Ian Vaughan

Extreme events and river biodiversity under climate change Nature Reviews Biodiversity, Published online: 19 February 2026; doi:10.1038/s44358-026-00131-7Extreme events — such as floods, droughts and heatwaves — are escalating in frequency, magnitude and duration. This Review discusses the implications of these global changes for biodiversity in rivers, across population, community and ecosystem scales.

New online! Extreme events and river biodiversity under climate change

Linking Community‐Climate Disequilibrium to Ecosystem Function When turnover in species composition lags behind the pace of climate change, community-climate disequilibrium increases. We, for the first time, explicitly link this disequilibrium to ecosystem funct...

Species shift their ranges in response to climate change, but many can't keep up. The resulting "community-climate disequilibrium" can impair ecosystem function and cause counterintuitive dynamics, like short-term gain but long-term loss onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Invasive non-native plants indirectly destabilise riverbanks - Biological Invasions Invasive Non-Native Plant species (INNPs) establishment along rivers continues to accelerate globally, with potential consequences for riverbank stability, ecosystem functions and services. Riverbank ...

My third PhD chapter has just been published, we assessed the impact of Himalayan balsam invasion on riverbank stability. A massive thanks to @zarahpattison.bsky.social @drchrishackney.bsky.social @dralanlaw.bsky.social

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Heathland and pine trees on a sunny, frosty morning

A cold finale to 2025 in Wareham Forest. Lots of crossbills on the pines and silver birches, with plenty of fieldfares and redwings around too

NERC RED-ALERT CDT: Using digital twins to improve river surveillance and management. at Cardiff University on FindAPhD.com PhD Project - NERC RED-ALERT CDT: Using digital twins to improve river surveillance and management. at Cardiff University, listed on FindAPhD.com

Could a 'lightweight' digital twin of a river system be a low cost tool to help us manage water quality and other pressures? We have a new PhD opportunity between Cardiff University and @natreswales.bsky.social to test this idea 🌍🧪 www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Introducing fwtraits – an R package for obtaining freshwater biodiversity trait information Species ecological parameters are crucial for understanding the functional responses to environmental perturbations, aiding in informing conservation …

#Freshwater #Ecologists - check out this new #RPackage called fwtraits which integrates parameters from FWE www.freshwaterecology.info

Link: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

#FreshwaterEcology #RStat #Statistics #BigData 🌍

Creating woodland through natural processes: Current understanding and knowledge gaps in Great Britain

Great to contribute to this #OpenAccess paper published in Ecological Solutions & Evidence: doi.org/10.1002/2688... #rewilding #forests #trees #nature @ukceh.bsky.social

How #climatechange is reshaping fish communities in the United States as temperatures rise and non-native fishes proliferate: @ian-vaughan.bsky.social overviews recent extensive work by @rumschsl.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/d41... www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Rivers are heating up faster than the air − that’s a problem for aquatic life and people River heat waves are rising faster than the pace of air heat waves. That’s a problem for fish, drinking water quality, and food and energy production.

Rivers are heating up faster than the air − that’s a problem for aquatic life and people

doi.org/10.64628/AAI...

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Infographic showing interconnections between five key elements: Climate Change, Water, Biodiversity, Food, and Health, displayed over a landscape background with wind turbines, water, and farmland. White lines connect these elements, demonstrating their relationships. Right side contains definitions of key terms like "Interlinkages," "Feedback loops," and "Trade-offs." Bottom text explains "Nexus" and contrasts "Nexus approaches" with "Siloed approaches."

The IPBES #NexusAssessment Report finds that using a ‘nexus’ approach to address intertwined environmental, social and economic crises is more effective than a siloed approach.

Read more: https://www.ipbes.net/nexus/media-release

Diverging fish biodiversity trends in cold and warm rivers and streams - Nature In the past three decades, fish abundance, richness and uniqueness have diverged across cold and warm streams, and the effects on native fish communities of stream warming and increases in introduced fishes have magnified each other.

And here's the original paper www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Climate change is reshaping the fish communities of rivers across the US - my commentary in @nature.com to accompany the new study led by @rumschsl.bsky.social rdcu.be/eHY6B 🌍🧪

Very kind! I'm well aware of how challenging monitoring data can be to work with (even at our 'small' UK scales) - but also what a valuable resource they are.

Diverging fish biodiversity trends in cold and warm rivers and streams - Nature In the past three decades, fish abundance, richness and uniqueness have diverged across cold and warm streams, and the effects on native fish communities of stream warming and increases in introduced fishes have magnified each other.

Fish communities in US rivers have changed a lot since the 1990s, linked to climate change and species introductions - new research in @nature.com led by @rumschsl.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Back to life after 50 years: effects of environmental flow restoration on macroinvertebrate biodiversity and river ecological status. A case study of the Valseco stream, Spain The construction of dams and reservoirs to meet increasing water and electricity demands has significantly altered many natural river flows, posing threats to the ecological integrity of freshwater e...

Our new paper shows how a small Iberian stream, dry for 50 years, bounced back to good ecological status in <2 years after environmental flows were restored. 🌊🪱
👉 doi.org/10.1111/rec.70198

#RiverRestoration #EnvironmentalFlows #FreshwaterEcology

Reconsidering space-for-time substitution in climate change ecology - Nature Climate Change Ecologists often leverage patterns observed across spatial climate gradients to predict the impacts of climate change (space-for-time substitution). We highlight evidence that this can be misleading n...

Space-for-time substitution is most problematic when forecasting near-term ecological responses that lag behind climate change. It assumes equilibrium (rapid ecological responses) and strong climate causality (ignoring confounders). www.nature.com/articles/s41... @mekevans.bsky.social

Great to see research briefing from our @uktreescapes.bsky.social TreEPlaNat project on using natural processes for woodland creation published by @forestresearchuk.bsky.social
Research briefing: www.forestresearch.gov.uk/publications...
News: www.forestresearch.gov.uk/news/new-res...

Phenology changes for the Japanese cherry tree (Prunus jamasakura) in Kyoto. Left: Day of the year of the flowering peak for the period between 812 and 2024. Right: Relation between March mean air temperature (°C) in Kyoto and the day of the year of the Japanese cherry tree peak flowering for the period between 1890 and 2024. https://jgpausas.blogs.uv.es/2025/06/11/134-years-of-climate-warming-effects/

Climate warming is not a recent phenomenon; it has had detectable impacts on plants for at least 134 years!

The onset of phenological plant response to climate warming @newphyt.bsky.social
nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

🧪🌎🌿🌐🌳 🍁 #PlantBiology @cideinvestiga.bsky.social @csic.es

Cereghetti et al: #Seasonal #dynamics of detritus flows and #decomposition across #ecosystem boundaries.

🌿🍂🦐 🌐🌍

We studied seasonal dynamics/phenology ⏱️ of 🟩terrestrial-🟦aquatic linkages across a year: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Out in #CurrentBiology @currentbiology.bsky.social

1/4

The ecological benefits of more room for rivers - Nature Water This Review synthesizes the ecological features and processes that arise when rivers are given room to move. Understanding these interactions will support more sustainable decisions that weigh river e...

Super excited to share our new paper out today in Nature Water led by Christina McCabe. @naturewaterjnl.bsky.social

“The ecological benefits of more room for rivers”

Find the paper here: www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Free to read version: rdcu.be/eeuBx

#rivers #floods #biodiversity #resilience

Coupling nitrogen removal and watershed management to improve global lake water quality - Nature Communications Using remote sensing, this study establishes the nitrogen budget for 5,768 lakes. Results show that reducing watershed nitrogen input improves water quality nonlinearly, emphasizing targeted watershed...

Using remote sensing, this study establishes the nitrogen budget for 5,768 lakes. Results show that reducing watershed #nitrogen input improves water quality nonlinearly, emphasizing targeted watershed management to meet the #SDG of global clean #water.

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

Widespread ecological novelty across the terrestrial biosphere - Nature Ecology & Evolution Even outside urban and agricultural areas, ecosystems are vastly transformed as a result of human activities. Here the authors map patterns in climate change, defaunation and floristic disruption to q...

1/6 Paper Alert📢📢📢
New publication from #ECONOVO on the widespread ecological novelty across the terrestrial biosphere🌱

Read the article here:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Key take homes below👇

Biodiversity in England’s rivers improved as metal pollution reduced An improvement in freshwater biodiversity in England’s rivers was linked to reductions in pollution of zinc and copper, largely due to the decline of coal burning and heavy industry, according to a st...

An improvement in freshwater biodiversity in England's rivers in the 1990s and early 2000s was linked to reduced zinc and copper pollution as coal use and heavy industry declined, say researchers.

Read more about a new UKCEH-led study: www.ceh.ac.uk/press/biodiv...

#rivers #WaterQuality 🧪 1/

Prey nutrient content is associated with the trophic interactions of spiders and their prey selection under field conditions Consumers are thought to select food resources based on their nutritional content. While laboratory experiments have explored this, the nutritional dynamics of invertebrate predators have been scarce...

Do spiders select prey based on its nutrient content? This is challenging to study outside the lab - but evidence from the field in our new @oikosjournal.bsky.social paper led by @jordancuff.bsky.social supports the idea 🧪🌍 nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Global Ecology 🌐 starter pack vol 1 & 2 are full and curated !! ✨💚

Please share so they will fly into the blue sky 🦋🌈

Vol1 👉 bsky.app/starter-pack...

Vol2 👉 bsky.app/starter-pack...

Will start a Vol. 3 soon, please reply if you want to be in !

🌐🧪🌍🦤🍁🦑🪴🦉🐍🌾

@global-ecology.bsky.social

@global-ecology.bsky.social

📢✨ Join us for this year #BESAG2025 annual meeting! We are going to host the conference at #ZSL, in London (UK) @londonzoo.bsky.social , on the 15th-16th of September. Save the date and link to registration coming soon! 💧🧪🌍🌊🕸🐟🦈🦭🪼🦑

DM @global-ecology.bsky.social to join

Lots of excellent ecology and biodiversity folks in Global Ecol 2 - and still a few spaces left go.bsky.app/L37W5uH