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1. Ecological acclimation: A framework to integrate fast and slow responses to climate change

   https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2435.70079  

   Stemkovski, Michael; Bernhardt, Joey R; Blonder, Benjamin Wong; Bradford, John B; Clark‐Wolf, Kyra; Dee, Laura E; Evans, Margaret_E K; Iglesias, Virginia; Johnson, Loretta C; Lynch, Abigail J; et al (August 2025, Functional Ecology)

   Abstract Ecological responses to climate change occur across vastly different time‐scales, from minutes for physiological plasticity to decades or centuries for community turnover and evolutionary adaptation. Accurately predicting the range of ecosystem trajectories will require models that incorporate both fast processes that may keep pace with climate change and slower ones likely to lag behind and generate disequilibrium dynamics. However, the knowledge necessary for this integration is currently fragmented across disciplines.We develop ‘ecological acclimation’ as a unifying framework to emphasize the similarity of dynamics driven by processes operating on dramatically different time‐scales and levels of biological organization. The framework focuses on ecoclimate sensitivities, measured as the change in an ecological response variable per unit of climate change. Acclimation processes acting at different time‐scales cause these sensitivities to shift in magnitude and even direction over time.We highlight shifting ecoclimate sensitivities in case studies from diverse ecosystems, including terrestrial plant communities, coral reefs and soil microbiomes.Models predicting future ecosystem states inevitably make assumptions about acclimation processes; these assumptions must be explicit for users to evaluate whether a model is appropriate for a given forecast horizon. Similarly, decision frameworks that clearly account for multiple acclimation processes and their distinct time‐scales will help natural resource managers plan for ecological impacts of climate change from years to many decades into the future.We outline a synthetic research programme focused on the time‐scales of ecological acclimation to reduce uncertainty in ecological forecasts. Read the freePlain Language Summaryfor this article on the Journal blog. 

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2. English‐learning infants developing sensitivity to vowel phonotactic cues to word segmentation

   https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.13564  

   Katsuda, Hironori; Sundara, Megha (November 2024, Developmental Science)

   Abstract Previous research has shown that when domain‐general transitional probability (TP) cues to word segmentation are in conflict with language‐specific stress cues, English‐learning 5‐ and 7‐month‐olds rely on TP, whereas 9‐month‐olds rely on stress. In two artificial languages, we evaluated English‐learning infants’ sensitivity to TP cues to word segmentation vis‐a‐vis language‐specific vowel phonotactic (VP) cues—English words do not end in lax vowels. These cues were either consistent or conflicting. When these cues were in conflict, 10‐month‐olds relied on the VP cues, whereas 5‐month‐olds relied on TP. These findings align with statistical bootstrapping accounts, where infants initially use domain‐general distributional information for word segmentation, and subsequently discover language‐specific patterns based on segmented words. Research HighlightsResearch indicates that when transitional probability (TP) conflicts with stress cues for word segmentation, English‐learning 9‐month‐olds rely on stress, whereas younger infants rely on TP.In two artificial languages, we evaluated English‐learning infants’ sensitivity to TP versus vowel phonotactic (VP) cues for word segmentation.When these cues conflicted, 10‐month‐olds relied on VPs, whereas 5‐month‐olds relied on TP.These findings align with statistical bootstrapping accounts, where infants first utilize domain‐general distributional information for word segmentation, and then identify language‐specific patterns from segmented words. 

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3. On p-Group Isomorphism: search-to-decision, counting-to-decision, and nilpotency class reductions via tensors

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3625308  

   Grochow, Joshua A.; Qiao, Youming (September 2023, ACM Transactions on Computation Theory)

   In this paper we study some classical complexity-theoretic questions regarding GroupIsomorphism(GpI). We focus onp-groups (groups of prime power order) with oddp, which are believed to be a bottleneck case for GpI, and work in the model of matrix groups over finite fields. Our main results are as follows. •Although search-to-decision and counting-to-decision reductions have been known for over four decades for GraphIsomorphism(GI), they had remained open for GpI, explicitly asked by Arvind & Torán (Bull. EATCS, 2005). Extending methods from TensorIsomorphism(Grochow & Qiao, ITCS 2021), we show moderately exponential-time such reductions withinp-groups of class 2 and exponentp.•Despitethe widely held belief thatp-groups of class 2 and exponentpare the hardest cases of GpI, there was no reduction to these groups from any larger class of groups. Again using methods from Tensor Isomorphism (ibid.), we show the first such reduction, namely from isomorphism testing ofp-groups of “small” class and exponentpto those of class two and exponentp. For the first results, our main innovation is to develop linear-algebraic analogues of classical graph coloring gadgets, a key technique in studying the structural complexity ofGI. Unlike the graph coloring gadgets, which support restricting to various subgroups of the symmetric group, the problems we study require restricting to various subgroups of the general linear group, which entails significantly different and more complicated gadgets. The analysis of one of our gadgets relies on a classical result from group theory regarding random generation of classical groups (Kantor & Lubotzky, Geom. Dedicata, 1990). For the nilpotency class reduction, we combine a runtime analysis of the Lazard correspondence with TensorIsomorphism-completeness results (Grochow & Qiao, ibid.). 

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4. From intersection bodies to dual centroid bodies: A stochastic approach to isoperimetry

   https://doi.org/10.4171/JEMS/1570  

   Adamczak, Radosław; Paouris, Grigoris; Pivovarov, Peter; Simanjuntak, Paul (December 2024, Journal of the European Mathematical Society)

   We establish a family of isoperimetric inequalities for sets that interpolate between intersection bodies and dualL_{p}-centroid bodies. This provides a bridge between the Busemann intersection inequality and the Lutwak–Zhang inequality. The approach depends on new empirical versions of these inequalities. 

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5. Training physical matter to matter

   https://doi.org/10.1039/D4SM00629A  

   Jaeger, Heinrich M; Murugan, Arvind; Nagel, Sidney R (August 2024, Soft Matter)

   A new paradigm for generating adaptive functionality in materials. 

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