in natural communities may vary in importance due to changes in species composition, mean abundance, and species richness. Here we link species characteristics (niche positions) and community characteristics (richness and abundance) to evaluate the importance of stability mechanisms in 156 butterfly communities monitored across three European countries and spanning five bioclimatic regions. We construct niche-based hierarchical structural Bayesian models to explain first differences in abundance, population stability, and species richness between the countries, and then explore how these factors impact community stability both directly and indirectly (via synchrony and population stability).

Trait matching and sampling effort shape the structure of the frugivory network in Afrotropical forests.

Frugivory in tropical forests is a major ecological process as most tree species rely on frugivores to disperse their seeds. However, the underlying mechanisms driving frugivore-plant networks remain understudied. Here, we evaluate the data available on the Afrotropical frugivory network to identify structural properties, as well as assess knowledge gaps.

Interaction fidelity is less common than expected in plant-pollinator communities.

Pairs of plants and pollinators species sometimes consistently interact throughout time and across space. Such consistency can be interpreted as a sign of interaction fidelity, that is a consistent interaction between two species when they co-occur in the same place. But how common interaction fidelity is and what determines interaction fidelity in plant-pollinator communities remain open questions.

Fitness effects of plasmids shape the structure of bacteria-plasmid interaction networks.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) genes are often carried on broad host range plasmids, and the spread of AMR within microbial communities will therefore depend on the structure of bacteria–plasmid networks. Empirical and theoretical studies of ecological interaction networks suggest that network structure differs between communities that are predominantly mutualistic versus antagonistic, with the former showing more generalized interactions (i.e.

Species richness and food-web structure jointly drive community biomass and its temporal stability in fish communities.

Biodiversity-ecosystem functioning and food-web complexity-stability relationships are central to ecology. However, they remain largely untested in natural contexts. Here, we estimated the links among environmental conditions, richness, food-web structure, annual biomass and its temporal stability using a standardised monitoring dataset of 99 stream fish communities spanning from 1995 to 2018.

Phenological traits foster persistence of mutualistic networks by promoting facilitation.

Morphological and phenological traits are key determinants of the structure of mutualistic networks. Both traits create forbidden links, but phenological traits can also decouple interaction in time. While such difference likely affects the indirect effects among species and consequently network persistence, it remains overlooked.

Impact of artificial light at night on diurnal plant-pollinator interactions.

Artificial light at night has rapidly spread around the globe over the last decades. Evidence is increasing that it has adverse effects on the behavior, physiology, and survival of animals and plants with consequences for species interactions and ecosystem functioning. For example, artificial light at night disrupts plant-pollinator interactions at night and this can have consequences for the plant reproductive output.

Relative effects of anthropogenic pressures, climate, and sampling design on the structure of pollination networks at the global scale.

Pollinators provide crucial ecosystem services that underpin to wild plant reproduction and yields of insect-pollinated crops. Understanding the relative impacts of anthropogenic pressures and climate on the structure of plant-pollinator interaction networks is vital considering ongoing global change and pollinator decline. Our ability to predict the consequences of global change for pollinator assemblages worldwide requires global syntheses, but these analytical approaches may be hindered by variable methods among studies that either invalidate comparisons or mask biological phenomena.

Long-term effects of global change on occupancy and flight period of wild bees in Belgium.

Global change affects species by modifying their abundance, spatial distribution, and activity period. The challenge is now to identify the respective drivers of those responses and to understand how those responses combine to affect species assemblages and ecosystem functioning. Here we correlate changes in occupancy and mean flight date of 205 wild bee species in Belgium with temporal changes in temperature trend and interannual variation, agricultural intensification, and urbanization.

Wild pollinator activity negatively related to honey bee colony densities in urban context.

As pollinator decline is increasingly reported in natural and agricultural environments, cities are perceived as shelters for pollinators because of low pesticide exposure and high floral diversity throughout the year. This has led to the development of environmental policies supporting pollinators in urban areas. However, policies are often restricted to the promotion of honey bee colony installations, which resulted in a strong increase in apiary numbers in cities.

Empidine dance flies pollinate the woodland geranium as effectively as bees.

Most flowering plants species rely on insects for pollination, a successful mutualism allowing them to reproduce over wide areas while flower-visitors are rewarded with food. This association is so conspicuous in the case of bees that other groups of potential pollinators, especially flies, have long been underestimated. However, visitors are not always pollinators.

Altitudinal, temporal and trophic partitioning of flower-visitors in Alpine communities.

The cross-pollination of most alpine plants depends on insects, whose altitudinal distribution is limited by temperature. However, although global warming is causing shifts in temporal and spatial species distribution, we are still largely unaware of how plant-pollinator interactions change with elevation and time along altitudinal gradients. This makes the detection of endangered interactions and species challenging.

Relative importance of the land-use composition and intensity for the bird community composition in anthropogenic landscapes.

Humans are changing the biosphere by exerting pressure on land via different land uses with variable intensities. Quantifying the relative importance of the land-use composition and intensity for communities may provide valuable insights for understanding community dynamics in human-dominated landscapes. Here, we evaluate the relative importance of the land-use composition versus land-use intensity on the bird community structure in the highly human-dominated region surrounding Paris, France.

Artificial light at night as a new threat to pollination.

Pollinators are declining worldwide and this has raised concerns for a parallel decline in the essential pollination service they provide to both crops and wild plants. Anthropogenic drivers linked to this decline include habitat changes, intensive agriculture, pesticides, invasive alien species, spread of pathogens and climate change. Recently, the rapid global increase in artificial light at night has been proposed to be a new threat to terrestrial ecosystems; the consequences of this increase for ecosystem function are mostly unknown.

Fixism and conservation science.

The field of biodiversity conservation has recently been criticized as relying on a fixist view of the living world in which existing species constitute at the same time targets of conservation efforts and static states of reference, which is in apparent disagreement with evolutionary dynamics. We reviewed the prominent role of species as conservation units and the common benchmark approach to conservation that aims to use past biodiversity as a reference to conserve current biodiversity. We found that the species approach is justified by the discrepancy between the time scales of macroevolution and human influence and that biodiversity benchmarks are based on reference processes rather than fixed reference states.

How plants connect pollination and herbivory networks and their contribution to community stability.

Pollination and herbivory networks have mainly been studied separately, highlighting their distinct structural characteristics and the related processes and dynamics. However, most plants interact with both pollinators and herbivores, and there is evidence that both types of interaction affect each other. Here we investigated the way plants connect these mutualistic and antagonistic networks together, and the consequences for community stability.

Functional homogenization of flower visitor communities with urbanization.

Land-use intensification and resulting habitat loss are put forward as the main causes of flower visitor decline. However, the impact of urbanization, the prime driver of land-use intensification in Europe, is poorly studied. In particular, our understanding of whether and how it affects the composition and functioning of flower visitor assemblages is scant, yet required to cope with increasing urbanization worldwide.

How plants connect pollination and herbivory networks and their contribution to community stability.

Pollination and herbivory networks have mainly been studied separately, highlighting their distinct structural characteristics and the related processes and dynamics. However, most plants interact with both pollinators and herbivores, and there is evidence that both types of interaction affect each other. Here we investigated the way plants connect these mutualistic and antagonistic networks together, and the consequences for community stability.