Shaped over millennia by fire and shifting biogeographical barriers, the subtropical peatlands of Australia’s eastern coast are among the most carbon-dense terrestrial ecosystems in the world. These are the only known peatlands that are ecologically dependent on fire, resulting from complex ecological interactions between geohydrology, vegetation, microbes and fauna. Following two centuries of fire suppression and ecosystem degradation, protecting peatland biodiversity and carbon storage requires improved knowledge for informed management.
Abstract Understanding coral–climate interactions through deep time is essential for evaluating reef resilience under ongoing climate change. Rejuvenescence is a rare and poorly documented phenomenon in fossil and extant reef-building scleractinian corals, involving polyp contraction followed by regeneration, and has previously been described as a survival strategy for coping with acute thermal stress in a living species. Here, we report evidence of rejuvenescence from a fossil reef in the Makran region of Iran, dated to the Miocene Climatic Optimum, and place it within an ecological and evolutionary framework. Its occurrence in both Miocene Iranian Acanthastrea cf. polygonalis and modern Mediterranean Cladocora caespitosa , despite their phylogenetic, temporal, and biogeographic separation, suggests a recurrent morphogenetic response associated with inferred thermal stress and potentially linked to metabolic downregulation, while its evolutionary origin remains unresolved between deep homology and convergent evolution. This putative role of rejuvenescence in promoting survival appears to be restricted to individual colonies or species and does not translate into thermal resilience at the reef-community scale. Accordingly, current evidence does not support rejuvenescence as a mechanism enhancing coral reef climate resistance but instead identifies it as an indicator of conditions approaching upper thermal tolerance limits in reef ecosystems across geological timescales.
Plant chemical compounds are crucial for ecosystem functioning and resilience1, yet the extent to which plant chemical diversity may disappear as threatened plants go extinct2 remains largely unknown. Here, we show that only 5% of threatened plants are chemically studied and that 35% of these contain 3037 unique compounds not reported in other species. The remaining 95% of chemically neglected threatened species are concentrated in the Neotropical, Afrotropical, and Indomalayan phytogeographic realms. To accelerate research of chemically neglected threatened plants, we evaluate whether untargeted metabolomics on herbarium specimens can detect a significant fraction of compounds found in living botanical garden plants. We find that herbarium specimens contain 35–84% of compounds of living plants, including from all major plant biosynthetic pathways (e.g., alkaloids, terpenoids, flavonoids), regardless of collection date. Together, our findings introduce chemistry into conservation planning of species and ecosystems and position botanical gardens and herbaria as invaluable resources for unravelling plant chemical diversity at scale.
The global debate on managing invasive Spartina alterniflora—eradication versus coexistence—remains unresolved. China’s nationwide eradication campaign risks ignoring regional ecological variations and potential benefits like sediment stabilization and carbon sequestration. We advocate adaptive, site-specific strategies that balance ecological risks with functional contributions, replacing one-size-fits-all eradication with evidence-based management.
Nature-Positive Tourism should place a stronger emphasis on biodiversity rather than on broader environmental issues. In this Perspective, we propose six guiding principles to operationalize this concept and better align tourism with biodiversity conservation goals. We emphasize that behavior change, nature-based solutions, maintaining habitats and wildlife in situ, and minimizing environmental impacts are essential for achieving nature-positive tourism. Together, these approaches can make meaningful contributions to biodiversity conservation.
Effective assessment of marine ecosystems requires approaches that move beyond static biodiversity indices to capture cross-trophic organization and network stability. We applied multi-marker eDNA metabarcoding targeting 12S, 18S, and COI to compare nearshore habitats in Mirs Bay and Daya Bay, two subtropical systems with contrasting environmental settings. The framework integrated OTU-level taxonomic and abundance data, co-occurrence networks describing statistical association structures, and ecological allometric laws evaluating community-wide scaling patterns. Network topology was characterized using degree distribution, modularity, centrality, and species-pair rank. Taylor’s Power Law (TPL) was used to quantify species aggregation, whereas the network-theoretic Kleiber’s Law (NKL) tested whether relative species abundance variance scaled with node hyperconnectivity. Daya Bay supported higher biodiversity and a larger, denser, and more homogeneous network, while Mirs Bay showed lower diversity but a more hierarchical and compartmentalized structure. TPL fitted both systems well (R2 > 0.86), with stronger aggregation in Mirs Bay (ν = 1.697) than in Daya Bay (ν = 1.460). The TPL exponent was associated with environmental conditions, depth, and average species biomass, supporting its potential as an indicator of multitrophic organization. No significant scaling relationship was detected between abundance variance and network hyperconnectivity.
The coexistence of deposit-feeding sea cucumber species with similar ecological and functional roles is common in many coastal ecosystems and may lead to niche overlap. This study investigates the behaviour and feeding ecology of four cohabiting coastal sea cucumbers: Holothuria mammata, H. polii, H. sanctori and H. tubulosa, focusing on the mechanisms that allow their niche segregation in the Mediterranean and Atlantic. Laboratory observations were conducted to examine substrate and microhabitat preferences, circadian activity and sediment intake dynamics. Findings revealed significant interspecific segregation. Holothuria sanctori was associated with hard substrates, while the other species preferred soft substrates, differing further in sediment layer use: H. tubulosa and H. mammata foraged superficially, whereas H. polii also utilised sub-surface layers. Species also differed in their sheltering strategies: H. mammata and H. sanctori sheltered in hard substrate refuges, while H. polii burrowed into soft sediments. Finally, sea cucumbers exhibited distinct feeding strategies, revealing two contrasting patterns: high sediment intake with low organic matter selectivity (H. polii), or high organic matter selectivity with lower sediment ingestion (H. sanctori), with intermediate behaviours (H. tubulosa and H. mammata). This study evidenced that both microhabitat and resource partitioning enable the coexistence of sea cucumber species in coastal ecosystems.
The timing and causes of the extinction of Pleistocene megafauna are unresolved issues in the natural history of Australia and New Guinea (Sahul). In Australia, megafauna are believed to have become extinct by c. 41ka, but in the Highlands of New Guinea some species persisted until the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), as late as c. 22ka. Here, we present the first evidence that one of these taxa survived beyond even this timeframe. We describe a manual phalanx from a megafaunal macropodid, probably referable to a quadrupedal, forest-dwelling member of the genus Protemnodon recovered from the Middle Holocene (6.8 - 5.3ka) archaeological deposit of Taora, a coastal rockshelter located west of Vanimo, Papua New Guinea. This late local persistence is likely a consequence of low human populations and a relatively small body size. Its disappearance from the region is coincident with broader decline in local mammalian diversity following post-glacial environmental change. Taora provides the first indication that any of Sahul’s megafauna survived beyond the end of the LGM and highlights geographic and chronological variability in this diverse group’s extinction history.
Understanding stream fish responses to landscape stressors is fundamental to designing management strategies to conserve and restore fluvial ecosystems. Landscape stressors, including agricultural, pasture, and urban land use, often elicit threshold responses in stream fishes, causing rapid declines in abundance with comparatively small increases in stressor intensity. However, the use of thresholds to inform conservation and restoration decision-making remains limited, particularly when targeting entire stream fish assemblages at continental spatial extents. Here, we apply known threshold values to characterize the vulnerability of stream fishes across ~1.73 million stream reaches in the United States and Europe. We develop a decision-support framework that integrates threshold status indices with network catchment summaries of protected area coverage to prioritize (a) conservation actions in poorly protected catchments approaching land use thresholds and (b) restoration actions in catchments that have exceeded thresholds despite high protected area coverage. Our findings highlight the vulnerability of stream fishes to landscape stressors across two continents and demonstrate how integrating threshold-based vulnerability assessments with protected area summaries can support management decision-making and help address the freshwater biodiversity crisis.
The Conservation-Invasion Paradox (CIP) refers to species that are threatened or declining within their native ranges establish invasive populations elsewhere. While this paradox has been documented primarily in animals, its prevalence, structure, and drivers in plants remain poorly understood. Investigating the CIP is crucial for linking mechanisms that underlie both species decline and invasion success, and offers insights into biodiversity change in the Anthropocene. Here, we provide the first global, systematic assessment of the CIP in vascular plants by integrating three global alien flora databases with three conservation assessment databases. Using reproducible cross-database criteria (the simultaneous occurrence of invasive status in at least one global alien flora database and conservation concern in at least one global conservation assessment database), we identified 89 plant species under the CIP. Threatened plant species were approximately 10 times less likely to naturalize and 17 times less likely to become invasive than non-threatened species, making the CIP a genuinely paradoxical outcome. CIP plant species are concentrated in the Americas and East-Southeast Asia and exhibit strong anthropogenic signals, with dominant human uses and persistent threats from agriculture, overexploitation, and development. Our findings demonstrate that the CIP arises from a spatial decoupling between invasion success and native range persistence, driven by the same human valuation processes that promotes translocation and intensify native-range pressures. The CIP also exposes a mismatch between biological invasion and conservation frameworks, where separate regulatory systems independently assess invasive status and conservation concern, revealing a governance gap for species exhibiting both conditions simultaneously.
Theory-based and model-based reasoning shape macroecology: one derives models from general principles, the other builds models around data. We argue these are not rival traditions but interacting positions along a continuum of formalization. This pluralism is macroecology’s strength: by allowing theories and models to exchange roles as sources of constraint, synthesis and innovation, the field can confront the complexity of natural systems and generate explanations that are cumulative and predictive.
A robust reassessment of extinction risk is crucial for developing evidence-based conservation strategies and preventing irreversible biodiversity loss. Sturgeons are among the most threatened freshwater fishes worldwide, yet extinction risk evaluations for the critically endangered Amu Darya false shovelnose sturgeons (Pseudoscaphirhynchus kaufmanni and P. hermanni) still largely depend on legacy information that does not reflect recent human disturbances. To re-evaluate the extinction risk of these sturgeons, we combined updated occurrence records, traditional morphometric data, mitochondrial genetic markers, and ethnobiological surveys from field expeditions, market inspections, and community interviews conducted during 2019-2024. Our results showed dramatic contraction in distribution range and an almost complete loss of population structure. The long-snouted form of P. hermanni is likely already extinct, and the short-snouted form now persists only in fragmented habitats in the middle and lower Amu Darya. Morphological comparisons revealed a marked decrease in body length and weight, indicating size-selective removal linked to illegal poaching. Genetic analyses also revealed declining diversity and signals of demographic bottlenecks, consistent with severely reduced adaptive potential. Taken together, our results indicate an urgent need for coordinated transboundary conservation to avert the imminent extinction of the two critically endangered species.
In large-scale biodiversity genomics projects, the number of species that could be sequenced exceeds the resources available. Species selection is therefore a crucial component, requiring clear criteria and procedures. In a bottom-up approach, the Biodiversity Genomics Europe (BGE) project implemented an Automated Decision-Making (ADM) process for species selection based on objective criteria and tested it on simulated and empirical data. Here, we present this species ranking ADM process, which includes three stages: exclusion, ranking, and feasibility check. The composition of selected species retained the diversity of the community-nominated species pool for key taxonomic, geographic, and demographic assessment criteria while reducing bias. Feasibility and funding limits influenced the final selection more than other factors, indicating that investments in these areas would improve available reference-genome diversity. The ADM achieved species selection for genome sequencing in a large-scale biodiversity project in a relatively objective manner consistent with the broader European biodiversity genomic community’s priorities.
Species bounty programs, much like bounty hunters charged to bring fugitives to justice, enlist the public to locate and remove unwanted species through financial incentives. With the goal of reducing population sizes, these programs address perceived ecological and economic damage caused by target species. In this study, we provide the first global assessment of species bounty programs, drawing on evidence from both historical and contemporary efforts across diverse regions and cultural contexts over the past eight centuries. We uncovered a long history of bounty programs involving at least 283 species—mammals, birds, fish, plants, reptiles, mollusks, insects, amphibians, and crustaceans—across 449 programs in 60 countries. Using this collective knowledge, we offer five perspectives on species bounty programs. First, bounty programs are launched for a variety of reasons, including economic (livestock, crops, fisheries, infrastructure), ecological (species, ecosystems), and social (human health) considerations related to unwanted species. Second, bounty programs vary in their design and implementation, ranging from well-planned operations with clear management and conservation objectives to ad hoc operations with limited articulation and investigation of project outcomes. Third, evidence points to unintended consequences, in which bounty programs result in the incidental removal of non-target species or in effects that may inadvertently benefit target species. Fourth, while not always the case, fraudulent activities have been reported, compromising the management outcomes of some programs. Fifth, public perception of bounty programs is highly dynamic and ensuring program engagement remains a persistent challenge. By reviewing the scattered narratives of past and present bounty programs globally, this review seeks to inform the evolving role of this management strategy.
China’s forest restoration represents a proactive, state-led nature-based solution aligned with national climate commitments. Although previous studies assessed individual ecosystem services, few studies systematically evaluated the overall ecosystem services interactions across ecological engineering zones. Our review of 133 studies revealed strong carbon-soil-biodiversity synergies, yet water conservation varied and socio-economic benefits remained underrepresented. We highlight regional variability in these outcomes, emphasizing the need for tailored management strategies.
Acceleration of large-scale solar energy deployment can pose competition for land with biodiversity conservation areas. Solar suitability analyses (SSAs) help identify low-conflict zones for solar development, yet limited work defines which biodiversity-relevant criteria (BRCs) are essential for SSAs or whether supporting data are available. We convened a United States-based Delphi panel of practitioners with expertise in biodiversity and renewable energy to identify BRCs that are essential across SSAs ('core') and data- or scale-limited ('peripheral'). Practitioners identified 16 core and 13 peripheral BRCs. Core criteria primarily aligned with regulatory frameworks, while peripheral BRCs reflected context-dependent ecological attributes lacking consistent and scalable data. Open-access data were available for 14 core criteria across 10 databases. Our assessment of US-based SSAs revealed that 10 included core BRCs. Our findings indicate a need for improved access to fine-scale biodiversity data and coordination with agencies to improve SSAs.
Forecasting how the Earth system will respond to global change includes simplifying the functional diversity induced by thousands of plant species into tractable units. The dominant strategy has been to aggregate species into plant functional types (PFTs), assuming that selection leads to unrelated species converging to similar ecological roles. An alternative would be to harness niche conservatism, the tendency of lineages to retain ancestral ecological traits, and assume that phylogenetically related species tend to have similar ecological roles. Using African savannas as case study, we use phylogenetically defined groups to identify phytoclimes: climate-defined regions that support distinct sets of plant types. We found that taxonomically-based phytoclimes aligned with a respected expert map of Africa. Moreover, this scheme could be reconciled with existing conceptual models used to describe the functional diversity of savannas. This alignment of phylogenetic and functional interpretations suggests that African savannas are dominated by a limited set of pre-adapted taxa, rather than arising through widespread convergence. Our findings suggest that phylogenetic information can provide a parsimonious, functional basis for representing ecosystem diversity in global change models. Harnessing this alignment between phylogenetic and functional groupings offers a promising route for improving the predictive ability of Earth system models.
Invasive non-native species are amongst the most serious threats to biodiversity at local and global scales. Due to their geographical remoteness, extreme conditions and lower levels of human activity, the Earth's polar regions have seen fewer invasions to date compared to temperate and tropical areas. However, increasing human activity in high latitude areas brings the risk of many more species introductions, while climate warming is reducing many of the abiotic barriers to species establishment. Polar ecosystems are particularly susceptible to the negative effects associated with invasive species due to their low native diversity, simple food chains and the availability of apparently vacant niches. To date, few studies have tested the effects of non-native species on soil properties in the typically nutrient-limited polar regions. Non-native arthropods and plants may introduce their novel microbiomes and fungal endophytes to a new environment, and this can lead to changes in organic matter decomposition and levels of bioavailable nutrients such as nitrogen. Decomposition rates may be increased further in synergy with climate warming, releasing locked up nutrients in addition to nutrient enrichment facilitated by invasive species. Enhanced nutrient availability and microbial activity may, in turn, create more favourable conditions for the establishment and, for some, the subsequent invasion of further non-native species, as well as potentially benefiting native arthropod and plant communities. This review characterises the interactions between invasive species and global change, highlighting current and predicted future impacts on soil health in polar ecosystems. In addition, we identify priority areas for further research to better understand these impacts and guide management practices.
Global biodiversity documentation is limited by a persistent biodiversity knowledge split, in which high biodiverse nations have their specimens extracted and housed elsewhere. Holotypes, the name-bearing specimens required for the description of new species, are central to this imbalance. We investigated how geopolitical and socioeconomic factors shape the deposition of mammalian holotypes described over the past 35 years. While 95% of post-1990 mammal discoveries originated in the Global South, 60% of their holotypes are housed abroad, mainly in Global North institutions. Wealthier nations extracted holotype specimens disproportionately, especially from biodiverse regions with weak environmental policies, despite stronger local academic capacity improving retention. Maintaining these inequalities not only hampers efforts to reduce disparities in the distribution of type material, but also limits the discovery and revision of species. Addressing these disparities requires coordinated structural investment in local collections and taxonomic capacity, governance measures that prioritize regional deposition and equitable specimen management, and access policies that improve repatriation, mobility, and shared control over type material.
Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) have matured across forests (carbon), watersheds (water quality and quantity), agricultural landscapes (biodiversity), and urban stormwater management. Most biodiversity assessments emphasize insects, fish, and birds. By contrast, schemes that directly measure and reward the microbial diversity, the foundations of ecosystem services in soils, aquatic systems, and urban green spaces, remain scarce. Meanwhile, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework calls for mobilizing at least USD 200 billion per year by 2030, and the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund has launched; but current flows into PES are limited, and PES explicitly targeting microbes is largely uncharted. This Perspective argues that microbially focused PES is rare and, even when they exist, they tend to be biased toward specific pathogens or pollution indicators. However, measurement, reporting, and verification of various microorganisms are operationally feasible and methods to strengthen source attribution and contribution estimation are now mature; and channeling a share of Nature-Positive finance to microbial ecosystem assessments could jointly advance drinking-water safety, soil health, agricultural resilience, and urban public health. We discuss the importance of microbial-PES in conserving and enhancing ecosystem services.
