History, Patterns and Impacts of Invasive Australian Acacia Species in South America: The Case of Brazil and Chile 🇧🇷🇨🇱
Australian Acacia species (‘wattles’) have been intentionally introduced into South America mainly for forestry, dune stabilization and as ornamental plants. A small number of these species have become invasive, generating multiple impacts that contribute mainly to the loss of biodiversity and chang…
Evidence that recent climatic changes have expanded the potential geographic range of the Mediterranean fruit fly
The species distributions migration poleward and into higher altitudes in a warming climate is especially concerning for economically important insect pest species, as their introduction can potentially occur in places previously considered unsuitable for year-round survival. We explore the expansio…
Revising the global biogeography of annual and perennial plants
There are two main life cycles in plants—annual and perennial 1 , 2 . These life cycles are associated with different traits that determine ecosystem function 3 , 4 . Although life cycles are textbook examples of plant adaptation to different environments, we lack comprehensive knowledge regarding t…
Towards a genomic resolution of the Phengaris alcon species complex
Abstract Taxonomic entities below the species level often pose difficulties for conservation practice, especially when they are ecologically distinct from the nominal species. Genomic tools provide the opportunity to study and potentially resolve such cryptic diversity. The Alcon blue butter…
A globally synthesised and flagged bee occurrence dataset and cleaning workflow
Species occurrence data are foundational for research, conservation, and science communication, but the limited availability and accessibility of reliable data represents a major obstacle, particularly for insects, which face mounting pressures. We present BeeBDC , a new R package, and a global bee …
Substantial urbanization-driven declines of larval and adult moths in a subtropical environment
Recent work has shown the decline of insect abundance, diversity, and biomass, with potential implications for ecosystem services. These declines are especially pronounced in regions with high human activity, and urbanization is emerging as a significant contributing factor. However, the scale of th…
Mining biodiversity databases establishes a global baseline of cosmopolitan Insecta mOTUs: a case study on Platygastroidea (Hymenoptera) with consequ…
In the past decade, several species of platygastroid wasps were found to be adventive in North America and Europe while under evaluation in quarantine as biological control agents of invasive pests. The scope and relative risk of this phenomenon is not fully known, but it is clearly a trend with imp…
Reassessment of the risks of climate change for terrestrial ecosystems
Forecasting the risks of climate change for species and ecosystems is necessary for developing targeted conservation strategies. Previous risk assessments mapped the exposure of the global land surface to changes in climate1-4 However, this procedure is unlikely to robustly identify priority areas f…
Comparative genetic and demographic responses to climate change in three peatland butterflies in the Jura massif
Climate is a main driver of species distributions, but all species are not equally affected by climate change, and their differential responses to similar climatic constraints might dramatically affect the local species composition. In the context of climate warming, a better knowledge of the abilit…
A range‐expanding butterfly is susceptible to cold and long winters but shows no signs of local adaptation to winter conditions
Numerous species shift or expand their ranges poleward in response to climate change. Even when expanding species follow their climatic niches, expanding range margin populations are likely to face unfamiliar environmental conditions and thus natural selection for local adaptation.The wall brown but…
Exploring and validating observations of non‐local species in eDNA samples
AbstractThe development of DNA‐based methods in recent decades has opened the door to numerous new lines of research in the biological sciences. While the speed and accuracy of DNA methodologies are clearly beneficial, the sensitivity of these methods has the adverse effect of increased susceptibili…
A review of the freshwater diversity in the Okavango Delta and Lake Ngami (Botswana): taxonomic composition, ecology, comparison with similar systems …
Freshwater organisms in the Okavango Delta and Lake Ngami (Botswana) provide direct and indirect benefits to people and the economy of the region. However, their existence could be potentially threatened by human activities (primarily, upstream water abstraction and planned hydropower structures) co…
Climate change impacts the risk of invasion of eucalypt pests in Brazil
Identifying areas at high risk of invasion is considered an important step for prioritization of phytosanitary measures to prevent biological invasions. Because climate change is likely to affect species' habitat suitability, ideally this should be considered in invasion risk assessments.We evaluate…
The potential of ecoregional range maps for boosting taxonomic coverage in ecology and conservation
Expert range maps (ExpRMs) are frequently used to inform species distributions, but often incomplete or missing for many species, particularly among plants and invertebrates. Many species without ExpRMs also have too few occurrence records for reliable application of species distribution models (SDM…
Diminishing growth of zoological natural history collections threatens future research in the life sciences and beyond
Natural history museums comprise a unique and important component of biological infrastructure worldwide, and underlie diverse research, education, and outreach in the natural sciences. Each museum is built around one or more biological collections that serve as a repository of important materials f…
Allometric Relationships between Body Width and Horn Size in the Dung Beetle Onthophagus hecate (Panzer, 1794) (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae…
Dung beetles in the genus Onthophagus Latreille, 1802 develop horns from their pronotum or heads. The size of the horns is related to body size and follows either a linear or a distinct, polyphenic relationship. Here, we report the relationship between body size and pronotal horn size in Onthophagus…
Sex biases and the scarcity of sex metadata in global herpetology collections
Natural history specimens are a widely used and valuable resource for conservation, ecology, and evolutionary biology. One might assume that these collections are representative of natural populations, but recent work has suggested that many collections have disproportionately more male than female …
First record of Azanus jesous (Stoll, 1782) in Algeria (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae)
Azanus jesous (Stoll, 1782) is common in arid areas of Africa, the Middle East, the Mediterranean and southern Asia. This first record of the species in Algeria is near the city of Mostaganem, located in the country’s northwest. This discovery supports the biogeographical importance of Algeria to th…
Estimating biocontrol agent spread: A case study using introduced dung beetles
Insect biological control agents may be released in relatively few locations; thus, the rate of spread is critical to predicting the spatial distribution of the agent.Exotic dung beetles have been introduced into Australia since the 1960s to bury dung, reduce bush fly populations, increase pasture p…
Future distribution of the epiphytic leafless orchid (Dendrophylax lindenii), its pollinators and phorophytes evaluated using niche modelling and thre…
The identification of future refugia for endangered species from the effects of global warming is crucial for improving their conservation. Because climate-driven shifts in ranges and local extinctions can result in a spatial mismatch with their symbiotic organisms, however, it is important to incor…
Congruence between species richness and phylogenetic diversity in North America for the bee genus Diadasia (Hymenoptera: Apidae)
The current ecological crisis stemming from the loss of biodiversity and associated ecosystem services, highlights the urgency of documenting diversity and distribution. Bees are a classical example of an ecologically and economically important group, due to their high diversity and varied ecosystem…
A neurophysiological limit and its biogeographic correlations: Cold-induced spreading depolarization in tropical butterflies
The physiology of insects is directly influenced by environmental temperature, and thermal tolerance is therefore intrinsically linked to their thermal niche and distribution. Understanding the mechanisms that limit insect thermal tolerance is crucial to predicting biogeography and range shifts. Rec…
Review of the Genus Sciara Meigen, 1803 (Diptera, Sciaridae) in Ukraine
On the territory of Ukraine during the field seasons 2015–2022, we collected eight Sciara species—S. analis Schiner, 1864, S. flavimana Zetterstedt, 1851, S. hebes (Loew, 1869), S. helvola Winnertz, 1867, S. hemerobioides (Scopoli, 1763), S. humeralis Zetterstedt, 1851, S. incerta Winnertz, 1867 and…
TreeGOER: Tree Globally Observed Environmental Ranges
TreeGOER (Tree Globally Observed Environmental Ranges) is a database that documents the environmental ranges (minimum, maximum, median, mean and 5%, 25%, 75% and 95% quantiles) for 48,129 tree species and for 51 environmental variables, including 38 bioclimatic variables, 8 soil variables and 3 topo…