Key message A dense genome-wide meta-analysis provides new QTLs, reveals breeding history trends and identifies new candidate genes for yield, plant height, grain weight, and heading time of spring barley. Abstract This study contributes new knowledge on quantitative trait loci (QTLs) and candidate genes for adaptive traits and yield in two-rowed spring barley. A meta-analysis of a network of field trials, varying in latitude...

Identifying and analysing isolated populations is critical for conservation. Isolation can make populations vulnerable to local extinction due to increased genetic drift and inbreeding, both of which should leave imprints of decreased genome‐wide heterozygosity. While decreases in heterozygosity among populations are frequently investigated, fewer studies have analysed how heterozygosity varies among individuals, including whe...

There is an urgent need for countries to transition their national food and land-use systems toward food and nutritional security, climate stability, and environmental integrity. How can countries satisfy their demands while jointly delivering the required transformative change to achieve global sustainability targets? Here, we present a collaborative approach developed with the FABLE—Food, Agriculture, Biodiversity, Land, and...

Countries’ historical contributions to climate change have been on the agenda for more than two decades and will most likely continue to be an element in future international discussions and negotiations on climate. Previous studies have quantified the historical contributions to climate change across a range of choices and assumptions. In contrast, we quantify how historical contributions to changes in global mean surface tem...

Following nineteenth-century declines, polecats Mustela putorius are recolonising Great Britain. Polecat diet relates to two potential risks to recovery. First, rabbits Oryctolagus cuniculus , which are important prey for polecats, have experienced extreme population fluctuations, with near extirpation due to myxomatosis in the 1950s, recovery in 1960s–1990s and declines in 1990s–2010s. Second, polecats are secondarily exposed...

Hette‐Tronquart (2019, Ecol. Lett.) raises three concerns about our interpretation of stable isotope data in Sheppard et al . (2018, Ecol. Lett., 21, 665). We feel that these concerns are based on comparisons that are unreasonable or ignore the ecological context from which the data were collected. Stable isotope ratios provide a quantitative indication of, rather than being exactly equivalent to, trophic niche.

Individual foraging specialisation has important ecological implications, but its causes in group‐living species are unclear. One of the major consequences of group living is increased intragroup competition for resources. Foraging theory predicts that with increased competition, individuals should add new prey items to their diet, widening their foraging niche (‘optimal foraging hypothesis’). However, classic competition theo...