The meta-ecosystem framework explains spatial flows of organisms, materials, and energy across ecosystem boundaries. Parasites play crucial roles in these processes, yet they remain absent from meta-ecosystem models. Using examples from terrestrial and aquatic environments, we illustrate how parasitic organisms act as central connectors or disruptors of the flow of organisms, nutrients, and energy across ecosystem boundaries via four key mechanisms: parasite-induced host movement, behavioural changes that increase cross-ecosystem predation, host mortality, and parasite avoidance behaviour. These examples highlight the central role of parasites in driving and regulating nutrient and energy flow from catchment-to-coast, and we outline a pathway for improved integration of these parasite-mediated processes into the meta-ecosystem framework.

In this study, we utilized DNA metabarcoding of 207 fecal samples to describe the diet of flock-foraging godwits in southwest Friesland, the Netherlands, during pre-nesting (March) and post-nesting (...

Na Zhang, Yong-Fei Zhang, Ping Xiang, Yan Tang, Cheng Fu, Xu Pang, Shi-Jian Fu This is a plain language summary of a Functional Ecology research article which can be found here. Freshwater environm…

Leo Zwarts leverde een enorme bijdrage aan vogelonderzoek en de bescherming van vogels.

Swedish lake data show dark diversity can predict when closely related or distant invasive fish are more likely to establish.

"Decades of research on invasive species have demonstrated how an organism introduced to the wrong place at the wrong time can spread uncontrollably with potentially devastating and irreversible long-...

Op 19 maart 2026 publiceerde Wageningen Universiteit het rapport ‘De Nederlandse stikstofcrisis: Van verwarring naar verbinding'. Het rapport is gericht op het inzetten van doelsturing voor de vermind...

Malaria has shaped human habitat choice, exchange, and dispersal since the late Pleistocene in sub-Saharan Africa.

PAOC16 will be held in the ancient city of Marrakech, whose famous medina is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The city is home to numerous religious and cultural sites, and sits in the Tensift River Valley in the foothills of the Atlas Mountains.

For over half a century, people in Central Africa have told tales of the fish seen climbing waterfalls, but these claims have never been officially confirmed. Now, these fish have finally been caught ...

Jaarlijks verdwijnen duizenden sloten in Nederland, blijkt uit onderzoek van de Volkskrant, en dat gebeurt deels illegaal. Regels om de waterkwaliteit te verbeteren, geven boeren juist een prikkel om ...

Recent advances in climate modeling and remote sensing have increased the expectation that finer-grained climate data will improve biological relevance. However, the appropriate scale for biology depends on the system and the question posed, and finer-grained data do not always improve inference in ecology and evolution. In this review we synthesize knowledge from micrometeorology, physiology, and landscape ecology to develop a framework integrating climatic and biological lenses for understanding the scales of climate exposure. This framework can aid multiscale investigation of microclimate effects on individuals, populations, and communities. We newly conceptualize systems of climate scale, provide recommendations for trait-based approaches to determine the scales relevant to climate–biology interactions, and highlight opportunities offered by novel methods and technologies.