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Analyses of large-scale, multitaxa and long-term thermophilization patterns in forests, grasslands and alpine summits across Europe provide insight into shifts in community composition among different ecosystems in a warming world.

Habitat change and warming each contribute to species' elevational range shifts, but their synergistic effects have not been explored. Here, Guo et al. reanalyze published data and show that the interaction between warming and forest change predicts range shifts better than either factor on its own.

Compiling a global geo-database of >30,000 range shifts, the authors show that marine species closely track shifting isotherms, whereas terrestrial species lag behind, probably due to wider thermal safety margins and movement constraints imposed by human activities.

Plant traits drive ecosystem dynamics yet are challenging to map globally due to sparse measurements. Here, the authors combine crowdsourced biodiversity observations with Earth observation data to accurately map 31 plant traits at 1 km² resolution.

The authors consider studies reporting species range shifts and demonstrate a geometric bias in sampling along latitudinal, rather than longitudinal, gradients. This bias may favour the corroboration of shift expectations with warming and mask other patterns and drivers of species movements.

The authors analyse the impacts of drought on tree growth for various species of various ages to assess the influences of forest demographic shift on future drought responses. The increasing proportion of young trees showing greater growth reduction to drought raises concern on future carbon storage.

Pl@ntBERT is a language-based AI model that learned the ‘syntax’ of plant assemblages, predicting likely species and inferring habitats by modelling biotic relationships.

Warming temperatures and interactions between plants are the main drivers of changes in Arctic plant communities in response to climate change, and there is no evidence of overall biotic homogenization.

An analysis of the rate at which isotherms are shifting in mountain regions worldwide identifies 17 key regions with particularly high vertical isotherm shift velocities, and provides insight into how these shifts affect species ranges.

In a case of obligate cross-species cloning, female ants of Messor ibericus need to clone males of Messor structor to obtain sperm for producing the worker caste, resulting in males from the same mother having distinct genomes and morphologies.

Scrutinizing the empirical evidence for bidirectional trade-offs in fine root traits, the authors show that while these are important in explaining species occurrences along broad temperature and water availability gradients, unidirectional benefits are prevalent.

Functional diversity and phylogenetic diversity are expected to be positively correlated. Here the authors show that the covariation between these metrics in vascular plant communities around the world is often either inconsistent or negative.

Combining species range-shift estimates with population trends for 146 marine species reveals that population abundances tend to decline as the velocity with which the species’ range is shifting poleward increases. The findings suggest widespread transient population dynamics rather than a simple dichotomy between climate-change ‘winners’ and ‘losers’.

The impacts of microclimate on future plant population dynamics are poorly understood. The authors use large-scale transplant climate change experiments to show the contribution of forest microclimates to population dynamics and project the distributions of 12 common understorey plants.

Using information on current species distributions and dispersal traits, this study forecasts climate-driven range dynamics of plant species across the European Alps. Simulations predict moderate range contractions over the twenty-first century; however, more severe effects of climate warming on mountain plant diversity are expected in the longer term.

Assessing 3,129 species of trees and shrubs found in 164 global urban areas shows that over half of the species currently experience non-ideal climates. They project increases in risk due to climate change by 2050 and highlight cities where all species are at risk.

The authors resurveyed a previously sampled set of mountain transects on five continents, showing that the ranges of non-native plant species have shifted upslope in most locations in just 5–10 years.

Ungulate herbivory is an important driver of ecological change in forests. Here, the authors combine vegetation resurveys showing herbivory effects are highly dependent on soil eutrophication, promoting non-natives under high N-conditions, yet benefiting threatened species under low N-conditions.

Abundance data for marine fish populations show that those shifting poleward rapidly due to climate change experience substantial population declines, suggesting that rapid range shifts are not sufficient to maintain stable populations.

The loss of biodiversity at the global scale has been difficult to reconcile with observations of no net loss at local scales. Vegetation surveys across European temperate forests show that this may be explained by the replacement of small-ranged species with large-ranged ones, driven by nitrogen deposition.

Global patterns of regional plant diversity are relatively well known, but whether they hold for local communities is debated. This study created multi-grain global maps of alpha diversity for vascular plants to provide a nuanced understanding of plant diversity hotspots and improve predictions of global change effects on biodiversity.

Comparing temperatures in the forest understory versus open habitat across boreal, temperate and tropical biomes, the authors show that tree canopies act as thermal insulators that buffer the understory against temperature extremes.

Although plant functional trait combinations reflect ecological trade-offs at the species level, little is known about how this translates to whole communities. Here, the authors show that global trait composition is captured by two main dimensions that are only weakly related to macro-environmental drivers.

Many species show a time-lagged response to climate change, a phenomenon called climatic debt. Here, Bertrand and colleagues show that climate severity and plant tolerance to climate warming mainly influence the climatic debt of forest herbaceous plant communities.

A global analysis of biodiversity time series across temperate zones shows contrasting fingerprints of contemporary climate warming on species assemblages over land and sea. A net increase in the number of species is evident in the warmest temperate oceans but no systematic biodiversity trend is detected in the terrestrial realm.

In an analysis of forest edge-to-interior transects in Europe, the authors show that different facets of biodiversity and different types of ecosystem service are found in forest interiors versus edges, suggesting that both have a role to play in the provisioning of ecosystem services in landscapes.

Warming temperatures driven by climate change are causing species geographic ranges to shift, but factors such as habitat characteristics and species interactions impact these changes. This Review examines range shift documentation, how shifts differ from temperature-based expectations, and the effects of range shifts on natural and human systems.

Analysis of changes in plant species richness on mountain summits over the past 145 years suggests that increased climatic warming has led to an acceleration in species richness increase.