Volume 5 Issue 11, November 2021

As global temperature and climate variability increase, overshoot droughts resulting from previously high plant growth could intensify climate–vegetation feedbacks.

Analysis of oviparous and viviparous individuals of the common lizard reveals the genetic architecture of pregnancy.

This Perspective argues that classifying stressors by the ecological scales at which they have their impacts, rather than by their source, will allow better understanding of the predictability and consistency of multiple-stressor effects.

Structural overshoot can occur when phases of excess plant growth deplete soil moisture too rapidly. The authors quantify structural overshoots using remote sensing datasets from 1981 to 2015, finding that 11% of droughts during this period could be attributed to structural overshoot.

Global spatial data for terrestrial vertebrate and vascular plant diversity, above- and below-ground biomass carbon, and potential clean freshwater volume are combined in a joint optimization study to identify potential synergies for conservation management.

Red List information is used to generate global maps of the likelihood of impacts on terrestrial vertebrates exerted by agriculture, hunting and trapping, logging, pollution, invasive species and climate change.

The authors assess the risks to global biodiversity and Indigenous lands arising from projects financed by China’s policy banks between 2008 and 2019, and compare that with the risks associated with similar projects financed by the World Bank.

Geology and climate affect speciation. A combination of path analysis applied to palaeo-reconstructions of mammals and birds with analysis of palaeoclimatic data shows that uplift over the last 3 million years explains more spatial variation in speciation than the direct effects of palaeoclimate change or present-day elevation and temperature.

The authors construct a process-based hunter-gatherer population model embedded within a global terrestrial biosphere model that reveals a strong effect of growing season length on population density via diet composition.

Using natural hybrids between oviparous and viviparous common lizards, the authors describe the genetic architecture of parity mode and conduct a comparative analysis of genes associated with viviparity in mammals, squamates and fish.