Aim Large databases of species records such as those generated through citizen science projects, archives or museum collections are being used with increasing frequency in species distribution modelling (SDM) for conservation and land management. Despite the broad spatial and temporal coverage of the data, its application is often limited by the issue of sampling bias and consequently, zero inflation; there are more zeros (whi...

Determining the life-history consequences for fishes living in extreme and variable environments will be vital in predicting the likely impacts of ongoing climate change on reef fish demography. Here, we compare size-at-age and maximum body size of two common reef fish species ( Lutjanus ehrenbergii and Pomacanthus maculosus ) between the environmentally extreme Arabian/Persian Gulf (‘Arabian Gulf’) and adjacent comparably ben...

Ancient, veteran and notable trees are ecologically important keystone organisms and have tangible connections to folklore, history and sociocultural practices. Although found worldwide, few countries have such a rich history of recording and treasuring these trees as the UK, with its extensive Royal and aristocratic land ownership, unique land management methods and long-standing interest in natural history and species record...

Identification of conservation priorities is essential for conservation planning, especially as the biodiversity crisis develops. We aimed to support conservation prioritisation by addressing knowledge gaps for the genus Aloe in the Horn of Africa. Specifically, we developed a dataset of herbarium voucher specimens and occurrence data to estimate geographic distribution of 88 species of Aloe and used this to estimate extinctio...

Summary Populations of genetically uniform microorganisms exhibit phenotypic heterogeneity, where individual cells have varying phenotypes. Such phenotypes include fitness‐determining traits. Phenotypic heterogeneity has been linked to increased population‐level fitness in laboratory studies, but its adaptive significance for wild microorganisms in the natural environment is unknown. Here, we addressed this by testing heteroge...

Aim Identifying areas of high species richness is an important goal of conservation biogeography. In this study we compared alternative methods for generating climate‐based estimates of spatial patterns of butterfly and mammal species richness. Location Egypt. Methods Data on the occurrence of butterflies and mammals in Egypt were taken from an electronic database compiled from museum records and the literature. Using M axent...