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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.

The US Midwest is a promising region for the production of cellulosic biofuel, yet a greater understanding of the interactions between landscape-related decisions, biorefinery design and carbon capture integration is still needed. O’Neill et al. use fine-scale spatially explicit modelling to analyse the cost and greenhouse gas mitigation potential for such fuels in this region.

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 unprecedented cost of the 2018 eruption in Hawai’i reflects an intersection of disparate physical and social phenomena: widely spaced, highly destructive eruptions, and atypically high population growth. These were linked and the former indirectly drove the latter with unavoidable consequences.

Satellite radar interferometry reveals the dramatic retreat of Berry Glacier in West Antarctica. Broad intrusions of warm subsurface water, funneled by seafloor channels along retrograde bed slopes, have driven intense basal melting of the ice, which triggered faster ice flow and ice thinning. The cumulative glacier mass loss of 131 Gt since 1996 is one of the largest in Antarctica.

Existing datasets of nitrogen (N) balance in agriculture are often discrepant. Comparing 13 of them regarding five metrics (fertilizer application, manure application, biological N fixation, atmospheric deposition, and N harvested as crop products) over 1961–2015 reveals why. Recommendations for improving N quantification and an N budget benchmark dataset are also proposed.

El Niño tends to follow 2 years after volcanic eruptions, but the physical mechanism behind this phenomenon is unclear. Here the authors use model simulations to show that a Pinatubo-like eruption cools tropical Africa and drives westerly wind anomalies in the Pacific favouring an El Niño response.

Deforestation for palm oil production is often attributed to large-scale, agro-industrial expansion. Here, Ordway et al. show that much recent expansion in Southwest Cameroon can be attributed to an informal sector of non-industrial producers establishing near informal, non-industrial palm oil mills.

Deforestation causes elevation-dependent warming over tropical mountain regions, according to high-resolution climate simulations.

Groundwater influences biophysical processes behind key ecosystem services. This study finds that many ecosystem service indicators respond nonlinearly when the water table is within a critical depth, with the potential for large effects in areas with shallow groundwater.

A global research network monitoring the Amazon for 30 years reports in this study that tree size increased by 3% each decade.

Habitat loss and urbanization are primary components of human impact on the environment. Here, Venter et al.use global data on infrastructure, agriculture, and urbanization to show that the human footprint is growing slower than the human population, but footprints are increasing in biodiverse regions.

Flash droughts can have devastating impacts but are notoriously difficult to predict. This study identifies global hotspots of flash drought, driven by evaporative demand and precipitation deficits across varying geographic regions and crop-type, providing a framework for flash drought prediction.

Most of Earth's crust is created at mid-ocean ridges that are submerged deep beneath the oceans. Analyses of geodetic and seismic data from rare sections of ridges that are exposed on land in Iceland and the Afar region in east Africa demonstrate that rifting episodes at these sites operate with remarkably similar mechanisms.

The origin of continental crust is unclear. Geochemical and geophysical analyses of the Central American land bridge show that continental crust began to form there when enriched oceanic crust created above the Galápagos plume was subducted.

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.

Arctic warming thaws permafrost, leading to enhanced soil mercury transport to the Arctic Ocean. Mercury isotope signatures in arctic rivers, ocean and atmosphere suggest that permafrost mercury is buried in marine sediment and not emitted to the global atmosphere

This paper presents simulations with a coupled model of glacial climate and biogeochemical cycles, forced only with changes in the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation. It is found that variations in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels on millennial time scales are dominated by slow changes in the deep ocean inventory of biologically-sequestered carbon and are correlated to Antarctic temperature and Southern Ocean stratification. The results suggest that ocean circulation changes were the primary mechanism that drove glacial fluctuations in carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide fluctuations on millennial time scales.

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.

Arctic climate in the Last Interglacial (LIG)—a warm period 130,000–116,000 years ago—is poorly simulated by modern climate models. A model with improved sea-ice melt-pond physics reproduces LIG Arctic temperatures, suggests an ice-free Arctic during this period and predicts the same by 2035.

Interactions between climate change and antimicrobial resistance across terrestrial, aquatic and health systems reveal shared drivers, synergies and trade-offs that shape health and environmental outcomes. This Comment outlines a solutions-oriented research agenda to advance evidence and action that addresses climate change and antimicrobial resistance as interconnected issues.

Analysis of soundscape data from 139 globally distributed sites reveals that sounds of biological origin exhibit predictable rhythms depending on location and season, whereas sounds of anthropogenic origin are less predictable. Comparisons between paired urban–rural sites show that urban green spaces are noisier and dominated by sounds of technological origin.

A previously uncharacterized microbial enzyme is responsible for the production of molecular hydrogen in the gut, which drives the growth of other bacteria and has implications for human health.

The albedo-induced warming effect with increased net ecosystem productivity can be overcome by optimizing albedo and land carbon uptake, according to an analysis of in-situ observations from 176 eddy covariance flux stations across different ecosystem types and conditions.

Producing sufficient food to support the planet’s growing population places enormous strain on critical ecosystems. Quantifying and mapping the individual and cumulative pressures from greenhouse gases, freshwater use, habitat disturbance and nutrient pollution provides crucial insight into producing lower-impact, more sustainable foods.

The One Thousand Plant Transcriptomes Initiative provides a robust phylogenomic framework for examining green plant evolution that comprises the transcriptomes and genomes of diverse species of green plants.

A Review of the impacts of short-lived halogens on air quality and climate identifies gaps in our knowledge of short-lived halogen emissions, chemistry, and the environmental and climate impacts.

Disease transmission is particularly complex at the human-livestock-wildlife interface. Here the authors sample E. coli from wild birds near households in Nairobi and show that antimicrobial resistance gene diversity is correlated with human and lifestock density, while virulence gene diversity is correlated with avian species richness.

The role of wild and domesticated animals on alpine ecosystems is unclear. Here, the authors use sedaDNA from 14 European alpine lakes to demonstrate a positive association between wild and domesticated animal and plant diversity through the past 14 thousand years.

Century-long data on climate and butterfly distribution show that species richness has increased with increasing temperature, and that the rate and direction of range expansions are influenced by land use, species interactions and species traits.

Genome sequencing and phylogenomic analysis show that the lungfish, not the coelacanth, is the closest living relative of tetrapods, that coelacanth protein-coding genes are more slowly evolving than those of tetrapods and lungfish, and that the genes and regulatory elements that underwent changes during the vertebrate transition to land reflect adaptation to a new environment.

Wetlands can affect regional climate by altering surface-atmosphere interactions. This paper investigates drivers and patterns of evapotranspiration in South American wetlands, from the Amazon floodplains to the large Pantanal system.

Wind speeds have reduced globally over land since the 1980s. In situ data show that this reversed around 2010, with natural ocean–atmosphere variability thought to drive the wind speed changes, as well as a 17% increase in potential wind energy for 2010–2017 and a boosted wind power capacity factor.

The CO2 fertilisation effect in forests remains controversial. Here, the authors disentangle the effect of CO2 on forest wood volume from other environmental factors, showing that elevated CO2 had a positive effect on wood volume in planted and natural US temperate forests.

Regional volcanism in the Terror Rift is influenced by deep-seated tectonic and magmatic processes as well as surficial factors, such as the advancement and retreat cyclicity of ice sheets, as evidenced by mapping and sampling of seafloor volcanism in the southwestern Ross Sea.

Key measures of biodiversity were quantified and found to be affected by human pressures that shifted community composition and decreased local diversity across terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems.

Petrels are wide-ranging, highly threatened seabirds that often ingest plastic. This study used tracking data for 7,137 petrels of 77 species to map global exposure risk and compare regions, species, and populations. The results show higher exposure risk for threatened species and stress the need for international cooperation to tackle marine litter.

Ji and colleagues show that the specific angiosperm growth-governing DELLA–SLY1/GID2 protein interaction evolved from a broader ancestral affinity, suggesting affinity narrowing to be a general evolutionary driver of interaction specificity.