Search

It is unclear whether the harsh abiotic conditions of drylands hinder biological invasions. This global analysis shows that drylands are vulnerable to non-native plants and are likely to become more so as native plant diversity declines and grazing pressure intensifies.

Analysis combining multiple global tree databases reveals that whether a location is invaded by non-native tree species depends on anthropogenic factors, but the severity of the invasion depends on the native species diversity.

Using 63 globally distributed grassland and shrubland sites from the International Drought Experiment, this study identified plant traits linked to drought resistance after 1 year of extreme drought across growth forms, lifespans and climate.

How landscapes are arranged affects soil pathogenic fungi worldwide. The authors reveal the global pattern and pronounced scale-dependency of landscape complexity and land-cover quantity on soil pathogenic fungal diversity.

Climate change can alter when and how animals grow, breed, and migrate, but it is unclear whether this allows populations to persist. This global study shows that shifts in seasonal timing are key to helping vertebrate species maintain population growth under global warming.

By combining satellite observations with ground-based data and expert validation, this analysis demonstrates considerable misestimation of grassland extent and thereby carbon stock estimates in previous global assessments based on remote sensing.

Organisms vary in their nitrogen and phosphorus content, shaping ecological and evolutionary processes. This study shows that nitrogen deposition is a consistent global factor associated with plant and animal stoichiometry.

When doubly-degenerate band crossings known as Kramers nodal lines intersect the Fermi level, they form exotic three-dimensional Fermi surfaces composed of massless Dirac fermions. Here, the authors present evidence that the 3R polytypes of TaS₂ and NbS₂ are Kramers nodal line metals with open octdong and spindle-torus Fermi surfaces, respectively.

Humanity’s Last Exam, a multi-modal benchmark at the frontier of human knowledge, is designed to be an expert-level closed-ended academic benchmark with broad subject coverage.

Large-effect variants in autism remain elusive. Here, the authors use long-read sequencing to assemble phased genomes for 189 individuals, identifying pathogenic variants in TBL1XR1, MECP2, and SYNGAP1, plus nine candidate structural variants missed by short-read methods.

This study finds that native tree extinctions and alien naturalizations are pushing forests towards fast-growing, resource-demanding species. This global shift could affect carbon storage and ecosystem stability, highlighting the need to protect slow-growing trees.

Self-sustained resistance oscillation states in VO₂ thin films are of significant interest for information encoding applications but the underlying mechanism remains elusive. Using scattering-type scanning near-field optical microscopy, Tiwari et al. uncover the distinct current-induced phase transition pathways and realize the visualization of the nanoscale phase percolation dynamics in a VO₂ oscillator.

In forests, trait expression is influenced by tree-tree interactions. Castro Sánchez-Bermejo et al. show how phenotypic variability of tree species decreases with tree diversity and contributes importantly to functional diversity in forests.

Genomic analyses applied to 14 childhood- and adult-onset psychiatric disorders identifies five underlying genomic factors that explain the majority of the genetic variance of the individual disorders.

A gas–liquid–solid triphasic etching strategy is demonstrated to obtain MXenes with uniform and tunable halogen terminations. The resulting MXenes have highly ordered structures, enhanced charge transport properties and programmable surface chemistry for advanced (opto)electronic applications.

Nanometer-wide lateral heterostructures between 2D semiconductors are still rare. Here the authors report the valley-selective hole state transmission between ferroelectric SnTe monolayers separated by a PbTe barrier with the width of merely 2 nm.

Here, the authors examine the mechanisms behind cheatgrass’s successful invasion of North American ecosystems. Their genetic analyses and common garden experiments demonstrate that multiple introductions and migrations facilitated cheatgrass local adaptation.

Fermionic currents of opposing chirality can be spatially filtered without the need for a magnetic field using the quantum geometry of topological bands in single-crystal PdGa.

Crystal structures with two sublattice pairs per primitive cell can host so-called dark states which interact minimally with light due to destructive interference. Here, the authors reveal that in the semiconductor (NbSe₄)₃I these states lead to an indirect-gap optical behavior, despite the band structure displaying an almost direct band gap, having significant impact on its optoelectronic properties.

The 2D van der Waals ferromagnet Fe3GaTe2 supports highly efficient current induced domain wall motion with very high domain wall speed and mobility with an ultra-low threshold current density, likely due to its structural perfection.

A pangenome of oat, assembled from 33 wild and domesticated oat lines, sheds light on the evolution and genetic diversity of this cereal crop and will aid genomics-assisted breeding to improve productivity and sustainability.

A common but untested expectation is that nutrient enrichment causes biotic homogenization. However, a globally standardized nutrient addition experiment in grasslands shows proportionally similar species loss across scales and no biotic homogenization after up to 14 years of treatment.

In this work, the researchers realize the current-induced motion of Néel type chiral domain walls via spin-transfer-torque in the pristine van der Waals ferromagnet Fe₃GeTe₂ and via spin-orbit-torques in heterostructures with platinum or tungsten.

Time-of-flight momentum microscopy is developed. It enables direct three-dimensional mapping of the topology of the Fermi surface, identification of electron and hole pockets, and quantification of Fermi velocity as a function of wavevector.

Species’ traits and environmental conditions determine the abundance of tree species across the globe. Here, the authors find that dominant tree species are taller and have softer wood compared to rare species and that these trait differences are more strongly associated with temperature than water availability.

The species-area relationship describes how the number of species increases with the size of the area sampled, showing a consistent triphasic pattern. This study shows that these phases arise from species’ spatial distributions, providing a unified framework to predict phase transitions across ecosystems.

Proteasomal degradation of EZH2 in AML patients in response to therapy triggers the expression of stem cell markers and has been identified as an epigenetic pathway leading to acquired drug resistance. Treatments aimed to restore EZH2 expression in relapsed AML patients have shown clinical efficacy and constitute a viable approach to re-sensitize tumors to chemotherapy.

The hypothesis that species are most abundant at the centre of their geographic range has been widely debated. Here, by analysing over 3,600 species, the authors find that this pattern is generally not true for animals but does occur in some plant groups, being influenced by dispersal traits and evolution.

Single-layer graphene, owing to its impermeability, is a promising candidate to prevent transmembrane ion transport. Here, the authors report a covalent functionalization method that enables centimeter-sized graphene to function as a proton exchange membrane in a direct methanol fuel cell.

The authors analyze white matter alterations in bipolar II depression, revealing significant correlations with inflammation and psychiatric symptoms. These findings suggest that childhood emotional maltreatment may exacerbate these effects and offer insights into potential therapeutic targets.

The synthesis of crystalline 2D polymers typically relies on reversible dynamic covalent reactions, but achieving 2D polymers through irreversible carbon-carbon coupling reactions remains a formidable challenge. Here, the authors present an on-liquid surface synthesis method for constructing diyne-linked 2D polymers.

Terrestrial ecosystem productivity is widely accepted to be nutrient limited. A series of standardized nutrient addition experiments, carried out on grasslands on five continents, suggests aboveground grassland productivity is commonly limited by multiple nutrients, including potassium and micronutrients.

Magnetic anti-skyrmions—chiral spin textures that could find applications in spintronics—have been recently observed in inverse tetragonal Heusler Mn_1.4Pt_0.9Pd_0.1Sn. Here, the authors observe anti-skyrmions in thin films of Mn_1.4Pt_0.9Pd_0.1Sn over a wide range of temperature and magnetic fields.

Distinguishing band and Mott insulators experimentally represents a longstanding challenge. Here, the authors demonstrate a momentum-resolved signature of a dimerized Mott-insulator in the out-of-plane spectral function of Nb₃Br₈.

Fundamental understanding of ultrafast spin dynamics is crucial for spintronics applications. Here the authors demonstrate an ultrafast technique to explore the inhomogeneous THz spin dynamics in Fe/Au/Fe multilayers triggered by spin transfer torque.

An analysis of habitat fragmentation using a dataset of more than 4,000 species worldwide shows that fragmentation reduces biodiversity at all scales, and that increases in β diversity do not compensate for the loss of α diversity.

The global biodiversity decline might conceal complex local and group-specific trends. Here the authors report a quantitative synthesis of longterm biodiversity trends across Europe, showing how, despite overall increase in biodiversity metric and stability in abundance, trends differ between regions, ecosystem types, and taxa.

Synthetic anti-ferromagnets, where two ferromagnetic layers are coupled anti-ferromagnetically via a spacer, are known for their very large current-induced domain wall velocities. Here, Guan et al show that the velocity of the domain walls in synthetic anti-ferromagnetic nanowires can be tuned over a wide range due to reversible oxidization via ionic liquid gating.

When interfaced with a current-carrying heavy metal, spin orbit effects can generate a torque on the magnetization of a ferromagnet, understood as a bulk effect. Here, the authors show evidence of an interfacial contribution to such spin orbit torque in O-doped W/CoFeB thin film systems.

Alternative stable states in forests have implications for the biosphere. Here, the authors combine forest biodiversity observations and simulations revealing that leaf types across temperate regions of the NH follow a bimodal distribution suggesting signatures of alternative forest states.

Zhou et al. show that in the context of AML1-ETO-driven leukaemia, AES and DDX21 induce small nucleolar RNA (snoRNA)–ribonucleoprotein (RNP) formation and this is important for self-renewal of leukaemic cells.

This study reports a strong chiral induced spin selectivity effect in a polymer bearing only one centrochiral group, with the chiral information transmitted over a distance of 4-6 nm through a 3₁₀-helical polymer composed of achiral amino acids.