Karl Höfler

Many studies have quantified ecological impacts of individual foundation species (FS). However, emerging data suggest that FS often co‐occur, potentially inhibiting or facilitating one another, thereby causing indirect, cascading effects on surrounding communities. Furthermore, global warming is accelerating, but little is known about how interactions between co‐occurring FS vary with temperature.Shallow aquatic sedimentary systems are often dominated by three types of FS: slower‐growing clonal angiosperms, faster‐growing solitary seaweeds, and shell‐forming filter‐ and deposit‐feeding bivalves. Here, we tested the impacts of one FS on another by analyzing manipulative interaction experiments from 148 papers with a global meta‐analysis.We calculated 1,942 (non‐independent) Hedges’ g effect sizes, from 11,652 extracted values over performance responses, such as abundances, growths or survival of FS, and their associated standard deviations and replication levels. Standard aggregation procedures generated 511 independent Hedges’ g that was classified into six types of reciprocal impacts between FS.We found that (i) seaweeds had consistent negative impacts on angiosperms across performance responses, organismal sizes, experimental approaches, and ecosystem types; (ii) angiosperms and bivalves generally had positive impacts on each other (e.g., positive effects of angiosperms on bivalves were consistent across organismal sizes and experimental approaches, but angiosperm effect on bivalve growth and bivalve effect on angiosperm abundance were not significant); (iii) bivalves positively affected seaweeds (particularly on growth responses); (iv) there were generally no net effects of seaweeds on bivalves (except for positive effect on growth) or angiosperms on seaweeds (except for positive effect on ‘other processes’); and (v) bivalve interactions with other FS were typically more positive at higher temperatures, but angiosperm‐seaweed interactions were not moderated by temperature.Synthesis: Despite variations in experimental and spatiotemporal conditions, the stronger positive interactions at higher temperatures suggest that facilitation, particularly involving bivalves, may become more important in a future warmer world. Importantly, addressing research gaps, such as the scarcity of FS interaction experiments from tropical and freshwater systems and for less studied species, as well as testing for density‐dependent effects, could better inform aquatic ecosystem conservation and restoration efforts and broaden our knowledge of FS interactions in the Anthropocene.

Ostrya carpinifolia Scop. (European Hop Hornbeam) is a native tree in Europe as a species of the Betulaceae family. European Hop Hornbeam has a significant value for the European flora, and assessing the effects of climate change on habitats of species is essential for its sustainability. With this point of view, the main aim of the research was to predict the present and future potential distribution of European Hop Hornbeam across Europe. ‘‘IPSL-CM6A-LR’’ climate change model, ninety-six occurrence data, and seven bioclimatic variables were used to predict potential distribution areas with MaxEnt 3.4.1 program. This study applied a change analysis by comparing the present predicted potential distribution of European Hop Hornbeam with the future predicted potential distribution under the 2041–2060 and 2081–2100 SSP2 4.5 and SSP5 8.5 climate change scenarios. Study results indicated that the sum of suitable and highly suitable areas of European Hop Hornbeam is calculated to be 1,136,706 km 2 for the current potential distribution. On the contrary, 2,107,187 km 2 of highly suitable and suitable areas will be diminished in the worst case by 2100. The most affected bioclimatic variable is BIO 19 (Precipitation of Coldest Quarter), considering the prediction of the species distribution. These findings indicated that the natural ecosystems of the Mediterranean region will shift to northern areas. This study represented a reference for creating a strategy for the protection and conservation of the species in the future.

Abstract Background and Aims The hart’s tongue fern (HTF) complex is a monophyletic group composed of five geographically segregated members with divergent abundance patterns across its broad geographic range. We postulated hierarchical systems of environmental controls in which climatic and land-use change drive abundance patterns at the global scale, while various ecological conditions function as finer-scale determinants that further increase geographic disparities at regional to local scales. Methods After quantifying the abundance patterns of the HTF complex, we estimated their correlations with global climate and land-use dynamics. Regional determinants were assessed using boosted regression tree models with 18 potential ecological variables. Moreover, we investigated long-term population trends in the U.S. to understand the interplay of climate change and anthropogenic activities on a temporal scale. Key Results Latitudinal climate shifts drove latitudinal abundance gradients, and regionally different levels of land-use change resulted in global geographic disparities in population abundance. At a regional scale, population isolation, which accounts for rescue effects, played an important role, particularly in Europe and East Asia where several hotspots occurred. Furthermore, the variables most strongly influencing abundance patterns greatly differed by region: precipitation seasonality in Europe, spatial heterogeneity of temperature and precipitation in East Asia, and magnitudes of past climate change, temperature seasonality, and edaphic conditions in North America. In the U.S., protected populations showed increasing trends compared to unprotected populations at the same latitude, highlighting the critical role of habitat protection in conservation measures. Conclusions Geographic disparities in the abundance patterns of HTF complex were determined by hierarchical systems of environmental controls, wherein climatic and land-use dynamics act globally but are modulated by various regional and local determinants operating at increasingly finer scales. We highlighted that fern conservation must be tailored to particular geographic contexts and environmental conditions by incorporating a better understanding of the dynamics acting at different spatiotemporal scales.

The Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (QTP) harbors abundant and diverse plant life owing to its high habitat heterogeneity. However, the distribution pattern of biodiversity hotspots and their conservation status remain unclear. Based on 148,283 high-resolution occurrence coordinates of 13,450 seed plants, w…

The Eurasian and Mediterranean Selaginella helvetica group is one of the taxonomically challenging groups in the cosmopolitan lycophyte genus Selaginella. Species of the S. helvetica group are all small plants with lax strobili composed of more or less isomorphic sporophylls (isosporophylls) that ar…

Plant invasion has been proved to threaten biodiversity conservation and ecosystem maintenance at a global scale. It is a challenge to project suitable habitat distributions of invasive plant species (IPS) for invasion risk assessment at large spatial scales. Interaction outcomes between native and …

Every species experiences limits to its geographic distribution. Some evolutionary models predict that populations at range edges are less well‐adapted to their local environments due to drift, expansion load, or swamping gene flow from the range interior. Alternatively, populations near range edges…

Concern about the course of the current environmental problems has raised interest in investigating the different scenarios that have taken place in our planet throughout time. To that end, different methodologies have been employed in order to determine the different variables that compose the envi…

The description of a new species is a key step in cataloguing the World’s flora. However, this is only a preliminary stage in a long process of understanding what that species represents. We investigated how long the species discovery process takes by focusing on three key stages: 1, the collection …

The development of new hypotheses can promote the explanation of mechanisms on plant invasion across different scales. We tested the hypothesis that ecoregional vulnerability can affect habitat suitability of invasive alien plants (IAPs) in non-native ranges. We used 13 IAPs, distributed around the …