Biodiversity

Invasive species are pervasive around the world and have profound impacts on the ecosystem they invade. Invasive species, however, can also have impacts beyond the ecosystem they invade by altering the flow of non-living materials (for example, nutrients or chemicals) or movement of organisms across the boundaries of the invaded ecosystem. Cross-ecosystem interactions via spatial flows are ubiquitous in nature, for example, connecting forests and lakes, grasslands and rivers, and coral reefs and the deep ocean. Yet, we have a limited understanding of the cross-ecosystem impacts invasive species have relative to their local effects. By synthesizing emerging evidence, here we demonstrate the cross-ecosystem impacts of invasive species as a ubiquitous phenomenon that influences biodiversity and ecosystem functioning around the world. We identify three primary ways by which invasive species have cross-ecosystem effects: first, by altering the magnitude of spatial flows across ecosystem boundaries; second, by altering the quality of spatial flows; and third, by introducing novel spatial flows. Ultimately, the strong impacts invasive species can drive across ecosystem boundaries suggests the need for a paradigm shift in how we study and manage invasive species around the world, expanding from a local to a cross-ecosystem perspective.

Rising temperatures are leading to increased prevalence of warm-affinity species in ecosystems, known as thermophilisation. However, factors influencing variation in thermophilisation rates among taxa and ecosystems, particularly freshwater communities with high diversity and high population decline, remain unclear. We analysed compositional change over time in 7123 freshwater and 6201 terrestrial, mostly temperate communities from multiple taxonomic groups. Overall, temperature change was positively linked to thermophilisation in both realms. Extirpated species had lower thermal affinities in terrestrial communities but higher affinities in freshwater communities compared to those persisting over time. Temperature change’s impact on thermophilisation varied with community body size, thermal niche breadth, species richness and baseline temperature; these interactive effects were idiosyncratic in the direction and magnitude of their impacts on thermophilisation, both across realms and taxonomic groups. While our findings emphasise the challenges in predicting the consequences of temperature change across communities, conservation strategies should consider these variable responses when attempting to mitigate climate-induced biodiversity loss.

Chemical pollution can threaten biodiversity at different levels, from genetically diverse populations (genetic diversity) to different species (species diversity) and ecosystem traits/interactions (functional diversity). Most assessments of chemical impacts on different biodiversity levels depend on wet lab and field experiments, including sequencing large numbers of organisms, environmental DNA approaches, single chemical-species-outcome toxicity tests, and trait-based methods. However, it is impossible to assess all chemicals, species, populations, and ecosystems using these methods. Therefore, we advocate that computational methods are necessary to characterize, quantify, and predict chemical impacts on biodiversity. We briefly introduce the current state of research into chemical impacts on genetic diversity, species diversity, and functional diversity and describe new opportunities for computational methods like data integration, machine learning, cross-species/cross-ecosystem extrapolation, adverse outcome pathways, and Bayesian methods to support research in these three areas. By harnessing data and methods currently at our disposal and preparing methods to take advantage of continuously emerging data sets, computational approaches can be paired with environmental monitoring so different levels of biological organization can serve as consecutive warning signs for chemical impacts on biodiversity. This will enable effective ecosystem protection measures to be better developed and implemented to prevent biodiversity loss from chemical pollution.