Open oak woodlands, once dominant across the Central Hardwoods Region of the United States, have been largely replaced by dense, closed-canopy forests following decades of fire suppression and land-use change. Silvopasture, the intentional integration of trees, forages, and livestock, may offer economic incentives for private landowners to restore these degraded woodlands while producing marketable livestock. Targeted goat bro...

Shortleaf pine has the broadest range of the southern pine species, occurring in 22 states and extending north into New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York (Staten Island). Shortleaf pine has been understudied compared to loblolly pine and longleaf pine, typically favored for timber production and conservation value, respectively. The extensive range of shortleaf pine contributes to a high degree of variability within and among...

The Southern Ocean is warming more rapidly than other parts of our planet. How this region's endemic biodiversity will respond to such changes can be illuminated by studying past events through genetic analyses of time‐series data sets, including historic and fossil remains. Archaeological and subfossil remains show that the southern elephant seal ( Mirounga leonina ) was common along the coasts of Australia and New Zealand in...

In a changing environment, vacant niches can be filled either by adaptation of local taxa or range‐expanding invading species. The relative tempo of these patterns is of key interest in the modern age of climate change. Aotearoa New Zealand has been a hotspot of biogeographic research for decades due to its long‐term isolation and dramatic geological history. An island with high levels of faunal endemicity, it is a system well...

Lynch syndrome (LS; HNPCC) patients carry heterozygous pathogenic germline variants in mismatch repair (MMR) genes, which have also been shown to play an important role in meiosis. Therefore, it was hypothesized, that LS might be associated with a higher risk for premature ovarian failure (POF) or earlier menopause. Data on medical gynaecological history, cancer diagnoses and therapy were collected from 167 female LS patients...

The giant kelp Macrocystis pyrifera is in global decline as a result of numerous stressors operating on both local and global scales. It is a species that holds significant value in terms of the ecosystem services that it provides and its application in aquaculture. In order to safeguard, restore and utilize this species, it is essential that a sound understanding of genetic structure and diversity is established at scales rel...

The spread of nonindigenous species by shipping is a large and growing global problem that harms coastal ecosystems and economies and may blur coastal biogeographical patterns. This study coupled eukaryotic environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding with dissimilarity regression to test the hypothesis that ship‐borne species spread homogenizes port communities. We first collected and metabarcoded water samples from ports in Europe...

Grassland and other herbaceous communities cover significant portions of Earth's terrestrial surface and provide many critical services, such as carbon sequestration, wildlife habitat, and food production. Forecasts of global change impacts on these services will require predictive tools, such as process‐based dynamic vegetation models. Yet, model representation of herbaceous communities and ecosystems lags substantially behin...

Key Message Several Fusarium wilt resistance genes were discovered, genetically and physically mapped, and rapidly deployed via marker-assisted selection to develop cultivars resistant to Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. fragariae , a devastating soil-borne pathogen of strawberry . Abstract Fusarium wilt, a soilborne disease caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. fragariae , poses a significant threat to strawberry ( Fragaria $$\times$$...

Seventy five percent of the world's food crops benefit from insect pollination. Hence, there has been increased interest in how global change drivers impact this critical ecosystem service. Because standardized data on crop pollination are rarely available, we are limited in our capacity to understand the variation in pollination benefits to crop yield, as well as to anticipate changes in this service, develop predictions, and...

Climate warming, in particular in island environments, where opportunities for species to disperse are limited, may become a serious threat to cold adapted alpine species. In order to understand how alpine species may respond to a warming world, we need to understand the drivers that have shaped their habitat specialisation and the evolutionary adaptations that allow them to utilize alpine habitats. The endemic, endangered New...

Despite its successes, the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) has proven challenging to implement due to funding limitations, workload backlog, and other problems. As threats to species survival intensify and as more species come under threat, the need for the ESA and similar conservation laws and policies in other countries to function efficiently has grown. Attempts by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to streamline...

Island ecosystems can be severely affected by climate change as they provide limited opportunities for species to track their habitat. Studying the population dynamics of keystone species from these ecosystems can shed a light on climate – ecosystem interactions. Southern beeches are such keystone species in New Zealand with beech forests constituting the most abundant forest cover on the two main islands. Here we use 2.4 kilo...