Ecosystem ecology articles from across Nature Portfolio

Insect airborne communication, especially sex pheromone signaling, is vulnerable to anthropogenic air pollution, according to an integrated model of gas phase oxidation and gas-to-aerosol partitioning.

Using remote sensing data, spatial modelling and counterfactual scenarios, this analysis reveals a positive relationship between forest patch size and productivity. This implies that preserving many small forest patches may not offset the carbon losses from larger contiguous forests.

Trees with different mycorrhizal types show distinct root exudation rates and trait associations. Here the authors report that mycorrhizal type modifies the position of root exudation within the root economics space, revealing contrasting nutrient acquisition strategies.

The carbon sink of tropical forests is in part constrained by biomass turnover. This study assesses aboveground biomass turnover in the Amazon and finds that convective storms are the main driver of spatial variation in turnover and future climate impacts will lead to accelerated biomass turnover.

Observation-constrained climate models indicate that canopy temperatures will warm more than air temperatures by 2100, leading to underestimation of vegetation thermal stress when using air temperature alone, particularly in regions with increasing atmospheric dryness.

Rice is a staple food for many households; however, its cultivation can expose farming families to parasitic diseases such as schistosomiasis via freshwater snails. The authors examine how integrating native fish into rice fields can suppress snail hosts, boost yields and improve farmer livelihoods.

Sport holds profound global social influence, yet its systemic environmental footprint is often overlooked in sustainable development governance. Although environmental initiatives have proliferated in professional sport, many remain limited to public relations—fragmented, symbolic, and inadequate to tackle structural challenges. To facilitate a transition, a scientific framework is needed that offers coherent, verifiable pathways, bridging the gap between isolated sport initiatives and the broader systems of global environmental governance.

By leveraging a spatially representative dataset that comprises more than 300,000 trees from 3,396 natural forest plots, we fill crucial knowledge gaps regarding fine-grained spatial patterns, driving mechanisms and the future potential of tree species richness and structural diversity in China’s natural forests.

We showed the robustness of space-for-time substitutions in approximating temporal biodiversity responses of German grasslands to land-use intensification, which is a major driver of biodiversity decline. Our research calls for more standardized temporal data to fine-tune approximated biodiversity trends.

Climate change is disrupting the seasonal rhythms of soil life, which governs how plant carbon is transformed, stabilized, or lost. This Comment argues that a focus on the temporal coordination between above- and belowground biota is critical to sustaining resilient soil carbon sinks in a warming world.

Nature-based climate solutions tend to overlook Africa’s diverse contexts and development priorities. We propose six guiding principles centred on the aspirations of African peoples, recognizing the cultural connection of communities to their environments and the role of biodiversity in sustaining livelihoods and identities.

Nearly one-third of the global shoreline is in the Arctic, a region undergoing some of the most rapid warming and substantial environmental transitions due to climate change. While Arctic research has largely focused on terrestrial and open-ocean systems, there is now an urgent need to focus on the unique challenges associated with changing coastal ecosystems.