Sep 2025

• Advisory Board and Contents

TrendsTalk

• 

  Disability in ecology and evolution

  • Sarah Knutie,
  • Eric Wuesthoff,
  • Karianne Kapfer

  In this TrendsTalk series “Disability in ecology and evolution” in Trends in Ecology and Evolution, we will be hearing from people about their experiences being disabled in ecology & evolution. We are asking ecologists and evolutionary biologists with disabilities what the community could do to make our field more inclusive – these changes can be very practical things (e.g. large fonts), they could be institutional, or involve people’s attitudes and beliefs. If you identify as disabled or have a chronic condition and would like to share your thoughts, please get in touch – tree@cell.com , we would love to hear from you.

Science & Society

• 

  How can China protect 30% of its land?

  • Hai Ren,
  • Richard T. Corlett,
  • Zhiyun Ouyang,
  • Stephen Blackmore

  The Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework aims to conserve 30% of land globally by 2030 using protected areas (PAs) and ‘other effective area-based conservation measures’ (OECMs). China plans to expand PAs to 18% of the land area. An additional 12% can be designated as OECMs within the ecological protection red lines.

Letters

• A call for flexpert ecologists

  • Marcus V. Cianciaruso,
  • Mario Almeida-Neto,
  • Luis M. Bini

  Soga and Gaston [1,2] (hereafter S&G) express concern over the impacts of a purported progressive decline in fieldwork activities among ecology students and professionals. They list several interconnected impacts, including: (i) reduced personal knowledge and skills gained through direct field experience, (ii) difficulties in formulating novel and relevant hypotheses, and (iii) fewer opportunities for field data collection. While we agree with many points raised by S&G, we advocate for a broader perspective, encouraging ecologists to be ‘flexperts’ – versatile professionals who combine diverse skills, including those gained through fieldwork.
• Shifting baselines and ecological fieldwork

  • Masashi Soga,
  • Kevin J. Gaston

  We thank Cianciaruso and colleagues for their response [1] to our article on the extinction of experience among ecologists [2]. We support their advocacy for ‘flexpert ecologists’ who integrate diverse skill sets – including those developed through fieldwork. As noted in our original paper [2], we fully agree that field- and non-field-based approaches should not be seen as mutually exclusive, but rather as complementary methods that, when combined, enrich ecological research and conservation practice.

Spotlights

• 

  What shapes pollinator-mediated facilitation?

  • Luísa Gigante Carvalheiro,
  • Renata Santos Souza,
  • Stênio Godinho Gomes

  Pollinator- mediated facilitation can support less attractive plant species within communities. Zhang and Agrawal proposed congener facilitation as a general ecological mechanism that compensates for the evolutionary loss of pollinator-attracting traits. However, detecting this effect may depend on landscape context and species-specific factors.
• 

  When humans shield predators from danger

  • Maria Thaker,
  • Abi T. Vanak

  In areas with high predation risk, some prey seek refuge in anthropogenic areas that their predators avoid. Abrahms et al. show that this 'human shield effect' is also utilized by predators, such as the African wild dog (Lycaon pictus) that seeks refuge from lions.

Forum

• 

  Reproductive interference: a hidden threat of biological invasions

  • Morelia Camacho-Cervantes,
  • Constantino Macías Garcia

  Invasive species threaten native populations in various ways, including through reproductive interference, but this remains understudied. Here, we present evidence that this interference reduces native fitness through courtship and mating. We emphasize the need for further research and highlight potential risks of using this mechanism as a management tool.

Opinions

• Overcoming the disconnect between species interaction networks and biodiversity conservation

  • Gabriel Dansereau,
  • João Braga,
  • Gentile Francesco Ficetola,
  • Núria Galiana,
  • Dominique Gravel,
  • Luigi Maiorano,
  • José M. Montoya,
  • Louise O’Connor,
  • Laura Pollock,
  • Wilfried Thuiller,
  • Timothée Poisot,
  • Ceres Barros

  Decision- makers need to act now to halt biodiversity loss, and ecologists must provide them with relevant species interaction indicators to inform about community- and ecosystem-level changes. Yet, the integration of ecological networks into conservation is still virtually nonexistent. Here, we argue that existing data and methodologies are sufficient to generate network information usable for conservation and to begin overcoming existing barriers to the integration of network information and biodiversity decision-making. Interaction network indicators must meet criteria important to decision-makers and be tied to specific conservation goals, which requires academics to better engage with practitioners. We use network robustness as an example of an already applicable indicator and showcase its potential with a reusable workflow to inform decision-making.
• 

  What is animal venom? Rethinking a manipulative weapon

  • Ronald A. Jenner,
  • Nicholas R. Casewell,
  • Eivind A.B. Undheim

  Open Access

  The scientific study of animal venoms covers a broad phylogenetic domain. We argue that the true extent of this domain has been obscured by researchers having overlooked the biological essence of venom. Venoms manipulate the physiological functioning of recipients to produce extended phenotypes that are beneficial to the venom producer and detrimental to its victim. The ability to produce extended phenotypes in living victims, such as prey paralysis, distinguishes venom from saliva. Understanding venom from this perspective substantially broadens the phylogenetic domain of venom to include taxa that use toxic secretions to feed on plants and manipulate sexual partners, and it paves the way for unifying the field of venomics with the fields that study invertebrate–plant interactions and sexual conflict.
• Featured Article
  

  Extreme events drive rapid and dynamic range fluctuations

  • Lydia G. Soifer,
  • Julie L. Lockwood,
  • Jonas J. Lembrechts,
  • Laura H. Antão,
  • David H. Klinges,
  • Rebecca A. Senior,
  • Natalie C. Ban,
  • Birgitta Evengard,
  • Belen Fadrique,
  • Sophie Falkeis,
  • Alexa L. Fredston,
  • Rob Guralnick,
  • Jonathan Lenoir,
  • Montague H.C. Neate-Clegg,
  • Juliano Palacios-Abrantes,
  • Gretta Pecl,
  • Malin L. Pinsky,
  • Jennifer E. Smith,
  • Beth Stys,
  • Morgan W. Tingley,
  • Brett R. Scheffers

  Climate change is altering species’ distributions globally. Increasing frequency of extreme weather and climate events (EWCEs) is one of the hallmarks of climate change. Despite species redistribution being widely studied in response to long-term climatic trends, the contribution of EWCEs to range shifts is not well understood. We outline how EWCEs can trigger rapid and unexpected range boundary fluctuations by impacting dispersal, establishment, and survival. Whether these mechanisms cause temporary or persistent range shifts depends on the spatiotemporal context and exposure to EWCEs. Using the increasing availability of data and statistical tools to examine EWCE impacts at fine spatiotemporal resolutions on species redistribution will be critical for informing conservation management of ecologically, economically, and culturally important species.
• 

  Long runs of homozygosity are reliable genomic markers of inbreeding depression

  • Christopher C. Kyriazis,
  • Jacqueline A. Robinson,
  • Kirk E. Lohmueller

  Open Access

  A long-standing goal in ecological, evolutionary, and conservation genetics is to identify genomic correlates of fitness and inbreeding depression. Over the past several years, a growing body of theoretical and empirical work in diverse mammal and bird taxa has established a strong link between long runs of homozygosity (ROH) and inbreeding depression. Here, we develop a new statistic, ID_risk, which quantifies how long ROH together with heterozygosity in non-ROH regions can be used to predict the risk of inbreeding depression in a population. We highlight the broad utility of the ID_risk statistic when applied to 24 bird and mammal populations, providing critical information to guide conservation decisions in cases where more direct measures of fitness are not available.
• 

  Do rhizosphere microbiomes match root functional traits?

  • Zhihui Wen,
  • Peng Yu,
  • Jianbo Shen,
  • Hans Lambers

  Land plants and microorganisms have developed intricate partnerships during millions of years of coevolution. However, it remains largely unknown how rhizosphere microbiomes align with diverse root functional traits among and within species. We argue that deciphering the bidirectional interactions of root traits with microbial partners is pivotal for understanding rhizosphere processes and belowground ecosystem functioning. We review emerging evidence illustrating how root functional traits shape rhizosphere microbiomes and how rhizosphere microbiomes modulate root-trait expression. We conclude that rhizosphere microbiota and root traits comprise a holistic evolutionary unit that governs plant health and belowground resource acquisition. This knowledge provides valuable insights into the adaptive evolution of plant host–microbe associations and informs strategies to leverage their beneficial interactions for sustainably managed systems.

Reviews

• 

  Recombination-aware phylogenomics

  • Frank T. Burbrink,
  • Dylan DeBaun,
  • Nicole M. Foley,
  • William J. Murphy

  Phylogenetic variation, recombination rate evolution, and comparative genome structure and organization have typically been explored in isolation. The chromosomal and genomic context of selected genetic markers in phylogenetic studies is usually unknown, given the fragmented nature of most genome assemblies. It is now established that the position of markers in the genome can strongly influence the inferred phylogeny, often not reflecting speciation patterns and subsequent bifurcating tree structure but rather post-speciation introgression. The recent availability of chromosome-level genome assemblies and advances in estimating genome-wide recombination rates have created opportunities to jointly understand the interplay of chromosome evolution, the landscape of recombination, and phylogenetic signal.
• Featured Article
  

  Strategies and significance of self-assessing dynamic visual appearance

  • Lorian E. Schweikert,
  • Heather D. Bracken-Grissom,
  • Umut Ayoglu,
  • Sönke Johnsen

  Dynamic visual appearance, from the capacity of organisms to rapidly alter color or pattern of the body, is typically achieved through physiological color-change and/or bioluminescence. Since these processes often tune appearance to changing ecological conditions, even small errors in performance may impact fitness. Recent discoveries in the field of photobiology have led to an emerging hypothesis that photoreceptive systems associated with appearance-altering tissues function in the self-assessment of dynamic visual appearance. We outline the ecological significance of that self-assessment, the apparent convergence upon strategies to do so, and the implications of these strategies for: (i) the diversity of taxa that employ these strategies, and (ii) the evolution of visual pathways and optical structures previously only understood to serve ocular vision.

• Subscription and Copyright Information