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The climate crisis is the biggest threat to the health, development, and wellbeing of the current and future generations. While there is extensive evidence on the direct impacts of climate change on human livelihood, there is little evidence on how children and young people are affected, and even less discussion and evidence on how the climate crisis could affect violence against children.In this commentary, we review selected research to assess the links between the climate crisis and violence against children.We employ a social-ecological perspective as an overarching framework to organize findings from the literature and call attention to increased violence against children as a specific, yet under-examined, direct and indirect consequence of the climate crisis.Using such a perspective, we examine how the climate crisis exacerbates the risk of violence against children at the continually intersecting and interacting levels of society, community, family, and the individual levels. We propose increased risk of armed conflict, forced displacement, poverty, income inequality, disruptions in critical health and social services, and mental health problems as key mechanisms linking the climate crisis and heightened risk of violence against children. Furthermore, we posit that the climate crisis serves as a threat multiplier, compounding existing vulnerabilities and inequities within populations and having harsher consequences in settings, communities, households, and for children already experiencing adversities.We conclude with a call for urgent efforts from researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to further investigate the specific empirical links between the climate crisis and violence against children and to design, test, implement, fund, and scale evidence-based, rights-based, and child friendly prevention, support, and response strategies to address violence against children.

The recent developments of amorphous material based heterostructures with disordered heterointerfaces for advanced rechargeable batteries are reviewed, focusing on the relation between material structure and electrochemical performance.

Valorization of lignocellulosic biomass for sustainable production of high-value chemicals is challenged by the complexity of lignin, a phenolic biopolymer. Beyond the classical lignin monomers derived from p-coumaryl, coniferyl, and sinapyl alcohol, grass lignins incorporate substantial amounts of monolignol p-coumarates that are produced by p-COUMAROYL-CoA:MONOLIGNOL TRANSFERASE (PMT). Here, the CRISPR/Cas9-mediated mutation of ZmPMT1 in maize enabled the design of biomass depleted in p-coumaroylated lignin and enriched in guaiacyl lignin. Lignin-first biorefining of stem biomass from zmpmt1 mutants by reductive catalytic fractionation (RCF) generated a lignin oil depleted in carboxylates and enriched in guaiacyl-derived alcohols, which are desirable substrates for bio-based polyurethane synthesis. The reported lignin engineering in maize is a promising strategy for designing a dual-purpose crop, providing both food and feed, along with a renewable feedstock for the production of plant-based chemicals.

Abstract The coexistence of tree species in tropical forests has remained challenging to explain, characterise and predict with simple theoretical models. To address this phenomenon researchers have focused on processes and factors omitted in simple competition models. Meantime, theoretical considerations of simple models have sought out conditions for stable coexistence of many species. Here we show that a simple competition model parameterised using repeated forest tree inventory data can estimate the stable coexistence of numerous tree species and predict their biomass abundance and productivity in equilibrium communities. We apply a simple Lotka–Volterra competition model to describe species aboveground biomass, and employ leaf biomass as a proxy for exploitative competition among species. In such systems a globally stable multispecies equilibrium arises when, for every species, susceptibility of biomass growth to conspecific (same species) leaf biomass exceeds that to heterospecific leaf biomass. We applied this approach to tree species in the Pasoh 50‐ha plot of Malaysian lowland mixed dipterocarp forest. We parameterised species aboveground biomass productivity by tree growth, by recruitment, and losses from tree mortality. Biomass gains minus losses yields the biomass growth of each species population. Using variation in leaf biomass among quadrat subplots, we estimated the susceptibility of productivity by tree growth to conspecific and heterospecific leaf biomass. Our model analyses with plot census data predicted the stable coexistence of 351 of the 487 tree species assessed. Susceptibility to conspecific versus heterospecific leaf biomass was greater across all species (median: 95 times). The implied effect of conspecific competition appears to reflect ontogeny, that is declining relative tree growth with tree size. The equilibrium biomasses for predicted persistent species were broadly similar to observations. Removal of species indicates that ecosystem biomass and productivity at equilibrium increases asymptotically with species richness. Synthesis. Our analyses with a simple model provide a range of non‐trivial insights into tree species coexistence, community structure and ecosystem stability within a species‐rich rainforest. The insights available from such simple models provide references for a reassessment of the insights from more complex models and approaches.

Abstract Aims The effects of a tropical forest logging road on soil C and N, and the compositions of Actinobacteria, Acidobacteria, and wood rot/lignin-degrading fungal (WRT/LD) decomposer communities were evaluated. Methods and results Soils from a healthy Costa Rican old growth forest before Hurricane Otto and from an adjacent, recently formed logging road built after Hurricane Otto were collected over 4 years and assessed for C and N metrics, and characteristics of the three decomposer communities determined by Illumina amplicon sequencing methods. The Logging Road negatively impacted the soil total organic C, respiration, biomass C, qCO2, and total N, while the Actinobacterial and Acidobacterial communities changed from stable compositions of copiotrophic taxa in the rich forest soil to stable compositions of oligotrophic taxa in the poor logging road soil, and the WRT/LD community changed from stable compositions of copiotrophic taxa in the forest soils to an unstable community of oligotrophic taxa with almost no overlap in genera between logging road soils. Conclusions The logging road negatively influenced 3 decomposer communities and associated C and N metrics, with the two bacterial communities taxonomically stabilizing, but the fungal community taxonomically diverging into an unstable composition over time. Monitoring efforts are on-going to provide local forest land managers with potential indicators of soil ecosystem damage and recovery.

ABSTRACTIdentifying species with disproportionate effects on other species under press perturbations is essential, yet how species traits and community context drive their ‘keystone‐ness’ remain unclear. We quantified keystone‐ness as linearly approximated per capita net effect derived from normalised inverse community matrices and as non‐linear per capita community biomass change from simulated perturbations in food webs with varying biomass structure. In bottom‐heavy webs (negative relationship between species' body mass and their biomass within the web), larger species at higher trophic levels tended to be keystone species, whereas in top‐heavy webs (positive body mass to biomass relationship), the opposite was true and the relationships between species' energetic traits and keystone‐ness were weakened or reversed compared to bottom‐heavy webs. Linear approximations aligned well with non‐linear responses in bottom‐heavy webs, but were less consistent in top‐heavy webs. These findings highlight the importance of community context in shaping species' keystone‐ness and informing effective conservation actions.

Nutrient enrichment of water bodies can lead to eutrophication, which poses a global threat to freshwater ecosystems, affecting biodiversity and water quality. While human activities have accelerated eutrophication, climate change further complicates the dynamics of nutrient cycling and ecosystem responses. Here, we provide global, spatially explicit freshwater eutrophication characterization factors, at an annual resolution from 2021 up to 2099 based on eight different climate change scenarios. A substantial spatial and temporal variability is identified, with higher characterization factors observed in tropical and arid regions, as well as densely populated areas, revealing a location-specific influence of climate change on eutrophication impacts. A comparison between different Representative Concentration Pathway scenarios suggests that climate change intensifies the eutrophication impact of phosphorus and its fluctuations, with hotspots identified in central and south America, Australia, southeastern Asia, central Africa and eastern Europe. Results highlight the importance of spatially- and temporally-explicit characterization factors, especially in prospective life cycle assessments. Finally, novel insights are provided into the complex interactions between nutrient fate, hydrological dynamics, and climate change, crucial for the development of phosphorus emission control strategies and the protection of freshwater ecosystems.