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Understanding the drivers of community assembly is critical for predicting the future of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Ecological selection ubiquitously shapes communities by selecting for individuals with the most suitable trait combinations. Detecting selection types on key traits across environmental gradients and over time has the potential to reveal the underlying abiotic and biotic drivers of community dynamics. Here, we present a model-based predictive framework to quantify the multidimensional trait distributions of communities (community trait spaces), which we use to identify ecological selection types shaping communities along environmental gradients. We apply the framework to over 3600 boreal forest understory plant communities with results indicating that directional, stabilizing, and divergent selection all modify community trait distributions and that the selection type acting on individual traits may change over time. Our results provide novel and rare empirical evidence for divergent selection within a natural system. Our approach provides a framework for identifying key traits under selection and facilitates the detection of processes underlying community dynamics., (© 2024 The Author(s). Ecology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of The Ecological Society of America.)

Protected areas are considered fundamental to counter biodiversity loss. However, evidence for their effectiveness in averting local extinctions remains scarce and taxonomically biased. We employ a robust counterfactual multi-taxon approach to compare occupancy patterns of 638 species, including birds (150), mammals (23), plants (39) and phytoplankton (426) between protected and unprotected sites across four decades in Finland. We find mixed impacts of protected areas, with only a small proportion of species explicitly benefiting from protection-mainly through slower rates of decline inside protected areas. The benefits of protection are enhanced for larger protected areas and are traceable to when the sites were protected, but are mostly unrelated to species conservation status or traits (size, climatic niche and threat status). Our results suggest that the current protected area network can partly contribute to slow down declines in occupancy rates, but alone will not suffice to halt the biodiversity crisis. Efforts aimed at improving coverage, connectivity and management will be key to enhance the effectiveness of protected areas towards bending the curve of biodiversity loss., (© 2023. Springer Nature Limited.)

Mosses take up nitrogen (N) mainly from precipitation through their surfaces, which makes them competent bioindicators of N deposition. We found positive relationships between the total N concentration (mossN%) of common terrestrial moss species (feather mosses Pleurozium schreberi and Hylocomium splendens, and a group of Dicranum species) and different forms of N deposition in 11-16 coniferous forests with low N deposition load in Finland. The mosses were collected either inside (Dicranum group) or both inside and outside (feather mosses) the forests. Deposition was monitored in situ as bulk deposition (BD) and stand throughfall (TF) and detected for ammonium (NH 4 + -N), nitrate (NO 3 - -N), dissolved organic N (DON), and total N (N tot , kg ha -1 yr -1 ). N tot deposition was lower in TF than BD indicating that tree canopies absorbed N from deposition in N limited boreal stands. However, mossN% was higher inside than outside the forests. In regression equations, inorganic N in BD predicted best the mossN% in openings, while DON in TF explained most variation of mossN% in forests. An asymptotic form of mossN% vs. TF N tot curves in forests and free NH 4 + -N accumulation in tissues in the southern plots suggested mosses were near the N saturation state already at the N tot deposition level of 3-5 kg ha -1 yr -1 . N leachate from ground litterfall apparently also contributed the N supply of mosses. Our study yielded new information on the sensitivity of boreal mosses to low N deposition and their response to different N forms in canopy TF entering moss layer. The equations predicting the N tot deposition with mossN% showed a good fit both in forest sites and openings, especially in case of P. schreberi. However, the open site mossN% is a preferable predictor of N deposition in monitoring studies to minimize the effect of tree canopies and N leachate from litterfall on the estimates., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Biological fixation of atmospheric nitrogen (N 2 ) by bryophyte-associated cyanobacteria is an important source of plant-available N in the boreal biome. Information on the factors that drive biological N 2 fixation (BNF) rates is needed in order to understand the N dynamics of forests under a changing climate. We assessed the potential of several cryptogam species (the feather mosses Hylocomium splendens and Pleurozium schreberi, a group of Dicranum bryophytes, two liverworts, and Cladina lichens) to serve as associates of cyanobacteria or other N 2 -fixing bacteria (diazotrophs) using acetylene reduction assay (ARA). We tested the hypotheses that the legacy of chronic atmospheric N deposition reduces BNF in the three bryophyte species, sampled from 12 coniferous forests located at latitudes 60-68° N in Finland. In addition, we tested the effect of moisture and temperature on BNF. All species studied showed a BNF signal in the north, with the highest rates in feather mosses. In moss samples taken along the north-south gradient with an increasing N bulk deposition from 0.8 to 4.4 kg ha -1  year -1 , we found a clear decrease in BNF in both feather mosses and Dicranum group. BNF turned off at N deposition of 3-4 kg ha -1  year -1 . Inorganic N (NH 4 -N + NO 3 -N) best predicted the BNF rate among regression models with different forms of N deposition as explanatory variables. However, in southern spruce stands, tree canopies modified the N in throughfall so that dissolved organic N (DON) leached from canopies compensated for inorganic N retained therein. Here, both DON and inorganic N negatively affected BNF in H. splendens. In laboratory experiments, BNF increased with increasing temperature and moisture. Our results suggest that even relatively low N deposition suppresses BNF in bryophyte-associated diazotrophs. Further, BNF could increase in northern low-deposition areas, especially if climate warming leads to moister conditions, as predicted., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)