Volume 7 Issue 12, December 2023

The rate and extent of global biodiversity change is surpassing our ability to measure, monitor and forecast trends. We propose an interconnected worldwide system of observation networks — a global biodiversity observing system (GBiOS) — to coordinate monitoring worldwide and inform action to reach international biodiversity targets.

Participants in the Convention on Biological Diversity’s processes for implementing the Kunming-Montréal Global Biodiversity Framework need clarity on what makes biodiversity information useful to national decision-makers. Here we present seven preconditions of useful biodiversity information and describe how these can be supported through regional support centres and south–south cooperation.

Leading conservation planner and champion for biodiversity.

A meta-analysis demonstrates that non-native species are often more resilient to extreme weather events than their native counterparts.

Population genomics of the fungal plant pathogen Pyricularia oryzae shows that recombination of existing genetic variation during a multi-hybrid swarm probably facilitated an instantaneous host jump onto wheat.

A random sequence variant in an experimental screen can rescue Escherichi coli from the deleterious effects of a RNase toxin by interacting with chaperones.

Exploring regenerative abilities in planarian flatworms across a diverse living collection reveals independent gains and losses of head regeneration and the rescue of regeneration defects by inhibiting a single cell–cell interaction signal.

We examined the interactive effects of temperature and the presence of apex fish predators on food web structure in Icelandic geothermal streams. Fish suppressed the biomass of invertebrates and thus released algae from grazing pressure, but only at higher temperatures, which illustrates how the combination of warming and apex predators triggers this trophic cascade.

Fire activity and deforestation accelerated in Remote Oceania following human settlement. However, geoarchaeology and palaeoecology indicate that peak fire activity and grassland expansion primarily coincided with high frequencies of El Niño droughts, which suggests that there are complex relationships among human land use, fire and climate in the western Pacific.

The authors review methodological developments arising from the geosciences that are becoming increasingly key to interpreting the human evolutionary record.

Using a 50 year time series of photos of cuckoo finch eggs and those of its host, prinia, the authors document that cuckoo eggs evolve towards prinia eggs, but progressive evolution of prinia eggs away from cuckoo eggs results in no detectible increase in mimetic fidelity.

Using a bioenergetic model and manipulative field experiment along a natural stream temperature gradient, the authors identify a temperature-induced trophic cascade where the presence of fish increases algal biomass and reduces decomposition, but only under warming.

The authors test whether a wide array of marine and terrestrial animal species occupy the full extent of their potential geographic range based on thermal tolerances. They find that many species are underfilling the warm part of their potential range, suggesting that biotic interactions can limit occupancy in climatically suitable areas adjacent to their ranges.

A synthesis of 443 studies across terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems reveals differences in the responses of non-native and native animal species to heatwaves, cold spells, storms, floods and droughts, and prompts discussion of how such extreme events may facilitate success of non-native species.

Palaeoclimatic and palaeoecological reconstructions from Fiji suggest that the dramatic environmental transformations that followed human settlement of Remote Oceanian islands are the product of interactions between human activity and climate rather than human activity alone.

Reconstructing river networks over the past 80 Ma reveals the role of Andean uplift in creating a dynamic habitat leading to increased fish species diversity in western Amazonia.

Using phylogenetic analysis of a hopanoid-producing gene in bacteria, the authors establish fossil 2-methylhopanes as lipid biomarkers for aerobic cyanobacteria and reveal the role of cyanobacteria in primary production before 750 million years ago.

Analysing the evolutionary history of two recent populations of a pathogenic fungus that infects wheat and ryegrasses, the authors show how recombination and selection on standing genetic variation contributed to adaptation to the new hosts.

Screening 100 million random genes, which lack homology to natural sequences, for their ability to rescue growth arrest of Escherichia coli cells caused by the toxin MazF, the authors find ~2,000 hits and demonstrate that one (RamF) confers resistance through interaction with chaperones and induction of toxin proteolysis.

An agent-based model suggests that bacteria use direct-contact systems for inhibiting competitors when the attacking strain is outnumbered, and long-range diffusion systems when the attacker is common. These predictions are supported by competition experiments with Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which also show that strains can use both types of system in conjunction.

A combination of phylogenomics, mouse gut experimental assays and ecological modelling shows how community structure controls the fitness costs and benefits of the type VI secretion system in the human gut symbiont Bacteroides fragilis.

A comparative analysis of head-regeneration capacity across planarian species in a phylogenetic context reveals multiple Wnt-dependent transitions in head-regeneration ability and proposes Wnt functions in the reproductive system as possible evolutionary drivers.

A brain-cell atlas of a web-building spider and genomic comparisons between web-building and burrowing species identifies preserved ancestral neuron types and candidate neuronal genes that may be involved in the learning and memory pathways underlying web-building and hunting behaviours.

Combining transcriptomics, mathematical modelling and in vivo gene editing, this study shows that Sfrp2 contributes to stripe formation and hair colour in the African striped mouse.

Two Early Upper Palaeolithic genomes of humans that lived 36,000–37,000 years ago in Crimea reveal migration and admixture dynamics against a backdrop of climate change.