Vocal communication is essential for information transmission in many species, such as that related to mating opportunities or predator presence. Recent research revealing how phenotypic changes brought about by a changing climate may influence vocal communication raises some serious concerns for conservation management.

The boreal summer of 2024 has unusually affected the health of people in India. The number of cases of heat stroke rose across the nation and stakeholders issued warnings to prevent health problems and deaths from the heat. The effect was felt more in those states that usually have higher temperatures and dry weathers, such as Rajasthan, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh. Normally, government and non-government

The hottest boreal summer on record has driven widespread humid heat mortality across every continent of the Northern Hemisphere. With critical physiological limits to human heat tolerance drawing ever closer, this Comment highlights the urgent need to limit further climate warming and emphasizes the adaptation challenge ahead.

We greatly appreciate Coolsaet et al.’s Correspondence1, which gives us the opportunity to clarify and emphasize the scope and intended use of our framework. With respect to scope, we are in agreement with our colleagues that various forms of justice (that is, distributional, procedural and so on) have been discussed in different disciplines. We thus believe, as stated in our paper, that the novelty

Aqueous-soluble hydrocarbons dissolve into the ocean’s interior and structure deep-sea microbial populations influenced by natural oil seeps and spills. n-Pentane is a seawater-soluble, volatile compound abundant in petroleum products and reservoirs and will partially partition to the deep-water column following release from the seafloor. In this study, we explore the ecology and niche partitioning

It is currently unclear how Pseudomonadota, a phylum that originated around the time of the Great Oxidation Event, became one of the most abundant and diverse bacterial phyla on Earth, with metabolically versatile members colonizing a wide range of environments with different O2 concentrations. Here, we address this question by studying isoprenoid quinones, which are central components of energy metabolism

Quorum sensing inhibition is a promising novel approach to control bacterial infections. However, it is not clear whether quorum sensing inhibition will impose selective pressure for the spread of resistance against quorum sensing inhibition in pathogen populations. Previous research tried to answer this question by using synthetic growth media, and this revealed that whether or not resistance will

The inaugural Indian Wildlife Ecology Conference took place on 14–16 June 2024. We talked to the co-conveners of this conference, Ajith Kumar and Jayashree Ratnam, about how the event fostered connections among Indian wildlife ecologists, and their future plans.

In a recent Perspective1, Zimm et al. argued that “there is no consistent approach to comprehensively incorporate and examine justice considerations” in climate research. While we welcome the attention of the authors and the journal to climate justice, we find that Zimm et al. replicate a number of forms and practices of injustice and fail to recognize and include the history and breadth of environmental

Fecal microbiota transplantation has been vital for establishing whether host phenotypes can be conferred through the microbiome. However, whether the existing microbial ecology along the mouse gastrointestinal tract can be recapitulated in germ-free mice colonized with stool remains unknown. We first identified microbes and their predicted functions specific to each of six intestinal regions in three

Foundational to establishment and recovery of biocrusts is a mutualistic exchange of carbon for nitrogen between pioneer cyanobacteria, including the widespread Microcoleus vaginatus, and heterotrophic diazotrophs in its “cyanosphere”. In other such mutualisms, nitrogen is transferred as amino acids or ammonium, preventing losses through specialized structures, cell apposition or intracellularity.

Archaeologist with a wide view of prehistory and a passion for innovative collaboration.

Investigations of the metabolic capabilities of anaerobic protists advances our understanding of the evolution of eukaryotic life on Earth and for uncovering analogous extraterrestrial complex microbial life. Certain species of foraminiferan protists live in environments analogous to early Earth conditions when eukaryotes evolved, including sulfidic, anoxic, and hypoxic sediment porewaters. Foraminifera

Microplastic pollution in aquatic environments is a growing global concern. Microplastics, defined as plastic fragments smaller than five millimetres, accumulate in freshwater reservoirs, especially in urban areas, impacting resident biota. This study examined the effects of microplastics on the performance and microbiome of Daphnia, a keystone organism in freshwater ecosystems, through both in situ

Escherichia coli is an increasingly antibiotic-resistant opportunistic pathogen. Few data are available on its ecological and evolutionary dynamics in its primary commensal niche, the vertebrate gut. Using Illumina and/or Nanopore technologies, we sequenced whole genomes of 210 E. coli isolates from 22 stools sampled during a 20-year period from a healthy man (ED) living in Paris, France. All phylogroups

Photosymbiosis, a mode of mixotrophy by algal endosymbiosis, provides key advantage to pelagic life in oligotrophic oceans. Despite its ecological importance, mechanisms underlying its emergence and association with the evolutionary success of photosymbiotic lineages remain unclear. We used planktonic foraminifera, a group of pelagic test-forming protists with an excellent fossil record, to reveal

Animal gastrointestinal tracts contain diverse metabolites, including various host-derived compounds that gut-associated microbes interact with. Here, we explore the diversity and evolution of bilirubin reductase, a bacterial enzyme that metabolizes the host-derived tetrapyrrole bilirubin, performing a key role in the animal heme degradation pathway. Through an analysis of the bilirubin reductase phylogeny

It is consensus that clinically relevant antibiotic resistance genes have their origin in environmental bacteria, including the large pool of primarily benign species. Yet, for the vast majority of acquired antibiotic resistance genes, the original environmental host(s) have not been identified to date. Closing this knowledge gap could improve our understanding of how antimicrobial resistance proliferates

Anthropogenic land use change facilitates disease emergence by altering the interface between humans and pathogen reservoirs and is hypothesized to drive pathogen evolution. Here, we show a positive association between land use change and the evolution and dispersal of Zaire ebolavirus (EBOV) and Sudan ebolavirus (SUDV). We update the phylogeographies of EBOV and SUDV, which reveal that the most recent

The importance of rare earth elements is increasingly recognized due to the increased demand for their mining and separation. This demand is driving research on the biology of rare earth elements. Biomolecules associated with rare earth elements include rare earth element-dependent enzymes (methanol dehydrogenase XoxF, ethanol dehydrogenase ExaF/PedH), rare earth element-binding proteins, and the relevant

Giant viruses can control their eukaryotic host populations, shaping the ecology and evolution of aquatic microbial communities. Understanding the impact of the viruses’ own parasites, the virophages, on the control of microbial communities remains a challenge. Most virophages have two modes of infection. They can exist as free particles coinfecting host cells together with the virus, where they replicate

Viral infections are major modulators of marine microbial community assembly and biogeochemical cycling. In coral reefs, viral lysis controls bacterial overgrowth that is detrimental to coral health. However, methodological limitations have prevented the identification of viral hosts and quantification of their interaction frequencies. Here, we reconstructed an abundance-resolved virus-bacteria interaction

All populations are affected by multiple environmental drivers, including climatic drivers such as temperature or precipitation and biotic drivers such as herbivory or mutualisms. The relative response of a population to each driver is critical to prioritizing threat mitigation for conservation and to understanding whether climatic or biotic drivers most strongly affect fitness. However, the importance

Metabolic exchange is one of the foundations of symbiotic associations between organisms and is a driving force in evolution. In the ocean, photosymbiosis between heterotrophic hosts and microalgae is powered by photosynthesis and relies on the transfer of organic carbon to the host (e.g. sugars). Yet, the identity of transferred carbohydrates as well as the molecular mechanisms that drive this exchange

Robust debate and discussion are crucial ingredients in the advancement of science, but should always be conducted with respect and civility.

Correction to: Nature Climate Change https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-024-01941-3, published online 8 March 2024.

Original reference: Earth’s Future 11, e2023EF003886 (2023)

Anselm Vogler from the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy Hamburg conducted interviews with local stakeholders in Vanuatu and Guåhan to collect their insights on environmental security. In Vanuatu, a developing island nation, climate change and socioeconomic factors have transformed traditional lifestyles into a state of underdevelopment, resulting in food insecurity, displacement, economic

Reserves or protective areas can help with the long-term conservation of biodiversity and associated ecosystem services. However, as climate change alters the suitability of previously optimal habitats, and leads to species range shifts, reserves that are spatially flexible may be increasingly favourable. But reserve expansion is often limited by budget constraints, and selling of suboptimal reserve

Windthrows are trees that have been uprooted or snapped by winds and are a natural disturbance caused by strong winds during convective storms. These types of storm are an important source of rainfall for the Amazon rainforest, and their frequency may change under climate change, with important hydrological and ecological implications for the forest. In addition to providing evidence for storm incidence

The year 2024 has once again been characterized by a large number of devastating climate-related hazards. While many of these events were likely to have been exacerbated by climate change, they also provide drastic reminders of the degree to which humans can influence whether a meteorological extreme develops into a disaster.

Insect–plant interactions are key determinants of plant and insect fitness, providing important ecosystem services around the world—including the Arctic region. Recently, it has been suggested that climate warming causes rifts between flower and pollinator phenology. To what extent the progression of pollinators matches the availability of flowers in the Arctic season is poorly known. In this study

Tipping points have gained substantial traction in climate change discourses. Here we critique the ‘tipping point’ framing for oversimplifying the diverse dynamics of complex natural and human systems and for conveying urgency without fostering a meaningful basis for climate action. Multiple social scientific frameworks suggest that the deep uncertainty and perceived abstractness of climate tipping

Wet tropical forests play an important role in the global carbon (C) cycle, but given current rates of land‐use change, nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) limitation could reduce productivity in regenerating forests in this biome. Whereas the strong controls of climate and parent material over forest recovery are well known, the influence of vegetation can be difficult to determine. We addressed species‐specific

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