Biological nitrogen fixation is a fundamental part of ecosystem functioning. Anthropogenic nitrogen deposition and climate change may, however, limit the competitive advantage of nitrogen-fixing plants, leading to reduced relative diversity of nitrogen-fixing plants. Yet, assessments of changes of nitrogen-fixing plant long-term community diversity are rare. Here, we examine temporal trends in the diversity of nitrogen-fixing plants and their relationships with anthropogenic nitrogen deposition while accounting for changes in temperature and aridity. We used forest-floor vegetation resurveys of temperate forests in Europe and the United States spanning multiple decades. Nitrogen-fixer richness declined as nitrogen deposition increased over time but did not respond to changes in climate. Phylogenetic diversity also declined, as distinct lineages of N-fixers were lost between surveys, but the “winners” and “losers” among nitrogen-fixing lineages varied among study sites, suggesting that losses are context dependent. Anthropogenic nitrogen deposition reduces nitrogen-fixing plant diversity in ways that may strongly affect natural nitrogen fixation.

Across the world, human (anthropophonic) sounds add to sounds of biological (biophonic) and geophysical (geophonic) origin, with human contributions including both speech and technophony (sounds of technological devices). To characterize society’s contribution to the global soundscapes, we used passive acoustic recorders at 139 sites across 6 continents, sampling both urban green spaces and nearby pristine sites continuously for 3 years in a paired design. Recordings were characterized by bird species richness and by 14 complementary acoustic indices. By relating each index to seasonal, diurnal, climatic and anthropogenic factors, we show here that latitude, time of day and day of year each predict a substantial proportion of variation in key metrics of biophony—whereas anthropophony (speech and traffic) show less predictable patterns. Compared to pristine sites, the soundscape of urban green spaces is more dominated by technophony and less diverse in terms of acoustic energy across frequencies and time steps, with less instances of quiet. We conclude that the global soundscape is formed from a highly predictable rhythm in biophony, with added noise from geophony and anthropophony. At urban sites, animals experience an increasingly noisy background of sound, which poses challenges to efficient communication.

A primary means of conserving a species or a habitat in a human‐dominated landscape is through promoting coexistence with humans while minimizing conflict. For this, we should understand how wildlife is impacted by direct and indirect human activities. Such information is rare in areas with high human densities. To investigate how animals respond to altered ecological conditions in human‐dominated landscapes, we focused on a wild herbivore of conservation concern in the Krishnasaar Conservation Area (KrCA) in Nepal. Here, blackbuck Antilope cervicapra, a generalist grazer, lives in refugia located with a growing human population. We studied the impacts of humans on habitat use and behavior of blackbuck. We laid 250 × 250 m grid cells in the entire KrCA and carried out indirect sign surveys with three replications for habitat use assessment. We observed herds of blackbuck for 89 h in different habitat types using scan sampling methods. Our habitat‐use survey showed that habitats under intensive human use were hardly used by blackbuck, even when high‐quality forage was available. Habitat openness was the major predictor of habitat use inside the core area, where levels of human activities were low. We also found a positive correlation between habitat use by blackbuck and livestock. Blackbuck were substantially more vigilant when they were in forest than in grassland, again indicating an influence of risk. Overall, blackbuck appear to be sensitive to the risk associated with both natural and anthropogenic factors. Our findings have direct implications for managing human–wildlife interactions in this landscape, specifically regarding strategies for livestock grazing in habitats highly used by blackbuck and concerning predictions of how changing land use will impact the long‐term persistence of blackbuck. Our work suggests that wild herbivores may be able to persist in landscapes with high human densities so long as there are refuges where human activities are relatively low.

Blackbuck, Antilope cervicapra, are group-living grazers found in a wide range of habitats, from dry grasslands to open forests. Krishnasaar Conservation Area (KrCA) in Bardia, Nepal is home to the northernmost population of blackbuck. This population lives in close proximity to humans. As a population in an extreme of the species’ range and experiencing direct and indirect human influences, KrCA is suitable to study less explored facets of herbivore ecology and behavior. One such less explored behavior of herbivores is their grouping (herding) behavior. Grouping is commonly seen as an anti-predator response and could also be used in the context of anthropogenic threat. In this study we investigated herding behavior of blackbuck and ecological and anthropogenic factors that might influence the herding. To record the grouping behavior of blackbuck in the different habitat types, we used scan sampling methods for groups. A group was defined by including all individuals that are within 50 m of another individual. The influence of ecological and anthropogenic factors on herding pattern was assessed through simple regression modelling. We scanned animals for 89 hours and each hour had seven observations. The mean group size was 20.56 ±1.97 (mean ± SE). More than two-thirds of animals observed were female. We found larger herd sizes in the morning compared with herd sizes in the afternoon and evening. Our observations also showed that mixed herds were significantly larger in size than male-only, and female-only herds in both core and settlement zones. Our modelling of covariates predicted group type to be the single most influential factor influencing herd size. As herding behavior of animals reflect associated risk and resource factors, the finding of this work can be helpful in managing this isolated threatened population of blackbuck.