The European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) is a keystone species in Mediterranean ecosystems but also considered a pest in some agricultural areas. Despite its threatened status due to diseases and habitat loss, rabbit populations thrive in motorway verges, causing conflicts with human activities. In this study we examine the factors affecting rabbit warren abundance in motorway verges in central Spain, with implications for conservation and management. The research aimed to assess the importance of infrastructure (e.g. motorway slopes) and landscape (e.g. land use, soil depth) factors on rabbit warren abundance along 1631 km of motorway verges and to develop an index for broader-scale abundance and risk assessment. Using generalized linear mixed models, the study revealed that both infrastructure (slope) and landscape factors (soil depth, vegetation structure and land cover gradients) significantly influenced warren abundance. Rabbit warrens were more abundant in agricultural landscapes with deep soils and in intermediate slope ranges. The findings suggest that rabbit abundance in motorway verges is driven by a combination of factors involving both infrastructure features but also land use in surrounding areas. The derived model predictions were able to correctly discriminate between crop damaged and non-damaged areas, highlighting its potential as a tool for conflict mitigation and conservation planning. The study underscores the need to integrate landscape and infrastructure features into wildlife management strategies to address human-wildlife conflicts effectively. Future work should include direct population monitoring and explore broader ecological impacts, such as predator dynamics and wildlife-vehicle collisions.

Introduction: Fusarium-induced root rot of Carya cathayensis (C. cathayensis) is a typical soil-borne disease that has severely damaged the Carya cathayensis industry in China. Understanding the interaction among soil microbial communities, soil characteristics, and pathogenic bacteria is very important for the ecological prevention and control of Carya cathayensis root rot. Methods: We used Miseq Illumina high-throughput sequencing technology to study the microbial community in the rhizosphere soil of healthy and diseased C. cathayensis, quantified the abundance of bacteria, fungi, and pathogenic fungi, and combined these with soil chemistry and enzyme activity indicators to analyze the characteristics of healthy and diseased rhizosphere soils. Results: We found that the pH, soil organic carbon(SOC), available nitrogen (AN), available phosphorus (AP), available potassium (AK),N-acetyl-beta-D-glucosaminidase (NAG) beta-glucosidase (BG), fungal gene copy number, bacterial community diversity and network complexity of the diseased soil were significantly lower (p < 0.05), while Fusarium graminearum copies number levels increased (p < 0.05). Additionally, the study found that healthy soils were enriched with beneficial bacteria such as Subgroup_7 (0.08%), MND1 (0.29%), SWB02 (0.08%), and Bradyrhizobium (0.09%), as well as potential pathogen-suppressing fungi such as Mortierella (0.13%), Preussia (0.03%), and Humicol (0.37%), were found to be associated with the growth and development of C. cathayensis. Discussion: In summary, this research comprehensively reveals the differences in environmental and biological factors between healthy and diseased soils, as well as their correlations. It provides a theoretical basis for optimal soil environmental regulation and the construction of healthy microbial communities. This foundation facilitates the development of multifaceted strategies for the prevention and control of C. cathayensis root rot.

Global warming has led to extensive permafrost degradation, particularly in thermally vulnerablepermafrost in the marginal or transitional zones of altitudinal or latitudinal permafrost. However,comprehensive knowledge about microbial communities in response to rapid permafrostdegradation at large (or interregional) scales remains elusive. In this meta-analysis, existingpublished data were utilized to identify the distributive and co-occurrence patterns of themicrobiome in two interregional locations: the Qilian Mountains on the northeasternQinghai-Tibet Plateau(NE-QTP) and the Xing'anling Mountainsin Northeast China(NE-China).Both areas are situated in the marginal zone of large permafrost units. The results reveal that therapidly degrading permafrost did not overshadow the regional biogeographic pattern of themicrobial community. Instead, the results show some distinctive biogeographic patterns, ascharacterized by different groups of characteristic bacterial lineages in each of the two regions. SoilpH has emerged as a crucial controlling factor on the basis of the available environmental data.Network-basedanalysessuggestagenerallyhighlevelofnaturalconnectivityforbacterialnetworkson the NE-QTP; however, it collapses more drastically than that in NE-China if the environmentalperturbations exceed the tipping point. These findings indicate that the biogeographic patterns ofthe bacterial community structure are not significantly altered by permafrost degradation. Thisresearch provides valuable insights into the development of more effective management methodsfor microbiomes in rapidly degrading permafrost.

Plant-associated microbiomes are structured by environmental conditions and plant associates, both of which are being altered by climate change. The future structure of plant microbiomes will depend on the, largely unknown, relative importance of each. This uncertainty is particularly relevant for arctic peatlands, which are undergoing large shifts in plant communities and soil microbiomes as permafrost thaws, and are potentially appreciable sources of climate change feedbacks due to their soil carbon (C) storage. We characterized phyllosphere and rhizosphere microbiomes of six plant species, and bulk peat, across a permafrost thaw progression (from intact permafrost, to partially- and fully-thawed stages) via 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing. We tested the hypothesis that the relative influence of biotic versus environmental filtering (the role of plant species versus thaw-defined habitat) in structuring microbial communities would differ among phyllosphere, rhizosphere, and bulk peat. Using both abundance- and phylogenetic-based approaches, we found that phyllosphere microbial composition was more strongly explained by plant associate, with little influence of habitat, whereas in the rhizosphere, plant and habitat had similar influence. Network-based community analyses showed that keystone taxa exhibited similar patterns with stronger responses to drivers. However, plant associates appeared to have a larger influence on organisms belonging to families associated with methane-cycling than the bulk community. Putative methanogens were more strongly influenced by plant than habitat in the rhizosphere, and in the phyllosphere putative methanotrophs were more strongly influenced by plant than was the community at large. We conclude that biotic effects can be stronger than environmental filtering, but their relative importance varies among microbial groups. For most microbes in this system, biotic filtering was stronger aboveground than belowground. However, for putative methane-cyclers, plant associations have a stronger influence on community composition than environment despite major hydrological changes with thaw. This suggests that plant successional dynamics may be as important as hydrological changes in determining microbial relevance to C-cycling climate feedbacks. By partitioning the degree that plant versus environmental filtering drives microbiome composition and function we can improve our ability to predict the consequences of warming for C-cycling in other arctic areas undergoing similar permafrost thaw transitions.