Masumi Hisano

Forests are a major terrestrial carbon sink, and higher overstory diversity is often associated with greater carbon accrual in trees and soils. Yet the contribution of the understory vegetation, the most species-rich forest stratum, to tree and soil carbon accumulation remains largely unknown. Here, we analyzed Canada’s National Forest Inventory database to explore whether understory diversity (richness and evenness of shrubs, herbs, and bryophytes) is associated with carbon accumulation in overstory trees and soils across environmental gradients of air temperature, climate moisture, and nitrogen deposition. We found that herb and bryophyte species richness were positively associated with decadal tree carbon accumulation, with the strongest effects at warmer, drier, and nitrogen-limited sites. In contrast, understory diversity showed no consistent association with soil carbon accumulation. On a decadal scale, increasing herb and bryophyte species richness from their minimum to median values corresponded to 15% and 6% increases in tree carbon accumulation, respectively. These results provide large-scale observational evidence that diversity in lower vegetation layers is positively associated with overstory carbon sequestration and reveal strong environmental modulation of these multistratal biodiversity–ecosystem functioning relationships. These findings suggest that species-rich herb and bryophyte communities should be considered in strategies for sustaining forest carbon sinks, especially under warmer, drier conditions and nutrient limitation.

Opportunities to observe local wildlife can foster well‑being, ecological literacy, and pro‑conservation attitudes. Correct species identification is critical to achieving these outcomes. I documented a case of cross‑family misidentification in an urban residential area of Uji City, Kyoto, Japan, based on a photograph shared through a community circular. A native, endemic Japanese badger ( Meles anakuma ) was misidentified as a native raccoon dog ( Nyctereutes procyonoides ). The circular further included information on the non‑native raccoon ( Procyon lotor ), compounding confusion. This error misdirected residents' perceptions and recommended actions, producing a false negative for Japanese badger presence in local knowledge. Even a single well‐communicated misidentification can influence biodiversity records, legal framing, and conservation messaging. Addressing such errors offers an opportunity to improve public recognition of regionally important species and strengthen human–wildlife relationships in urban landscapes.

Ongoing environmental change threatens ecosystems worldwide, yet little is known about its effect on understory plant diversity, which underpins ecosystem functioning and sustainability. Here, we use Canada’s National Forest Inventory database to evaluate decade-long changes in local plant diversity within understory communities. Species richness of shrubs and bryophytes increases by 8 and 11% per decade, while species evenness of herbs and bryophytes declines by 14 and 8%, respectively. Temporal increases in species richness and declines in species evenness are both associated with rising temperature, nitrogen deposition, water availability, and increased temperature seasonality. Additionally, the proportion of bryophyte biomass increases, whereas that of shrub biomass decreases over time, with the effects of temperature seasonality and water availability on these temporal shifts strongly dependent on overstory basal area. Species richness is positively associated with biomass across shrubs, herbs, and bryophytes, suggesting that changes in diversity alter understory biomass distribution under environmental changes. Contrary to the common view that climate warming uniformly reduces biodiversity, our findings show that understory communities undergo complex and dynamic shifts in plant diversity and composition. We suggest that environmental change-driven shifts in resource availability and heterogeneity may shape understory composition and species dominance, ultimately influencing forest ecosystem function.

Information on urban mesocarnivores in densely populated urban areas of Asia remains limited. This study presents camera trap data collected in autumn and winter from urban forests in central Japan. The study was conducted in the Uji Campus of Kyoto University and riparian forest patches along the Uji River in southern Kyoto, central Japan. We confirmed the presence of six medium‑sized carnivore species across five families, including three native species: Raccoon Dog Nyctereutes procyonoides (Gray, 1834), Red Fox Vulpes vulpes (Linnaeus, 1758), Japanese Marten Martes melampus (Wagner, 1841), and three non‑native species: Raccoon Procyon lotor (Linnaeus, 1758), Masked Palm Civet Paguma larvata (Smith, 1827), and Stray Cat Felis catus (Linnaeus, 1758). The urban forests within the study area may provide habitat for mesocarnivores, presumably supporting their foraging and sheltering needs. Our data is valuable as baseline information on the mesocarnivore presence and utilisation of urban greenspaces in East Asia.

Citizen science has expanded biodiversity monitoring, yet many datasets lack standardisation in spatial and temporal coverage and survey protocols. In birds, for example, traditional point count surveys often impose strict requirements on location, timing and spacing between survey points, limiting opportunities for casual, at‐ease participation in data collection. To address these constraints, this paper proposes a ‘relaxed’ point‐count survey method to enhance accessibility and expand geographic coverage by easing these constraints. Surveys can be conducted in diverse locations, including urban areas and travel or daily‐routine routes, within flexible timeframes (e.g., not only within 6 h after sunrise but also afternoon/evening) and seasons (e.g., including non‐breeding periods), with adaptable spacing between points and the option for repeated counts at the same location on different days. The framework addresses spatial and temporal autocorrelation, as well as variability in observer skill and environmental conditions through statistical adjustments using random effects and covariates. Preliminary data collected opportunistically across a large area of western Canada demonstrate the feasibility of this approach, yielding cross‐biome community data within a short timeframe. By engaging birdwatchers and citizens, this approach facilitates the collection of large‐scale, standardised species assemblage data beyond single‐species observations. This inclusive and scalable strategy offers new opportunities for biodiversity monitoring, particularly in human‐modified landscapes. This inclusive and scalable framework offers new opportunities for biodiversity monitoring, particularly in urban and human‐modified landscapes.

Soil microbial diversity is crucial to sustaining ecosystem productivity and improving carbon sequestration. Global temperature continues to rise, but how climate warming affects microbial diversity and its capacity to sequester soil organic carbon (SOC) remains uncertain. Here, by conducting a global meta-analysis with 251 paired observations from 102 studies, we showed that, on average, warming reduced bacterial and fungal diversity (measured by richness and Shannon index) by 16.0 and 19.7%, respectively, and SOC by 18.1%. The negative responses of both soil bacterial and fungal diversity to warming became more pronounced with increasing warming magnitude, experimental duration, and decreasing soil nitrogen availability. Under the worst-case climate warming scenario (2010 to 2070, 3.4 increase in °C), soil bacterial diversity and fungal diversity are projected to reduce by 56% and 81%, respectively, over 60 y. Importantly, in addition to the direct impact of warming on SOC, warming-induced declines in microbial diversity also contributed to SOC losses. We highlight that prolonged warming could substantially reduce soil microbial diversity and decrease SOC sequestration, accelerating future warming and underscoring the urgent need for decisive actions to mitigate global climate change.

Agricultural intensification and land reclamation have transformed natural wetlands into farmland across East Asia, which has been a threat to bird diversity, particularly wetland and grassland specialists. Despite extensive research in warm temperate and tropical rice‐growing regions, bird communities in snow‐rich agricultural wetland landscapes remain poorly studied. Here we present a dataset describing bird assemblages in a heterogeneous agricultural landscape surrounding Lake Kahokugata, located in a snow‐rich region on the Sea of Japan side of central Japan. The area represents a land reclamation zone shaped by decades of wetland conversion. We conducted point‐count surveys across 43 plots in winter and summer (2021 and 2023), yielding 129 replicated observations. The plots encompassed diverse cropland types, including rice paddies, lotus root fields, vegetable fields, pastures, and abandoned lands, representing a mosaic of wet and dry farmland. The dataset includes abundance records of 41 bird species, along with land‐use attributes within a 75 m radius and landscape data on open waterbodies within a 500 m radius. Our data is useful in providing insights into how landscape heterogeneity, cropland composition, and seasonal dynamics influence bird diversity in snowy agricultural wetlands.