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Funding for this research was provided by a DTP Natural Environment Research Council Scholarship to JC, a NERC IRF (NE/M018458/1) to RS-G, a Ramon Areces Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship to PC, and Winifred Violet Scott Estate funding to MB. Escalating climatic and anthropogenic pressures expose ecosystems worldwide to increasingly stochastic environments. Yet, our ability to forecast the responses of natural populations to this increased environmental stochasticity is impeded by a limited understanding of how exposure to stochastic environments shapes demographic resilience. Here, we test the association between local environmental stochasticity and the resilience attributes (e.g. resistance, recovery) of 2242 natural populations across 369 animal and plant species. Contrary to the assumption that past exposure to frequent environmental shifts confers a greater ability to cope with current and future global change, we illustrate how recent environmental stochasticity regimes from the past 50 years do not predict the inherent resistance or recovery potential of natural populations. Instead, demographic resilience is strongly predicted by the phylogenetic relatedness among species, with survival and developmental investments shaping their responses to environmental stochasticity. Accordingly, our findings suggest that demographic resilience is a consequence of evolutionary processes and/or deep-time environmental regimes, rather than recent-past experiences. Publisher PDF

The exponential growth that has characterised human societies since the industrial revolution has fundamentally modified our surroundings. Examples include rapid increases in agricultural fields, now accounting for 37% of the land surface, as well as increases in urban areas, projected to triple worldwide by 2030. As such, understanding how species have adapted to and will respond to increasing human pressures is of key importance. Resilience, the ability of an ecological system to resist, recover, and even benefit from disturbances, is a key concept in this regard. Here, using a recently develop comparative demographic framework, we examine how the inherent ability of 921 natural populations of 279 plants and 45 animal species worldwide to respond to disturbances correlates with human settlement size and human activities. We develop a spatially and phylogenetically explicit model parameterised with life history traits and metrics of demographic resilience using the open-access COMPADRE and COMADRE databases, coupled with high-resolution human impact information via the Human Footprint database. We expected: (H1) species’ populations located nearer urban areas to have a greater ability to resist, recover, or benefit from human-related disturbances compared to pristine habitats; (H2) human effects on the responses of animal populations to disturbances to depend on the species’ ability for long-distance mobility; and (H3): human pressures to constrain the repertoire of life history strategies of animal and plant species via their effects on underlying vital rates and life history traits. We find that: (1) urban areas host a limited diversity of strategies that achieve demographic resilience with, on average, more resistant and faster-recovery populations located near human activities than in pristine habitats; (2) species with limited mobility tend to be more strongly affected by human activities than those with long-distance mobility; and (3) human pressures correlate with a limited set of vital rates and life history traits, including the ability to shrink, and reproduce earlier. Our results provide a tangible picture of how, having drastically transformed terrestrial landscapes, humans have shaped the ways animals and plants respond to disturbances.

SummaryThe plant metabolome encompasses the biochemical mechanisms through which evolutionary and ecological processes shape plant form and function1,2. However, while the metabolome should thus be an important component of plant life-history variation3, we know little about how it varies across the plant kingdom. Here, we use the plant functional trait concept4– a powerful framework for describing plant form and function5–7– to interpret leaf metabolome variation among 457 tropical and 339 temperate plant species. Distilling metabolite chemistry into five discriminant metabolic functional traits reveals that plants vary along two major axes of leaf metabolic specialization – a leaf chemical defense spectrum and an expression of leaf longevity. These axes are qualitatively consistent for tropical and temperate species, with many trait combinations being viable. However, axes of leaf metabolic specialization vary orthogonally to life-history strategies described by widely used functional traits5–7, while being at least equally important to them. Our findings question classical trait6and plant defense8theory that predicts relationships between the leaf chemical phenotype, plant productivity, and pace of life. Moreover, we show that metabolic functional traits describe unique dimensions of plant life-history variation that are complementary to, and independent from, those captured by existing plant functional traits.

Matrix population models (MPMs) are an important tool for biologists seeking to understand the causes and consequences of variation in vital rates (e.g. survival, reproduction) across life cycles. Empirical MPMs describe the age- or stage-structured demography of organisms and usually represent the life history of a population during a particular time frame at a specific geographical location. The COMPADRE Plant Matrix Database and COMADRE Animal Matrix Database are the most extensive resources for MPM data, collectively containing >12,000 individual projection matrices for >1,100 species globally. Although these databases represent an unparalleled resource for researchers, land managers and educators, the current computational tools available to answer questions with MPMs impose significant barriers to potential COM(P)ADRE database users by requiring advanced knowledge to handle diverse data structures and program custom analysis functions. To close this knowledge gap, we present two interrelated R packages designed to (a) facilitate the use of these databases by providing functions to acquire, quality control and manage both the MPM data contained in COMPADRE and COMADRE, and a user's own MPM data (Rcompadre) and (b) present a range of functions to calculate life-history traits from MPMs in support of ecological and evolutionary analyses (Rage). We provide examples to illustrate the use of both. Rcompadre and Rage will facilitate demographic analyses using MPM data and contribute to the improved replicability of studies using these data. We hope that this new functionality will allow researchers, land managers and educators to unlock the potential behind the thousands of MPMs and ancillary metadata stored in the COMPADRE and COMADRE matrix databases, and in their own MPM data.

SummaryPlants display an incredible variety of forms and functions, which sustains a vast diversity of ecosystems on Earth. This diversity is the result of two forces: environmental filtering, the selection of phenotypes fit to a specific habitat; and evolutionary history, genetic constraints that determine the potential adaptations that species may evolve. To date, most studies have focused on describing macroecological patterns of trait variation, while the role of evolutionary history in determining these patterns has remained much less explored. Here, we combine a traits dataset including 4,213 vascular plant species with a phylogeny of the plant kingdom, to determine the influence of evolutionary history on the patterns of trait variation. Our results show that commonly used plant traits, such as plant height or leaf nitrogen, are strongly constrained by evolutionary history. Accounting for phylogenetic relationships changes the variance explained by the main axes of trait variation in the Plant Kindgom —the leaf economic spectrum and the plant size and organ axis continuum— with the former explaining more variance than the latter. Moreover, we demonstrate that the plant size continuum is more influenced by evolutionary history than the leaf economics spectrum. These results highlight the influence of evolutionary history in shaping plant life history strategies and the importance of accounting for phylogeny in trait-based studies.

In the face of rapid global change and an uncertain fate for biodiversity, it is vital to quantify trends in wild populations. These trends are typically estimated from abundance time series for suites of species across large geographic and temporal scales. Such data implicitly contain phylogenetic, spatial, and temporal structure which, if not properly accounted for, may obscure the true magnitude and direction of biodiversity change. Here, using a novel statistical framework to simultaneously account for all three of these structures, we show that the majority of current abundance trends estimates among 10 high-profile datasets, representing millions of abundance observations, are likely unreliable or incorrect. Our new approach suggests that previous models are too simplistic, incorrectly estimating global abundance trends and often dramatically underestimating uncertainty, an aspect that is critical when translating global assessments into policy outcomes. Further, our approach also results in substantial improvements in abundance forecasting accuracy. Whilst our results do not improve the outlook for biodiversity, our framework does allow us to make more robust estimates of global wildlife abundance trends, which is critical for developing policy to protect our biosphere.

Este artículo contiene 18 páginas, 4 figuras., Climate change is causing an increase in the frequency and intensity of marine heatwaves (MHWs) and mass mortality events (MMEs) of marine organisms are one of their main ecological impacts. Here, we show that during the 2015–2019 period, the Mediterranean Sea has experienced exceptional thermal conditions resulting in the onset of five consecutive years of widespread MMEs across the basin. These MMEs affected thousands of kilometers of coastline from the surface to 45 m, across a range of marine habitats and taxa (50 taxa across 8 phyla). Significant relationships were found between the incidence of MMEs and the heat exposure associated with MHWs observed both at the surface and across depths. Our findings reveal that the Mediterranean Sea is experiencing an acceleration of the ecological impacts of MHWs which poses an unprecedented threat to its ecosystems' health and functioning. Overall, we show that increasing the resolution of empirical observation is critical to enhancing our ability to more effectively understand and manage the consequences of climate change., This paper was supported by Euromarine. Joaquim Garrabou acknowledges the funding by the “Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence” (CEX2019-000928-S), the MCIU/AEI/FEDER [HEATMED; RTI2018-095346-B-I00], Interreg-Med Programme MPA-Engage (1MED15_3.2_M2_337), the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Futuremares SEP-210597628). Nuria Teixido acknowledges the French National Research Agency (4Oceans-MOPGA grant, ANR-17-MPGA-0001) and internal funds from the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn. Gil Rilov was supported by the Israel Ministry of Environmental Protection. Hocein Bazairi, Free Spinosa, and Vasilis Gerovasileiou acknowledge the funding by the MAVA Fondation (MedKeyHabitats I Project) and the European Commission (Ecap-MED II Project; projects implemented by UNEP/MAP-RAC/SPA). Alfonso Ramos was supported the CIESM “Tropical Signals,” Stelios Katsanevakis and Maria Sini were supported by the Project “Coastal Environment Observatory and Risk Management in Island Regions AEGIS+” (MIS 5047038), implemented within the Operational Programme “Competitiveness, Entrepreneurship and Innovation” (NSRF 2014–2020), co-financed by the Hellenic Government (Ministry of Development and Investments) and the European Union (European Regional Development Fund, Cohesion Fund), Stelios Katsanevakis, Maria Sini and Vasilis Gerovasileiou acknowledge the support of the MARISCA Project, co-funded by 85% by the EEA GRANTS, 2009–2014, and 15% by the Public Investments Programme (PIP) of the Hellenic Republic. Ivan Guala and Daniele Grech thanks thank the support of the project “Pinna nobilis—ricerca per la sopravvivenza: un'iniziativa di Citizen Science per tracciare la mortalità di massa di Pinna nobilis in Sardegna” project and the L/7 grant (CUP 87G17000070002) funded by the Regione Autonoma Sardegna. Jean-Baptiste Ledoux was funded by an assistant researcher contract framework of the RD Unit—UID/Multi/04423/2019—Interdisciplinary Centre of Marine and Environmental Research—financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through COMPETE2020—Operational Program for Competitiveness and Internationalization (POCI) and national funds through FCT/MCTES (PIDDAC). This research was supported by the Strategic Funding UIDB/04423/2020 and UIDP/04423/2020 through national funds provided by the FCT—Foundation for Science and Technology and European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), in the framework of the program PT2020. Bernat Hereu and Cristina Linares acknowledge the support of the long-term monitoring programme of the catalan Natural Parks, funded by the Departament de Territori i Sostenibilitat of the Generalitat de Catalunya. Cristina Linares acknowledges the support of the ICREA Academia programme. David Díaz acknowledges the support the research grant CTM2016-77027-R of the Programa Estatal de Investigación, Desarrollo e Innovación Orientada a los Retos de la Sociedad and Program of Marines Strategies of Spain funded by MITERD. Jamila Ben Soussi was partially funded by the Fondation Albert 2 Monaco (MIMOSA Project) and the Tropical Signals Program of CIESM. Giovanni Chimienti was supported by the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research (PON 2014–2020, AIM 1807508–1, Linea 1), by the Ente Parco Nazionale del Gargano (Research agreement with CoNISMa N. 21/2018), and by the National Geographic Society (Grant EC-176R-18). Nathaniel Bensoussan acknowledges financial support from the European Commission through the programme “Caroline Herschell” in the context of the action “Developing Downstream applications and services on BIO-PHYsical characterization of the seascape for COASTal management” (BIOPHYCOAST). Monica Montefalcone and Annalissa Azzola collected some of their data on MMEs in the frame of the project “Mare Caldo” funded by Greenpeace Italy. Núria Marbà acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministries of Economy and Competitiveness (CTM2012-32603, CGL2015-71809-P) and Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (RTI2018-095441-B-C21). Diego K. Kersting acknowledges support by the postdoctoral fellowship programme Beatriu de Pinós funded by the Secretary of Universities and Research (Government of Catalonia) and the Horizon 2020 programme of research and innovation of the European Union under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 801370.

Mutual reinforcement between abiotic and biotic factors can drive small populations into a catastrophic downward spiral to extinction—a process known as the “extinction vortex.” However, empirical studies investigating extinction dynamics in relation to species' traits have been lacking.We assembled a database of 35 vertebrate populations monitored to extirpation over a period of at least ten years, represented by 32 different species, including 25 birds, five mammals, and two reptiles. We supplemented these population time series with species‐specific mean adult body size to investigate whether this key intrinsic trait affects the dynamics of populations declining toward extinction.We performed three analyses to quantify the effects of adult body size on three characteristics of population dynamics: time to extinction, population growth rate, and residual variability in population growth rate.Our results provide support for the existence of extinction vortex dynamics in extirpated populations. We show that populations typically decline nonlinearly to extinction, while both the rate of population decline and variability in population growth rate increase as extinction is approached. Our results also suggest that smaller‐bodied species are particularly prone to the extinction vortex, with larger increases in rates of population decline and population growth rate variability when compared to larger‐bodied species.Our results reaffirm and extend our understanding of extinction dynamics in real‐life extirpated populations. In particular, we suggest that smaller‐bodied species may be at greater risk of rapid collapse to extinction than larger‐bodied species, and thus, management of smaller‐bodied species should focus on maintaining higher population abundances as a priority., Our results reaffirm and extend our understanding of extinction dynamics in real‐life extirpated populations. In particular, we suggest that smaller‐bodied species may be at greater risk of rapid collapse to extinction than larger‐bodied species, and thus management of smaller‐bodied species should focus on maintaining higher population abundances as a priority.

Oral presentation. 19th International Bryozoological Association conference, Dublin 2022., Ocean warming and acidification may compromise calcifying species. However, their combined and long-term effects in bryozoans remain poorly understood. Here we compare the proportion of cover, skeletal structure and the microbiome composition of Pentapora ottomuelleriana population from a volcanic CO2 vent and a population living at ambient pH with lack of venting activity. The proportion of cover decreased from 2016 to 2020 at both sites but the trend was more negative at the CO2 vent site. The increasing seawater temperature in the last decade combined with acidified conditions have accelerated mortality rates at the CO2 vent site compared to those at ambient pH site, also shifting the microbiome towards the dominance of anaerobic microbial taxa. We also observed an increase of carbonate skeleton thickness and a decrease of zooid length in colonies from the CO2 vent site. Although these changes in the calcification of bryozoan individuals could be explained by the energy reallocation to calcification in periods of stress, they are not sufficient to overcome the synergistic impacts of both warming and acidification.

The interactive effects of multiple threats are one of the main causes of biodiversity loss, yet our understanding of what predisposes species to be impacted by multiple threats remains limited. Here we analyse a global dataset of over 7000 marine, freshwater, and terrestrial vertebrate populations, alongside trait, threat and geographical data, to identify the factors influencing the number of threats a species is subjected to at the population level. Out of a suite of predictors tested, we find that body mass and latitude both are broadly available for vertebrate species, and influence the number of threats a population is subjected to. Larger bodied species and those nearer the equator are typically affected by a higher number of threats. However, whilst this pattern broadly holds across ecosystems for most taxa, amphibians and reptiles show opposing trends. We suggest that latitude and body mass should be considered as key predictors to identify which vertebrate populations are likely to be impacted by multiple threats. These general predictors can help to better understand the impacts of the Anthropocene on global vertebrate biodiversity and design effective conservation policies.

Este artículo contiene 26 páginas, 8 figuras, 2 tablas., Cystoseira sensu lato (s.l.) – encompassing the genera Cystoseira sensu stricto (s.s.), Ericaria and Gongolaria – is a diverse group of forest-forming brown macroalgae endemic to the warm-temperate North-east Atlantic. These algae have immense biogeographic and ecological significance and have been experiencing recent regional declines. Most Cystoseira s.l. display important morphological plasticity and can be confused with similar species. Therefore, species boundaries, geographic ranges and phylogenetic affinities remain imprecise for most. In the face of persistent taxonomic difficulties, several authors underlined the necessity for new molecular-based approaches, but studies so far lacked representativity, resolution and standardization. To fill in these gaps, in this study we sequenced a comprehensive collection of Cystoseira s.l. spanning its entire North-east Atlantic range for a ~1200 bp cox1 barcode, and sequenced selected individuals representing major genetic entities for a few additional plastid markers. Phylogeographic, phylogenetic and species delimitation methods revealed 27 Molecular Operational Taxonomic Units, including unaccounted cryptic diversity, and elucidated with unprecedented resolution species compositions and phylogenetic relationships within each genus. Some entities within the lineages Cystoseira compressa/humilis, Ericaria brachycarpa/crinita, E. selaginoides and tophulose Gongolaria, as well as among free-living algae, conflicted with a priori taxonomic assignments, and required the redefinition, reinstatement and recognition of new taxa. For some, diagnostic mutations and biogeography were more useful for species identifications than morphological characters or conventional barcoding gaps. A few species showed narrow geographic ranges and others were the sole representatives of their respective lineages. Several sister-species showed Atlantic vs Mediterranean complementary ranges. Phylogenetic signal of cox1 was nevertheless insufficient to confidently determine patterns of lineage splitting in several lineages and species complexes and did not improve significantly with additional plastid markers. We discuss novel systematics and biogeography insights considering the advantages and shortcomings of the barcoding approach employed, and how this comprehensive baseline study can be expanded to address multiple questions still left unanswered., This study was funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) through UIDB/04326/2020, UIDP/04326/2020 and LA/P/0101/2020, EU BiodivRestore253 (FCT: DivRestore/0013/2020), DL 57/2016/CP1361/ CT0010 (to JN), IF/01640/2015 (to PA) and SFRH/BSAB/ 150485/2019 (to EAS). JN has received funding from H2020 (EU) under grant agreement No 730984, Assemble Plus, DMF from Portuguese government grant Fundo Azul under the Seaforest Portugal Project (FA_06_2017_067), and EAS from a Pew Marine Fellowship. Sampling in West Africa was funded by projects MARAFRICA: FCTAGA-KHAN/540316524/2019, ‘Survie des Tortues Marines’ PRCM/STM POOOA4/OA9 by PRCM (Partenariat Régional pour la Conservation de la zone côtière et Marine en Afrique de l’Ouest) and ‘PNBA-site emblématique pour les tortues’ granted to the National Park of the Banc d’Arguin. BS was funded by AFRIMED Project, id EASME/EMFF/2017/1.2.1.12/S4/01/SI2.789059. DS has received funding from University of Catania in the frame of “PiaCeRi-Piano Incentivi per la Ricerca di Ateneo 2020-22, linea di intervento 2.

1. A major aim of ecology is to upscale attributes of individuals to understand processes at population, community and ecosystem scales. Such attributes are typically described using functional traits, that is, standardised characteristics that impact fitness via effects on survival, growth and/or reproduction. However, commonly used functional traits (e.g. wood density, SLA) are becoming increasingly criticized for not being truly mechanistic and for being questionable predictors of ecological processes. 2. This Special Feature reviews and studies how the metabolome (i.e. the thousands of unique metabolites that underpin physiology) can enhance trait-based ecology and our understanding of plant and ecosystem functioning. 3. In this Editorial, we explore how the metabolome relates to plant functional traits, with reference to life-history trade-offs governing fitness between generations and plasticity shaping fitness within generations. We also identify solutions to challenges of acquiring, interpreting and contextualising metabolome data, and propose a roadmap for integrating the metabolome into ecology. 4. We next summarise the seven studies composing the Special Feature, which use the metabolome to examine mechanisms behind plant community assembly, plant-organismal interactions and effects of plants and soil micro-organisms on ecosystem processes. 5. Synthesis. We demonstrate the potential of the metabolome to improve mechanistic and predictive power in ecology by providing a high-resolution coupling between physiology and fitness. However, applying metabolomics to ecological questions is currently limited by a lack of conceptual, technical and data frameworks, which needs to be overcome to realise the full potential of the metabolome for ecology. ISSN:0022-0477

Animal populations have developed multiple strategies to deal with environmental change. Among them, the demographic buffering strategy consists in constraining the temporal variation of the vital rate(s) that most affect(s) the overall performance of the population. Tortoises are known to buffer their temporal variation in adult survival, which typically has the highest contribution to the population growth rate λ, at the expense of a high variability on reproductive rates, which contribute far less to λ. To identify the effects of projected increases in droughts in its natural habitat, we use field data collected across 15 locations of Testudo graeca in southeast Spain over a decade. We analyse the effects of environmental variables on reproduction rates. In addition, we couple the demographic and environmental data to parameterise an integral projection model to simulate the effects of different scenarios of drought recurrence on λ under different degrees of intensity in the survival–reproduction tradeoff. We find that droughts negatively affect the probability of laying eggs; however, the overall effects on λ under the current drought recurrence (one/decade) are negligible when survival is constant (independent of the reduction of reproduction by drought events) and when survival increased as a tradeoff with the reduction of reproduction rates, with a threshold to population viability at three or more droughts/decade. Additionally, we show that, although some species may buffer current environmental regimes by carefully orchestrating how their vital rates vary through time, a demographic buffering strategy is insufficient to ensure population viability in extreme regimes. Our findings support the hypothesis that the demographic buffering strategy has a limit of effectiveness when adverse conditions occur frequently. Our methodological approach provides a framework for ecologists to determine how effective the management of environmental drivers can be for demographically buffering populations, and which scenarios may not provide long-term population persistence.

Maintaining the resilience of natural populations, their ability to resist and recover from disturbance, is crucial to prevent biodiversity loss. However, the lack of appropriate data and quantitative tools has hampered our understanding of the factors determining resilience on a global scale. Here, we quantified the temporal trends of two key components of resilience—resistance and recovery—in >2000 population time-series of >1000 vertebrate species globally. We show that the number of threats to which a population is exposed is the main driver of resilience decline in vertebrate populations. Such declines are driven by a non-uniform loss of different components of resilience (i.e. resistance and recovery). Increased anthropogenic threats accelerating resilience loss through a decline in the recovery ability—but not resistance—of vertebrate populations. These findings suggest we may be underestimating the impacts of global change, highlighting the need to account for the multiple components of resilience in global biodiversity assessments.

Resilience has emerged as a key concept in ecology and conservation biology to understand and predict ecosystem responses to global change. In its broadest sense, resilience describes the ability of an ecosystem to resist, and recover from, a disturbance. However, the application of such a concept in different subdisciplines of ecology and in different study systems has resulted in a wide disparity of definitions and ways of quantifying resilience.\ud This Special Feature, which spans the Journal of Ecology, Journal of Animal Ecology and Functional Ecology, provides an overview of how ecologists define, quantify, compare and predict resilience across different study systems.\ud The 29 contributions to this Special Feature show the broad range of approaches used by ecologists to study resilience. Almost half of the contributions (48%) study resilience at the community level, with a 30% of them studying resilience at multiple levels of biological organisation. A large proportion of these articles are observational (42%), experimental (14%) or a combination of both (17%) while a 17% utilise theoretical or computational approaches. Although 38%, 21% and 14% of the studies were based solely on plants, animals or micro-organisms, respectively, 17% of them incorporated these multiple trophic levels.\ud Synthesis. A unified ecological understanding of resilience across systems and taxa requires a trans-disciplinary consensus on what resilience actually is and how to best measure it. Here, we provide an overview of how ecologists define, quantify, compare and predict resilience across different ecological systems and subdisciplines, with reference to the diverse approaches used by contributions to this Special Feature. We identify four key recommendations to harmonise future efforts in resilience research: (a) define resilience using existing theoretical frameworks; (b) use common and comparable metrics to measure resilience; (c) clearly contextualise and define the pre- and post-disturbance state of the ecological system and (d) consider explicitly the disturbance type and regime impacting the system.

Summary paragraphAccelerating rates of biodiversity loss underscore the need to understand how species achieve resilience –their ability to resist and recover from a/biotic disturbances. Yet, the factors determining the resilience of species remain poorly understood, due to disagreements on its definition and the lack of large-scale analyses. Here, we investigate how the life history of 785 natural populations of animals and plants predict their intrinsic ability to be resilient. We show that demographic resilience can be achieved through different combinations of compensation, resistance, and recovery after a disturbance. We demonstrate that these resilience components are highly correlated with life history traits related to the species’ pace of life and reproductive strategy. Species with longer generation times require longer recovery times post-disturbance, while those with greater reproductive capacity have greater resistance and compensation. Our findings highlight the key role of life history traits to understand species resilience, improving our ability to predict how natural populations cope with disturbance regimes.

Patterns of ageing across the tree of life are much more diverse than previously thought. Yet, we still do not adequately understand how, why and where across the tree of life a particular pattern of ageing will evolve. An ability to predict ageing patterns requires a firmer understanding of how and why different ecological and evolutionary factors alter the sensitivity of fitness to age-related changes in mortality and reproduction. From this understanding, we can ask why and where selection gradients might not decline with age. Here, we begin by summarizing the recent breadth of literature that is unearthing, empirically and theoretically, the mechanisms that drive variation in patters of senescence. We focus on the relevance of two key parameters, population structure and reproductive value, as key to understanding selection gradients, and therefore senescence. We discuss how growth form, individual trade-offs, stage structure and social interactions may all facilitate differing distributions of these two key parameters than those predicted by classical theory. We argue that these four key aspects can help us understand why patterns of negligible and negative senescence can actually be explained under the same evolutionary framework as classical senescence.

Understanding how no-take zones (NTZs) shape the population dynamics of key herbivores is crucial for the conservation and management of temperate benthic communities. Here, we examine the recovery patterns of sea urchin populations following a high-intensity storm under contrasting protection regimes in the NW Mediterranean Sea. We found significant differences in the recovery trends of Paracentrotus lividus abundance and biomass in the five years following the storm. The P. lividus populations outside the NTZ recovered faster than the populations inside the NTZ, revealing that predation was the main factor controlling the sea urchin populations inside the NTZ during the study period. Arbacia lixula reached the highest abundance and biomass values ever observed outside the NTZ in 2016. Our findings reveal that predation can control the establishment of new sea urchin populations and emphasize top-down control in NTZs, confirming the important role of fully protected areas in the structure of benthic communities.

Este artículo contiene 12 páginas, 5 figuras., 1. Understanding the combined effects of global and local stressors is crucial for conservation and management, yet challenging due to the different scales at which these stressors operate. Here, we examine the effects of one of the most pervasive threats to marine biodiversity, ocean warming, on the early life stages of the habitat‐forming macroalga Cystoseira zosteroides, its long‐term consequences for population resilience, and its combined effect with physical stressors. 2. First, we performed a controlled laboratory experiment exploring the impacts of warming on early life stages. Settlement and survival of germlings were measured at 16°C (control), 20°C, and 24°C, and both processes were affected by increased temperatures. Then, we integrated this information into stochastic, density‐dependent integral projection models. 3. Recovery time after a major disturbance significantly increased in warmer scenarios. The stochastic population growth rate (λs) was not strongly affected by warming alone, as high adult survival compensated for thermal‐induced recruitment failure. Nevertheless, warming coupled with recurrent physical disturbances had a strong impact on λs and population viability. 4. Synthesis. The impact of warming effects on early stages may significantly decrease the natural ability of habitat‐forming algae to rebound after major disturbances. These findings highlight that, in a global warming context, populations of deep‐water macroalgae will become more vulnerable to further disturbances, and stress the need to incorporate abiotic interactions into demographic models., This work was supported by an FI‐DRG grant from the Secretaria d’Universitats i Recerca from the Economy and Knowledge Department of the Generalitat de Catalunya to P. Capdevila and by a Ramon y Cajal Research Contract (RyC‐2011‐08134) to C. Linares, and by the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad Smart project (CGL2012‐32194). Funding was also provided by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 689518 (MERCES). This output reflects only the author’s view and the European Union cannot be held responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein. Most authors are part of the Marine Biodiversity Conservation Research Group (2014SGR1297, www. medrecover.org) from Generalitat de Catalunya. R. Salguero‐Gómez was supported by an NERC IRF (NE/M018458/1).

SummaryMatrix population models (MPMs) are an important tool for biologists seeking to understand the causes and consequences of variation in vital rates (e.g., survival, reproduction) across life cycles. Empirical MPMs describe the age- or stage-structured demography of organisms and usually represent the life history of a population during a particular time frame at a specific geographic location.The COMPADRE Plant Matrix Database and COMADRE Animal Matrix Database are the most extensive resources for MPM data, collectively containing >12,000 individual projection matrices for >1,100 species globally. Although these databases represent an unparalleled resource for researchers, land managers, and educators, the current computational tools available to answer questions with MPMs impose significant barriers to potential COM(P)ADRE database users by requiring advanced knowledge to handle diverse data structures and program custom analysis functions.To close this knowledge gap, we present two interrelated R packages designed to (i) facilitate the use of these databases by providing functions to acquire, quality control, and manage both the MPM data contained in COMPADRE and COMADRE, and a user’s own MPM data (Rcompadre), and (ii) present a range of functions to calculate life history traits from MPMs in support of ecological and evolutionary analyses (Rage). We provide examples to illustrate the use of both.Rcompadre and Rage will facilitate demographic analyses using MPM data and contribute to the improved replicability of studies using these data. We hope that this new functionality will allow researchers, land managers, and educators to unlock the potential behind the thousands of MPMs and ancillary metadata stored in the COMPADRE and COMADRE matrix databases, and in their own MPM data.

Although one-quarter of plant and vertebrate species are threatened with extinction, little is known about the potential effect of extinctions on the global diversity of ecological strategies. Using trait and phylogenetic information for more than 75,000 species of vascular plants, mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and freshwater fish, we characterized the global functional spectra of each of these groups. Mapping extinction risk within these spectra showed that larger species with slower pace of life are universally threatened. Simulated extinction scenarios exposed extensive internal reorganizations in the global functional spectra, which were larger than expected by chance for all groups, and particularly severe for mammals and amphibians. Considering the disproportionate importance of the largest species for ecological processes, our results emphasize the importance of actions to prevent the extinction of the megabiota., C.P.C., A.T., M.P., and R.T. were supported by the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research (PSG293, IUT20-29, PRG609, and PSG505) and the European Regional Development Fund (Centre of Excellence EcolChange). M.V.-V. and R.G.-M. were supported by the Dora Plus Fellowship Programme (University of Tartu). S.B. was supported by “Investissement d’Avenir” grants (CEBA, ANR-10-LABX-0025 and TULIP, ANR-10-LABX-41). R.S.-G. was supported by NERC IRF NE/M018458/1. F.d.B. was supported by the Plan Nacional de I+D+i (project PGC2018-099027-B-I00).

Comparative demographic analyses aim to identify axes of variation in vital rates and the factors that determine the position of species along these axes. These analyses can be performed using different primary data sets, with marked heterogeneity in data quality and structure. Whether the outcome of demographic comparative analyses depends on the database used because theoretical predictions of evolutionary ecology are not that robust and depend on the set of species analysed or because data limitation prevents the identification of the expected patterns has never been investigated. This chapter fills this knowledge gap by performing a comparative demographic analysis across mammalian species from two distinct databases (Comadre and Malddaba) that were built for different purposes. The chapter first estimates some demographic metrics for each database, analyses their allometric relationships, and compares the estimates with theoretical expectations by performing phylogenetic regressions. Using Malddaba led to stronger allometric relationships closer to the expectation than Comadre. Moreover, the contribution of dimensionless demographic metrics to axes of variation in the shape of demographic trajectories was different between databases. The findings in the chapter demonstrate the key role of age dependence in vital rates for shaping demographic tactics across mammalian species and highlight the need for carefully choosing the database and the metrics to use depending on the question asked. Instead of opposing databases, the authors’ analysis nicely illustrates that different databases could be used to address different questions about life history variation.

1 Aquatic and terrestrial environments display stark differences in key environmental factors and phylogenetic composition but their consequences for the evolution of species' life‐history strategies remain poorly understood. 2 Here, we examine whether and how life‐history strategies vary between terrestrial and aquatic species. We use demographic information for 685 terrestrial and 122 aquatic animal and plant species to estimate key life‐history traits. We then use phylogenetically corrected least squares regression to explore potential differences in trade‐offs between life‐history traits between both environments. We contrast life‐history strategies of aquatic versus terrestrial species in a principal component analysis while accounting for body dimensions and phylogenetic relationships. 3 Our results show that the same trade‐offs structure terrestrial and aquatic life histories, resulting in two dominant axes of variation that describe species' pace of life and reproductive strategies. Terrestrial plants display a large diversity of strategies, including the longest‐lived species in this study. Aquatic animals exhibit higher reproductive frequency than terrestrial animals. When correcting for body size, mobile and sessile terrestrial organisms show slower paces of life than aquatic ones. 4 Aquatic and terrestrial species are ruled by the same life‐history trade‐offs, but have evolved different strategies, likely due to distinct environmental selective pressures. Such contrasting life‐history strategies have important consequences for the conservation and management of aquatic and terrestrial species.

Although one quarter of the species of plants and vertebrates are threatened with extinction, little is known about how the potential effect of extinctions on the global diversity of ecological strategies. Using trait and phylogenetic information for more than 75,000 species of plants, mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and freshwater fishes, we characterized the global functional spectra of each of these groups. Mapping of extinction risk within these spectra revealed that larger species with slower pace of life are universally threatened. Simulated potential extinctions revealed extensive internal reorganizations in the global functional spectra, which are particularly severe for mammals and amphibians. Considering the disproportionate importance of the largest species for ecological processes, our results emphasize the importance of actions to prevent the extinction of the megabiota.

Animal populations have developed multiple strategies to deal with environmental change. Among them, the demographic buffering strategy consists on constraining the temporal variation of the vital rate(s) (e.g., survival, growth, reproduction) that most affect(s) the overall performance of the population. Given the increase in environmental stochasticity of the current global change scenario, identifying the thresholds beyond which populations are not able to remain viable -despite their potential buffering strategies- is of utmost importance.Tortoises are known to buffer the temporal variation in survival (i.e.this vital rate has the highest contribution to the population growth rateλ) at the expense of a high variability on reproductive rates (lowest contribution toλ). To identify the potential threshold in buffering ability, here we use field data collected across a decade on 15 locations ofTestudo graecaalong South-Eastern Spain. We analyse the effects of environmental variables (precipitation, temperature, and NDVI) on the probability of laying eggs and the number of eggs per clutch. Finally, we couple the demographic and environmental data to parametrise integral projection models (IPMs) to simulate the effects of different scenarios of drought recurrence on population growth rate.We find that droughts negatively affect the probability of laying eggs, but the overall effects on the population growth rates ofT. graecaunder the current drought frequencies (one per decade) are negligible. However, increasing the annual frequency of droughts decreases the buffering ability ofT. graecapopulations, with a threshold at three droughts per decade.Although some species may buffer current environmental regimes by carefully orchestrating how their vital rates vary through time, a demographic buffering strategy may alone not warrant population viability in extreme regimes. Our findings support the hypothesis that the buffering strategy indeed has a threshold of effectiveness. Our methodological approach also provides a useful pipeline for ecologists and managers to determine how effective the management of environmental drivers can be for demographically buffering populations, and which scenarios may not provide long-term species persistence.

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) have been recognized as effective management and conservation tools to protect marine coastal ecosystems. However, due to an increasing interest in marine ecosystems, recreational activities such as scuba diving are rapidly growing in these areas, highlighting the need to implement adaptive management strategies based on continuous monitoring and evaluation of protected areas. To date, several studies have quantified the impact of diving using benthic species as indicators, such as bryozoans, but usually ignoring their population dynamics. Here, we studied the population dynamics of the abundant and common bryozoan Pentapora fascialis on a Mediterranean MPA with high levels of diving activity. Specifically, we monitored eight different localities with two different levels of diving frequentation (non-frequented versus frequented) from October 2015 to October 2018, accounting for the demographic parameters before and after the summer. Our results showed the impact of diving on the density, recruitment, survival, and size of colonies, reaching higher values on non-frequented localities. In addition, we detected two peaks of recruitment during July 2016 and July 2018, suggesting that bryozoan recruitment events are stochastic, with a high inter-annual variation. Contrastingly, regardless of the diver frequentation level, we found higher growth rates during the colder months and higher necrosis rates after the summer in all the studied localities. Besides the aforementioned differences, the densities observed in this study were much higher compared to previous studies performed in the same area during the 1990s. Taken together, these results suggested rapid population dynamics of P. fascialis, with fast growth rates and a high capacity to recover from perturbations. Despite the quantified effects of diving on our studied species, their abundance in frequented sites remained very low over the whole study period, compromising the use of P. fascialis as an optimal indicator of diving impact for adaptive management of temperate benthic populations. Overall, our results highlight the importance of continuous monitoring programs to unravel the population dynamics of indicator species to effectively manage marine populations and evaluate the impact of human activities on marine protected areas., This work was supported by Generalitat de Catalunya (Spain) and the University of Barcelona (Spain). The authors are part of the Marine Conservation research group (2017 SGR 1521) funded by Generalitat de Catalunya.

AimsAquatic and terrestrial realms display stark differences in key environmental factors and phylogenetic composition. Despite such differences, their consequences for the evolution of species’ life history strategies remain poorly understood. Here, we examine whether and how life history strategies vary between terrestrial and aquatic species.LocationGlobal.Time periodVariable, the earliest year being in 1906 and the most recent in 2015.Major taxa studiesMacroscopic animals and plants species.MethodsWe use demographic information for 638 terrestrial and 117 aquatic animal and plant species, to derive key life history traits capturing their population turnover, and investments in survival, development, and reproduction. We use phylogenetically corrected least squares regression to explore the differences in the trade-offs between life history traits in both realms. We then quantify the life history strategies of aquatic and terrestrial species using a phylogenetically corrected principal component analysis.ResultsWe find that the same trade-offs structure terrestrial and aquatic life histories, resulting in two dominant axes of variation describing species’ pace- of-life and reproductive spread through time. Life history strategies differ between aquatic and terrestrial environments, with phylogenetic relationships playing a minor role. We show that adaptations of plants and animals to terrestrial environments have resulted in different life history strategies, particularly with their reproductive mode and longevity. Terrestrial plants display a great diversity of life history strategies, including the species with the longest lifespans. Aquatic animals, on the contrary, exhibit higher reproductive frequency than terrestrial animals, likely due to reproductive adaptations (i.e. internal fecundation) of the later to land.Main conclusionsOur findings show that aquatic and terrestrial species are ruled by the same life history principles, but have evolved different strategies due to distinct selection pressures. Such contrasting life history strategies have important consequences for the conservation and management of aquatic and terrestrial species.

Peter Medawar’s ‘An Unsolved Problem of Biology’1was one of several formal attempts to provide an explanation for the evolution of senescence, the increasing risk of mortality and decline in reproduction with age after achieving maturity. Despiteca.seven decades of theoretical elaboration aiming to explain the problem since Medawar first outlined it, we argue that this fundamental problem of biology remains unsolved. Here, we utilise demographic information2, 3for 308 multicellular species to derive age-based trajectories of mortality and reproduction that provide evidence against the predictions of the classical, still prevailing, theories of ageing1, 4, 5, 6. These theories predict the inescapability of senescence1, 4, or its universality at least among species with a clear germ-soma barrier5, 6. The patterns of senescence in animals and plants that we report contradict both of these predictions. With the largest ageing comparative dataset of these characteristics to date, we build on recent evidence7, 8to show that senescence is not the rule, and highlight the discrepancy between existing evidence and theory7, 8, 9. We also show that species’ age patterns of mortality and reproduction often follow divergent patterns, suggesting that organisms may display senescence for one component but not the other. We propose that ageing research will benefit from widening its classical theories beyond merely individual chronological age; key life history traits such as size, the ecology of the organism, and kin selection, may together play a hidden, yet integral role in shaping senescence outcomes.

Macroalgal communities have an essential role in the shallow benthic habitats of temperate seas, where changes in their composition can resonate through entire coastal ecosystems. As all major ecosystems on Earth, algal beds have already been affected by multiple disturbances. Passive conservation tools, such as marine protected areas or No-take zones, have the potential to reduce some of the anthropogenic impacts by limiting human activity. However, without a good knowledge of the natural community dynamics, it is not easy to discern between changes fruit of the intrinsic variability of biological communities and the ones caused by human-related stressors. In this study, we evaluated the natural variability of macroalgal communities' composition inside and outside a Mediterranean No-Take marine reserve during 15 years. We described their temporal dynamics considering their main drivers and we tested the effect of protection in seaweed beds. We did not find differences either in the composition of the macroalgal assemblages or the total algal cover between protected and non-protected locations over the fifteen years of study. Nevertheless, we observed a positive effect of the protection increasing the cover of some specific species, such as the canopy-forming Treptacantha elegans. Our results highlight the importance of obtaining long-term data in ecological studies to better understand the natural variability of marine communities. Accordingly, a robust understanding of the community dynamics would help us to avoid misinterpretations between ‘impacted’ or ‘in-recovery’ communities when recovery times are longer than the study periods., This work was supported by the long-term monitoring programme of the Natural Park of Cap de Creus and the Natural Park of Montgrí, Illes Medes and Baix Ter, the Medes Islands and the Baix Ter protected areas (public agreement PTOP- 2017-130, Departament de Territori i Sostenibilitat of the Generalitat de Catalunya) and by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 689518 (MERCES). This output reflects only the authors' view, and the European Union cannot be held responsible for any use of the information contained herein that may be made. All the authors are part of the MedRecover research group 2017SGR-1521 (www.medrecover.org).