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Accurate and up‐to‐date biodiversity forecasts enable robust planning for environmental management and conservation of landscapes under a wide range of uses. Future predictions of the species composition of ecological communities complement more frequently reported species richness estimates to better characterize the different dimensions of biodiversity. The models that make community composition forecasts are calibrated with data on species' geographic patterns for the present, which may not be good proxies for future patterns. The future establishment of novel communities represents data on species interactions unaccounted for by these models. However, detecting them in a systematic way presents challenges due to the lack of monitoring data for landscapes with high environmental turnover, where such communities are likely to establish. Here, we propose lightweight monitoring over both ecological and anthropogenic disturbance gradients using passive sensors (i.e., those that operate continuously without much human input) to detect novel communities with the aim of updating models that make community composition forecasts. Monitoring over these two gradients should maximize detection of novel communities and improve understanding of relationships between community composition and environmental change. Further, barriers regarding cost and effort are reduced by using relatively few sensors requiring minimal upkeep. Ongoing updates to community composition forecasts based on novel community data and better understanding of the associated uncertainty should improve future decision‐making for both resource management and conservation efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The data paper, an emerging scholarly genre, describes research data sets and is intended to bridge the gap between the publication of research data and scientific articles. Research examining how data papers report data events, such as data transactions and manipulations, is limited. The research reported on in this article addresses this limitation and investigated how data events are inscribed in data papers. A content analysis was conducted examining the full texts of 82 data papers, drawn from the curated list of data papers connected to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Data events recorded for each paper were organized into a set of 17 categories. Many of these categories are described together in the same sentence, which indicates the messiness of data events in the laboratory space. The findings challenge the degrees to which data papers are a distinct genre compared to research articles and they describe data‐centric research processes in a through way. This article also discusses how our results could inform a better data publication ecosystem in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WINNER OF THE 2019 BEST PAPER AWARD: Detecting amphibians in agricultural landscapes using environmental DNA reveals the importance of wetland condition I Gabrielle E. Ruso, Christy A. Morrissey, Natacha S. Hogan, Claudia Sheedy, Melanie J. Gallant, and Timothy D. Jardine i https://doi.org/10.1002/etc.4598 The greatest challenge facing contemporary ecotoxicology is how to reliably assess ecosystem impacts of chemical pollutants and distinguish it from many other environmental factors. Hitting reset on sediment toxicity: Sediment homogenization alters the toxicity of metal-amended sediments. Comparative lethality of in ovo exposure to PCB 126, PCB 77, and 2 environmentally relevant PCB mixtures in Japanese quail ( I Coturnix japonica i ). [Extracted from the article]

The editors of I Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management i and the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) are pleased to announce the selection of Best Papers Published in 2022. BEST PAPER OF THE YEAR 2022 Design, production, and validation of the biological and structural performance of an ecologically engineered concrete block mattress: A nature-inclusive design for shoreline and offshore construction. In their article, Sella and colleagues developed and tested novel concrete blocks for their capabilities as habitat and as coastal structures. [Extracted from the article]

Predator non‐consumptive effects (NCE) are a suite of phenotypic responses of prey to avoid predation that cascade down food webs and can have a stronger impact than predation itself. However, the role of NCE in intraguild interactions remains understudied. Thus, multi‐species experiments based on species traits are needed to improve our understanding of the impact of NCE on community structure.We investigated NCE of ants on 17 spider species as intraguild prey (8 cursorial and 9 sedentary) to test the influence of spider hunting mode on the strength of NCE. Sedentary spiders select a habitat patch and wait for prey, whereas cursorial spiders roam around searching for prey. Because actively foraging organisms have higher encounter rates with predators, cursorial spiders should show stronger reactions to ant presence.We collected cues (footprint hydrocarbons) of the black garden ant Lasius niger on filter papers. Then, we placed spiders individually on the papers and filmed their behaviour once on a paper with cues and once on a cue‐free one. We used the increase in walking activity in the presence of cues as an indicator of avoidance behaviour towards ants.Cursorial spiders spent a longer time moving and being mobile, and had a higher overall mean mobility when exposed to ant cues compared with blank filter papers, whereas sedentary spider species did not react to ant cues at all.The avoidance of ant cues by cursorial spiders corresponds to their higher risk of encountering ants compared with sedentary species, in accordance with the threat‐sensitivity hypothesis. Our multi‐species study shows the relevance of NCE for intraguild interactions and highlights the importance of experimental trait‐based approaches to improve predictability of species interactions and the role of NCE in ecological communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the work that attentiveness can and can't do in generating more ethical relations with non‐humans. How to build better relations with non‐humans has been a central debate in geography and cognate disciplines. These concerns include ethical relations with non‐humans who both pervade and create liveable environments, such as soil biota. Scholars have specifically identified attentiveness as key in generating more‐than‐human ethics. However, how attentiveness may arise, and what work attentiveness may be able to do in generating ethical relations, has not been sufficiently explored. Additionally, soils as relational materialities remain underexplored in social sciences. In this paper, I address these two important gaps in scholarship. Investigating the rising concern with soil biota in conventional English farming, I propose the care network as a way of conceptualising and investigating the ethical potential of attentiveness. As concerns grow about soil degradation, and the dangers this is posing to food production and to human survival, land managers are attending to soil ecosystems as part of caring for their farm businesses. While this attentiveness is producing some transformative effects, its potential is limited by the configuration of the soil care network. As long as soil care is configured primarily as farmers' concern, the potential of attentiveness in generating ethical regard to the needs of soil biota will be limited. In the Conclusions, I suggest ways of expanding attentiveness to soils and of building a wider and practical relational ethic of soil care. I also argue we need more attention in geographic research to attentiveness and care as systemic, unequally distributed, and operating at multiple scales. Human life depends on the life of soil ecosystems. This paper draws attention to soils as underexplored in social sciences, and asks how we may form better ethical and practical relations with soil biota. In doing this, it shows the need for a more nuanced understanding of the work that attentiveness can do in generating more‐than‐human care ethics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Restoration ecology is a deepening and diversifying field with current research incorporating multiple disciplines and infusing long-standing ideas with fresh perspectives. We present a list of 10 recent pivotal papers exemplifying new directions in ecological restoration that were selected by students in a cross-disciplinary graduate seminar at the University of California, Berkeley. We highlight research that applies ecological theory to improve restoration practice in the context of global change (e.g. climate modeling, evaluation of novel ecosystems) and discuss remaining knowledge gaps. We also discuss papers that recognize the social context of restoration and the coupled nature of social and ecological systems, ranging from the incorporation of cultural values and Traditional Ecological Knowledge into restoration, to the consideration of the broader impacts of markets on restoration practices. In addition, we include perspectives that focus on improving communication between social and natural scientists as well as between scientists and practitioners, developing effective ecological monitoring, and applying more integrated, whole-landscape approaches to restoration. We conclude with insights on recurrent themes in the papers regarding planning restoration in human-modified landscapes, application of ecological theory, improvements to restoration practice, and the social contexts of restoration. We share lessons from our cross-disciplinary endeavor, and invite further discussion on the future directions of restoration ecology through contributions to our seminar blog site . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many ecosystems have been transformed, or degraded by human use, and restoration offers an opportunity to recover services and benefits, not to mention intrinsic values. We assessed whether restoration scientists and practitioners use their projects to demonstrate the benefits restoration can provide in their peer-reviewed publications. We evaluated a sample of the academic literature to determine whether links are made explicit between ecological restoration, society, and public policy related to natural capital. We analyzed 1,582 peer-reviewed papers dealing with ecological restoration published between 1 January 2000 and 30 September 2008 in 13 leading scientific journals. As selection criterion, we considered papers that contained either “restoration” or “rehabilitation” in their title, abstract, or keywords. Furthermore, as one-third of the papers were published in Restoration Ecology, we used that journal as a reference for comparison with all the other journals. We readily acknowledge that aquatic ecosystems are under-represented, and that the largely inaccessible gray literature was ignored. Within these constraints, we found clear evidence that restoration practitioners are failing to signal links between ecological restoration, society, and policy, and are underselling the evidence of benefits of restoration as a worthwhile investment for society. We discuss this assertion and illustrate it with samples of our findings—with regards to (1) the geographical and institutional affiliations of authors; (2) the choice of ecosystems studied, methods employed, monitoring schemes applied, and the spatial scale of studies; and (3) weak links to payments for ecosystem service setups, agriculture, and ramifications for public policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The restoration of degraded ecosystems can be constrained by uncertainty over former conditions and the relevance of the past given recent changes. It can be difficult to differentiate among contrasting hypotheses about past ecosystem function, and restoration efforts can emphasize species reestablishment without integrating the ecological and cultural processes that once determined their occurrence. As a case study, we analyzed historical descriptions of an endangered oak grassland ecosystem in southwestern British Columbia, Canada, to determine former conditions and assess their validity for defining restoration targets. Twenty-three documents described this ecosystem from 1790 to 1951. Comparison of early survey records with contemporary occurrences suggests habitat loss of >95%. The identity and former range of most native plant species were poorly described, but accounts of ecosystem structure revealed a diversity of floral communities that has been much simplified. Fire, most likely set by indigenous peoples, interacted with edaphic and topographic factors to create this structural diversity. European settlers intensively modified the ecosystem with grazing, cultivation, and introduced flora. These transformations partly explain the current high levels of plant invasion. Restoration must target the ecosystems' former structural diversity and the ecological and cultural processes that maintained it. Given the recent impacts of fire suppression, habitat loss, and plant invasion, however, land managers must balance the reestablishment of historical processes with their potential negative effects in sites with numerous at-risk species. This ecosystem was, and remains, part of a culturally modified landscape, where human activity has maintained unforested areas for millennia but now promotes mostly exotic flora. Although pre-European conditions cannot be fully restored, the historical data provided restoration insights unobtainable from current biological studies emphasizing the end point of long-term ecological change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To determine if non-native plant species are homogenizing species composition among widely dispersed plant communities. Twenty localities in North America. Species lists among localities were compared to measure the influence of non-native species richness at each locality on the Jaccard Index (JI) of similarity between localities. After removing the effects of distance, because shared native species decreased with distance, three (nonexclusive) lines of evidence indicate that non-native species promote homogenization. First, pairs of sites with a high combined total of non-native species tend to have higher similarity than those with a low total of non-natives. Second, for a given distance, more non-native than native species tended to be shared among localities. Third, whereas most of the site comparisons with high total non-native richness have a non-native/native JI ratio greater than 1 (often much greater), only half of the comparisons with low total non-native richness have a ratio greater than one. These findings provide quantitative support for the widely held, but rarely tested, notion that non-native species tend to homogenize biological communities because they are more commonly shared among communities. Such testing is important as non-native species could theoretically have no impact or even reduce homogenization among communities, if non-native colonizers consist of different species pools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extensive dieback of salt marsh dominated by the perennial grass Spartina alterniflora occurred throughout the Mississippi River deltaic plain during 2000. More than 100,000 ha were affected, with 43,000 ha severely damaged. The aim of this work was to determine if sudden dieback could have been caused by a coincident drought and to assess the significance of this event with respect to long-term changes in coastal vegetation. Multiple dieback sites and reference sites were established along 150 km of shoreline in coastal Louisiana, USA. Aerial and ground surveys were conducted from June 2000 to September 2001 to assess soil conditions and plant mortality and recovery. Dieback areas ranged in size from ∼300 m2−5 km2 in area with 50–100% mortality of plant shoots and rhizomes in affected zones. Co-occurring species such as Avicennia germinans (black mangrove) and Juncus roemerianus (needlegrass rush) were unaffected. Historical records indicate that precipitation, river discharge, and mean sea level were unusually low during the previous year. Although the cause of dieback is currently unknown, plant and soil characteristics were consistent with temporary soil desiccation that may have reduced water availability, increased soil salinity, and/or caused soil acidification (via pyrite oxidation) and increased uptake of toxic metals such as Fe or Al. Plant recovery 15 months after dieback was variable (0–58% live cover), but recovering plants were vigorous and indicated no long-lasting effects of the dieback agent. These findings have relevance for global change models of coastal ecosystems that predict vegetation responses based primarily on long-term increases in sea level and submergence of marshes. Our results suggest that large-scale changes in coastal vegetation may occur over a relatively short time span through climatic extremes acting in concert with sea-level fluctuations and pre-existing soil conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Litter decay dynamics of paper birch (Betula papyrifera) were assessed at the Aspen free-air CO2 enrichment (FACE) facility in northern Wisconsin, USA. Leaf litter was decomposed for 12 months under factorial combinations of 360 vs. 560 μL CO2 L−1, crossed with 36 vs. 55 nL O3 L−1. To differentiate between substrate quality and environment effects, litterbags were placed in their Native Plots of origin or transplanted into the other treatments. CO2 enrichment, regardless of O3 concentration, produced poorer quality litter (high C/N, lignin/N and condensed tannins) than did ambient CO2 (low C/N, lignin/N and condensed tannins). Substrate quality differences were reflected in the mass loss rates (k-values), which were high for litter generated under ambient CO2 (0.887 year−1) and low for litter generated under elevated CO2 (0.674 year−1). The rate-retarding effects of CO2 enrichment were neither alleviated nor exacerbated by O3 exposure. Decay rates varied, however, depending on whether litter was placed back into its plot of origin or transplanted to Common Gardens. The results of this study are species specific, but they have important implications for understanding the processes regulating storage of fixed C and the release of CO2 from northern forest ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Network analysis provides a powerful framework to study the complexity underlying the structure, dynamics and function of ecological systems. By now, analysing single‐layered networks is a common practice with clear guidelines and well‐established computational tools. Nevertheless, ecological communities are multilayered because they vary over space and time and contain multiple types of interactions. In recent years, the analysis of ecological multilayer networks (EMLNs) has allowed researchers to include such multilayered complexity. However, there is a paucity of practical guidelines and standardised tools to handle EMLN data, even before downstream analysis.In this article, we accomplish three objectives: (1) We provide practical guidelines for handling EMLN data. (2) We developed the EMLN R package to standardise the workflow of creating, storing and working with EMLN objects. The package also enables conversion between multiple formats for downstream analysis with other standard packages. (3) We provide EMLN data sets for research and training purposes.A dedicated website with explanations, detailed examples and code accompanies our paper. This website is a gateway for novice and experienced network ecologists who want to include EMLNs in their research.By simplifying the analysis of multilayer networks and promoting standardised approaches, we facilitate the analysis of EMLNs. This paves the road towards gaining deeper insights into functioning and resilience of natural ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that acknowledging the wide diversity of current recreational practices on English wetlands enables governance practitioners and site managers to appreciate the full extent of contemporary human engagements with these watery ecosystems. These insights can assist those tasked with managing wetland resources to develop more inclusive and sustainable development plans to support a wide range of actors whose connections to wetland spaces are important for their health, wellbeing and sense of self. Enabling sustainable future uses of wetlands will involve recognising and engaging with differential articulations of place‐making within these diverse waterscapes which themselves are in a constant state of transition. This calls our attention to the dynamic nature of wetlands, and the ways in which place‐making in these spaces shifts and adapts to the changing topography and biota within these waterscapes; each encounter with the space is slightly reconfigured and recast every time. Wetlands' liminality also extends to the diverse and often esoteric uses of these ecosystems for recreation in its most encompassing sense; as leisure spaces, places of renewal and as locations of place‐making practices. Drawing upon Barbara Bender's exploration of landscape as phenomenological palimpsest, this paper utilises empirical interview data drawn from a recent research project, 'WetlandLIFE', to explore how far contemporary human uses of wetlands engage with processes of restoration and reanimation. Making use of the different leisure narratives of the research participants across five English wetland sites, the paper explores the ways in which 'place' is differentially interpreted, enabled and enacted in these saturated spaces. These practises and performances can be functional, prosaic engagements with wetlands; painting, walking, photographing, sitting, reflecting. They can also be anarchic, counter‐cultural and 'delinquent'; wild‐camping, raving, poaching, partying. The wide spectrum of behaviours and attitudes catalogued reveal the contested use and value of these waterscapes in contemporary contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The successful movement of individuals is fundamental to life. Facilitating these movements by promoting ecological connectivity has become a central theme in ecology and conservation. Urban areas contain more than half of the world's human population, and their potential to support biodiversity and to connect their citizens to nature is increasingly recognized. Promoting ecological connectivity within these areas is essential to reaching this potential. However, our current understanding of ecological connectivity within urban areas appears limited., We reviewed the published scientific literature to assess the state-of-the-art of ecological connectivity research in urban areas, summarized trends in study attributes and highlighted knowledge gaps., We found 174 papers that investigated ecological connectivity within urban areas. These papers addressed either structural (48) or functional connectivity (111), and some addressed both (15), but contained substantial geographic and taxonomic biases. These papers rarely defined the aspect of connectivity they were investigating and objective descriptions of the local urban context were uncommon. Formulated hypotheses or a priori predictions were typically unstated and many papers used suboptimal study designs and methods., We suggest future studies explicitly consider and quantify the landscape within their analyses and make greater use of available and rapidly developing tools and methods for measuring functional connectivity (e.g. biotelemetry or landscape genetics). We also highlight the need for studies to clearly define how the terms ' urban' and ' connectivity' have been applied., Knowledge gaps in ecological connectivity in urban areas remain, partly because the field is still in its infancy and partly because we must better capitalize on the state-of-the-art technological and analytical techniques that are increasingly available. Well-designed studies that employed high-resolution data and powerful analytical techniques highlight our abilities to quantify ecological connectivity in urban areas. These studies are exemplary, setting the standards for future research to facilitate data-driven and evidence-based biodiversity-friendly infrastructure planning in urban areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Litter decay dynamics of paper birch (Betula papyrifera) were assessed at the Aspen free-air CO2 enrichment (FACE) facility in northern Wisconsin, USA. Leaf litter was decomposed for 12 months under factorial combinations of 360 vs. 560 μL CO2 L−1, crossed with 36 vs. 55 nL O3 L−1. To differentiate between substrate quality and environment effects, litterbags were placed in their Native Plots of origin or transplanted into the other treatments. CO2 enrichment, regardless of O3 concentration, produced poorer quality litter (high C/N, lignin/N and condensed tannins) than did ambient CO2 (low C/N, lignin/N and condensed tannins). Substrate quality differences were reflected in the mass loss rates (k-values), which were high for litter generated under ambient CO2 (0.887 year−1) and low for litter generated under elevated CO2 (0.674 year−1). The rate-retarding effects of CO2 enrichment were neither alleviated nor exacerbated by O3 exposure. Decay rates varied, however, depending on whether litter was placed back into its plot of origin or transplanted to Common Gardens. The results of this study are species specific, but they have important implications for understanding the processes regulating storage of fixed C and the release of CO2 from northern forest ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resampling the same spot to reveal vegetation dynamics has been used in vegetation science for more than a century. All terrestrial ecosystems depend on vegetation, and to proceed sustainably, humankind have to improve their understanding of how plant communities are structured and how they function. Here we expect papers which provide new methods, adopt methods from other scientific disciplines to vegetation science, or compare performance of different methods on plant communities. Thus, the expertise of vegetation scientists might be needed much more broadly than usually thought, and the I Journal of Vegetation Science i is the central medium to advance this scientific field. [Extracted from the article]

This paper makes the case for a reconsideration of the human exemptionalist paradigm in sociological research. Reviewing recent research on the racialized and gendered dimensions of environmental use and abuse in North America, this paper argues that the persistent belief that humans dominate over all other biota is a direct result of the white supremacist, patriarchal gender system. Traditional Anglo‐European performances of and expectations for masculinity not only mandate the subjugation of women, but of all biota. Consequently, the burdens for repair and regeneration are disproportionately placed upon feminized subjects. This racialized gender system is strengthened as long as human exemptionalism persists. Ultimately, sociologists should contend with 'human supremacy' as a system of inequality that strengthens all other systems of inequality that plague human society. Moving forward, theories of liberation must go beyond the species boundary to account for an end to unjust domination of all life on Earth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ecological niche is a fundamental concept in ecology that can be used in order better understand species relationships. The overlap in species niches provides a measure of the likelihood for species to co‐occur. Most approaches that quantify niche overlap have been based on distance and similarity indices, for pairwise combinations of species. In this paper, we suggest that niche overlap can be calculated from the predictions of a model. Using a statistical model to predict niche overlap provides various benefits, includes the possibility to adjust the model to properties of the data. We demonstrate this using an example dataset of an ecological community of Foraminifera species, to which we fit a generalized linear latent variable model (GLLVM). GLLVMs are a flexible class of models that allow to estimate the distribution of species using both measured environmental predictors and residual covariation between species. We demonstrate how to calculate niche overlap from GLLVMs for any combination of species, and separately for different environments. Predicting niche overlap from a model further expands the toolset available to ecologists for the exploration of species co‐occurrence patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information on tropical Asian vertebrates has traditionally been sparse, particularly when it comes to cryptic species inhabiting the dense forests of the region. Vertebrate populations are declining globally due to land‐use change and hunting, the latter frequently referred as "defaunation." This is especially true in tropical Asia where there is extensive land‐use change and high human densities. Robust monitoring requires that large volumes of vertebrate population data be made available for use by the scientific and applied communities. Camera traps have emerged as an effective, non‐invasive, widespread, and common approach to surveying vertebrates in their natural habitats. However, camera‐derived datasets remain scattered across a wide array of sources, including published scientific literature, gray literature, and unpublished works, making it challenging for researchers to harness the full potential of cameras for ecology, conservation, and management. In response, we collated and standardized observations from 239 camera trap studies conducted in tropical Asia. There were 278,260 independent records of 371 distinct species, comprising 232 mammals, 132 birds, and seven reptiles. The total trapping effort accumulated in this data paper consisted of 876,606 trap nights, distributed among Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Bhutan, Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Nepal, and far eastern India. The relatively standardized deployment methods in the region provide a consistent, reliable, and rich count data set relative to other large‐scale pressence‐only data sets, such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) or citizen science repositories (e.g., iNaturalist), and is thus most similar to eBird. To facilitate the use of these data, we also provide mammalian species trait information and 13 environmental covariates calculated at three spatial scales around the camera survey centroids (within 10‐, 20‐, and 30‐km buffers). We will update the dataset to include broader coverage of temperate Asia and add newer surveys and covariates as they become available. This dataset unlocks immense opportunities for single‐species ecological or conservation studies as well as applied ecology, community ecology, and macroecology investigations. The data are fully available to the public for utilization and research. Please cite this data paper when utilizing the data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

He also wrote about male-male combat and morphology in the Caprinidae (sheep and goats) alone and with his advisor (Schaffer 1968, Reed and Schaffer 1972a, Schaffer and Reed 1972b). Bill moved on to work on nonlinear dynamics in disease systems with his Danish collaborator Lars Olsen for many years (Olsen et al. 1988, Olsen and Schaffer 1990). In their 1986 TREE paper, Bill and his then-student Mark Kot argued that chaotic dynamics were likely widespread in ecology, and that this might necessitate a fundamental reappraisal of many ideas in population and community ecology (Schaffer and Kot 1986). Ecologist William (Bill) M. Schaffer died on 16 January 2021, in Tucson, Arizona, USA. [Extracted from the article]

Fish assemblage indicators developed throughout the world were reviewed and key differences in methodologies depending on ecoregions, basins and contrasting fish fauna summarised. Common elements of existing Indices of Integrity were identified to support the development of a European-wide fish index. These include, using reference condition, accounting for natural fish assemblage variability, evaluating metric precision and selecting the most sensitive and complementary metrics. For future developments, it was recommended to pay more attention to temporal variability in fish assemblages, age structure of key (sentinel) species and fish migration. Testing hypotheses at different steps of the process seems to be the appropriate way to design fish indices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Conservation Biology is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Poor and unreliable knowledge of the status of freshwater fisheries limits their inclusion in governance processes, thereby impeding effective management measures. This threatens the livelihoods of people, particularly in developing countries. Improved knowledge is required to draw the attention of policymakers and stimulate effective management measures to accelerate the sustainability of the freshwater fisheries. In line with this requirement, this paper provides the state of knowledge of the aquatic ecosystem and fisheries of the Lake Edward system, East Africa, focusing on lakes Edward, George and the Kazinga channel. The state of knowledge was accomplished by reviewing existing data and information on aspects of primary productivity and water quality, invertebrates, fish fauna, fish life history and ecology, and fisheries. The waterbodies have been monitored since the 1930s, albeit sporadically, providing data on all the above aspects but with substantial temporal gaps. Adequate and updated data and information exist on the water quality status of the water bodies, extant aquatic taxa (including fishes) and fish catches but with uncertainties in the latter. Data and information gaps exist on the abundance of biotic communities, fish life history, quantitative trophic ecology and fisheries management reference points. The aggregated data and information can directly support decisions for fisheries management. We recommend regular monitoring to fill the data and information gaps, more comprehensive stock assessments and the development of aquatic ecosystem models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For example (examples I use here are from my actual experiences with students), an undergraduate biology major who joins my lab as a second-year student might have a great background in general biology and may even have excellent grades in math classes. ASLO: Your paper shows that green algae can acquire new genes through incorporation of large... B MM b : Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) in algae and other protists is a well-established phenomenon, specifically HGT from other cellular sources like bacteria. Each year, ASLO honors aquatic scientists of various career stages for their exceptional work in advancing the fields of limnology and oceanography. Some of my most productive and enjoyable projects have resulted from graduate and undergraduate students, or Post Docs and students, working together. [Extracted from the article]

The article introduces that Conservation Biology is presenting the Rising Star Award for the best student-led paper published in the journal in 2015 to recognize an outstanding student researcher and communicator. The winner of the inaugural Rising Star Award is Franziska Humair for her paper "E-Commerce Trade in Invasive Plants."

Plastic litter of all sizes has been acknowledged as a serious threat to biodiversity, especially in the marine environment. The fact that life cycle assessment (LCA) does not properly consider these issues is a serious problem for the aspirations of LCA in the public sphere. This paper focuses on micro‐ and nano‐sized plastics (MNPs), which have the potential to cause a substantial impact on ecosystem quality because of their increased presence in the marine compartment and capacity to affect a greater range of species. The data regarding MNPs' effect on different aquatic species were extracted from the academic literature. These data were then explored and analyzed to bring to light the possibilities in terms of effect factor (EF) developments and the existing relations between effect on aquatic ecosystems and different parameters such as particle size, polymer type, and shape. No significant difference could be observed between the effect of the different subgroups of MNPs tested when considering a single species. However, when including many species in the analysis, differences could be noted between polystyrene (PS) and other polymer types. The high uncertainty on the developed EFs combined with this lack of statistical difference among subgroups at the single species level suggest that the use of a single generic EF could be appropriate for now. This EF is provided along with Species Sensitivity Distributions developed to allow for a quick visualization of the gathered data used to generate the EFs. This EF can now be used to quantify the physical impact of all MNPs in life cycle impact assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first issue of the I Journal of Vegetation Science i (JVS) was published 30 years ago (van der Maarel, [6]). Within one year since its launch, the blog published 20 editorial news items and 25 posts provided by the authors of papers in JVS and in our sister journal I Applied Vegetation Science i (AVS). Every year the Chief Editors select one of the papers published in JVS for the Editors' Award, partly based on the nominations received from the Co-ordinating Editors of individual manuscripts. [Extracted from the article]

Since the early 1990s, ecologists and evolutionary biologists have aggregated primary research using meta‐analytic methods to understand ecological and evolutionary phenomena. Meta‐analyses can resolve long‐standing disputes, dispel spurious claims, and generate new research questions. At their worst, however, meta‐analysis publications are wolves in sheep's clothing: subjective with biased conclusions, hidden under coats of objective authority. Conclusions can be rendered unreliable by inappropriate statistical methods, problems with the methods used to select primary research, or problems within the primary research itself. Because of these risks, meta‐analyses are increasingly conducted as part of systematic reviews, which use structured, transparent, and reproducible methods to collate and summarise evidence. For readers to determine whether the conclusions from a systematic review or meta‐analysis should be trusted – and to be able to build upon the review – authors need to report what they did, why they did it, and what they found. Complete, transparent, and reproducible reporting is measured by 'reporting quality'. To assess perceptions and standards of reporting quality of systematic reviews and meta‐analyses published in ecology and evolutionary biology, we surveyed 208 researchers with relevant experience (as authors, reviewers, or editors), and conducted detailed evaluations of 102 systematic review and meta‐analysis papers published between 2010 and 2019. Reporting quality was far below optimal and approximately normally distributed. Measured reporting quality was lower than what the community perceived, particularly for the systematic review methods required to measure trustworthiness. The minority of assessed papers that referenced a guideline (~16%) showed substantially higher reporting quality than average, and surveyed researchers showed interest in using a reporting guideline to improve reporting quality. The leading guideline for improving reporting quality of systematic reviews is the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta‐Analyses (PRISMA) statement. Here we unveil an extension of PRISMA to serve the meta‐analysis community in ecology and evolutionary biology: PRISMA‐EcoEvo (version 1.0). PRISMA‐EcoEvo is a checklist of 27 main items that, when applicable, should be reported in systematic review and meta‐analysis publications summarising primary research in ecology and evolutionary biology. In this explanation and elaboration document, we provide guidance for authors, reviewers, and editors, with explanations for each item on the checklist, including supplementary examples from published papers. Authors can consult this PRISMA‐EcoEvo guideline both in the planning and writing stages of a systematic review and meta‐analysis, to increase reporting quality of submitted manuscripts. Reviewers and editors can use the checklist to assess reporting quality in the manuscripts they review. Overall, PRISMA‐EcoEvo is a resource for the ecology and evolutionary biology community to facilitate transparent and comprehensively reported systematic reviews and meta‐analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the effective tools to study the variation between communities is the use of pairwise dissimilarity indices. Besides species as variables, the involvement of trait information provides valuable insight into the functioning of ecosystems. In recent years, a variety of indices have been proposed to quantify functional dissimilarity between communities. These indices follow different approaches to account for between‐species similarities in calculating community dissimilarity, yet they all have been proposed as straightforward tools. In this paper, we review the trait‐based dissimilarity indices available in the literature and identify the most important conceptual and technical properties that differentiate among them, and that must be considered before their application. We identify two primary aspects that need to be considered before choosing a functional dissimilarity index. The first one is the way communities are represented in the trait space. The three main types of representations are the typical values, the discrete sets using the combination of species × sites and species × traits matrices, and the hypervolumes. The second decision is the concept of dissimilarity to follow, including two options: distances and disagreements. We use the above scheme to discuss the available functional dissimilarity indices and evaluate their relations to each other, their capabilities, and accessibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anthropogenic forcing caused the biodiversity loss and stability decline of communities. There is still controversy over whether the decline in biodiversity will lead to a decrease in community stability. The stability of biological communities is related to both biodiversity and structure, and this paper aims to reveal the human impacts on diatom communities' biodiversity and structure. We studied the richness, β‐diversity and network distance of diatom communities in Qinghai‐Xizang, Yunnan‐Sichuan and Lower Yangtze River Basin, China through empirical dataset and simulation method. The results showed that the diatoms richness in the Qinghai‐Xizang and the Yunnan‐Sichuan region was lower and the network distance was higher than that of the Lower Yangtze River Basin. β‐diversity in the Lower Yangtze River Basin was the lowest and the diatom network distance responds negatively to human population densities in China. The simulation showed that the network distance kept constant during random species loss, and declined while specialist species were lost or replaced by generalist species. The results suggested diatom communities' homogeneity and stability decline were associated with human activities. Human impacts may cause biodiversity loss targeted to specialist species or no biodiversity loss while generalist species replace those specialist species. This study showed that how diversity changes determined ecological stability depends on the type of species changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper summarizes the open community conventions developed by the Ecological Forecasting Initiative (EFI) for the common formatting and archiving of ecological forecasts and the metadata associated with these forecasts. Such open standards are intended to promote interoperability and facilitate forecast communication, distribution, validation, and synthesis. For output files, we first describe the convention conceptually in terms of global attributes, forecast dimensions, forecasted variables, and ancillary indicator variables. We then illustrate the application of this convention to the two file formats that are currently preferred by the EFI, netCDF (network common data form), and comma‐separated values (CSV), but note that the convention is extensible to future formats. For metadata, EFI's convention identifies a subset of conventional metadata variables that are required (e.g., temporal resolution and output variables) but focuses on developing a framework for storing information about forecast uncertainty propagation, data assimilation, and model complexity, which aims to facilitate cross‐forecast synthesis. The initial application of this convention expands upon the Ecological Metadata Language (EML), a commonly used metadata standard in ecology. To facilitate community adoption, we also provide a Github repository containing a metadata validator tool and several vignettes in R and Python on how to both write and read in the EFI standard. Lastly, we provide guidance on forecast archiving, making an important distinction between short‐term dissemination and long‐term forecast archiving, while also touching on the archiving of code and workflows. Overall, the EFI convention is a living document that can continue to evolve over time through an open community process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors concluded that water eDNA is a poor proxy for the analysis of benthic communities, although they do not exclude that the use of taxon-specific markers could improve the congruence between eDNA and bulk DNA metabarcoding data. Although the basic concepts and workflow of DNA barcoding and metabarcoding have not changed, the technological advances in high-throughput sequencing have greatly facilitated the access to eDNA data. Gleason et al. (2021) show that bulk DNA metabarcoding more accurately represents the local stream macroinvertebrate community, with water eDNA data being overwhelmed by non-metazoan sequences. In 2012, Molecular Ecology published a special issue on environmental DNA, which provided an overview of the field of eDNA research and presented a selection of papers on eDNA studies (Taberlet et al., 2012). [Extracted from the article]

Samuel Joseph McNaughton, an influential ecologist, passed away in 2024. He was born in Maryland but spent much of his childhood in Missouri, where he developed an interest in nature. After studying agriculture in college, he took a plant ecology course that sparked his curiosity in scientific investigation. McNaughton went on to conduct groundbreaking research on plant ecotypic variation and grassland ecology, particularly in the Serengeti ecosystem. His studies revealed the complex interactions between plant communities and grazing herbivores, as well as the effects of environmental factors. McNaughton's work provided valuable insights into the management and conservation of grassland ecosystems. He was also a dedicated teacher and mentor, and his impact on the field of ecology is widely recognized. [Extracted from the article]

Populations and ecological communities are changing worldwide, and empirical studies exhibit a mixture of either declining or mixed trends. Confusion in global biodiversity trends thus remains, while assessing such changes is of major social, political, and scientific importance. Part of this variability may arise from the difficulty to reliably assess global biodiversity trends. Here, we conducted a literature review of studies documenting the temporal dynamics of global biodiversity. We classified the differences among approaches, data, and methodology used by the reviewed papers to reveal common findings and sources of discrepancies. We show that reviews and meta‐analyses, along with the use of global indicators, are more likely to conclude that trends are declining. On the other hand, the longer the data are available, the more nuanced are the trends they generate. Our results also highlight the lack of studies providing information on the impact of synergistic pressures on a global scale, making it even more difficult to understand the driving factors of the observed changes and how to decide conservation plan accordingly. Finally, we stress the importance of taking into account the sources of confusion identified, as well as the complexity of biodiversity changes, in order to implement effective conservation strategies. In particular, biodiversity dynamics are almost systematically assumed to be linear, while non‐linear trends are largely neglected. Clarifying the sources of confusion in global biodiversity trends should strengthen large‐scale biodiversity monitoring and conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Predator–prey interactions are a fundamental part of community ecology, yet the relative importance of consumptive and nonconsumptive effects (NCEs) (defined as a risk‐induced response that alters prey fitness) has not been resolved. Theory suggests that the emergence and subsequent predominance of consumptive or NCEs depend on the given habitat's complexity as well as predator hunting mode and spatial domain sizes of both predator and prey, but their relative influence on the outcome of predator–prey interactions is unknown. We built agent‐based models in NetLogo to simulate predator–prey interactions for three hunting modes—sit‐and‐wait, sit‐and‐pursue, and active—while concurrently simulating large versus small spatial domain sizes for both predators and prey. We studied (1) how hunting mode and spatial domain size interact to influence the emergence of consumptive or NCEs and (2) how, when NCEs do dominate, hunting mode and spatial domain separately or additively determine prey shifts in time, space, and habitat use. Our results indicate consumptive effects only dominate for active predators when prey habitat domains overlap completely with the predator's spatial domain and when sit‐and‐wait and sit‐and‐pursue predators and their prey both have large spatial domains. Prey are most likely to survive when they shift their time but most frequently shift their habitat. Our paper helps to better understand the underlying mechanisms that drive consumptive or NCEs to be most dominant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present an ancestral graph model of the evolution of a guild in an ecological community. The model is based on a metagenomic sampling design in that a random sample is taken at the community, as opposed the taxon, level and species are discovered by genetic sequencing. The specific implementation of the model envisions an ecological guild that was founded by colonization at some point in the past that then potentially undergoes diversification by natural selection. Within the graph, species emerge and evolve through the diversification process and their densities in the graph are dynamic and governed by both ecological drift and random genetic drift, as well as differential viability. We employ the 3% sequence divergence rule at a marker locus to identify operational taxonomic units. We then explore approaches to see whether there are indirect signals of the diversification process, including population genetic and ecological approaches. In terms of population genetics, we study the joint site frequency spectrum of OTUs, as well its associated statistics. In terms of ecology, we study the species (or OTU) abundance distribution. For both, we observe deviations from neutrality, which indicates that there may be signals of diversifying selection in metagenomic studies under certain conditions. The model is available as a GPU‐based computer program in C/C++ and using OpenCL, with the long‐term goal of adding functionality iteratively to model large‐scale eco‐evolutionary processes for metagenomic data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Predator–prey interactions are important in maintaining the structure and dynamics of ecological communities. Both predators and prey use cues from a range of sensory modalities to detect and assess one another; identification of these cues is necessary to understand how selection operates to shape predator–prey interactions. Mud-dauber wasps (Sphecidae) provision their larval nests with paralyzed spiders, and different genera of wasps specialize on particular spider taxa. Sceliphron caementarium (Drury 1773) wasps preferentially capture spiders that build two-dimensional (2D) webs, rather than those that construct three-dimensional (3D) webs, but the basis of this preference is not clear. Wasps may choose spiders based on an assessment of their web architecture, as 3D webs may provide better defenses against wasp predation than do 2D webs. However, because many hymenopterans use chemical cues to locate and recognize prey, it is also possible that mud-dauber wasps rely on chemical cues associated with the spider and/or the web to assess prey suitability. When we offered foraging S. caementarium wasps 2D and 3D spiders both on and off their webs, we found that in both cases the wasps took 2D spiders and avoided 3D spiders, demonstrating that the web itself is not the impediment. Results of a series of behavioral choice assays involving filter paper discs containing spider cues and chemically manipulated spiders or spider dummies corroborated the importance of spider chemical cues in mediation of prey recognition by mud-dauber wasps. We also discuss the relative importance of visual and chemical cues for prey recognition by wasps, examine the anti-predator behaviors of 2D and 3D spiders, and consider the role of wasp predation in spider diversification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I Applied Vegetation Science i (AVS) is a well-established journal in the landscape of ecological research, and in recent years this can be recognised in the quality of submissions and the rigorous selection procedures. As usual, the judgements of the Co-ordinating Editors and Chief Editors did not completely agree on the best papers, given the number of high-quality papers received and published. Other papers were worthy of being awarded and were highly appreciated by the Co-ordinating Editors or the Chief Editors. [Extracted from the article]

The Society of Population Ecology recently established two awards: the Population Ecology Young Author Award and the Population Ecology Most Cited Paper Award (https://esj-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/hub/journal/1438390x/homepage/population%5fecology%5faward). The evolutionary dynamics of this sex allocation causes a negative density-dependent effect on population growth and sustains the population size. Sex-specific population dynamics and demography of capercaillie (Tetrao urogallus L.) in a patchy environment. [Extracted from the article]

Intensifying climate change and an increasing need for understanding its impacts on ecological communities places new emphasis on testing environmental stress models (ESMs). Using a prior literature search plus references from a more recent search, I evaluated empirical support for ESMs, focusing on whether consumer pressure on prey decreased (consumer stress model; CSM) or increased (prey stress model; PSM) with increasing environmental stress. Applying the criterion that testing ESMs requires conducting research at multiple sites along environmental stress gradients, the analysis found that CSMs were most frequent, with 'No Effect' and PSMs occurring at low but similar frequencies. This result contrasts to a prior survey in which 'No Effect' studies were most frequent, thus suggesting that consumers are generally more suppressed by stress than prey. Thus, increased climate change‐induced environmental stress seems likely to reduce, not increase impacts of consumers on prey more often than the reverse [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: To examine the different methods currently used in molecular biogeography. Methods of interpreting evolution in space (ancestral‐area algorithms) always find a centre of origin for a group in the region of a paraphyletic basal grade, although regionally restricted basal grades can also be generated by simple vicariance. Current analyses of the timeline of evolution are usually based on the conversion of fossil‐calibrated ages (minimum clade ages) into maximum clade ages by imposing arbitrary, subjective priors. Thus, methods of analysing both space and time in evolution are flawed in theory. They are also inefficient in practice, as indicated by recent papers on the history of the New Caledonian biota, examined here as a case‐study. Work using current methods has left the phenomena as unexplained 'conundrums' and 'enigmas'. Location: New Caledonia and surrounding areas. Taxon: Various plants and animals. Methods: The method favoured here is a synthesis of biogeography and geology. Tectonic features that coincide spatially with phylogenetic breaks (nodes) are identified. Fossils are used to provide estimates of minimum clade age, while the age of the tectonic features provides estimate of actual clade age. If the sequence of nodes in the phylogeny and the chronological sequence of the tectonic events match, a coherent sequence of vicariance events is indicated. Results: Several critical studies on New Caledonian biogeography have been published in the last 5 years. The results from these can be analysed using revised methodology and integrated to give an alternative model of regional history. Main Conclusions: The synthesis of geology and biology suggests a new interpretation of the New Caledonian biota, one in which the key processes are tectonic history, vicariance and metapopulation dynamics, rather than chance dispersal (as a mode of speciation), adaptation and radiation. The new model recognises the autochthonous, Mesozoic roots of many New Caledonian lineages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Expanding on Haeckel's classical definition, ecology can be defined as the study of strong and weak interactions between the organism and the environment, hence the need for identifying strong interactions as major drivers of population and community dynamics. The solution to this problem is facilitated by the fact that the frequency distribution of interaction strengths is highly skewed, resulting in few or, according to Liebig's law of the minimum, just one strong interaction. However, a single strong interaction often remains elusive. One of the reasons may be that, due to the ever‐present dynamics of ecological systems, a single strong interaction is likely to exist only on relatively short time intervals, so methods with sufficient temporal resolution are required. In this paper, we study the temporal resolution of contribution analysis of birth rate in zooplankton, a method to assess the relative strength of bottom‐up (food) versus top‐down (predation) effects. Birth rate is estimated by the Edmondson–Paloheimo model. Our test system is a population of the cladoceran Bosmina longirostris inhabiting a small northern lake with few planktivorous predators, and thus likely controlled by food. We find that the method's temporal resolution in detecting bottom‐up effects corresponds well to the species' generation time, and the latter seems comparable to the lifetime of a single strong interaction. This enables one to capture a single strong interaction "on the fly," right during its time of existence. We suggest that this feature, the temporal resolution of about the lifetime of a single strong interaction, may be a generally desirable property for any method, not only the one studied here, intended to identify and assess strong interactions. Success in disentangling strong interactions in ecological communities, and thus solving one of the key issues in ecology, may critically depend on the temporal resolution of the methods used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collaboration between ecologists and learning scientists can give rise to powerful models for scientific outreach within ecology. This paper presents a process by which learning scientists and ecologists codesigned a science curriculum that invites students to join an ecological community of practice. In the Journey to El Yunque middle school science curriculum, students engage with simulation models generated from data gathered by Luquillo Long Term Ecological Research (LUQ LTER) scientists. Journey to El Yunque students can explore post‐hurricane population changes in yagrumo (Cecropia schreberiana), tabonuco (Dacryodes excelsa), coquís (Eleutherodactylus coquí), snails (Caracolus caracola), anoles (Anolis stratulus and A. gundlachi), veiled stinkhorn mushrooms (Dictyophora indusiata), and caterpillars (Historis odius). Ecology‐based revisions to Journey to El Yunque have included adding models of the effects of repeated hurricanes on limiting factors, based in part on findings from a canopy trimming experiment. Revisions based on classroom testing include simplifying student‐facing model controls to allow students to focus on the essential model components. The ongoing collaboration that keeps the Journey to El Yunque curriculum on the cutting edge of ecological and educational advances has been sustained for over two decades. We attribute the longevity of this work to (1) the long‐term nature of LUQ LTER, (2) a sustained interdisciplinary collaboration, and (3) our long‐term relationships with schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper proposes an alternative cyclical economy based on eco‐villages supporting urban hubs to regenerate rural–urban balance based on public education to support eco‐facturing, to use Gunter Pauli's concept. The paper sketches an alternative cyclical economy based on eco‐villages supporting urban hubs to regenerate rural–urban balance based on eco‐facturing. Australia lost over 40 million acres of habitat and at least a billion creatures during the 2019–2020 bushfire season. Africa and Asia are also rapidly urbanizing and rapidly losing habitat. The paper outlines the way in which we could live differently by understanding that production, consumption and regeneration need to follow a natural ecological approach, rather than the current approach to extracting profit at the expense of future generations. Production and regeneration need to be conducted in ways that do not exploit people and the environment. Exchange practices need to ensure that the interests of the few are not expended at the expense of the many. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the smallest spatial unit in the city, the community should be an important space for healing the urban population. This paper presents a systematic review summarizing studies on community healing environments. The study identified 75 publications. The research findings are as follows: the main intervening variables include restorativeness, emotions and mood, stress, and well‐being. Little attention has been paid to the intervening variables including social support, environmental preferences and satisfaction, place attachment, behavior types that respond to personal will, self‐fulfillment, and the spirit of personal culture. The various types of natural environments in communities have been given focused attention for a long time. However, the superiority of the natural environment should not be a reason to underestimate the healing benefits of community spaces. The mechanisms by which environmental characteristics are transformed into positive individual influences through intervening variables should be explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flood risk to urban communities is increasing significantly as a result of the integrated effects of climate change and socioeconomic development. The latter effect is one of the main drivers of rising flood risk has received less attention in comparison to climate change. Economic development and population growth are major causes of urban expansion in flood‐prone areas, and a comprehensive understanding of the impact of urban growth on flood risk is an essential ingredient of effective flood risk management. At the same time, planning for community resilience has become a national and worldwide imperative in recent years. Enhancements to community resilience require well‐integrated and enormous long‐term public and private investments. Accordingly, comprehensive urban growth plans should take rising flood risk into account to ensure future resilient communities through careful collaboration between engineers, geologists, socialists, economists, and urban planners within the framework of life‐cycle analysis. This paper highlights the importance of including urban growth in accurate future flood risk assessment and how planning for future urbanization should include measurement science‐based strategies in developing policies to achieve more resilient communities. Plain Language Summary: Flood risk has been on the rise due to climate change and rapid increase in populations living in urban cities. The effect of population growth, in particular, on increasing such risk has been evident in recent years as noted in various studies. The recent shift, however, towards ensuring resilient communities following a natural disaster, requires not only risk reduction while accounting for urbanization but also rapid recovery following a flood event. In this paper, we highlight the importance of urban growth to accurate flood risk assessment and show how planning for future urbanization should include quantitative measures of flood impact in developing policies to achieve more resilient communities. Key Points: Urban growth, resulted by socioeconomic development, plays a crucial role on rising future flood riskUrbanization leads to changes in hazard and exposure components of risk in flood risk assessmentCombining urban expansion with the concept of community resilience and planning for future development helps to move towards a resilient community [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The temporal dynamics of biotic communities have been widely examined by ecologists. However, systematic reviews on how habitat features, sampling and data evaluation influence temporal patterns are rather sporadic. Here, we reviewed 307 peer‐reviewed scientific articles to characterize the methods and the approaches, as well as to identify the knowledge gaps in the assessment of the temporal dynamics of freshwater fish assemblages with special regard to their stability patterns. The number of publications increased exponentially over decades. We revealed a highly uneven distribution of the studies among continents and ecosystems with a dominant number of papers derived from North America and Europe, and from lotic systems, especially. We also found large variability among studies even within similar habitat types in the examined spatial and temporal scales, sampling methods used, examined assemblage attributes, potential stressors and data analyses. Several knowledge gaps, such as the limited number of large‐scale studies, the insufficient knowledge on the long‐term dynamics of early life history stages and on trait‐based assemblage organization, were highlighted. For enabling meaningful comparisons of fish assemblage dynamics in space and time, further developments in standardization procedures are needed across sampling and data evaluation possibilities. Publicly accessible long‐term data sets with more details on sampling and environmental parameters would also be critically important to determine the effect of a variety of factors on the stability vs. variability of fish assemblages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]