Michael Opoku Adomako

Biological invasions and environmental gradients are major drivers of biodiversity change in wetland ecosystems, but their associations on native plant diversity in Central Asian riverine wetlands remain poorly understood. We surveyed 158 wetland plant communities across 54 transects in the Ertix River Basin to examine how environmental gradients (elevation, mean annual temperature [MAT], and mean annual precipitation [MAP]) and non-native plant establishment jointly related to native plant importance values and alpha diversity indices. Non-native plants were classified according to invasion stage—non-naturalized, naturalized, and invasive—to elucidate how the associations between alien plants and native communities shift dynamically along the invasion continuum. Elevation emerged as the dominant predictor, explaining 82% (individual R² = 0.15) of the variance in native species richness and 63.37% (individual R² = 0.1) of the variance in the Shannon–Wiener diversity index, while MAT and MAP were not retained as significant predictors in the optimal models. Native plant importance values, richness, and diversity all increased with elevation. Unexpectedly, naturalized plant richness and abundance were positively associated with native diversity metrics, contrasting with the negative associations of all non-native categories (non-naturalized, naturalized, and invasive) on native importance values, partly reflecting the compositional nature of this metric. Our results reveal positive co-occurrence patterns between early-stage naturalized species and native species, but native dominance may eventually decline as invasion intensity increases. These findings highlight the importance of considering invasion stage when predicting wetland biodiversity responses to biological invasions under environmental heterogeneity.

Summary: Root‐mediated conspecific recognition and avoidance could alleviate intraspecific competition and promote interspecific competitive abilities. This could result in communities dominated by few species. However, it remains unclear whether invasive plants, which frequently become dominant, possess higher capabilities of root recognition and segregation than natives. We compared root‐recognition and segregation capabilities between five congeneric pairs of invasive and native plants using a split‐root assay and an intraspecific root‐distribution experiment. We also assessed the roles of soil microbial legacies in root‐segregation capabilities. The split‐root assay showed that invasive plants exhibited stronger root‐recognition capacities than natives by reducing root allocation toward conspecifics. The intraspecific root‐distribution experiment showed that both invasives and natives exhibited root segregation when grown on unconditioned soils. However, when grown on soils conditioned by either invasive or native plants, root segregation of natives disappeared, whereas invasives remained unaffected. Changes in root segregation of natives were associated with changes in the composition of soil fungal and bacterial communities. Invasive plants possess mechanisms of avoiding intensive intraspecific competition irrespective of soil microbial legacies, whereas for native plants, these mechanisms can be disrupted by soil microbial legacies. This could contribute to the competitive superiority of invasive plants.

Global environmental change substantially affects soil detritivores, including earthworms, impacting host-microbiota interactions and altering key soil biogeochemical processes such as litter decomposition. As microbial communities are inherently capable of rapid evolution, responses of earthworms and associated microbiota (i.e., earthworm holobionts) to global environmental change may likely involve the interplay of ecological and evolutionary processes and feedbacks. Although species-level responses of earthworms to global environmental change are well-studied, the potential ecological and evolutionary responses of earthworm holobionts to environmental change remain unexplored. Here, we provide a conceptual framework to elaborate on the complex network of earthworm host−microbiota interactions that modify their traits in response to global environmental change, jointly shaping their ecology and evolution. Based on literature, we synthesize evidence of global environmental change impacts on earthworm host-microbiota and discuss evidence of their ecological and evolutionary responses to environmental change. Lastly, we highlight the agro- and eco-system level consequences of environmental change-mediated shift in earthworm host-microbiota functions. Soil legacies of environmental change have cascading detrimental impacts on the abundance, diversity, and functional dynamics of earthworm host-microbiota interactions in agriculture and ecosystems. The primary mechanisms driving such responses of earthworm hosts and associated microbial communities to environmental change include altered litter quality and host dietary preferences, competitive interactions and exclusion, habitat homogenization, and a shift in soil physicochemical and biological processes. Therefore, advancing knowledge of the intricate animal-microorganism interactions is crucial for belowground biodiversity management in a changing global environment.

Introduction: Belowground bud banks (or bud-bearing organs) underlie grassland regeneration and community succession following ecosystem perturbations. Disturbances of nitrogen (N) enrichment, overgrazing, wildfire, and drought substantially affect grassland ecosystem succession and aboveground productivity.Methods: To understand the magnitude and direction of the disturbances on the belowground bud banks, we conducted a meta-analysis on 46 peer-reviewed studies published from 1980 to 2023. The meta-analysis comprises 231 observations of bud bank density per unit area and 410 observations of bud bank density per tiller.Results: Results indicate that N addition remarkably promotes bud banks densities and plant functional groups of grass in the belowground bud banks. While drought negatively affects bud banks densities and functional groups of grasses and forbs. We found that effects of the N addition and drought on the bud banks depend on the bud type, e.g., root sprouting buds, bulb buds, and dormant buds. However, grazing and wildfire have no significant effect on the bud banks.Discussion: Our results suggest that the N addition and drought may significantly exert promotional and inhibitory effects, respectively, on belowground bud banks, critically altering plant regrowth, community succession, and grassland community dynamics.

This empirical study addresses environmental sustainability and clean energy transitions in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). By analyzing panel dat