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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.

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.

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.

X-ray crystal structures and mutational analysis of the Arp8 module of the yeast chromatin remodeler INO80 reveal its function as a linker DNA sensor required for nucleosome positioning.

Analysis of ground-sourced and satellite-derived models reveals a global forest carbon potential of 226 Gt outside agricultural and urban lands, with a difference of only 12% across these modelling approaches.

This study used fine-mapping to analyze genetic regions associated with bipolar disorder, identifying specific risk genes and providing new insights into the biology of the condition that may guide future research and treatment approaches.

Using multi-ancestry genome-wide association study and fine-mapping, 298 loci and 36 credible genes are identified in the aetiology of bipolar disorder.

Colloids consist of small particles distributed in another medium such as liquids or gases. Here, the demonstration that forces arising from the critical Casimir effect can control the interaction between particles offers new possibilities for the formation of colloidal nanostructures.

A genome-wide association study including over 76,000 individuals with schizophrenia and over 243,000 control individuals identifies common variant associations at 287 genomic loci, and further fine-mapping analyses highlight the importance of genes involved in synaptic processes.

Genome-wide association analyses of 41,917 bipolar disorder cases and 371,549 controls of European ancestry provide new insights into the etiology of this disorder and identify novel therapeutic leads and potential opportunities for drug repurposing.

Examining drivers of the latitudinal biodiversity gradient in a global database of local tree species richness, the authors show that co-limitation by multiple environmental and anthropogenic factors causes steeper increases in richness with latitude in tropical versus temperate and boreal zones.

Managing landscapes sustainably is challenging given the competing interests of different stakeholder groups. By combining broad ecological data with information on the ecosystem service priorities of multiple stakeholder groups, this study provides a tool to quantify the social impact of land-use changes.

Stratified medicine promises to tailor treatment for individual patients, however it remains a major challenge to leverage genetic risk data to aid patient stratification. Here the authors introduce an approach to stratify individuals based on the aggregated impact of their genetic risk factor profiles on tissue-specific gene expression levels, and highlight its ability to identify biologically meaningful and clinically actionable patient subgroups, supporting the notion of different patient ‘biotypes’ characterized by partially distinct disease mechanisms.

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.

Satellite-borne radar systems are promising tools to obtain spatial habitat data with complete geographic coverage. Here the authors show that freely available Sentinel-1 radar data perform as well as standard airborne laser scanning data for mapping biodiversity of 12 taxa across temperate forests in Germany.

Colloidal particles bonding via attractive patches mimic the bonding of atoms in atomic compounds and materials. By assembling patchy particles into the graphene lattice, the authors obtain insight into lattice defects in this important 2D material.

The CNV analysis group of the Psychiatric Genomic Consortium analyzes a large schizophrenia cohort to examine genomic copy number variants (CNVs) and disease risk. They find an enrichment of CNV burden in cases versus controls and identify 8 genome-wide significant loci as well as novel suggestive loci conferring either risk or protection to schizophrenia.

Integrating inventory data with machine learning models reveals the global composition of tree types—needle-leaved evergreen individuals dominate, followed by broadleaved evergreen and deciduous trees—and climate change risks.

Sexual dimorphism in genetic vulnerability to schizophrenia, systemic lupus erythematosus and Sjögren’s syndrome is linked to differential protein abundance from alleles of complement component 4.

Jamming and gelation constitute a longstanding challenge in materials science due to their out-of-equilibrium nature. Rouwhorst et al. show the hallmarks of a nonequilibrium phase transition in a tunable critical Casimir colloidal system, with critical exponents of cluster growth in agreement with percolation theory.

An analysis across multiple species groups and different facets of stand-level heterogeneity in temperate forests from Central Europe reveals that heterogeneity–diversity relationships are not generalizable and predictable as modelling approaches suggest, varying even between ecologically similar species groups.

The authors defined a roadmap for investigating the genetic covariance between structural or functional brain phenotypes and risk for psychiatric disorders. Their proof-of-concept study using the largest available common variant data sets for schizophrenia and volumes of several (mainly subcortical) brain structures did not find evidence of genetic overlap.

Currently, a general framework explaining the fundamental dynamic transitions from solid to fluid of mechanically probed soft materials is lacking. Now, a unifying van der Waals-like model is proposed that describes the dynamic solid–liquid transition in the rheology of these materials.

This study uses gene expression predictors for the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and other brain regions to perform a transcriptomic imputation analysis of schizophrenia, identifying 413 genic associations across 13 brain regions and 36 significantly enriched pathways.

An analogue of nano-indentation performed on a colloidal crystal provides direct images of defect formation in real time and on the single-particle level — allowing investigation of the effects of thermal fluctuations.

Nonlinear stresses surrounding defect cores in three-dimensional colloidal crystals are experimentally determined at the single-particle level.

Analyses of a dataset of arthropod biomass, abundance and diversity in grassland and forest habitats in Germany for the period 2008–2017 reveal that drivers of arthropod declines act at the landscape level.

Relatives of patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis have an unexpectedly high incidence of schizophrenia. Here, the authors show a genetic link between the two conditions, suggesting shared neurobiological mechanisms.

Managing forests for the supply of multiple ecosystem services (ES) is key given potential trade-offs among services. Here, the authors analyse how forest stand attributes generate trade-offs among ES and the relative contribution of forest attributes and environmental factors to predict services.

DNA sequence preferences or statistical positioning of histones has not explained genomic patterns of nucleosome organisation in vivo. Here, the authors establish DNA shape/mechanics as key elements that have evolved together with binding sites of DNA sequence-specific barriers so that such information directs nucleosome positioning by chromatin remodelers.

Here, the authors solve a series of cryo-EM structures of the Swi2/Snf2 family transcription regulator Mot1 to show how this remodeler uses energy to displace the transcription initiation factor TBP from its gene promoters.

Schizophrenia is a highly heritable genetic disorder, however, identification of specific genetic risk variants has proven difficult because of its complex polygenic nature—a large multi-stage genome-wide association study identifies 128 independent associations in over 100 loci (83 of which are new); key findings include identification of genes involved in glutamergic neurotransmission and support for a link between the immune system and schizophrenia.

Biochemical and structural analyses show how tethering of the nucleotidyltransferase cGAS to chromatin prevents autoimmune recognition of nuclear DNA.

Although chromatin remodelers have been shown to align nucleosome arrays to barriers and to generate spacing regularity among nucleosomes within arrays, it has remained unclear how the distance to barrier and the spacing length are determined in absolute terms. Here, the authors reveal that remodelers contain a ‘ruler’ element that sets remodeler-specific alignment and spacing distances when generating nucleosome arrays.

Cryo-electron microscopy structures of the evolutionarily conserved core of a fungal INO80 complex bound to the nucleosomal substrate reveal the mechanism underlying nucleosome sliding and histone editing used by this ATP-dependent chromatin remodeller.

Analysis of a large grassland biodiversity dataset shows that increases in local land-use intensity cause biotic homogenization at landscape scale across microbial, plant and animal groups, both above- and belowground, that is largely independent of changes in local diversity.