Benoit Gauzens

A brief delve into the recent science history of network theory (including food webs)

Biodiversity modulates the cross‐community scaling relationship in changing environments Organismal abundance typically declines with increasing body size, with metabolic theory predicting a universal size–abundance slope of –0.75. Using protist microcosms across gradients of species ric...

Does body size predict abundance the same way in all environments, as predicted by the Metabolic theory of Ecology? Our new study challenges this assumption. Read it here: 📄 doi.org/10.1111/ele....

🌍📢 Postdoc alert | 3-yr starting 1/1/26

Understand how ecosystem stability is changing across space and through time using niche modelling, pinpoint at-risk species/regions, and build tools that drive conservation action🌿🧭📈

👉 tinyurl.com/2w2we5z8

#Ecology #Jobs #Biodiversity #RStats

The number of terrestrial vertebrate species highly thermally exposed (>25% range) over time versus the mean global terrestrial temperature anomaly (denoted by color scale of points).

One in six species on Earth experienced extraordinarily high temperatures across more than 25% of their range in 2024--the hottest year on record. For most, this was the second year of extreme heat, likely compounding risks. In PNAS: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

DAGs showing confounding, mediator and collider variables

Super awesome new paper in #MEE describing #causal #detection of shifts in #biodiversity! So many great insights here—a must read for those interested in #causalinference

And love Fig 3! Congrats team! @lsantinieco.bsky.social

doi.org/10.1111/2041...

🔥Ignite - Warming threatens aquatic–terrestrial linkages: evidence from tropical geothermal streams

vist.ly/467kq

#BayesianMixingModels #EffectsOfWarming #FluxAcrossEcosystems #FoodWebStructure #IsotopicAnalyses #TropicalRiparianForest #WaterLandInterfaces

Mark Novak, @kecoblentz.bsky.social, John DeLong FTW - a very cool paper I need to dig carefully through!

Researchers from #Eawag have conducted an extensive meta-analysis of field studies worldwide to better understand how land-cover changes in the watershed influence freshwater food webs.

👉 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

@florianaltermatt.bsky.social #foodwebs #landuse

July issue: Perspective led by Benoit Gauzens on the application of interaction networks to different ecological questions, and that provides guidance on selecting the appropriate type of interaction network. 🧪🌎
Web link: go.nature.com/3GLdOwN
Readcube: rdcu.be/ewqXc

🌳 One of my dearest projects—with brilliant friends and colleagues—is out in @NatureComms

We show that how you plant tree species (not just which) can significantly boost forest functioning.

🔗 rdcu.be/evtXs

👇 A short thread

Short time series obscure compensatory dynamics in ecological communities - Nature Ecology & Evolution Species synchrony is considered a major mechanism of biodiversity–ecosystem stability relationships. Here, by combining theory, modelling and empirical work, the authors show that with time series len...

By combining theory, modelling and empirical work, Luo et al. show that species synchrony decreases with time series length and its relationship with diversity switches from positive to negative www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Consistent energy-diversity relationships in terrestrial vertebrates Ecologists have long proposed that environments providing more energy can support more species, yet empirical evidence frequently contradicts this expectation. We argue that such inconsistencies resul...

In ectotherms, temperature-species richness relationships matched predictions of metabolic theory 🧪🌐 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Global-scale shifts in marine ecological stoichiometry over the past 50 years - Nature Geoscience Fifty years of plankton and water samples show that the proportion of carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus in the ocean now substantially differs from the Redfield ratio, probably reflecting a reduction in...

“Planktonic C:N and N:P ratios rose markedly in the late twentieth century, followed by a decline, suggesting a progressive alleviation of P limitation, probably driven by increased anthropogenic P inputs” 🌐🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Graphical abstract illustrating four recommendations for ecological modeling with aquatic animals. Be interdisciplinary and across levels: Includes icons for population biology (a bar chart of age structure) and behavioral ecology (a pie chart showing habitat use), plus a zoomed-in illustration of individual porpoises within a group. Use mechanistic modeling instead of statistics as a conceptual framework: A curved line plot shows respiration increasing with temperature, with data points color-coded by temperature and a shaded area indicating stressful conditions. Emphasize realism over precision: Shows a fish in a naturalistic habitat with plants and conspecifics, contrasted with a lone fish in a bare tank. Include stressful conditions: Reiterated through both the curved plot and a separate graph with three treatments, where respiration increases across treatments and with temperature, with the highest temperature range shaded in red.

Excited to share our new paper on how empirical research can better support mechanistic models—through realistic, interdisciplinary data and by embracing complex, individual-level mechanisms. Born from a @ecologicalsociety.bsky.social symposium!
doi.org/10.1111/2041...
@methodsinecoevol.bsky.social

In a synthesis of over 3000 population trends in the Wadden Sea, we show a substantial reorganization of biodiversity with over 38% of populations undergoing significant change (i.e., increases or decreases), identify winners and losers and critical time points of change! dx.doi.org/10.1111/gcb....

@lisethouvenot.bsky.social @remoryser.bsky.social @eisenhauerlab.bsky.social @ecolgonzalez.bsky.social @srivastavalab.bsky.social @gqromero.bsky.social @kratina.bsky.social @econetlab.bsky.social

This is figure 1, which shows seven general and spatially structured biogeographical sectors characterized from four biodiversity aspects across taxa.

Ecological assemblages may be spatially organized by both context dependency and general processes. A study in Nature Ecology & Evolution finds general patterns in the organization of regional biodiversity in biogeographical regions. go.nature.com/3FILzhN 🧪

Old carbon routed from land to the atmosphere by global river systems - Nature Using a global database of the radiocarbon content of rivers combining new and published measurements, isotopic mass balance suggests that about 60% of river CO2 emissions are derived from millennial or older carbon sources.

Nature research paper: Old carbon routed from land to the atmosphere by global river systems

https://go.nature.com/3Sz8Jdn

Less known than keystone species, keystone communities! Check out the last preprint of Gabriel Khattar and Pedro Peres-Neto about this important property for biodiversity responses to disturbance. doi.org/10.22541/au....

New study out! 🌐🧪
Human pressures are boosting invaders, cutting fishery value by over 50%.
A 21-year study led by Dieison Moi shows how invasions reshape ecosystems and threaten vital services.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#Ecology #EcosystemServices

StoichLife: A Global Dataset of Plant and Animal Elemental Content - Scientific Data Scientific Data - StoichLife: A Global Dataset of Plant and Animal Elemental Content

I’m thrilled to finally share our new dataset paper-years in the making! This has been an incredible rewarding project, and it was a true pleasure to work with such an amazing team of researchers. Huge thanks to supported by @idiv for the support www.nature.com/articles/s41...

OIKOS @oikosjournal.bsky.social

CALL FOR PAPERS - BIOLOGICAL INVASIONS IN THE CONTEXT OF GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE

www.oikosjournal.org/blog/call-pa...

Revealing the organization of species stability in ecological communities Ecological communities are often composed of many species, each interacting in complex ways. This complexity makes predictions of species responses to disturbances challenging. Here, we analyze dynami...

Our preprint "Revealing the organization of species stability in ecological communities" now available at doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Comments welcome!

Quantifying disturbance effects on ecosystem services in a changing climate - Nature Ecology & Evolution A generalizable, functional-trait-based approach for quantifying the effects of disturbances to ecosystem services and economic outcomes, including under climate change, highlights the need for incorp...

This paper - Quantifying disturbance effects on ecosystem services in a changing climate - was motivated by the need to anticipate and quantify how extreme events, which are accelerating with climate change, impact nature;s contributions to people, YET ... www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Warming can affect many physiological processes. But any attempt to scale up individual-level processes to population-level consequences must assume a relationship between temperature & the strength of density dependence. But what does it look like? In our new paper, we tried to find out.

The complex structure of aquatic food webs emerges from a few assembly rules - Nature Ecology & Evolution The structure of aquatic food webs does not fit standard allometric predictions. Here the authors explain the co-evolution of specialist and non-specialist predators in aquatic food webs and how this ...

The structure of aquatic food webs does not fit standard allometric predictions. Here, García-Oliva & Wirtz explain the co-evolution of specialist and non-specialist predators in aquatic food webs and how this helps reconstruct food webs on the basis of a relatively small number of observations 👇

Our new paper, based on data from 1,705 studies, shows that pesticides are toxic to organisms they are not intended to harm, including fungi, microbes, plants, insects, & vertebrates such as ourselves. Questions the wisdom of applying over 3 million tonnes of them every year...

Food web robustness depends on the network type and threshold for extinction Species loss in ecological communities can trigger cascading extinctions, the extent of which likely depends on network type and extinction thresholds. Traditionally, network responses to node remova...

Thrilled to see this paper published! 🎉 Huge congratulations to PhD student Patrik Ståhl on his first published paper—what an achievement! 👏

Read it here:
nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

@marienordstrom.bsky.social @riikkapd.bsky.social
@tvarminne.bsky.social

#foodwebs

Let us celebrate the founders of Ecology. Fred Clements, Ph. D was author of a 1905 guidebook to its practice.

Clements, by all accounts a rather imposing dude, was obsessed with making ecology a quantitative science and toward this end, invented the quadrat and transect method. 1/4

Warming alters plankton body-size distributions in a large field experiment - Communications Biology Warming reduces zooplankton size by up to 57% at +8° C, with some nonlinear trends and breakpoints. This large-scale mesocosm study highlights the importance of intergenerational responses to warming ...

📢 I am very excited to share our new paper in
@commsbio.bsky.social: nature.com/articles/s42... . 🔥 🌍🧪How does #warming affect #plankton #bodysize distributions? We used one of the largest outdoor #mesocosm experiments to test our hypothesis 1/