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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.

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.

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.

Understanding biodiversity loss and achieving global commitments requires effective biodiversity monitoring. This Roadmap outlines the necessary steps to achieve a transnational European Biodiversity Observation Network built around Essential Biodiversity Variables, combining targeted sensing methods, spatial design, data sharing, data integration and modelling workflows, and coordinated governance to deliver policy-ready insights.

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.

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.

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.

Compiling data on floral introductions and European colonial history of regions worldwide, the authors find that compositional similarity of floras is higher than expected among regions once occupied by the same empire and similarity increases with the length of time the region was occupied by that empire.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Understanding the immunological underpinnings of long-term survival in cancer is of high interest. Here, authors dissect the immune parameters of multiple myeloma long-term survivors following a single line of therapy longitudinally, and find sustained changes, including inflammation and impaired immune function.

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.

The authors synthesize bee assemblage data from 681 crop fields across three continents, finding that local pesticide hazards and decreasing adjacent semi-natural habitats both negatively affected wild bee abundance and species richness in crop fields, while pesticides also reduced functional diversity.

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.

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.

Graphene possesses a nonlinear optical response arising from its electronic dispersion. Here, the authors measure the response of graphene to an ultrafast optical field and provide an explanation of the quantum dynamics of Dirac carriers mediating the material’s nonlinear response.

The role of the complement system (CS) - part of the immune system - in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) remains underexplored. Here, the authors evaluate the association of genetic variants in CS-related genes with PDAC risk, and explore their potential role in prognosis and immune infiltration.

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.

Across a global dataset of over 11,000 naturalized alien plant species, the authors find that species are likely to naturalize both in regions with climates and floras similar to those in their native ranges, and in regions with a lower diversity or stronger human impact than in their native range.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Insects are declining in many regions. Here the authors show that arthropod biomass losses in Jena Experiment and Biodiversity Exploratories time series are driven more by species loss than by species identity and abundance declines, and are mitigated by high plant diversity and low land-use intensity.

The intracellular applications of STED microscopy are limited by the availability of dyes. Here the authors develop a two-colour labelling strategy based on SiR and ATTO590 dyes, and apply their strategy to image various subcellular membrane compartments.

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.

Switching target protein accumulation and activity by portable conditional degrons is potentially useful for both basic research and bioengineering. Here the authors present a versatile system to tune protein levels in live animals and plants using a temperature-sensitive N-end rule degradation signal.

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.

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.

How tree diversity effects on ecosystem functioning vary along climatic gradients is unclear. Here, analysing data from 15 experimental forest sites, the authors show that tree growth responses to neighbourhood species diversity are stronger in wetter climates but are unaffected by interannual climatic variation within sites.

Here the authors report NiGa₂O_4–x(OH)_y for light-driven CO₂ hydrogenation to methanol. The surface Lewis acid–base pairs and -OH groups act as conduits for H^- /H⁺ transport to active sites, enhancing photocatalytic methanol production.

How changes in species’ native occupancy over time relate to global naturalization success remains unclear. Here, the authors show that species with both high occupancy decades ago and increasing native occupancy ever since are more likely to become naturalized elsewhere.

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.