Biological Communities Research Articles

Macrobenthic Assemblages and the Influence of Microhabitat in a High-Mountain Lake (Northwest Italy)

High-mountain lakes are freshwater ecosystems situated above the tree line which are known for their remote locations and limited accessibility. These ecosystems host simplified biotic communities primarily concentrated in the littoral zone and dominated by benthic macroinvertebrates that serve as bioindicators of environmental pressures. A two-year monitoring investigation was performed in July 2022 and July 2023 at Nero Lake (Cesana Torinese, Northwest Italy). Five sites along the lakeshore were selected for sampling physicochemical water parameters and macrobenthos. All collected data were analysed to compare trends across years and within specific sites. The results revealed that Nero Lake exhibited consistent macrobenthic communities across the two years studied, but significant differences were observed in its microhabitats. This suggests that substrate type and physicochemical water parameters strongly influence community composition. Chironomidae larvae and Mollusca were the dominant species, showing distinct associations with different substrates and environmental factors from one year to another. These findings contribute to our understanding of the intricate relationships between benthic macroinvertebrates and their environments, highlighting the necessity of detailed, small-scale assessments to comprehend ecosystem dynamics and develop effective conservation strategies.

Multiple stressors affecting microbial decomposer and litter decomposition in restored urban streams: Assessing effects of salinization, increased temperature, and reduced flow velocity in a field mesocosm experiment

A multitude of anthropogenic stressors impact biological communities and ecosystem processes in urban streams. Prominent among them are salinization, increased temperature, and altered flow regimes, all of which can affect microbial decomposer communities and litter decomposition, a fundamental ecosystem process in streams. Impairments caused by these stressors individually or in combination and recovery of communities and ecosystem processes after release from these stressors are not well understood. To improve our understanding of multiple stressors impacts we performed an outdoor stream mesocosm experiment with 64 experimental units to assess the response of microbial litter decomposers and decomposition. The three stressors we applied in a full-factorial design were increased salinity (NaCl addition, 0.53 mS cm−1 above ambient), elevated temperature (3.5 °C above ambient), and reduced flow velocity (3.5 vs 14.2 cm s−1). After two weeks of stressor exposure (first sampling) and two subsequent weeks of recovery (second sampling), we determined leaf-associated microbial respiration, fungal biomass, and the sporulation activity and community composition of aquatic hyphomycetes in addition to decomposition rates of black alder (Alnus glutinosa) leaves confined in fine-mesh litter bags. Microbial colonization of the litter was accompanied by significant mass loss in all mesocosms. However, there was little indication that mass loss, microbial respiration, fungal biomass, sporulation rate or community composition of aquatic hyphomycetes was strongly affected by either single stressors or their interactions. Two exceptions were temperature effects on sporulation and decomposition rate. Similarly, no notable differences among mesocosms were observed after the recovery phase. These results suggest that microbial decomposers and leaf litter decomposition are either barely impaired by exposure to the tested stressors at the levels applied in our experiment, or that communities in restored urban streams are well adapted to cope with these stressor levels.

The Responses of Soil Nitrogen Transformations to Rainfall Reduction Mainly Occurred in the Early Growing‐Season in a Temperate Meadow

AbstractDrought is expected to increase in temperate regions in the coming decades due to global climate change and will strongly affect nitrogen (N) transformation and balance. However, the underlying mechanisms (soil microenvironment vs. biotic community) of rainfall reduction induced changes in soil N transformation rates, and whether the responses of soil N transformation rates to rainfall reduction vary over time remains poorly understood. In this study, we experimentally examined rainfall reduction effects on soil N transformation rates over two (the second and third experimental years) growing‐seasons in a temperate meadow. We applied four treatments: ambient rainfall, 30%, 50%, and 70% reduction in rainfall. Our findings demonstrated that, 70% rainfall reduction significantly decreased the average net N mineralization and nitrification rates by 68.4% and 72.0%, respectively. Soil nitrous oxide emission was profoundly varied between the experimental years, with it was sensitive no only to changes in annual precipitation amount, but also to seasonal distribution, the highest emissions appeared at the early growing‐season. Moreover, plant diversity, microbial biomass, and soil NO3−‐N content mainly regulated soil N transformation rates in response to rainfall reduction in the greater annual precipitation year; but soil N transformation rates were mainly controlled by soil water content in the less annual precipitation year. We suggest that to accurately project future ecosystem functions and improving the prediction of N cycling responses to changing precipitation patterns, stronger focus should be allocated not only to changes in precipitation amounts, but also to inter‐ and intra‐annual differences in precipitation distribution.

Unraveling ecological signals related to the MECO onset through planktic and benthic foraminiferal records along a mixed carbonate-siliciclastic shallow-water succession

The shallow-water Capo Mortola succession (Liguria, NW Italy) yields diverse assemblages of smaller benthic and planktic foraminifera, larger benthic foraminifera (LBF), and calcareous nannofossils. With the aim of improving the understanding of the Middle Eocene Climatic Optimum (MECO) impact on the shallow-water marine biotic communities due to global warming, we provide biostratigraphic and stable isotope data to achieve a reliable stratigraphic constraint of the MECO. The correlation of the stable isotope oxygen data with datasets of similar age from other regions suggests that only the onset of the MECO interval is recorded in the Capo Mortola section. Quantitative analyses of smaller benthic foraminiferal assemblages indicate that the shallow-water setting of Capo Mortola was not particularly affected by the onset of the MECO perturbance because no variation in nutrient supply or oxygen level were detected. A different scenario is recorded by the LBF genera Operculina and Discocyclina, which increased in abundance across the MECO onset, probably due to a rise in temperature and adapting to the increase in nutrient supply. In the upper water column, the variations in calcareous plankton communities appear to be controlled by both the MECO warming and a moderate increase in eutrophic conditions related to the enhanced hydrological cycle. Nutrients, mostly consumed in the upper water column, reached the seafloor in a limited amount, as benthic foraminifera record a meso-oligotrophic environment across the studied MECO interval.

Dispersal limitation and environmental filtering effects: The taxonomic and functional beta diversity of ground beetles along the altitudinal gradient in Chinese warm-temperature forests.

Beta diversity patterns along environmental gradients and underlying mechanisms constitute key research inquiries in biogeography. However, ecological processes often also influence the functional traits of biological communities, making the assessment of functional β-diversity crucial. Ground beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) are one of the most species-rich groups in the insect community, displaying strong habitat specificity and morphological differences. In this study, we explored the patterns of taxonomic and functional beta diversity in ground beetle communities along the altitudinal gradient of warm-temperature forests. By partitioning beta diversity into turnover and nestedness components, we evaluated their relationship with spatial distance. Our findings indicate a decline in species and functional trait similarity with increasing elevation and geographic distance. Further analysis attributed both types of beta diversity in carabids to a combination of dispersal limitation and environmental filtering, with elevation and geographic distance emerging as significant factors. Interestingly, forest-type variations were found to have no impact on the beta diversity of these communities. Our study reveals the impact of environmental filtering and dispersal limitation on both taxonomic and functional beta-diversity, shedding light on carabid community assembly in localized warm-temperature forest areas in eastern China.

Environmental indicators of lake ecosystem health in Aotearoa New Zealand: current state and trends

Assessments of lake ecosystem health, based on indicators of physical–chemical water quality, ecological conditions, and human health risks, are needed to apprise the public and facilitate lake management. While unrefereed lake water quality reports exist, this is the first peer-reviewed study to report data processing and analysis methods and results for current state and recent trends in multiple environmental indicators in monitored lakes across Aotearoa New Zealand. Lake grading based on national criteria indicated that many lakes are failing to achieve statutory bottom lines for phytoplankton chlorophyll a, total nitrogen, and total phosphorus concentrations. In contrast, most monitored lakes had high grades for two human health risk indicators, E. coli and cyanobacteria concentrations, and for potential toxicity of ammonia for biological communities. We included 166 lakes and considered indicator state and trends for two lake classifications based on geomorphology and land cover. Elevated scores for an indicator of trophic state (the trophic level index; TLI) in most shoreline, riverine, peat, landslide, dam, and aeolian lakes indicated eutrophic conditions or worse. Lower TLI scores were indicative of oligotrophic conditions in most glacial lakes. Nutrient, E. coli and suspended sediment concentrations and TLI scores were positively correlated, and Secchi depths negatively correlated, with high-intensity agricultural land cover. Ten-year trend analyses indicated that lakes with increasing Secchi disk depth, chlorophyll a, dissolved reactive phosphorus, E. coli, ammoniacal nitrogen, TLI, total nitrogen, and total suspended solids trends outnumbered those with decreasing trends. Twenty-year trend analyses indicated that the numbers of lakes with increasing and decreasing trends in most of the indicators we assessed were comparable, but lakes with increasing 20-year trends in total nitrogen outnumbered those with decreasing trends, and lakes with decreasing 20-year trends in ammoniacal nitrogen, dissolved reactive phosphorus, total phosphorus, and nitrate nitrogen outnumbered those with increasing trends. This study presents clear data processing steps and trend analysis methods as applied to a nationwide dataset for Aotearoa New Zealand, while acknowledging data limitations. For example, the choice of trend periods is challenging and can greatly affect conclusions. The results of this empirical study and the collective results of preceding studies of lake ecosystem health indicate that eutrophication poses a threat to the ecological health of many if not most lakes in Aotearoa New Zealand. Recommendations include monitoring network expansion especially for the indicators bottom dissolved oxygen and cyanobacteria (toxic and total cyanobacteria biovolumes) and judicious selection of trend periods in lake-specific trend analyses to determine causes for increasing or decreasing trends in environmental indicators.

Systems Biology in ELIXIR: modelling in the spotlight.

In this white paper, we describe the founding of a new ELIXIR Community - the Systems Biology Community - and its proposed future contributions to both ELIXIR and the broader community of systems biologists in Europe and worldwide. The Community believes that the infrastructure aspects of systems biology - databases, (modelling) tools and standards development, as well as training and access to cloud infrastructure - are not only appropriate components of the ELIXIR infrastructure, but will prove key components of ELIXIR's future support of advanced biological applications and personalised medicine. By way of a series of meetings, the Community identified seven key areas for its future activities, reflecting both future needs and previous and current activities within ELIXIR Platforms and Communities. These are: overcoming barriers to the wider uptake of systems biology; linking new and existing data to systems biology models; interoperability of systems biology resources; further development and embedding of systems medicine; provisioning of modelling as a service; building and coordinating capacity building and training resources; and supporting industrial embedding of systems biology. A set of objectives for the Community has been identified under four main headline areas: Standardisation and Interoperability, Technology, Capacity Building and Training, and Industrial Embedding. These are grouped into short-term (3-year), mid-term (6-year) and long-term (10-year) objectives.

Real-time biological early-warning system based on freshwater mussels’ valvometry data

Abstract. Quantifying the effects of external climatic and anthropogenic stressors on aquatic ecosystems is an important task for scientific purposes and management progress in the field of water resources. In this study, we propose an innovative use of biotic communities as real-time indicators, which offers a promising solution to directly quantify the impact of these external stressors on the aquatic ecosystem health. Specifically, we investigated the influence of natural river floods on riverine biotic communities using freshwater mussels (FMs) as reliable biosensors. Using the valvometry technique, we monitored the valve gaping of FMs and analysed both the amplitude and frequency. The valve movement of the FMs was tracked by installing a magnet on one valve and a Hall effect sensor on the other valve. The magnetic field between the magnet and the sensor was recorded using an Arduino board, and its changes over time were normalised to give the opening percentage of the FMs (how open the mussels were). The recorded data were then analysed using continuous wavelet transform (CWT) analysis to study the time-dependent frequency of the signals. The experiments were carried out both in a laboratory flume and in the Paglia River (Italy). The laboratory experiments were conducted with FMs in two configurations: freely moving on the bed and immobilised on vertical rods. Testing of the immobilised configuration was necessary because the same configuration was used in the field in order to prevent FMs from packing against the downstream wall of the protection cage during floods or from breaking their connection wires. These experiments allowed us to verify that immobilised mussels show similar responses to abrupt changes in flow conditions as free mussels. Moreover, immobilised mussels produced more neat and interpretable signals than free-moving mussels due to the reduced number of features resulting from movement constraints. We then analysed the response of 13 immobilised mussels under real river conditions during a flood on 31 March 2022. The FMs in the field showed a rapid and significant change in valve gap frequency as the flood escalated, confirming the general behaviour observed in the laboratory in the presence of an abrupt increase in the flow. These results highlight the effectiveness of using FMs as biosensors for the timely detection of environmental stressors related to natural floods and emphasise the utility of CWT as a powerful signal-processing tool for the analysis of valvometry data. The study proposes the integration of FM valvometry and CWT for the development of operational real-time biological early-warning systems (BEWSs) with the aim of monitoring and protecting aquatic ecosystems. Future research should focus on extending the investigation of the responsiveness of FMs to specific stressors (e.g. turbidity, temperature, and chemicals) and on testing the applications of the proposed BEWSs to quantify the impact of both natural stressors (e.g. heat waves and droughts) and anthropogenic stressors (e.g. hydropeaking, reservoir flushing, and chemical contamination).

Using unstructured crowd-sourced data to evaluate urban tolerance of terrestrial native animal species within a California Mega-City.

In response to biodiversity loss and biotic community homogenization in urbanized landscapes, there are increasing efforts to conserve and increase biodiversity within urban areas. Accordingly, around the world, previously extirpated species are (re)colonizing and otherwise infiltrating urban landscapes, while other species are disappearing from these landscapes. Tracking the occurrence of traditionally urban intolerant species and loss of traditionally urban tolerant species should be a management goal of urban areas, but we generally lack tools to study this phenomenon. To address this gap, we first used species' occurrences from iNaturalist, a large collaborative dataset of species observations, to calculate an urban association index (UAI) for 967 native animal species that occur in the city of Los Angeles. On average, the occurrence of native species was negatively associated with our composite measure of urban intensity, with the exception of snails and slugs, which instead occur more frequently in areas of increased urban intensity. Next, we assessed 8,348 0.25 x 0.25 mile grids across the City of Los Angeles to determine the average grid-level UAI scores (i.e., a summary of the UAIs present in a grid cell, which we term Community Urban Tolerance Index or CUTI). We found that areas of higher urban intensity host more urban tolerant species, but also that taxonomic groups differ in their aggregate tolerance of urban areas, and that spatial patterns of tolerance vary between groups. The framework established here has been designed to be iteratively reevaluated by city managers of Los Angeles in order to track the progress of initiatives to preserve and encourage urban biodiversity, but can be rescaled to sample different regions within the city or different cities altogether to provide a valuable tool for city managers globally.

Структура и динамика гидробиоценозов (фитоперифитон, зоопланктон, зообентос) рек Карельского побережья Белого моря.

This paper summarizes the results of the studies of biota structural organization and dynamics of small rivers of the Karelian White Sea coast. The chemical features and the structure of biological communities in the watercourses were investigated. Analysis of the species composition, abundance and biomass of phytoperiphyton, zooplankton, and zoobenthos was carried out. Variations in the structure of aquatic communities primarily are due to specific hydrographic and hydrological characteristics of river stretches. The paper discusses the main principles of the changes in a structure and functioning of hydrobiont communities in rivers. The trophic status of the rivers, their saprobiological state, and the significance of individual communities and biotic indices for bioindication of the ecological state of the rivers,are estimated. We concluded that the consideration of three groups of organisms enables a more comprehensive and reliable monitoring than the assessment based on a single group.

SBMLToolkit.jl: a Julia package for importing SBML into the SciML ecosystem.

Julia is a general purpose programming language that was designed for simplifying and accelerating numerical analysis and computational science. In particular the Scientific Machine Learning (SciML) ecosystem of Julia packages includes frameworks for high-performance symbolic-numeric computations. It allows users to automatically enhance high-level descriptions of their models with symbolic preprocessing and automatic sparsification and parallelization of computations. This enables performant solution of differential equations, efficient parameter estimation and methodologies for automated model discovery with neural differential equations and sparse identification of nonlinear dynamics. To give the systems biology community easy access to SciML, we developed SBMLToolkit.jl. SBMLToolkit.jl imports dynamic SBML models into the SciML ecosystem to accelerate model simulation and fitting of kinetic parameters. By providing computational systems biologists with easy access to the open-source Julia ecosystevnm, we hope to catalyze the development of further Julia tools in this domain and the growth of the Julia bioscience community. SBMLToolkit.jl is freely available under the MIT license. The source code is available at https://github.com/SciML/SBMLToolkit.jl.

Anthropogenic activities decrease functional richness over time, but not other functional aspects of the fish community in a tropical bay

Functional diversity can be used to help understanding the processes shaping biological communities and the effects of human disturbances on the ecosystem's services. Untangling these biological processes is crucial to apply effective policies aiming the biodiversity conservation. Temporal changes (1983–1985, 1999–2001 and 2017–2019) in five functional indices (functional richness, divergence, evenness, specialization and originality) of the fish communities in two zones (inner and outer) of shallow areas in a tropical bay heavily human-impacted in recent decades were evaluated. The tested hypothesis was that functional indices decrease over time, because of the environmental degradation. A substantial decrease in species richness and abundance in the more recent periods (1999–2002 and 2017–2019) compared to 1983–1985 was observed. However, the functional structure remained relatively stable, with the exception of functional richness that showed a significant decrease over time. The apparent stability in the other functional indices may be due to the presence of dominant and functionally redundant species over time that compensates for the loss of species while maintaining similar functions. It was also discovered that decreases in fish richness in shallow bay areas result in losses in functional richness, with resident fish and benthivorous species being the most affected by environmental degradation. By employing a comprehensive approach that integrates the use of functional indices and taxonomic diversity to assess temporal changes in the fish community, it provides a broader understanding of ecological processes. Such insights could prove invaluable in guiding the implementation of conservation strategies.

Evaluation of Algal Control Measures in Eutrophic Reservoirs Based on Aquatic Ecosystem Models

The frequency of freshwater cyanobacterial blooms is increasing globally due to climate change and eutrophication, particularly in reservoirs. Reservoir ecosystems exhibit unique characteristics, and there is a complex relationship between factors such as light, temperature, nutrient salts, hydrology, and algal growth. The impact of the other factors on algal growth varies significantly among different reservoirs. Thus, it is crucial to assess the effectiveness of various algal control measures implemented in different reservoirs. This study conducted a comprehensive assessment by establishing a eutrophication model for the Shanzi Reservoir in Fuzhou City. The model incorporated meteorology, hydrology, carbon dynamics, nutrient cycling, and biological communities. The effectiveness of diverse management measures was systematically evaluated. The findings demonstrate that increasing the water level, reducing nutrient salts in sediments, and implementing ecological fish stocking effectively suppressed algal growth to varying degrees and improved nitrogen and phosphorus levels. Lower water levels and ecological fish stocking had a significant impact on algal reproduction, while sediment reduction had a minimal effect. Conversely, lower water levels and ecological fish stocking did not significantly improve nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations in the reservoir, whereas sediment reduction had a noticeable effect. Consequently, the management strategies for the Shanzi Reservoir should prioritize external control measures and the implementation of ecological fish stocking.

Maboss for HPC environments: implementations of the continuous time Boolean model simulator for large CPU clusters and GPU accelerators

BackgroundComputational models in systems biology are becoming more important with the advancement of experimental techniques to query the mechanistic details responsible for leading to phenotypes of interest. In particular, Boolean models are well fit to describe the complexity of signaling networks while being simple enough to scale to a very large number of components. With the advance of Boolean model inference techniques, the field is transforming from an artisanal way of building models of moderate size to a more automatized one, leading to very large models. In this context, adapting the simulation software for such increases in complexity is crucial.ResultsWe present two new developments in the continuous time Boolean simulators: MaBoSS.MPI, a parallel implementation of MaBoSS which can exploit the computational power of very large CPU clusters, and MaBoSS.GPU, which can use GPU accelerators to perform these simulations.ConclusionThese implementations enable simulation and exploration of the behavior of very large models, thus becoming a valuable analysis tool for the systems biology community.

Ocean surface radiation measurement best practices

Ocean surface radiation measurement best practices have been developed as a first step to support the interoperability of radiation measurements across multiple ocean platforms and between land and ocean networks. This document describes the consensus by a working group of radiation measurement experts from land, ocean, and aircraft communities. The scope was limited to broadband shortwave (solar) and longwave (terrestrial infrared) surface irradiance measurements for quantification of the surface radiation budget. Best practices for spectral measurements for biological purposes like photosynthetically active radiation and ocean color are only mentioned briefly to motivate future interactions between the physical surface flux and biological radiation measurement communities. Topics discussed in these best practices include instrument selection, handling of sensors and installation, data quality monitoring, data processing, and calibration. It is recognized that platform and resource limitations may prohibit incorporating all best practices into all measurements and that spatial coverage is also an important motivator for expanding current networks. Thus, one of the key recommendations is to perform interoperability experiments that can help quantify the uncertainty of different practices and lay the groundwork for a multi-tiered global network with a mix of high-accuracy reference stations and lower-cost platforms and practices that can fill in spatial gaps.

Distinct structure, assembly, and gene expression of microplankton in two Arctic estuaries with varied terrestrial inputs

The Laptev Sea is a major Marginal Sea in the Western Arctic Ocean. The Arctic amplification brought by global warming influences the hydrological properties of rivers passing through the permafrost zone, which would alter the biological community structure at continental margin. In this study, the structure, assembly, and gene expression of planktonic microbial communities in two estuaries (Protoka Ularovskaya River Estuary, PURE; Lena River Estuary, LRE) of Laptev Sea were examined to investigate the environmental effects of polar rivers. PURE and LRE exhibited distinct environmental characteristics: low temperature and high salinity for PURE, and high temperature and low salinity for LRE, influenced by runoff size. Salinity more closely influenced microbial communities in LRE, with freshwater species playing a significant role in community composition. The findings revealed differences between two estuaries in community composition and diversity. Prokaryotes and microeukaryotes had shown different assembly patterns in response to habitat changes caused by terrestrial freshwater input. Furthermore, compared with the PURE, the co-occurrence and inter-domain network of the LRE, which was more affected by terrestrial input, was more complex and stable. Functional gene prediction revealed a higher gene expression of methane metabolism in LRE than in PURE, particularly those related to methane oxidation, and this conclusion could help better explore the impact of global warming on the methane cycle in the Arctic Marginal Seas. This study explored the increased freshwater runoffs under the background of global warming dramatically affect Arctic microplankton communities from community structure, assembly and gene expression aspects.

Simultaneous removal of nitrogen, phosphorus, and organic matter from oligotrophic water in a system containing biochar and construction waste iron: Performances and biotic community analysis

The issue of combined pollution in oligotrophic water has garnered increasing attention in recent years. To enhance the pollutant removal efficiency in oligotrophic water, the system containing Zoogloea sp. FY6 was constructed using polyester fiber wrapped sugarcane biochar and construction waste iron (PWSI), and the denitrification test of simulated water and actual oligotrophic water was carried out for 35 days. The experimental findings from the systems indicated that the removal efficiencies of nitrate (NO3–−N), total nitrogen (TN), chemical oxygen demand (COD), and total phosphorus (TP) in simulated water were 88.61%, 85.23%, 94.28%, and 98.90%, respectively. The removal efficiencies of actual oligotrophic water were 83.06%, 81.39%, 81.66%, and 97.82%, respectively. Furthermore, the high−throughput sequencing data demonstrated that strain FY6 was successfully loaded onto the biological carrier. According to functional gene predictions derived from the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) database, the introduction of PWSI enhanced intracellular iron cycling and nitrogen metabolism.

The Dry Deciduous Scrub Vegetation of Poona District

The scrub vegetation is not a natural type in Poona district. It is biotic community. The vegetation somewhat resembles a savannah. Bawdhan hills about 7 km. west and Walhe 60 km. south-east of Poona are described. Percentage occurrence of different species of trees, shrubs, climbers, herbs and grasses are given. The vegetation on different slopes of the hill has been compared. The herbaceous flora is seasonal, appearing mainly in the monsoons.

A diversity of diversities: Do complex environmental effects underpin associations between below‐ and above‐ground taxa?

Abstract To predict how biodiversity will respond to global change, it is crucial to understand the relative roles of abiotic drivers and biotic interactions in driving associations between the biodiversity of disparate taxa. It is particularly challenging to understand diversity–diversity links across domains and habitats, because data are rarely available for multiple above‐ and below‐ground taxa across multiple sites. Here, we analyse data from a unique biodiversity data set gathered across a variety of oceanic temperate terrestrial habitats in Wales, comprising 300 sites with co‐located soil microbial, plant, bird and pollinator surveys along with climate and soil physicochemical information. Soil groups are analysed using metabarcoding of the 16S, ITS1 and 18S DNA regions, allowing in‐depth characterisation of microbial and soil animal biodiversity. We explore biodiversity relationships along three aspects of community composition: First, we assess correlation between the alpha diversity of different groups. Second, we assess whether biotic turnover between sites is correlated across different groups. Finally, we investigate the co‐occurrence of individual taxa across sites. In each analysis, we assess the contribution of linear or nonlinear environmental effects. We find that a positive correlation between alpha diversity of plants, soil bacteria, soil fungi, soil heterotrophic protists, bees and butterflies is in fact driven by complex nonlinear responses to abiotic drivers. In contrast, environmental variation did not account for positive associations between the diversity of plants and both birds and AM fungi, suggesting a role for biotic interactions. Both the diversity and taxon‐level associations between the differing soil groups remained even after accounting for nonlinear environmental gradients. Above‐ground, spatial factors played larger roles in driving biotic communities, while linear environmental gradients were sufficient to explain many group‐ and taxon‐level relationships. Synthesis. Our results show how nonlinear responses to environmental gradients drive many of the relationships between plant biodiversity and the biodiversity of above‐ and below‐ground biological communities. Our work shows how different aspects of biodiversity might respond nonlinearly to changing environments and identifies cases where management‐induced changes in one community could either influence other taxa or lead to loss of apparent biological associations.

A short guide to addressing accessibility at scientific conferences.

Although encouraging progress to address issues of accessibility at scientific conferences has been made in recent years, further efforts are required to enact the comprehensive solutions necessary to accommodate the diverse needs of disabled scientists. This Opinion provides an easy-to-follow guide to ensuring that scientific conferences are accessible to disabled scientists and is aimed at conference organizers and funders in the field of cell biology. In this piece, I, a person who identifies as a disabled scientist, advocate for collective action within the cell biology community to promote the routine inclusion of accessibility officers on conference organizing panels and the use of accessibility checklists as part of applications for conference funding in order to build inclusive practices into conference planning and organization. I propose a move away from requiring personal disclosures of disability needs on a person-to-person basis towards community-agreed guidelines that ensure accessibility for scientists with a wide variety of needs. To that end, I detail a list of practical, cost-effective adjustments to standard conference activities that can enhance accessibility. Moreover, I suggest several long-term, high-impact changes - including guaranteeing the availability of wheelchair-accessible facilities and making hybrid meeting formats standard - aimed at enabling conference participation for all scientists.