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Poleward and uphill range shifts are a common—but variable—response to climate change. We lack understanding regarding this interspecific variation; for example, functional traits show weak or mixed ability to predict range shifts.Characteristics of species' ranges may enhance prediction of range shifts. However, the explanatory power of many range characteristics—especially within‐range abundance patterns—remains untested.Here, we introduce a hypothesis framework for predicting range‐limit population trends and range shifts from the internal structure of the geographic range, specifically range edge hardness, defined as abundance within range edges relative to the whole range. The inertia hypothesis predicts that high edge abundance facilitates expansions along the leading range edge but creates inertia (either more individuals must disperse or perish) at the trailing range edge such that the trailing edge recedes slowly. In contrast, the limitation hypothesis suggests that hard range edges are the signature of strong limits (e.g. biotic interactions) that force faster contraction of the trailing edge but block expansions at the leading edge of the range.Using a long‐term avian monitoring dataset from northern Minnesota, USA, we estimated population trends for 35 trailing‐edge species and 18 leading‐edge species and modelled their population trends as a function of range edge hardness derived from eBird data. We found limited evidence of associations between range edge hardness and range‐limit population trends. Trailing‐edge species with harder range edges were slightly more likely to be declining, demonstrating weak support for the limitation hypothesis. In contrast, leading‐edge species with harder range edges were slightly more likely to be increasing, demonstrating weak support for the inertia hypothesis.These opposing results for the leading and trailing range edges might suggest that different mechanisms underpin range expansions and contractions, respectively. As data and state‐of‐the‐art modelling efforts continue to proliferate, we will be ever better equipped to map abundance patterns within species' ranges, offering opportunities to anticipate range shifts through the lens of the geographic range. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: Global species distribution maps tend to be limited to a reduced number of species or are too coarse to inform ecological research and conservation actions at local scales. We developed a workflow to generate species range and area of habitat (AOH) maps tailored to local contexts based on expert information, community science observations and an ecoregion approach. We also developed a workflow to increase transparency in range maps and map the areas of uncertainty at the species and community levels using community science data. Location: North‐Western South America. Methods: We combined expert knowledge, community science observations, a new map of ecoregions for Colombia and national maps of land cover to produce species range and AOH maps for 94% of the terrestrial resident birds of Colombia (1633 species). We used community science records to validate the range maps and produce a species‐specific layer of uncertainty by calculating the distance between pixels classified as habitat and species occurrence points. Results: Compared to previous efforts, the new maps have higher species coverage and produced better validation scores for more than 50% of the species analysed. In addition, the produced maps also show macroecological patterns that follow natural boundaries, significantly improving the arbitrary patterns observed in previous mapping efforts. Uncertainty maps illustrate the spatial resolution and the extent at which these maps can be used with the highest confidence and highlight poorly surveyed areas that require extensive sampling. Main Conclusions: Combining information from expert sources, field observations and broad macroecological patterns is key to improve AOH maps that are fitted to local applications. Our uncertainty analysis can also guide concerted national efforts to survey specific localities. Our workflow can be used in multiple regions, countries and for other taxa, and we expect that it will improve local estimates of biogeographical and species diversity patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Aim Location Taxon Methods Results Main Conclusions Forest pathogens, insect pests and parasitic plants are among the most important disturbance agents in forested ecosystems. Understanding where pests occur and where they might occur in the future will be important for understanding their impacts on host trees, and planning for future pest outbreaks.North America.Insect pests, pathogens and parasitic plants of forest trees.Here, we develop and implement a framework to predict the contemporary distributions of 26 pest species that accounts for climate, host abundance and, for non‐native species, their spread on the landscape.We show that pest distributions can be predicted primarily by climatic variables. The abundance of individual host trees had only minor explanatory power, but the summed total of host abundance frequently had greater importance—suggesting forest composition and the relative frequency of hosts and non‐hosts place strong limits on pest distributions. Non‐native pests were strongly impacted by the distance from their original discovery location in North America, which tended to interact with climate variables—suggesting most non‐native pests are not yet at equilibrium with their potential climatic ranges in North America.This work helps to clarify the generalised controls on pest distributions and provide a framework for predicting pest distributions in future climates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fine‐scale spatial climate variation fosters biodiversity and buffers it from climate change, but ecological studies are constrained by the limited accessibility of relevant fine‐scale climate data. In this paper we introduce a novel form of species distribution model that uses species occurrences to predict high‐resolution climate variation. This new category of 'bioclimate' data, representing micro‐scale climate as experienced by one or more species of interest, is a useful complement to microclimate data from existing approaches. The modeling method, called BISHOP for 'bioclimate inference from species' high‐resolution occurrence patterns,' uses data on species occurrences, coarse‐scale climate, and fine‐scale physiography (e.g. terrain, soil, vegetation) to triangulate fine‐scale bioclimate patterns. It works by pairing a climate‐downscaling function predicting a latent bioclimate variable, with a niche function predicting species occurrences from bioclimate. BISHOP infers how physiography affects bioclimate, estimates how these effects vary geographically, and produces high‐resolution (10 m) maps of bioclimate over large regions. It also predicts species distributions. After introducing this approach, we apply it in an empirical study focused on topography and trees. Using data on 216 North American tree species, we document the biogeographic patterns that enable BISHOP, estimate how four terrain variables (northness, eastness, windward exposure, and elevational position) each influence three climate variables, and use these results to produce downscaled maps of tree‐specific bioclimate. Model validation demonstrates that inferred bioclimate outperforms macroclimate in predicting distributions of separate species not used during inference, confirming its ecological relevance. Our results show that nearby bioclimates can differ by 5°C in temperature and twofold in moisture, with equator‐facing, east‐facing, windward‐facing, and locally elevated sites exhibiting hotter, drier bioclimates on average. But these effects vary greatly across climate zones, revealing that topographically similar landscapes can differ strongly in their bioclimate variation. These results have important implications for micrometeorology, biodiversity, and climate resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Motivation Main Types of Variables Contained Spatial Location and Grain Time Period and Grain Major Taxa and Level of Measurement Software Format Accurate estimates of species distributions are crucial for biogeography, spatial conservation, and for assessing the impacts of human activities on species. However, existing approaches to estimate species distributions have typically neglected the influence of land use intensity, potentially overlooking the negative impacts of high‐intensity land uses on biodiversity. Here, we build a dataset documenting the habitat suitability of European land systems for terrestrial vertebrate species, based on a novel land system map of Europe that factors in land use intensity. Our database offers refined and up‐to‐date information on terrestrial vertebrate distributions in Europe by explicitly considering land use intensity.We created a table defining the suitability of land use classes as habitats for each species. We then built Area of Habitat (AOH) maps for each species by filtering out unsuitable habitat from the latest available estimates of species ranges. AOH maps were then compared with occurrence records from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). Processed datasets and R scripts are publicly available online, facilitating the use of our approach to refine expert‐based distributions for other taxa, land system classifications and regions worldwide.The AOH maps cover the spatial extent of the European Union (EU) with the United Kingdom, Norway, Switzerland, and the Western Balkans. The AOH maps are at a 1 km2 resolution.The dataset uses information published during the last 10 years.Habitat suitability was documented for 1155 terrestrial vertebrate species known to occur in Europe: 279 mammals, 520 birds, 251 reptiles and 104 amphibians.We provide the habitat suitability table in a comma‐separated values (csv) format. The AOH maps are available as raster files. R scripts are publicly accessible on GitHub. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2023 Annual Symposium of the Fisheries Society of the British Isles hosted opportunities for researchers, scientists, and policy makers to reflect on the state of art of predicting fish distributions and consider the implications to the marine and aquatic environments of a changing climate. The outcome of one special interest group at the Symposium was a collection of questions, organized under five themes, which begin to capture the state of the field and identify priorities for research and management over the coming years. The five themes were Physiology, Mechanisms, Detect and Measure, Manage, and Wider Ecosystems. The questions, 25 of them, addressed concepts which remain poorly understood, are data deficient, and/or are likely to be impacted in measurable or profound ways by climate change. Moving from the first to the last theme, the questions expanded in the scope of their considerations, from specific processes within the individual to ecosystem‐wide impacts, but no one question is bigger than any other: each is important in detecting, understanding, and predicting fish distributions, and each will be impacted by an aspect of climate change. In this way, our questions, particularly those concerning unknown mechanisms and data deficiencies, aimed to offer a guide to other researchers, managers, and policy makers in the prioritization of future work as a changing climate is expected to have complex and disperse impacts on fish populations and distributions that will require a coordinated effort to address. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our knowledge of biodiversity hinges on sufficient data, reliable methods, and realistic models. Without an accurate assessment of species distributions, we cannot effectively target and stem biodiversity loss. Species range maps are the foundation of such efforts, but countless studies have failed to account for the most basic assumptions of reliable species mapping practices, undermining the credibility of their results and potentially misleading and hindering conservation and management efforts. Here, we use examples from the recent literature and broader conservation community to highlight the substantial shortfalls in current practices and their consequences for both analyses and conservation management. We detail how different decisions on data filtering impact the outcomes of analysis and provide practical recommendations and steps for more reliable analysis, whilst understanding the limits of what available data will reliably allow and what methods are most appropriate. Whilst perfect analyses are not possible for many taxa given limited data, and biases, ensuring we use data within reasonable limits and understanding inherent assumptions is crucial to ensure appropriate use. By embracing and enacting such best practices, we can ensure both the accuracy and improved comparability of biodiversity analyses going forward, ultimately enhancing our ability to use data to facilitate our protection of the natural world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The InBIO Barcoding Initiative (IBI) Orthoptera dataset contains records of 420 specimens covering all the eleven Orthoptera families occurring in Portugal. Specimens were collected in continental Portugal from 2005 to 2021 and were morphologically identified to species level by taxonomists. A total of 119 species were identified corresponding to about 77% of all the orthopteran species known from continental Portugal.DNA barcodes of 54 taxa were made public for the first time at the Barcode of Life Data System (BOLD). Furthermore, the submitted sequences were found to cluster in 129 BINs (Barcode Index Numbers), 35 of which were new additions to the Barcode of Life Data System (BOLD). All specimens have their DNA barcodes publicly accessible through BOLD online database. Stenobothrus lineatus is recorded for the first time for continental Portugal. This dataset greatly increases the knowledge on the DNA barcodes and distribution of Orthoptera from Portugal. All DNA extractions and most specimens are deposited in the IBI collection at CIBIO, Research Center in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources.

Eighty years ago, George S. Myers classified inland fishes in three divisions (primary, secondary and peripheral) based on their salinity tolerance and eco‐evolutionary history. Although this classification has been followed by many fish studies, it has also received considerable criticism. Here, we aim to test for differences in salinity and thermal tolerance, species traits and distribution patterns among the three divisions using data for about 21,000 species. We found that primary fishes have much less salinity tolerance than secondary and peripheral species, with some secondary fishes displaying the highest tolerances (>100 ppt). We also provide, for the first time, evidence of significant phylogenetic signal of salinity tolerance, comparable in magnitude to conservative traits, and show that studied peripheral and secondary species have maintained or even developed salinity tolerance, in contrast to primary fishes. Although peripheral fishes are the most different, and despite the large variability observed within some families, primary and secondary species also show differences in morphology and life‐history traits. The distribution ranges and genetic diversity of primary and secondary fish divisions are similar and differ from peripheral species, suggesting that although there is evidence of oceanic dispersal of a few secondary fishes at evolutionary time scales, it is a rare contemporary phenomenon. Importantly, a few findings outlined in this study, namely, differences in salinity tolerance, rely on limited data. Thus, we urge for additional empirical research on the salinity tolerance of freshwater fish, which remains largely unexplored, to help clarify differences among and within clades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: Global patterns in species distributions such as the latitudinal biodiversity gradient are of great interest to ecologists and have been thoroughly studied. Whether such a gradient holds true for the proportion of species associated with key ecotypes such as forests is however unknown. Identifying a gradient and ascertaining the factors causing it could further our understanding of community sensitivity to deforestation and uncover drivers of habitat specialization. The null hypothesis is that proportions of forest species remain globally consistent, though we hypothesize that proportions will change with differences in ecotype amount, spatial structure, and environmental stability. Here we study whether the proportion of forest species follows a latitudinal gradient, and test hypotheses for why this may occur. Location: Worldwide. Time period: Present. Major taxa studied: Terrestrial vertebrates. Methods: We combined range maps and habitat use data for all terrestrial vertebrates to calculate the proportion of forest species in an area. We then used data on the global distribution of current, recent historical, and long‐term historical forest cover, as well as maps of global disturbances and plant diversity to test our hypotheses using generalized linear models. Results: We identified a latitudinal gradient in the proportion of forest species whereby the highest proportions occurred at the equator and decreased polewards. We additionally found that the proportion of forest species increased with current forest cover, historical deforestation, plant structural complexity, and habitat stability. Despite the inclusion of these variables, the strong latitudinal gradient remained, suggesting additional causes of the gradient. Main conclusions: Our findings suggest that the global distribution of the proportion of forest species is a result of recent ecological, as well as long‐term evolutionary factors. Interestingly, high proportions of forest species were found in areas that experienced historical deforestation, suggesting a lagged response to such perturbations and potential extinction debt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The geographic redistributions of species due to a rapidly changing climate are poised to perturb ecological communities and significantly impact ecosystems and human livelihoods. Effectively managing these biological impacts requires a thorough understanding of the patterns and processes of species geographic range shifts. While substantial recent redistributions have been identified and recognized to vary by taxon, region, and range geometry, there are large gaps and biases in the available evidence. Here, we use the largest compilation of geographic range change observations to date, comprised of 33,016 potential redistributions across 12,009 species, to formally assess within‐ and cross‐species coverage and biases and to motivate future data collection. We find that species coverage varies strongly by taxon and underrepresents species at high and low latitudes. Within species, assessments of potential redistributions came from parts of their geographic range that were highly uneven and non‐representative. For most species and taxa, studies were strongly biased toward the colder parts of species' distributions and thus significantly underrepresented populations that might get pushed beyond their maximum temperature limits. Coverage of potential leading and trailing geographic range edges under a changing climate was similarly uneven. Only 8% of studied species were assessed at both high and low latitude and elevation range edges, with most only covered at one edge. This suggests that substantial within‐species biases exacerbate the considerable geographic and taxonomic among‐species unevenness in evidence. Our results open the door for a more quantitative accounting for existing knowledge biases in climate change ecology and a more informed management and conservation. Our findings offer guidance for future data collection that better addresses information gaps and provides a more effective foundation for managing the biological impacts of climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lotic fish species distributions are frequently predicted using remotely sensed habitat variables that characterize the adjacent landscape and serve as proxies for instream habitat. Recent advancements in statistical methodology, however, allow for leveraging fish assemblage data when predicting distributions. This is important because assemblage composition likely provides better information about instream habitat compared to landscape-derived metrics and therefore may improve predictions. To better understand the value of using multi-species fish data in species distribution modeling, we fit two conditional random fields (CRF) models to quantify the relative importance of fish assemblage co-occurrence, landscape-derived habitat variables, and interactions between these two predictor groups (i.e., effects of co-occurrence could be context-dependent) at over 1200 stream catchments in Pennsylvania, USA. We first compared predictive performance of CRF models against traditionally used single-species logistic regressions (generalized linear models; GLMs) and found that inclusion of fish assemblage data often improved predictive performance. The multi-species CRF models performed significantly better at predicting occurrence for 63% of species with an average percent increase in AUC of 25% compared to GLMs. Furthermore, the CRF identified species co-occurrences as more informative, and thus relatively more important, at predicting occurrence than the other effect types. The CRF also suggested that allowing these biotic effects to be context-dependent was important for predicting occurrence of many species. These findings illustrate the value of fish assemblage data for landscape-scale species distribution modeling and leveraging this information can improve predictions and inferences to help inform the management and conservation of freshwater fishes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reliable maps of species distributions are fundamental for biodiversity research and conservation. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) range maps are widely recognized as authoritative representations of species' geographic limits, yet they might not always align with actual occurrence data. In recent area of habitat (AOH) maps, areas that are not habitat have been removed from IUCN ranges to reduce commission errors, but their concordance with actual species occurrence also remains untested. We tested concordance between occurrences recorded in camera trap surveys and predicted occurrences from the IUCN and AOH maps for 510 medium‐ to large‐bodied mammalian species in 80 camera trap sampling areas. Across all areas, cameras detected only 39% of species expected to occur based on IUCN ranges and AOH maps; 85% of the IUCN only mismatches occurred within 200 km of range edges. Only 4% of species occurrences were detected by cameras outside IUCN ranges. The probability of mismatches between cameras and the IUCN range was significantly higher for smaller‐bodied mammals and habitat specialists in the Neotropics and Indomalaya and in areas with shorter canopy forests. Our findings suggest that range and AOH maps rarely underrepresent areas where species occur, but they may more often overrepresent ranges by including areas where a species may be absent, particularly at range edges. We suggest that combining range maps with data from ground‐based biodiversity sensors, such as camera traps, provides a richer knowledge base for conservation mapping and planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the medical importance of North African scorpions, many aspects of their ecology which may be important to understand envenoming patterns throughout their range, remain understudied. The region of Souss-Massa in central Morocco exhibits a high incidence of scorpion envenomings, with 29 437 cases reported between 2005 and 2010, resulting in 32 deaths. In the present study, we provide an updated inventory of scorpions occurring throughout the Souss-Massa region, with additional information about their distribution and notes on preferred habitats for each species observed. Sampling was carried out at 39 stations over a three-year period: June and August 2020, April and June 2022, and July and August 2023. Twelve species belonging to two families were recovered over the course of the study. The families Buthidae and Scorpionidae were represented by eleven and a single species respectively. Overall, this represents 71% of all species reported to occur in the Souss-Massa region. Apart from Androctonus mauritanicus, A. bourdoni, A. sergenti and Hottentotta gentili which are present in and around human dwellings, all other species were found in uninhabited areas. Apart from Scorpio mogadorensis, all the species of scorpions we recovered can cause severe envenomation with potentially fatal outcomes. Field-based ecological investigations should be encouraged to gain a more accurate and comprehensive understanding of scorpion distribution patterns and habitat preference. In turn, this will inform the health-science community of the etiological factors responsible for scorpion envenoming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The InBIO Barcoding Initiative (IBI) Orthoptera dataset contains records of 420 specimens covering all the eleven Orthoptera families occurring in Portugal. Specimens were collected in continental Portugal from 2005 to 2021 and were morphologically identified to species level by taxonomists. A total of 119 species were identified corresponding to about 77% of all the orthopteran species known from continental Portugal. New information: DNA barcodes of 54 taxa were made public for the first time at the Barcode of Life Data System (BOLD). Furthermore, the submitted sequences were found to cluster in 129 BINs (Barcode Index Numbers), 35 of which were new additions to the Barcode of Life Data System (BOLD). All specimens have their DNA barcodes publicly accessible through BOLD online database. Stenobothrus lineatus is recorded for the first time for continental Portugal. This dataset greatly increases the knowledge on the DNA barcodes and distribution of Orthoptera from Portugal. All DNA extractions and most specimens are deposited in the IBI collection at CIBIO, Research Center in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The InBIO Barcoding Initiative (IBI) Dataset - DS-IBILP08 contains records of 2350 specimens of moths (Lepidoptera species that do not belong to the superfamily Papilionoidea). All specimens have been morphologically identified to species or subspecies level and represent 1158 species in total. The species of this dataset correspond to about 42% of mainland Portuguese Lepidoptera species. All specimens were collected in mainland Portugal between 2001 and 2022. All DNA extracts and over 96% of the specimens are deposited in the IBI collection at CIBIO, Research Center in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources. New information: The authors enabled "The InBIO Barcoding Initiative Database: DNA barcodes of Portuguese moths" in order to release the majority of data of DNA barcodes of Portuguese moths within the InBIO Barcoding Initiative. This dataset increases the knowledge on the DNA barcodes of 1158 species from Portugal belonging to 51 families. There is an increase in DNA barcodes of 205% in Portuguese specimens publicly available. The dataset includes 61 new Barcode Index Numbers. All specimens have their DNA barcodes publicly accessible through BOLD online database and the distribution data can be accessed through the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Density-dependent competition for food influences the foraging behaviour and demography of colonial animals, but how this influence varies across a species’ latitudinal range is poorly understood. Here we used satellite tracking from 21 Northern Gannet Morus bassanus colonies (39% of colonies worldwide, supporting 73% of the global population) during chick-rearing to test how foraging trip characteristics (distance and duration) covary with colony size (138–60 953 breeding pairs) and latitude across 89% of their latitudinal range (46.81–71.23° N). Tracking data for 1118 individuals showed that foraging trip duration and maximum distance both increased with square-root colony size. Foraging effort also varied between years for the same colony, consistent with a link to environmental variability. Trip duration and maximum distance also decreased with latitude, after controlling for colony size. Our results are consistent with density-dependent reduction in prey availability influencing colony size and reveal reduced competition at the poleward range margin. This provides a mechanism for rapid population growth at northern colonies and, therefore, a poleward shift in response to environmental change. Further work is required to understand when and how colonial animals deplete nearby prey, along with the positive and negative effects of social foraging behaviour.

Changes in climate can alter environmental conditions faster than most species can adapt. A prediction under a warming climate is that species will shift their distributions poleward through time. While many studies focus on range shifts, latitudinal shifts in species' optima can occur without detectable changes in their range. We quantified shifts in latitudinal optima for 209 North American bird species over the last 55 y. The latitudinal optimum (m) for each species in each year was estimated using a bespoke flexible non-linear zero-inflated model of abundance vs. latitude, and the annual shift in m through time was quantified. One-third (70) of the bird species showed a significant shift in their optimum. Overall, mean peak abundances of North American birds have shifted northward, on average, at a rate of 1.5 km per year (±0.58 SE), corresponding to a total distance moved of 82.5 km (±31.9 SE) over the last 55 y. Stronger poleward shifts at the continental scale were linked to key species' traits, including thermal optimum, habitat specialization, and territoriality. Shifts in the western region were larger and less variable than in the eastern region, and they were linked to species' thermal optimum, habitat density preference, and habitat specialization. Individual species' latitudinal shifts were most strongly linked to their estimated thermal optimum, clearly indicating a climate-driven response. Displacement of species from their historically optimal realized niches can have dramatic ecological consequences. Effective conservation must consider within-range abundance shifts. Areas currently deemed "optimal" are unlikely to remain so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Primates are declining worldwide and rapid infrastructure expansion, particularly roads, threatens their habitat. New roads fragment habitats allowing anthropogenic activities to occur in once pristine ecosystems; this is particularly impactful in tropical areas with high endemic biodiversity, as is occurring with primates in Colombia. However, temporal assessments of how roads impact local biodiversity are rare. We conducted a comprehensive assessment of the exposure of Colombian primates to roads from 1970 to 2015. Using a spatially explicit and species‐specific approach, we estimated the critical road density and the critical patch size primate species can withstand before going locally extinct. Then, overlapping 15 primate species (~40% of the primate species present in Colombia) ranges with Colombia's road networks over time, we determined the road expansion scope within each habitat and consequent fragmentation. Comparing the species critical road density and patch size, we determined the degree of road exposure of each species over time and its vulnerability to local extinction. Our results show that between 1970 and 2015, there were nearly 40 000 km2 where at least one species was at risk of local extinction, due to road expansion, principally in the Andean and Caribbean regions. Primates in these regions faced the greatest exposure to road impacts, with an average 16% increase in the amount of affected habitat during this period. Species in most need of conservation based on road exposure rankings are: Cebus versicolor, Aotus griseimembra, Ateles hybridus, Saguinus leucopus and Saguinus oedipus. Our study contributes to understanding road impacts on local biodiversity in one of the biodiversity hotspots across the tropics and highlights the need of infrastructure accounting for the necessary mitigation and conservation actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biotic interactions are widely recognised as the backbone of ecological communities, but how best to study them is a subject of intense debate, especially at macro‐ecological scales. While some researchers claim that biotic interactions need to be observed directly, others use proxies and statistical approaches to infer them. Despite this ambiguity, studying and predicting the influence of biotic interactions on biogeographic patterns is a thriving area of research with crucial implications for conservation. Three distinct approaches are currently being explored. The first approach involves empirical observation and measurement of biotic interactions' effects on species demography in laboratory or field settings. While these findings contribute to theory and to understanding species' demographies, they can be challenging to generalise on a larger scale. The second approach centers on inferring biotic associations from observed co‐occurrences in space and time. The goal is to distinguish the environmental and biotic effects on species distributions. The third approach constructs extensive potential interaction networks, known as metanetworks, by leveraging existing knowledge about species ecology and interactions. This approach analyses local realisations of these networks using occurrence data and allows understanding large distributions of multi‐taxa assemblages. In this piece, we appraise these three approaches, highlighting their respective strengths and limitations. Instead of seeing them as conflicting, we advocate for their integration to enhance our understanding and expand applications in the emerging field of interaction biogeography. This integration shows promise for ecosystem understanding and management in the Anthropocene era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The distribution and population density of the Critically Endangered Tarzan Chameleon (Calumma tarzan) in eastern humid forests of Madagascar was studied using line transect-distance sampling. Based on the results from species distribution models, eight sites were visited over a four-month period from February 2020 to March 2021. In total, 46 transects of 1 km were investigated in 23 different forest fragments to understand the distribution of C. tarzan. Another 28 transects of 200 m in length were surveyed to estimate population density. Among the 23 investigated forest fragments, C. tarzan was confirmed from 14 fragments belonging to five sites. All 14 records are completely new and represent a significant range extension for the species. Calumma tarzan is distributed within an elevation range of 604–1048 m above sea level. An analysis of the population of the species across sites show that density varies broadly and ranges from 25 to 78 individuals per hectare. This study fills important knowledge gap on a Critically Endangered and endemic chameleon species and is vital to the development of urgently needed conservation strategy for the Tarzan Chameleon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Bees are important actors in terrestrial ecosystems and are recognised for their prominent role as pollinators. In the Iberian Peninsula, approximately 1,100 bee species are known, with nearly 100 of these species being endemic to the Peninsula. A reference collection of DNA barcodes, based on morphologically identified bee specimens, representing 514 Iberian species, was constructed. The "InBIO Barcoding Initiative Database: DNA Barcodes of Iberian bees" dataset contains records of 1,059 sequenced specimens. The species of this dataset correspond to about 47% of Iberian bee species diversity and 21% of endemic species diversity. For peninsular Portugal only, the corresponding coverage is 71% and 50%. Specimens were collected between 2014 and 2022 and are deposited in the research collection of Thomas Wood (Naturalis Biodiversity Center, The Netherlands), in the FLOWer Lab collection at the University of Coimbra (Portugal), in the Andreia Penado collection at the Natural History and Science Museum of the University of Porto (MHNC-UP) (Portugal) and in the InBIO Barcoding Initiative (IBI) reference collection (Vairão, Portugal). New information: Of the 514 species sequenced, 75 species from five different families are new additions to the Barcode of Life Data System (BOLD) and 112 new BINs were added. Whilst the majority of species were assigned to a single BIN (94.9%), 27 nominal species were assigned to multiple BINs. Although the placement into multiple BINs may simply reflect genetic diversity and variation, it likely also represents currently unrecognised species-level diversity across diverse taxa, such as Amegilla albigena Lepeletier, 1841, Andrena russula Lepeletier, 1841, Lasioglossum leucozonium (Schrank, 1781), Nomada femoralis Morawitz, 1869 and Sphecodes alternatus Smith, 1853. Further species pairs of Colletes, Hylaeus and Nomada were placed into the same BINs, emphasising the need for integrative taxonomy within Iberia and across the Mediterranean Basin more broadly. These data substantially contribute to our understanding of bee genetic diversity and DNA barcodes in Iberia and provide an important baseline for ongoing taxonomic revisions in the West Palaearctic biogeographical region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a consequence of anthropogenic climate change, marine species on continental shelves around the world are rapidly shifting deeper and poleward. However, whether these shifts deeper and poleward will allow species to access more, less, or equivalent amounts of continental shelf area and associated critical habitats remains unclear. By examining the proportion of seabed area at a range of depths for each large marine ecosystem (LME), we found that shelf area declined monotonically for 19% of LMEs examined. However, the majority exhibited a greater proportion of shelf area in mid-depths or across several depth ranges. By comparing continental shelf area across 2° latitudinal bands, we found that all coastlines exhibit multiple instances of shelf area expansion and contraction, which have the potential to promote or restrict poleward movement of marine species. Along most coastlines, overall shelf habitat increases or exhibits no significant change moving towards the poles. The exception is the Southern West Pacific, which experiences an overall loss of area with increasing latitude. Changes in continental shelf area availability across latitudes and depths are likely to affect the number of species local ecosystems can support. These geometric analyses help identify regions of conservation priority and ecological communities most likely to face attrition or expansion due to variations in available area.

Climate is assumed to strongly influence species distribution and abundance. Although the performance of many organisms is influenced by the climate in their immediate proximity, the climate data used to model their distributions often have a coarse spatial resolution. This is problematic because the local climate experienced by individuals might deviate substantially from the regional average. This problem is likely to be particularly important for sessile organisms like plants and in environments where small‐scale variation in climate is large. To quantify the effect of local temperature on vital rates and population growth rates, we used temperature values measured at the local scale (in situ logger measures) and integral projection models with demographic data from 37 populations of the forest herb Lathyrus vernus across a wide latitudinal gradient in Sweden. To assess how the spatial resolution of temperature data influences assessments of climate effects, we compared effects from models using local data with models using regionally aggregated temperature data at several spatial resolutions (≥1 km). Using local temperature data, we found that spring frost reduced the asymptotic population growth rate in the first of two annual transitions and influenced survival in both transitions. Only one of the four regional estimates showed a similar negative effect of spring frost on population growth rate. Our results for a perennial forest herb show that analyses using regionally aggregated data often fail to identify the effects of climate on population dynamics. This emphasizes the importance of using organism‐relevant estimates of climate when examining effects on individual performance and population dynamics, as well as when modeling species distributions. For sessile organisms that experience the environment over small spatial scales, this will require climate data at high spatial resolutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Aims Climate change, including gradual changes and extreme weather events, is driving widespread species losses and range shifts. These climatic changes are felt acutely in intertidal ecosystems, where many organisms live close to their thermal limits and experience the extremes of both marine and terrestrial environments. A recent series of multiyear heatwaves in the northeast Pacific Ocean might have impacted species even towards their cooler, northern range edges. Among them, the high intertidal kelp Postelsia palmaeformis has traits that could make it particularly vulnerable to climate change, but it is critically understudied. Methods In 2021 and 2022, we replicated in situ and aerial P. palmaeformis surveys that were conducted originally in 2006 and 2007, in order to assess the state of northern populations following recent heatwaves. Changes in P. palmaeformis distribution, extent, density and morphometrics were assessed between these two time points over three spatial scales, ranging from 250 m grid cells across the entire 167 km study region, to within grid cells and the individual patch. Key Results We found evidence consistent with population stability at all three scales: P. palmaeformis remained present in all 250 m grid cells in the study region where it was previously found, and neither the extent within cells nor the patch density changed significantly between time points. However, there was evidence of slight distributional expansion, increased blade lengths and a shift to earlier reproductive timing. Conclusions We suggest that apparent long-term stability of P. palmaeformis might be attributable to thermal buffering near its northern range edge and from the wave-exposed coastlines it inhabits, which may have decreased the impacts of heatwaves. Our results highlight the importance of multiscale assessments when examining changes within species and populations, in addition to the importance of dispersal capability and local conditions in regulating the responses of species to climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ocean warming and short-term extreme events (e.g. marine heatwaves) are becoming more intense and frequent and have had major impacts on ecosystems. Seaweeds are foundational components of temperate reefs, providing nutrition for a diversity of species and underpinning temperate food webs. While the impacts of climate-driven environmental change on seaweed distribution, abundance and interactions are well studied, potential impacts on the provision of nutrients from seaweeds and their availability to consumers remain poorly understood. Here, we use metabolomic and lipidomic approaches to understand how the provision of nutrients from key seaweeds may be altered under climate change. We optimize a small-scale microextraction technique to test the effects of warming and marine heatwaves on the nutritional quality of two Australian habitat-forming seaweeds; Ecklonia and Sargassum. We then model changes in lipid availability in response to climate-driven ocean warming throughout Ecklonia's eastern Australian distribution. Contrary to expectations, ocean warming and marine heatwaves had limited effects on seaweed nutritional quality, indicating resilience in the nutritional value of these species to climate- driven warming. However, nutritional quality varied significantly between species, which presents new implications for predicted species redistributions from the base of the food chain. Modelling revealed a projected net loss of 3.5% of lipids across the east coast of Australia by 2100 under RCP 8.5 in response to shifts in the redistribution of Ecklonia biomass. The climate-driven redistribution of seaweeds is likely to alter the availability of seaweed-derived nutrients to consumers, which may have broad implications for the transfer of energy within temperate marine food webs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biodiversity data records contain inaccuracies and biases. To overcome this limitation and establish robust geographic patterns, ecologists often curate records keeping those that are most suitable for their analyses. Yet, this choice is not straightforward and the outcome of the analysis may vary due to a trade‐off between data quality and volume. This problem is particularly recurrent for less‐studied groups with patchy sampling effort. The latitudinal pattern of mosses richness remains inconsistent across studies and these may emerge purely from sampling artefacts. Our main objective here is to assess the effect of different curation criteria on this spatial pattern in the Temperate Northern Hemisphere (above 20° latitude). We contrasted the geographical distribution of moss species records and the latitude‐species richness relation obtained under different data curation scenarios. These scenarios comprehend five sources of taxonomical standardisations and eight data cleaning filters. The analyses are based on the selection of well‐surveyed cells at 100 km cell resolution. The application of some 'data curation scenarios' severely affects the number of records selected for analysis and substantially changes the proportion of richness per cell. The sensitivity to data curation becomes detectable at regional and at the cell scales showing a large shift in the latitudinal richness peak in Europe, from 60° N to 45° N latitude, when only preserved specimens are selected and duplicates based on date of collection and coordinates are excluded. Our results stress the importance of justifying the criteria used for filtering biodiversity data retrieved from biodiversity databases to avoid detecting misleading patterns. Curating records under particular criteria compromises the information in some areas displaying different spatial information of mosses. This problem can be ameliorated if data filtering is combined with identifying well‐surveyed cells, render relatively constant results under different combinations of filtering even for less well‐known groups such as mosses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I studied how a breeding forest bird community changed over 20 years in the largely undisturbed forests of the Northeast Uplands ecoregion of Connecticut to determine whether changes showed a relationship with the predicted effects of climate change as well as effects of habitat changes occurring over this period. Moreover, I wished to compare how changes documented at this regional scale compared with patterns observed at the continental scale and at a more local scale. I predicted that patterns detected would relate to the region's warming climate and maturing forests and that patterns would most closely resemble those of the continental scale. I gathered data via variable circular plot surveys performed at 5 different 3.20 km-long transects, which I surveyed for 2 years each at the beginning and end of the study period. Species richness and community density varied little over time. However, long-term turnover in species composition was nearly 30%, supporting the view that bird communities are dynamic rather than static assemblages. Community density more closely resembled continental patterns and species with population trends coincident with continental trends were 1.6 times greater than at the more local scale of the nearby Yale-Myers Forest. Species at their southern range limit undergoing population declines and species at their northern range limit undergoing population increases accounted for 26% of species, with 4 species showing the strongest population shifts having trends consistent with predicted effects of climate change. Forest interior species undergoing population increases and edge/successional species undergoing declines accounted for 36% of species. Moreover, increases were greater than decreases among forest interior populations. Furthermore, far more edge/successional species were declining than increasing. However, most populations undergoing changes were not associated with range limits. Moreover, 43% of species had population trends opposite to those predicted by a habitat hypothesis. The distributions and populations of community members may best be described as a consequence of a complex interplay of responses to multiple and sometimes conflicting factors and factors operating at differing environmental scales. Estudié cómo una comunidad de aves de bosque cambió en 20 años en bosques mayormente sin disturbios en la ecoregión de tierras altas de Connecticut para determinar si sus cambios estaban relacionados con los efectos predichos del cambio climático así como los efectos de cambio de hábitat que ocurrieron en ese periodo. Además, quise comparar cómo cambios documentados a escala regional se comparaban con patrones observados a escala continental y a una escala más local. Yo predije que los patrones detectados se relacionarían más con el calentamiento del clima y la maduración de los bosques de la región y que esos patrones detectados que parecerían más a los de la escala continental. Recolecté datos via censos de parcela circular variable realizados en cinco transeptos de 3,2 km de largo, que monitorée durante 2 años cada uno, al inicio y al final del periodo de estudio. La riqueza de especies y la densidad de comunidad varió poco en el tiempo. Sin embargo, el recambio a largo plazo en la composición de especies era de cerca de 30%, lo que apoya la idea de que las comunidades de aves son ensambles dinámicos en vez de estáticos. La densidad de comunidades que eran más similares a los patrones continentales y especies con tendencias poblacionales coincidían con tendencias continentales eran 1.6 veces mayores que a escala más local en el cercano bosque de Yale-Myers. Especies con cuyo límite sureño del rango de distribución sufren declives poblacionales y cuyo límite norteño tienen aumentos poblacionales representan un 26% de las especies, con 4 especies que muestran los cambios más fuertes poblacionales tendientes a lo predicho por los efectos del cambio climático. Las especies de interior de bosque con incrementos poblacionales y especies de borde/sucesión con declives representaron el 36% de las especies. Más aún, los incrementos fueron mayores que los declives en especies de interior de bosque. Además, había más especies de borde/sucesión que estaban declinando en vez de aumentando. Sin embargo, la mayoría de las especies que estaban cambiando no se asociaban a límites de rango. Más aún, el 43% de las especies tenían tendencias poblacionales opuestas a lo predicho por la hipótesis de hábitat. Las distribuciones poblaciones de miembros de las comunidades pueden ser mejor descritas como una consecuencia de interacciones complejas que responden a múltiples factores, a veces en conflicto y que operan a distintas escalas ambientales. Palabras clave: densidad de comunidad, distribución de especies, recambio de especies, riqueza de especies, tendencias de población. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To assess the patterns and severity of disjunction at multiple taxonomic levels for birds, amphibians, crocodilians, and mammals in the western hemisphere, we compiled over 10,100 species ranges and analyzed each range using ERSI ArcMap (10.8.1). After identifying species ranges that were disjunct by 500 km or more, we calculated the mean distance between the disjunct range polygon and primary polygon (d) and relative disjunct area (A) and analyzed disjunction by geographic area and latitude. Birds are the most commonly disjunct taxa (19.3%), followed by mammals (6.4%) and amphibians (2.8%). According to distance and relative area, birds are more severely disjunct than amphibians and mammals. Geographically, South America is home to the largest number of disjunctions across all taxa and latitudinal trends show that disjunction varies by latitude and, coincident with species richness, peaks in the southern tropics. Similarities in disjunction patterns, particularly between mammals and amphibians, suggest that geographic factors, along with dispersal ability, play a key role in creating disjunct distributions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to historical under‐sampling of the deep ocean, the distributional ranges of mesopelagic zooplankton are not well documented, leading to uncertainty about the mechanisms that shape midwater zooplankton community composition. Using a combination of DNA metabarcoding (18S‐V4 and mtCOI) and trait‐based analysis, we characterized zooplankton diversity and community composition in the upper 1000 m of the northeast Pacific Ocean. We tested whether the North Pacific Transition Zone is a biogeographic boundary region for mesopelagic zooplankton. We also tested whether zooplankton taxa occupying different vertical habitats and exhibiting different ecological traits differed in the ranges of temperature, Chl‐a, and dissolved oxygen conditions inhabited. The depth of the maximum taxonomic richness deepened with increasing latitude in the North Pacific. Community similarity in the mesopelagic zone also increased in comparison with the epipelagic zone, and no evidence was found for a biogeographic boundary between previously delineated mesopelagic biogeochemical provinces. Epipelagic zooplankton exhibited broader temperature and Chl‐a ranges than mesopelagic taxa. Within the epipelagic, taxa with broader temperature and Chl‐a ranges also had broader distributional ranges. However, mesopelagic taxa were distributed across wider dissolved oxygen ranges, and within the mesopelagic, only oxygen ranges covaried with distributional ranges. Environmental and distributional ranges also varied among traits, both for epipelagic taxa and mesopelagic taxa. The strongest differences in both environmental and distributional ranges were observed for taxa with or without diel vertical migration behavior. Our results suggest that species traits can influence the differential effects of physical dispersal and environmental selection in shaping biogeographic distributions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The distribution of species is mostly influenced by climate synergistic effects and land use. The prediction of endangered species is dependent on fine-scale environmental features, especially in forests. The capture of fine-scale suitable habitats is bounded by low spatial resolution and coarse categorization. In this study, we improved the land use information and forest spatial detail through high forest thematic resolution land use data. To understand the relative influence of environmental factors, suitable habitat models for Chinese endangered tree species (Firmiana danxiaensis) under three climate and high forest thematic resolution land use conditions was constructed. We also assess F. danxiaensis 's response to climate and land use, and differential performance in land use on the suitable habitat. The area of suitable habitat for F. danxiaensis grows slowly under the SSP1-2.6 (shared social pathway scenario) scenario, decreases by 21.33% from the present to 2090 under the SSP2-4.5 scenario, and expands significantly under the SSP5-8.5 scenario. We conclude that high forest thematic resolution land use is beneficial in capturing species' requirements for specific habitats and especially necessary in predicting endangered species. At the same time, the distribution of suitable habitats for species is primarily driven by climate, and limited their development by land use. The study shows that the synthetic effects of climate and land use change on F. danxiaensis are positive, with a marked trend toward the northeast. As a consequence, some endangered species are able to benefit from future SSPs scenarios, in particular they respond more strongly to the SSP5-8.5 scenario than to the other scenarios. Assessing the role of changes in the climate and high forest thematic resolution land use on F. danxiaensis will help promote sustainable land use management and contribute to the conservation policy for Chinese endangered species.

Indochina is known as one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots, with populations of many endangered and/or endemic species dramatically declining due to a range of threats, such as illegal hunting, habitat destruction, and global climate change. Climate change is expected to alter the region’s habitat and ecosystem conditions, force contraction of species ranges, and increase the likelihood of local extinctions. Maxent is a widely used modelling approach to predict the species’ current potential distribution, project range shifts in response to climate change, and inform conservation planning. Here, we collated known records and built models for both present and future climatically suitable habitat of the Owston’s Civet (Chrotogale owstoni), an endangered and poorly studied small carnivore occurring in Vietnam, eastern Laos, and a small part of southern China. Projections of climatically suitable habitat for the civet in most climate change scenarios and timeframes suggest significant habitat loss and fragmentation within its current range as a consequence of upward contraction. We recommend that future conservation efforts for C. owstoni focus on key refugia spreading along the Annamite Range in the border area between Vietnam and Laos. To mitigate climate-related extinction risk, close cooperation between Vietnam and Laos’ governmental agencies, research institutions, and non-governmental conservation organizations will play an important role in conserving the remaining habitat of this endangered species.

Effective conservation efforts and predictions of future impacts on biodiversity depend heavily on publicly available information about species distributions. However, data on species distributions is often patchy, especially in many countries of the Global South where resources for biological surveys have been historically limited. In this study, we use biodiversity ignorance scores to quantify and visualize gaps and biases in biodiversity data for Namibia, with a focus on five terrestrial taxa at a spatial scale of 10 x 10 km. We model the relationship between ignorance scores and socio-geographical variables using generalized additive models for location, scale and shape (GAMLSS). Our findings demonstrate that despite a high volume of occurrence records available on the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), publicly available knowledge of Namibia's terrestrial biodiversity remains very limited, with large areas contributing few or no records for key taxa. The exception is birds that have benefitted from a massive influx of data from the citizen science platform eBird. Our study also highlights the importance of citizen science initiatives for biodiversity knowledge and reinforces the usefulness of ignorance scores as a simple intuitive indicator of the relative availability and distribution of species occurrence records. However, further research, biological surveys, and renewed efforts to make existing data held by museums and other institutions widely available are still necessary to enhance biodiversity data coverage in countries with patchy data.

Abstract Biodiversity data records contain inaccuracies and biases. To overcome this limitation and establish robust geographic patterns, ecologists often curate records keeping those that are most suitable for their analyses. Yet, this choice is not straightforward and the outcome of the analysis may vary due to a trade‐off between data quality and volume. This problem is particularly recurrent for less‐studied groups with patchy sampling effort. The latitudinal pattern of mosses richness remains inconsistent across studies and these may emerge purely from sampling artefacts. Our main objective here is to assess the effect of different curation criteria on this spatial pattern in the Temperate Northern Hemisphere (above 20° latitude). We contrasted the geographical distribution of moss species records and the latitude‐species richness relation obtained under different data curation scenarios. These scenarios comprehend five sources of taxonomical standardisations and eight data cleaning filters. The analyses are based on the selection of well‐surveyed cells at 100 km cell resolution. The application of some ‘data curation scenarios’ severely affects the number of records selected for analysis and substantially changes the proportion of richness per cell. The sensitivity to data curation becomes detectable at regional and at the cell scales showing a large shift in the latitudinal richness peak in Europe, from 60° N to 45° N latitude, when only preserved specimens are selected and duplicates based on date of collection and coordinates are excluded. Our results stress the importance of justifying the criteria used for filtering biodiversity data retrieved from biodiversity databases to avoid detecting misleading patterns. Curating records under particular criteria compromises the information in some areas displaying different spatial information of mosses. This problem can be ameliorated if data filtering is combined with identifying well‐surveyed cells, render relatively constant results under different combinations of filtering even for less well‐known groups such as mosses.

Abstract Due to historical under‐sampling of the deep ocean, the distributional ranges of mesopelagic zooplankton are not well documented, leading to uncertainty about the mechanisms that shape midwater zooplankton community composition. Using a combination of DNA metabarcoding (18S‐V4 and mtCOI) and trait‐based analysis, we characterized zooplankton diversity and community composition in the upper 1000 m of the northeast Pacific Ocean. We tested whether the North Pacific Transition Zone is a biogeographic boundary region for mesopelagic zooplankton. We also tested whether zooplankton taxa occupying different vertical habitats and exhibiting different ecological traits differed in the ranges of temperature, Chl‐a, and dissolved oxygen conditions inhabited. The depth of the maximum taxonomic richness deepened with increasing latitude in the North Pacific. Community similarity in the mesopelagic zone also increased in comparison with the epipelagic zone, and no evidence was found for a biogeographic boundary between previously delineated mesopelagic biogeochemical provinces. Epipelagic zooplankton exhibited broader temperature and Chl‐a ranges than mesopelagic taxa. Within the epipelagic, taxa with broader temperature and Chl‐a ranges also had broader distributional ranges. However, mesopelagic taxa were distributed across wider dissolved oxygen ranges, and within the mesopelagic, only oxygen ranges covaried with distributional ranges. Environmental and distributional ranges also varied among traits, both for epipelagic taxa and mesopelagic taxa. The strongest differences in both environmental and distributional ranges were observed for taxa with or without diel vertical migration behavior. Our results suggest that species traits can influence the differential effects of physical dispersal and environmental selection in shaping biogeographic distributions.

Ocean warming and short-term extreme events (e.g. marine heatwaves) are becoming more intense and frequent and have had major impacts on ecosystems. Seaweeds are foundational components of temperate reefs, providing nutrition for a diversity of species and underpinning temperate food webs. While the impacts of climate-driven environmental change on seaweed distribution, abundance and interactions are well studied, potential impacts on the provision of nutrients from seaweeds and their availability to consumers remain poorly understood. Here, we use metabolomic and lipidomic approaches to understand how the provision of nutrients from key seaweeds may be altered under climate change. We optimize a small-scale microextraction technique to test the effects of warming and marine heatwaves on the nutritional quality of two Australian habitat-forming seaweeds; Ecklonia and Sargassum. We then model changes in lipid availability in response to climate-driven ocean warming throughout Ecklonia’s eastern Australian distribution. Contrary to expectations, ocean warming and marine heatwaves had limited effects on seaweed nutritional quality, indicating resilience in the nutritional value of these species to climate-driven warming. However, nutritional quality varied significantly between species, which presents new implications for predicted species redistributions from the base of the food chain. Modelling revealed a projected net loss of 3.5% of lipids across the east coast of Australia by 2100 under RCP 8.5 in response to shifts in the redistribution of Ecklonia biomass. The climate-driven redistribution of seaweeds is likely to alter the availability of seaweed-derived nutrients to consumers, which may have broad implications for the transfer of energy within temperate marine food webs.

Systematic surveys of the distribution of epibenthic megafaunal species relative to one another and to environmental variables in the deep sea can lead to inferences and testable hypotheses regarding factors that influence their distributions. Here we use a seascape approach to provide insight into the character and spatial extent of the influence of a chemosynthetic seep on the distribution of epibenthic megafauna and the nature of transition zones (ecotones). Faunal distributions were determined from georeferenced images of the seabed collected during a systematic survey (~ 400 m x 400 m) by the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Sentry in the vicinity of a newly discovered methane bubble plume on the Blake Ridge Diapir. The survey area was found to include both seep and non-seep habitats. The sphere of influence of seep productivity on the surrounding benthic megafaunal assemblage was limited—on the order of 10’s of meters—based on ecotone analysis. Small but detectable redox anomalies in the water column (5 m above bottom) in the study area occurred on a similar horizontal scale. Distributions of background megafaunal taxa were non-random for many morphotypes and included both positive and negative associations between morphotypes and the seep habitat. Subtle variations in depth (

Summary: Functional traits offer a promising avenue to improve predictions of species range shifts under climate change, which will entail warmer and often drier conditions. Although the conceptual foundation linking traits with plant performance and range shifts appears solid, the predictive ability of individual traits remains generally low. In this review, we address this apparent paradox, emphasizing examples of woody plants and traits associated with drought responses at the species' rear edge. Low predictive ability reflects the fact not only that range dynamics tend to be complex and multifactorial, as well as uncertainty in the identification of relevant traits and limited data availability, but also that trait effects are scale‐ and context‐dependent. The latter results from the complex interactions among traits (e.g. compensatory effects) and between them and the environment (e.g. exposure), which ultimately determine persistence and colonization capacity. To confront this complexity, a more balanced coverage of the main functional dimensions involved (stress tolerance, resource use, regeneration and dispersal) is needed, and modelling approaches must be developed that explicitly account for: trait coordination in a hierarchical context; trait variability in space and time and its relationship with exposure; and the effect of biotic interactions in an ecological community context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: Colonization by non‐native ants represents one of the gravest potential threats to island ecosystems. It is necessary to identify general mechanisms by which non‐native species are able to colonize and persist in order to inform future prevention and management. We studied a model‐island assemblage of 17 non‐native ant species with aim of identifying the spatial source of introductions and assessing how such a diversity of species are able to coexist. Location: Data were collected on Ascension Island: an ideal study system for its intermediate area, compact shape, spatial heterogeneity, lack of native ant species, and availability of non‐native ant records dating back to the 1800s. Methods: We collected over 47,000 individual ants from 73 sites using a range of baited traps and survey techniques. We combined this novel data with past occurrence records in order to determine whether human settlements have historically been the source of ant introductions and to quantify the mean rate at which species have dispersed across the island. Analysis of standardized field data revealed the extent to which ants were partitioning ecological niche space via (1) habitat separation, (2) fine‐scale resource partitioning and (3) climatic heterogeneity. Results: Ants were radiating at a linear rate of approximately 0.5 km2 per year from human settlements on this island, with the most widespread species having been introduced earliest. After accounting for incomplete colonization, we found no evidence to suggest habitat separation between species. Instead, we found significant niche separation through resource partitioning and weather‐dependent activity patterns. Main Conclusions: Our results indicate that non‐native ants can coexist in very close proximity and are therefore capable of existing at great diversity on even small islands. It is inevitable that ant colonization will continue without increased biosecurity measures, habitat restoration around settlements and conservation of native species populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy makers require high‐level summaries of biodiversity change. However, deriving such summaries from raw biodiversity data is a complex process involving several intermediary stages. In this paper, we describe an operational workflow for generating annual estimates of species occupancy at national scales from raw species occurrence data, which can be used to construct a range of policy‐relevant biodiversity indicators. We describe the workflow in detail: from data acquisition, data assessment and data manipulation, through modelling, model evaluation, application and dissemination. At each stage, we draw on our experience developing and applying the workflow for almost a decade to outline the challenges that analysts might face. These challenges span many areas of ecology, taxonomy, data science, computing and statistics. In our case, the principal output of the workflow is annual estimates of occupancy, with measures of uncertainty, for over 5000 species in each of several defined 'regions' (e.g. countries, protected areas, etc.) of the UK from 1970 to 2019. This data product corresponds closely to the notion of a species distribution Essential Biodiversity Variable (EBV). Throughout the paper, we highlight methodologies that might not be applicable outside of the UK and suggest alternatives. We also highlight areas where the workflow can be improved; in particular, methods are needed to mitigate and communicate the risk of bias arising from the lack of representativeness that is typical of biodiversity data. Finally, we revisit the 'ideal' and 'minimal' criteria for species distribution EBVs laid out in previous contributions and pose some outstanding questions that should be addressed as a matter of priority. Going forward, we hope that this paper acts as a template for research groups around the world seeking to develop similar data products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A major challenge in predicting species' distributional responses to climate change involves resolving interactions between abiotic and biotic factors in structuring ecological communities. This challenge reflects the classical conceptualization of species' regional distributions as simultaneously constrained by climatic conditions, while by necessity emerging from local biotic interactions. A ubiquitous pattern in nature illustrates this dichotomy: potentially competing species covary positively at large scales but negatively at local scales. Recent theory poses a resolution to this conundrum by predicting roles of both abiotic and biotic factors in covariation of species at both scales, but empirical tests have lagged such developments. We conducted a 15-y warming and herbivore-exclusion experiment to investigate drivers of opposing patterns of covariation between two codominant arctic shrub species at large and local scales. Climatic conditions and biotic exploitation mediated both positive covariation between these species at the landscape scale and negative covariation between them locally. Furthermore, covariation between the two species conferred resilience in ecosystem carbon uptake. This study thus lends empirical support to developing theoretical solutions to a long-standing ecological puzzle, while highlighting its relevance to understanding community compositional responses to climate change.

Abstract Large‐scale monitoring of seasonal animal movement is integral to science, conservation and outreach. However, gathering representative movement data across entire species ranges is frequently intractable. Citizen science databases collect millions of animal observations throughout the year, but it is challenging to infer individual movement behaviour solely from observational data. We present BirdFlow, a probabilistic modelling framework that draws on citizen science data from the eBird database to model the population flows of migratory birds. We apply the model to 11 species of North American birds, using GPS and satellite tracking data to tune and evaluate model performance. We show that BirdFlow models can accurately infer individual seasonal movement behaviour directly from eBird relative abundance estimates. Supplementing the model with a sample of tracking data from wild birds improves performance. Researchers can extract a number of behavioural inferences from model results, including migration routes, timing, connectivity and forecasts. The BirdFlow framework has the potential to advance migration ecology research, boost insights gained from direct tracking studies and serve a number of applied functions in conservation, disease surveillance, aviation and public outreach.

Current analyses and predictions of spatially explicit patterns and processes in ecology most often rely on climate data interpolated from standardized weather stations. This interpolated climate data represents long-term average thermal conditions at coarse spatial resolutions only. Hence, many climate-forcing factors that operate at fine spatiotemporal resolutions are overlooked. This is particularly important in relation to effects of observation height (e.g. vegetation, snow and soil characteristics) and in habitats varying in their exposure to radiation, moisture and wind (e.g. topography, radiative forcing or cold-air pooling). Since organisms living close to the ground relate more strongly to these microclimatic conditions than to free-air temperatures, microclimatic ground and near-surface data are needed to provide realistic forecasts of the fate of such organisms under anthropogenic climate change, as well as of the functioning of the ecosystems they live in. To fill this critical gap, we highlight a call for temperature time series submissions to SoilTemp, a geospatial database initiative compiling soil and near-surface temperature data from all over the world. Currently, this database contains time series from 7,538 temperature sensors from 51 countries across all key biomes. The database will pave the way toward an improved global understanding of microclimate and bridge the gap between the available climate data and the climate at fine spatiotemporal resolutions relevant to most organisms and ecosystem processes.

Citizen science projects that collect natural history observations often do not have an underlying research question in mind. Thus, data generated from such projects can be considered “use-agnostic.” Nevertheless, such projects can yield important insights about species distributions. Many of these projects use a class-based data schema, whereby contributors must supply a species identification. This can limit participation if contributors are not confident in their identifications, and can introduce data quality issues if species identification is incorrect. Some projects, such as iNaturalist, circumvent this with crowdsourced species identifications based on contributed photographs, or by grading confidence in the data based on attributes of the sighting and/or contributor. An alternative to a class-based data schema is an open-ended (instance-based) one, where contributors are free to identify their sighting at whatever taxonomic resolution they are most confident, and/or describe the sighting based on attributes. This can increase participation (data completeness) and have the benefit of adding additional (and sometimes unexpected) information. The regionally-focused citizen science website NLNature.com was designed to experimentally examine how class-based versus instance-based schema affected contributions and data quality. Here, we show that the instance-based schema yielded not only more contributions, but also several of ecological importance. Thus, allowing contributors to supply natural history information at a level familiar to them increases data completeness and facilitates unanticipated contributions.

Forecasting the future state of a species is a tricky process, as there are numerous hidden factors that influence species trajectories in addition to the obvious unknowns about the future state of the planet. We echo the guidance of Clare et al. (2024) to use near‐term and long‐term forecasting in complementary ways. Near‐term forecasts can be used to guide specific management and conservation actions, which can be updated as new data and evidence are collected. Long‐term forecasts can be used to characterize uncertainty further into the future, which can help guide longstanding conservation planning and legislative actions that are based on such uncertainty in possible future outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Closely related, ecologically similar species often segregate their distributions along environmental gradients of time, space, and resources, but previous research suggests diverse underlying causes. Here, we review reciprocal removal studies in nature that experimentally test the role of interactions among species in determining their turnover along environmental gradients. We find consistent evidence for asymmetric exclusion coupled with differences in environmental tolerance causing the segregation of species pairs, where a dominant species excludes a subordinate from benign regions of the gradient but is unable to tolerate challenging regions to which the subordinate species is adapted. Subordinate species were consistently smaller and performed better in regions of the gradient typically occupied by the dominant species compared with their native distribution. These results extend previous ideas contrasting competitive ability with adaptation to abiotic stress to include a broader diversity of species interactions (intraguild predation, reproductive interference) and environmental gradients, including gradients of biotic challenge. Collectively, these findings suggest that adaptation to environmental challenge compromises performance in antagonistic interactions with ecologically similar species. The consistency of this pattern across diverse organisms, environments, and biomes suggests generalizable processes structuring the segregation of ecologically similar species along disparate environmental gradients, a phenomenon that we propose should be named the competitive exclusion–tolerance rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]