The Mesolithic period has a long history of study in the Cantabrian region (Northern Iberia) due to the relatively high concentration of human remains dating to this period. Previous analysis of stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes focussed on bone collagen, useful in broadly characterising Mesolithic diet, and particularly in identifying distinct inland and coastal diets. But this long-term average view does not permit the stu...

Aim Plant functional traits can influence interaction outcomes between nurse and target plants through a “functional trait match”, which occurs when the traits of nurse plants ameliorate their environment, and target plants possess traits that allow them to benefit from this ameliorated environment. We investigated how the traits of putative nurse species affect interaction outcomes across global drylands and determined the fu...

Urbanisation and urban sprawl are major drivers of global habitat transformation and biodiversity loss. Natural vegetation in urban areas is confined to remnant patches and, as a result, the conservation of these patches of vegetation is becoming increasingly important for biodiversity conservation. Globally grasslands experience high rates of transformation and are threatened by expanding urban areas, causing fragmentation, a...

Addressing the challenge biological invasions pose to island biodiversity is pivotal to achieving Target 6 of the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. Using a suite of 24 indicators, we evaluated the current status of biological invasions and their management on the Prince Edward Islands, South Africa’s sub-Antarctic territories, and provide recommendations for management. There are 45 established alien taxa on Mari...

Mountainous regions typically harbour high plant diversity but are also characterised by low sampling intensity. Coarse-scale species distribution models can provide insights into the distribution of poorly sampled species, but the required bioclimatic data are often limited in these landscapes. In comparison, several environmental factors that vary over relatively fine scales in mountain environments (e.g. measures of topogra...

Dispersal influences many key aspects of plant ecology at both fine- and broad scales. However, dispersal events are challenging to quantify as they are difficult to observe and measure accurately, despite the importance of understanding species’ dispersal capacity. In this study, we quantified dispersal estimates for the dominant vascular flora of sub-Antarctic Marion Island, using a mechanistic model to estimate dispersal po...