Biology subjects

Antao, L. H.

Publications and source records attributed to Antao, L. H..

4 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

Habitat context alters the pace of climate-driven community warming across terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems

As global temperatures rise, ecological communities are increasingly dominated by warm-affiliated species, a process known as community warming or thermophilisation. Yet, why different taxa exhibit different rates of community warming remains unclear. Habitat composition and structure are likely drivers of this variation, as the ecological consequences of warming are filtered by local environmental conditions. Using over 40 years of monitoring data spanning terrestrial (birds, insects, plants) and freshwater (phytoplankton) communities, we show that habitat structure determines how strongly communities track warming. Forest cover systematically slows thermophilisation by reducing communities sensitivity to temperature change, whereas habitat heterogeneity has weak and variable effects that differ among ecosystems. Together, these results demonstrate that uneven thermophilisation arises from habitat-mediated differences in how communities respond to a shared climatic signal. Incorporating these effects is essential for improving predictions of biodiversity change under ongoing climate warming.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2025

The urban tree of life: quantifying relationships between body size and urban tolerance for more than 30,000 plant and animal species

Urbanization is a major global driver of biodiversity change, with species responses to urban settings ranging from avoidance to exploitation. To better understand these responses, we conducted a global analysis of urban relative affinity inferred from occurrence data across more than 30,000 animal and plant species. Our synthesis showed a consistent pattern across taxa and biogeographic regions: many species are urban avoiders, while few thrive as urban exploiters--a pattern we coin "Species Urbanness Distribution". We then assessed whether body size, an integrative ecological trait fundamental to space use, mobility, metabolism, and environmental sensitivity, showed consistent associations with urban affinity among species and across 371 taxonomic families. Analyses were conducted at the interspecific level and focused primarily on variation among taxonomic families (with an accompanying application to view results available here: https://globalecologyresearchgroup.github.io/body_size_results_visualization/). Larger body sizes were generally associated with greater urban affinity in plants compared to animals, though these size-affinity relationships showed considerable variability among families. Our findings highlight the heterogeneous relationship between body size and urban affinity across the tree of life, underscoring the importance of tailored strategies to support urban biodiversity. This research advances ecological understanding of urban filtering and provides a framework for guiding biodiversity-sensitive urban planning amid accelerating global urbanization.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2022

Diverging trends and drivers of Arctic flower production over space and time

The Arctic is warming at an alarming rate. While changes in plant community composition and phenology have been extensively reported, the effects of climate change on reproduction remain poorly understood. We quantified multidecadal changes in flower density for nine tundra plant species at a low- and a high-arctic site in Greenland. We found substantial changes in flower density over time, but the temporal trends and drivers of flower density differed both between species and sites. Total flower density increased over time at the low-arctic site, whereas the high-arctic site showed no directional change. Within and between sites, the direction and rate of change differed among species, with varying effects of summer temperature, the temperature of the previous autumn and the timing of snowmelt. Finally, all species showed a strong trade-off in flower densities between successive years, suggesting an effective cost of reproduction. Overall, our results reveal region-and taxon-specific variation in the sensitivity and responses of co-occurring species to shared climatic drivers, and a clear cost of reproductive investment among arctic plants. The ultimate effects of further changes in climate may thus be decoupled between species and across space, with critical knock-on effects on plant species dynamics, food web structure and overall ecosystem functioning.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2019

Temperature-related biodiversity change across temperate marine and terrestrial systems

Climate change is reshaping global biodiversity as species respond to changing temperatures. However, the net effects of climate-driven species redistribution on local assemblage diversity remain unknown. Here, we relate trends in species richness and abundance from 21,500 terrestrial and marine assemblage time series across temperate regions (23.5-60.0{degrees}) to changes in air or sea surface temperature. We find a strong coupling between biodiversity and temperature changes in the marine realm, which is conditional on the baseline climate. We detect increases in species richness with increasing temperature that is twice as pronounced in warmer locations, while abundance declines with warming in the warmest marine locations. In contrast, we did not detect systematic temperature-related richness or abundance trends on land, despite a greater magnitude of warming. We also found no evidence for an interaction between biodiversity change and latitude, further emphasizing the importance of baseline climate in structuring assemblages. As the world is committed to further warming, significant challenges remain in maintaining local biodiversity amongst the non-uniform inflow and outflow of "climate migrants" across distinct regions, especially in the ocean.

ecology↗