COVID-19 is an emerging respiratory infectious disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. It was first reported on in early December 2019 in Wuhan, China and within three months spread as a pandemic around the whole globe. Here, we study …
Predator–prey cycles rank among the most fundamental concepts in ecology, are predicted by the simplest ecological models and enable, theoretically, the indefinite persistence of predator and prey. However, it remains an open question for how long cyclic dynamics can be self-sustained in real communities. Field observations have been restricted to a few cycle periods and experimental studies indicate that oscillations may be short-lived without external stabilizing factors. Here we performed microcosm experiments with a planktonic predator–prey system and repeatedly observed oscillatory time series of unprecedented length that persisted for up to around 50 cycles or approximately 300 predator generations.
The shapes of phytoplankton units (unicellular organisms and colonies) are extremely diverse, and no unique relationship exists between their volume, V, and longest linear dimension, L. However, an approximate scaling between these parameters can be …
Regular, long-distance migrations of thousands of animal species have consequences for the ecosystems that they visit, modifying trophic interactions and transporting many non-pathogenic and pathogenic organisms. The spatial structure and dynamic …
Reduced nitrogen species are key nutrients for biological productivity in the oceans. Ammonium is often present in low and growth-limiting concentrations, albeit peaks occur during collapse of algal blooms or via input from deep sea upwelling and …
1. Global concern about human impact on biological diversity has triggered an intense research agenda on drivers and consequences of biodiversity change in parallel with international policy seeking to conserve biodiversity and associated ecosystem …
Our ability to predict the identity of future invasive alien species is largely based upon knowledge of prior invasion history. Emerging alien species—those never before encountered as aliens—therefore pose a significant challenge to biosecurity interventions worldwide. Using a global database of the first regional records of alien species covering the years 1500–2005 we detected a surprisingly high proportion of species in recent records that have never been recorded as alien before. The high proportion of these emerging alien species mainly resulted from the increased accessibility of new source species pools in the native range. Risk assessment approaches that rely less on invasion history will need to be prioritized.
Biological invasions are a worldwide phenomenon, but the global flows between native and alien regions have rarely been investigated in a cross‐taxonomic study. We therefore lack a thorough understanding of the global patterns of alien species …