英国生态和水文学研究中心

Urbanisation is a globally increasing phenomenon with diverse impacts on biodiversity. Interest in how urbanisation affects raptors is growing because, as top predators, they can be used as bioindicators for ecosystem functioning and sentinels for environmental change. However, a comprehensive synthesis detailing the global-scale impact of urban-related sensory and risk factors on nocturnal raptors (i.e. owls) is lacking. In this review, we examined the literature to identify such factors and to outline their association with behavioural and ecological traits of owls living in urban environments. Overall, we show that several urban-related sensory and risk factors affect owls, with vehicle collisions on roads being the most widely documented across species. Conversely, sensory pollution remains poorly investigated, which is surprising given that nocturnal and acoustic hunters, such as owls, might be severely impacted by artificial light at night (ALAN) and anthropogenic noise. We also highlight a research gap on this topic from the global south, where urbanisation is rapidly increasing. Importantly, we show that roads and sensory pollutants are associated in contrasting ways with many owl behavioural and ecological traits, such as hunting and habitat use. We argue that the interplay among roads, noise and ALAN influences how owls’ prey species use roads, which may turn areas near roads into ecological traps. The severity of their impacts may depend on the intensity and type of anthropogenic noise and artificial lights along roads. Further research in this direction will have important implications for the conservation of owls in urban environments.

The diversity–productivity relationship suggests that increasing plant species could increase primary productivity, with this effect being explained in part by the suppression of plant antagonists. We conducted a global synthesis of 609 studies to investigate how plant diversity affects plants and their antagonists. Here we show that increasing plant species consistently promotes plant performance and suppresses antagonist performance in agro-ecosystems, grasslands and forests, for herbaceous and woody plants, across tropical and temperate zones, and for replacement series and additive experimental design studies. Crop diversification (for example, intercropping and cover cropping) indirectly promotes crop production through the suppression of pests. This shows that diversifying planting systems can increase productivity while reducing reliance on synthetic pesticides, offering a sustainable pathway for agriculture from subsistence to large-scale agriculture. Overall, these results suggest that crop diversification has considerable potential to support sustainable agro-ecosystems that benefit productivity while reducing reliance on synthetic pesticides. A global synthesis of >600 studies finds that across agro-ecosystems, grasslands and forests in temperate and tropical zones, increasing plant diversity has a consistently positive effect on plant performance and the suppression of antagonists.

Achieving the goals of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) requires monitoring systems that can transform heterogeneous observations into consistent, decision-relevant knowledge. Yet current biodiversity data are fragmented, uneven in quality, and seldom comparable across space or time. Existing standards such as Darwin Core, Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR) and Collective Benefit, Authority to Control, Responsibility, and Ethics (CARE) principles provide important foundations, but they do not connect the full chain from field observation to policy reporting. We introduce the Biodiversity Monitoring Standards Framework (BMSF)-a unifying architecture that links ethical principles, standardized data collection, accredited analytical workflows, and transparent reporting into a single auditable "chain of evidence." The framework's novelty lies in its tiered and federated design, enabling national agencies, Indigenous knowledge holders, local communities, and private-sector actors to operate under shared principles while maintaining data sovereignty. By integrating Essential Variables, accredited analytical methods, and open-source implementation pathways, the BMSF allows locally generated data to be aggregated into credible, comparable indicators aligned with GBF targets. Concrete application, such as a national forest-connectivity assessment, demonstrates how the BMSF improves reproducibility, transparency, and policy relevance relative to existing approaches. Implemented generally, this framework would convert fragmented monitoring efforts into a coordinated, scalable system capable of tracking and guiding collective progress toward halting and reversing biodiversity loss.

Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) has been reported in over 10 European countries. Despite the temperature sensitivity of mosquito-borne viruses, there are no specific models describing the temperature-trait relationship for the extrinsic incubation period (EIP) and vector competence (VC) of CHIKV within Aedes albopictus. This limits our understanding of how temperature influences CHIKV transmission risk in Europe. We used trait data obtained from a Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA)-guided literature review to model the temperature-trait relationships for EIP and VC. These relationships were then integrated into a temperature-dependent basic reproduction number, R0(T), to generate climate-based risk maps and seasonal suitability. We estimate a maximum EIP50 of 8.7 days at 18°C, a minimum of 1.7 days at 30°C. The vector competence range spans 13.8-31.8°C, peaking at 25.6°C. Moreover, CHIKV is transmissible at lower temperatures than previously recognized, suggesting plausible transmission across most of Europe in July and August, with extended suitability from May to November in southern regions. CHIKV transmission is possible across a broad thermal range, placing large parts of Europe at risk-especially southern regions. Understanding which transmission areas receive the most incursions from trade and tourism during this period can further delineate risk areas for management.

Third-generation long-read sequencing technologies, significantly improve metagenome assemblies. Highly accurate PacBio HiFi reads can yield hundreds of near-complete metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) from a single sample. Recently, the accuracy of the more cost-effective Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT) platform has increased to a per-base error rate of 1-2%. However, current metagenome assemblers are optimized for HiFi and do not scale to the large data sets that ONT enables. We present nanoMDBG, an evolution of metaMDBG, which supports the latest ONT reads through an error correction pre-processing step in minimizer-space. Across a range of ONT datasets, including a large 400 Gbp soil sample, nanoMDBG reconstructs up to twice as many high-quality MAGs as the next best ONT assembler, metaFlye, while requiring a third of the CPU time and memory. Critically, the latest ONT technology can now produce comparable MAG construction results as those obtained using PacBio HiFi at the same sequencing depth.