Analyses

This paper presents the outcomes of the gap analysis performed by the Ad Hoc Technical Expert Group on Indicators to assess current indicators in the monitoring framework of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and provides recommendations for how Parties can implement monitoring.

Semistructured interviews and focus groups with experts in biodiversity finance in Europe identify opportunities and barriers to upscaling private investment in biodiversity, and emphasize that public policy is the key to enabling progression.

Boreal forests have been experiencing both gains and losses in recent decades. Here, the authors show that boreal forest resilience is more sensitive to forest cover losses than to gains, indicating that functional declines due to forest loss outpace improvements following forest recovery.

A series of case studies is used to illustrate how concepts from causal interference can be used to guide research into the effects of weather on the transmission and population dynamics of infectious diseases.

Empirical evidence on how evolution affects the stability of ecological communities is scarce. Here, using two-species microbial assemblages as a model system, the authors show that adaptation can alter the tipping points of an ecological community.

A synthesis of empirical and theoretical literature shows the extent to which food production has homogenized and rewired food webs to increase productivity but with negative consequences for stability.

A systematic review of 12,854 articles that use species distribution modelling shows that only 1,429 include human predictors as well as environmental ones. Half of those that include human predictors alongside future climate projections keep the human factors constant over time. The article discusses the need for greater inclusion of human predictors to inform policy and management.

A spatial analysis of how transportation noise corresponds with ‘redlining’ categories of racial segregation in US cities is combined with a literature review of the effects of noise on urban wildlife.

Analysing >18,000 effect sizes from recent ecology studies published in five leading journals, the authors identify widespread under-powered designs, exaggeration bias, selective reporting and few corrections for multiple hypotheses among statistically significant results.

Integrating Australian Aboriginal art and narratives with soil excavation data suggests that the regularly spaced bare circles in Australian arid grasslands (sometimes known as ‘fairy circles’) are in fact linyji or mingkirri, termite pavement nests used by Aboriginal people for domestic and sacred purposes over generations.

Genetic evidence suggests that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens repeatedly interbred in Europe. Here the authors generate predictions for how this might manifest in the late Pleistocene fossil record of Europe, focusing on the skull, and analyse the available evidence.

Using a literature review and meta-analysis, the authors quantify the proportion of ecological research that is wasted because of poor study design and implementation, or because the work remains unpublished.

This paper examines the main approaches for studying gene expression evolution, tests their inherent biases and discusses open questions about the evolution of the transcriptome.

Soliciting expert feedback from the editorial boards of seven ecology journals, the authors compile a list of the top 100 most highly recommended articles in the field of ecology.

About 30% of global fish stocks are overfished, and reducing this is a target of the Sustainable Development Goals. An analysis of fisheries data shows that progress in developed countries is not mirrored in developing countries.

Marine species distributed along environmental gradients may experience large-scale heterogeneity in ocean physicochemical conditions. Here, the authors develop an index to account for this variability in studies of responses to ocean acidification.