Habitat fragmentation is one of the main drivers of global amphibian decline. Anthropogenic landscape elements can act as barriers, hindering the dispersal that is essential for maintaining gene flow between populations. Dispersal ability can be influenced by locomotor performance, which in turn can depend on morphological traits, such as hindlimb length (HLL) in amphibians. Here, we tested relationships between HLL and environmental variables—road types, forests and agricultural lands—among 35 sub-populations of palmate newts (Lissotriton helveticus)...

C4 photosynthesis boosts productivity in warm environments. Paradoxically, this complex physiological process evolved independently in numerous plant lineages, despite requiring specialized leaf anatomy. The anatomical modifications underlying C4 evolution have previously been evaluated through interspecific comparisons, which capture numerous changes besides those needed for C4 functionality. Here, we quantify the anatomical changes accompanying the transition between non-C4 and C4 phenotypes by sampling widely across the continuum of leaf anatomical traits in the grass Alloteropsis semialata....

Aim: Geographical gradients in resource production are likely to translate into macro-ecological patterns in the biodiversity of migratory organisms but few studies have addressed this question at a global scale. Here we tested a hypothesis based on uncoupled latitudinal gradients in marine and freshwater primary productivities aimed at explaining where (e. g. at which latitude) and at which stage of the life cycle (larvae: amphidromy, juvenile: catadromy, adult: anadromy) migration from ocean to freshwater occurs...

Understanding the processes behind change in reproductive state along life-history trajectories is a salient research program in evolutionary ecology. Two processes, state dependence and heterogeneity, can drive the dynamics of change among states. Both processes can operate simultaneously, begging the difficult question of how to tease them apart in practice. The Neutral Theory for Life Histories (NTLH) holds that the bulk of variations in life-history trajectories is due to state dependence and is hence neutral:...

The presence of congeneric taxa on the same island suggests the possibility of in situ divergence, but can also result from multiple colonizations of previously diverged lineages. Here, using genome-wide data from a large population sample, we test the hypothesis that intra-island divergence explains the occurrence of four geographic forms meeting at hybrid zones in the Reunion grey white-eye (Zosterops borbonicus), a species complex endemic to the small volcanic island of Reunion. Using population genomic...

Estimating the evolutionary potential of quantitative traits and reliably predicting responses to selection in wild populations are important challenges in evolutionary biology. The genomic revolution has opened up opportunities for measuring relatedness among individuals with precision, enabling pedigree-free estimation of trait heritabilities in wild populations. However, until now, most quantitative genetic studies based on a genomic relatedness matrix (GRM) have focused on long-term monitored populations for which traditional pedigrees were also available, and have often...

Understanding how obligate freshwater organisms colonize seemingly isolated ecosystems has long fascinated ecologists. While recent investigations reveal that fish eggs can survive the digestive tract of birds and successfully hatch once deposited, evidence for avian zoochory in natura are still lacking. Here, we used a multiple lines and levels of evidence approach to demonstrate plausible bird-mediated colonization of lakes by the European perch (Perca fluviatilis). We studied a set of newly-formed artificial lakes that the...

Ectomycorrhizal fungi (EMF) form symbioses with a few plant species that comprise a large fraction of the arctic vegetation. Despite their importance, the identity, abundance and distribution of EMF in the Arctic, as well as the key drivers controlling their community composition are poorly understood. In this study, we investigated the diversity and structure of EMF communities across a bioclimatic gradient spanning much of the North American Arctic. We collected roots from two principal arctic...

1. Today, anthropogenic impacts are causing a serious crisis for global biodiversity, with rates of extinction increasing at an unprecedented rate. Extinctions typically occur after a certain delay and understanding the mechanisms causing delays is a key challenge for both fundamental and applied perspectives. 2. Here, we make use of natural experiments, the isolation of lakes by land up-lift in Northern Scandinavia, to examine how yearly extinction rates are affected by time since isolation and...

Despite theoretical justification for the evolution of animal culture, there is still scant empirical evidence for it beyond mammals and birds, and we still know little about the process of cultural inheritance. Here, we propose a mechanism-driven definition of animal culture and test it in the fruit fly. We found that fruit flies have five cognitive capacities that enable them to transmit mating preferences culturally across generations, potentially fostering persistent traditions (the main marker of...

Determining the species compositions of local assemblages is a prerequisite to understanding how anthropogenic disturbances affect biodiversity. However, biodiversity measurements often remain incomplete due to the limited efficiency of sampling methods. This is particularly true in freshwater tropical environments that host rich fish assemblages, for which assessments are uncertain and often rely on destructive methods. Developing an efficient and non-destructive method to assess biodiversity in tropical freshwaters is highly important. In this study, we tested...

Changes in environmental conditions alter host-parasite interactions, raising the need for effective epidemiological surveillance. Developing operational, accurate, and cost-effective methods to assess individual infection status and potential for pathogen spread is a prerequisite to anticipate future disease outbreaks in wild populations. For endoparasites, effective detection of infections usually relies on host-lethal approaches, which are barely compatible with wildlife conservation objectives. Here, we used the brown trout (Salmo trutta) - Tetracapsuloides bryosalmonae host-parasite system to develop...

This is a combined morphological trait database using PCA on 9150 freshwater fish species.

Investigating how trophic interactions influence the β-diversity of meta-communities is of paramount importance to understanding the processes shaping biodiversity distribution. Here, we apply a statistical method for inferring the strength of spatial dependencies between pairs of species groups. Using simulated community data generated from a multi-trophic model, we showed that this method can approximate biotic interactions in multi-trophic communities based on β-diversity patterns across groups. When applied to soil multi-trophic communities along an elevational gradient...

Coexistence between great tits Parus major and blue tits Cyanistes caeruleus, but also other hole‐nesting taxa, constitutes a classic example of species co‐occurrence resulting in potential interference and exploitation competition for food and for breeding and roosting sites. However, the spatial and temporal variations in coexistence and its consequences for competition remain poorly understood. We used an extensive database on reproduction in nest boxes by great and blue tits based on 87 study plots across...

Facilitated by the intensification of global trading, the introduction and dispersal of species to areas in which they are historically non-native is nowadays common. From an evolutionary standpoint, invasions are paradoxical: not only non-native environments could be different from native ones for which introduced individuals would be ill-adapted, but also small founding population size should be associated with reduced adaptive potential. As such, biological invasions are considered valuable real-time evolutionary experiments. Here, we investigated the...

1. Contemporary climate change affects population dynamics, but its influence varies with landscape structure. It is still unclear whether landscape fragmentation buffers or enhances the effects of climate on population size and on the age and body size of individuals composing these populations. 2. This study aims to investigate the impacts of warm climates on lizard life-history traits and population dynamics in habitats varying in their connectivity. 3. We monitored common lizard (Zootoca vivipara) populations...

Here, we present an adaptation of restriction-site-associated DNA sequencing (RAD-seq) to the Illumina HiSeq2000 technology that we used to produce SNP markers in very large quantities at low cost per unit in the Réunion grey white-eye (Zosterops borbonicus), a nonmodel passerine bird species with no reference genome. We sequenced a set of six pools of 18–25 individuals using a single sequencing lane. This allowed us to build around 600 000 contigs, among which at least...

The influence exerted by tree communities, topography and soil chemistry on the assembly of macrofungal communities remains poorly understood, especially in highly diverse tropical forests. Here, we used a large dataset that combines inventories of macrofungal Basidiomycetes fruiting bodies, tree species composition and measurements for 16 soil physico-chemical parameters, collected in 34 plots located in four sites of lowland rainforests in French Guiana. Plots were established on three different topographical conditions: hilltop, slope and seasonally...

Obtaining fundamental biodiversity metrics such as alpha, beta and gamma diversity for arthropods is often complicated by a lack of prior taxonomic information and/or taxonomic expertise, which can result in unreliable morphologically based estimates. We provide a set of standardized ecological and molecular sampling protocols that can be employed by researchers whose taxonomic skills may be limited, and where there may be a lack of robust a priori information regarding the regional pool of species....

Melanins are the most widespread pigments in animals but their adaptive significance remains elusive. Recent studies suggest that intraspecific variation in melanin-based coloration reflects individual genetic-based alternative strategies to cope with environment variability, which could be crucial for their responses to climate changes. However, empirical evidence is still scarce. In this study, we tested how skin coloration in natural populations of brown trout Salmo trutta fario would reflect alternative reproductive strategies in different environments. We...

Although intraspecific variability is now widely recognized as affecting evolutionary and ecological processes, our knowledge on the importance of intraspecific variability within invasive species is still limited. This is despite the fact that quantifying the extent of within-population morphological divergences associated with the use of different trophic or spatial resources (i.e. resource polymorphism) can help to better predict their ecological impacts on recipient ecosystems. Here, we quantified the extent of resource polymorphism within populations of...

1. The balance between risk and benefit of exploiting resources drives life history evolution in organisms. Predators are naturally recognized as major drivers of the life history evolution of their prey. Although prey may also influence the life history evolution of their predators in the context of an evolutionary arms race, there is far more evidence of the role of predators than of prey. 2. The goal of this study was to investigate the role...