The survival of Atlantic salmon ( Salmo salar) , an increasingly rare anadromous species, has declined dramatically during its marine phase, with disproportionate impacts on the poorly understood early post‐smolt period. Logistical constraints on collecting oceanic data to inform this issue pose a formidable obstacle. To advance understanding of post‐smolt distributional ecology in the North‐east Atlantic, a comprehensive anal...

Periprosthetic infection (PPI) is a devastating complication in joint replacement surgery. On the background of an aging population, the number of joint replacements and associated complications is expected to increase. The capability for biofilm formation and the increasing resistance of different microbes to antibiotics have complicated the treatment of PPI, requiring the need for the development of alternative treatment opt...

Aim We mapped the geographical pattern of body sizes in sphingid moths and investigated latitudinal clines. We tested hypotheses concerning their possible environmental control, that is, effects of temperature (negative: temperature size rule or Bergmann's rule; positive: converse Bergmann rule), food availability, robustness to starvation during extreme weather and seasonality. Location Old World and Australia/Pacific region....

Aim We test hypotheses on the environmental control of elevational richness patterns of sphingid moths for their global applicability and generality. Specifically, we compare effects of area with climate‐related drivers, such as primary productivity and temperature, while also considering direct effects of precipitation. Major taxa Sphingid moths (Lepidoptera). Location Eighty‐six mountain ranges of the Old World and the Austr...

Aim Online species distribution data, global or regional, are increasingly used in biodiversity studies although data limitations have been reported. We explore, for the two major databanks in our research region, how incomplete data are at a large taxonomic and geographic scale, how it is affected by spatial grain, and to what degree it affects inference from analyses of richness or turnover and the environment. Location Chin...

Aim Species richness is often strongly correlated with climate. The most commonly invoked mechanism for this climate‐richness relationship is the more‐individuals‐hypothesis ( MIH ), which predicts a cascading positive influence of climate on plant productivity, food resources, total number of individuals, and species richness. We test for a climate‐richness relationship and an underlying MIH mechanism, as well as testing comp...

Aim To map the spatial variation of range sizes within sphingid moths, and to test hypotheses on its environmental control. In particular, we investigate effects of climate change velocity since the Pleistocene and the mid‐Holocene, temperature and precipitation seasonality, topography, Pleistocene ice cover, and available land area. Location Old World and Australasia, excluding smaller islands. Methods We used fine‐grained ra...

Aims We aim to document elevational richness patterns of geometrid moths in a globally replicated, multi‐gradient setting, and to test general hypotheses on environmental and spatial effects (i.e. productivity, temperature, precipitation, area, mid‐domain effect and human habitat disturbance) on these richness patterns. Location Twenty‐six elevational gradients world‐wide (latitudes 28° S to 51° N). Methods We compiled field d...

We introduce a novel framework for conceptualising, quantifying and unifying discordant patterns of species richness along geographical gradients. While not itself explicitly mechanistic, this approach offers a path towards understanding mechanisms. In this study, we focused on the diverse patterns of species richness on mountainsides. We conjectured that elevational range midpoints of species may be drawn towards a single mid...

Aim Studies of species turnover commonly assume that turnover is a critical determinant of species richness patterns. But the concordance in patterns of turnover and species richness along gradients is poorly known. Here we characterize elevational patterns of species turnover and test whether turnover and species richness are strongly related. Location Sixty‐two elevation gradients world‐wide, from 17° S to 43° N . Methods We...

Aim Spatial environmental heterogeneity ( EH ) is an important driver of species richness, affecting species coexistence, persistence and diversification. EH has been widely studied in ecology and evolution and quantified in many different ways, with a strong bias towards a few common measures of EH like elevation range. Here, we calculate 51 measures of EH within grid cells world‐wide across three spatial grains to investigat...

Aim Many taxa, especially invertebrates, remain biogeographically highly understudied and even baseline assessments are missing, with too limited and heterogeneous sampling being key reasons. Here we set out to assess the human geographic and associated environmental factors behind inventory completeness for the hawkmoths of A frica. We aim to separate the causes of differential sampling from those affecting gradients of speci...

Aims We examine the role of species–area relationships (SARs), climatic parameters and phylogeny in shaping the altitudinal species richness patterns of moths. With respect to SARs, we investigate whether habitat heterogeneity is a probable mechanism for mediating area effects. We investigate the consistency of patterns by comparing several discrete regions. Location Nine mountainous regions in tropical Asia and the Malay Arch...