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With a growing emphasis on the societal benefits gained through recreation outdoors, a method is needed to identify which spaces are most valuable for providing those benefits. Social media platforms offer a wealth of useful information on where people prefer to enjoy the outdoors. We combined geotagged images from Flickr with several environmental metrics in a Maxent model to calculate the probability of a photograph being taken (the potential supply of recreational amenity). We then built a set of population density kernels to express the potential demand of recreational amenity. Linear regression was used to compare supply and demand layers to visitation records from 540 recreation sites across Europe. The result was a map estimating the number of visitors/km2/year. Our analysis showed that natural areas near population centres deliver more recreational benefit than attractive sites in remote locations. The former should therefore be prioritised by planners and policymakers seeking to protect or improve recreational amenity.

Aim: The accumulation of functional diversity in communities is poorly understood. Conveniently, the general dynamic model of island biogeography (GDM) makes predictions for how such diversity might accumulate over time. In this multiscale study of land snail communities on 10 oceanic archipelagos located in various regions of the globe, we test hypotheses of community assembly in systems where islands serve as chronosequences along island ontogeny. Location: Ten volcanic archipelagos. Time period: From 23 Ma to the present. Major taxa studied: Endemic land snails. Methods: Initially, we assembled geological island characteristics of area, isolation and ontogeny for all studied islands. We then characterized island‐scale biotic variables, including the species diversity and functional diversity of snail communities. From these data, we assessed relationships between island and snail community variables as predicted by the GDM, focusing initially on the islands of the Galápagos archipelago and thereafter with a broader analysis of 10 archipelagoes. Results: As in other studies of island assemblages, in Galápagos we find a hump‐shaped curve of species richness, with depauperate snail faunas on early‐ontogeny islands, increasing species richness on mid‐ontogeny islands and low species richness on islands in late ontogeny. We find exceptionally low functional diversity on early‐ontogeny islands that increases through mid‐ontogeny, whereas late‐ontogeny islands exhibit a range of functional diversity. The analysis including all 10 archipelagos indicates a major role of archipelago‐specific factors. In both sets of analyses, functional diversity is exceptionally low on early‐ontogeny islands, and island ontogeny is a significant predictor of morphology. Main conclusions: Consistent patterns of functional diversity across island ontogeny on all examined archipelagos indicate a common role for habitat filtering, ecological opportunity and competition in a diversity of systems, leading to predictable changes in functional diversity and average morphology through island ontogeny, whereas patterns of species richness appear subject to archipelago‐specific factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: Climate is usually regarded as the main determinant of plant species distributions. However, past human use of species for food might also have influenced distributions. We hypothesized that human‐mediated dispersal has resulted in food plants occupying more of their potential geographical range. We also hypothesized that key ecological traits could predispose a species to occupy more of its potential climatic geographical range and be selected by humans for food. Location: The Sonoran Desert of south‐western North America. Time period: Present day. Major taxa studied: Food plants. Methods: We used ethnobotanical data and data from large botanical ecoinformatics databases to estimate realized (dispersal‐ and climate‐constrained) and potential (climate‐constrained) ranges for food plants and their used and unused congeners. Results: We found that food plants fill more of their potential geographical ranges than their unused congeners. We also found that succulence and annual growth interacted with food usage to increase range filling. Main conclusions: Human food use has expanded the distribution of many plant species in the Sonoran Desert. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: Biogeographical regions (realms) reflect patterns of co‐distributed species (biotas) across space. Their boundaries are set by dispersal barriers and difficulties of establishment in new locations. We extend new methods to assess these two contributions by quantifying the degree to which realms intergrade across geographical space and the contributions of individual species to the delineation of those realms. As our example, we focus on Wallace's Line, the most enigmatic partitioning of the world's faunas, where climate is thought to have little effect and the majority of dispersal barriers are short water gaps. Location: Indo‐Pacific. Time period: Present day. Major taxa studied: Birds and mammals. Methods: Terrestrial bird and mammal assemblages were established in 1‐degree map cells using range maps. Assemblage structure was modelled using latent Dirichlet allocation, a continuous clustering method that simultaneously establishes the likely partitioning of species into biotas and the contribution of biotas to each map cell. Phylogenetic trees were used to assess the contribution of deep historical processes. Spatial segregation between biotas was evaluated across time and space in comparison with numerous hard realm boundaries drawn by various workers. Results: We demonstrate that the strong turnover between biotas coincides with the north‐western extent of the region not connected to the mainland during the Pleistocene, although the Philippines contains mixed contributions. At deeper taxonomic levels, Sulawesi and the Philippines shift to primarily Asian affinities, resulting from transgressions of a few Asian‐derived lineages across the line. The partitioning of biotas sometimes produces fragmented regions that reflect habitat. Differences in partitions between birds and mammals reflect differences in dispersal ability. Main conclusions: Permanent water barriers have selected for a dispersive archipelago fauna, excluded by an incumbent continental fauna on the Sunda shelf. Deep history, such as plate movements, is relatively unimportant in setting boundaries. The analysis implies a temporally dynamic interaction between a species' intrinsic dispersal ability, physiographic barriers, and recent climate change in the genesis of Earth's biotas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]