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Biological responses to climate change have been widely documented across taxa and regions, but it remains unclear whether species are maintaining a good match between phenotype and environment, i.e. whether observed trait changes are adaptive. Here we reviewed 10,090 abstracts and extracted data from 71 studies reported in 58 relevant publications, to assess quantitatively whether phenotypic trait changes associated with climate change are adaptive in animals. A meta-analysis focussing on birds, the taxon best represented in our dataset, suggests that global warming has not systematically affected morphological traits, but has advanced phenological traits. We demonstrate that these advances are adaptive for some species, but imperfect as evidenced by the observed consistent selection for earlier timing. Application of a theoretical model indicates that the evolutionary load imposed by incomplete adaptive responses to ongoing climate change may already be threatening the persistence of species.

Disruptive change in urban landscapes, such as large-scale tree planting, is complicated by the different priorities of the wide range of urban stakeholders. Here, we demonstrate an approach to the planning of urban green spaces using virtual reality simulations. We evaluate the health benefits (restorative benefits) and safety concerns of participants using virtual reconstructions of 10 urban parks in Bradford, UK, to simulate changes in woodland cover. Participants experienced each of the 10 parks as immersive environments with each of three scenarios: (i) no trees, (ii) real tree distribution, and (iii) doubling of tree numbers. Participants answered a short questionnaire while in each virtual park to quantify their feelings of safety and the restorative benefit that they thought they would experience. The results show that our VR approach produces reported restorative benefits that are not significantly different from those reported in the physical parks during visits by participants. We then demonstrate that increased tree cover is associated with significant increases in perceived restorative benefit, with some evidence of saturation at higher tree densities. Reductions in tree cover lead to a reduction in reported restorative benefit. We suggest that immersive technologies present a useful tool for the consultation and co-design of urban landscapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Open educational resources (OERs) are becoming increasingly common as a tool in education, particularly in medical and biomedical education. However, three key barriers have been identified to their use: 1) lack of awareness of OERs, 2) lack of motivation to use OERs, and 3) lack of training in the use of OERs. Here, we explore these three barriers with teachers of medical and biomedical science to establish how best to enhance the use of OERs to improve pedagogical outcomes. An online survey was completed by 209 educators, many of whom (68.4%) reported using OERs in their teaching and almost all (99.5%) showing awareness of at least one OER. The results suggest that key problems that prevent educators from adopting OERs in their teaching include suitability for particular classes, time, and copyright. Most (81.8%) educators were somewhat, very, or extremely comfortable with OERs so there is no innate motivational barrier to adoption. A lack of training was reported by 13.9% of respondents, and 40% of respondents stated that there was little or no support from their institutions. OER users were no more comfortable with technology or better supported by departments but tended to be aware of a greater number of sources of OERs. Our study illustrates key opportunities for the expansion of OER use in physiology and medical teaching: increased breadth of awareness, increased institutional support (including time, training, and copyright support), and greater sharing of diverse OERs to suit the range of teaching challenges faced by staff in different subdisciplines.

Cross-national comparisons of IQ have become common since the release of a large dataset of international IQ scores. However, these studies have consistently failed to consider the potential lack of independence of these scores based on spatial proximity. To demonstrate the importance of this omission, we present a re-evaluation of several hypotheses put forward to explain variation in mean IQ among nations namely: (i) distance from central Africa, (ii) temperature, (iii) parasites, (iv) nutrition, (v) education, and (vi) GDP. We quantify the strength of spatial autocorrelation (SAC) in the predictors, response variables and the residuals of multiple regression models explaining national mean IQ. We outline a procedure for the control of SAC in such analyses and highlight the differences in the results before and after control for SAC. We find that incorporating additional terms to control for spatial interdependence increases the fit of models with no loss of parsimony. Support is provided for the finding that a national index of parasite burden and national IQ are strongly linked and temperature also features strongly in the models. However, we tentatively recommend a physiological--via impacts on host-parasite interactions--rather than evolutionary explanation for the effect of temperature. We present this study primarily to highlight the danger of ignoring autocorrelation in spatially extended data, and outline an appropriate approach should a spatially explicit analysis be considered necessary. (Contains 3 tables and 2 figures.)

Although exceptional examples of adaptation are frequently celebrated, some outcomes of natural selection seem far from perfect. For example, many hoverflies (Diptera: Syrphidae) are harmless (Batesian (1)) mimics of stinging Hymenoptera (2). However, although some hoverfly species are considered excellent mimics, other species bear only a superficial resemblance to their models (3) and it is unclear why this is so. To evaluate hypotheses that have been put forward to explain interspecific variation in the mimetic fidelity of Palearctic Syrphidae we use a comparative approach. We show that the most plausible explanation is that predators impose less selection for mimetic fidelity on smaller hoverfly species because they are less profitable prey items. In particular, our findings, in combination with previous results, allow us to reject several key hypotheses for imperfect mimicry: first, human ratings of mimetic fidelity are positively correlated with both morphometric measures and avian rankings, indicating that variation in mimetic fidelity is not simply an illusion based on human perception (4); second, no species of syrphid maps out in multidimensional space as being intermediate in appearance between several different hymenopteran model species, as the multimodel hypothesis (5) requires; and third, we find no evidence for a negative relationship between mimetic fidelity and abundance, which calls into question the kin-selection (6) hypothesis. By contrast, a strong positive relationship between mimetic fidelity and body size supports the relaxed-selection hypothesis (7,8), suggesting that reduced predation pressure on less profitable prey species limits the selection for mimetic perfection., Much of evolutionary theory relating to mimicry has been based on the assumption that the fidelity of mimicry in any given system is extremely high (reviewed in ref. 9). Of [...]