Plasmid carriage is associated with energetic costs, and thus only those plasmids providing fitness benefits are stably maintained in the host lineage. Marine bacteria of the Roseobacter clade harbor up to 11 extrachromosomal replicons, adding …
Predicting the arrival of alien species remains a big challenge, which is assumed to be a consequence of the complexity of the invasion process. Here, we demonstrate that spreading of alien marine species can be predicted by a simple model using only global shipping intensities, environmental variables, and species occurrence data. We provide species lists of the next potentially invading species in a local habitat or species causing harmful algal blooms with their associated probability of invasion. This will help to improve mitigation strategies to reduce the further introduction of alien species. Although this study focuses on marine algae, the model approach can be easily adopted to other taxonomic groups and their respective drivers of invasion
Trade plays a key role in the spread of alien species and has arguably contributed to the recent enormous acceleration of biological invasions, thus homogenizing biotas worldwide. Combining data on 60‐year trends of bilateral trade, as well as on …
Spatial correlations in environmental stochasticity can synchronize populations over wide areas, a phenomenon known as the Moran effect. The Moran effect has been confirmed in field, laboratory and theoretical investigations. Little is known, …
The rate of biological invasions has strongly increased during the last decades, mostly due to the accelerated spread of species by increasing global trade and transport. Here, we combine the network of global cargo ship movements with port environmental conditions and biogeography to quantify the probability of new primary invasions through the release of ballast water...
Transportation networks play a crucial role in human mobility, the exchange of goods and the spread of invasive species. With 90 per cent of world trade carried by sea, the global network of merchant ships provides one of the most important modes of …
Complex dynamics, such as population cycles, can arise when the individual members of a population become synchronized. However, it is an open question how readily and through which mechanisms synchronization-driven cycles can occur in unstructured …
We perform a quantitative analysis of extensive chess databases and show that the frequencies of opening moves are distributed according to a power law with an exponent that increases linearly with the game depth, whereas the pooled distribution of …
Population cycles that persist in time and are synchronized over space pervade ecological systems, but their underlying causes remain a long-standing enigma. Here we examine the synchronization of complex population oscillations in networks of model communities and in natural systems. In the proposed spatial model, each local patch sustains a three-level trophic system composed of interacting predators, consumers and vegetation. Populations oscillate regularly and periodically in phase, but with irregular and chaotic peaks together in abundance—twin realistic features that are not found in standard ecological models...