Many invasive species are expanding northwards into boreal and subarctic habitats, but research on the factors favoring their establishment in these regions remains limited. In three Swedish lakes we investigated the growth of Elodea canadensis Michx, a highly invasive macrophyte that is spreading northwards in Europe and Alaska. We conducted an in situ growth experiment, maintained for ten months, ...

As temperatures rise, motile species start to redistribute to more suitable areas, potentially affecting the persistence of several resident species and altering biodiversity and ecosystem functions. In the Barents Sea, a hotspot for global warming, marine fish from boreal regions have been increasingly found in the more exclusive Arctic region. Here, we show that this shift in species distribution ...

Plant litter represents a major basal resource in streams, where its decomposition is partly regulated by litter traits. Litter-trait variation may determine the latitudinal gradient in decomposition in streams, which is mainly microbial in the tropics and detritivore-mediated at high latitudes. However, this hypothesis remains untested, as we lack information on large-scale trait variation for ...