Linking methanotroph phenotypes to genotypes using a simple spatially resolved model ecosystem.

Connecting genes to phenotypic traits in bacteria is often challenging because of a lack of environmental context in laboratory settings. Laboratory-based model ecosystems offer a means to better account for environmental conditions compared to standard planktonic cultures, and can help link genotypes and phenotypes. Here, we present a simple, cost-effective, laboratory-based model ecosystem to study aerobic methane-oxidizing bacteria (methanotrophs) within the methane-oxygen counter gradient typically found in the natural environment of these organisms. Culturing the methanotroph Methylomonas sp. strain LW13 in this system resulted in formation of a distinct horizontal band at the intersection of the counter gradient, which we discovered was not due to increased numbers of bacteria at this location but instead to an increased amount of polysaccharides. We also discovered that different methanotrophic taxa form polysaccharide bands with distinct locations and morphologies when grown in the methane-oxygen counter gradient. By comparing transcriptomic data from LW13 growing within and surrounding this band, we identified genes upregulated within the band and validated their involvement in growth and band formation within the model ecosystem using knockout strains. Notably, deletion of these genes did not negatively affect growth using standard planktonic culturing methods. This work highlights the use of a laboratory-based model ecosystem that more closely mimics the natural environment to uncover bacterial phenotypes missing from standard laboratory conditions, and to link these phenotypes with their genetic determinants.

[Spatio-temporal Variation in NEP in Ecological Zoning on the Loess Plateau and Its Driving Factors from 2000 to 2021].

Net ecosystem productivity (NEP) is an important index for the quantitative evaluation of carbon sources and sinks in terrestrial ecosystems. Based on MOD17A3 and meteorological data, the vegetation NEP was estimated from 2000 to 2021 in the Loess Plateau (LP) and its six ecological subregions of the LP (loess sorghum gully subregions:A1, A2; loess hilly and gully subregions:B1, B2; sandy land and agricultural irrigation subregion:C; and earth-rock mountain and river valley plain subregion:D). Combined with the terrain, remote sensing, and human activity data, Theil-Sen Median trend analysis, correlation analysis, multiple regression residual analysis, and geographic detector were used, respectively, to explore the spatio-temporal characteristics of NEP and its response mechanism to climate, terrain, and human activity. The results showed that:① On the temporal scale, from 2000 to 2021 the annual mean NEP of the LP region (in terms of C) was 104.62 g·(m2·a)-1. The annual mean NEP for both the whole LP and each of the ecological subregions showed a significant increase trend, and the NEP of the LP increased by 6.10 g·(m2·a)-1 during the study period. The highest growth rate of the NEP was 9.04 g·(m2·a)-1, occurring in the A2 subregion of the loess sorghum gully subregions. The subregion C had the lowest growth rate of 2.74 g·(m2·a)-1. Except for the C subregion, all other ecological subregions (A1, A2, B1, B2, and D) were carbon sinks. ② On the spatial scale, the spatial distribution of annual NEP on the LP was significantly different, with the higher NEP distribution in the southeast of the LP and the lower in the northwest of the LP. The high carbon sink area was mainly distributed in the southern part of the loess sorghum gully subregions, and the carbon source area was mainly distributed in the northern part of the loess sorghum gully subregions and most of the C subregion. The high growth rate was mainly distributed in the central and the southern part of the A2 subregion and the southwest part of the B2 subregion. ③ Human activities had the greatest influence on the temporal variation in NEP in the LP and all the ecological subregions, with the correlation coefficient between human activity data and NEP being above 0.80, and the relative contribution rates of human factors was greater than 50%. The spatial distribution was greatly affected by meteorological factors, among which the precipitation and solar radiation were the main factors affecting the spatial changes in the NEP of the LP. The temporal and spatial variations in the NEP in the LP were influenced by natural and human social factors. To some extent, these results can provide a reference for the terrestrial ecosystem in the LP to reduce emissions and increase sinks and to achieve the goal of double carbon.

Planktonic, benthic and sympagic copepods collected from the desalination unit of Mario Zucchelli Research Station in Terra Nova Bay (Ross Sea, Antarctica).

Background: Distributional data on planktonic, benthic and sympagic copepods collected in the framework of the XXXIVth Expeditions of the Italian National Antarctic Programme (PNRA) to the Ross Sea sector from 2018-2019 are here provided. These occurrences correspond to specimens collected from the 25 µm filters used in the desalination plant of the Italian research station "Mario Zucchelli" (MZS), located in the Terra Nova Bay area (TNB; Ross Sea, Antarctica). This dataset is a contribution to the Antarctic Biodiversity Portal, the thematic Antarctic node for both the Ocean Biogeographic Information System (AntOBIS) and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility Antarctic Biodiversity Information Facility (ANTABIF). The dataset was uploaded and integrated with the SCAR-AntOBIS database (the geospatial component of SCAR-MarBIN). Please follow the guidelines from the SCAR Data Policy (ISSN 1998-0337) when using the data. If you have any questions regarding this dataset, please contact us via the contact information provided in the metadata or via data-biodiversity-aq@naturalsciences.be. Issues with the dataset can be reported at the biodiversity-aq GitHub project. New information: We describe the diversity of marine copepods Terra Nova Bay sampled by the filters installed in the desalination unit (DU) of the Italian research station "Mario Zucchelli" described in recent work. The opening of the intake pipe of the DU is positioned at a depth of 4 m and allowed a total of 2,116 specimens to be sampled and recognised. In addition, new occurrence records of copepod genera and species are reported in the same zone. We provide an overview of the marine copepod diversity reported for TNB. The total of 2,116 individuals corresponds to 14 genera and 15 species and is represented by 136 occurrence records in this dataset. Around 52% of the total number of species are new records for the TNB area. The publication of this data paper was funded by the Belgian Science Policy Office (BELSPO, contract n°FR/36/AN1/AntaBIS) in the Framework of EU-Lifewatch as a contribution to the SCAR Antarctic biodiversity portal (biodiversity.aq).

Contrasting benthic bacterial and fungal communities in two temperate coastal areas affected by different levels of anthropogenic pressure.

Benthic microbial communities play a crucial role in maintaining the stability and function of estuarine ecosystems. However, their organization and response to multiple stresses in severely disturbed coastal areas remains to be elucidated. In this study, we revealed the presence of contrasting benthic bacterial and fungal communities in the Liaohe (LH) and Yalujiang (YLJ) estuaries, which are located at similar latitudes and are characterized by similar climates but are subjected to different levels of anthropogenic pressure. The results showed that Firmicutes and Chloroflexi were more abundant in LH, which reflected the influence of anthropogenic pressure in this area. Functional analyses indicated that the functional genes involved in the generation of precursor metabolites and energy pathways were more enriched in the LH community, while genes regulating degradation/utilization/assimilation processes were more enriched in the YLJ community. Distance-dependent similarity analysis showed that the bacterial community in LH was more affected by environmental changes, while that in YLJ was more influenced by geographic dispersion. In contrast, no significant distance-dependent similarity was found for the fungal communities in the two areas. In addition, the network analysis showed that the bacterial-fungal network in YLJ was more complex and stable than that in the LH. Our results highlight the important roles of environmental heterogeneity in controlling microbial community composition, biogeographic patterns, and co-occurrence networks. These findings fill knowledge gaps in the understanding of the different response patterns of benthic communities under varying anthropogenic pressures.

[Ecosystem Service Trade-off Synergy Strength and Spatial Pattern Optimization Based on Bayesian Network： A Case Study of the Fenhe River Basin].

Understanding the strength of trade-off and synergistic relationships among ecosystem services (ESs) is crucial for ecological management and restoration in the Fenhe River Basin. However, there is still a lack of sufficient research on the driving variables and spatial pattern optimization of the strength of ESs relationships in this area. Based on the quantitative assessment of six ESs in the Fenhe River Basin in 2000 and 2020, the ecosystem services trade-off synergy index (TSI) was introduced to quantitatively measure the strength of trade-off and synergistic relationships between each pair of ESs. A Bayesian network was constructed to identify the driving variables of trade-off and synergistic relationships, and sensitivity analysis was conducted to determine the degree of influence of key variables on the strength of these relationships. The optimization area of the strength of ESs trade-off and synergistic relationships was characterized in spatial patterns. The results showed that:① There were significant spatiotemporal differences in the six ESs in the Fenhe River Basin in 2000 and 2020. In terms of time scale, water yield, net primary productivity, crop productivity, soil conservation, and carbon storage all showed a trend of fluctuating increase. In terms of spatial scale, the spatial distribution changes in the six ESs were relatively small over the 20 years. ② The TSI of carbon storage was high in the surrounding area and low in the middle, showing a four-high and four-low pattern. The areas with the highest TSI between grain supply and other services were distributed from north to south. ③ Sensitivity analysis found that the strength of water yield, soil conservation, and habitat quality were significantly affected by precipitation, plant root depth restriction, and rainfall erosion. According to the conditional probability of different states of key variables, Wenshui County, Qingxu County, and Qi County in the central part of the Fenhe River Basin were identified as high-value areas for trade-off and synergistic relationships, which could be used as key areas for ecological restoration. These findings have important theoretical and practical significance for understanding the complex relationship between multiple ESs trade-off and synergistic relationships and their driving variables and for proposing sustainable ecological environment management policies.

[Spatiotemporal Evolution and Influencing Factors of Ecosystem Service Value in the Yellow River Basin].

The external spatiotemporal evolution and intrinsic impact mechanisms of ecosystem service value are of great significance for understanding regional ecosystem issues and enhancing human ecological well-being. Based on grid data, this study used the equivalent factor method and NDVI to measure the ecosystem service value of the Yellow River Basin, analyzed the spatial-temporal evolution of urban ecosystem service value along the basin, and established a GWR model to explore the spatial heterogeneity of each influencing factor on the basis of determining the main influencing factors via geographic detector. The results showed that:① The ecosystem service value of the Yellow River Basin increased first, then decreased, and finally increased from 2000 to 2020, showing a spatial distribution pattern of "the south was higher than the north;" "the lower reaches were lower, and the upper and middle reaches were higher;" and the regulation service contributed the most to the ecosystem service value of the basin. ② The results of geographical exploration showed that the degree of influence of various factors was different. Social factors played the strongest role in explaining the ecosystem service value of the Yellow River Basin, followed by economic factors, and natural factors played the weakest role. The high value areas in the upper reaches were mainly related to rivers and lakes, and the high value areas in the middle reaches were mainly related to mountains. ③ The results of the GWR model showed that population density and land reclamation rate were negatively correlated with ecosystem service value, whereas average annual precipitation was positively correlated, and the effects increased from east to west. The GDP per unit area was negatively correlated with the overall ecosystem service value but positively correlated in the upstream region.

Assessment of urban ecosystem health and its influencing factors: a case study of Zibo City, China.

Urban ecosystem health is the foundation of sustainable urban development. It is important to know the health status of urban ecosystem and its influencing factors for formulating scientific urban development planning. Taking Zibo city as the study area, the indicators were selected from five aspects: ecosystem vigor, structure, resilience, service function and population health to establish an assessment index system of urban ecosystem health. The health level of urban ecosystem was assessed, and its changing trend was analyzed from 2006 to 2018 in Zibo. Furthermore, obstacle degree analysis and sensitivity analysis were used to quantitatively analyze the main obstacle factors and sensitivity factors affecting urban ecosystem health, so as to provide references for improving urban ecosystem health. The results showed that the health level of urban ecosystem in Zibo showed an upward trend from 2006 to 2018. The poor structure and ecological environment quality were the main obstacle factors to urban ecosystem health. The impact of changes in a single indicator on urban ecosystem health gradually decreased, but the sensitivity index of indicators had obvious differences. Urban ecosystem health was sensitive to changes in ecosystem structure and resilience. In the future, Zibo should strengthen ecological construction, optimize the industrial structure, and develop green economy to promote urban ecosystem healthy.

Study of the Microbiome of the Cretan Sour Cream Staka Using Amplicon Sequencing and Shotgun Metagenomics and Isolation of Novel Strains with an Important Antimicrobial Potential.

Staka is a traditional Greek sour cream made mostly from spontaneously fermented sheep milk or a mixture of sheep and goat milk. At the industrial scale, cream separators and starter cultures may also be used. Staka is sometimes cooked with flour to absorb most of the fat. In this study, we employed culture-based techniques, amplicon sequencing, and shotgun metagenomics to analyze the Staka microbiome for the first time. The samples were dominated by Lactococcus or Leuconostoc spp. Most other bacteria were lactic acid bacteria (LAB) from the Streptococcus and Enterococcus genera or Gram-negative bacteria from the Buttiauxella, Pseudomonas, Enterobacter, Escherichia-Shigella, and Hafnia genera. Debaryomyces, Kluyveromyces, or Alternaria were the most prevalent genera in the samples, followed by other yeasts and molds like Saccharomyces, Penicillium, Aspergillus, Stemphylium, Coniospotium, or Cladosporium spp. Shotgun metagenomics allowed the species-level identification of Lactococcus lactis, Lactococcus raffinolactis, Streptococcus thermophilus, Streptococcus gallolyticus, Escherichia coli, Hafnia alvei, Streptococcus parauberis, and Enterococcus durans. Binning of assembled shotgun reads followed by recruitment plot analysis of single reads could determine near-complete metagenome assembled genomes (MAGs). Culture-dependent and culture-independent analyses were in overall agreement with some distinct differences. For example, lactococci could not be isolated, presumably because they had entered a viable but not culturable (VBNC) state or because they were dead. Finally, several LAB, Hafnia paralvei, and Pseudomonas spp. isolates exhibited antimicrobial activities against oral or other pathogenic streptococci, and certain spoilage and pathogenic bacteria establishing their potential role in food bio-protection or new biomedical applications. Our study may pave the way for additional studies concerning artisanal sour creams to better understand the factors affecting their production and the quality.

Exploring Intraspecific Trait Variation in a Xerophytic Moss Species Indusiella thianschanica (Ptychomitriaceae) across Environmental Gradients on the Tibetan Plateau.

Investigating intraspecific trait variability is crucial for understanding plant adaptation to various environments, yet research on lithophytic mosses in extreme environments remains scarce. This study focuses on Indusiella thianschanica Broth. Hal., a unique lithophytic moss species in the extreme environments of the Tibetan Plateau, aiming to uncover its adaptation and response mechanisms to environmental changes. Specimens were collected from 26 sites across elevations ranging from 3642 m to 5528 m, and the relationships between 23 morphological traits and 15 environmental factors were analyzed. Results indicated that coefficients of variation (CV) ranged from 5.91% to 36.11%, with gametophyte height (GH) and basal cell transverse wall thickness (STW) showing the highest and lowest variations, respectively. Temperature, elevation, and potential evapo-transpiration (PET) emerged as primary environmental drivers. Leaf traits, especially those of the leaf sheath, exhibited a more pronounced response to the environment. The traits exhibited apparent covariation in response to environmental challenges and indicated flexible adaptive strategies. This study revealed the adaptation and response patterns of different morphological traits of I. thianschanica to environmental changes on the Tibetan Plateau, emphasizing the significant effect of temperature on trait variation. Our findings deepen the understanding of the ecology and adaptive strategies of lithophytic mosses.

Main Poisonous and Allergenic Plant Species in Sicilian Gardens and Parks: Applications and Recommendations for Use.

This study identified the most common poisonous and allergenic plants occurring in Sicilian gardens and parks. Based on a survey conducted at 100 sites, a list was drawn up that reports the main biological and toxicological characteristics and ornamental uses of these plants. A total of 137 taxa were recorded, of which 108 were poisonous and 32 were allergenic. The most represented families were the Solanaceae, Moraceae, Apocynaceae and Fabaceae. The most represented geographical contingents were the European and the Mediterranean. A large number of toxic and allergenic plants recorded in Sicilian parks and gardens cause gastrointestinal disorders, 21 of which are deadly poisonous. Based on the results, actions for the management of existing gardens and the construction of new ones are discussed. The importance of environmental education for the population starting from school age is stressed. These recommendations aim to preserve cultivated biodiversity and, at the same time, protect human and pet health.

Functional Redundant Microbiome Enhanced Anaerobic Digestion Efficiency under Ammonium Inhibition Conditions.

Revealing the role of functional redundancy is of great importance considering its key role in maintaining the stability of microbial ecosystems in response to various disturbances. However, experimental evidence on this point is still lacking due to the difficulty in "manipulating" and depicting the degree of redundancy. In this study, manipulative experiments of functional redundancy were conducted by adopting the mixed inoculation strategy to evaluate its role in engineered anaerobic digestion systems under ammonium inhibition conditions. The results indicated that the functional redundancy gradient was successfully constructed and confirmed by evidence from pathway levels. All mixed inoculation groups exhibited higher methane production regardless of the ammonium level, indicating that functional redundancy is crucial in maintaining the system's efficiency. Further analysis of the metagenome-assembled genomes within different functional guilds revealed that the extent of redundancy decreased along the direction of the anaerobic digestion flow, and the role of functional redundancy appeared to be related to the stress level. The study also found that microbial diversity of key functional populations might play a more important role than their abundance on the system's performance under stress. The findings provide direct evidence and highlight the critical role of functional redundancy in enhancing the efficiency and stability of anaerobic digestion.

Balancing economic and ecological functions in smallholder and industrial oil palm plantations.

The expansion of the oil palm industry in Indonesia has improved livelihoods in rural communities, but comes at the cost of biodiversity and ecosystem degradation. Here, we investigated ways to balance ecological and economic outcomes of oil palm cultivation. We compared a wide range of production systems, including smallholder plantations, industrialized company estates, estates with improved agronomic management, and estates with native tree enrichment. Across all management types, we assessed multiple indicators of biodiversity, ecosystem functions, management, and landscape structure to identify factors that facilitate economic-ecological win-wins, using palm yields as measure of economic performance. Although, we found that yields in industrialized estates were, on average, twice as high as those in smallholder plantations, ecological indicators displayed substantial variability across systems, regardless of yield variations, highlighting potential for economic-ecological win-wins. Reducing management intensity (e.g., mechanical weeding instead of herbicide application) did not lower yields but improved ecological outcomes at moderate costs, making it a potential measure for balancing economic and ecological demands. Additionally, maintaining forest cover in the landscape generally enhanced local biodiversity and ecosystem functioning within plantations. Enriching plantations with native trees is also a promising strategy to increase ecological value without reducing productivity. Overall, we recommend closing yield gaps in smallholder cultivation through careful intensification, whereas conventional plantations could reduce management intensity without sacrificing yield. Our study highlights various pathways to reconcile the economics and ecology of palm oil production and identifies management practices for a more sustainable future of oil palm cultivation.

Coadaptation of coexisting plants enhances productivity in an agricultural system.

Growing crops in more diverse crop systems (i.e., intercropping) is one way to produce food more sustainably. Even though intercropping, compared to average monocultures, is generally more productive, the full yield potential of intercropping might not yet have been achieved as modern crop cultivars are bred to be grown in monoculture. Breeding plants for more familiarity in mixtures, i.e., plants that are adapted to more diverse communities (i.e., adaptation) or even to coexist with each other (i.e., coadaptation) might have the potential to sustainably enhance productivity. In this study, the productivity benefits of familiarity through evolutionary adaptation and coevolutionary coadaptation were disentangled in a crop system through an extensive common garden experiment. Furthermore, evolutionary and coevolutionary effects on species-level and community-level productivity were linked to corresponding changes in functional traits. We found evidence for higher productivity and trait convergence with increasing familiarity with the plant communities. Furthermore, our results provide evidence for the coevolution of plants in mixtures leading to higher productivity of coadapted species. However, with the functional traits measured in our study, we could not fully explain the productivity benefits found upon coevolution. Our study investigated coevolution among randomly interacting plants and was able to demonstrate that coadaptation through coevolution of coexisting species in mixtures occurs and promotes ecosystem functioning (i.e., higher productivity). This result is particularly relevant for the diversification of agricultural and forest ecosystems, demonstrating the added value of artificially selecting plants for the communities they are familiar with.

Field and laboratory microplastics uptake by a freshwater shrimp.

Microplastics are widespread pollutants, but few studies have linked field prevalence in organisms to laboratory uptakes. Aquatic filter feeders may be particularly susceptible to microplastic uptake, with the potential for trophic transfer to higher levels, including humans. Here, we surveyed microplastics from a model freshwater shrimp, common caraidina (Caridina nilotica) inhabiting the Crocodile River in South Africa to better understand microplastic uptake rates per individual. We then use functional response analysis (feeding rate as a function of resource density) to quantify uptake rates by shrimps in the laboratory. We found that microplastics were widespread in C. nilotica, with no significant differences in microplastic abundances among sampled sites under varying land uses, with an average abundance of 6.2 particles per individual. The vast majority of microplastics found was fibres (86.1%). Shrimp microplastic accumulation patterns were slightly higher in the laboratory than the field, where shrimp exhibited a hyperbolic Type II functional response model under varying exposure concentrations. Maximum feeding rates of 20 particles were found over a 6 h feeding period, and uptake evidenced at even the lowest laboratory concentrations (~10 particles per mL). These results highlight that microplastic uptake is widespread in field populations and partly density dependent, with field concentrations corroborating uptake rates recorded in the laboratory. Further research is required to elucidate trophic transfer from these taxa and to understand potential physiological impacts.

Vertical habitat preferences shape the fish gut microbiota in a shallow lake.

Understanding the interactions between fish gut microbiota and the aquatic environment is a key issue for understanding aquatic microorganisms. Environmental microorganisms enter fish intestines through feeding, and the amount of invasion varies due to different feeding habits. Traditional fish feeding habitat preferences are determined by fish morphology or behavior. However, little is known about how the feeding behavior of fish relative to the vertical structure in a shallow lake influences gut microbiota. In our study, we used nitrogen isotopes to measure the trophic levels of fish. Then high-throughput sequencing was used to describe the composition of environmental microbiota and fish gut microbiota, and FEAST (fast expectation-maximization for microbial source tracking) method was used to trace the source of fish gut microbiota. We investigated the microbial diversity of fish guts and their habitats in Lake Sanjiao and verified that the sediments indeed played an important role in the assembly of fish gut microbiota. Then, the FEAST analysis indicated that microbiota in water and sediments acted as the primary sources in half of the fish gut microbiota respectively. Furthermore, we classified the vertical habitat preferences using microbial data and significant differences in both composition and function of fish gut microbiota were observed between groups with distinct habitat preferences. The performance of supervised and unsupervised machine learning in classifying fish gut microbiota by habitat preferences actually exceeded classification by fish species taxonomy and fish trophic level. Finally, we described the stability of fish co-occurrence networks with different habitat preferences. Interestingly, the co-occurrence network seemed more stable in pelagic fish than in benthic fish. Our results show that the preferences of fish in the vertical structure of habitat was the main factor affecting their gut microbiota. We advocated the use of microbial interactions between fish gut and their surrounding environment to reflect fish preferences in vertical habitat structure. This approach not only offers a novel perspective for understanding the interactions between fish gut microbiota and environmental factors, but also provides new methods and ideas for studying fish habitat selection in aquatic ecosystems.

Widespread habitat loss leads to ecosystem-scale decrease in trophic function.

Natural and anthropogenic disturbances have led to rapid declines in the amount and quality of available habitat in many ecosystems. Many studies have focused on how habitat loss has affected the composition and configuration of habitats, but there have been fewer studies that investigate how this loss affects ecosystem function. We investigated how a large-scale seagrass die-off altered the distribution of energetic resources of three seagrass-associated consumers with varied resource use patterns. Using long-term benthic habitat monitoring data and resource use data from Bayesian stable isotope mixing models, we generated energetic resource landscapes (E-scapes) annually between 2007 and 2019. E-scapes link the resources being used by a consumer to the habitats that produce those resources to calculate a habitat resource index as a measurement of energetic quality of the landscape. Overall, our results revealed that following the die-off there was a reduction in trophic function across all species in areas affected by the die-off event, but the response was species-specific and dependent on resource use and recovery patterns. This study highlights how habitat loss can lead to changes in ecosystem function. Incorporating changes in ecosystem function into models of habitat loss could improve understanding of how species will respond to future change.

Effects of grazing exclusion on soil microbial diversity and its functionality in grasslands: a meta-analysis.

Grazing exclusion (GE) is considered an effective strategy for restoring the degradation of overgrazed grasslands on the global scale. Soil microbial diversity plays a crucial role in supporting multiple ecosystem functions (multifunctionality) in grassland ecosystems. However, the impact of grazing exclusion on soil microbial diversity remains uncertain. Here, we conducted a meta-analysis using a dataset comprising 246 paired observations from 46 peer-reviewed papers to estimate how GE affects microbial diversity and how these effects vary with climatic regions, grassland types, and GE duration ranging from 1 to 64 years. Meanwhile, we explored the relationship between microbial diversity and its functionality under grazing exclusion. Overall, grazing exclusion significantly increased microbial Shannon (1.9%) and microbial richness (4.9%) compared to grazing group. For microbial groups, GE significantly increased fungal richness (8.6%) and bacterial richness (5.3%), but decreased specific microbial richness (-11.9%). The responses of microbial Shannon to GE varied among climatic regions, grassland types, and GE duration. Specifically, GE increased microbial diversity in in arid, semi-arid, and dry sub-humid regions, but decreased it in humid regions. Moreover, GE significantly increased microbial Shannon in semidesert grasslands (5.9%) and alpine grasslands (3.0%), but not in temperate grasslands. Long-term (>20 year) GE had greater effects on microbial diversity (8.0% for Shannon and 6.7% for richness) compared to short-term (<10 year) GE (-0.8% and 2.4%). Furthermore, grazing exclusion significantly increased multifunctionality, and both microbial and plant Shannon positively correlated with multifunctionality. Overall, our findings emphasize the importance of considering climate, GE duration, and grassland type for biodiversity conservation and sustainable grassland ecosystem functions.

Tracking effects of extreme drought on coniferous forests from space using dynamic habitat indices.

Terrestrial ecosystems such as coniferous forests in Central Europe are experiencing changes in health status following extreme droughts compounding with severe heat waves. The increasing temporal resolution and spatial coverage of earth observation data offer new opportunities to assess these dynamics. Dense time-series of optical satellite data allow for computing Dynamic Habitat Indices (DHIs), which have been predominantly used in biodiversity studies. However, DHIs cover three aspects of vegetation changes that could be affected by drought: annual productivity, minimum cover, and seasonality. Here, we evaluate the health status of coniferous forests in the federal state of Hesse in Germany over the period 2017-2020 including the severe drought year of 2018 using DHIs based on the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) for drought assessment. To identify the most important variables affecting coniferous forest die-off, a series of environmental variables together with the three DHIs components were used in a logistic regression (LR) model. Each DHI component changed significantly across non-damaged and damaged sites in all years (p-value 0.05). When comparing 2017 to 2019, DHI-based annual productivity decreased and seasonality increased. Most importantly, none of the DHI components had reached pre-drought conditions, which likely indicates a change in ecosystem functioning. We also identified spatially explicit areas highly affected by drought. The LR model revealed that in addition to common environmental parameters related to temperature, precipitation, and elevation, DHI components were the most important factors explaining the health status. Our analysis demonstrates the potential of DHIs to capture the effect of drought events on Central European coniferous forest ecosystems. Since the spaceborne data are available at the global level, this approach can be applied to track the dynamics of ecosystem conditions in other regions, at larger spatial scales, and for other Land Use/Land Cover types.

The potential of historical spy-satellite imagery to support research in ecology and conservation.

Remote sensing data are important for assessing ecological change, but their value is often restricted by their limited temporal coverage. Major historical events that affected the environment, such as those associated with colonial history, World War II, or the Green Revolution are not captured by modern remote sensing. In the present article, we highlight the potential of globally available black-and-white satellite photographs to expand ecological and conservation assessments back to the 1960s and to illuminate ecological concepts such as shifting baselines, time-lag responses, and legacy effects. This historical satellite photography can be used to monitor ecosystem extent and structure, species' populations and habitats, and human pressures on the environment. Even though the data were declassified decades ago, their use in ecology and conservation remains limited. But recent advances in image processing and analysis can now unlock this research resource. We encourage the use of this opportunity to address important ecological and conservation questions.

Assessing the economic value of Posidonia oceanica (L.) at Tremiti Islands (Mediterranean Sea): An ecosystem condition-based approach.

In the context of limiting global warming, the seagrass Posidonia oceanica (L.) gained the centrality of several international climate change mitigation projects being the most effective carbon storage sink among Mediterranean seagrasses. To assess and monitor the change of environmental conditions and economic values of natural resources, the present study moves from the insights of the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting - Ecosystem Accounting to assess the economic value of the carbon sequestration and storage capacity of the Mediterranean-endemic seagrass P. oceanica at the Tremiti Islands Marine Protected Area. The economic value is compared across: i. the reference study by Pergent-Martini et al.; ii. the ecological condition-based approach; and iii. the unit value transfer. Based on the obtained outcomes, an ecosystem-based approach would prevent biases in the accounting of the ecosystem-service provision capacity of P. oceanica and help the policy maker to implement adequate public investment policies to mitigate its overall degradation.