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Tree mortality is a key process underlying forest dynamics and community assembly. Understanding how tree mortality is driven by simultaneous drivers is needed to evaluate potential effects of climate change on forest composition. Using repeat-measure information from c. 400,000 trees from the Spanish Forest Inventory, we quantified the relative importance of tree size, competition, climate and edaphic conditions on tree mortality of 11 species, and explored the combined effect of climate and competition. Tree mortality was affected by all of these multiple drivers, especially tree size and asymmetric competition, and strong interactions between climate and competition were found. All species showed L-shaped mortality patterns (i.e. showed decreasing mortality with tree size), but pines were more sensitive to asymmetric competition than broadleaved species. Among climatic variables, the negative effect of temperature on tree mortality was much larger than the effect of precipitation. Moreover, the effect of climate (mean annual temperature and annual precipitation) on tree mortality was aggravated at high competition levels for all species, but especially for broadleaved species. The significant interaction between climate and competition on tree mortality indicated that global change in Mediterranean regions, causing hotter and drier conditions and denser stands, could lead to profound effects on forest structure and composition. Therefore, to evaluate the potential effects of climatic change on tree mortality, forest structure must be considered, since two systems of similar composition but different structure could radically differ in their response to climatic conditions.

Drought-induced forest dieback can lead to a tipping point in community dominance, but the coupled response at the tree and stand-level response has not been properly addressed. New spatially and temporally integrated monitoring approaches that target different biological organization levels are needed. Here, we compared the temporal responses of dendrochronological and spectral indices from 1984 to 2020 at both tree and stand levels, respectively, of a drought-prone Mediterranean Pinus pinea forest currently suffering strong dieback. We test the influence of climate on temporal patterns of tree radial growth, greenness and wetness spectral indices; and we address the influence of major drought episodes on resilience metrics. Tree-ring data and spectral indices followed different spatio-temporal patterns over the study period (1984–2020). Combined information from tree growth and spectral trajectories suggests that a reduction in tree density during the mid-1990s could have promoted tree growth and reduced dieback risk. Additionally, over the last decade, extreme and recurrent droughts have resulted in crown defoliation greater than 40% in most plots since 2019. We found that tree growth and the greenness spectral index were positively related to annual precipitation, while the wetness index was positively related to mean annual temperature. The response to drought, however, was stronger for tree growth than for spectral indices. Our study demonstrates the value of long-term retrospective multiscale analyses including tree and stand-level scales to disentangle mechanisms triggering and driving forest dieback.

Pharmaceuticals enhance our quality of life; consequently, their consumption is growing as a result of the need to treat ageing-related and chronic diseases and changes in the clinical practice. The market revenues also show an historic growth worldwide motivated by the increase on the drug demand. However, this positivism on the market is fogged because the discharge of pharmaceuticals and their metabolites into the environment, including water, also increases due to their inappropriate management, treatment and disposal; now, worldwide, this fact is recognized as an environmental concern and human health risk. Intriguingly, researchers have studied the most effective methods for pharmaceutical removal in wastewater; however, the types of pharmaceuticals investigated in most of these studies do not reflect the most produced and consumed pharmaceuticals on the market. Hence, an attempt was done to analyze the pharmaceutical market, drugs consumption trends and the pharmaceutical research interests worldwide. Notwithstanding, the intensive research work done in different pharmaceutical research fronts such as disposal and fate, environmental impacts and concerns, human health risks, removal, degradation and development of treatment technologies, found that such research is not totally aligned with the market trends and consumption patterns. There are other drivers and interests that promote the pharmaceutical research. Thus, this review is an important contribution to those that are interested not only on the pharmaceutical market and drugs consumption, but also on the links, the drivers and interests that motivate and determine the research work on certain groups of pharmaceuticals on water and wastewater.

Data from millions of trees in thousands of locations are used to show that certain key traits affect competitive ability in predictable ways, and that there are trade-offs between traits that favour growth with and without competition. Key traits affect the competitive ability of trees The properties of plants affect their physiology in predictable and consistent ways, but it is not clear if this can be extended to effects on ecological competitiveness. Georges Kunstler et al . assemble data from three million trees, 140,000 forest growth plots, and many vegetation types worldwide to show that certain key traits affect competitive ability in predictable ways, and that there are trade-offs between traits that favour growth with, and without, competition. Elsewhere in this issue of Nature , Sandra Díaz et al . analyse a comprehensive database mapping worldwide variation in six traits critical to growth, survival and reproduction of vascular plants and arrive at a detailed quantitative global picture of plant functional diversity. Phenotypic traits and their associated trade-offs have been shown to have globally consistent effects on individual plant physiological functions 1 , 2 , 3 , but how these effects scale up to influence competition, a key driver of community assembly in terrestrial vegetation, has remained unclear 4 . Here we use growth data from more than 3 million trees in over 140,000 plots across the world to show how three key functional traits—wood density, specific leaf area and maximum height—consistently influence competitive interactions. Fast maximum growth of a species was correlated negatively with its wood density in all biomes, and positively with its specific leaf area in most biomes. Low wood density was also correlated with a low ability to tolerate competition and a low competitive effect on neighbours, while high specific leaf area was correlated with a low competitive effect. Thus, traits generate trade-offs between performance with competition versus performance without competition, a fundamental ingredient in the classical hypothesis that the coexistence of plant species is enabled via differentiation in their successional strategies 5 . Competition within species was stronger than between species, but an increase in trait dissimilarity between species had little influence in weakening competition. No benefit of dissimilarity was detected for specific leaf area or wood density, and only a weak benefit for maximum height. Our trait-based approach to modelling competition makes generalization possible across the forest ecosystems of the world and their highly diverse species composition.

Aim Biodiversity loss could reduce primary productivity and the carbon storage provided by forests; however, the mechanisms underpinning the effects of biodiversity on multiple ecosystem functions are not completely understood. Spanish forests are of particular interest because of the broad variation in environmental conditions and management history. We tested for the existence of a relationship between diversity effects and both carbon storage and tree productivity, and examined the relative importance of complementarity and selection mechanisms in a wide variety of forests, from cold deciduous Atlantic to xeric Mediterranean evergreen forests. Location Continental Spain. Methods We used c. 54,000 plots of the Spanish Forest Inventory and maximum likelihood techniques to quantify how climate, stand structure and diversity shape carbon storage and tree productivity. Diversity effects included both complementarity and selection mechanisms, measured respectively through functional diversity and functional identity measures. Results Diversity had a significant effect on both carbon storage and tree productivity, even when controlling for confounding factors of climate and stand structure. A consistent positive effect of functional diversity on carbon storage and tree productivity was observed in all seven forest types studied. This relationship was not linear, and the largest changes in carbon storage and tree productivity were observed at low levels of functional diversity. However, the importance of complementarity effects was not consistent with the productivity of different forest types. Selection effects were particularly important in deciduous and Mediterranean pine forests, but had very little effect on mountain pines. Main conclusions We found a generally positive effect of diversity on carbon storage and tree productivity, supported by both complementarity and selection mechanisms. Thus, both functionally diverse forests and functionally important species should be maintained to adequately preserve and promote key ecosystem functions such as carbon storage and tree productivity.

Increasing water stress is emerging as a global phenomenon, and is anticipated to have a marked impact on forest function. The role of tree functional strategies is pivotal in regulating forest fitness and their ability to cope with water stress. However, how the functional strategies found at the tree or species level scale up to characterise forest communities and their variation across regions is not yet well-established. By combining eight water-stress-related functional traits with forest inventory data from the USA and Europe, we investigated the community-level trait coordination and the biogeographic patterns of trait associations for woody plants, and analysed the relationships between the trait associations and climate factors. We find that the trait associations at the community level are consistent with those found at the species level. Traits associated with acquisitive-conservative strategies forms one dimension of variation, while leaf turgor loss point, associated with stomatal water regulation strategy, loads along a second dimension. Surprisingly, spatial patterns of community-level trait association are better explained by temperature than by aridity, suggesting a temperature-driven adaptation. These findings provide a basis to build predictions of forest response under water stress, with particular potential to improve simulations of tree mortality and forest biomass accumulation in a changing climate.

Aim: Trees are often observed to get shorter and more narrowly crowned in dry regions and at high elevations. We explore how this pattern is driven by two opposing factors: competition for light makes it advantageous to extend branches to their biomechanical limit, whereas under cold or arid conditions it is advantageous to have shorter branches, thereby reducing the length of the hydraulic transport system and embolism risk. Using data from 700,000 trees of 26 species, we quantify how environmental conditions influence the scaling of height and crown diameter (CD) with stem diameter (d.b.h.). We compare our predictions with those of metabolic scaling theory (MST), which suggests that allometry is invariant of environment. Location: 48,000 inventory plots that systematically sample mainland Spain, a region in which climate varies strongly. Methods: We fit d.b.h.—height and d.b.h.—CD functions using Bayesian methods, allowing comparison of within- and across-species trends in allometry along gradients of temperature, precipitation, drought and competition for light (i.e. the basal area of taller trees). Results: The competitive environment had a strong influence on aboveground allometry, but all trees were far shorter than predicted by biomechanical models, suggesting that factors other than biomechanics are important. Species that dominate in arid and cold habitats were much shorter (for a given diameter) than those from benign conditions; but within-species heights did not vary strongly across climatic gradients. Main conclusions: Our results do not support the MST prediction that d.b.h.—height and d.b.h.—CD allometries are invariant, or that biomechanical constraints determine height allometry. Rather, we highlight the role of hydraulic limitations in this region. The fact that intra-specific adjustment in d.b.h.—CD — height allometry along environmental gradients was far weaker than across-species changes may indicate genetic constraints on allometry which might contribute to niche differentiation among species.

Aim: To assess the effect of local adaptation and phenotypic plasticity on the potential distribution of species under future climate changes. Trees may be adapted to specific climatic conditions; however, species range predictions have classically been assessed by species distribution models (SDMs) that do not account for intra-specific genetic variability and phenotypic plasticity, because SDMs rely on the assumption that species respond homogeneously to climate change across their range, i.e. a species is equally adapted throughout its range, and all species are equally plastic. These assumptions could cause SDMs to exaggerate or underestimate species at risk under future climate change. Location: The Iberian Peninsula. Methods: Species distributions are predicted by integrating experimental data and modelling techniques. We incorporate plasticity and local adaptation into a SDM by calibrating models of tree survivorship with adaptive traits in provenance trials. Phenotypic plasticity was incorporated by calibrating our model with a climatic index that provides a measure of the differences between sites and provenances. Results: We present a new modelling approach that is easy to implement and makes use of existing tree provenance trials to predict species distribution models under global warming. Our results indicate that the incorporation of intrapopulation genetic diversity and phenotypic plasticity in SDMs significantly altered their outcome. In comparing species range predictions, the decrease in area occupancy under global warming conditions is smaller when considering our survivaladaptation model than that predicted by a 'classical SDM' calibrated with presenceabsence data. These differences in survivorship are due to both local adaptation and plasticity. Differences due to the use of experimental data in the model calibration are also expressed in our results: we incorporate a null model that uses survival data from all provenances together. This model always predicts less reduction in area occupancy for both species than the SDM calibrated with presence-absence. Main conclusions: We reaffirm the importance of considering adaptive traits when predicting species distributions and avoiding the use of occurrence data as a predictive variable. In light of these recommendations, we advise that existing predictions of future species distributions and their component populations must be reconsidered.

Malva parviflora has shown anti-inflammatory, antihypertensive, antihyperlipidemic, and hypoglycemic effects. This study is aimed to evaluate the anti-adipogenic effect of M . parviflora on 3T3-L1 adipocytes. Fibroblast differentiation was induced either in the absence or presence of M . parviflora fractions (F3, F4, F7, F12, F13, F17, F18 and F19) for 4 days; F17 and 18 were the most effective fractions in reducing intracellular lipid accumulation (by 25.6% and 23.1%, respectively). EC 50 of F17 and F18 (14 μg/mL and 17 μg/mL, respectively) were used to evaluate their anti adipogenic effect. After 10 days of inducing differentiation in the absence or presence of the extracts at the EC 50 of F17 and F18, lipid accumulation, the concentration of interleukin 6 (IL-6) were measured in the culture medium; the presence of PPAR-γ, AKT, and p-AKT was also determined. In differentiated adipocytes (C2), F17 maintained intracellular lipid concentration at levels comparable to metformin, while decreasing PPAR-γ and increasing p-AKT presence; it also prevented IL-6 expression. F17 consists of alanine, valine, phenylalanine, and proline. On the other hand, F18 reduced intracellular lipid concentrations, prevented the increase of PPAR-γ and p-AKT, and maintained IL-6 expression at similar levels as metformin. F18 is mainly constituted by alanine, valine, proline, and sucrose. In conclusion, M . parviflora fractions (F17 and F18) control the process of adipogenesis, lipogenesis, and cellular dysfunction.

Context Global change is leading to more frequent and intense tree damage and mortality events. Drought-induced tree mortality is occurring worldwide leading to broad-scale events, but the spatial patterns of tree damage and mortality, their underlying drivers and their variation over time is largely unknown. Objectives We investigated the spatial patterns of tree damage and mortality across Mediterranean forests of the Iberian Peninsula, the underlying effects of stand structure and climate, and how the spatial patterns and relationships with underlying drivers changed over time. Methods We used the Spanish Forest Inventory to analyse the autocorrelation in tree damage and mortality across forest types, hurdle-gamma models to quantify the effect of stand structure and climate on tree damage and mortality, and cross-correlograms to assess their spatial dependence and its change over time. Results We observed a greater magnitude and a stronger autocorrelation in tree damage than mortality, with positive aggregation up to 20 kms. There was a spatial dependence between tree damage and mortality with their drivers, with spatial aggregation increasing with water availability, drought intensity and stand structure. The spatial dependence of tree damage and mortality with the underlying drivers increased over time, particularly for drought intensity. Conclusions Our results suggest that the combined effect of intense competition and drought could favour more extensive die-off and tree mortality events, providing key information for identifying vulnerable areas and the planning of adaptation measures.