Modern animal tracking devices reliably record movement in horizontal and vertical dimensions, positioning movement ecology to transition towards true three-dimensional (3D) analyses. True 3D tracking, in which horizontal and vertical positions are paired through time, is particularly valuable for marine megafauna, which traverse coastal, pelagic, and aerial environments, making them ideal for illustrating how 3D data can advance movement ecology. By synthesising early approaches to 3D tracking in these taxa, we show that these studies provide ecological perspectives unobtainable from two-dimensional data, identify key barriers limiting wider adoption, and highlight emerging solutions. Broader adoption of true 3D tracking is critical for addressing remaining knowledge gaps in marine megafauna ecology and for improving conservation frameworks to protect the 3D environments these species occupy.

Increasing nutrient diversity is expected to promote microbial diversity. This study shows that more complex environments can enhance resource uptake, intensify competition and lead to microbial biodi...

Fungi are widely recognized as phenotypically plastic, a characteristic often invoked to explain the persistence of ecosystem functions under disturbance. How plasticity varies across taxa remains a key question. Emerging evidence implies species-specific, phylogenetically structured responses, with the strongest divergence under environmental extremes, making fungal community composition essential to ecosystem functioning.

A quarter of a century after its publication, the biodiversity hotspot concept remains one of the most cited and influential frameworks in conservation science. But its real-world impact is poorly doc...

The symbiotic agriculture of fungus-farming termites can collapse if they fail to prevent invading weeds. Previous studies suggest a role for symbiotic fungistatic microbes in bringing about weed cont...

Plant roots are colonized by diverse microbial communities. These communities are shaped by root exudates, including plant-specialized metabolites. Benzoxazinoids are such secreted compounds of maize. Individual microbes differ in their ability to tolerate and metabolize antimicrobial benzoxazinoids. To investigate how these traits combine in a community, we designed two synthetic communities of maize root bacteria that share six common strains and differ in their ability to metabolize benzoxazinoids based on the seventh strain. We exposed both communities to the benzoxazinoid MBOA (6-methoxybenzoxazolin-2(3H)-one) in vitro and found that the metabolizing community did not degrade MBOA to its aminophenoxazinone, as observed for individual strains, but, as a community, they formed the corresponding acetamide. MBOA shaped the differential compositions of both communities and increased the fraction of MBOA-tolerant strains. The benzoxazinoid-metabolizing community showed a higher tolerance to MBOA and was able to utilize MBOA as their sole carbon source for growth. Hence, bacterial interaction results in alternative benzoxazinoid metabolization and increases community performance in the presence of these antimicrobial compounds. Future work is needed to uncover the genetics of this metabolic interaction and ecological consequences for the bacterial community and the host plant.

Soil models include a key parameter known as carbon use efficiency, which impacts estimates of global carbon storage by determining the flow of carbon into soil pools versus the atmosphere. Microbial-...

Large pulses of disturbance have been observed globally in response to climate change. Using Taylor’s Law, the authors show that those pulses were not unpredictable but expected given a strong scaling...

Fungal diversity is critical for ecosystem functioning, yet its role in mediating the relationship between plant diversity and ecosystem multifunctionality remains unclear. This study finds that funga...

ALT: a young boy in a white tank top and red shorts is standing in a car .

Zia Mehrabi from the University of Colorado Boulder, National Champion for the USA, presents groundbreaking research from a global collaboration showing how increasing on-farm diversity improves both ...

Nitrous oxide (N2O) is a potent greenhouse gas and the main stratospheric ozone-depleting agent, yet its sources are not well resolved. In this work, we experimentally show a N2O production pathway no...

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...