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Globally accelerating trends in societal development and human environmental impacts since the mid-twentieth century1,2,3,4,5,6,7 are known as the Great Acceleration and have been discussed as a key indicator of the onset of the Anthropocene epoch6. While reports on ecological responses (for example, changes in species range or local extinctions) to the Great Acceleration are multiplying8, 9, it is unknown whether such biotic responses are undergoing a similar acceleration over time. This knowledge gap stems from the limited availability of time series data on biodiversity changes across large temporal and geographical extents. Here we use a dataset of repeated plant surveys from 302 mountain summits across Europe, spanning 145 years of observation, to assess the temporal trajectory of mountain biodiversity changes as a globally coherent imprint of the Anthropocene. We find a continent-wide acceleration in the rate of increase in plant species richness, with five times as much species enrichment between 2007 and 2016 as fifty years ago, between 1957 and 1966. This acceleration is strikingly synchronized with accelerated global warming and is not linked to alternative global change drivers. The accelerating increases in species richness on mountain summits across this broad spatial extent demonstrate that acceleration in climate-induced biotic change is occurring even in remote places on Earth, with potentially far-ranging consequences not only for biodiversity, but also for ecosystem functioning and services.

AimBiological invasions are today the second-largest global threat for biodiversity. Once introduced, exotic plant species can modify ecosystem composition, structure and dynamics, eventually driving native species to local extinction. Among the groups of organisms, most likely to be directly affected by exotic invasive plants are herbivorous insects, such as butterflies, which strongly depend on plants throughout their life cycle. However, it remains unclear whether invasive plants have a negative or a positive effect on butterfly diversity at a landscape scale.LocationSwitzerland.MethodsUsing an extensive inventory (393 sites across Switzerland) of both butterfly and invasive plants, we explore the impact of 31 invasive black listed plant species on local butterfly richness. We further identify each butterfly species’ response to invasive plants (i.e. positive, neutral or negative) and analyse the functional and phylogenetic characteristics of these different groups of species.ResultsOur results indicate that butterfly richness negatively correlates with an increase in invasive plant richness. When studying the individual response of each butterfly species to the number of invasive plants, we found that no single butterfly is profiting from invasive plant species, while 28 butterfly species (24%) suffer from the presence of invasive plants. We further show that the species negatively affected are on average less mobile than the unaffected species and that they are phylogenetically clustered.Main conclusionsOur results present evidences of the influence of invasive species on other trophic levels and interaction networks. We further highlight that a lack of management efforts for mitigating invasive plant impacts threatens specific sections of the functional and phylogenetic diversity of butterflies.

We present for the first time a study on alternative forest management at the European scale to account for climate change impacts. We combine insights into detailed studies at high resolution with the actual status of the forest and a realistic estimate of the current management practices at large scale. Results show that the European forest system is very inert and that it takes a long time to influence the species distribution by replacing species after final felling. By 2070, on average about 36 % of the area expected to have decreased species suitability will have changed species following business as usual management. Alternative management, consisting of shorter rotations for those species and species planting based on expected trends, will have increased this species transition to 40 %. The simulated forward-looking alternative management leads to some reduction in increment, but does not influence the amount of wood removed from the forest. Northern Europe is projected to show the highest production increases under climate change and can also adapt faster to the new (proposed) species distribution. Southwest Europe is expected to face the greatest challenge by a combination of a predicted loss of production and a slow rate of management alteration under climate change.