The Comparative Genome Dashboard is a web-based software tool for interactive exploration of the similarities and differences in gene functions between organisms. It provides a high-level graphical survey of cellular functions, and enables the user to drill down to examine subsystems of interest in greater detail. At its highest level the Comparative Dashboard contains panels for cellular systems such as biosynthesis, energy metabolism, transport, and response to stimulus. Each panel contains a set of bar graphs that plot the numbers of compounds or gene products for each organism across a set of subsystems of that panel. Users can interactively drill down to focus on subsystems of interest and see grids of compounds produced or consumed by each organism, specific GO term assignments, pathway diagrams, and links to more detailed comparison pages. For example, the dashboard enables users to compare the cofactors that a set of organisms can synthesize, the metal ions that they are able to transport, their DNA damage repair capabilities, their biofilm-formation genes, and their viral response proteins. The dashboard enables users to quickly perform comprehensive comparisons at varying levels of detail.

Freshwater ecosystems are increasingly affected by rising annual mean temperatures and heatwaves. While heatwaves are expected to have more immediate effects than mean temperature increases on local communities, comparative experimental studies are largely lacking. We conducted a 1-month mesocosm experiment to test the effect of different warming treatments, constantly raised temperatures (+3°C) and recurring heatwaves (+6°C), on plankton communities. We specifically tested how shifts in zooplankton trait composition and functional groups are reflected in ecosystem function (top-down control on primary producers). We found that heatwaves had a stronger and more immediate effect on zooplankton trait composition (specifically on body length and body mass) and functional groups. Heatwaves led to the decrease of small-bodied grazers (i.e., Rotifera) and the dominance of larger omnivorous Copepoda, and these shifts resulted in weaker top-down control, leading to elevated phytoplankton biomass. Altogether, our results highlight the importance of the indirect effects of heatwaves via inducing shifts in zooplankton functional groups and trait composition, which may lead to algal blooms.

Rodents can cause considerable changes in plant community composition. However, relationships between shifts in species dominance and plant functional traits caused by rodents have seldom been investigated, especially for belowground functional traits. In this study, a set of enclosures was constructed to analyze the effects of 10 years of Brandt\'s voles\' activities on the defense strategies and dominant position changes of three gramineous plants (Leymus chinensis, Stipa krylovii, and Cleistogenes squarrosa) in Inner Mongolia. Here, we measured the dominance, biomass, and fourteen functional traits of three plants. The effects of Brandt\'s voles on dominance, biomass, and functional traits were analyzed, and then we explored the effect of functional traits on plant dominance by using the structural equation model. Results showed that long-term feeding by Brandt\'s voles resulted in a significant decrease in the dominance of L. chinensis and S. krylovii, whereas C. squarrosa was positively affected. The belowground biomass of L. chinensis and S. krylovii was higher in the vole treatment, which showed that they were increasing their escape characteristics. The leaf thickness of L. chinensis and the leaf C:N ratio of S. krylovii significantly increased, while the specific leaf area of C. squarrosa significantly decreased. All three gramineous showed increased resistance traits in response to Brandt\'s voles, which positively affected their dominance. Tolerance-related traits of S. krylovii significantly increased, with the increasing growth rate of root length contributing to enhancing its dominance. We highlight that selective feeding by rodents led to the selection of different defense strategies by three gramineous plants, and that changes in biomass allocation and functional traits in the different species affected plant dominance, driving changes in the plant communities.

Whether nitrogen (N)-metabolic versatility is a common trait of N-transforming microbes or if it only occurs in a few species is still unknown. We collected 83 soil samples from six soil types across China, retrieved 19 publicly available metagenomic marine sample data, and analyzed the functional traits of N-transforming microorganisms using metagenomic sequencing. More than 38% and 35% of N-transforming species in soil and marine ecosystems, respectively, encoded two or more N-pathways, although N-transforming species differed greatly between them. Furthermore, in both soil and marine ecosystems, more than 80% of nitrifying and N-fixing microorganisms at the species level were N-metabolic versatile. This study reveals that N-metabolic versatility is a common trait of N-transforming microbes, which could expand our understanding of the functional traits of drivers of nitrogen biogeochemistry.

Examples of positive effects of biodiversity on ecosystem functions have kept accumulating in the last two decades, and functional traits are considered suitable tools to explain their underlying mechanisms. However, traits are rarely studied at the scale where these mechanisms (e.g., complementarity) are likely to originate, that is, between two interacting individuals. In an 18-month greenhouse experiment, we investigated how species diversity (i.e., monospecific or heterospecific tree pairs) affects within-individual leaf traits expression and variation and how this effect is modified by soil conditions. While resource addition through phosphorus fertilization partly strengthened the diversity effects, inoculation of soil microbiota (potentially leading to increased resource accessibility) resulted in counter effects. Hence, in contrast to our expectations, we did not find synergistic effects of the two soil treatments, but we found distinct effects on species following an acquisitive or conservative growth strategy. Overall, our study showed that the effect of species diversity on young trees\' adaptability and resource-use strategy needs to be considered alongside soil biotic and abiotic aspects. The influence of soil conditions on species diversity effects is essential to understand mechanisms behind complementarity at the individual level, which ultimately translate to the community scale.

Plant pH is an emerging functional trait that plays important roles in physiological processes and nutrient cycling. However, how root pH varies among plant functional groups (PFGs) and the regulatory factors on a large scale remain unclear. Therefore, we quantified root pH variation of herbaceous plants in four PFGs from 20 sites on the Tibetan Plateau along a 1600 km transect and explored the correlations between root pH and different PFGs, climate and soil conditions. The results showed that the root pH of herbaceous plants was slightly acidic (6.46 ± 0.05). Grasses had the highest root pH (6.91 ± 0.10) across all functional groups (p < .05), whereas legumes had the lowest (5.90 ± 0.08; p < .05). The root pH decreased with mean annual precipitation, aridity index, soil water content and soil stress coefficient, whereas the significant positive correlation with soil pH. PFGs, climate and soil explained 5.39, 11.15 and 24.94% of the root pH variance, respectively. This study provided a comprehensive analysis of root pH patterns in herbaceous plants over a large spatial scale. Root pH was controlled by the combined influence of PFGs, climate and soil properties, with moisture status being the main influential factor. In contrast to the leaf pH, the root pH of herbaceous plants is strongly affected by the soil pH along environmental gradients. Our findings provide new insights into root functional traits and survival strategies of herbaceous plants in alpine ecosystems.

Seed germination and dispersal have an important impact on the establishment and spread of invasive plants. Understanding the extent of intraspecific seed trait variations can enhance our understanding of how invasive plants respond to environmental change after introduction and help predict the dynamic of invasive species under future environmental conditions. However, less attention has been given to the variation in seed traits within species as opposed to among species. We compared seed production, seed morphological traits, dispersal ability, and seedling performance of Chromolaena odorata from 10 introduced populations in Asia and 12 native populations in America in a common garden. The results showed that range (introduced vs. native) and climate affected these traits. Compared with the native population, the introduced populations had higher seed numbers per capitula, lighter seeds, and higher potential dispersal ability seeds (lower terminal velocity) but lower germination rates and seedling lengths. Climatic clines in seed numbers per capitula and pappus length were observed; however, the clines in pappus length differed between the introduced and native populations. Trait covariation patterns were also different between both ranges. In the native populations, there was a trade-off between seed numbers per capitula and seed mass, while this relationship was not found for the introduced populations. These results indicate that C. odorata alters the ecological strategy of seed following invasion, which facilitates its establishment and fast dispersal and contributes to successful invasion in the introduced ranges.

Fruit traits mediate animal-plant interactions and have to a large degree evolved to match the sensory capacities and morphology of their respective dispersers. At the same time, fruit traits are affected by local environmental factors, which may affect frugivore-plant trait match. Temperature has been identified as a major factor with a strong effect on the development of fruits, which is of serious concern because of the rising threat of global warming. Nonetheless, this primarily originates from studies on domesticated cultivars in often controlled environments. Little is known on the effect of rising temperatures on fruit traits of wild species and the implications this could have to seed dispersal networks, including downstream consequences to biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. In a case study of five plant species from eastern Madagascar, we addressed this using the elevation-for-temperature approach and examined whether a temperature gradient is systematically associated with variation in fruit traits relevant for animal foraging and fruit selection. We sampled across a gradient representing a temperature gradient of 1.5-2.6 °C, corresponding to IPCC projections. The results showed that in most cases there was no significant effect of temperature on the traits evaluated, although some species showed different effects, particularly fruit chemical profiles. This suggests that in these species warming within this range alone is not likely to drive substantial changes in dispersal networks. While no systemic effects were found, the results also indicate that the effect of temperature on fruit traits differs across species and may lead to mismatches in specific animal-plant interactions.

Agricultural grasslands play an important role in conserving the biodiversity of the European cultural landscape. Both, litter cover and soil nutrient availability, change with grassland management, but it is not well-studied how seedling recruitment and growth of multiple grassland species are influenced by their single or combined effects. Therefore, we studied the effects of nitrogen fertilization (100 kg N per year and ha) and litter cover (250 gdw per m2) on seedling recruitment and growth of 75 temperate grassland species (16 graminoid species, 51 forb species, 8 legume species) in a full factorial microcosm experiment. Overall, fertilizer reduced seedling emergence, while litter cover increased it even when combined with fertilization. Fertilization increased seedling height and biomass, and the combination of fertilizer and litter resulted in even stronger responses. Litter cover alone did not influence seedling biomass or seedling height. While the overall direction of treatment effects was similar across functional groups, their strengths were mostly weaker in graminoids than in non-legume forbs and legumes. Positive litter effects on seedling emergence were stronger in large-seeded species. Positive fertilization effects on seedling growth were stronger in small-seeded species, while their seedling biomass was negatively affected by litter cover. In summary, our results show for multiple grassland species that the combination of litter cover and fertilization modulates their single effects. The varying sensitivity of how grassland species representing different functional groups and seed sizes respond with their seedling emergence and growth to litter cover and nitrogen fertilization indicates that the consequences of land-use change on grassland diversity and composition already start to manifest in the earliest stages of the plant life cycle.

Plant functional traits hold the potential to greatly improve the understanding and prediction of climate impacts on ecosystems and carbon cycle feedback to climate change. Traits are commonly used to place species along a global conservative-acquisitive trade-off, yet how and if functional traits and conservative-acquisitive trade-offs scale up to mediate community and ecosystem fluxes is largely unknown. Here, we combine functional trait datasets and multibiome datasets of forest water and carbon fluxes at the species, community, and ecosystem-levels to quantify the scaling of the tradeoff between maximum flux and sensitivity to vapor pressure deficit. We find a strong conservative-acquisitive trade-off at the species scale, which weakens modestly at the community scale and largely disappears at the ecosystem scale. Functional traits, particularly plant water transport (hydraulic) traits, are strongly associated with the key dimensions of the conservative-acquisitive trade-off at community and ecosystem scales, highlighting that trait composition appears to influence community and ecosystem flux dynamics. Our findings provide a foundation for improving carbon cycle models by revealing i) that plant hydraulic traits are most strongly associated with community- and ecosystem scale flux dynamics and ii) community assembly dynamics likely need to be considered explicitly, as they give rise to ecosystem-level flux dynamics that differ substantially from trade-offs identified at the species-level.