The homogenization of temperate forests due to intensive management has led to biodiversity loss at local and landscape scales, threatening species persistence and ecosystem functions. However, experimental evidence on how structural heterogeneity among forest patches influences diversity at the landscape scale is lacking. Here, we test whether enhancing structural heterogeneity, via diverse deadwood enrichment and canopy gap creation treatments (Enhancement of Structural Beta Complexity, ESBC), can increase hoverfly diversity within landscapes and elucidate the contributions of local (α) diversity enrichment and turnover (β‐diversity) to this effect. We conducted a large‐scale forest experiment in 11 regions across Germany. Each region included two districts, representing small forest landscapes. In one district, we implemented patches with ESBC treatments, while in the other, serving as the control, we established patches without ESBC. Hoverflies were sampled in three seasonal intervals and across, in total, 234 forest patches (50 × 50 m; ESBC: 117, Control: 117) using pan traps. We applied a new integrative meta‐analytic framework that incorporates sample completeness to quantify taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity (TD, FD, PD) using Hill numbers at α, β, and γ scales. All three γ‐diversity dimensions—TD, FD and PD—were significantly higher in structurally heterogeneous forest landscapes than in homogeneous ones. The strongest effects were observed for TD, indicating functional and phylogenetic redundancy among species. Effect sizes declined with increasing order of Hill numbers, suggesting that rare species benefit most from structural heterogeneity. In most regions, γ‐diversity gains were driven by increases in α‐diversity rather than β‐diversity, highlighting the importance of interventions to increase local structural complexity. However, several regions also showed elevated β‐diversity, indicating context‐dependent effects of spatial heterogeneity. Synthesis and applications . Our results provide the first experimental evidence that enhancing structural heterogeneity at the landscape scale can restore multidimensional hoverfly diversity in temperate forests. They underscore the management value of ESBC as a scalable tool to restore biodiversity, increase ecological resilience and counteract biotic homogenization in production forests.

Homogenisation caused by intensive land-use is one of the drivers of global biodiversity decline. However, the contribution of land-use intensity to insect diversity loss is still largely untested. Therefore, we compare the rate of species homogenisation of 12.000 arthropod species (using Barcode Index Numbers) from 450 families, using distance-decay relationships. We study communities along an increasing local land-use intensity gradient from forests to managed grasslands, to arable lands and to settlements situated within near-natural, agricultural, and urban regional landscapes. Our approach for incidence data under consideration of incomplete samples identifies that grasslands harbour the most homogenous communities after taking frequency and species traits into account. In contrast, the most modified land-use types, settlements, and arable lands do not differ from forests, and showed the most heterogeneous communities between locations. Large- and low-mobility species communities are the most heterogeneous in space, but patterns are dependent on local land-use. Regional landscapes modify the community response to local land-use types: near-natural landscapes reduce homogenisation, while agricultural landscapes increase homogenisation. Based on our findings we recommend enhanced conservation efforts particularly in managed grasslands to reverse homogenisation, while settlements and arable lands could be considered more in arthropod community heterogenisation. Species homogenisation driven by land-use intensification is threatening many taxa globally. Here, the authors find that for arthropod communities in Central Europe, managed grasslands are the most affected land-use type, while there is a strong distance–decay relationship in settlements and arable fields, meaning that these support heterogeneous communities between locations.

Effective conservation and restoration rely on understanding how biodiversity responds to environmental change. Centuries of wood production have simplified forest structure and reduced biodiversity. In a large-scale, replicated landscape experiment, we tested how restoring structural complexity through canopy gaps and deadwood increases the diversity of bats and birds, both flying insectivorous vertebrates, across spatial scales. We compared diversity between structurally heterogeneous and homogeneous temperate beech forests across 11 experimental landscapes in Germany. Both taxa were recorded using autonomous acoustic monitoring and automatic species identification. We quantified taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity within forest patches (α-diversity), among patches (β-diversity), and across the landscape (γ-diversity). Our experimental enhancement of structural complexity increased γ-diversity for both taxa but through distinct mechanisms. In bats, increases in γ-diversity were primarily driven by β-diversity, indicating greater dissimilarity in assemblages among patches, while γ-diversity in birds only increased through local gains in α-diversity. Bat diversity increases were mainly taxonomic, suggesting functional similarity to control assemblages, whereas birds showed the highest gains in functional diversity, indicating greater trait dissimilarity in heterogeneous forests. These differences likely reflect variation in spatial ecology, with bats responding more to spatially distributed heterogeneity within landscapes, while birds benefit from increasing local habitat complexity. Our results provide evidence that γ-diversity can be shaped by different mechanisms, indicating that forest restoration must be taxon specific and scale dependent to effectively enhance biodiversity.

The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration aims to stop biodiversity losses1. Approximately 60% of tropical forests have already been lost or severely degraded2, making restoration essential to achieve conservation goals. Recovery trajectories of trees have been studied intensively3,4, but a comprehensive understanding of biodiversity recovery is lacking. Here we analyse recovery trajectories across trophic levels including 16 taxonomic groups from three kingdoms in a lowland tropical forest by investigating resistance to perturbation, recovery times and return rates to old-growth forest conditions. Abundance and diversity regained more than 90% and composition approximately 75% similarity to old-growth forests within 30 years, but full recovery takes several decades. Mobile animal communities acting as seed dispersers or pollinators had high resistance levels and recovered faster than trees or tree seedlings. Return rates contributed 1-2.5 times more than resistance to the recovery times of species composition. Taxon-specific recovery times could not be explained by simple mechanisms (life-history strategies, trophic level or mobility). We show the enormous potential of protecting naturally recovering secondary forests to stop and reverse biodiversity losses.

Although habitat heterogeneity is known to enhance local species diversity, the effects of management-driven structural heterogeneity on understorey plant communities across spatial scales remain poorly understood, despite their crucial role for forest biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. To analyse how forest understorey plant communities respond to an enhancement of structural heterogeneity in managed forests, we established 11 experimental sites consisting of two paired forest landscapes, an untreated homogenous control and a treatment district (ESBC, Enhancement of Structural Beta-Complexity). In treatment districts, structural heterogeneity was enhanced through different combinations of local patch-scale manipulations of light and deadwood features, leading to greater between-patch heterogeneity at the landscape scale. We performed a meta-analysis across these 11 sites using a Hill-Chao number and sample coverage standardisation framework. Gamma diversity increased across taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic facets in structurally heterogeneous forests (ESBC districts) via higher alpha diversity. This effect was positively associated with heterogeneity in light availability between forest patches, but not with their mean light availability. In contrast, we found no evidence supporting that species turnover among patches (i.e. beta diversity) significantly contributes on average to the observed increase in gamma diversity. However, both the direction and magnitude of beta diversity responses varied substantially among study sites. On average, structurally heterogeneous forests supported higher species richness for both open and closed forest habitat species. Synthesis and applications. Our findings highlight the benefits of enhancing structural heterogeneity for understorey plant diversity in managed forest landscapes. Specifically, management strategies that create a spatial mosaic of interventions, such as combining single-tree removal with gap felling, can increase the variety of light niches among forest patches, thereby supporting the conservation of a wide range of understorey plant species, including forest specialists.

Most production forests are managed primarily for timber production, leading to homogenous forests at landscape scale and reduced biodiversity. To explore whether silviculturally enhanced forest structural heterogeneity can promote biodiversity at landscape scale, we conducted a large-scale experiment in eight German forests. We manipulated structural beta complexity, i.e., the heterogeneity of structural elements between forest patches, by experimentally introducing variation in canopy cover and different types of deadwood across 156 patches of 50 x 50 m each, to investigate its effects on biodiversity. Here we analyzed the response of soil nematode communities to heterogenization by assessing taxonomic and functional diversity across patch (alpha-diversity), site (gamma-diversity), and between-patch (beta-diversity) scales using Hill-Chao numbers as diversity indices. Additionally, we tested whether environmental variables correlate with nematode diversity responses. Our results show that functional diversity is more responsive than taxonomic diversity. Increases in beta-diversity of common and dominant functional groups occurred simultaneously with declines in alpha- and gamma-diversity. This pattern indicates that local community dissimilarity can rise without an increase in overall landscape-level richness and suggests a shift toward more specialized nematode communities in response to the interventions. Moreover, we found that certain site-specific conditions, such as soil texture and understory plant biomass, correlated with these effects. Overall, our findings reveal complex, scale-dependent responses of nematode diversity to changes in aboveground forest structure and highlight the need to further investigate the context dependence of forest biodiversity management to provide informed recommendations. This study represents an important first step toward understanding how to increase soil beta-diversity through enhanced forest structural heterogeneity at management-relevant (i.e., landscape level) spatial scales.

Above-ground and below-ground interactions are essential for the assembly of forest communities and the maintenance of multiple ecosystem functions. However, there is limited understanding of how above-ground plant and below-ground soil microbial communities are associated across different climatic zones and along environmental gradients. Using comprehensive inventory data from 186 permanent plots along elevation gradients across three climate zones (subtropical, temperate-subtropical and temperate mountain forests), we examined the diversity associations between different groups of plants (woody and herbaceous) and soil microbes (fungi and bacteria). Associations between soil fungi and plants were stronger than those between soil bacteria and plants, particularly at the beta diversity level. Moreover, we observed that associations between soil microbes and plants were more pronounced in forests at low latitudes and intermediate elevations, and were sensitive to local abiotic conditions, including climatic and edaphic variables. Synthesis: These findings suggest that variation in climatic and edaphic conditions along environmental gradients is associated with differences in the strength of above-ground-below-ground associations. In addition to direct effects of climate change, plant and soil microbial communities could thus be indirectly affected via their biotic interactions under changing environmental conditions. This could have far-reaching consequences for community assembly and ecosystem functioning.

Metacommunity theory has expanded our understanding of how spatial dynamics and local interactions influence species communities. Different assembly archetypes, reflecting different roles of species differences, habitat differences, and dispersal have been described, but we lack empirical studies specifically in terrestrial habitats testing which archetype is most important. In a replicated design, we experimentally enhanced structural between-patch heterogeneity in homogeneous production forests and developed a statistical framework controlling for sample incompleteness to detect different metacommunity processes. Meta-analyses on > 100 K individuals of > 1.3 K beetle species showed an increase of ~60 species in heterogenized forests at γ-level promoted by increasing α-diversity consistent with the mass-effect and an increase of β-diversity by ~10% supporting species-sorting. Additionally, we tested β-deviations from random assembly as a proxy of neutral processes. Findings indicate that enhancing structural heterogeneity can shift forests from patch-dynamics dominance towards mass-effect and species-sorting, offering a promising pathway to restore biodiversity in managed landscapes.

Estimating the number of insect species on Earth is a daunting challenge. The current consensus estimate—about six million species—is likely far too low, as we will show. Our estimate of the global number of insect species rests on a sample of more than 1,600,000 DNA-barcoded insect specimens representing 53,945 species from 15 “core” Malaise traps deployed in dry forest, cloud forest, and rainforest ecosystems of the Área de Conservación Guanacaste (ACG) in Costa Rica. Even this massive sample fails to reveal the full extent of ACG insect species richness. To estimate total ACG insect richness, we adjust the observed count of insect species by an “undersampling ratio,” computed for a hyperdiverse subfamily of parasitoid wasps (Braconidae: Microgastrinae). The ratio compares microgastrine richness from the core Malaise traps to a lower-bound estimate of true microgastrine richness—including undetected species—based on 21,669 specimens from three sources: the 15 core Malaise traps, 15 “peripheral” Malaise traps spanning all three ecosystems, and 11,373 DNA-barcoded specimens reared from some 1,500 species of microgastrine-parasitized caterpillars (Lepidoptera). To estimate global insect richness, we apply Earth/ACG ratios for tree species and several animal taxa to upscale our estimate of ACG insect richness (nearly 333,000 species). Adopting conservative assumptions, we reach an estimate of 14 to 20 million insect species on Earth, depending on the upscaling group—two to three times the current consensus estimates. Upscaling instead from a point estimate of ACG richness with a wide CI, global estimates reach nearly 30 million species.

Introduction Large language model (LLM)-as-a-judge systems offer scalable evaluation of artificial intelligence (AI)-generated clinical outputs, yet their susceptibility to prompt variability raises concerns regarding reproducibility and alignment with expert judgement. This study examined whether evaluation prompt strategies influence scoring patterns and concordance with clinical raters in critical care. Material and methods This post-hoc analysis used 90 structured clinical reports generated in a prior study using an XGBoost ICU mortality prediction model trained on the MIMIC-IV database. GPT-4o (Azure AI, version 2024-11-20) produced structured interpretations from risk estimates and SHAP attributions. These outputs were evaluated using the IMPACT framework under three evaluation prompt strategies: baseline (E1), top-down decremental (E2), and bottom-up incremental (E3). Agreement between clinician ratings and the automated o3-mini evaluator (Azure AI, version 2025-01-31) was assessed using intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC), with strategy comparisons by Fisher’s z-transformation. Score deviations were examined with repeated-measures ANOVA. Results Mean IMPACT scores were 79.9 (SD 9.9) for E1, 83.3 (SD 9.6) for E2, 78.7 (SD 9.1) for E3, and 78.6 (SD 8.9) for clinicians. All strategies demonstrated substantial agreement (ICC > 0.80). E2 showed significantly lower agreement with clinicians (ICC = 0.82) than E1 and E3 (both ICC = 0.94, p < 0.001). Score deviations differed significantly across strategies (p < 0.001), with E3 showing the smallest mean deviation (0.1) and E2 the largest (4.7). Conclusions Prompt design meaningfully affects both IMPACT scoring patterns and the reliability of LLM-based evaluators. Bottom-up incremental scoring showed the closest alignment with human assessment, underscoring the need for standardised prompt architectures in clinical AI evaluation.

Spiders are important arthropod predators in temperate forests. Their diversity depends on structurally heterogeneous habitats offering diverse microhabitats. Yet, modern silviculture has homogenized temperate forest structure at local and landscape scales. The consequences of this homogenization for landscape-level spider diversity, however, remain largely unknown. We sampled spiders using pitfall traps across 234 patches in a large-scale, replicated field experiment at 11 forest sites across Germany. At each site, one treatment district was experimentally heterogenized through canopy gap creation, thinning and deadwood enrichment, and a second homogeneous district remained untreated as a control. We applied a novel meta-analytic framework to compare α-, β- and γ-diversity of spiders between treatment and control districts, standardized for sample coverage along Hill numbers giving increasing weight to abundance and included taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic diversity facets. We also investigated spider community assembly in response to deadwood enrichment, canopy openness and heterogeneous forest structure. Based on 18,540 spider individuals from 206 species, treatment districts exhibited significantly lower γ- and α-diversity across all diversity facets and Hill numbers, particularly when focusing on rare species (q = 0). In contrast, β-diversity increased in treatment districts for phylogenetic and functional diversity across Hill numbers (q = 0, 1, 2). The simultaneous decrease in α- and γ-diversity despite higher β-diversity renders the increase in compositional turnover insufficient to compensate for local diversity losses. Although spiders were more abundant in treatment patches, habitat filtering, rather than niche competition, shaped the community. Our findings corroborate previous results of high spider abundances but lower taxonomic and functional diversity in canopy gaps due to strong habitat filtering effects. However, we demonstrate for the first time that this lower α-diversity is linked to a lower γ-diversity despite increases in β-diversity. Homogenous forests support higher γ-diversity through greater three-dimensional canopy habitat availability. Yet, failure to account for species frequencies using Hill numbers and coverage standardization may result in a substantial underestimation of arboreal spider diversity in pitfall traps. Nonetheless, higher abundances in heterogeneous forests point towards increased prey availability and predator pressure.

BACKGROUND: Recent studies have shown that dexmedetomidine may improve microcirculation and prevent organ failure. However, most evidence was obtained from experimental animals and patients receiving cardiac surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass. This study aimed to investigate the effect of dexmedetomidine on microcirculation and organ injuries in critically ill general surgical patients. METHODS: In this prospective randomized trial, patients admitted to the surgical intensive care unit after general surgery were enrolled and randomly allocated to the dexmedetomidine or propofol groups. Patients received continuous dexmedetomidine or propofol infusions to meet their requirement of sedation according to their grouping. At each time point, sublingual microcirculation images were obtained using the incident dark field video microscope. RESULTS: Overall, 60 patients finished the trial and were analyzed. Microcirculation parameters did not differ significantly between two groups. Heart rate at 4 h after ICU admission and mean arterial pressures at 12 h and 24 h after ICU admission were lower in the dexmedetomidine group than in the propofol group. At 24 h, serum aspartate aminotransferase (41 (25–118) vs 86 (34–129) U/L, p = 0.035) and alanine aminotransferase (50 (26–160) vs 68 (35–172) U/L, p = 0.019) levels were significantly lower in the dexmedetomidine group than in the propofol group. CONCLUSION: Microcirculation parameters did not differ significantly between the dexmedetomidine and propofol groups. At 24 h after ICU admission, serum liver enzyme levels were lower in patients receiving dexmedetomidine as compared to propofol.

Tropical old-growth forests continue to decline worldwide, resulting in a huge loss of biodiversity. The extent to which the expansion of second-growth forests can counteract biodiversity loss is context-dependent and controversial. To test the recovery of bird communities along a gradient from active pastures and cacao plantations, through regenerating forest on land last used for agriculture between 1 and 38 years ago, to old-growth forest, we sampled simultaneous audio recordings from 66 plots, from which an expert identified all bird species detected at fixed time points throughout the day. The study area is characterized by typical small-scale agriculture with remnant trees in the Ecuadorian Choc & oacute; Forest. To quantify different aspects of biodiversity, we used incidence-based Hill numbers focusing on infrequent, frequent and highly frequent species in taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic diversity, considering sample coverage (an objective measure of sample completeness). Bird community composition changed with the regrowth gradient represented on the first axis of the ordination. Differences in bird communities were also very robust to changes in sample coverage. The sample coverage decreased significantly along the recovery gradient and affected the different measures of alpha diversity. Although the results controlled by sample coverage showed no change in taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity, the functional diversity of infrequent, frequent and highly frequent species decreased along the recovery gradient. Cacao plantations exhibited particularly high diversity values, highlighting the potential of these patches to support woodland and shrubland species in agriculture. Furthermore, several forest species regularly used the agricultural areas, attracted by remnant trees characteristic of the small-scale agricultural landscape in our study region. Synthesis and applications. Our results highlight the importance of standardizing biodiversity measures and incorporating beta diversity in biodiversity monitoring. We demonstrate that taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional bird diversity can be high in secondary forests within smallholder agricultural landscapes. This underscores the potential for natural forest recovery, particularly when recovery patches are embedded within a forest matrix that includes old-growth stands. Los bosques tropicales antiguos siguen disminuyendo en todo el mundo, lo que provoca una enorme p & eacute;rdida de biodiversidad. La capacidad de la expansi & oacute;n de los bosques de segundo crecimiento para contrarrestar la p & eacute;rdida de biodiversidad depende del contexto y es controvertida. Para comprobar la recuperaci & oacute;n de las comunidades de aves a lo largo de un gradiente que abarca pastos activos, plantaciones de cacao, bosques en regeneraci & oacute;n en tierras utilizadas por & uacute;ltima vez para la agricultura entre 1 y 38 a & ntilde;os atr & aacute;s, y bosques primarios, realizamos grabaciones de audio simult & aacute;neas en 66 parcelas. A partir de dichas grabaciones, un experto identific & oacute; todas las especies de aves detectadas en momentos estandarizados a lo largo del d & iacute;a. El & aacute;rea de estudio se caracteriza por la t & iacute;pica agricultura a peque & ntilde;a escala con & aacute;rboles remanentes en el bosque del Choc & oacute; ecuatoriano. Para cuantificar diferentes aspectos de la biodiversidad, utilizamos n & uacute;meros de Hill basados en la incidencia, centr & aacute;ndonos en especies poco frecuentes, frecuentes y altamente frecuentes en diversidad taxon & oacute;mica, funcional y filogen & eacute;tica, teniendo en cuenta la cobertura de la muestra (una medida objetiva de la completitud de la muestra). La composici & oacute;n de la comunidad de aves sigui & oacute; el gradiente de rebrote representado en el primer eje de la ordenaci & oacute;n. Las diferencias en las comunidades de aves tambi & eacute;n fueron robustas a los cambios en la cobertura de la muestra. La cobertura de las muestras disminuy & oacute; significativamente a lo largo del gradiente de recuperaci & oacute;n y afect & oacute; a las distintas medidas de diversidad alfa. Aunque los resultados controlados por la cobertura muestral no mostraron cambios en la diversidad taxon & oacute;mica y filogen & eacute;tica, la diversidad funcional de especies poco frecuentes, frecuentes y muy frecuentes disminuy & oacute; a lo largo del gradiente de recuperaci & oacute;n. Las plantaciones de cacao mostraron valores de diversidad particularmente elevados, lo que pone de relieve el potencial de estos parches para sustentar especies forestales y arbustivas en la agricultura. Adem & aacute;s, varias especies forestales utilizaron regularmente las & aacute;reas agr & iacute;colas, inducidas por & aacute;rboles remanentes caracter & iacute;sticos del paisaje agr & iacute;cola a peque & ntilde;a escala de nuestra regi & oacute;n de estudio. S & iacute;ntesis y aplicaciones. Nuestros resultados ponen de manifiesto la importancia de estandarizar las medidas de biodiversidad e incorporar la diversidad beta en el seguimiento de la biodiversidad. Hemos demostrado que la diversidad taxon & oacute;mica, filogen & eacute;tica y funcional de las aves puede ser alta en bosques secundarios dentro de paisajes agr & iacute;colas de peque & ntilde;a escala. Esto pone de manifiesto el potencial de recuperaci & oacute;n de los bosques naturales, en particular cuando las parcelas de recuperaci & oacute;n est & aacute;n integradas en una matriz forestal que incluye bosques antiguos.

Production forests are often managed primarily for timber production, leading to biotic homogenization and reduced biodiversity. To explore strategies that promote biodiversity while maintaining timber yields, we conducted a large-scale experiment in eight German forests. We manipulated structural β-complexity, i.e., the heterogeneity of structural elements across forest patches, by experimentally introducing variation in canopy gaps and different types of deadwood across 156 plots of 50 × 50 m each, to investigate its effects on forest biodiversity. We analyzed soil nematode communities, which are important bioindicators and contributors to ecosystem processes, by assessing taxonomic and functional diversity across patch (α), site (γ), and between-patch (β) scales using Hill–Chao numbers. Additionally, we tested whether environmental variables explain nematode diversity responses. Our results show that functional diversity is more responsive than taxonomic diversity, with increased β-diversity of common and frequent taxa alongside simultaneous declines in α– and γ-diversity. This pattern suggests a shift toward more specialized nematode communities in response to the intervention. Moreover, we found that site-specific conditions, such as sand content and understory biomass, modulated these effects. Overall, our findings reveal complex, scale-dependent responses of nematode diversity to aboveground forest structural changes, emphasizing the need to consider environmental context in forest biodiversity management. This study represents an important first step toward understanding and enhancing soil biodiversity at management-relevant spatial scales. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. DFG, DFG–FZT 118, 202548816, 459717468

Biodiversity is multifaceted, encompassing taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional dimensions of biological variation. Long‐term studies which compare these dimensions across a range of environments elucidate ecosystem dynamics and responses to environmental change. A recently developed quantitative framework allows measurement of taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional diversity in equivalent, abundance‐sensitive units, so that these three dimensions of diversity can be directly compared. This framework has been implemented for both alpha diversity (iNEXT.3D) and beta diversity (iNEXT.Beta3D). We adapt this framework for application to pollen records, a major source of data on long‐term ecological change. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first application of the new framework to pollen records. We used the framework to compare dimensions of diversity during shifts in woodland extent and composition in northern Scotland, focusing on two sites with contrasting climatic and vegetation histories. These records capture responses to c . 8000 years of climatic and land‐use change. We found that despite persistent woodland cover, the less exposed site exhibits large variations in taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional diversity and composition, including a decline across all dimensions of diversity since 1200 cal year BP. Since around 7500 cal year BP, the exposed site shows more stable biodiversity across all three dimensions. We attribute these differing dynamics to habitat heterogeneity at the less exposed site and slow ecological processes (e.g. peat expansion and regeneration failure in trees) at the exposed site. The results show that diversity responses to changing or persistent woodland cover varied across the three dimensions of diversity and also for rare, abundant and dominant groups. These responses are not detected through conventional analyses of taxonomic richness. Synthesis . Evaluating long‐term diversity patterns in an integrated framework allows direct comparison of taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic diversity patterns, and generates insights of potential relevance to ecosystem management. Across multiple dimensions, changes in diversity and composition are evident despite woodland persistence, and long‐term site‐specific ecological processes strongly influence diversity dynamics. By applying the framework to pollen data, and demonstrating that this yields insights into long‐term diversity change, our work supports broader application of this method to palaeoecological records.

Metacommunity theory has expanded our understanding of how spatial dynamics and local interactions influence species communities. Different assembly archetypes, reflecting different roles of species differences, habitat differences, and dispersal have been described, but we lack empirical studies specifically in terrestrial habitats testing which archetype is most important. In a replicated design we experimentally enhanced structural between-patch heterogeneity in homogeneous production forests and developed a statistical framework controlling for sample incompleteness to detect different metacommunity processes. Meta-analyses on >100K individuals of >1.3K beetle species showed an increase of ∼60 species in heterogenized forests at γ-level promoted by increasing α-diversity consistent with the mass-effect and an increase of β-diversity by ∼10% supporting species-sorting . Additionally, we tested β-deviations from random assembly as a proxy of neutral processes . Findings indicate that enhancing structural heterogeneity can shift forests from patch-dynamics dominance towards mass-effect and species-sorting , offering a promising pathway to restore biodiversity in managed landscapes. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, https://ror.org/018mejw64, 459717468

When biodiversity–stability relationships are assessed from temporal patterns of species (or species assemblages) biomass or other key variables, ecological stability is commonly quantified as the inverse of the coefficient of variation ( CV ) or its square. However, just as biodiversity cannot be fully characterized by a single value, the complexity of temporal stability/invariability cannot be completely captured by one metric, especially since CV is disproportionally sensitive to large data values. Ecologists now recognize that species diversity can be fully characterized by a continuum of Hill-number-based measures parametrized by a diversity order q ≥0, which determines the sensitivity of the measure to species abundance. Building on the intuitive concept that temporal stability can be quantified by the closeness between the data vector and the ideally maximally stable vector, we propose a continuum of information-based measures of temporal stability/invariability parameterized by an order q >0. This continuous parameter q determines the sensitivity of the measure to the magnitude of biomass or other ecosystem functions. By varying q , researchers can differentially weight small, medium, or large values in a time series, thereby disentangling their respective contributions to stability. Our framework unifies and generalizes classical measures: the case q =1 links to Shannon entropy, reflecting MacArthur’s 1955 stability concept; q =2 connects to the conventional CV -based measure. Unlike these traditional metrics, our approach explicitly accounts for the number of data values (i.e., time points), adjusting for time-series-length effects to enable fair and meaningful comparisons across datasets of varying lengths. We extend the framework to hierarchical structures by developing additive and multiplicative decompositions of stability in a metacommunity (or metapopulation) into alpha and beta components. The beta component can be further used to obtain measures that quantify (a)synchrony among communities (or populations). For q =2, the resulting (a)synchrony measure provides a mathematically rigorous, CV -based metric. The proposed measures are illustrated using 22-year biomass time series data from the Jena Experiment in Germany. We developed the R package iSTAY (information-based stability measures) and online tools for computation and visualization. Our measures are adaptable to other functions beyond biomass and are applicable in both temporal and spatial contexts. Open Research Statement The original biomass data of the Jena Experiment, covering the years 2003 to 2023, can be retrieved from , while the 2024 data are available at . These datasets, along with the R code used in this study, are currently accessible on Github at for review purposes and will be archived on Zenodo upon journal acceptance. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. National Science and Technology Council, https://ror.org/02kv4zf79, NSTC-113-2118-M-007-005 German Research Foundation, FOR 5375, 459717468, FZT 118, 202548816

The use of metabarcoding for insect species identification has grown rapidly, but the absence of abundance data hinders meaningful diversity metrics like sample coverage-standardized species richness. Additionally, the vast number of taxa often lacks a unified phylogeny or trait database. We present a framework for constructing a phylogenetic tree encompassing the majority of insect families, standardisation of sample coverage (an objective measure of sample completeness) and assessment of both taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity using the Hill series for metabarcoding data. Applied to central Europe, our framework analysed insect diversity from 400 families along a land-use gradient. Results revealed land-use intensity significantly affects sample coverage, emphasizing the need for biodiversity standardization. After standardization, taxonomic diversity declined by 27 to 44%, and phylogenetic diversity by 13 to 29% across 39,000 Operational Taxonomic Units, from forests to agricultural areas. Rare species exhibited greater phylogenetic diversity loss than taxonomic, while dominant species showed smaller phylogenetic losses but stronger declines in taxonomic diversity. Our findings underscore agriculture's detrimental effects on specific insect taxa, even after adjusting for sample coverage, and provide new insights into the loss of functional diversity, as represented by phylogeny. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest.

Effective conservation management and habitat restoration rely on understanding how biodiversity responds to environmental change. Centuries of silviculture have homogenized forests and their species communities globally, reducing biodiversity. To test whether restoring forest structural complexity can promote biodiversity, we conducted a large-scale, spatially explicit landscape experiment. At 11 sites across Germany, we compared bat and bird diversity in forests with experimentally enhanced heterogeneity by increasing deadwood and canopy complexity to homogeneous production forests. Both taxa were investigated by autonomous acoustic recorders and automatic species identification. We quantified within-patch (α-), between-patch (β-), and landscape-level (γ-) diversity, emphasizing infrequent to highly frequent species for taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity. The pairwise comparisons of the sites were synthesized using a newly developed meta-analysis of rarefaction-extrapolation curves. γ-diversity increased significantly in structurally heterogeneous forests for both taxa, albeit through distinct taxon-specific mechanisms. Bat γ-diversity gains were primarily driven by higher β-diversity, indicating greater dissimilarity in species assemblages among patches, while bird γ-diversity increased via higher α-diversity within patches. Bat diversity increases were mainly taxonomic, suggesting functional similarity in the communities, whereas birds showed the highest gains in functional diversity, indicating that experimental treatments resulted in greater trait dissimilarity. Our results provide experimental evidence under real-world conditions that γ-diversity can be shaped by different diversity mechanisms. These patterns likely originate from differences in activity ranges, such as the large-scale movements of foraging bats in contrast to the more spatially restricted, territorial behavior of birds. This highlights the need for taxon-specific restoration strategies in homogenized landscapes. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. German Research Foundation (DFG), 459717468 German Federal Environmental Foundation (DBU), 34488/01, 01LC1323A Bavarian State Ministry for Food, Agriculture, and Forestry (StMELF), L062 Bavarian Research Institute for Digital Transformation (bidt), KON-22-024

Land‐use intensification is filtering for species, able to cope with anthropogenic landscapes. This was assumed to result in functionally and phylogenetically homogenous communities, but a recent meta‐analysis could not confirm a consistent homogenization response to human pressure and raises open questions. In central Europe, the two major steps of land‐use intensification were the conversion of forests to agriculture, and the intensification of land use within both habitats. Using light trap data of nocturnal moths, we tested the hypothesis of trait filtering and increasing community homogenization, measured by beta diversity, as response to increasing land‐use intensity. The study was conducted in three regions of Germany, each representing well selected and replicated land‐use gradients in forests and grasslands. With increasing land use, we predicted (P1) decreasing functional and phylogenetic beta diversity, (P2) decreasing body size, (P3) increasing wing load and (P4) darker species in communities. We calculated sample coverage standardized functional (FBD) and phylogenetic (PBD) beta diversity along Hill numbers. We found decreasing FBD and PBD with increasing land use within both habitats, but only for common and dominant species, while rare species in forests showed the opposite pattern. In contrast, grasslands, with higher human pressure, showed overall higher PBD compared to forests, while FDB for common and dominant species showed the opposite pattern. Focusing on functional traits, community weighted means showed a decrease in average body size and an increase in wing load and colour darkness with increasing land‐use intensity. These findings corroborate the increasing evidence of a more complex pattern of land‐use effects on beta diversity in species communities, varying in response over relative abundance and focused facets of biodiversity. It also shows how phylogeny can act as a surrogate for functional diversity because closely related species often share similar traits due to their common evolutionary history.