Jun‐Long Huang

Aim: Seamounts are key components of deep-sea ecosystems. Yet, their biodiversity patterns and conservation needs remain poorly understood, presenting a critical knowledge gap as they face multiple environmental stressors. Here, we aim to characterize benthic community structure across multiple seamounts along the Kyushu–Palau Ridge (KPR) and identify conservation priorities. Location: Philippine Sea in the Western Pacific. Major taxa studied: Deep-sea benthos. Methods: We surveyed six transects (13.3°N–22.9°N; 614–5,055 m depth; 165 kilometers in total length) using a towed camera system, yielding 31,342 images and 14,218 identified individuals. Community structure was assessed through species depth-range overlap analysis to distinguish nestedness versus turnover patterns. β-diversity was partitioned into local contributions (LCBD) and species contributions (SCBD) to evaluate site-level uniqueness and species-level influence. Generalized linear mixed models were used to relate LCBD and SCBD to depth, slope, aspect, bathymetric position, and functional traits. Results: Community structures varied among slopes and seamounts. Western, steeper slopes were dominated by nestedness, whereas gentler eastern slopes showed mixed patterns of nestedness and gradual turnover. Sessile species largely exhibited nestedness, while mobile taxa showed mixed structures. LCBD declined with depth overall but increased on north-facing slopes and sites with higher broad-scale bathymetric position. Wide-ranging generalist species, particularly among Echinoidea and Holothuroidea, contributed disproportionately to β-diversity. Main conclusions: Seamount benthic communities along the KPR are structured by interactions between depth, geomorphology, and species’ ecological breadth. The dominance of nestedness on western slopes suggests that protecting shallow, species-rich habitats could capture much of the biodiversity therein. In contrast, the mixed structures on eastern slopes indicate the need for a hybrid conservation approach that includes both shallow summits and deeper, compositionally distinct zones. Our findings highlight the importance of slope-specific, depth-informed strategies to conserve these vulnerable marine ecosystems.

Spontaneous plants, such as weeds, are a key component of urban flora that can provide significant ecological benefits like nutrient cycling and soil pollutant removal. Our ability to fully harness these species in urban restoration efforts is hindered, however, due to a lack of understanding of their functional ecology under urban stressors. Here, we analyzed the effects of spatiotemporal urban land dynamics on the functional diversity of spontaneous plants from three life history strategies: colonization, establishment, and nutrient acquisition. Specifically, we measured 11 functional traits of 54 spontaneous plants across 79 sampling sites in Chongqing, a rapidly growing megacity in southwestern China with a population exceeding 16 million. We found that colonization‐related traits of spontaneous plants were uncorrelated with nutrient‐acquisition traits. When controlled for species richness, functional α‐ and β‐diversity showed clearer responses to urbanization that varied by life history strategy and urban development stage. Spontaneous plant assemblages became more functionally homogeneous in their colonization and nutrient‐acquisition strategies within newly urbanized areas than in historically developed areas. Yet, establishment strategies exhibited a neutral response to urbanization. Our findings reveal both challenges and opportunities of utilizing spontaneous plants in urban landscapes, highlighting the need to consider temporal dynamics in urban growth and plant functional diversity across life history strategies. Effective management should focus on controlling high‐dispersal spontaneous plants in historically developed areas while retaining those with diverse nutrient acquisition strategies in newly urbanized areas to maximize ecological benefits for sustainable urban development.

Climate change can affect the habitat resources available to species by changing habitat quantity, suitability and spatial configuration, which largely determine population persistence in the landscape. In this context, dispersal is a central process for species to track their niche. Assessments of the amount of reachable habitat (ARH) using static snap‐shots do not account, however, for the temporal overlap of habitat patches that may enhance stepping‐stone effects. Here, we quantified the impacts of climate change on the ARH using a spatio–temporal connectivity model. We first explored the importance of spatio–temporal connectivity relative to purely spatial connectivity in a changing climate by generating virtual species distributions and analyzed the relative effects of changes in habitat quantity, suitability and configuration. Then, we studied the importance of spatio–temporal connectivity in three vertebrate species with divergent responses to climate change in North America (grey wolf, Canadian lynx and white‐tailed deer). We found that the spatio–temporal connectivity could enhance the stepping‐stone effect for species predicted to experience range contractions, and the relative importance of the spatio–temporal connectivity increased with the reduction in habitat quantity and suitability. Conversely, for species that are likely to expand their ranges, spatio–temporal connectivity had no additional contribution to improve the ARH. We also found that changes in habitat amount (quantity and suitability) were more influential than changes in habitat configuration in determining the relative importance of spatio–temporal connectivity. We conclude that spatio–temporal connectivity may provide less biased and more realistic estimates of habitat connectivity than purely spatial connectivity.