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Abstract For decades, people have reduced the transmission of pathogens by adding low‐quality hosts to managed environments like agricultural fields. More recently, there has been interest in whether similar ‘dilution effects’ occur in natural disease systems, and whether these effects are eroded as diversity declines. For some pathogens of plants, humans and other animals, the highest‐quality hosts persist when diversity is lost, so that high‐quality hosts dominate low‐diversity communities, resulting in greater pathogen transmission. Meta‐analyses reveal that these natural dilution effects are common. However, studying them remains challenging due to limitations on the ability of researchers to manipulate many disease systems experimentally, difficulties of acquiring data on host quality and confusion about what should and should not be considered a dilution effect. Because dilution effects are widely used in managed disease systems and have been documented in a variety of natural disease systems, their existence should not be considered controversial. Important questions remain about how frequently they occur and under what conditions to expect them. There is also ongoing confusion about their relationships to both pathogen spillover and general biogeographical correlations between diversity and disease, which has resulted in an inconsistent and confusing literature. Progress will require rigorous and creative research. 

Abstract Explicit characterisation of the complexity of urban landscapes is critical for understanding patterns of biodiversity and for detecting the underlying social and ecological processes that shape them. Urban environments exhibit variable heterogeneity and connectivity, influenced by different historical contingencies, that affect community assembly across scales. The multidimensional nature of urban disturbance and co‐occurrence of multiple stressors can cause synergistic effects leading to nonlinear responses in populations and communities. Yet, current research design of urban ecology and evolutionary studies typically relies on simple representation of the parameter space that can be observed. Sampling approaches apply simple urban gradients such as linear transects in space or comparisons of urban sites across the urban mosaic accounting for a few variables. This rarely considers multiple dimensions and scales of biodiversity, and proves to be inadequate to explain observed patterns. We apply a multidimensional approach that integrates distinctive social, ecological and built characteristics of urban landscapes, representing variations along dimensions of heterogeneity, connectivity and historical contingency. Measuring species richness and beta diversity across 100 US metropolitan areas at the city and 1‐km scales, we show that distinctive signatures of urban biodiversity can result from interactions between socioecological heterogeneity and connectivity, mediated by historical contingency. 

Abstract Diet composition is among the most important yet least understood dimensions of animal ecology. Inspired by the study of species abundance distributions (SADs), we tested for generalities in the structure of vertebrate diets by characterising them as dietary abundance distributions (DADs). We compiled data on 1167 population‐level diets, representing >500 species from six vertebrate classes, spanning all continents and oceans. DADs near‐universally (92.5%) followed a hollow‐curve shape, with scant support for other plausible rank‐abundance‐distribution shapes. This strong generality is inherently related to, yet incompletely explained by, the SADs of available food taxa. By quantifying dietary generalisation as the half‐saturation point of the cumulative distribution of dietary abundance (sp50, minimum number of foods required to account for 50% of diet), we found that vertebrate populations are surprisingly specialised: in most populations, fewer than three foods accounted for at least half the diet. Variation insp50was strongly associated with consumer type, with carnivores being more specialised than herbivores or omnivores. Other methodological (sampling method and effort, taxonomic resolution), biological (body mass, frugivory) and biogeographic (latitude) factors influencedsp50to varying degrees. Future challenges include identifying the mechanisms underpinning the hollow‐curve DAD, its generality beyond vertebrates, and the biological determinants of dietary generalisation. 

Abstract Exploring and accounting for the emergent properties of ecosystems as complex systems is a promising horizon in the search for general processes to explain common ecological patterns. For example the ubiquitous hollow‐curve form of the species abundance distribution is frequently assumed to reflect ecological processes structuring communities, but can also emerge as a statistical phenomenon from the mathematical definition of an abundance distribution. Although the hollow curve may be a statistical artefact, ecological processes may induce subtle deviations between empirical species abundance distributions and their statistically most probable forms. These deviations may reflect biological processes operating on top of mathematical constraints and provide new avenues for advancing ecological theory. Examining ~22,000 communities, we found that empirical SADs are highly uneven and dominated by rare species compared to their statistical baselines. Efforts to detect deviations may be less informative in small communities—those with few species or individuals—because these communities have poorly resolved statistical baselines. The uneven nature of many empirical SADs demonstrates a path forward for leveraging complexity to understand ecological processes governing the distribution of abundance, while the issues posed by small communities illustrate the limitations of using this approach to study ecological patterns in small samples. 

Abstract The Maximum Entropy Theory of Ecology (METE) predicts the shapes of macroecological metrics in relatively static ecosystems, across spatial scales, taxonomic categories and habitats, using constraints imposed by static state variables. In disturbed ecosystems, however, with time‐varying state variables, its predictions often fail. We extend macroecological theory from static to dynamic by combining the MaxEnt inference procedure with explicit mechanisms governing disturbance. In the static limit, the resulting theory, DynaMETE, reduces to METE but also predicts a new scaling relationship among static state variables. Under disturbances, expressed as shifts in demographic, ontogenic growth or migration rates, DynaMETE predicts the time trajectories of the state variables as well as the time‐varying shapes of macroecological metrics such as the species abundance distribution and the distribution of metabolic rates over individuals. An iterative procedure for solving the dynamic theory is presented. Characteristic signatures of the deviation from static predictions of macroecological patterns are shown to result from different kinds of disturbance. By combining MaxEnt inference with explicit dynamical mechanisms of disturbance, DynaMETE is a candidate theory of macroecology for ecosystems responding to anthropogenic or natural disturbances. 

Abstract Here we review and extend the equal fitness paradigm (EFP) as an important step in developing and testing a synthetic theory of ecology and evolution based on energy and metabolism. The EFP states that all organisms are equally fit at steady state, because they allocate the same quantity of energy, ~ 22.4 kJ/g/generation to the production of offspring. On the one hand, the EFP may seem tautological, because equal fitness is necessary for the origin and persistence of biodiversity. On the other hand, the EFP reflects universal laws of life: how biological metabolism – the uptake, transformation and allocation of energy – links ecological and evolutionary patterns and processes across levels of organisation from: (1) structure and function of individual organisms, (2) life history and dynamics of populations, and (3) interactions and coevolution of species in ecosystems. The physics and biology of metabolism have facilitated the evolution of millions of species with idiosyncratic anatomy, physiology, behaviour and ecology but also with many shared traits and tradeoffs that reflect the single origin and universal rules of life. 

Abstract Understanding mechanisms of coexistence is a central topic in ecology. Mathematical analysis of models of competition between two identical species moving at different rates of symmetric diffusion in heterogeneous environments show that the slower mover excludes the faster one. The models have not been tested empirically and lack inclusions of a component of directed movement toward favourable areas. To address these gaps, we extended previous theory by explicitly including exploitable resource dynamics and directed movement. We tested the mathematical results experimentally using laboratory populations of the nematode worm,Caenorhabditis elegans. Our results not only support the previous theory that the species diffusing at a slower rate prevails in heterogeneous environments but also reveal that moderate levels of a directed movement component on top of the diffusive movement allow species to coexist. Our results broaden the theory of species coexistence in heterogeneous space and provide empirical confirmation of the mathematical predictions. 

Abstract Estimates of the percentage of species “committed to extinction” by climate change range from 15% to 37%. The question is whether factors other than climate need to be included in models predicting species’ range change. We created demographic range models that include climate vs. climate‐plus‐competition, evaluating their influence on the geographic distribution ofPinus edulis, a pine endemic to the semiarid southwestern U.S. Analyses of data on 23,426 trees in 1941 forest inventory plots support the inclusion of competition in range models. However, climate and competition together only partially explain this species’ distribution. Instead, the evidence suggests that climate affects other range‐limiting processes, including landscape‐scale, spatial processes such as disturbances and antagonistic biotic interactions. Complex effects of climate on species distributions—through indirect effects, interactions, and feedbacks—are likely to cause sudden changes in abundance and distribution that are not predictable from a climate‐only perspective. 

Abstract Vector‐borne diseases (VBDs) are embedded within complex socio‐ecological systems. While research has traditionally focused on the direct effects of VBDs on human morbidity and mortality, it is increasingly clear that their impacts are much more pervasive. VBDs are dynamically linked to feedbacks between environmental conditions, vector ecology, disease burden, and societal responses that drive transmission. As a result, VBDs have had profound influence on human history. Mechanisms include: (1) killing or debilitating large numbers of people, with demographic and population‐level impacts; (2) differentially affecting populations based on prior history of disease exposure, immunity, and resistance; (3) being weaponised to promote or justify hierarchies of power, colonialism, racism, classism and sexism; (4) catalysing changes in ideas, institutions, infrastructure, technologies and social practices in efforts to control disease outbreaks; and (5) changing human relationships with the land and environment. We use historical and archaeological evidence interpreted through an ecological lens to illustrate how VBDs have shaped society and culture, focusing on case studies from four pertinent VBDs: plague, malaria, yellow fever and trypanosomiasis. By comparing across diseases, time periods and geographies, we highlight the enormous scope and variety of mechanisms by which VBDs have influenced human history.