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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.

Greenhouse-gas emissions are likely to have an impact on the damage caused by extreme weather events, such as tropical cyclones. A study predicts that climate change will increase the frequency of these high-intensity storms in selected ocean basins and double their economic damage. Almost all tropical cyclone damage tends to be concentrated in North America, East Asia and the Caribbean-Central American region.

The advantage of living in cities compared with rural areas with respect to height and BMI in children and adolescents has generally become smaller globally from 1990 to 2020, except in sub-Saharan Africa.

Climate change is impacting mountain regions and the agricultural livelihood of residents, and will continue to do so. In this study, the authors survey farmers in ten African mountain regions to understand their perceptions of climate change impacts and identify adaptation opportunities and constraints.

Coastal flood risk is strongly influenced by sea-level rise and changes in tropical cyclone activity, but these factors are usually considered independently. Research now accounts for their joint contribution to coastal flood hazard for the US East Coast over the 21^st century.

An oligodendrocyte-specific genomic silencer element determines the cell type specificity for a fatal neurological disorder caused by a widely expressed nuclear protein (Lamin B1) and suggests a role for silencer elements in disease causation.

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.

Genome-wide association analyses of intracranial and nine subcortical brain volumes in 74,898 participants of European ancestry identify 254 independent loci and yield polygenic scores accounting for brain variation across ancestries.

Unlike Amazonian forests, African forests have maintained their carbon sink until recently but by 2030 the African carbon sink will have shrunk by 14 per cent and the Amazonian sink will reach almost zero.

Observation of glioblastoma invasion in subcortical brain regions is challenging. Here the authors develop a Deep3P workflow to enable longitudinal deep imaging of glioblastoma and its microenvironment by combining three-photon microscopy and deep learning-based analysis, unraveling the invasion routes of these tumor cells into and within the white matter.

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.

Viruses manipulate host cell pathways to support infection. Here the authors show that SARS-CoV-2 infection modulates cellular metabolism and limits autophagy, and identify druggable host pathways for virus inhibition.

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.

Thermophilization is a change in species community composition towards greater abundances of species associated with warmer environments. This study provides evidence of thermophilization in understudied Afromontane forests, but with drivers that are distinct from other forest types.

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.

Wastewater-based epidemiology has already proven to be a powerful tool to monitor the spread of a number of diseases. This Perspective discusses the integration with machine learning, highlighting its potential in a number of wastewater-based epidemiology applications.

Analysis of HbA1c and FPG levels across 117 population-based studies demonstrates regional variation in prevalence of previously undiagnosed screen-detected diabetes using one or both measures and suggests that use of elevated FPG alone could underestimate diabetes prevalence in low- and middle-income countries.

Disruption of neocortical circuitry and architecture causes neurodevelopmental disorders. Here the authors find that migration and axon projection of upper layer neurons are dependent on Sema7A-Sema4D heterodimerization, and that insufficient transcription of Sema7A or incomplete glycosylation of Sema4D inhibit these processes.

Radke et al. found an interferon response in the brainstem nuclei of acute COVID-19 that, in addition to the inflammatory reaction, spreads throughout the vascular unit altering glial cells and resolves in late disease states in the absence of brain infection.

Camera-trap data for 159 mammalian species at 1,002 sites across 16 tropical-forest protected areas show how local survival and colonization probabilities of specialist and generalist species are differently affected by human-induced stressors at different spatial scales, such as human population density and forest fragmentation.

Herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1) induces major reprogramming of the host cell environment. Here, the authors profile the transcriptomes of individual HSV-1-infected human fibroblasts and provide evidence of an antiviral program mediated by the activation of the host transcription factor NRF2.

Temporal niche partitioning is an important feature of animal communities. Here, Vallejo-Vargas and colleagues analyze standardized camera trap survey data from protected areas across the tropics to investigate diel patterns of forest mammals in relation to body mass and trophic guild.

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.

Model simulations show that tropical cyclones were preferably formed in the Southern Hemisphere during the warmer Early Eocene, but then shifted along a cooling climate across the Cenozoic to the Northern Hemisphere. Today's conditions favoring the western North Pacific as the largest genesis center is a result of closing tropical seaways during the Pliocene.

Polygenic risk scores are nearing a level of differentiation required for their clinical utility in risk prediction in populations with high-risk rare pathogenic genetic variants.

A study reports the distribution, replication and persistence of SARS-CoV-2 throughout the human body including in the brain at autopsy from acute infection to more than seven months following symptom onset.

A pan-Amazon study of forests shows large variations in drought tolerance traits and finds that forests in regions of pronounced climate change are losing biomass and may be operating beyond their hydraulic limits.

Tau pathology drives neuronal dysfunction in 4- repeat tauopathies. Here, the authors combine tau-PET, resting-state fMRI and histopathology data, to show that brain connectivity is associated with tau deposition patterns in 4-repeat tauopathies.

Elliot Stieglitz, Mignon Loh and colleagues report the whole-exome sequencing of diagnostic and relapsed samples from patients with juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia. They identify new recurrent mutations for this disease and find that the number of somatic alterations present at diagnosis may be predictive of clinical outcome.

The aboveground carbon stock of a montane African forest network is comparable to that of a lowland African forest network and two-thirds higher than default values for these montane forests.

Analysis of data from 33 longitudinal cohorts from low- and middle-income countries indicates that conditions during pre-conception, pregnancy and the first few months of life are crucial in determining the risk of growth faltering in young children.