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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.

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.

This study reveals that the varying responses of plant biomass to phosphorus addition across plant functional groups align with the leaf economics spectrum, with plants characterized by more acquisitive traits exhibiting stronger responses to phosphorus addition.

Tree longevity is thought to increase in harsh environments, but global evidence of drivers is lacking. Here, the authors find two different pathways for tree longevity: slow growth in resource limited environments and increasing tree stature and/or slow growth in competitive environments.

An investigation of the subpectoral diverticulum—an inflatable air sac structure between the major flight muscles—in 68 avian species reveals that the respiratory system has a role in the mechanics of flight in soaring birds.

Hearing evolved in most amniotes by the late Permian, but its origins in reptiles remain poorly understood. Here, using biomechanical and morphometric analyses, the authors show that high frequency hearing likely had evolved in reptiles by the late Permian.

Surveying sponge biodiversity across the Caribbean, the authors show that low microbial abundance is the ancestral symbiotic state, whereas high microbial abundance has evolved multiple times and exhibits increased endemism, metabolic dependence and chemical defences.

Song et al. inferred that stridulatory wings and tibial ears co-evolved in a sexual context among crickets, katydids, and their allies, while abdominal ears evolved first in a non-sexual context in grasshoppers, and were later co-opted for courtship. They found little evidence that the evolution of these organs increased lineage diversification.

Using a globally distributed standardized aerial sampling of fungal spores, we show that the hyperdiverse kingdom of fungi follows globally highly predictable spatial and temporal dynamics, with seasonality in both species richness and community composition increasing with latitude.

A comprehensive phylogeny and taxonomy for the medically and ecologically important genus Artemisia remain unavailable. Here, the authors combine genomic data with morphological analyses to reconstruct the most comprehensive phylogeny and taxonomy of global Artemisia.

Data collected from zoos and aquariums worldwide show that hormonal contraception or permanent surgical sterilization in mammals increase life expectancy, with different mechanisms in males and females.

Pollen can be a vehicle for viral spread among plants. Here, Fetters et al. apply viral metagenomics to characterize the pollen virome of a diverse set of wild plants, find known and previously un-known viruses and show that wild plant species harbor more viruses when surrounded by less natural vegetation and when they have traits that promote increased plant-pollinator vector interactions.

Niche conservatism may link community assembly to biogeographic history. Seido et al.find that the geographic origins of locally co-occurring trees explain 50% of the variation in species’ hydraulic niches, linking local community structure to species distributions millions of years before dispersal.

By analysing phenological shifts among > 2,000 insect pollinator species in Europe, the authors show that flight dates have become earlier and flight lengths shorter over the past 60 years, potentially altering continental-scale pollinator function.

A new method to quantify three masting components from individual tree-years has revealed that globally, masting is uncommon in tree species that depend on mutualist dispersers, with its distribution further mediated by climate and nutrient 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.

The relationships that control seed production in trees are key to understand evolutionary pressures that have shaped forests. A global synthesis of fecundity data reveals that while seed production is not constrained by a strict size-number trade-off, it is influenced by taxonomy and nutrient allocation.

Despite the profound knowledge of sex pheromones, little is known about the coevolutionary mechanisms and constraints on their production and detection. Whole-genome sequences from 99 drosophilids, with chemical and behavioural data, show that sex pheromones and their cognate olfactory channels evolve rapidly and independently.

Garden bird feeding is a prolific human activity that provides a reliable foraging opportunity to wild birds. Here the authors use a 40-year data set to show that large-scale restructuring of garden bird communities and growth in urban bird populations can be linked to changing feeding practices.

Many species of reptiles are threatened with extinction. This analysis on 259 species of turtles, tortoises and crocodilians identifies anthropogenic threats that disproportionally affect species with certain life history strategies and others that affect all species similarly.

A 4 °C global temperature increase would push 7.5% of amphibian species beyond their physiological limits.

Fire has shaped plant life for millions of years, but flammability as an inherited trait has been difficult to discern. This Letter reveals several predictors in the evolution of plant flammability.

Over 20 species of geographically and phylogenetically diverse bird species produce convergent whining vocalizations towards their respective brood parasites. Model presentation and playback experiments across multiple continents suggest that these learned calls provoke an innate response even among allopatric species.

The relative importance of evolutionary history and ecology for traits that drive ecosystem processes is poorly understood. Analyzing nine traits associated with fish stoichiometry from 1,572 individuals yields multiple lines of evidence that phylogeny is a critical determinant of nutrient cycling in coral reefs.

The authors examine life-history differences between terrestrial versus aquatic vertebrates and their mode of reproduction. They find that land vertebrate life histories are more constrained than aquatic ones. In particular, the results suggest a wider diversity of reproductive strategies in aquatic habitats than in terrestrial ones.

A trait-based approach used to quantify the niches of 23 species of saprotrophic wood decomposer fungi collected throughout North America provides preliminary insight into the linkages among functional trait expression, climate and phylogeny.

The functions of color in fungi are not well characterized. Here, Krah and colleagues investigate the color of mushroom assemblages across Europe and show relationships with climate, nutritional mode (saprotrophic and ectomycorrhizal) and seasonality.

Comparing 396 Northern Hemisphere woody plant species grown under identical conditions in a common garden, the authors show that eastern North American species have 11% shorter vegetation periods than their European and East Asian relatives.

Although common in ants and termites, worker differentiation into physical castes is rare in social bees and unknown in wasps. Here, Grüter and colleagues find a guard caste in ten species of stingless bees and show that the evolution of the guard caste is associated with parasitization by robber bees.

Understanding patterns in woody plant trait relationships and trade-offs is challenging. Here, by applying machine learning and data imputation methods to a global database of georeferenced trait measurements, the authors unravel key relationships in tree functional traits at the global scale.

An analysis of Neotropical bats with different diets reveals molecular and physiological mechanisms of dietary diversification and sugar assimilation.

This study introduces an ion mobility–mass spectrometry method for de novo glycan structure identification, using a self-expanding database that reduces reliance on synthetic reference standards.

Systematic analysis of bacterial phyllosphere isolates and their ability to protect Arabidopsis thaliana plants against infection, with the model pathogen Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000, identified protective isolates such as Rhizobium Leaf202, whose activity involves direct interaction with the pathogen.

An analysis of cancer mortality data for zoo mammals highlights marked differences across mammalian orders and an influence of diet, and shows that mortality risk is largely independent of body mass and life expectancy across species.

Using intergenic regions and coalescent methods to analyse the genomes of 363 bird species, the authors present a well-supported tree confirming that Neoaves experienced rapid radiation at or near the Cretaceous–Palaeogene boundary.

The effects of biological similarity on geochemical signals recorded in planktonic foraminiferal tests used in paleo-reconstructions remains unclear. Here, the authors embed species-specific vital effect offsets in evolutionary models and show how shared evolutionary history shapes δ¹³C, but not δ¹⁸O values.

Interactions between European bird and plant species show that fruiting period has a major effect on seed dispersal by migrating birds, which will influence plant adaptations to climate change through latitudinal dispersal.

The authors demonstrate that integrating phenology data with evolutionary relationships can improve predictions of change. They show how including phylogenetic structure in plant responses to temperature produces better estimates and reveals markedly different responses across species.

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.

The functional morphology of the fluid-filled semicircular ducts of the inner ear is adapted to body temperature and behavioural activity and can be used to investigate the evolution of endothermy.

External ecological interactions and intrinsic biological parameters affect evolutionary pathways and animal diversity. Here, the authors use ruminant inner ear morphology to investigate patterns of diversity through 33 million years, finding clade-dependent climate and paleogeographic trends.

Climate change will reduce seagrass ranges leading to increased endemism. Such changes will cause differentiation in some regions and homogenization in other areas. The current marine protected areas will be insufficient to protect seagrasses.

It is often thought that sexual 'ornaments', such as the swellings that adorn ovulating female baboons, are signalling something about fertility — but what? Long-term studies of wild baboons provide an answer.

There is still no consensus on the factors favouring the evolution of same-sex sexual behaviour in mammals. This study presents evidence that it is a widespread behaviour that has evolved repeatedly in mammals, and that may play an adaptive role in bonding and conflict resolution.

Phylogenetic data over the past ~150 million years show smaller fish occurred in warmer waters, moved shorter distances at low speed and had low speciation rates. Fish moved faster and evolved quicker under periods of rapid change, with implications for movement and survival under climate change.