Mixing and stratification dynamics shape bacterial community composition, assembly patterns, and co-occurrence networks in Han River cascade reservoirs.

The Cheshmeh-Langan River is a semi-arid mountain river in Iran that has been strongly affected by Inter-Basin Water Transfer (IBWT) operations since 2005. This study investigates the combined effects of IBWT and climatic drought on river hydrology, habitat characteristics, and fish habitat integrity. Field surveys conducted in 2022 compared environmental conditions, mesohabitat composition, and fish–habitat associations between two segments (upstream control and downstream impacted). Long-term meteorological and hydrological droughts were assessed using standardized precipitation (SPI) and streamflow drought (SDI) indices. Habitat Suitability Curves (HSCs) were developed for key native fish species across different life stages. Results indicate a significant shift in the hydrological regime following IBWT operation. The coupling between precipitation and discharge weakened, with the correlation between SPI and SDI declining from r = 0.67 before water transfer to r = 0.34 afterward. Mean SDI values shifted from + 0.69 in the pre-transfer period to –0.93 post-transfer, demonstrating the emergence of a persistent, transfer-induced hydrological drought. This altered flow regime substantially changed habitat exploitation, as shown by HSCs. Capoeta pyragyi fingerlings and Oxynoemacheilus frenatus showed different habitat associations between the segments, while C. pyragyi adults used the same habitats but showed lower abundance downstream. Additionally, downstream fish assemblages exhibited clear species turnover and expansion of the non-native species Petroleuciscus esfahani , likely facilitated by IBWT. • IBWT alters flow regimes, causing chronic anthropogenic hydro-drought. • Langan IBWT reduces habitat suitability for two native fish species. • IBWT spreads Petroleuciscus esfahani downstream, raising biotic homogenization. • Habitat-based benchmarks guide adaptive environmental-flow management. • Hydrology–habitat coupling quantifies ecological risk under regulation.

Changes to vegetation structure and tree species composition drive bird species turnover following disturbance in southwestern United States mixed-conifer forest

A decade-long (2013-2023) study of the tropical Amba estuary revealed that abiotic parameters exhibited both spatial and temporal variability across the study period. A total of 134 taxa were identified, with polychaetes dominating the assemblage (> 65%). The numerically dominant species varied annually, with taxa such as Nephtys paradoxa, Capitella capitata, Namalycastis senegalensis showing temporal shifts in dominance, indicating species turnover. Multivariate analyses indicated pronounced spatio-temporal structuring, with salinity as the key driver of benthic distribution, consistent with other tropical estuaries. Although year-to-year shifts in dominating species were noted, the relatively stable long-term physico-chemical conditions from 2013 to 2023 clearly led to little temporal differences in species compositions, with most intermediate years remaining comparable. The estuarine ecological quality status using AZTI Marine Biotic Index (AMBI) was largely similar from 2013 to 2023, while it varied throughout the estuary, indicating spatial variability. This study provides the first long-term ecological analyses for any Indian estuary, emphasizing the role of salinity gradient and anthropogenic stressors in shaping macrobenthic communities. These findings underscore the need for sustained biomonitoring for pertinent conservation and management policies.

Roots are plants' interface with the soil, controlling access to water and nutrients. Yet, fine-root trait variation along deep soil profiles and its functional implications remain poorly understood. We quantified vertical fine-root trait variation in four temperate tree species with contrasting rooting types - beech, oak, pine and Douglas fir. Roots were excavated to 380 cm depth in German Pleistocene sandy soils. Fine-root morphological and functional traits were related to soil properties, nutrient and water availability. Across species, fine-root traits followed a consistent arc-shaped pattern with depth. Roots in the topsoil (< 50 cm) and deep subsoil (> 300 cm) exhibited acquisitive traits - high specific root length (SRL), root N content and specific root tip abundance (SRTA) indicating high metabolic activity and resource uptake potential. By contrast, roots in intermediate subsoil layers (50-300 cm) displayed more conservative traits, with thicker diameters and denser tissues. Ectomycorrhizal associations occurred throughout the soil profile. Our findings provide rare empirical evidence of fine-root functional differentiation across deep soil layers, as root economic traits vary nonlinearly with depth. Thus, trees express vertically contrasting resource-use strategies. Incorporating vertical root trait plasticity into vegetation models can improve predictions of resource uptake and carbon turnover in deep-rooted species.

Wetland ecosystems play important ecological functions but remain the least studied habitats for arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) compared to terrestrial ecosystems. Prior studies were often conducted in a small spatial area and focused only on a single wetland type, limiting our understanding of wetland communities in large-scale wetlands. To address this gap, we conducted a meta-analysis of 380 wetland samples from the wetland habitat, targeting the 18S rDNA region, focusing on high-throughput sequencing (HTS) data. In this study, we deliver large-scale dataset syntheses of AMF across multiple wetland types using a standardized pipeline. We categorized wetlands into inland wetlands (freshwater wetland and rice farm) and coastal wetlands (mangrove forest and salt marsh). This meta-analysis study revealed clear differences in AMF richness between inland and coastal wetlands. AMF richness was significantly higher in inland wetlands (freshwater and rice ecosystems) than in coastal wetlands (mangrove and salt marsh), with mangroves showing the lowest richness among all habitats. Habitat explained broader variation, whereas sample type showed a smaller but more consistent effect. Moreover, soil pH showed a positive correlation (R = 0.18, p = 0.00043), while mean annual precipitation (MAP) (R= –0.42, p <2.2 × 10−16) and mean annual temperature (MAT) (R = -0.35, p = 1.1 × 10−12) were negatively correlated with richness. Beta diversity analysis indicated that species turnover was more dominant than nestedness across different wetland types. Overall, AMF communities in wetlands are associated with soil pH and climate (MAP), with differences mainly driven by species turnover. The insight from this study reveals that mangrove wetlands are hosts to unique AMF diversity pools, despite low local richness. Moreover, this this study provides insights into mechanisms that may contribute to ecosystem resilience.

ABSTRACT Studying temporal patterns provides insight into how climatic seasonality influences species composition, richness, and abundance. In tropical deciduous forests (TDF), where the effects of seasonality on phytophagous beetle communities have been documented, it is commonly assumed that these communities form two well-defined seasonal groups: one during the rainy season and another during the dry season. However, the response of these beetles to seasonality may be more complex than expected. We conducted monthly samplings over a year in a TDF in northern Morelos and analyzed the temporal variation in Buprestidae diversity and composition. We recorded 963 individuals from 83 species. As expected, the highest species richness and abundance coincided with precipitation peaks. However, beta diversity indicated high species turnover across months. The temporal structuring of Buprestidae diversity and composition throughout the year revealed three communities largely driven by specific plant phenophases. These seasonal shifts in community structure suggest that resource availability is fundamental in regulating Buprestidae assemblages. Changes in precipitation and temperature patterns due to anthropogenic factors, such as climate change, could alter the phenology of TDF and the emergence of these beetles, affecting their survival. Understanding these patterns is essential for predicting the impact of climatic phenomena on insect biodiversity.

INTRODUCTION Anthropogenic climate change is reshaping where plants can live. As temperature and precipitation patterns shift, many species are moving to stay within suitable environmental conditions. Predicting how these range shifts will affect future biodiversity requires knowing both where suitable habitats will occur and whether species can reach them. The latter is challenging because dispersal abilities differ widely among species and depend on landscape structure, anthropogenic barriers, and climatic conditions. Large-scale biodiversity forecasts therefore often rely on overly simple assumptions-such as no dispersal, unlimited dispersal, or identical movement rates for all species-thus adding major uncertainty to projections and conservation planning. RATIONALE We used the largest global database of observed plant range shifts (BioShifts; 14,488 records across 6579 plant species) to build models that predict species-specific range shift velocities. Combining 6.8 million plant occurrence records, an ensemble of two top-performing habitat models, and climate projections from 10 global circulation models, we mapped current and future suitable habitats-areas with favorable climate, soil, and land use-at 8 × 8 km resolution for each species. Our analysis covers 18% of known vascular plant species under four greenhouse-gas emissions scenarios for 2081 to 2100. We then overlaid the projected future suitable habitats with species-specific range shift velocities to determine where each species is likely to persist or expand by the end of this century. From these results, we estimated global extinction risks, changes in local species richness, and temporal species turnover in community composition. RESULTS Overall, 7 to 16% of modeled plant species are projected to lose >90% of their range across emissions scenarios, placing them at high risk of extinction. Most of these losses (70 to 80%) stem from suitable habitats disappearing as a result of climate change, rather than from dispersal limitations, indicating that climate-induced habitat loss, rather than an inability to keep pace with changing climate, is the primary threat. Although range shifts are unlikely to prevent many global extinctions, they will strongly reshape local species composition. Plant movements into newly suitable habitats are expected to increase local species richness across 28% of Earth's land surface, maintain latitudinally averaged species richness in the tropics and subtropics (35°S to 35°N), and generate substantial species turnover in mid-latitudes (30° to 50° in both hemispheres). By contrast, in regions north of 50°N, warming is so rapid that most plants cannot keep pace, leading to widespread local extirpations and sharp declines in species richness. CONCLUSION Range shifts can help sustain local species richness but are unlikely to provide much relief from global extinctions. To reduce extinction risks, identifying and protecting climate change refugia to safeguard biodiversity, and expanding ex situ conservation efforts, such as global seed bank and botanic garden networks, may be more effective than facilitating migrations. At the same time, conservation strategies should anticipate changing community compositions and ecosystem functioning as new species arrive and ecosystems reorganize. In high-latitude regions where dispersal lags considerably behind the rapid warming, improving habitat connectivity, reducing human-made barriers, and where appropriate, assisting species movement could help maintain local species richness, ecosystem productivity, carbon sequestration, and ecosystem stability. [Figure: see text].

ABSTRACT Aims Environmental filtering is a key framework in vegetation science; yet, disentangling the relative roles of habitat and soil‐mediated filters remains challenging in Antarctic cryptogamic communities. At the regional scale in Antarctica, climate is the primary driver of plant community diversity and structure. However, at a local scale, topography and soil properties are also crucial. This study aimed to assess how habitat‐mediated (including substrate type and nesting‐related disturbance), and soil properties act as environmental filters shaping cryptogamic species richness and community composition on rocky outcrops. We evaluated the relative contribution of habitat structure and edaphic variation to plant distribution across substrate gradients. Location Harmony Point, Nelson Island, Maritime Antarctica. Methods We conducted detailed vegetation and soil surveys across three rocky outcrops with varying nesting activity. Plant frequency, coverage, and richness were quantified in 121 plots using a grid‐based approach. Soil samples were collected and analyzed for physical and chemical properties. To quantify environmental gradients, we summarized edaphic variables using multivariate analysis. Rarefaction/extrapolation curves, community composition analysis, and linear mixed‐effects models were used to test whether habitat‐mediated and soil‐mediated filters predict species richness and community composition variability. Results Habitat‐mediated filtering strongly influenced species richness and turnover. Sites with active giant petrel nests exhibited higher nutrient availability and distinct vegetation assemblages compared to areas without nesting activity. Substrate type also played a key role, with species composition differing markedly between rocky and soil substrates. These patterns indicate that both soil fertility and microhabitat heterogeneity contribute to the spatial variability in community structure. Conclusions Our results further reveal that changes in substrate type across the outcrops promote high species turnover between the three rocky fragments. Contrary to patterns commonly reported for Maritime Antarctica, soil properties alone did not explain richness or composition, suggesting that habitat‐level processes override edaphic constraints at a fine spatial scale.

The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP) is ecologically significant due to its unique biodiversity and vulnerability to climate change and rapid urbanization. Among its emerging urban habitats, wastelands with relatively low anthropogenic disturbances offer key refuges and stepping stones for spontaneous plants. However, the patterns and drivers of spontaneous plant diversity in these habitats remain poorly understood. To address this, we surveyed spontaneous plant communities across 17 cities on the QTP. We found that native species dominated urban wasteland flora (85.8%), whereas invasive species constituted over half (65.8%) of the non-native species. The results showed that land-use legacy effects and environmental filtering shape community assembly. GLMM analyses further reveal that the climatic background constitutes a key factor shaping community diversity variations across the QTP, exerting the most significant influence on species richness, particularly through precipitation and wind speed. Urbanization and habitat quality factors jointly shape the diversity structural characteristics of communities. However, non-native and invasive species exhibit heightened sensitivity to local habitat quality. Furthermore, differences between communities across all groups were due to species turnover, though the driving factors differed between groups. Native species exhibited stronger overall ecological adaptability, whereas differences between communities of non-native and invasive species were primarily driven by human disturbance and habitat conditions. These findings underscore the ecological value of urban wastelands on the QTP for biodiversity conservation and invasion management under rapid urbanization and climate change.

Dryland ecosystems are highly vulnerable to climate change and anthropogenic disturbances, leading to land degradation and biodiversity loss. Grazing management, including livestock exclusion, is widely used to restore vegetation, yet its effects on the spatiotemporal dynamics of species communities remain poorly understood. Here we studied variations in bird species composition (i.e., beta diversity)-a key indicator group of habitat restoration-between grazing exclusions and control sites over time in the seasonally dynamic Sahel region in Burkina Faso, West Africa. Bird communities were surveyed with passive acoustic monitoring in 25 small-scale grazing exclusions and 50 control sites across two contrasting seasons. Seasonal effects were assessed by comparing the composition of bird species vocalization and vegetation parameters between dry and wet seasons. We conducted beta diversity analyses to measure the variation in species composition within and between grazing exclusions and control sites, and determined which vegetation parameters, derived from field inventories and remote sensing, best explained bird species spatial and seasonal turnover. The composition of bird species was more influenced by seasonal changes in the vegetation structure and productivity than by grazing exclusions. Moreover, bird communities within the grazing exclusions were more homogeneous than those in the control sites. Yet, grazing exclusions served as important refuges for birds during the dry season, presumably because they maintained a higher vegetation cover than the control sites throughout the year. Furthermore, high tree diversity and structurally complex vegetation promoted bird species turnover on a landscape-scale. Due to its strong influence on bird communities, seasonality should be integrated into biodiversity monitoring and restoration planning of arid ecosystems. Although grazing exclusions were not the primary driver of community composition, they enhanced habitat heterogeneity, supporting regional bird biodiversity and providing refuges that mitigate the effects of overgrazing in this region of the Sahel.

Large-scale monitoring of wildlife populations is a cornerstone of effective conservation and resource management, particularly for highly mobile taxa whose distributions shift rapidly across space and time. In this paper we explore the possibility of using environmental DNA-based surveys as a cost-efficient, complementary tool to estimate populations of North American waterfowl species. To achieve this, we first evaluated the performance of all currently available avian metabarcoding primers and compared them to newly designed primers targeting the mitochondrial ND2 gene within the Anatidae tribes of North America. All the existing avian assays showed strong cross-priming amplification with other vertebrates. In contrast, in-silico analyses of our waterfowl targeted assays showed a high degree (>90%) of avian specificity, encompassing all the 132 Anatidae species sequenced thus far. We used this targeted metabarcoding approach to track the temporal variation in the relative abundance of waterfowl species during the fall migration at Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge, New York, a major resting area for waterfowl on their journey to and from North American nesting areas. We compared eDNA results with visual surveys conducted by us and from those reported on eBird, a community science database. Our results showed that eDNA detected all waterfowl species (n = 25) observed during the visual surveys. Positive correlations existed between standardized amplicon sequence variant (ASV) counts and the relative abundance of waterfowl species as reported in eBird on the day of sampling and up to five days prior. Importantly, eDNA metabarcoding captured temporal shifts in community composition and species turnover during fall migration, highlighting its utility for tracking relative changes in waterfowl assemblages through time. As is often reported in metabarcoding studies, eDNA did not provide a good metric for absolute abundance of species; accordingly, only 8 out of 25 waterfowl species showed significant correlations between the number of eDNA reads and the total abundance of birds. Overall, while eDNA-targeted metabarcoding has not yet been applied to study bird communities extensively, our results demonstrate that this technique can be used as an effective complementary tool for assessing species composition of waterfowl communities and estimating relative abundance of species within those communities.

N2O (Nitrous oxide) is a potent greenhouse gas with a global warming potential nearly 300 times that of CO2 and poses a critical environmental challenge, particularly in semiconductor and display manufacturing, where it is emitted during plasma processes. However, catalytic N2O abatement in O2-rich environments remains inefficient because O2 competitively occupies active sites and hinders the turnover of surface oxygen species. To clarify how support properties govern this inhibition, Co-based catalysts supported on beta zeolite, CeO2, and TiO2, together with unsupported Co3O4, were comparatively evaluated for direct N2O decomposition. Among them, Co/Beta exhibited the highest performance, achieving &gt;95% N2O conversion at 450 °C in the presence of 5% O2 with excellent long-term stability. Co/Beta possessed a high specific surface area (649 m2 g−1) and a mesoporous framework that favored uniform Co dispersion and reactant accessibility, while its high Co2+/(Co2+ + Co3+) ratio (75.5%) and large fraction of chemisorbed oxygen species (79.9%) promoted oxygen-vacancy formation and facile oxygen exchange. These results indicate that the ability of Co/Beta to maintain high activity in the presence of oxygen stems from support-modulated cobalt surface states and enhanced oxygen turnover behavior. These findings provide a support-design principle for stable N2O decomposition under oxygen-containing exhaust conditions.

Coastal ecosystems, particularly semi-enclosed gulfs, are increasing anthropogenic pressures from urbanization and industrialization with profound impacts on biodiversity maintenance, energy transfer, and biogeochemical cycling. However, how metazoan communities-key components of marine food webs-respond to spatiotemporal variability and human disturbance remains insufficiently understood. This study applied eDNA metabarcoding targeting the mitochondrial COI gene to investigate metazoan communities across 68 stations in the Beibu Gulf, spanning bay, coastal, and island regions, during wet and dry seasons. In total, 878 metazoan ASVs from 13 phyla were detected. Arthropoda dominated both seasons (wet: 85%; dry: 55%), whereas Chordata increased during the dry season (wet: 0.16%; dry: 37%). At the α-diversity level, diversity peaked in the bay region during the dry season and shifted toward the coastal region during the wet season. At the β-diversity level, community composition differed significantly between seasons and spatial regions, with seasonal variation exerting a stronger influence than spatial differentiation. Co-occurrence networks revealed higher complexity during the dry season. β-diversity was overwhelmingly driven by species turnover (94.4%). The island region exhibited the highest community uniqueness, while the human-impacted bay region showed reduced distinctiveness. Redundancy analysis further identified anthropogenically influenced inorganic nitrogen, together with water temperature, transparency, and salinity, as key environmental drivers shaping community structure. βNTI analysis indicated that community assembly was governed by the combined effects of deterministic and stochastic processes. Overall, this study highlights how environmental gradients and human pressures jointly regulate metazoan dynamics, providing insights for biodiversity conservation in human-impacted coastal seas.

Abstract In post-mining landscapes of Amazonia, evaluating faunal responses during early successional stages is essential for understanding habitat restoration trajectories and for identifying sensitive bioindicators capable of tracking ecosystem recovery. Herbivorous beetles constitute a highly host-dependent group whose diversity, specialization, and spatial turnover can reveal how resource heterogeneity and vegetation structure shape community reassembly in regenerating ecosystems. The objective of this study was to assess whether a five-year period of natural regeneration provides sufficient structural and resource heterogeneity to support a weevil community (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) converging toward that of adjacent forest remnants. We sampled leaf-dwelling Curculionidae across seven natural regeneration sites and seven altered primary forest remnants using standardized arboreal arthropod beating methods. We recorded 482 individuals across 114 morphotypes, with forest remnants harboring greater richness, higher effective diversity, and distinct dominance–evenness patterns compared to natural regeneration sites. Tree richness was the main predictor of weevil abundance, species richness, and diversity of common taxa. Both habitats exhibited high species turnover among sampling units, yet multivariate analyses revealed clear compositional differences between forest and regenerating areas. Our findings indicate that five years of natural regeneration is insufficient for re-establishing a Curculionidae community structurally or compositionally comparable to forest remnants. These results demonstrate that the recovery of weevil assemblages remains strongly limited by reduced host-plant heterogeneity and suggest that enrichment planting of key tree species may accelerate restoration trajectories.

Protected areas are often treated as internally homogeneous conservation units, yet their communities may be structured either as discrete modules or as continuous gradients shaped by environmental heterogeneity and human disturbance. Using camera-trap data from Liziping Nature Reserve, China, we examined the spatial organization of mammal and galliform bird communities and tested whether species-level environmental responses help explain community structure. From 109 camera-trap sites surveyed between October 2017 and July 2020, we obtained 6688 independent detections and retained 17 species for analysis. We combined β-diversity decomposition, clustering, NMDS ordination, single-species occupancy models, clustering of environmental response coefficients, and Mantel tests. Community variation was dominated by turnover rather than nestedness, and clustering based on co-occurrence and relative activity patterns did not reveal well-separated discrete modules. Instead, NMDS indicated continuous variation along environmental gradients, with elevation and vegetation productivity as the strongest correlates. Occupancy models showed marked species-specific environmental responses, especially to elevation, habitat structure, and human disturbance, and β-based clustering suggested two broad environmental response groups. Although human influences did not affect all species uniformly, some species showed clear sensitivity to recent disturbance and human-modified landscapes. These results indicate that communities in Liziping are better characterized as continuous gradient structures than as discrete modules, and suggest that conservation should emphasize the maintenance of environmental heterogeneity, habitat continuity, connectivity, and differentiated management of human activities within mountain protected areas.

Abstract Ecological communities are stressed by rapid and complex anthropogenic changes, threatening the persistence of biotic interactions and ecosystem functioning. Plant–pollinator communities, for instance, undergo structural transformations as a result of land‐use change, species invasion and climate change. By experimentally investigating changes of interaction networks over time, caused by anthropogenic disturbances, we will be able to better understand the underlying ecology and predict our impact on communities. Here, we used a long‐term community field experiment involving nitrogen (N) addition to investigate the impacts of anthropogenic N enrichment on seasonal dynamics of a N‐limited, fast‐changing ecosystem: alpine meadows on the Tibetan Plateau. Given the brief flowering season and pollinators' phenophase of alpine meadows, we were particularly interested in understanding how N‐induced changes in flowering communities alter plant–pollinator interactions assembly and disassembly over the season, which ultimately shapes network structure and defines ecological resilience of communities. We found that N‐induced declines in floral abundance and richness resulted in an increase in pollinator species turnover over the season. This, in turn, affected natural interaction rewiring processes among temporally persistent species, suggesting a markedly lower seasonal connectivity and persistence of plant–pollinator interactions in meadows with high N input. Importantly, we found that the effects of N on interaction dynamics were particularly strong late in the season, suggesting heightened vulnerability of plant–pollinator interactions to N enrichment during this period. N‐induced changes in plant–pollinator interaction dynamics further disrupted the structure of pollination networks in natural alpine meadows through reduced specialization and modularity, which suggests that pollinators interact with plants more opportunistically over time, resulting in more simplified and homogenized communities under high N input. By considering temporal dimension, our study demonstrates that anthropogenic N enrichment can interrupt seasonal connectivity and stability of plant–pollinator networks, providing novel insights into how and why anthropogenic environmental change affects multi‐trophic interactions in vulnerable alpine ecosystems. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Abstract The Espinhaço Range (ER), in east Brazil, encompasses a unique biodiversity in a heterogeneous landscape, composed by a mosaic of vegetation classes including campos rupestres, cerrados and forests. Considering the ecological relevance of Myrtaceae and its diversity in these landscapes, we rendered a comprehensive floristic survey of Myrtaceae composition, distribution, and sampling in the ER; we tested if geomorphological structures accurately reflect floristic patterns; and investigated which large-scale environmental variables are correlated to species turnover within its different vegetation classes. Herbarium data were compiled into a comprehensive database, and the floristic patterns were investigated using NMDS and UPGMA. A GDM was used to identify environmental drivers of species turnover. We found 17 genera and 277 Myrtaceae species, of which 53 spp. are new occurrences, and 42 spp. are endemic to the ER. Sampling and diversity were concentrated in the Espinhaço Meridional, Chapada Diamantina and Quadrilátero Ferrífero. We found a higher number of species that are habitat generalists than documented by previous studies. Forests presented the highest richness and the highest number of exclusive species. Caatinga comprehended the lowest richness and the most profound subsampling across different vegetation classes. A latitudinal and longitudinal pattern of floristic similarity was observed; and geomorphological units constituted a fair representation of these patterns. The GDM models were congruent, indicating a mostly edaphically driven species turnover of Myrtaceae across every vegetation class, especially associated with soil texture and geographical distance – constituting the first record of mostly edaphic-driven beta diversity turnover in the Espinhaço Range.

Abstract Fire and flooding are key ecological filters that shape biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in tropical wetlands. This study investigates the combined effects of prescribed fire, flood regimes, and herbivory on the taxonomic and functional diversity of herbaceous communities in the Brazilian Pantanal, the world’s largest continuous floodplain. Using a long-term experimental design with 32 one-hectare plots distributed across two flood levels (according to the region’s altitude), we applied four fire treatments—Early, Modal, Late, and Control—and assessed species richness, vegetation cover, and functional traits over time. Herbivory was inferred from biomass measurements and incorporated into statistical models. Results revealed that species richness and diversity metrics were highest in low-flood areas subjected to low-intensity fires (Early and Late treatments), while high-intensity fires (Modal) reduced both taxonomic and functional diversity, particularly in highly inundated zones. Herbivory can exert a negative synergistic effect when combined with fire, leading to reduced species richness and functional divergence. Beta diversity analyses showed that species turnover was the dominant process across treatments, although nestedness contributed significantly in high-flood areas exposed to Modal fire. Functional diversity metrics indicated ecosystem resilience, with greater functional regularity and divergence observed in highly inundated areas. The findings underscore the importance of fire regime, flood intensity, and grazing pressure in structuring herbaceous communities. Prescribed fire, when applied with consideration of seasonal timing, flood level, and grazing dynamics, can serve as a strategic tool for maintaining pyrodiversity and ecosystem services in fire-dependent wetlands. However, inappropriate combinations of fire and herbivory may lead to biodiversity loss and functional homogenization, especially in flood-prone zones. These insights are critical for developing adaptive fire management strategies that balance ecological integrity with socio-economic needs in the Pantanal biome.

Ground vegetation species richness in close-to-nature managed and protected forests after four decades of protection.