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Satellite data show declining global forest recovery from tree mortality since the 1990s, driven by warming and water scarcity. Canopy water recovers slower than greenness, stressing the need for a multifaceted approach to assessing recovery.

Despite improving therapeutic options, the prognosis for patients with metastatic castration-resistance prostate cancer (mCRPC) remains poor. Here, the authors identify MCL1 copy number alterations as a prognostic and predictive biomarker, demonstrating its therapeutic potential as a drug target, either alone or in combination, in patients with mCRPC.

Climate change threatens mountain ash (Eucalyptus regnans) forests, which are among Earth’s most carbon-dense ecosystems. This study finds that a projected 3^∘C warming by 2080 could reduce tree density and carbon storage in these forests by 24%

Here the authors use broad-scale tree mortality data to estimate biomass loss, constraining uncertainty of projected forest net primary productivity in 6 models, finding weaker tropical forest carbon sinks with climate change.

Carbon dioxide enrichment of a mature forest resulted in the emission of the excess carbon back into the atmosphere via enhanced ecosystem respiration, suggesting that mature forests may be limited in their capacity to mitigate climate change.

Genome-wide association meta-analyses of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptom measures and clinical diagnoses identify new risk loci, highlight putative effector genes and yield improved polygenic risk scores.

Microbiome analyses of living trees show that a single tree can host approximately one trillion bacteria, with microbial communities distinctly partitioned between heartwood and sapwood and with minimal similarity to other tissues or ecosystem components.

Fires and logging alter soil composition and result in a significant reduction of soil nutrients that lasts for decades after the disturbance, suggests an analysis of soil samples across a multi-century sequence in mountain ash forests.

As the global climate changes, drought is expected to reduce productivity and tree survival across many forests; however, the relative influence of climate variables on forest decline remains poorly understood. A drought-stress index based on tree-ring data—newly developed for the southwestern United States—is found to be equally influenced by evaporation (primarily temperature driven) and precipitation and may serve as a holistic forest-vigour indicator in water-limited forests.

In this Stage 2 Registered Report, Buchanan et al. show evidence confirming the phenomenon of semantic priming across speakers of 19 diverse languages.

Warmer and more arid conditions are triggering forest die-off and mortality events worldwide, but how are the droughts’ characteristics leading to tree death? This study shows that tree-killing droughts are longer and more intense in dry versus wet biomes, while mortality-inducing droughts are higher in intensity in angiosperm-dominated forests.

A 50 microRNA-based dynamic risk score for stratifying individuals with and without type 1 diabetes was developed using samples obtained from multicenter and multiethnic cohorts.

Analysis of changes in functional groups of species and potential drivers of environmental change for protected areas across the world’s major tropical regions reveals large variation between reserves that have been effective and those experiencing an erosion of biodiversity, and shows that environmental changes immediately outside reserves are nearly as important as those inside in determining their ecological fate.

How the carbon stocks of the Arctic–Boreal Zone change with warming is not well understood. Here the authors show that wildfires and large regional differences in net carbon fluxes offset the overall increasing CO₂ uptake.

Polygenic scores for body mass index and obesity constructed using data from 5 million people with different ancestries were associated with distinct weight gain trajectories from early childhood to adulthood.

The frequency of severe droughts is increasing in many regions around the world as a result of climate change. An analysis of tree growth and mortality data from forests worldwide suggests that large trees fare worse under drought than small trees.

Mineral-associated soil carbon buildup is poorly explained by microbial necromass production (a common hypothesis). During litter decomposition, these processes are decoupled by priming effects and alternate soil carbon formation pathways

An analysis of 24,202 critical cases of COVID-19 identifies potentially druggable targets in inflammatory signalling (JAK1), monocyte–macrophage activation and endothelial permeability (PDE4A), immunometabolism (SLC2A5 and AK5), and host factors required for viral entry and replication (TMPRSS2 and RAB2A).

In a post-hoc analysis of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) features from patients with metastatic prostate cancer treated with [¹⁷⁷Lu]Lu–PSMA-617 or cabazitaxel in the randomized phase 2 TheraP trial, low ctDNA levels at baseline were predictive of clinical benefit from [¹⁷⁷Lu]Lu–PSMA-617, and PTEN or ATM alterations were identified as potential biomarkers of response.

Data collected from more than 2,000 taxa provide an unparalleled opportunity to quantify how extreme wildfires affect biodiversity, revealing that the largest effects on plants and animals were in areas with frequent or recent past fires and within extensively burnt areas.

Trees come in all shapes and size, but what drives this incredible variation in tree form remains poorly understood. Using a global dataset, the authors show that a combination of climate, competition, disturbance and evolutionary history shape the crown architecture of the world’s trees and thereby constrain the 3D structure of woody ecosystems.

The species threat abatement and restoration (STAR) metric quantifies the contributions that abating threats and restoring habitats offer towards reducing species’ extinction risk in specific places.

Tree mortality is increasing due to droughts and other climate change-related stressors, but isolating climate signals for tree mortality is challenging. Here, the authors assemble a geo-referenced global database that quantifies how drought and hotter climate drive tree mortality events.

The number of individuals in a given space influences animal interactions and network dynamics. Here the authors identify general rules underlying density dependence in animal networks and reveal some fundamental differences between spatial and social dynamics.

Using multiple remote-sensing datasets, the authors show that temporal and spatial scale influence the detection of tree-mortality events and explain why there has been a seemingly conflicting pattern of both overall greening but also extensive tree mortality in recent decades.

Warming temperatures and interactions between plants are the main drivers of changes in Arctic plant communities in response to climate change, and there is no evidence of overall biotic homogenization.

This study explores the genomic and transcriptomic landscapes of triple-negative breast cancer in African American women. The authors show that the mutational profile is broadly similar to that observed in European and East Asian ancestry women while highlighting some interesting differences.

Red List information is used to generate global maps of the likelihood of impacts on terrestrial vertebrates exerted by agriculture, hunting and trapping, logging, pollution, invasive species and climate change.

The Global Flourishing Study provides a comprehensive view of the distribution and determinants of well-being by assessing domains such as health, happiness, meaning, character, relationships and financial security. Initial findings reveal significant variations in flourishing across countries and demographic groups, with factors such as age, marital status and religious service attendance showing strong associations with well-being.

This study moves beyond technical estimates to assess the deployable rooftop solar potential across 367 Chinese cities, factoring in real-world constraints. The findings offer actionable insights to guide strategic deployment and support China’s ambitious solar energy goals.

The future of carbon dynamics in the northern high latitudes is uncertain yet represents an important potential feedback under climate change. This study uses a comprehensive observational dataset to show an increasing carbon sink in non-permafrost systems; in permafrost systems uptake was offset by loss.

Comparing data on genetic monitoring efforts across Europe with the distributions of areas at species’ climatic niche margins, the authors show that monitoring efforts should be expanded to populations at trailing niche margins to include genetic variation that may prove important for adaptation to ongoing climate warming.

Some cancer patients first present with metastases where the location of the primary is unidentified; these are difficult to treat. In this study, using machine learning, the authors develop a method to determine the tissue of origin of a cancer based on whole sequencing data.

A trans-ancestry meta-analysis of GWAS of glycemic traits in up to 281,416 individuals identifies 99 novel loci, of which one quarter was found due to the multi-ancestry approach, which also improves fine-mapping of credible variant sets.

This study employs a high-resolution, integrated hydrological model extending 400 m into the subsurface. Application of the model in a representative headwater basin in the Colorado River shows that groundwater storage loss will amplify streamflow losses in a warmer world.

Spillover of avian influenza H5N1 from birds to mammals have been increasingly detected, but reports of cases in humans remain limited. Here, the authors find serological evidence of human exposure to influenza H5N1 in Malaysian Borneo, an important stopover site for migratory shorebirds.

Here, the authors perform a genome-wide association study to identify 157 significant testosterone genetic variants in male veterans, of which 8 are ancestry-specific. Men with higher testosterone genetic scores have lower odds of diabetes, hyperlipidemia, gout, and cardiac disorders.

The primary report of the EMBARK phase 3 trial, testing the AAV-based gene therapy delandistrogene moxeparvovec in Duchenne muscular dystrophy, did not meet its primary endpoint of improvement in NSAA mobility scores compared to placebo. Secondary endpoints show that the therapy was safe and associated with improvements in micro-dystrophin expression and in individual mobility scores.

Analyses of genome and exome sequencing data identify rare coding and structural variants associated with atrial fibrillation and highlight genetic links between atrial fibrillation and cardiomyopathies.

Whole-genome sequencing, transcriptome-wide association and fine-mapping analyses in over 7,000 individuals with critical COVID-19 are used to identify 16 independent variants that are associated with severe illness in COVID-19.

An extinction-risk assessment of reptiles shows that at least 21.1% of species are threatened by factors such as agriculture, logging, urban development and invasive species, and that efforts to protect birds, mammals and amphibians probably also benefit many reptiles.

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 multi-ancestry genome-wide gene–smoking interaction study identifies 13 new loci associated with serum lipids.

A meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies of type 2 diabetes (T2D) identifies more than 600 T2D-associated loci; integrating physiological trait and single-cell chromatin accessibility data at these loci sheds light on heterogeneity within the T2D phenotype.

A new study shows the total global SOC stock of 1 m in the world’s tidal marshes to be 1.44 Pg C. On average, SOC in tidal marshes’ 0–30 cm and 30–100 cm soil layers are estimated at 83.1 Mg C ha⁻¹ and 185.3 Mg C ha⁻¹, respectively.

MultiSTAAR provides a general and flexible statistical framework for functionally informed multi-trait rare variant analysis of biobank-scale sequencing studies by jointly analyzing multiple traits and incorporating annotation information.

A synthesis of elevated carbon dioxide experiments reveals that when plant biomass is strongly stimulated by elevated carbon dioxide levels, soil carbon storage declines, and where biomass is weakly stimulated, soil carbon accumulates.

Age-driven senescence is a main driver of kelp DOC production rates as biomass carbon is solubilized to DOC. Over large scales, kelp senescence follows a seasonal pattern and up to 90% of biomass can be senescent at a given time, suggesting that kelp senescence may be a major source of DOC to the coastal ocean.