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The terrestrial biosphere absorbs a large fraction of emitted CO₂, and thus, plays a critical role in climate change projections. Here, the authors use satellite leaf area and in-situ CO₂ measurements to show that most Earth system models largely underestimate photosynthetic carbon fixation in high latitudes.

Functional diversity and phylogenetic diversity are expected to be positively correlated. Here the authors show that the covariation between these metrics in vascular plant communities around the world is often either inconsistent or negative.

The authors use systematic monitoring across the former USSR to investigate phenological changes across taxa. The long-term mean temperature of a site emerged as a strong predictor of phenological change, with further imprints of trophic level, event timing, site, year and biotic interactions.

Three key axes of variation of ecosystem functional changes and their underlying causes are identified from a dataset of surface gas exchange measurements across major terrestrial biomes and climate zones.

A large-scale, five-year study in Indonesia finds that enriching oil palm-dominated landscapes with patches of trees bolsters biodiversity and ecosystem functioning without impairing oil palm yields but should not replace forest protection.

Wood density is an important plant trait. Data from 1.1 million forest inventory plots and 10,703 tree species show a latitudinal gradient in wood density, with temperature and soil moisture explaining variation at the global scale and disturbance also having a role at the local level.

Dynamic cytoskeletal regulation of lymphatic endothelial cell shape, induced by isotropic stretch and crucial for dermal lymphatic capillary function, is identified and found to result from continuous remodelling of cellular overlaps that maintain vessel integrity.

Thylakoid K⁺/H⁺ exchange by KEA3 optimizes photosynthesis during light fluctuations. Here, the authors show that a combination of stromal pH, ATP, ADP and NADP⁺, NADPH induces structural re-arrangements required for KEA3 regulation in vivo.

The increasing accessibility of single cell omics technologies beyond transcriptomics demands parallel advances in analysis. Here, the authors introduce STREAM, a pipeline for reconstruction and visualization of differentiation trajectories from both single-cell RNA-seq and ATAC-seq data.

Drought can have complex effects on plants due to different responses of photosynthesis, growth and carbon storage. Here, the authors show that tree growth does not always stop before photosynthesis and non-structural carbohydrate may not accumulate.

In plants, mechanically triggered signalling cascades involve intracellular calcium waves. The kinetics of waves induced by the application and release of force to a cell are distinct, suggesting that plants distinguish touch from letting go.

Species’ range dynamics depend not only on their ability to track climate, but also on the migration of their competitors, and the extent to which novel and current competitors exert differing competitive effects.

Parasitic plants such as Cuscuta penetrate the shoots of susceptible hosts to obtain sugars, solutes and water. Here the authors show that resistant varieties of tomato can trigger an immune response against Cuscuta by perceiving a small glycine rich protein produced by the parasite.

Analysing >40 plant traits and ecosystem properties over 10 years, the authors find moderate evidence for traits being predictors of ecosystem-level properties within years, but limited evidence for any effect across years.

TWA1 is a temperature-sensing transcriptional co-regulator that is needed for basal and acquired thermotolerance in Arabidopsis thaliana.

Asian soybean rust caused by Phakopsora pachyrhizi is an important plant pathogen, but an accurate genome assembly for this fungus has been lacking. This study sequenced three independent P. pachyrhizi isolates and generated reference quality assemblies and genome annotations, representing a critical step for further in-depth studies of this pathogen and the development of new methods of control.

AtGBPL3 is a dynamin-related GTPase that functions in mitotic nuclear envelope formation. It interacts with lamina components to mediate nuclear morphogenesis and transcriptional repression during interphase.

Photosystem II possesses a protection mechanism to prevent damage when exposed to high-intensity light. Here, the authors analyze the functional consequences of structural changes associated with this process, and show that protection does not undermine energy capture by open reaction centres.

Spines are an important physical defense for many plant species. Here, the authors describe seven different spine morphologies from the Eocene of central Tibet associated with regional aridification and expansion of herbivorous mammals.

Evolutionary conservation of plant receptor structure allowed for generation of new variants of wheat and barley nucleotide-binding leucine-rich repeat receptors (NLRs) that recognize AvrSr35 of the wheat stem rust pathogen, supporting proof of principle for structure-based engineering of NLRs for crop improvement.

Solid-state X-ray detectors have enabled real-time diagnostics as well as reduced patient dose. Now researchers have shown that potentially inexpensive perovskites can be used for efficient X-ray imaging.

Plant roots can respond to the environment by modifying cell type development. Here, the molecular pathways controlling root exodermal suberin are defined, as is its role in drought response. Modulating exodermal suberin levels can be a target for improved plant environmental resilience.

Livanos et al. provide mechanistic insight into the recruitment and maintenance of kinesin-12 POK2, a central component of the division site in plants that is required for cell plate positioning during cytokinesis.

Herbivory and mechanical wounding in plants have been shown to elicit electrical signals — mediated by two glutamate-receptor-like proteins — that induce defence responses at local and distant sites. See Article p.422

Ruiz and colleagues introduce AlphaTensor-Quantum, a deep reinforcement learning method for optimizing quantum circuits. It outperforms existing methods and is capable of finding the best human-designed solutions for relevant quantum computations in a fully automated way.

The fungus Ustilago maydis secretes many effector proteins to cause disease in maize. Here, Ma et al. show that the repetitive effector Rsp3 is required for virulence by inhibiting the antifungal activity of two mannose-binding proteins that are secreted by the plant cells.

Elevational trends in biodiversity and ecosystem functions across natural and anthropogenic habitats on Mount Kilimanjaro show that the effects of land use are strongly mediated by climate.

Here, the authors report the structure of the nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate dehydrogenase–photosystem I–light-harvesting complex I supercomplex, providing insights into subunit interactions and the role of cofactors.

Luminescence is engineered in whole plants, without an exogenous substrate, using a fungal gene cluster.

This flagship study from the European Solve-Rare Diseases Consortium presents a diagnostic framework including bioinformatic analysis of clinical, pedigree and genomic data coupled with expert panel review, leading to 500 new diagnoses in a cohort of 6,000 families with suspected rare diseases.

Little is known about how detritivorous invertebrates cope with high levels of defensive plant polyphenols. Here, Liebekeet al. identify a new class of surface-active metabolites in earthworms exposed to high-polyphenol diets, and show that they play a protective role against precipitation of proteins.

The photosynthetic capacity of forest ecosystems is an important variable in the global carbon cycle. Here, it is shown that older, more diverse forests have less fluctuation between years in photosynthetic capacity.

A longitudinal evolutionary analysis of 126 lung cancer patients with metastatic disease reveals the timing of metastatic divergence, modes of dissemination and the genomic events subject to selection during the metastatic transition.

Through archaeological excavation, morphological and proteomic taxonomic identification, mitochondrial DNA analysis and direct radiocarbon dating of human remains, a study reports the presence of Homo sapiens in Germany north of the Alps more than 45,000 years ago.

Improvements to the fully genetically encoded Neonothopanus nambi bioluminescence pathway enhance autobioluminescence by up to two orders of magnitude in plants and other species, enabling novel applications of bioluminescence imaging in biology.

Single-cell RNA sequencing and spatiotemporal analysis of the regenerating zebrafish heart identify transient proregenerative fibroblast-like cells that are derived from the epicardium and the endocardium. Wnt signalling regulates the endocardial fibroblast response.

The Arabidopsis leucine-rich repeat receptor-like protein RLP42 perceives a 9-amino-acid peptide contained in a fungal endopolygalacturonase. Other Brassica species perceive different epitopes, highlighting rapid and convergent evolution to ensure immunity against pathogenic microbes.

The authors use Patch-seq and electron microscopy datasets to relate synaptic connectivity to the transcriptomic cell type of different types of inhibitory neuron.

The Connectome Annotation Versioning Engine (CAVE) is a platform for proofreading, annotating and analyzing datasets reaching the petascale. Currently, CAVE is used for electron microscopy datasets, but it can potentially be used for other large-scale datasets.

Using a globally distributed standardized aerial sampling of fungal spores, we show that the hyperdiverse kingdom of fungi follows globally highly predictable spatial and temporal dynamics, with seasonality in both species richness and community composition increasing with latitude.

Combining space topology and time topology, topological states that are localized simultaneously in space and time are theoretically and experimentally demonstrated, potentially enabling the space-time topological shaping of light waves with applications in spatiotemporal wave control for imaging, communications and topological lasers.