Anna Bucharova

Restored plant populations often face novel environmental challenges because degraded restoration sites typically differ from natural habitats. The success of ecosystem restoration may therefore depend on whether restored plant populations can adapt rapidly to these novel conditions. Yet, rapid adaptive evolution during restoration remains rarely studied. Here, we tested for rapid adaptation in Galium wirtgenii , a perennial herb, within restored alluvial grasslands. Sites were restored 20 years ago by transferring hay from nearby ancient semi-natural meadows. Compared to the semi-natural donor meadows, restored sites are more productive and are mown two to three months earlier. We collected seeds from 571 mother plants from 48 restored and 18 semi-natural sites and grew their offspring in a common garden over three years. To test for differences in regeneration after mowing, we included a clipping treatment when plants were in full blossom. Plants from restored sites flowered earlier than plants from semi-natural sites, and this difference persisted across all three years, consistent with a heritable evolutionary response to earlier mowing allowing plants at restored sites to complete reproduction before mowing. Plants from restored sites also grew more slowly in early life stages, but this effect disappeared later, suggesting maternal effects rather than genetic differentiation. We did not detect differences in regeneration after clipping, likely because regrowth rarely results in viable seeds, providing little fitness advantage. In summary, we found evidence for rapid adaptation to novel environmental conditions in restored sites, likely contributing to successful establishment of Galium wirtgenii populations in the restored grasslands.

Given increasing deer populations and rising canopy openness through tree mortality in European forests, understanding how these changes affect above‐belowground communities and ecosystem functioning is becoming more important. Earthworms comprise the largest animal biomass in European forest soils and play a central role in decomposition, carbon and nutrient cycling, and soil formation. However, their responses to canopy openness and deer browsing have been studied almost exclusively in northern North America, where interactions involve white‐tailed deer ( Odocoileus virginianus ) and mainly non‐native and invasive earthworms. Here, we examine how roe deer ( Capreolus capreolus ) and canopy openness interactively affect native earthworm communities in a temperate European forest across 75 experimental patches: 54 closed‐canopy and 21 experimentally created canopy‐gap patches. Five years after gap establishment, we sampled earthworms and associated environmental variables from two plots per patch: exclosure (fenced) and control (unfenced) plots. We found that roe deer and canopy gaps interactively influenced earthworm communities. Under closed canopy, roe deer reduced earthworm biomass and density. If roe deer were absent, canopy gaps had no effect on earthworms, but if roe deer were present, canopy gaps increased biomass and density through vegetation‐mediated pathways and enhanced soil water content. The magnitude of these effects differed among earthworm ecological groups (anecic species, i.e., earthworms that create deep, permanent burrows and connect surface litter with deeper soil layers, vs. endogeic species, i.e., earthworms that live and feed entirely within the soil) and life stages (juveniles vs. adults). Indirect effects of roe deer were particularly beneficial for juveniles. These results contrast with patterns reported for white‐tailed deer and non‐native earthworms in northern North American forests, where white‐tailed deer presence typically promotes earthworms. Our results on the direct and indirect effects of roe deer on belowground earthworms shed new light on the complex interactions of deer populations and canopy structure on forest soil biodiversity and ecosystem functioning.

Fen peatlands act as carbon sinks and are hotspots for specialized species, but a large proportion of fens have been drained for agricultural or forestry use. Drainage turns peatlands from carbon sink to carbon source and negatively affects specialized biodiversity. Although restoration by rewetting can partially improve ecosystem functions, the successful recovery of specialized biota depends on previous land use. Rewetting agriculturally used fens often results in an ecosystem that does not resemble the original fen. The vegetation recovery of rewetted fens used for forestry is more promising, but our knowledge of vegetation development comes from boreal fens. It is unclear whether vegetation can successfully recover after the rewetting of forestry‐drained fens in the temperate zone. Our study focused on the recovery of vegetation and peat accumulation in small fens in temperate Europe, located in a large forest complex in Germany, that had been drained for forestry and restored by rewetting over the 38 years prior to the study. We compared the restored sites to degraded and near‐natural ones. We recorded vegetation composition and measured peat depth. We demonstrate that peat layers continuously increased with time since restoration, possibly indicating peat accumulation, which is crucial for converting drained fens back into carbon sinks. The vegetation composition of the restored sites became increasingly similar to that of the near‐natural sites over time, with the steepest change occurring during the first 10 years after restoration. Nevertheless, even after decades, the vegetation did not reach the quality of near‐natural sites. Synthesis and applications: Our results highlight that rewetting forestry‐drained temperate fens can lead to partial vegetation recovery and jump‐start peat formation.

1. Most plant species are genetically differentiated among populations, often reflected by phenotypic trait variation that corresponds to local adaptation. Yet the strength of local adaptation and heritable contribution to phenotypic traits vary across traits, species, and environments. Additionally, climate change is rapidly altering environmental conditions, and the climate may shift faster than populations can adapt or track the change via dispersal, resulting in adaptive lags. However, it remains unclear how widespread such adaptive lags are across plant species. 2. We focused on Hordeum murinum , an annual ruderal grass widespread in Europe. We combined continental-scale in situ measurements of 2070 plants across 207 populations with common garden experiments across two contrasting climates and two soil types to disentangle heritable variation from phenotypic plasticity and assess potential adaptive lags under climate change. 3. We found that heritable variation was pronounced in developmental traits, particularly flowering time and plant height, while seed weight, reproductive investment and SLA showed intermediate heritable contribution, and flag leaf area and total biomass were primarily plastic. Heritable trait variation was strongly associated with temperature at the populations’ origin, and trait clines were consistent with in situ patterns, suggesting that temperature is the main driver of genetic differentiation in H. murinum . However, we detected that fitness peaked in populations originating from warmer climates, indicating that evolutionary responses may not keep pace with rapid environmental shifts. 4. Synthesis: Our results highlight that H. murinum harbors substantial heritable variation, shaped primarily by temperature. However, the pace of evolutionary change may be insufficient to track ongoing climate change, leaving populations potentially vulnerable to future environmental conditions.

Ecological data are increasingly collected by networks of collaborators using replicated designs and methods, which can significantly improve the quality and quantity of data throughout the ecological niche and geographic range of species or communities. The coordinated generation and management of data is critical for producing datasets (Standard Data Products) across multiple sites that can be used by different researchers, over extended time periods and for multiple purposes. We describe and use a Quality Assurance framework for the design, collection and production of reproducible Standard Data Products for distributed ecology projects. We identified six critical project elements of a Quality Assurance framework (QA1‐6) to produce ecological Standard Data Products with high immediate and future value. We applied the Quality Assurance framework to the Plantpopnet project as a case‐study. Plantpopnet is a coordinated distributed system for population macroecology using the model species Plantago lanceolata . We mapped Plantpopnet activities to the Quality Assurance Framework as follows: (QA1) Measurable objectives : research project objectives with data requirements, (QA2) Process control : governance policies, (QA3) Project specific procedures : model organism selection and data collection protocol, (QA4) Supporting production of high quality data : recruitment, retention and engagement of participants, (QA5) Data management : data management plan and reproducible data cleaning workflow, (QA6) Production and management of outputs : Standard Data Products and papers. Explicit use of Quality Assurance, project and data management tools together with standardised ecological methods facilitated the design, collection, maintenance and sustainability of high‐quality data products. We provide a Quality Assurance framework together with governance documents, code and data for a reproducible Standard Data Product. This framework supports a distributed funding model which can be sustainably applied to facilitate future research and applications of coordinated distributed ecology projects.

SUMMARY: Diploid and allopolyploid relatives often differ in their responses to stressful or variable environments, but it remains unclear whether this is reflected in greater reproductive stability in such conditions, and whether any such advantage is associated with greater canalisation or plasticity of morphological and developmental traits or a more extensive transcriptional response. We tested this in the annual grass Hordeum murinum by comparing the reproductive performance, phenotypic responses, and transcriptomic responses of diploid and allotetraploid H. murinum subspecies under control and elevated temperature conditions. Gene‐level nucleotide diversity was higher in the diploid ssp. glaucum than in either subgenome of the allotetraploid ssp. murinum , whereas divergence was greatest between the two subgenomes of the allotetraploid. Relative to ssp. glaucum , ssp. murinum altered expression in a larger proportion of its analysed transcriptome (10% versus 8%), spanned more enriched functional categories (36 versus 19), and showed pronounced subgenome‐specific contributions to the response. In addition, 702 of 11 106 homeolog pairs showed temperature‐dependent shifts in expression bias despite the absence of genome‐wide dominance of either subgenome. By contrast, phenotypic responses were largely similar between subspecies. Although ssp. glaucum and ssp. murinum differed in phenotype, especially in phenology, temperature explained more phenotypic variation than subspecies and reduced reproductive biomass by 42% in ssp. glaucum and 47% in ssp. murinum . Overall, ssp. murinum showed neither greater plasticity nor better maintenance of reproductive performance. Thus, compared with diploid H. murinum , allopolyploid H. murinum showed broader transcriptional deployment under elevated temperature, but not greater reproductive stability or clear differences in the plasticity of morphological and developmental traits. These results point to a decoupling of trait and molecular differentiation from fitness under elevated temperature, suggesting that the allotetraploid's altered transcriptional response may represent an alternative route to maintaining fitness comparable to that of the diploid rather than a reproductive advantage.

Background and Aims: Plant functional traits link environmental conditions to plant performance and adaptation. Growing evidence suggests that intraspecific trait variation can be as important as differences between species, yet large intraspecific studies of in situ variation remain rare. Most studies have focused on plant morphological traits, whereas the concentrations of elemental nutrients in seeds have received much less attention so far. Methods: We conducted a large-scale in situ study of the widespread annual ruderal grass Hordeum murinum. We sampled 2070 individuals from 207 populations across a large part of its native range in Europe and North Africa. We measured seed ripening phenology and growth-related traits in situ and analysed concentrations of elemental nutrients in the seeds. Key Results: We found that H. murinum grew larger, produced seeds later and had heavier seeds in colder and wetter regions. Plants growing in denser vegetation were taller and produced heavier seeds but formed fewer spikes. Concentrations of elemental nutrients in the seed generally declined with seed weight and were driven primarily by climatic variables, whereas soil conditions had only minor effects on plant traits and seed nutrients. Population identity explained a substantial proportion of trait variation, indicating a possible genetic component. Conclusions: Our findings provide a comprehensive view of how H. murinum responds to environmental gradients across its European distribution. Climatic variables, particularly temperature, are key drivers of reproductive timing and concentrations of elemental nutrients in the seed, whereas local environmental conditions, such as biotic pressures, are more important for growth-related traits. Together, these patterns indicate that H. murinum modulates its growth and reproductive investment along environmental gradients, balancing phenology, stress tolerance and limited competitive capacity.

A majority of stream restoration efforts in central Europe focus on streams that are less than five meters wide. Restoration aims to increase structural complexity, thereby enhancing habitat heterogeneity, promoting biodiversity, and reestablishing aquatic-terrestrial linkages that can drive responses in adjacent terrestrial communities. However, the effects of small stream restoration on terrestrial biodiversity remain poorly understood because research focuses mainly on large rivers. Here, we investigated the effects of restoration on the structural complexity of the stream channel as well as the terrestrial habitat and plant diversity on a local and landscape scale across 55 small streams in an agricultural landscape. We compared restored stream sections with non-restored ones that were similar to the conditions before restoration. We also assessed how restored sections changed over time since restoration. Restored stream sections showed a higher stream structural complexity and habitat diversity, both of which are targets of active restoration measures. Restoration also increased riparian plant diversity, both directly and indirectly through structural complexity and habitat diversity. Although time since restoration did not influence structural complexity, it drove successional changes in plant communities that became increasingly associated with wetland habitat conditions. Our results demonstrate that small stream restoration effectively increases floodplain habitat and plant diversity in agricultural landscapes, primarily by enhancing water availability in the floodplain. Restoration actions on small streams support biodiversity if they improve stream channel complexity, connect the stream with its floodplain, and create floodplain habitats.

Summary · There is growing interest in developing perennial cereal crops for sustainable production, yet key differences in trait syndromes between annual and perennial grasses and their influence on environmental adaptation remain poorly understood. · We measured 25 traits in 16 annual and perennial Hordeum species (45 accessions), including barley, grown over three seasons in a common garden. Using a phylogenetic framework and repeated transitions between annual and perennial forms, we (i) identified traits distinguishing these life strategies and (ii) tested how they relate to climate at the accessions' origins. · Wild and cultivated barley are distinguished within the Hordeum clade by high growth rates and large organs, which may have predisposed wild barley to domestication. Annual and perennial accessions differed in resource allocation: annuals had higher harvest index and leaf and grain nitrogen, while perennials produced carbon-rich tissues and sustained vegetative growth. Seasonal temperature variation shaped trait syndromes: annual traits aligned with temperature in the driest quarter, reflecting selection under terminal stress, while perennial traits correlated with temperature in the wettest quarter, the main growth phase shaping long-term performance and survival. · We provide important information on traits and climate adaptations underlying perennial persistence and annual resource strategies, relevant for developing perennial cereal crops.