Global Ecology 🌐

Wide-swath altimetry maps bank shapes and storage changes in global rivers - Nature Observations of river channel geometry and monthly water storage changes for 126,674 river reaches worldwide are derived from the first water year of the Surface Water and Ocean Topography satellite mission.

Nature research paper: Wide-swath altimetry maps bank shapes and storage changes in global rivers

go.nature.com/4lb6El2

Cover of the March 2026 issue of Ecology

The March cover of "Ecology" is bursting with color! This Long‑tailed Broadbill is just one example of the plumage diversity captured in a new data paper that compiles RGB‑derived plumage classifications for more than 10,000 bird species & subspecies

Browse the issue: tinyurl.com/4a9tax3e

Genomic life‐history traits mediate the impacts of habitat loss and nutrient availability on fragmented grassland communities Genomic life-history traits such as ploidy clearly shape gradual and orthogonal grassland plant community compositional responses to both habitat loss and nutrient pollution, that is, two main driver...

New paper alert!

Across 256 semi‑natural grassland communities we found that genomic traits, especially ploidy, predict which plant species are most affected by fragmentation & high P levels

Polyploids are less vulnerable than diploids

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Detection of energetic equivalence depends on food web architecture and estimators of energy use - Nature Communications The universality of the energetic equivalence rule has long been debated. Here, the authors show that across 183 soil invertebrate food webs, size–density and energy use varied with trophic level, ene...

Detection of energetic equivalence depends on food web architecture & estimators of energy use ... the "need to integrate food web energetics & trophic structure to better understand body size structure of ecosystems" #allometry #metabolicscalingtheory www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧪🌐

How hot will the seafloor get?

A new Spotlight in TREE highlights our Konsta et al paper: bottom marine #heatwaves could expose >90% of #Mediterranean benthic species to extreme heat for 150–300 days/year by 2100. 🌐🌍🌊 #ClimateChange
🔗 doi.org/10.1016/j.tr...

CLIMEX Match Climate Composite Match Index (CMI) overlaid with Tipuana tipu distribution location records, projected globally. Insets show the native range, part of South America, part of southern Africa, southwest Australia, and an area of eastern Australia with high levels of cultivation and/or naturalisation. Areas with an orange-red colour (CMI 0.8–1) had high CMI values. Areas with a blue colour (CMI 0.6–0.8) had a climate with moderate CMI values. Records of T. tipu are shown as open circles. Pink circles represent records of plants within the native range. All other colours represent plant records in the non-native range, with purple representing cultivated plant records, yellow representing non-cultivated plant records, green representing records with both cultivated and non-cultivated plants and brown representing plant records where the cultivation status was indeterminate.

The interplay between climatic niche and spatial distribution can inform the management of non-native invasive species. Our findings reveal that the invasion risk for species with small geographic ranges may be greater than assumed.
Read more (OA): doi.org/10.1016/j.ec...
#bioinvasions 🌐🌏🧪

Harmonizing Terrestrial Carbon Cycle Observations Over CONUS NEON Sites: Assessing the Information Contributions of Multiple Data Constraints

🔗 buff.ly/MrRU0SY

The importance of long-time series of benthic data for science and management Abstract. Benthic organisms are important ecological receptors, playing fundamental roles across seafloor ecosystems, delivering some of the most important

”Comprehensive understanding of benthic ecology, essential for robust marine management, reliable numerical analysis, and taxonomic consistency, cannot be achieved without the continuity provided by long-term data”.

🌐 Read more: Birchenough et al., 2026, doi.org/10.1093/ices...

Connecting the dots for biodiversity action from the NAS/Royal Society Forum Summary of the Nine Recommendations and Biodiversity Monitoring Standards Framework papers from the NAS/Royal Society US-UK Forum in summer 2025, and how they connect to my work on collective knowledg...

Connecting the dots for global biodiversity action; two big perspectives out in @pnas.org this week lead by @billsutherland.bsky.social and @bio-diverse.bsky.social from the @royalsociety.org and @nationalacademies.org biodiversity forum last summer. My thoughts: anil.recoil.org/notes/nas-rs... 🌍

‪
🌳 Do you want to contribute to research on how humans perceive forests? Take this quick, anonymous 10-min survey 🌲

👉 www.biodiful.org#/forest

This will help us explore how people experience forest biodiversity!

Please share on 🦋 & tag @biodiful.bsky.social to reach more participants 🙏💚

🌐🌍🦤🦑🪴🍁🧪

bluesky Global Ecology Feed Digest #52 Curated digest of the bluesky Global Ecology feed on biodiversity, ecosystems & conservation at large scales. Terrestrial, freswater & marine realms.

🌐 Global Ecology feed Digest #53, Feb23-Mar09 51 posts

✨For the lazy (yes we are!) & friends who don't like social media but might benefit from this feed, here’s a DIGEST crafted with 💚 for you to share

👉 globalecologybs.github.io/feeddigest.g...

DM if you want to receive the link weekly

🌍🦤🦑🪴🍁🧪

The image shows two figures, a and b. Figure a shows a map of Europe with thermal positions indicated by color-coded hexagons, ranging from -1.0 to 1.0. Arrows point to "Reduced negative impacts" and "Increased negative impacts." Figure b shows a scatter plot of effect size vs thermal position with a fish illustration on top. "Biomass change estimates" indicated by circle size.

A study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution reports that long-term ocean warming reduces global fish biomass by up to 19.8% annually. Warmer years and marine heatwaves were linked to sharp biomass losses of up to 43.4%. go.nature.com/40b6AIB 🧪 🌍

Acceleration hotspots of North American birds’ decline are associated with agriculture Human activities might have accelerated declines of population abundance, but this acceleration remains underexplored. Using 1033 North American Breeding Bird Survey routes, we analyze abundance chang...

North American bird populations are not only declining, but they’re also shrinking faster with each passing year—particularly in regions shaped by intensive agriculture, according to a new study in Science. https://scim.ag/4bkrafP

The Biodiversity Bulletin — Brief Ecology

Our latest Biodiversity Bulletin is out:

🪸 Coral Reef Emergency
🌎 IPBES Expert Panel
🌐 The 'Homogenocene'
👇 and more

www.briefecology.com/the-biodiver...

The Dual Role of NPP in Mediating and Moderating Climate‐Soil Carbon Pathways Under Warming and Drought Across European Ecosystems

🔗 buff.ly/CZv3USk

Increasing synchronicity of global extreme fire weather
Yin+
doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adx8813
synchronous fire weather increased during 1979 to 2024
>2X increase in most regions

"over 1/2 of the observed increase is attributable to anthropogenic climate change."

We relaunch our seminar series!

Jordi Martinez-Vilalta will talk on the

‘Limits and opportunities in predicting drought-induced forest mortality’

24 March 2026 at 15:00 UTC

www.tree-mortality.net/seminars/

INVITED MINI REVIEW
Knowledge‐Guided Machine Learning for Global Change Ecology Research

🔗 buff.ly/7F9Qsu6

Many heat-stressed tropical insects are reaching their limits Vast study in Peru and Kenya confirms limited defenses against rising temperatures, redoubling climate concerns

Insects living in the lowland tropics have evolved to deal with brutal heat. But many of them are close to their limit, according to a massive study that assessed the heat tolerance of hundreds of species. https://scim.ag/406Y5yh

Our paper with @mikkotiusanen.bsky.social out now in @oikosjournal.bsky.social 🥳
In the picture we are hard at work collecting data on Mount Calanda 🗻

🚨 Paper alert!
A new study led by @maria-bas.bsky.social presents a fully data‑driven redefinition of EBSAs in the Western Mediterranean Sea, bringing new knowledge and methodologies for marine conservation planning. 🌊📊

Full paper: https://short.do/WOhOp6

@icmcsic.bsky.social

🚨New Paper ! 🚨
Glad to see my second thesis chapter finally published in
@natecoevo.nature.com !

🎉Marine protected areas marginally offset anthropogenic declines in tropical reef fish contributions to nature and people🎉

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

@umontpellier.bsky.social

Rising temperatures pose a threat to tropical insects An assessment of sensitivity to increasing temperature for thousands of insect species in mountainous terrain reveals a risk of insect biodiversity loss in tropical lowlands.

An assessment of sensitivity to increasing temperature for thousands of insect species reveals a risk of insect biodiversity loss

go.nature.com/4leGXQO

⛰️How do plant strategies shape alpine soil carbon? Study reveals that plant C-strategy and S-strategy follow distinct carbon regulation pathways. Crucial for predicting SOC stocks as climate warming shifts trait composition.

🔍 Article: buff.ly/ZFbEUfH

Human pressure and biodiversity modify forest resilience after extreme multi-year droughts - Nature Ecology & Evolution This study reported widespread declines in resilience after multi-year droughts and showed that biodiversity and climate strongly shape forest resilience after multi-year droughts, but human footprint...

Biodiversity and climate strongly shape forest resilience after multi-year droughts, but after accounting for the human footprint, biodiversity’s contribution is consistently and strongly negative 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Fig. 6 Hypothesized trade-offs across vascular species illustrating a water use economics framework.

#Viewpoint: From growth potential to drought survival: a trait- and time-based framework for plant water economics across vascular species

Volaire et al.
👇

📖 nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

#LatestIssue #PlantScience

The future of Europe’s forest disturbance regimes– a thread.

Tl, dr: Disturbances from wildfire, bark beetles & wind will continue to increase in the coming decades. Under unabated climate change disturbances could more than double by 2100.

New paper out in @science.org doi.org/10.1126/scie...

Conceptualizing and measuring ecological spillover effects from protected areas Protected areas influence their surroundings in a variety of ways. These “spillover effects” can change an area’s conservation value and affect its social license. Advanced statistical tools for quan...

Conceptualizing and measuring ecological spillover effects from protected areas 🌎🌐🧪 esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Robust inference and errors in studies of wildlife control - Scientific Reports Scientific Reports - Robust inference and errors in studies of wildlife control

Robust inference and errors in studies of wildlife control 🌎🌐🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🌳 How do species coexist in forests?
A JFR study shows niche differentiation in a 25-ha subtropical montane forest; elevation and convexity shape species-habitat associations across life stages.
🔗 link.springer.com/article/10.1...
#ForestryResearch #Biodiversity #ForestEcology #JFR 🌐🌿🍃