The loss of biodiversity is an issue of great concern, especially if the extinction of species or the loss of a large number of individuals within populations results in a loss of critical ecosystem services. We know that the most important threat to most species is habitat loss and degradation (Keil et al., 2015; Pimm et al., 2014); the latter can be caused by multiple anthropogenic activities, including pollution, introduction of invasive species and fragmentation (Brook et al., 2008; Scanes, 2018). Roads are a major cause of habitat fragmentation, isolating previously connected populations and being a direct source of mortality for animals that attempt to cross them (Spellberg, 1998).
While most studies have focused on the effect of roads on larger mammals (Bartonička et al., 2018; Litvaitis and Tash, 2008), in recent years many researchers have grown increasingly concerned about the risk of collision between bats and vehicles (Fensome and Mathews, 2016). For example, a recent publication by Medinas et al. (2021) found 509 bat casualties along a 51-km-long transect during a period of 3 years. Their study provides extremely valuable information to asses which factors primarily drive bat mortality on roads, yet it required a substantial investment of time coupled with the difficulty of detecting bat carcasses. Other studies have used acoustic monitoring as a proxy to gauge risk of collision based on estimates of bat density along roads (reviewed in Fensome and Mathews 2016); while the results of such studies are valuable, the number of passes recorded does not necessarily equal collision risk, as many species may simply avoid crossing the roads. Understanding the risk of collisions is of vital importance for adequate planning of road construction, particularly for key sites that harbor threatened bat species or unusually large populations, especially if these are already greatly impacted by other anthropogenic activities (e.g. wind turbines; Kunz et al. 2007) or unusually deadly pathogens (e.g. white-nose syndrome; Blehert et al. 2009).
The study by Roemer et al. (2020) titled “Influence of local landscape and time of year on bat-road collision risks”, is a welcome addition to our understanding of bat collision risk as it employs a more accurate assessment of bat collision risk based on acoustic monitoring and tracking of flight paths. The goal of the study of Roemer and collaborators, which was conducted at 66 study sites in the Mediterranean region, is to provide an assessment of collision risk based on bat activity near roads. They collected a substantial amount of information for several species: more than 30,000 estimated flight trajectories for 21+ species, including Barbastella barbastellus, Myotis spp., Plecotus sp., Rhinolophus ferrumequinum, Miniopterus schreibersii, Pipistrellus spp., Nyctalus leisleri, and others. They assess risk based on estimates of 1) species abundance from acoustic monitoring, 2) direction of flight paths along roads, and 3) bat-vehicle co-occurrence.
Their findings suggest that risk is habitat, species, guild, and season-specific. Roads within forested habitats posed the largest threats for most species, particularly since most flights within these habitats occurred at the zone of collision risk. They also found that bats typically fly parallel to the road axis regardless of habitat type, which they argue supports the idea that bats may use roads as corridors. The results of their study, as expected, also show that the majority of bat passes were detected during summer or autumn, depending on species, yet they provide novel findings of an increase in risky behaviors during autumn, when the number of passes at the zone of collision risk increased significantly. Their results also suggest that mid-range echolocators, a classification that is based on call design and parameters (Frey-Ehrenbold et al., 2013), had a larger portion of flights in the zone at risk, thus potentially making them more susceptible than short and long-range echolocators to collisions with vehicles.
The methods employed by Roemer et al. (2020) could further help us determine how roads pose species and site-specific threats in a diversity of places without the need to invest a significant amount of time locating bat carcasses. Their findings are also important as they could provide valuable information for deciding where new roads should be constructed, particularly if the most vulnerable species are abundant, perhaps due to the presence of important roost sites. They also show how habitats near larger roads could increase threats, providing an important first step for recommendations regarding road construction and maintenance. As pointed out by one reviewer, one possible limitation of the study is that the results are not supported by the identification of carcasses. For example, does an increase in the number of identified flights at the zone of risk really translate into an increase in the number of collisions? Regardless of the latter, the paper’s methods and results are very valuable and provide an important step towards developing additional tools to assess bat-vehicle collision risks.

References

[1] Bartonička T, Andrášik R, Duľa M, Sedoník J, Bíl M (2018) Identification of local factors causing clustering of animal-vehicle collisions. The Journal of Wildlife Management, 82, 940–947. https://doi.org/10.1002/jwmg.21467
[2] Blehert DS, Hicks AC, Behr M, Meteyer CU, Berlowski-Zier BM, Buckles EL, Coleman JTH, Darling SR, Gargas A, Niver R, Okoniewski JC, Rudd RJ, Stone WB (2009) Bat White-Nose Syndrome: An Emerging Fungal Pathogen? Science, 323, 227–227. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1163874
[3] Brook BW, Sodhi NS, Bradshaw CJA (2008) Synergies among extinction drivers under global change. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 23, 453–460. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2008.03.011
[4] Fensome AG, Mathews F (2016) Roads and bats: a meta-analysis and review of the evidence on vehicle collisions and barrier effects. Mammal Review, 46, 311–323. https://doi.org/10.1111/mam.12072
[5] Frey‐Ehrenbold A, Bontadina F, Arlettaz R, Obrist MK (2013) Landscape connectivity, habitat structure and activity of bat guilds in farmland-dominated matrices. Journal of Applied Ecology, 50, 252–261. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.12034
[6] Keil P, Storch D, Jetz W (2015) On the decline of biodiversity due to area loss. Nature Communications, 6, 8837. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms9837
[7] Kunz TH, Arnett EB, Erickson WP, Hoar AR, Johnson GD, Larkin RP, Strickland MD, Thresher RW, Tuttle MD (2007) Ecological impacts of wind energy development on bats: questions, research needs, and hypotheses. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 5, 315–324. https://doi.org/10.1890/1540-9295(2007)5[315:EIOWED]2.0.CO;2
[8] Litvaitis JA, Tash JP (2008) An Approach Toward Understanding Wildlife-Vehicle Collisions. Environmental Management, 42, 688–697. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-008-9108-4
[9] Medinas D, Marques JT, Costa P, Santos S, Rebelo H, Barbosa AM, Mira A (2021) Spatiotemporal persistence of bat roadkill hotspots in response to dynamics of habitat suitability and activity patterns. Journal of Environmental Management, 277, 111412. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2020.111412
[10] Pimm SL, Jenkins CN, Abell R, Brooks TM, Gittleman JL, Joppa LN, Raven PH, Roberts CM, Sexton JO (2014) The biodiversity of species and their rates of extinction, distribution, and protection. Science, 344. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1246752
[11] Roemer C, Coulon A, Disca T, Bas Y (2020) Influence of local landscape and time of year on bat-road collision risks. bioRxiv, 2020.07.15.204115, ver. 3 peer-reviewed and recommended by Peer Community in Ecology. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.07.15.204115
[12] Scanes CG (2018) Chapter 19 - Human Activity and Habitat Loss: Destruction, Fragmentation, and Degradation. In: Animals and Human Society (eds Scanes CG, Toukhsati SR), pp. 451–482. Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-805247-1.00026-5
[13] Spellerberg I (1998) Ecological effects of roads and traffic: a literature review. Global Ecology & Biogeography Letters, 7, 317–333. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1466-822x.1998.00308.x

The manuscript by Beck et al. (2024) investigates the effects of water phosphorus and nitrogen loads on stream macroinvertebrate community stoichiometry across France. Utilizing data from over 1300 standardized sampling events, this research finds that community stoichiometry is significantly influenced by water phosphorus concentration, with the strongest effects at low nitrogen levels.

The results demonstrate that the assumptions of Ecological Stoichiometry Theory apply at the community level for at least two dominant taxa and across a broad spatial scale, with probable implications for nutrient cycling and ecosystem functionality.

This manuscript contributes to ecological theory, particularly by extending Ecological Stoichiometry Theory to include community-level interactions, clarifying the impact of nutrient concentrations on community structure and function, and informing nutrient management and conservation strategies.

In summary, this study not only addresses a gap in community-level stoichiometric research but also delivers crucial empirical support for advancing ecological science and promoting environmental stewardship.

References

Beck M, Billoir E, Usseglio-Polatera P, Meyer A, Gautreau E and Danger M (2024) Effects of water nutrient concentrations on stream macroinvertebrate community stoichiometry: a large-scale study. bioRxiv, 2024.02.01.574823, ver. 2 peer-reviewed and recommended by Peer Community in Ecology. https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.02.01.574823

​​Contrasting with the great alarm on bee declines, it is astonishing how little basic biology we know about bees, including on abundant and widespread species that are becoming model species. Plant-pollinator relationships are one of the cornerstones of bee ecology, and researchers are increasingly documenting bees' diets. However, we rarely know which effects feeding on different flowers has on bees' health. This paper (Tourbez et al. 2023) uses an elegant experimental setting to test the effect of heather pollen on bumblebees' (Bombus terrestris) reproductive success. This is a timely question as heather is frequently used by bumblebees, and its nectar has been reported to reduce parasite infections. In fact, it has been suggested that bumblebees can medicate themselves when infected (Richardson et al. 2014), and the pollen of some Asteraceae has been shown to help them fight parasites (Gekière​ et al. 2022). The starting hypothesis is that heather pollen contains flavonoids that might have a similar effect. Unfortunately, Tourbez​ and collaborators do not support this hypothesis, showing a negative effect of heather pollen, in particular its flavonoids, in bumblebees offspring, and an increase in parasite loads when fed on flavonoids. This is important because it challenges the idea that many pollen and nectar chemical compounds might have a medicinal use, and force us to critically analyze the effect of chemical compounds in each particular case. The results open several questions, such as why bumblebees collect heather pollen, or in which concentrations or pollen mixes it is deleterious. A limitation of the study is that it uses micro-colonies, and extrapolating this to real-world conditions is always complex. Understanding bee declines require a holistic approach starting with bee physiology and scaling up to multispecies population dynamics.  

References

Gekière, A., Semay, I., Gérard, M., Michez, D., Gerbaux, P., & Vanderplanck, M. 2022. Poison or Potion: Effects of Sunflower Phenolamides on Bumble Bees and Their Gut Parasite. Biology, 11(4), 545.​ https://doi.org/10.3390/biology11040545

Richardson, L.L., Adler, L.S., Leonard, A.S., Andicoechea, J., Regan, K.H., Anthony, W.E., Manson, J.S., &​ Irwin, R.E. 2015. Secondary metabolites in floral nectar reduce parasite infections in bumblebees. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences 282 (1803), 20142471. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2014.2471

Tourbez, C., Semay, I., Michel, A., Michez, D., Gerbaux, P., Gekière A. & Vanderplanck, M. 2023. Heather pollen is not necessarily a healthy diet for bumble bees. Zenodo, ver 3, reviewed and recommended by PCI Ecology. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8192036​​

In this study by Blouet, Bramanti, and Guizen (2022), the authors aim to tackle a long-standing data gap regarding research on marine benthic communities found on artificial reefs. The study is well thought out, and should serve as an important reference on this topic going forward.
Artificial reefs (ARs) are increasingly deployed in coastal waters around the world in order to reduce pressure on fisheries or to enhance fisheries stocks, via providing a hard substrate and complex shapes that induce the development of benthic communities, which together with the shape of the ARs themselves can provide areas for fish species to live. Much research has documented the effects of ARs on fish abundance and diversity, and documented over the short-term the benthic communities that settle and grow on ARs. However, there is a clear data gap on longer-term (e.g. greater than 10 years) trends of benthic communities on ARs. As well, any study on ARs must also account for the shape(s) of the ARs themselves, as there are numerous designs deployed, and also consider the depth of the ARs, and the age of the ARs.
The authors used the extensive ARs deployed in the Gulf of Lion in the northwestern Mediterranean to examine the effects of AR shape, depth, age (time since deployment), and location, both at local and wider regional scales, specifically examining the presence and absence of five marine species; 2 gorgonian octocorals, 1 ascidian, 1 annelid, and 1 bryozoan. Results indicate that location influenced the benthic communities above all other factors, suggesting the importance of considering the geographic location in future AR deployment and management of communities. The authors theorize that larval supply processes are important in shaping the observed patterns.
I conclude that this is an important report on AR ecology for several reasons. Firstly, the authors collected data from a variety of benthic species, including species that are habitat-forming but unfortunately perhaps not as focused on as more commercially important species. Secondly, by utilizing ARs deployed from as far back as the mid-1980s, the authors have generated longer-term information on benthic communities on ARs than what is commonly seen in the literature. Finally, the authors should be commended for their clever and hard work to incorporate all of the various factors into their analyses, and elucidating the importance of location. In fairness, this last point represents the only true limitation of the paper, as some of the statistical analyses were limited due to the small numbers of ARs fitting certain categories, and thereby limiting some of the conclusions. Still, it is very rare that a marine experimental ecologist would be in charge of AR deployment designs for 40 years, and the authors cannot be faulted for this shortcoming over which they had no control. On the contrary, the fact that the authors have performed this important work in the face of potentially limited analyses should be recognized. Marine ecology is often strongly limited by a lack of past data. In order to move past this impediment, more excellent work like the current paper is needed, conducted in a wider variety of ecosystems. I hope Blouet et al. (2022) can serve as a template for future work on a wider scale.
 
Reference

Blouet S, Bramanti L, Guizien K (2022) Artificial reefs geographical location matters more than shape, age and depth for sessile invertebrate colonization in the Gulf of Lion (NorthWestern Mediterranean Sea). bioRxiv, 2021.10.08.463669, ver. 4 peer-reviewed and recommended by Peer Community in Ecology. https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.10.08.463669

Alarm calls are an important acoustic signal that can decide the life or death of an individual. Many birds are able to vary their alarm calls to provide more accurate information on e.g. urgency or even the type of a threatening predator. According to the acoustic adaptation hypothesis, the habitat plays an important role too in how acoustic patterns get transmitted. This is of particular interest for range-expanding species that will face new environmental conditions along the leading edge. One could hypothesize that the alarm call repertoire of a species could increase in newly founded ranges to incorporate new habitats and threats individuals might face. Hence selection for a larger active vocabulary might be beneficial for new colonizers. Using the Great-Tailed Grackle (Quiscalus mexicanus) as a model species, Samantha Bowser from Arizona State University and Maggie MacPherson from Louisiana State University want to find out exactly that. 

The Great-Tailed Grackle is an appropriate species given its high vocal diversity. Also, the species consists of different subspecies that show range expansions along the northern range edge yet to a varying degree. Using vocal experiments and field recordings the researchers have a high potential to understand more about the acoustic adaptation hypothesis within a range dynamic process. 

Over the course of this assessment, the authors incorporated the comments made by two reviewers into a strong revision of their research plans. With that being said, the few additional comments made by one of the initial reviewers round up the current stage this interesting research project is in. 

To this end, I can only fully recommend the revised research plan and am much looking forward to the outcomes from the author’s experiments, modeling, and field data. With the suggestions being made at such an early stage I firmly believe that the final outcome will be highly interesting not only to an ornithological readership but to every ecologist and biogeographer interested in drivers of range dynamic processes.

References

Bowser, S., MacPherson, M. (2021). A study on the role of social information sharing leading to range expansion in songbirds with large vocal repertoires: Enhancing our understanding of the Great-Tailed Grackle (Quiscalus mexicanus) alarm call. In principle recommendation by PCI Ecology. https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/2UFJ5. Version 3