• Energy Research

Traditionally, antifungal resistance (AFR) has received much less attention compared with bacterial resistance to antibiotics. However, global changes, pandemics, and emerging new fungal infections have highlighted global health consequences of AFR. The recent report of the World Health Organisation (WHO) has identified fungal priority pathogens, and recognised AFR among the greatest global health threats. This is particularly important given the significant increase in fungal infections linked to climate change and pandemics. Environmental factors play critical roles in AFR and fungal infections, as many clinically relevant fungal pathogens and AFR originate from the environment (mainly soil). In addition, the environment serves as a potential rich source for the discovery of new antifungal agents, including mycoviruses and bacterial probiotics, which hold promise for effective therapies. In this article, we summarise the environmental pathways of AFR development and spread among high priority fungal pathogens, and propose potential mechanisms of AFR development and spread. We identify a research priority list to address key knowledge gaps in our understanding of environmental AFR. Further, we propose an integrated roadmap for predictive risk management of AFR that is critical for effective surveillance and forecasting of public health outcomes under current and future climatic conditions.

F.T.M. was supported by European Research Council grant number 647038 (BIODESERT), Generalitat Valenciana grant number CIDEGENT/2018/041, by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (grant numbers EUR2022-134048 and PID2020-116578RB-I00) and by the contract between ETH Zurich and University of Alicante “Mapping terrestrial ecosystem structure at the global scale”. E.G. acknowledges funding from Generalitat Valenciana and Europen Social Fund (grant number APOSTD/2021/188). F.T.M. also acknowledges support from the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) and the KAUST Climate and Livability Initiative. T.S.-S., A.G. and M.D.-B. are supported by grant number TED2021-130908B-C41 (URBANCHANGE). M.D.-B. was also supported by the European Research Council (ERC) grant number 647038 (BIODESERT), BES grant agreement number LRB17\1019 (MUSGONET), the innovation programme under Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement number 702057 (CLIMIFUN), Ramón y Cajal grant number RYC2018-025483-I, a project from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (grant number PID2020-115813RA-I00; SOIL4GROWTH) and project PAIDI 2020 from the Junta de Andalucía (grant number P20_00879). C.W.M. acknowledges funding for the research provided by the NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Polar Regions Research (grant number 0852036), the German Science Foundation (DFG) for financial support in the frame of the “Initiation of International Collaboration” (grant number MU 3021/2-1) and funding within the DFG Priority Programme 1158 “Antarctic Research with Comparable Investigations in Arctic Sea Ice Areas” (grant number MU 3021/8-1). M.B. acknowledges funding from Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through a Ramón y Cajal Fellowship (# RYC2021-031797-I). Soils support a vast amount of carbon (C) that is vulnerable to climatic and anthropogenic global change stressors (for example, drought and human-induced nitrogen deposition). However, the simultaneous effects of an increasing number of global change stressors on soil C storage and persistence across ecosystems are virtually unknown. Here, using 1,880 surface soil samples from 68 countries across all continents, we show that increases in the number of global change stressors simultaneously exceeding medium–high levels of stress (that is, relative to their maximum levels observed in nature) are negatively and significantly correlated with soil C stocks and mineral association across global biomes. Soil C is particularly vulnerable in low-productivity ecosystems (for example, deserts), which are subjected to a greater number of global change stressors exceeding medium–high levels of stress simultaneously. Taken together, our work indicates that the number of global change stressors is a crucial factor for soil C storage and persistence worldwide.

Montane ecosystems are crucial for maintaining global biodiversity and function that sustain life on our planet. Yet, these ecosystems are highly vulnerable to changing temperatures and may undergo critical transitions under ongoing climate change. What we do not know is to what extent montane biodiversity and ecosystem services will respond to local temperature variations in a gradual versus abrupt manner across global environments. To fill this knowledge gap, we conducted a global synthesis, including 4,462 observations from 290 elevation gradients, to investigate how biodiversity (spanning animals and plants) and ecosystem services (including plant production, soil carbon, and fertility) respond to local temperature variations along elevation gradients. We found that nearly one-third of these gradients exhibited abrupt shifts in multiple biodiversity and ecosystem services in response to local variations in temperature along elevation gradients. More specifically, we showed that once a particular local temperature level (~10 °C for mean annual temperature) was reached, even small increases in temperature resulted in dramatic variations in biodiversity and ecosystem services. We further showed that those abrupt shifts in response to local temperature increases were commonly positive for plant and animal diversity, as well as plant production, while soil carbon and fertility more commonly exhibit negative abrupt trends. Our work, based on the most comprehensive empirical evidence available so far, reveals the pervasive abrupt responses of biodiversity and ecosystem services to local temperature variations in montane ecosystems worldwide, highlighting the highly sensitive nature of montane ecosystems in the context of climate change.

Soil nematodes are the most abundant animals on Earth and play critical roles in regulating numerous ecosystem processes, from enhancing primary productivity to mineralizing multiple nutrients. In dryland soils, a rich community of microphyte organisms (biocrusts) provide critical habitats for soil nematodes, but their presence is being threatened by increasing aridity induced by global climate change. Despite its importance, how types of biocrusts and aridity index influence soil nematode community in dryland mountain ecosystems remains largely unknown. To fill these knowledge gaps, we conducted a field survey with contrasting aridity indexes (0.2, 0.4, and 0.6) and three types of biocrusts (cyanobacterial, cyanobacterial-moss mixed, and moss crusts) in the topsoil (0-5 cm) from the northern Chinese Loess Plateau. We found that the abundance (number of individuals per gram of soil), richness (number of Operational Taxonomic Units; OTUs), and diversity (number of different species) of soil nematodes were remarkably higher under biocrusts than in bare soils, regardless of aridity index and types of biocrusts. Our results also showed that the same variables had the highest values in moss crusts compared to cyanobacterial and cyanobacterial-moss mixed crusts. Structural equation modelling further revealed that biocrust types and traits (i.e., biocrust thickness, chlorophyll content, shear force, and penetration resistance) are the most important factors associated with both nematode abundance and richness. Together, our findings indicate that biocrusts, especially moss cover, and less stressful aridity conditions favor soil nematodes community in dryland mountain regions. Such knowledge is critical for anticipating the distribution of these animals under climate change scenarios and, ultimately, the numerous ecosystem services supported by soil nematodes.

Grasslands are integral to maintaining biodiversity and key ecosystem services and are under threat from climate change. Plant and soil microbial diversity, and their interactions, support the provision of multiple ecosystem functions (multifunctionality). However, it remains virtually unknown whether plant and soil microbial diversity explain a unique portion of total variation or shared contributions to supporting multifunctionality across global grasslands. Here, we combine results from a global survey of 101 grasslands with a novel microcosm study, controlling for both plant and soil microbial diversity to identify their individual and interactive contribution to support multifunctionality under aridity and experimental drought. We found that plant and soil microbial diversity independently predict a unique portion of total variation in above- and belowground functioning, suggesting that both types of biodiversity complement each other. Interactions between plant and soil microbial diversity positively impacted multifunctionality including primary production and nutrient storage. Our findings were also climate context dependent, since soil fungal diversity was positively associated with multifunctionality in less arid regions, while plant diversity was strongly and positively linked to multifunctionality in more arid regions. Our results highlight the need to conserve both above- and belowground diversity to sustain grassland multifunctionality in a drier world and indicate climate change may shift the relative contribution of plant and soil biodiversity to multifunctionality across global grasslands.

Global soil biodiversity and functions are threatened by water availability thresholds. However, the role of these thresholds in modulating the environmental drivers of soil biodiversity and functions remains poorly understood. Analyzing a global dataset of 383 sites across major terrestrial biomes, we found that water availability threshold (measured by aridity index) reorganizes the relative importance of climate, vegetation, and soil properties in regulating soil biodiversity and functions. In less arid regions, vegetation and soil properties jointly explained the primary patterns of soil biodiversity and functions. Conversely, after crossing such water availability threshold toward more arid conditions, climate became the dominant controlling factor, outpacing other environmental variables. Notably, this water-induced shift in environmental dependence was more pronounced for soil multidiversity than for soil multifunctionality. Our findings highlight the critical role of water availability thresholds in shaping the environmental factors that govern soil biodiversity and ecosystem functions, providing valuable insights into potential ecosystem transformations in the context of on-going global aridification.