Huge thanks to my co-authors @macroecologyut.bsky.social @cpcarmona.bsky.social and others (not all on Bluesky 🙂)

We believe this approach may open new pathways to assess biodiversity change. Observed and dark diversity allow decomposing winners and losers in diff ways: species increasing or decreasing in both observed and dark, or in only one, indicating rapid, delayed, or expected expansions and contractions.

Overall, suitability estimates, typically used to estimate dark diversity, can also be applied to observed species and, combined with traits over time, may reveal trait-dependent time lags under global change.

72% of species showed time-lagged responses: many cold-adapted and commercially important species persist locally with declining suitability, while others have become more frequent in the region and locally suitable but remain absent across multiple sites (i.e. mostly smaller and less motile).

No net change in species number - neither observed nor dark diversity changed over time(!), yet:
- species persisting locally showed a decreasing suitability (i.e. extinction debt);
- this pattern was stronger for larger and more mobile species

We then tested whether these lagged responses were linked to species traits, focusing on body size and motility, and their association with increasing sea temperature.

We used a stable number of observed species over time but declining suitability as a signal of extinction debt (i.e. persisting species with declining suitability), and a faster increase in dark diversity size than observed diversity as a signal of immigration credit.

Trait‐Dependent Time Lags Amid Global Change in Marine Observed and Dark Diversity on the Dogger Bank (North Sea) Marine ecosystems can appear stable despite facing delayed changes. Using a probabilistic species pool approach, we estimated the suitability of species in observed and dark diversity—set of suitable...

Just published! Using suitability estimates from observed and dark diversity - set of suitable but absent species - we show that despite no net change in species number, species respond with delays, with distinct trait profiles linked to extinction debt and immigration credit.

shorturl.at/wYzF5

The first paper from #darkdivnet is out now! Huge thank you to all our >200 co-authors who helped to reveal dark diversity in different parts of the world! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#DarkDivNet data is just 🤯🤯!!

Global impoverishment of natural vegetation revealed by dark diversity - Nature A comparison of alpha diversity (number of plant species) and dark diversity (species that are currently absent from a site despite being ecologically suitable) demonstrates the negative effects of re...

Dark diversity made its way to Nature!🥳🥳

Led by Meelis Pärtel (@MacroecologyUT), we show that dark diversity - species locally absent but suitable - can reveal hidden effects of human impact on plant biodiversity, opening new pathways for conservation.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Thanks!

Diego P. F. Trindade ‪Researcher, University of Tartu‬ - ‪‪Cited by 86‬‬ - ‪Macroecology‬ - ‪functional ecology‬ - ‪community assembly‬

Please! scholar.google.com/citations?us...