Eva Brigos-Barril, Claudia Vasallo, Xavier Farré, Carlos Morcillo-Suárez, Sara Polo-Alonso, Blanca Rodríguez-Fernández, Alejandro Valenzuela, Carlos Sarabia, Elena Bosch, Hafid Laayouni, Natàlia Vilor-Tejedor, Arcadi Navarro, Gerard Muntané
{"title":"Genetic trade-offs in fertility and longevity explain the maintenance of disease-associated alleles in humans","authors":"Eva Brigos-Barril, Claudia Vasallo, Xavier Farré, Carlos Morcillo-Suárez, Sara Polo-Alonso, Blanca Rodríguez-Fernández, Alejandro Valenzuela, Carlos Sarabia, Elena Bosch, Hafid Laayouni, Natàlia Vilor-Tejedor, Arcadi Navarro, Gerard Muntané","doi":"10.1038/s41559-026-03140-z","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41559-026-03140-z","url":null,"abstract":"Genetic variants that increase the risk for complex diseases persist in human populations, despite adverse effects on health and longevity. Life-history theory predicts that such alleles can be maintained by trade-offs arising from pleiotropy, yet direct genomic evidence has been limited. We asked whether disease-associated variants persist because they enhance reproduction, despite costs to health and lifespan. By analysing genome-wide data across 62 diseases, longevity and fertility, we show that disease-risk alleles are, on average, associated with reduced longevity and increased fertility. Moreover, the subset of alleles that increase both fertility and disease risk appear to have been favoured by natural selection over the past 50,000 years. Using Mendelian randomization, we detect a causal effect of genetic liability to disease on longevity, but no robust evidence for a causal effect on fertility; importantly, these estimates remain stable after adjusting for socioeconomic factors. At the individual level, we compared offspring numbers between affected and unaffected individuals with high polygenic disease risk. For most diseases, affected individuals had more children than unaffected ones. But for early-onset diseases, the pattern reverses, indicating reproductive costs of early morbidity. Together, these results support antagonistic pleiotropy and help explain the persistence of disease-risk alleles in human populations. Despite their detrimental health effects, disease loci persist in human populations. This study shows that disease-risk alleles are generally associated with reduced longevity and increased fertility, while alleles that increase both fertility and disease risk have been favoured by natural selection.","PeriodicalId":18835,"journal":{"name":"Nature ecology & evolution","volume":"10 9","pages":"1774-1785"},"PeriodicalIF":17.1,"publicationDate":"2026-07-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.comhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-026-03140-z.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148549755","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Or Shalev, Xiaozhou Ye, Joachim Kilian, Mark Stahl, Christoph Ratzke
{"title":"Increased nutrient diversity can induce loss of microbial diversity through enhanced resource uptake","authors":"Or Shalev, Xiaozhou Ye, Joachim Kilian, Mark Stahl, Christoph Ratzke","doi":"10.1038/s41559-026-03111-4","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41559-026-03111-4","url":null,"abstract":"The origin of biodiversity is a central question in ecology, particularly how numerous microbial species co-exist within a single community. A prevailing hypothesis holds that microbial species co-exist by specializing on different resources, thereby reducing competition. Accordingly, increasing resource diversity is expected to promote species co-existence and boost biodiversity. By integrating high-throughput experiments, ecological analysis of global microbiome data, metabolic profiling and theoretical modelling, we find that the relationship between resource diversity and microbial biodiversity is not consistently positive and can even decline with increasing resource diversity. This unexpected result emerges from a widespread physiological response across diverse microbial taxa, in which more complex environments trigger higher overall resource uptake. This intensifies competition and can lead to biodiversity loss. Updating a central ecological model to include this physiological trait accurately reproduces the observed decline. Our findings suggest that physiological changes at the individual level can substantially alter predicted diversity patterns and scale up to influence community structure. Increasing nutrient diversity is expected to promote microbial diversity. This study shows that more complex environments can enhance resource uptake, intensify competition and lead to microbial biodiversity loss, challenging a central ecological assumption.","PeriodicalId":18835,"journal":{"name":"Nature ecology & evolution","volume":"10 8","pages":"1449-1463"},"PeriodicalIF":17.1,"publicationDate":"2026-07-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.comhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-026-03111-4.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148521927","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jacob S. Berv, Charlotte M. Probst, Santiago Claramunt, J. Ryan Shipley, Matt Friedman, Stephen A. Smith, David F. Fouhey, Brian C. Weeks
{"title":"Rates of passerine body plan evolution in time and space","authors":"Jacob S. Berv, Charlotte M. Probst, Santiago Claramunt, J. Ryan Shipley, Matt Friedman, Stephen A. Smith, David F. Fouhey, Brian C. Weeks","doi":"10.1038/s41559-026-03110-5","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41559-026-03110-5","url":null,"abstract":"The rates and patterns of phenotypic evolution are known to vary dramatically across time and space, yet the drivers of this variation remain poorly understood. Using over 170,000 skeletal measurements across 2,057 species of Passeriformes—the most diverse order of living birds—we reconstruct the evolutionary history of passerine body plan diversification over the past ~50 Myr. We find that the history of passerine body plan evolution is dominated by rare, hierarchically nested bursts of phenotypic innovation near the origins of major taxonomic groups, indicating that such radiations have played a disproportionately large role in shaping global passerine diversity. These bursts are temporally aligned with intervals of increased climatic instability in Earth’s history and are reflected in contemporary latitudinal gradients, where assemblages at higher latitudes host species with elevated mean rates of phenotypic evolution and more modular trait covariation. Together, our findings support the hypothesis that climatic variability may act as a recurring driver of phenotypic diversification, linking deep-time pulses of innovation to broad-scale spatial patterns in evolutionary tempo. A reconstruction of the evolutionary history of passerine body plans over the past ~50 Myr shows rare bursts of phenotypic innovation near the origin of major taxonomic groups that are temporally aligned with periods of increased climatic instability. Similar patterns are reflected in contemporary spatial gradients, where higher-latitude and more seasonal environments show elevated phenotypic rates.","PeriodicalId":18835,"journal":{"name":"Nature ecology & evolution","volume":"10 8","pages":"1559-1573"},"PeriodicalIF":17.1,"publicationDate":"2026-07-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148521925","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pinelopi Ntetsika, Stefanie Eyring, Ewa Merz, Marta Reyes, Benno Käch, Stephan B. Munch, Stuart R. Dennis, Marco Baity-Jesi, Francesco Pomati
{"title":"Biotic interactions shape the realized niche of toxic cyanobacteria","authors":"Pinelopi Ntetsika, Stefanie Eyring, Ewa Merz, Marta Reyes, Benno Käch, Stephan B. Munch, Stuart R. Dennis, Marco Baity-Jesi, Francesco Pomati","doi":"10.1038/s41559-026-03131-0","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41559-026-03131-0","url":null,"abstract":"Cyanobacterial blooms increasingly threaten vital freshwater ecosystems, with harmful impacts exacerbated by climate change and eutrophication. Cyanobacteria produce toxic metabolites whose concentrations increase with biomass accumulation, posing direct risks to drinking water, aquatic ecosystems and recreational use while generating substantial economic costs. Despite extensive research on temperature and nutrient effects, our explanatory and predictive capacity remains limited. We propose that this limitation stems from insufficient understanding of how biotic and abiotic factors interact to modify cyanobacterial net growth and, consequently, biomass accumulation. Here, using five years of daily monitoring data from a eutrophic lake and causal inference via state-space reconstruction modelling, we show that interactions with co-occurring plankton taxa fundamentally reshape the realized niche of bloom-forming cyanobacteria over environmental gradients. Biotic interactions shift temperature boundaries for net growth by up to 13 °C and phosphorus requirements by over 20 μg l−1 in toxic Microcystaceae and Dolichospermum spp. Grazing inhibits bloom formation across cyanobacterial taxa, while facilitation by other phytoplankton may allow blooms at unexpectedly low temperatures and phosphate concentrations. These findings address a fundamental research gap—how biotic interactions shape realized niches in natural ecosystems—while offering practical insights for harmful algal bloom management. Using five years of daily lake plankton monitoring data and empirical dynamic modelling, this study shows that grazing, competition and facilitation reshape the temperature and nutrient conditions required for toxic cyanobacterial blooms.","PeriodicalId":18835,"journal":{"name":"Nature ecology & evolution","volume":"10 8","pages":"1434-1448"},"PeriodicalIF":17.1,"publicationDate":"2026-07-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13441909/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148536466","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Liang Lü (, ), Kenneth De Baets, Mattia Giacomelli, Maria Eleonora Rossi, Oleksandr Holovachov, Davide Pisani, Philip C. J. Donoghue
{"title":"The timescale of nematode evolution reveals late and convergent radiations of parasitism","authors":"Liang Lü \u0000 (, ), Kenneth De Baets, Mattia Giacomelli, Maria Eleonora Rossi, Oleksandr Holovachov, Davide Pisani, Philip C. J. Donoghue","doi":"10.1038/s41559-026-03128-9","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41559-026-03128-9","url":null,"abstract":"Nematodes are among the most diverse animal groups, exerting profound impacts as parasites with far-reaching medical and economic consequences. Despite parasitic species constituting most known extant nematodes, the temporal framework underpinning the evolution of parasitism has remained elusive. Here we integrate expansive genomic datasets (184 representatives, including 156 nematode species) with fossil constraints to recalibrate the timescale of nematode evolution and resolve the evolution of their parasitic and free-living lifestyles. Our analyses indicate that the last common ancestor of nematodes probably emerged as a free-living organism between the late Cambrian and Middle Ordovician. Moreover, we estimate that the earliest shifts toward parasitism occurred between the Late Devonian and end Carboniferous, with subsequent, recurrent transitions marking the evolution of parasitism. For most of their evolutionary history, parasitic nematodes did not exhibit enhanced diversification relative to their free-living counterparts, until approximately 90 million years ago—a temporal juncture that aligns with the rapid radiation of three obligatory zooparasitic lineages (Ascarididae, Onchocercidae and Strongyloidea), coincident with the diversification of terrestrial mammals and modern birds. These findings refine our understanding of nematode evolution and highlight the complex interplay between lifestyle transitions and diversification dynamics in this ecologically pivotal phylum. Establishing a universal evolutionary timescale of nematodes has been complicated by their patchy fossil record and analytical limitations. Combining genomic data from 156 nematode species with fossil calibrations, the authors develop a time-calibrated phylogeny that resolves the timing of nematode diversification and evolution of parasitism, while accounting for variation in divergence time estimates.","PeriodicalId":18835,"journal":{"name":"Nature ecology & evolution","volume":"10 8","pages":"1547-1558"},"PeriodicalIF":17.1,"publicationDate":"2026-07-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148459595","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Qiang Lyu, Kuang Sheng, Hong Zhou, Jingkai Ji, Miao Wang, Feng Wang, Moujian Guo, Kun Cai, Bing Hu, Kaixiao Nie, Ruiling Zhang, Shutong Yue, Xiaobo Li, Cixiu Li, Xun Zhou, Edward C. Holmes, Jinfeng Chen, Liangsheng Zhang, Weifeng Shi
{"title":"Genomic and evolutionary basis of parthenogenesis in a disease-vector tick species","authors":"Qiang Lyu, Kuang Sheng, Hong Zhou, Jingkai Ji, Miao Wang, Feng Wang, Moujian Guo, Kun Cai, Bing Hu, Kaixiao Nie, Ruiling Zhang, Shutong Yue, Xiaobo Li, Cixiu Li, Xun Zhou, Edward C. Holmes, Jinfeng Chen, Liangsheng Zhang, Weifeng Shi","doi":"10.1038/s41559-026-03137-8","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41559-026-03137-8","url":null,"abstract":"Haemaphysalis longicornis is an important tick species and pathogen vector characterized by the co-circulation of triploid parthenogenetic and diploid bisexual strains. However, the evolutionary basis of parthenogenesis in this species is unclear. Here we report reference-quality, haplotype-resolved genome assemblies of the parthenogenetic strain and two reference-quality genomes of the bisexual strains. Comparative genomic analysis revealed high collinearity between the parthenogenetic and bisexual genomes, with a stable chromosomal architecture maintained among the three haplotypes of the parthenogenetic strain. The parthenogenetic H. longicornis genome exhibited a major expansion in cell cycle-related gene families, including the inhibitor of apoptosis protein (IAP) family, but was characterized by a contraction in other gene families. Population resequencing of 179 individuals revealed two distinct subpopulations, with chromosome 7 harbouring high genetic differentiation and several candidate genes probably associated with parthenogenesis. Functional experiments showed that knockdown of the BIRC5 gene, a member of the IAP family, suppressed oviposition in both strains, with the parthenogenetic strain exhibiting milder adverse effects probably due to a stronger transcriptional response. Overall, our results reveal the genomic and evolutionary features associated with polyploid parthenogenesis in H. longicornis. The authors combine comparative genomics across arthropods with comparative transcriptomics, population genetics analysis and functional experiments in Haemaphysalis longicornis ticks to elucidate the evolutionary mechanisms of divergence between bisexual and parthenogenetic strains of the species.","PeriodicalId":18835,"journal":{"name":"Nature ecology & evolution","volume":"10 9","pages":"1758-1773"},"PeriodicalIF":17.1,"publicationDate":"2026-07-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148459596","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Biodiversity buffers the effects of drought on productivity most in drier grasslands and less so in forests","authors":"","doi":"10.1038/s41559-026-03127-w","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41559-026-03127-w","url":null,"abstract":"We synthesized data from 75 biodiversity experiments across grasslands and forests worldwide to test how climate extremes and environmental context shape the effects of plant diversity on productivity. We found that the effects of plant diversity intensify in extreme drought and in more arid grasslands, driven by strengthened complementarity among species.","PeriodicalId":18835,"journal":{"name":"Nature ecology & evolution","volume":"10 8","pages":"1401-1402"},"PeriodicalIF":17.1,"publicationDate":"2026-07-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148451507","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Takehiro Sasaki, Daniela Hoss, Yuanyuan Huang, Yuki Iwachido, Liting Zheng, Luis Abdala-Roberts, Eric Allan, Harald Auge, Nadia Barsoum, Jürgen Bauhus, Christel Baum, Carl Beierkuhnlein, Friderike Beyer, Pedro Brancalion, Seraina L. Cappelli, Chengjin Chu, Dylan Craven, Caroline Daniel, Jiri Dolezal, Anne Ebeling, Marina Fagundes, Olga Ferlian, Gislene Ganade, Tobias Gebauer, Benoit Gendreau-Berthiaume, Douglas Godbold, Nathaly Guerrero-Ramírez, Joannès Guillemot, Peter Hajek, Andy Hector, Dirk Hölscher, Hervé Jactel, Anke Jentsch, Julia Koricheva, Holger Kreft, Juergen Kreyling, Vojtech Lanta, Jan Leps, Wei Lin, Maybeth Mendoza-Espinosa, Celine Meredieu, Christian Messier, Sebastian T. Meyer, Florencia Montagnini, Bart Muys, Charles Nock, Alain Paquette, William C. Parker, John D. Parker, Victor Parra-Tabla, John Parrotta, Gustavo B. Paterno, Noémie A. Pichon, Daniel Piotto, Wayne Polley, Quentin Ponette, Catherine Potvin, Peter B. Reich, Boris Rewald, Agnès Robin, Christiane Roscher, Hans Sanden, Michael Scherer-Lorenzen, Florian Schnabel, Eric B. Searle, Alrun Siebenkäs, Rachel J. Standish, David Tilman, Jasper van Ruijven, Kris Verheyen, Alexandra Weigelt, Martin Weih, Ramona Werner, Brian Wilsey, Bernhard Schmid, Forest Isbell, Nico Eisenhauer
{"title":"Biodiversity effects under climate extremes intensify with aridity in grasslands but not forests","authors":"Takehiro Sasaki, Daniela Hoss, Yuanyuan Huang, Yuki Iwachido, Liting Zheng, Luis Abdala-Roberts, Eric Allan, Harald Auge, Nadia Barsoum, Jürgen Bauhus, Christel Baum, Carl Beierkuhnlein, Friderike Beyer, Pedro Brancalion, Seraina L. Cappelli, Chengjin Chu, Dylan Craven, Caroline Daniel, Jiri Dolezal, Anne Ebeling, Marina Fagundes, Olga Ferlian, Gislene Ganade, Tobias Gebauer, Benoit Gendreau-Berthiaume, Douglas Godbold, Nathaly Guerrero-Ramírez, Joannès Guillemot, Peter Hajek, Andy Hector, Dirk Hölscher, Hervé Jactel, Anke Jentsch, Julia Koricheva, Holger Kreft, Juergen Kreyling, Vojtech Lanta, Jan Leps, Wei Lin, Maybeth Mendoza-Espinosa, Celine Meredieu, Christian Messier, Sebastian T. Meyer, Florencia Montagnini, Bart Muys, Charles Nock, Alain Paquette, William C. Parker, John D. Parker, Victor Parra-Tabla, John Parrotta, Gustavo B. Paterno, Noémie A. Pichon, Daniel Piotto, Wayne Polley, Quentin Ponette, Catherine Potvin, Peter B. Reich, Boris Rewald, Agnès Robin, Christiane Roscher, Hans Sanden, Michael Scherer-Lorenzen, Florian Schnabel, Eric B. Searle, Alrun Siebenkäs, Rachel J. Standish, David Tilman, Jasper van Ruijven, Kris Verheyen, Alexandra Weigelt, Martin Weih, Ramona Werner, Brian Wilsey, Bernhard Schmid, Forest Isbell, Nico Eisenhauer","doi":"10.1038/s41559-026-03130-1","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41559-026-03130-1","url":null,"abstract":"Biodiversity generally enhances ecosystem productivity, but whether such effects persist or intensify during climate extremes is unclear. Here we synthesized data from 75 biodiversity experiments across grasslands and forests to assess how aridity and soil nutrients modulate plant diversity effects under drought and heat extremes. Biodiversity most strongly enhanced productivity under extreme drought in more arid grasslands but had limited effects in forests under such conditions. More arid grasslands showed enhanced complementarity effects under extreme drought, whereas less arid grasslands favoured selection effects driven by productive species. Heat extremes did not produce comparable context-dependent changes in plant diversity effects across ecosystem types or aridity gradients. Soil nutrients did not have any detectable influence under either drought or heat extremes, suggesting that as climatic stress intensifies, hydric limitations override edaphic constraints. Our synthesis identifies when and where plant diversity most strongly enhances productivity, showing that its effects are the greatest under extreme drought in more arid grasslands. Biodiversity effects on ecosystem functioning under climate extremes may depend on ecosystem type and baseline aridity. Here the authors show that the effects of plant diversity on productivity are strongest under extreme drought in more arid grasslands, whereas comparable context dependence is not detected in forests or under heat extremes.","PeriodicalId":18835,"journal":{"name":"Nature ecology & evolution","volume":"10 8","pages":"1464-1474"},"PeriodicalIF":17.1,"publicationDate":"2026-07-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.comhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-026-03130-1.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148451506","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Wei-Ying Xu (, ), Arthur Gessler, Josep Peñuelas, Constantin M. Zohner, Michael C. Dietze, Jordi Sardans, Henrik Hartmann, Matteo Detto, Jin Wu (, ), Adam R. Martin, Thomas Crowther, Li-Dong Mo (, ), Caroline Signori-Müller, Andreas H. Schweiger, Pei-Pei Zhang (, ), Feng-Qi Wu (, ), Nan Yang (, ), Yun-Peng Luo (, ), Su-Hui Ma (, ), Xiao-Feng Ni (, ), Cheng-Jun Ji (, ), Guo-Ping Chen (, ), Helena Vallicrosa, Nicholas G. Smith, Yi-Qi Luo (, ), Owen K. Atkin, Nathan G. Swenson, Jens Kattge, Peter B. Reich, Zheng-Bing Yan (, )
{"title":"Evolutionary history drives organ-specific variability in plant non-structural carbohydrates","authors":"Wei-Ying Xu \u0000 (, ), Arthur Gessler, Josep Peñuelas, Constantin M. Zohner, Michael C. Dietze, Jordi Sardans, Henrik Hartmann, Matteo Detto, Jin Wu \u0000 (, ), Adam R. Martin, Thomas Crowther, Li-Dong Mo \u0000 (, ), Caroline Signori-Müller, Andreas H. Schweiger, Pei-Pei Zhang \u0000 (, ), Feng-Qi Wu \u0000 (, ), Nan Yang \u0000 (, ), Yun-Peng Luo \u0000 (, ), Su-Hui Ma \u0000 (, ), Xiao-Feng Ni \u0000 (, ), Cheng-Jun Ji \u0000 (, ), Guo-Ping Chen \u0000 (, ), Helena Vallicrosa, Nicholas G. Smith, Yi-Qi Luo \u0000 (, ), Owen K. Atkin, Nathan G. Swenson, Jens Kattge, Peter B. Reich, Zheng-Bing Yan \u0000 (, )","doi":"10.1038/s41559-026-03129-8","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41559-026-03129-8","url":null,"abstract":"Non-structural carbohydrates (NSCs) serve as key metabolic substrates and carbon reserves in plants, playing a central role in regulating vegetation carbon dynamics. Despite their importance, the global distribution and underlying drivers of NSC variations remain uncertain. We compiled a database consisting of 29,386 field measurements on NSC concentrations during the growing season, covering 1,016 sites and 2,041 species, to examine organ-specific NSC patterns and disentangle the relative contributions of environmental conditions and evolutionary history. Leaf NSC concentrations increase with latitude, whereas stem and root NSC concentrations decline, linked primarily to water availability, temperature and solar radiation. The spatial contrast reflects differentiated source–sink controls on NSC storage along environmental gradients. In contrast, NSC concentrations increase with evolutionary divergence time in leaves, but decline in stems and roots. Crucially, evolutionary history explains a larger portion (55.9–77.1%) of global NSC variations across organs, surpassing contemporary environmental controls. These findings reveal the organ-specific disparity in NSC storage and underscore the central role of evolutionary history in shaping global NSC variability, with important implications for plant carbon balance and vegetation carbon modelling. Compiling a global database of non-structural carbohydrates (NSCs) from >2,000 plant species, the authors show that evolutionary history explains a larger proportion of NSC variation than environmental controls.","PeriodicalId":18835,"journal":{"name":"Nature ecology & evolution","volume":"10 9","pages":"1658-1670"},"PeriodicalIF":17.1,"publicationDate":"2026-07-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148432255","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}