What ‘unexplored’ means: mapping regions with digitized natural history records to look for ‘biodiversity blindspots’
We examined global records of accessible natural history voucher collections (with publicly available data and reliable locality data) for terrestrial and freshwater vascular plants, fungi, freshwater fishes, birds, mammals, and herpetofauna (amphibians and reptiles) and highlight areas of the world…
Drought tolerance as an evolutionary precursor to frost and winter tolerance in grasses
Abstract Accumulating evidence is suggesting more frequent tropical-to-temperate transitions than previously thought. This raises the possibility that biome transitions could be facilitated by precursor traits. A wealth of ecological, genetic, and physiological evidence suggests overl…
How to Identify Priority Sites for Invasive Alien Species Policy and Management
ABSTRACTAimIdentifying priority species and introduction pathways has long been a goal of national and international policy for reducing and mitigating the impacts of invasive alien species (IAS). Although identifying priority sites for invasion management is included within Target 6 of the Kunming–…
Climate and regional plant richness drive diet specialization in butterfly caterpillars
Studies of coevolution, ecosystem processes, and latitudinal diversity gradients are improved by understanding variation in resource specialization. Insect herbivory is one of the most ubiquitous terrestrial ecological associations that drives the evolution of plants and insects. However, a broad un…
Lagged climate‐driven range shifts at species' leading, but not trailing, range edges revealed by multispecies seed addition experiment
Climate change is causing many species' ranges to shift upslope to higher elevations as species track their climatic requirements. However, many species have not shifted in pace with recent warming (i.e. ‘range stasis'), possibly due to demographic lags or microclimatic buffering. The ‘lagged‐respon…
Origin of subgenomes in the circumboreal allopolyploid carnivorous plantDrosera anglica(Droseraceae)
Premise of StudyThe parentage of a widespread member of the carnivorous sundew genus Drosera, the allopolyploid Drosera anglica, remains uncertain despite over 100 years of morphological, cytological, and, more recently, molecular study. MethodsUsing transcriptomic and genomic data from 12 species …
A global biogeographic regionalization for butterflies
The partitioning of global biodiversity into biogeographic regions is critical for understanding the impacts of global-scale ecological and evolutionary processes on species assemblages as well as prioritizing areas for conservation. However, the lack of globally comprehensive data on species distri…
Global vegetation zonation and terrestrial climate of the warm Early Eocene
The early Eocene is a key geological time interval to further our understanding of climate change and biosphere variability under high atmospheric CO2 concentrations of more than 800 ppmv that could potentially be reached by the end of this century under very high emission scenarios. Vegetation play…
Vertebrates in trade that pose high invasion risk to the United States
The United States imports thousands of live vertebrate species annually as part of legal trade. Escapes and releases from captivity are major pathways of invasion, however, the risk posed by the thousands of imported vertebrate species has not been systematically assessed. We conducted a horizon sca…
Shifts in native tree species distributions in Europe under climate change
Key European tree species are expected to contract their ranges under changing climate, thus there is a need to assess range shifts for other native tree species that could fill their forest niche. Recent studies have focused on economically important species, revealing a wide range of shifts in the…
A global database of butterfly species native distributions
Butterflies represent a diverse group of insects, playing key ecosystem roles such as pollination and their larval form engage in herbivory. Despite their importance, comprehensive global distribution data for butterfly species are lacking. This lack of comprehensive global data has hindered many la…
Leptophyes punctatissima (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae) – Observation of an established population in South Tyrol and report of additional findings
With the present faunistic note we report the first observation of an established population of Leptophyes punctatissima (Bosc, 1792) in South Tyrol from Neustift / Novacella, far off from urban areas. The species was recorded over two seasons at the same site with several individuals. Additionally,…
GUBIC: the global urban biological invasions compendium for plants
Urban areas are foci for the introduction of non-native plant species, and they often act as launching sites for invasions into the wider environment. Although interest in biological invasions in urban areas is growing rapidly, and the extent and complexity of problems associated with invasions in …
Diversity Analysis of Macrofungi and Lichenised Fungi in Pyrenean Oak (Quercus pyrenaica Willd.) and Chestnut (Castanea sativa L.) Forests: Implicatio…
Fungi can be used as bioindicators to assess the biodiversity and conservation status of different habitats because of their high adaptability and sensitivity to changes in water, air, and soil quality. In this study, records of macrofungi and lichenised fungi were extracted from GBIF, surveyed usin…
An in-depth dataset of northwestern European arthropod life histories and ecological traits
In response to the ongoing biodiversity crisis among arthropods, it is essential to implement efficient conservation strategies to safeguard both species diversity and the vital ecosystem services they provide. Developing such strategies requires reliable predictive models that can identify the spec…
A generative deep learning approach for global species distribution prediction
Anthropogenic pressures on biodiversity necessitate efficient and highly scalable methods to predict global species distributions. Current species distribution models (SDMs) face limitations with large-scale datasets, complex interspecies interactions, and data quality. Here, we introduce EcoVAE, a …
Knowledge gaps in legume diversity and distribution and prospects for future research
Despite significant advancements in legume (Leguminosae or Fabaceae) taxonomy, biogeography and phylogenetics, substantial knowledge gaps persist, limiting our ability to understand their diversity, evolutionary history and conservation needs. In this study we used a robust taxonomic backbone and in…
Monograph of the genera Struthiopteris Scop. and Spicantopsis Nakai (Blechnaceae, Polypodiopsida)
The Blechnaceae fern family, comprising approximately 250 species, exhibits a subcosmopolitan distribution but showcases notable diversity in South America and the Austropacific region. Recent taxonomic revisions expanded the generic treatment within the family, Resulting, among other things, in the…
Palaearctic flea beetle Phyllotreta ochripes (Curtis) (Coleoptera, Chrysomelidae, Galerucinae), herbivore of Alliaria petiolata (garlic mustard), new …
The univoltine leaf beetle Phyllotreta ochripes (Curtis, 1837b) is native to the Palaearctic Region from Japan to western Europe. This species was previously evaluated as a potential biological control agent against invasive populations of the woodland weed Alliaria petiolata (Bieb.) Cavar…
Climatic versus biotic drivers' effect on fitness varies with range size but not position within range in terrestrial plants
All populations are affected by multiple environmental drivers, including climatic drivers such as temperature or precipitation and biotic drivers such as herbivory or mutualisms. The relative response of a population to each driver is critical to prioritizing threat mitigation for conservation and …
In the Shadow of Medicine: The Glaring Absence of Occurrence Records of Human-Hosted Biodiversity
Abstract Microbial diversity is vast, with bacteria playing a crucial role in human health. However, occurrence records (location, date, observer, and host interaction of human-associated bacteria) remain scarce. This lack of information hinders our understanding of human-microbe relations…
Macro‐evolutionary dynamics dominated by dispersal promote the formation of regional biodiversity hotspot‐insights from hawkmoths (Lepidoptera: Sphing…
AbstractAimRapid loss in global insect diversity has generated substantial public worry due to their critical ecological roles. However, there is controversy about the effectiveness of the global‐scale hotspots in guiding the conservation of diversity at the regional scale. Even worse, little is kno…
Exposure and Sensitivity of Terrestrial Vertebrates to Biological Invasions Worldwide
While biological invasions continue to threaten biodiversity, most of current assessments focus on the sole exposure to invasive alien species (IAS), without considering native species' response to the threat. Here, we address this gap by assessing vertebrates' vulnerability to biological invasions,…
Macroecology of Abiotic Stress Tolerance in Woody Plants of the Northern Hemisphere: Tolerance Biomes and Polytolerance Hotspots
Understanding the main ecological constraints on plants' adaptive strategies to tolerate multiple abiotic stresses is a central topic in plant ecology. We aimed to uncover such constraints by analysing how the interactions between climate, soil features and species functional traits co‐determine the…
Spatially explicit metrics improve the evaluation of species distribution models facing sampling biases
The proliferation of open repositories offering georeferenced occurrences on biodiversity has boosted the use of species distribution models (SDMs). However, the need of presence-only records from these repositories yields a substantial limitation due to sampling biases, which can introduce uncertai…