Insect Conservation and Diversity

Urban green spaces are increasingly recognised as important refuges for biodiversity, yet their ecological value depends strongly on design and management. Here, we investigate how fine-scale structural and microhabitat components shape urban ant assemblages, using ants as indicators of broader arthropod responses to urbanisation. Ant communities were sampled in twelve urban green spaces in Cordoba (southern Spain) over a ten-year period (2004 to 2013) using pitfall traps, alongside detailed characterisation of vegetation structure and ground-layer microhabitats. In total, 38 species and 25,578 individuals were recorded. Microhabitat variables explained 58% of the variation in species occurrence. Community differences among microhabitats were driven primarily by nestedness, with dense herbaceous cover acting as a core habitat and edge-related components contributing disproportionately to beta diversity. Tree abundance showed a unimodal relationship with species richness, with maximum diversity at intermediate densities, while shrub and lawn cover had weak or inconsistent effects. Fine-scale elements such as leaf litter, stones, woody debris, and small bare-ground patches strongly influenced species occurrence by providing thermal refugia, nesting substrates, and foraging opportunities. The invasive Argentine ant (Linepithema humile) exhibited strong but spatially restricted dominance and species-specific negative effects on native ants, emphasising the role of habitat context in mediating invasion impacts. Our results demonstrate that urban biodiversity is maximised by enhancing fine-scale habitat heterogeneity rather than increasing green cover alone. We highlight practical design principles for urban green infrastructure that prioritise structural diversity and ground-layer complexity to support resilient arthropod communities.

Remote island systems with small landmasses and reliable estimates of human occupancy are ideal model systems to disentangle the roles of global climatic changes and local human occupation on biota. Here, we used mitochondrial and nuclear genomic data from five endemic Fijian Lasioglossum (Homalictus) bee species to infer changes in effective population size (Ne). These ground-nesting bees are native, with non-specialised floral visitation habits, and distributed across the elevational gradient. All lowland species and populations showed strong signals of increasing Ne that correspond to the timing of human occupation of Fiji, but not Holocene climatic change. Highland populations, with greater isolation and present in regions less affected by anthropogenic impacts, did not show evidence of recent rapid increases in Ne. Population expansion rates across the elevational gradient differed between taxa, with significantly earlier and larger increases in predominantly lowland species than those with more restricted ranges in the highlands. This is consistent with the movement of people inland from coastal regions and into montane elevations of the island, and corresponding landscape changes that benefit the ecology of these bees. Specific life history traits of these bees, combined with substantive clearing of forest cover and floristic changes at lower elevations, has likely increased nesting opportunities and abundance of invasive floral resources. Our findings contrast with recent evidence that human occupation of Fiji has resulted in decreased ant biodiversity and raise the paradoxical possibility that human-mediated environmental changes may benefit some native montane tropical insect faunas.

1. Ruby-throated hummingbirds (Archilochus colubris) exhibit flower preferences and readily visit human subsidies like feeders. However, foraging behavior and plant-animal interactions may vary across spatial, temporal, and landscape gradients. Despite the popularity and ubiquity of Ruby-throated Hummingbirds in the eastern U.S., there has never been a quantitative assessment of their flower preferences or feeder use across broad scales. 2. We investigated how feeder visitation, flower visitation, and flower trait preferences vary by latitude, season, and land use in the northeastern United States using over 6 million occurrence records of Ruby-throated Hummingbirds and flowering plants, >2,100 annotated hummingbird-flower interactions, and >2,700 feeder visit occurrences. 3. We found that hummingbird feeder use declined over the year, increased with latitude, and was higher in developed landscapes. Flower visitation increased over the year across all latitudes, with higher visitation in developed landscapes. Finally, we found that native plant use diverged between landscapes, such that the probability of visiting a native flower increased over time in non-developed land uses but declined over time in developed ones, demonstrating that hummingbirds track the advancement of native floral phenology and use non-native, cultivated flowers as a human subsidy due to either availability or preferences. 4. Our preference and network models revealed that while hummingbird-plant network structure was similar across landscapes, the composition of important taxa shifted from native, wild species like Monarda and Impatiens to non-native, cultivated species like Salvia. 5. Using trait-based models of flower visitation, we found that hummingbirds preferred native, tubular, and red/orange flowers fitting the hummingbird pollination syndrome despite visiting >260 different plant species. Red and orange flowers were preferred across all seasons, suggesting color may be a reliable signal of nectar availability across species and contexts. Native and tubular flowers were strongly preferred during the breeding season; however, preferences relaxed during spring and fall migration. 6. These findings reveal the consistent preferences of Ruby-throated Hummingbirds for native, tubular, and red/orange flowers, and underscore how spatial and temporal factors reshape foraging behavior and trait preferences. Our results also highlight the value of community-collected data in characterizing plant-pollinator interactions across broad spatial and temporal scales.

Frugivorous insect larvae are dependent on fruiting plants for development, leading to complex host-parasite interactions that may be influenced by many factors at various scales. We compared the relative effects of factors at the individual, neighborhood, and landscape scales in forest patches. Our results suggest that in areas like upstate New York, where agricultural land uses are dominant, individual scale factors are the most influential. Specifically, parasitism increased with host fruit crop size, but was not associated with host species richness or proximity to forest edge. Notably, the most parasitized hosts were non-native species, including Frangula alnus Mill. (Glossy Buckthorn), indicating a potential role of invasive species to shape host-parasite interactions in our system. Our results underscore the importance of host-specific traits in structuring parasitism patterns and suggest management could consider both the ecological context of host traits and the influence of invasive species at multiple scales.

Devils gardens are among the most striking ant-plant mutualisms in Amazonian forests. In this system, the tree Duroia hirsuta is associated with the ant Myrmelachista schumanni, which actively removes neighboring vegetation and maintains nearly monodominant patches of the host plant. Despite the apparent efficiency of this system, repeated field observations at the Tiputini Biodiversity Station, Yasuni Biosphere Reserve, revealed that individuals of Palicourea alba recurrently occur within active devils gardens. Palicourea alba closely resembles dead plant material, exhibiting leaf morphology and coloration that strongly mimic the surrounding litter layer, and appears to be uncommon outside these gardens. To our knowledge, this "dead-leaf" masquerade has not been previously documented in this intensively studied system, making it a particularly striking and unexpected observation. To evaluate whether this masquerade facilitates persistence within devils gardens, we surveyed 35 gardens and recorded P. alba in 19 (52.8%). When present, P. alba covered on average 27% of plot area, while mean herbivory across sampled leaves remained low (8.6%). Generalized linear mixed models showed that P. alba cover decreased significantly with increasing herbivory (F = 8.09, p = 0.0159), whereas herbivory increased with leaf-litter cover (F = 8.73, p = 0.0120). Field observations further revealed that many individuals are nearly indistinguishable from dry leaf litter, suggesting a role for visual crypsis or masquerade. Together, these results indicate initially, that the persistence of P. alba within devils gardens is mediated by a multi-layered ecological filtering process. First, masquerade likely reduces detection by M. schumanni, allowing seedlings to escape ant-mediated removal. Second, low herbivory suggests either enemy avoidance or reduced apparency to herbivores within the simplified understory. Third, spatial heterogeneity in leaf-litter cover may create microhabitats where both ant activity and herbivore pressure are modulated, reinforcing establishment success. This system thus represents a previously undocumented mechanism in which plant-litter resemblance enables persistence within a highly structured, biotically filtered habitat, highlighting how subtle trait-mediated interactions may modulate outcomes in otherwise strongly deterministic mutualisms.

Accelerating global urbanization necessitates a better understanding of how to manage cities that promote biodiversity. However, we currently lack multi-year, multi-city studies, which limits a generalizable understanding of how both within and between city differences impact the spatial and temporal dynamics of urban biodiversity. Here, we tested hypotheses about the drivers of butterfly diversity within and across urban parks by applying Bayesian occupancy models to five years of iNaturalist community science data from 2,550 parks in 22 major U.S. cities. We found that cities with bigger parks supported more species per park, including more disturbance- and edge-avoidant species. This was driven by a positive effect of park size on butterfly species colonization rates. We also found that attributes of habitat quality (plant diversity within parks and tree cover surrounding parks) contributed to butterfly species occupancy. Park connectivity increased species persistence, but the overall effects on butterfly species occupancy varied across cities. Finally, we found that the total area of tree cover throughout a city, rather than the size or connectivity of individual parks, was the primary determinant of city-wide diversity: Increasing total tree canopy cover from below-average (~6%) to above-average (~22%) increased city-wide species richness by ~10%. These findings highlight the need for cities to maintain large parks while also increasing city-wide tree cover to support biodiversity across local to regional scales. By integrating high-resolution community science data across the continental U.S., this study provides mechanistic insight into how cross-scale processes shape urban biodiversity dynamics and identifies generalizable recommendations for improving urban conservation management.

Surges in food availability create localized but intense foraging opportunities, often attracting multi-species consumer groups. Agricultural practices can trigger these surges, prompting bird associations. However, the strength and duration of the association, as well as its drivers, remain unclear. This study examines waterbird association with harvesting and ploughing events in rice fields. The duration and magnitude of these associations were determined and three hypotheses addressed to explain them: (1) increased food availability, (2) enhanced foraging success and (3) reduced time allocated to vigilance. Waterbird counts and GPS tracking revealed strong associations with management events. Bird numbers spiked during events but declined within one to two days. Food availability (and soil penetrability) increased significantly during events - crayfish and rice during harvesting, worms and soil penetrability during ploughing - supporting Hypothesis 1. However, this did not improve foraging performance (intake rate, foraging success), rejecting Hypothesis 2. Higher competition, interference or kleptoparasitism in these large mixed-species flocks may offset increased food availability benefits. Alternatively, functional responses of target species may limit prey intake due to physiological or behavioural constraints. Hypothesis 3 was also unsupported, as birds did not reduce vigilance. It is plausible that birds may be drawn to events by the perception of a feast, not actual benefits. Gregariousness and foraging behaviour by local enhancement may explain such associations. Results highlight the complexity of bird responses to food surges while suggesting waterbirds in rice fields maintain stable foraging performance during agricultural management events and otherwise, indicating resilience to agricultural timing shifts.

Context. The relationship between biodiversity and zoonotic disease risk is a central topic in community ecology, yet empirical evidence in Europe remains scarce and often contradictory compared to North American studies. Addressing this gap is fundamental to better anticipate zoonotic disease dynamics. Objectives. We investigated the transmission dynamics of West Nile virus (WNV) in Veneto (Italy), a major European hotspot. Because this vector-borne pathogen is primarily transmitted by Culex mosquitoes and maintained by several avian hosts, we analysed how multiple facets of both avian and mosquito biodiversity influence its transmission. Methods. Using Generalized Additive Models (GAMs) trained on longitudinal entomological and ornithological surveillance data, we modelled the probability of WNV presence in mosquito pools as a function of host and vector community structure. To isolate the effects of biodiversity, we explicitly controlled for climatic and landscape covariates. Results. In agricultural landscapes, we found that higher avian diversity leads to higher viral presence, driven by the dominance of highly competent synanthropic hosts. Conversely, a dilution effect emerges across the broader regional landscape where areas of higher ecological integrity allow for more complex and functionally diverse avian communities. Furthermore, we identified significant vector-mediated regulation, where high abundances of mammophilic vectors effectively suppress viral prevalence through larval competition. Conclusions. Our findings suggest that the dilution effect is a property of intact ecosystems which can be lost, or even locally reversed, in anthropogenically altered environments. Because such habitat degradation fundamentally alters zoonotic transmission dynamics, landscape planning must prioritize ecological restoration. Ultimately, embedding these practices into One Health strategies represents a proactive approach to mitigating disease emergence.

Xylosandrus crassiusculus (Motschulsky), the granulate ambrosia beetle, was one of the first highly-destructive ambrosia beetles introduced into the southern U.S in the 1970s where it was found in South Carolina (Kovach 1986). The Redbay ambrosia beetle, Xyleborus glabratus Eichhoff, was first detected in the U.S. in South Georgia in 2002. This beetle and its associated fungi, the laurel wilt fungus Raffaelea laurelensis and others have caused substantial destruction to native redbay (Persea borbonia) in GA, SC, FL and elsewhere. This beetle-pathogen complex also poses a threat to commercial avocado production in the U.S., Central and South America as well as to valuable other Persea spp. and related plants (Laureacea) that are known hosts. As an addition here, 10 years of the spring appearances (Fig.1) of X. crassiusculus in North Florida is offered for future comparisons. A second unusual appearance is the finding and working with UV mulch and ethanol, as a surprising attraction of X. crassiusculus and other ambrosia beetles including X. glabratus. It was also found that the ambrosia beetles do not respond to yellow and green as expected by most. Also, adding burlap was found to be attractive (increases dead and dying appearing trees) as is silver metallic like UV mulch, while camouflage (camo) was found to work like yellow and green. These occurrences led to the invention and development of UV mulch with new traps to better monitor ambrosia beetles. New traps led to new uses for yellow, green and camo to monitor and decrease damage and losses from ambrosia beetles. The data are presented as evaluated and appear in the figures, discussion and a supplemental section. O_FIG O_LINKSMALLFIG WIDTH=200 HEIGHT=139 SRC="FIGDIR/small/733798v1_fig1.gif" ALT="Figure 1"> View larger version (30K): org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1006101org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1e0a3d6org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1244d1borg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@423cb7_HPS_FORMAT_FIGEXP M_FIG O_FLOATNOFigure 1:C_FLOATNO Relative timing of annual emergence of Xylosandrus crassiusculus in north Florida. Collected over 10 years using 5 Baker traps with a 10% ethanol/water solution. Data are from years as marked. Note: data from year 2003 was not collected. C_FIG

Italy, one of Europe's most biodiverse countries, is expected to undergo landscape-wide nature recovery thanks to the EU Nature Restoration Regulation. National red lists represent critical instruments for informing conservation strategies at finer geographic resolutions and prioritizing taxa of national importance; yet the taxonomic completeness of Italian red lists remains unquantified in relation to national biodiversity. Equally, no systematic evaluation has been conducted on the representation of threatened and endemic Italian taxa within European and international conservation directives and treaties. We present the first comprehensive review of threat status and policy inclusion of Italian biodiversity, encompassing animals, plants, fungi, lichens, and algae. We cross-referenced national species checklists with Italian, European, Mediterranean, and global IUCN red lists, alongside policy annexes from the Birds and Habitats Directives, the Bern and Barcelona Conventions, and CITES. Our dataset comprised 76,845 taxa, of which 8,389 are endemic; yet red list assessments exist for only 10% of this total (7,349 taxa, including 1,700 endemics). Conservation policy coverage is even more restrictive: only 1,346 taxa are listed under at least one legislative instrument, with only half of these classified as threatened. This constitutes a compounding double bottleneck with most of the Italian biodiversity remaining both unassessed and unprotected and systematically biasing conservation policy toward an unrepresentative fraction of national biodiversity. We recommend accelerated national assessments and urgent establishment of a national biodiversity priority list founded on transparent prioritization protocols. This would complement ecosystem-based interventions mandated by the Nature Restoration Regulation while correcting for vertebrate-centred biases.

Aims: Species' distributions are determined by the interplay between ecological niche and dispersal ability, constrained by biogeographical barriers. Bald-headed uakaris (Cacajao spp.) are highly specialized primates often associated with seasonally flooded forests. In this study, we used ecological niche models to assess changes in habitat suitability and geographic distribution of uakari species under future scenarios. Location: Western Amazonia. Methods: We integrated ecological niche models, current deforestation data, and dispersal ability to estimate habitat suitability under two Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (SSP) scenarios: intermediate (SSP2-4.5) and very high (SSP5-8.5) greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Results: Our models project shifts in suitable conditions for all species. Three of the five species are projected to experience substantial reductions ([≥]62%) in suitable habitat conditions within their current ranges by 2050 under both future scenarios. Across the western Amazonia, up to 219,189 km2 and 211,276 km2 of land are projected to be unsuitable within the uakari ranges under the intermediate and very high emissions scenarios, respectively. This is particularly relevant for C. calvus, C. rubicundus, and C. ucayalii. At the species level, the uakaris may lose between 343 km2 and 84,531 km2 of their ranges in the intermediate scenario and 858 km2 and 76,216 km2 in the very high scenario. Shifts in suitability due to climate change are expected to vary from 6 to 191 km in the intermediate scenario and from 5 to 168 km in the very high scenario. Furthermore, the uakaris may lose between 0.5% and 8% of their current ranges due to deforestation in all scenarios. Main conclusions: Our findings reveal a high sensitivity of the uakaris to climate change impacts. It is projected that all species may experience contractions in the suitable areas and spatial suitability within their ranges by 2050, underscoring climate change as a relevant threat to these taxa.

Landscape connectivity is a key regulator of dispersal, which is an important process in community assembly. Theory predicts that connectivity may influence spatial and temporal patterns of community assembly; however, empirically evaluating the role of connectivity is nearly impossible due to the need to isolate its influence over long time frames and large spatial extents. We overcome these challenges through a large-scale, long-term connectivity experiment to test how connectivity affects plant community turnover and directionality of change over 24 years of assembly. Plant communities within connected patches had lower temporal variability in composition compared to plant communities within unconnected patches. Differences in composition between patches and the directionality of compositional changes were driven more by the amount of edge habitat in a patch and the time since the start of assembly. All community responses to connectivity were stronger for species with wind or unassisted dispersal compared to those with seeds dispersed by animals. Connectivitys role in regulating local community dynamics is critical for understanding community assembly and increasingly relevant in an era of anthropogenic land-use change. Significance StatementConnectivity between habitat patches facilitates dispersal to localities, yet the impact of connectivity on local species assemblages is exceptionally challenging to isolate from other spatial changes over time. In a 24-year experiment, we found that connectivity stabilized local community composition as a higher number of species persisted across years within patches connected by corridors. Independent of connectivity, edge effects were more important for driving compositional differences between patches. Importantly, these patterns would not have been captured with short-term data or without controlling for confounding spatial changes. Our findings have broad conservation relevance. Anthropogenic landscape changes that result in a loss of connectivity or increased edge effects may disrupt local community assembly over time.

Collective movement in social organisms emerges from local interactions and can generate large-scale spatial patterns of ecological relevance. In termites, trail formation is a well-known collective phenomenon, yet reproducing and recording its emergence under controlled laboratory conditions using whole colonies remains challenging. Existing laboratory approaches often rely on confined arenas or manually assembled subgroups, which can restrict movement and limit observation of colony-level dynamics. Here, we present a semi-folded arena designed for whole-colony observation of termite movement under controlled conditions. We developed a circular semi-folded arena that remained continuously connected to an intact nest and allowed individuals to move across a central observation surface while recirculating through a folded peripheral section. Using whole colonies of the Neotropical termite Constrictotermes cyphergaster, we recorded exploratory activity under baseline conditions, in the absence of added food or water. High-resolution video recordings were analysed using automated movement extraction to recover trajectories and visualise collective trail structure. Within the first 6 min of activity, collective trail structure was observed in 15 of the 16 colonies analysed. Under these conditions, the semi-folded setup captured early collective trail structure, visible as convergence of cumulative trajectories along shared routes radiating from the arena entrance region. Automated movement extraction was compatible with dense whole-colony recordings and yielded large quantities of positional data during the initial observation interval. Descriptive trajectory-based outputs, including speed distributions for workers and soldiers, showed that the recordings were suitable for recovery of fine-scale movement information. Repeatedly used routes were also often marked by visible dark traces on the paper lining by the end of the observations, providing a qualitative record of cumulative route use. The semi-folded arena provides a practical method for recording whole-colony termite movement under laboratory conditions while maintaining continuous nest access and avoiding manual transfer of individuals during trials. Rather than replacing conventional arena designs, this approach offers an additional methodological option for studying emergent movement patterns in species for which whole-colony observation is feasible. More broadly, it expands the experimental toolkit available for investigating colony-scale spatial organisation under controlled conditions.

We investigated the influence of small-scale topographic and associated microclimatic drivers on the elevational patterns of functional alpha and beta diversity in ant communities of eastern Himalayas. Ants were sampled along three elevational transects spanning [~]1000-2000 m on two nearby mountain slopes, but differing in aspect, inclination and summit height. Ant genera were quantified at the quadrat level, yielding an abundance of 3090 genus-quadrats (from 22577 individuals in 1215 quadrats), almost evenly split between the two mountain slopes. Each ant was assigned to guilds along functional axes of thermal niche, trophic position and competitive abilities. Comparative analyses of functional diversity profiles along the two mountain slopes revealed no differences in the composite multi-guild alpha and beta diversity but significant differences amongst individual guild profiles. Seven of the eleven functional guilds showed strong elevational trends along the steeper north-facing slope, compared to only two of eleven on the shallower south-facing slope. These results indicate that similar functional space can be maintained despite taxonomic turnover within guilds or shifts in their relative abundances highlighting the influence of fine-scale topographic variation on community assembly. Alternatively, these findings demonstrate that the pattern of multivariate functional diversity across elevation does not necessarily provide an understanding of changing composition of the communities therein.

Native vegetation protection is a key strategy for delivering both biodiversity and climate benefits, and protected areas have been widely adopted to keep tropical biomes standing. Yet deforestation is driven by interrelated environmental and social factors, and the effectiveness of protected areas varies considerably across space. Here, we evaluated the impact of 802 protected and conserved areas in the Brazilian Amazon on preventing vegetation loss and avoiding carbon emissions over the past 40 years using statistical matching to address the location bias of protection. We found that protected areas were effective throughout the study period, reducing the probability of deforestation per km2 by an average of 0.5 percentage points per year. While the Amazon biome lost 14% of its native vegetation between 1986 and 2024, protected areas prevented the deforestation of 290,436 km2, nine times their actual internal loss. They also stored 45,336 Mt of carbon in 2016 (61% of the Amazon stock) and prevented the emission of 7,300 Mt of CO2 by 2024. Deforestation inside the areas and remoteness reduced their impact, while areas that were initially more preserved were more effective. Area size and age had no influence over impact once we analyzed the amount of avoided deforestation per size and age. Impact also varied across Brazilian states, highlighting the role of regional context. All three protection categories (conservation units, indigenous lands, and quilombola territories) showed a positive mean impact, indicating that each, in aggregate, contributes to reducing deforestation. These findings provide robust evidence of the substantial role of Amazonian protected areas in habitat conservation and climate mitigation, while underscoring that this contribution remains undervalued. We advocate for strategically expanding protection to areas of greatest potential impact, and for securing adequate funding to ensure protected areas can fulfill that potential.

Urban environments impose strong selective pressures through biotic and abiotic factors, driving changes in behavior, physiology, and morphology. Yet, responses vary across taxa and cities, and it remains unclear which traits respond consistently and what factors moderate this variation. We addressed these questions using the widespread European garden spider (Araneus diadematus) as a model, measuring size, color, and web-building traits along urban-rural transects in 22 cities across its distribution range. Using a meta-analytic framework, we assessed how city-specific characteristics influenced trait variation. Urbanization consistently reduced relative abdomen surface area, a proxy for body condition. Exploratory meta-regressions suggest that web-building response was predicted by temperature: compared to their non-urban surroundings, urban webs are larger in colder regions and smaller in warmer regions. In contrast, body size and abdomen brightness varied among cities without clear environmental predictors. These findings show that urbanization effects are trait- and context-dependent, likely influenced by local factors such as heat island intensity, microclimate, or prey availability. Linking within- and between-city variation will improve understanding of species phenotypic responses to urban environments.

Protected areas cannot halt biodiversity loss in isolation; integrating them with surrounding human-dominated landscapes is critical. However, this integration is challenged by substantial landscape heterogeneity at their borders, hindering our understanding of cross-border changes in ecosystem service provision. We introduce a novel framework for characterizing these dynamics by analyzing ecosystem service gradients along protected area borders. For 16 protected areas in the French Alps, we assessed 12 ecosystem services using a mix of established biophysical models and novel connectivity-based models for mobile species. These were aggregated into three stakeholder-driven domains reflecting respectively rural, cultural, and urban management priorities. Automated polynomial regression analysis classified borders into five gradient types. The most common were 'Decreasing Gradients', representing a decline in ecosystem services outside the protected area, and 'Increasing Gradients', with the opposite pattern. Our analysis reveals these patterns are driven by specific landscape configurations, uncovering frequent trade-offs between the three management priorities, where, for instance, landscapes supporting rural priorities often degrade cultural and urban ones. We also identify key opportunities for synergies, by identifying areas where ecosystem services for all three priority domains increase simultaneously outside the protected area. This spatially explicit typology provides a powerful diagnostic tool for designing targeted interventions, such as prioritizing habitat restoration where ecosystem services decline or managing agricultural landscapes to mitigate conflicts across management priorities, supporting a more effective integration of protected areas into the wider landscape.

Understanding the relationships between soil macrofauna and decomposition is crucial for predicting how land-use change impacts ecosystem function in fragmented systems. This is because soil macrofauna affect decomposition and also respond to the changes in abiotic conditions across habitat gradients. This study investigates edge effects on the macrofauna contributions to decomposition across forest-field ecotones. We used bait lamina assay to quantify aboveground and belowground feeding activity of soil macrofauna in Autumn 2025 in three deciduous forest-old field ecotones and one coniferous forest-old field ecotone, in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. Vegetation diversity and composition, LAI and soil characteristics (i.e., soil organic matter, pH, temperature and moisture) were measured at each plot along the ecotone. Pitfall trap data collected in Summer 2025 at the same sites were used to characterize macrofauna communities. We used generalized linear mixed effects models to estimate the effect of distance to edge, site, and depth into the soil on bait lamina consumption and soil macrofauna, with transect nested within site as random effects. Consumption activity increased with distance into the forest from the field, with the edge representing an intermediate; and, decreased with increasing depth into the soil. In contrast, soil macrofauna abundance, especially isopods, decrease with distance into the forest from the field. These trends varied significantly across sites, so that consumption activity and abundance sometimes remained constant across the ecotone (i.e., site x distance interaction). The results demonstrate that macrofaunal contributions to bait consumption varied along the ecotone, shaped by interacting environmental gradients and shifts in community composition unique to each site.

Governments, civil society organizations and businesses often lack the biodiversity data they need for decision-making and adaptive management, impacting their planning, reporting and performance. We explored the biodiversity data needs of such actors in Colombia, Ghana and Switzerland to identify factors affecting data availability and use. Responses to questionnaire surveys showed that the data types with the biggest gaps between user needs and access were progress on conservation or sustainability actions, species populations, habitat state and ecological risk. The most frequent data blockages related to inadequate resources and organizational capacity. Obstacles significantly associated with a lack of primary data included an absence of organizational biodiversity goals and monitoring systems. Problems accessing habitat quality and species abundance data were associated with data collection methods being unknown or unavailable. Businesses were more likely than other groups to need data on threats, perhaps reflecting the increasing importance of environmental risk to the corporate sector. Businesses are less likely to collect primary data or use secondary data and are significantly more likely to be unclear on what biodiversity indicators to use. Non-business organizations are significantly more likely to be unable to access data because of a lack of funding for data collection, analysis, and use. Our results highlight the need for stakeholders across sectors to work together to find common solutions to build and invest in monitoring capacity that unblocks the flow of biodiversity data.

Invasive ambrosia beetles and fungal pathogens threaten forest ecosystems worldwide, exemplified in Hawaii by the widespread loss of keystone species [o]hia (Metrosideros polymorpha), due to Rapid [O]hia Death (ROD). A unique occurrence of five ambrosia beetle species (one native, four introduced) that vary in their symbiotic relationships with two introduced fungal pathogens provide an opportunity to test hypotheses of how opportunistic symbioses facilitate disease dynamics involving dominant forest trees. ROD is caused by two novel Ceratocystis fungal pathogens whose spores can spread via association with ambrosia beetles as they bore into [o]hia trees. We examined beetle-pathogen interactions of all five ambrosia beetle species in three ROD-affected regions on Hawaii Island, and used quantitative PCR (qPCR) to provide the first molecular confirmation of the two ROD pathogens associated with the exterior, mycangia, and gut of each beetle species. Results from generalized linear models and correlation networks show that pathogen acquisition and transport, including the potential for consumption and the presence of the pathogens, are determined by beetle invasion status and mycangia morphology. A niche construction framework suggests that both varying symbioses and opportunism facilitate disease spread, with the three invasive Xyleborus species emerging as key disease vectors. Identifying the beetle species that are more likely to contribute to disease spread, and understanding their biology as vectors, can inform targeted conservation strategies for [o]hia and for insect-pathogen threats in forests worldwide, and illustrates the potential ecosystem-level impacts of novel and opportunistic symbioses between globally distributed invasive vectors and pathogens.