Organismal abundance typically declines with increasing body size, with metabolic theory predicting a universal size–abundance slope of –0.75. Using protist microcosms across gradients of species ric...

Species synchrony is considered a major mechanism of biodiversity–ecosystem stability relationships. Here, by combining theory, modelling and empirical work, the authors show that with time series len...

Ecologists have long proposed that environments providing more energy can support more species, yet empirical evidence frequently contradicts this expectation. We argue that such inconsistencies resul...

Fifty years of plankton and water samples show that the proportion of carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus in the ocean now substantially differs from the Redfield ratio, probably reflecting a reduction in...

Using a global database of the radiocarbon content of rivers combining new and published measurements, isotopic mass balance suggests that about 60% of river CO2 emissions are derived from millennial or older carbon sources.

Scientific Data - StoichLife: A Global Dataset of Plant and Animal Elemental Content

Ecological communities are often composed of many species, each interacting in complex ways. This complexity makes predictions of species responses to disturbances challenging. Here, we analyze dynami...

A generalizable, functional-trait-based approach for quantifying the effects of disturbances to ecosystem services and economic outcomes, including under climate change, highlights the need for incorp...

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The structure of aquatic food webs does not fit standard allometric predictions. Here the authors explain the co-evolution of specialist and non-specialist predators in aquatic food webs and how this ...

Species loss in ecological communities can trigger cascading extinctions, the extent of which likely depends on network type and extinction thresholds. Traditionally, network responses to node remova...

Warming reduces zooplankton size by up to 57% at +8° C, with some nonlinear trends and breakpoints. This large-scale mesocosm study highlights the importance of intergenerational responses to warming ...

Species interactions play a crucial role in shaping biodiversity, species coexistence, population dynamics, community stability and ecosystem functioning. Our understanding of the role of the dive...

As ecology tackles progressively larger problems, we are moving beyond the scales at which randomised controlled experiments are feasible. Using observational data for causal inference raises the pro...

We explored the patterns of species performance in a real-world community, dependent on pairwise and higher-order interactions with species belonging to the same and other trophic levels (plant, herb....

Global-scale analyses of marine, terrestrial and freshwater assemblages found that temporal rates of species replacement were faster in locations with faster temperature change, including warming and cooling, and vulnerable assemblages were especially responsive.

The trade-off between realism and mechanistic resolution, and why this is important.

Context Intensive agriculture drives insect decline impacting insect-mediated ecosystem services that support production. Crop diversification shows promise in increasing crop productivity and enhanci...