1. Climate change alters freshwater availability in many ecosystems leading to shifts in distributions for many plants. Despite living exclusively in intertidal, saline environments, mangroves rely on non-saline water to maintain plant productivity. However, several mangrove species persist in arid environments where non-saline water from rain and groundwater sources are limited. Under these conditions, foliar water uptake from fog and mist may be an important water acquisition strategy. 2. We conducted a field experiment in...

Shea (Vitellaria paradoxa) trees bear fruit and seeds of considerable economic, nutritional and cultural value in the African Sudano-Sahelian zone. In much of West Africa, shea exists within an agroforestry system referred to as “Parkland”, where social changes, including migration, have resulted in expanding areas of crop cultivation, reductions in both the area of fallow land and the duration of fallow periods, and reduced diversity of habitats and woody species. Shea benefits strongly from pollination...

African forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis) are ecosystem engineers that browse and damage large quantities of vegetation during their foraging and movement. Though elephant trail networks and clearings are conspicuous features of many African forests, the consequences of elephant foraging for forest structure and diversity are poorly documented. In this study in northeastern Gabon, we compare stem size, stem density, proportional damage, species diversity, and species relative abundance of seedlings and saplings in the vicinity of...

1. Agricultural intensification and associated loss of high-quality habitats are key drivers of insect pollinator declines. With the aim of decreasing the environmental impact of agriculture, the 2014 EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) defined a set of habitat and landscape features (Ecological Focus Areas: EFAs) farmers could select from as a requirement to receive basic farm payments. To inform the post-2020 CAP, we performed a European-scale evaluation to determine how different EFA options vary in...

Birds are well known for their sexual dimorphism. But not all forms of dimorphism are the same, and differences in morphology can be so subtle that they aren’t detected by casual observation. We report that this is the case with the Sulawesi Babbler (Pellorneum celebense), the first reported instance of sexual dimorphism in this species or any of the ground babblers of the Southeast Asian islands. Our finding is based on a combination of morphometric...

Predicting the effects of seasonality and climate change on the emergence and spread of infectious disease remains difficult, in part because of poorly understood connections between warming and the mechanisms driving disease. Trait-based mechanistic models combined with thermal performance curves arising from the Metabolic Theory of Ecology (MTE) have been highlighted as a promising approach going forward; however, this framework has not been tested under controlled experimental conditions that isolate the role of gradual temporal...

Aim Nutrient enrichment is associated with plant invasions and biodiversity loss. Functional trait advantages may predict the ascendancy of invasive plants following nutrient enrichment but this is rarely tested. Here, we investigate 1) whether dominant native and non-native plants differ in important morphological and physiological leaf traits, 2) how their traits respond to nutrient addition, and 3) whether responses are consistent across functional groups. Location Australia, Europe, North America and South Africa Time period 2007...

Predicting the effects of seasonality and climate change on the emergence and spread of infectious disease remains difficult, in part because of poorly understood connections between warming and the mechanisms driving disease. Trait-based mechanistic models combined with thermal performance curves arising from the Metabolic Theory of Ecology (MTE) have been highlighted as a promising approach going forward; however, this framework has not been tested under controlled experimental conditions that isolate the role of gradual temporal...