Palaeoecology articles from across Nature Portfolio

A negative sulfur isotope excursion occurred across Eurasia during the last deglaciation. An analysis suggests thawing permafrost might be responsible.

The millennium volcano eruption rather than climate change primarily alters montane vegetation compositions at Changbaishan, causing larger abundance of broad-leaf forests with tundra dominating at high elevations, based on reconstructive vegetation from deposits and remote sensing data.

Foragers hunted small game locally and procured most large prey in riparian habitats and Afromontane grasslands to the southeast of the Kasitu Valley of northern Malawi, suggesting that migratory behavior in large grazers was absent, according to strontium isotopic analysis.

There is no consensus on a potential primary cause of spatio-temporal biodiversity patterns. Here the authors combine a macroecological model and global climate simulations to suggest that niche-environment interaction may have driven marine biodiversity trajectory during the Phanerozoic.

Central and deeper cores of sedimentary DNA capture main taxonomic richness in vegetation, whereas marginal samples near inflows show rarer and spatially restricted taxa, according to an analysis of 42 adjacent surface sediment samples from the Stabbevatnet lake in northern Norway.

Recovery of complementary materials from well-ventilated and seasonally stratified lakes can allow reliable reconstruction of local temperature and vegetation changes in Iceland, according to an analysis of ancient branched dialkyl glycerol tetraethers and sedimentary DNA.

Megaraptoran theropod dinosaur anatomy and evolution is unclear due to the fragmentary nature of most available fossils. Here the authors report a well-preserved, late surviving megaraptoran from Argentina that clarifies our understanding of the morphology of this group and potentially provides insights into its diet and feeding strategies.

Natural history museums, art museums and other historical sources are treasure troves of biodiversity data. Content in this month’s issue highlights important insights that these sources can yield.

A negative sulfur isotope excursion occurred across Eurasia during the last deglaciation. An analysis suggests thawing permafrost might be responsible.

Growing evidence suggests that timescales for plastic degradation have been vastly underestimated. The fossil record of plastic-like biopolymers might provide a perspective on plastic fossilization in deep time.

Our discovery of fossil charophycean algae much older than any previously reported confirms that some key morphological innovations associated with the evolutionary transition between streptophyte algae and land plants had already occurred around 453 million years ago. These fossils support derivation of land plants from streptophyte algae during the Ordovician period.

Using modern mammals as analogues, we investigate how spatial bias in the early human fossil record probably influences understanding of human evolution. Our results suggest that the environmental and fossil records from palaeoanthropological hotspots are probably missing aspects of environmental and anatomical variation.

Floristic homogenization — an increase in plant similarity within a given region — threatens biodiversity. By studying the taxonomic similarity of the floras of South Pacific islands over the past 5,000 years, we find that initial human settlement was probably a major driver of floristic homogenization.