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The present-day ubiquity of angiosperm-insect pollination has led to the hypothesis that these two groups coevolved early in their evolutionary history. However, recent fossil discoveries and fossil-calibrated molecular dating analyses challenge the notion that early diversifications of angiosperms and insects were inextricably linked. In this article, we examine (i) the discrepancies between dates of emergence for angiosperms and major clades of insects; (ii) the long history of gymnosperm-insect pollination modes, which likely shaped early angiosperm-insect pollination mutualisms; and (iii) how the K-Pg (Cretaceous-Paleogene) mass extinction event was vital in propelling modern angiosperm-insect mutualisms. We posit that the early diversifications of angiosperms and their insect pollinators were largely decoupled until the end of the Cretaceous.

In many species, parental age at reproduction can influence offspring performance and lifespan, but the direction of these effects and the traits affected vary among studies. Data on parental age effects are still scarce in non-captive populations, especially insects, despite species such as fruit flies being models in laboratory-based aging research. We performed a biologically relevant experimental manipulation of maternal and paternal age at reproduction of antler flies (Protopiophila litigata) in the laboratory and tracked the adult lifespan and reproductive success of their male offspring released in the wild. Increased paternal, but not maternal, age somewhat increased sons’ adult lifespan, while parental ages did not influence sons’ mating rate or reproductive senescence. Our results indicate that while parental age effects do exist in an insect in the field, they may be beneficial in such a short-lived animal, in contrast to results from most wild vertebrates and laboratory invertebrates.

Characterizing the entomological profile of malaria transmission at fine spatiotemporal scales is essential for developing and implementing effective vector control strategies. Here, we present a fine-grained dataset of Anopheles (Diptera: Culicidae) mosquitoes resulting from a series of collections in 55 villages of the rural districts of Korhogo (Northern Côte d'Ivoire) and Diébougou (South-West Burkina Faso) between 2016 and 2018. In the framework of a randomized controlled trial, Anopheles mosquitoes have been periodically collected by Human Landing Catch inside and outside households, and analyzed individually to identify genus and - for a subsample - species, insecticide resistance genetic mutations, plasmodium falciparum infection using molecular tools, and parity status. Overall, more than 3000 human-nights of collection were performed, representing a total sampling effort of approximately 45000 hours. More than 60000 anopheles were collected (mainly An. gambiae s.s., An. coluzzii, and An. funestus). The data are published as a Darwin Core archive in the Global Biodiversity Information Facility - France, comprising 4 files (events, occurrences, mosquito characterizations, and environmental data).

Collaborative efforts to directly replicate empirical studies in the medical and social sciences have revealed alarmingly low rates of replicability, a phenomenon dubbed the ‘replication crisis’. Poor replicability has spurred cultural changes targeted at improving reliability in these disciplines. Given the absence of equivalent replication projects in ecology and evolutionary biology, two inter-related indicators offer the opportunity to retrospectively assess replicability: publication bias and statistical power. This registered report assesses the prevalence and severity of small-study (i.e., smaller studies reporting larger effect sizes) and decline effects (i.e., effect sizes decreasing over time) across ecology and evolutionary biology using 87 meta-analyses comprising 4,250 primary studies and 17,638 effect sizes. Further, we estimate how publication bias might distort the estimation of effect sizes, statistical power, and errors in magnitude (Type M or exaggeration ratio) and sign (Type S). We show strong evidence for the pervasiveness of both small-study and decline effects in ecology and evolution. There was widespread prevalence of publication bias that resulted in meta-analytic means being over-estimated by (at least) 0.12 standard deviations. The prevalence of publication bias distorted confidence in meta-analytic results, with 66% of initially statistically significant meta-analytic means becoming non-significant after correcting for publication bias. Ecological and evolutionary studies consistently had low statistical power (15%) with a 4-fold exaggeration of effects on average (Type M error rates = 4.4). Notably, publication bias reduced power from 23% to 15% and increased type M error rates from 2.7 to 4.4 because it creates a non-random sample of effect size evidence. The sign errors of effect sizes (Type S error) increased from 5% to 8% because of publication bias. Our research provides clear evidence that many published ecological and evolutionary findings are inflated. Our results highlight the importance of designing high-power empirical studies (e.g., via collaborative team science), promoting and encouraging replication studies, testing and correcting for publication bias in meta-analyses, and adopting open and transparent research practices, such as (pre)registration, data- and code-sharing, and transparent reporting.

Amphibians are a clade of over 8,400 species that provide unique research opportunities and challenges. With amphibians undergoing severe global declines, we posit that assessing our current understanding of amphibians is imperative. Focusing on the past five years (2016–2020), we examine trends in amphibian research, data, and systematics. New species of amphibians continue to be described at a pace of ∼150 per year. Phylogenomic studies are increasing, fueling a growing consensus in the amphibian tree of life. Over 3,000 species of amphibians are now represented by expert-curated accounts or data in AmphibiaWeb, AmphibiaChina, BIOWEB, or the Amphibian Disease Portal. Nevertheless, many species lack basic natural history data (e.g., diet records, morphological measurements, call recordings) and major gaps exist for entire amphibian clades. Genomic resources appear on the cusp of a rapid expansion, but large, repetitive amphibian genomes still pose significant challenges. Conservation continues to be a major focus for amphibian research, and threats cataloged on AmphibiaWeb for 1,261 species highlight the need to address land use change and disease using adaptive management strategies. To further promote amphibian research and conservation, we underscore the importance of database integration and suggest that other understudied or imperiled clades would benefit from similar assessments of existing data.

Since its discovery in Lake Mead in 2007, the invasive quagga mussel (Dreissena rostriformis bugensis) has rapidly spread throughout the lower Colorado River drainage. However, the invasion in California remained confined to the Colorado and water systems throughout southern California that receive water from the Colorado River until December 2013, when quagga mussels were first observed in Lake Piru, a reservoir in the Santa Clara River watershed of Ventura County, California. This paper describes population dynamics in Lake Piru and spread within the Santa Clara watershed over the first seven years since invasion. There was an initial boom period in the first year after colonization, with the highest densities and settlement rates between 2014 and 2017, a period of low and relatively stable lake water levels. Lake Piru’s temperature, oxygen, and water chemistry conditions were consistently within preferred bounds for quagga mussels. The mussel population initially expanded on hard substrates and eventually onto soft sediments as mussels attached to debris and each other. The peak settlement rate (June 2015, 1.9 x 105 mussels m-2 month-1) in Lake Piru was within the range observed in Lake Mead (1 x 104 – 1 x 106 mussels m-2 month-1) during the initial invasion, but typically settlement was 10-100 times lower than rates observed in Lake Mead. Despite these lower settling rates, within 2 years of detection (late 2015), mussels were regularly found on soft sediments. However, a fill event in 2017 dramatically increased the lake level and lead to substantial sediment deposition, which smothered the mussels on soft sediments and reduced the overall mussel population relative to the lake volume. Veligers (and settlement rates) were extremely low during the initial fill period, but rebounded within 6 months, despite relatively low levels of reproductive mussels observed in the lake. Large mussels were rare in 2018-2019, likely due to increased mortality during 2017, and the size distribution remained biased towards small size classes into 2021. Environmental conditions (particularly fill status and water temperature), rather than adult density, appear to be the primary driver of veliger abundance in this system, while recruitment was primarily explained by veliger abundance. While lake level fluctuations have potential to control the mussel population in the lake to some extent, lowering lake levels requires extended periods of elevated base flow as well as out-of-season water releases. These elevated water releases increase the flux of veligers into the creek and lead to downstream recruitment, particularly when veliger abundance is high. While seems relatively unlikely that quaggas will establish and reproduce in the Santa Clara River itself due to the unstable bed, highly fluctuating flows, and lack of lentic habitat needed for reproduction, periodic colonization within the river occurs, and is likely to lead to infestations in water systems that directly take in raw river water.

Many animals participate in mixed-species aggregations for a variety of reasons, leading to species specific differences in benefits and costs, resulting in a variety of community assemblage patterns and dynamics based on what information individuals use to make joining decisions. Current research tends to focus specifically on "species" as a defining factor affecting joining decisions. However, we still have little understanding of how species perceive each other when making these decisions and what categories of perception are important (e.g., color, group size). We propose a new approach: instead of assuming species recognition, we test what kind of information each species may use about others to make decisions about which mixed-species aggregations to participate in. We used data on mixed-species aggregations of 12 species of parrots, where the species vary widely in their overall size, colors, and potential motivations for joining different groups. We used co-occurrence and joining patterns with new computational methods to test how these parrot species make grouping decisions. Our results show that using these two perspectives, static co-occurrences and dynamic joining, provided very different insight into the ways species interact with each other. While some species used a more complex categorization system (based on 12 species), the majority of species (7 of 12) used simpler category systems based on two or three categories. We found that not only does this approach provide a framework to test hypotheses about why individuals join or leave mixed species aggregations, it also provides insight into what features each parrot likely used to make their decisions. In doing so, our approach goes farther than previous approaches and provides a link to the perceptive and cognitive abilities of the animals making these minute-by-minute decisions.

Scientific awards can shape scientific careers, helping secure jobs and grants. Awards also have a potential to reinforce the “Matthew Effect” and the quest for “novelty” in science when eligibility and assessment criteria give preference to nominees with traditional careers and to “excellent” research. As such, recognition awards for early and mid-career researchers can contribute to the lack of intersectional diversity at the senior levels and in elite networks of scientists. To assess the status quo and historical trends, we evaluated “best researcher” awards and “best paper” early and mid-career awards from broad-scope international journals and societies in ecology and evolution. Specifically, we collated information on eligibility rules and assessment criteria and quantified historical gender biases in the lists of past winners. Our results reveal that, overall, few awards foster equitable access and assessment. Although many awards now explicitly allow extensions of the eligibility period for significant career interruptions, there is a general lack of transparency in terms of assessment and consideration of other differences in access to opportunities and resources among junior researchers. Strikingly, Open Science practices were valued in only one award. By highlighting instances of desirable award characteristics, we hope this work will nudge award committees to shift from simple but non-equitable award policies and practices towards strategies enhancing inclusivity and diversity. Such shift would benefit not only these at the early and mid-career stages, but the whole research community. It is also an untapped opportunity to reward Open Science practices, promoting transparent and robust science.

Spatial wombling is an approach for detecting edges within a defined two-dimensional landscape. This is achieved by calculating the rate and direction of change through the interpolation of points. This not only gives an approximation as to the shape of the landscape but can also be used to identify candidate boundaries cells that delimit a shift from one state to another within the landscape. Here we introduce the SpatialBoundaries.jl package for Julia, which has been developed to implement the wombling algorithm for datasets that are spatially referenced for both uniformly or randomly sampled landscapes. From a practical perspective, the wombling functionality allow the user to answer two questions: how much and in which direction does the variable of interest change? and the boundaries functionality identifies candidate boundary cells. We conclude by providing a working example of the package using the various woody plant layers for Britain and Ireland from the EarthEnv database.

Patterns of senescence across the tree of life remain poorly understood and a clearly important task is to identify the minimal conditions for senescence to occur at all. Starting with Weismann in 1882, it has generally been argued that some type of asymmetry between parent and offspring is a prerequisite for old individuals to show declining performance. The intuitive role of asymmetries should, however, be subject to mathematical scrutiny. Highly interestingly, recent work has highlighted results that counter the above intuition: Pen and Flatt (2021) recently reported that senescence can evolve in an organism that reproduces via symmetrical division. Here we show that the ‘symmetric’ division of PF does not successfully remove all asymmetries between the two individuals that exist after reproduction. However, envisaging a fully symmetrical scenario is not straightforward either: assigning ‘age’ and the labels ‘parent’ and ‘offspring’ to individuals (or cells) present non-trivial challenges. As a whole, this highlights that seeking for minimal conditions under which senescence can occur is a difficult task as it operates in a definitional minefield.

Connecting adaptive phenotypic variation to both its genetic and ecological bases is one of the central goals of evolutionary biology. Birds, due to their ease of study and solid base of existing knowledge, present an ideal clade in which to advance that goal. Bird color traits in particular have a long tradition of being at the forefront of conceptual advances in evolutionary biology. Combined with recent dramatic increases in our ability to generate and analyze large phenotypic, environmental and genetic datasets, this means currently we are in a better position than ever to connect the environment-phenotype and phenotype-genotype links for specific color traits in birds, illuminating evolutionary patterns and processes generalizable to other traits and clades. I review selected recent advances in that arena, highlighting the most successful approaches, and seeking to illuminate the research avenues most likely to be fruitful in the near future. At a macroevolutionary level, I discuss how correlative models have improved our understanding of Gloger’s rule, a classic ecological principle. But mechanistic, biologically-inspired models such as BM, OU and their extensions are better suited to quantitatively compare and assess evolutionary hypotheses, and have revealed important differences in the mode and tempo of color evolution across clades, sexes and body regions. At a microevolutionary scale, I describe how study systems with ongoing gene flow along environmental gradients, such as hybrid zones, are particularly conducive to address both the genetics and ecology of phenotypic evolution. I weigh the strengths and weaknesses of the two major approaches to detecting the genomic loci underpinning phenotypic variation in such systems: divergence scans and genome-wide association studies. Finally, I conclude by pointing out the importance of synthetic approaches that include environment, phenotype and genotype within the same framework, and I suggest ideas for developments in that direction.

1. Partial migration, where a portion of the population migrates between winter and summer (breeding) areas and the rest remains year-round resident, is a common phenomenon across several taxonomic groups. Several hypotheses have been put forward to explain why some individuals migrate while others stay resident, as well as the fitness consequences of the different strategies. Yet, the drivers and consequences of the decision to migrate or not are poorly understood. 2. We used data from radio-tagged female (n=73) willow ptarmigan Lagopus lagopus in an alpine study area in Central Norway to test if i) the decision to migrate was dependent on individual state variables (age and body weight), ii) individuals repeated migratory decisions between seasons, and iii) the choice of migratory strategy was related to reproductive success. 3. Partially supporting our prediction that migratory strategy depends on individual state, we found that juvenile birds with small body sizes were more likely to migrate whereas large juveniles remained resident. For adult females, we found no relationship between the decision to migrate or stay resident and body weight. We found evidence for high individual repeatability of migratory decision between seasons. Migratory strategy did not explain variation in clutch size or nest fate among individuals, suggesting no direct influence of the chosen strategy on reproductive success. 4. Our results indicate that partial migration in willow ptarmigan is related to juvenile body weight, and that migratory behaviour becomes a part of the individual life history as a fixed strategy. Nesting success was not affected by migratory strategy in our study population, but future studies should assess other traits to further test potential fitness consequences.

Anthropogenic climate and land use changes are the main drivers of biodiversity loss, promoting a major reorganization of the biota in all ecosystems. Biodiversity loss implies not only in the loss of species, but also entails losses in other dimensions of biodiversity, such as functional diversity, phylogenetic diversity and the diversity of ecological interactions.Yet, each of those facets of biodiversity may respond differently to extinctions. Here, we examine how extinction, driven by climate and land-use changes may affect different facets of diversity (functional, phylogenetic, and interaction diversity) by combining empirical data on interaction networks between anurans and their prey, species distribution modeling and extinction simulations.We used species distribution modeling to forecast the redistribution of anurans and create a species vulnerability rank based on expected range changes, then we simulate the extinction of anurans based on this rank. Next, we computed the variation in the functional, phylogenetic, and interaction diversities resulting from projected extinctions in four different ecoregions in the Neotropics. We found that the anuran vulnerability to climate and land-use change varies according to the level of trophic specialization. We also found a mismatch in the response of functional, phylogenetic, and interaction diversity to species’ extinction, whereby the effects on interaction diversity are stronger than those on phylogenetic and functional diversity. Although it is often assumed that interaction patterns are reflected by functional diversity, assessing the interaction patterns is necessary to understand how species loss may translate into the loss of ecosystem functions.

Coastal dunes are invaluable natural resources that bu er upland areas. Vegetation is key in dune development and stabilization. Dunes form with sufficient wind, sand source, and obstruction; plants are the ideal obstruction. Storms o en erode foredunes and coastal managers replant vegetation to re-establish the necessary obstruction for sand accretion and dune growth. We used a wind tunnel to examine the effect of planting density on bedform formation under constant 18.5 mph (8.25 m/s) winds for 30 min. We filled 1m x 1m x .3 m deep boxes with sand and then planted Ammophila breviligulata plugs in two densities commonly used in management, 12 inches (30.5 cm) and 18 inches (45.7 cm) on center. Sand was supplied by a downwind 1-inch sand bed to mimic backshore transport. We measured the morphology of each plant and used a 3D sensor to record the topography of the bedforms that formed in association with each plant. e bedforms did not vary in volume or basal area as a function of planting density, but biomass was a significant predictor of volume, with larger plants producing larger bedforms. We observed all accretionary bedforms in our low-density treatment, but both erosion and accretion in the high-density treatments potentially due to an inaccurate measure of pre-experiment base height or interactions among neighbors causing greater turbulent kinetic energy with tighter spacing. Bedform height, accretionary or erosive, did not vary by density, row, plant width, or biomass. The bedform shape, measured as the length to width ratio did vary by density; plants in the low-density treatment, despite being morphologically the same, produced bedforms with longer tails. These differences are likely a function of wind back ow and plant interaction interrupting ow, both of which are reduced with a lower planting density. The bedforms created at the onset of planting are thought to carry over through the life of the dune, such that understanding how density affects bedform shape should be considered when making management decisions.

Advice from Avian Influenza experts suggests that there is a high risk that Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza will arrive in the Southern Ocean 2022/23-2024/25 austral summers. Since the beginning of 2022, the increasing intensity of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 outbreaks has resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of seabirds in the Northern Hemisphere, around the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and southern Africa. The SCAR Antarctic Wildlife Health Working Group (AWHWG) is highly concerned about the likely arrival and subsequent impact HPAI H5N1 might have on Southern Ocean wildlife. Due to the heightened risk of HPAI being introduced to Antarctica during the the 2022/23 Austral summer by migrating seabirds, the AWHWG recommends that: People working with or close to wildlife should assume that HPAI will arrive in the sub-Antarctic and Antarctica and take precautions to protect themselves when working around wildlife (including appropriate PPE) and maintain the highest biosecurity to prevent transmission between wildlife aggregations. All National Programmes (NPs) and tourism operators should monitor colonies for signs of H5N1 before approaching, especially in migratory species such as skuas, gulls and giant petrels. Tourists should not enter colonies and high wildlife density areas with suspected HPAI and NPs should conduct risk analysis as to which activities need to continue. A more detailed protocol on how to assess wildlife aggregations for HPAI prior to a visit and what to do if HPAI is detected should be provided to all stakeholders physically present in Antarctica this season. If you detect signs of HPAI, you should report this to your permit issuer. Videos of affected animals are very helpful for experts to help determine whether or not this is HPAI. Operators should refresh themselves with and review all biosecurity and any response guidelines to unusual/mass mortality events. This document aims to: Outline the likely risk to Southern Ocean taxa (a more technical assessment will follow in a separate document). Suggest which risks can be mitigated in light of human activity, transmission into and out of Antarctica and the sub-Antarctic regions through all operators as well as movements between sites within the Southern Ocean (primarily for science and tourism), Start discussion with National Programmes about ongoing monitoring for disease and consequences.

Transposable elements (TEs), also known as transposons, are repetitive DNA sequences, present in virtually all organisms, that can move from one genomic position to another. TEs can be a source of mutations with important consequences for organisms. Despite their interest, its repetitive nature has made their study very challenging. However, the emergence of new sequencing technologies that allow obtaining long-read sequences, has improved the in silico de novo detection and annotation of TEs. The de novo annotation of TEs has already been performed in several organisms including the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. Yet, experimental validation can be used to confirm the presence of TEs in specific D. melanogaster natural populations. Here, we present a step-by-step protocol to experimentally validate by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) the presence and/or absence of TEs in natural populations of D. melanogaster. This detailed protocol has been implemented in the participant high schools of the Citizen Fly Lab activity that is part of the international citizen science project Melanogaster: Catch the Fly! ( https://melanogaster.eu ). Specifically, the students collaborate with the scientists of the European Drosophila Population Genomics Consortium (DrosEU) in the experimental validation of new genetic variants, previously identified using bioinformatic techniques.

Light skin facilitates the penetration of ultraviolet light (UV) radiation through the skin, increasing the synthesis of vitamin D that in turn stimulates bone formation. It has been suggested that light skin appeared in the ancestors of modern Europeans as an adaptation to the conditions of low UV radiation in high latitudes; however, paleogenetic studies have recently shown it did not evolve when Upper Palaeolithic human groups first peopled this continent, around 45,000 years ago, but much later, after the development of agriculture, 10,000 years ago. Neolithic Europeans may have struggled with a decrease of bone formation rate and a reduction of the bone mineral density (BMD) associated with the new sedentary lifestyle. Here I suggest that light skin evolved to increase the vitamin D synthesis (a stimulator of the BMD), balancing out the negative effects on the BMD during the Neolithic. According to the idea, I found that SNPs related to BMD may have changed after the European Agricultural Revolution, and possibly in correlation with skin pigmentation associated SNPs.

Individualized social niches arise in social groups and are associated with behavior and hormone (e.g. cortisol) concentrations. During sensitive life phases, social interactions can have a profound impact on the development of social behavior. Focusing on adolescence, we aimed to investigate the relationship between the social niche, social behavior, and cortisol concentrations (baseline and response to challenge) in female guinea pigs. Females were pair-housed in early adolescence (initial social pair formation), and a social niche transition occurred after six weeks by replacing the partner with either a larger or smaller female, forcing the focal female to become dominant or subdominant. We show that social behavior and cortisol concentrations were influenced by dominance status. Dominant females were more aggressive in the initial social pairs, and this was immediately reshaped after the social niche transition. Submissive behavior toward the new social partner was also rapidly adjusted after the social niche transition. However, submissive behavior was not entirely reshaped because the previous dominance status from the initial social pair still affected the extent of submissive behavior three weeks after the social niche transition. Regarding cortisol concentrations, baseline levels were shaped by the social niche in early adolescence with higher concentrations measured in dominant females. After the social niche transition, cortisol responsiveness significantly increased for the females who were forced to become subdominant relative to those forced to become dominant. These results add substantially to our understanding of the effect of social interactions during adolescence on social behavior and hormone concentrations in females.

Pathogen evolution is one of the least predictable components of disease emergence, particularly in nature. Here, building on principles established by the geographic mosaic theory of coevolution, we develop a quantitative, spatially-explicit framework for mapping the evolutionary risk of viral emergence. Driven by interest in diseases like SARS, MERS, and COVID-19, we examine the global biogeography of bat-origin betacoronaviruses, and find that coevolutionary principles suggest geographies of risk that are distinct from the hotspots and coldspots of host richness. Further, our framework helps explain patterns like a unique pool of merbecoviruses in the Neotropics, a recently-discovered lineage of divergent nobecoviruses in Madagascar, and--most importantly--hotspots of diversification in southeast Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East that correspond to the site of previous zoonotic emergence events. Our framework may help identify hotspots of future risk that have also been previously overlooked, like west Africa and the Indian subcontinent, and may more broadly help researchers understand how host ecology shapes the evolution and diversity of pandemic threats.

Phenotypic plasticity is a dynamic research area in ecology and evolution with a brimming literature that has advanced our understanding of organismal variation, adaptation, and speciation. Most advances, especially recently, are based on highly simplified biological scenarios such as dichotomous environments or linear environmental gradients. Here we describe a path for taking modern plasticity research in a far more biologically relevant direction.

Until recently, bat phylogeny separated megabats (laryngeally non-echolocators) and microbats (all laryngeal echolocators) into two distinct clades. This segregation was consistent with the assumption that laryngeal echolocation was acquired by a common ancestor and inherited by all microchiropterans. Thus, laryngeal echolocation was regarded to have evolved once. Recent advances in bat genome sequencing have added insights regarding the origin of bats and their phylogenetic relationships. The megabats previously thought to be phylogenetically isolated are now sharing a common ancestor with the superfamily Rhinolophoidea, which is constituted of laryngeal echolocators. This new relationship brings a counterpoint regarding the hypothesis of single origin of echolocation, which could have appeared several times independently. Concomitantly, recent studies in bat evolutionary developmental biology have illuminated the importance of characters from embryonic development to discussions of how and when echolocation evolved. Here, we describe how comparative chiropteran laryngeal morphology is a novel area of research that could improve the understanding of echolocation and may help resolve the evolutionary history of bats. This review provides morphological descriptions and comparisons of the larynx, bioacoustics interpretations, and newly developed visualisation approaches (i.e., contrast-enhanced computed tomography). We discuss the importance of understanding (1) laryngeal sound production so it may be linked with the evolution of the Chiropteran auditory system and (2) the evolution of laryngeal morphology to understand the ecological and behavioural aspects of bat biology.

Conservation science usually devotes little attention to common species, which are crucial in determining ecosystem structure and function. Dominant species are a particular type of common species that affect ecosystem functions proportional to their abundance or cover. In this study, we examined how human disturbance affects the cover of the dominant riparian species in 404 sites located in multiple streams across continental Portugal. Specifically, we asked if the percentage of cover of the dominant species is higher or lower in the least disturbed areas. We performed the analysis using Extreme Value Theory. We found that the percentage of cover of the dominant species was significantly higher in the least disturbed communities compared to the disturbed communities. Riparian vegetation clearing is common in more humanized and disturbed areas which may explain the reduction in the cover of the dominant species. In the least disturbed areas, vegetation clearing is less frequent, allowing more growing time and permitting the dominant species to have a higher cover percentage. Since we found significant differences in the percentages of cover, we examined the identity and ecological characteristics of the dominant species. We found that the common alder was the species that more often had the highest percentage of cover regardless of the disturbance level. However, we found substantial differences in the identity of the remaining dominant species, which we believe were linked to their ecological requirements.

Animal care is a critical component underlying successful behavioral and cognition research. Technological solutions for documentation and verification of care can aid in monitoring that activities are completed according to standard operating procedures and ensure that no individuals are overlooked. Here, I summarize a low-cost, flexible, and easy to use system that I developed to document and monitor care of animals for our research group. The system enables real-time and remote-enabled verification that critical daily tasks have been completed for every cage and helps us monitor our longer-term tasks to make sure that our care team is adhering to our set schedule. The main materials and components needed to implement this system are QR codes, a thermal laminator, a QR scanner, a computer to manage data input, and a database into which the data are scanned and summarized. There are six steps to setting up our system: (1) purchase a QR scanner, (2) generate and print QR codes, (3) set up the central hub for data input, (4) input data from QR scans, (5) filter and collate the raw data, and (6) summarize filtered data to verify and track care. Paired with simple scripts in a cloud-based spreadsheet, scanned QR code data can then be easily summarized in real time to provide verification of care. The flexibility of the system allows it to be customized to a large range of species.

The often repeated claim that domestic cats (Felis silvestris catus) have exterminated at least 33 bird species globally is incorrect. The original claim was based on limited evidence from the 1950s for 18 bird species on oceanic islands, not 33 bird species globally, and recent data indicate only ten bird species may be extinct. Wildlife conservationists frequently restate claims from published research papers to substantiate their work. However, as this example with domestic cats demonstrates, they are engaging in sloppy science if they do not adequately verify claims before repeating them. Correcting sloppy science is important because wildlife management based on it can be harmful and claims founded on sloppy science when repeated in the media can lead to loss of public trust in science.

The paper — Seaweed ecosystems may not mitigate CO2 emissions (Gallagher et al., 2022) — claims that seaweed ecosystems are carbon sources rather than carbon sinks because ‘respiration subsidies’ (from inputs of allochthonous organic carbon) create negative net ecosystem production. That is, that seaweed ecosystems produce more CO2 than they draw down, and thus may not mitigate CO2 emissions. They make this claim using a compiled dataset which shows that, on average, seaweed ecosystems are net heterotrophic. However, their assessment is flawed and conceptually misleading as key terms are misinterpreted, the data presented are biased, and the conclusions are not supported statistically. Here we discuss four flaws in the argument presented by Gallagher et al., which we believe risk confusing further research on seaweed blue carbon and unjustifiably seeding doubt around motivations and initiatives to protect and restore seaweed forests.

Determining how variation in brain morphology affects cognitive abilities is important to understand inter-individual variation in cognition and, ultimately, cognitive evolution. Yet, despite many decades of research in this area, there is surprisingly little experimental data available from assays that quantify cognitive abilities and brain morphology in the same individuals. Here, we tested female guppies ( Poecilia reticulata ) in two tasks, colour discrimination and reversal learning, to evaluate their learning abilities and cognitive flexibility. We then estimated the size of five brain regions (telencephalon, optic tectum, hypothalamus, cerebellum and dorsal medulla), in addition to relative brain size. We found that optic tectum relative size, in relation to the rest of the brain, correlated positively with discrimination learning performance, while relative telencephalon size correlated positively with reversal learning performance. The other brain measures were not associated with performance in either task. By evaluating how fast learning occurs and how fast an animal adjusts its learning rules to changing conditions, we find support for that different brain regions have distinct functional correlations at the individual level. Importantly, telencephalon size emerges as an important neural correlate of higher executive functions such as cognitive flexibility. This is rare evidence supporting the theory that more neural tissue in key brain regions confers cognitive benefits.

Soils derived from ultramafic parent materials (hereafter serpentine) provide habitat for unique plant communities containing species with adaptations to the low nutrient levels, high magnesium : calcium ratios, and high metal content (Ni, Zn) that characterize serpentine. Plants on serpentine have long been studied in evolution and ecology, and plants adapted to serpentine contribute disproportionately to plant diversity in many parts of the world. In 2000-2003, serpentine plant communities were sampled at 107 locations representing the full range of occurrence of serpentine in California, USA, spanning large gradients in climate. In 2009-2010, plant communities were similarly sampled at 97 locations on nonserpentine soil, near to and paired with 97 of the serpentine sampling locations. (Some serpentine locations were revisited in 2009-2010 to assess the degree of change since 2000-2003, which was minimal.) At each serpentine or nonserpentine location, a north- and a south-facing 50 × 10 m plot were sampled. This design produced 97 "sites" each consisting of four "plots" (north-south exposure, serpentine-nonserpentine soil). All plots were initially visited three or more times over two years to record plant diversity and cover, and a subset were revisited in 2014 to examine community change after a drought. The original question guiding the study was how plant diversity is shaped by the spatially patchy nature of the serpentine habitat. Subsequently, we investigated how climate drives plant diversity at multiple scales (within locations, between locations on the same and different soil types, and across entire regions) and at different levels of organization (taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic). There are no copyright restrictions and users should cite this data paper in publications that result from use of the data.

Many migratory species are in decline across their geographical ranges. Single-population studies can provide important insights into drivers at a local scale, but effective conservation requires multi-population perspectives. This is challenging because relevant data are often hard to consolidate, and state-of-the-art analytical tools are typically tailored to specific datasets. We capitalized on a recent data harmonization initiative (SPI-Birds) and linked it to a generalized modeling framework to identify the demographic and environmental drivers of large-scale population decline in migratory pied flycatchers (Ficedula hypoleuca) breeding across Britain. We implemented a generalized integrated population model (IPM) to estimate age-specific vital rates, including their dependency on environmental conditions, and total and breeding population size of pied flycatchers using long-term (34-64 years) monitoring data from seven locations representative of the British breeding range. We then quantified the relative contributions of different vital rates and population structure to changes in short- and long-term population growth rate using transient life table response experiments (LTREs). Substantial covariation in population sizes across breeding locations suggested that change was the result of large-scale drivers. This was supported by LTRE analyses, which attributed past changes in short-term population growth rates and long-term population trends primarily to variation in annual survival and dispersal dynamics, which largely act during migration and/or non-breeding season. Contributions of variation in local reproductive parameters were small in comparison, despite sensitivity to local temperature and rainfall within the breeding period. We show that both short- and longer-term population changes of British-breeding pied flycatchers are likely linked to factors acting during migration and in non-breeding areas, where future research should be prioritized. We illustrate the potential of multi-population analyses for informing management at (inter)national scales and highlight the importance of data standardization, generalized and accessible analytical tools, and reproducible workflows to achieve them.

The database used in the analysis of the study "Towards a cohesive understanding of ecological complexity". The code included in here can also be found on Github ., This work was supported by Mitacs Accelerate (to F.R.), Sakari Alhopuuro Säätiö (to C.G.-R.), Suomen Kulttuurirahasto (grant 00220879 to C.G.-R.), European Commission Horizon 2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (grant 882221 to S.M. and grant 101024579 to F.R.), and Biodiversa+2021 (grant DarCo to S.M.).

Measuring parental care behaviour in the wild is central to the study of animal life-history trade-offs, but is often labour and time-intensive. More efficient machine learning-based video processing tools have recently emerged that allow parental nest visit rates to be measured using video cameras and computer processing. Here, we used open-source software to detect movement events from videos taken at the nest box of a wild passerine bird population. We show that visit numbers from our automatic data collection pipeline strongly correlate with human observations and predicts an increase in brood fitness. Using a machine learning-assisted annotation approach on a subset of 18 videos, we show that the accuracy largely increased and cut annotation time by an average of 5.5x compared to that of a cohort of undergraduate students. Since our automatic pipeline collected biological-meaningful data that would have taken approximately 800 days by human observers, we encourage more researchers to apply existing open-source tools to assist data collection in animal behaviour studies.

It is important for emerging conservationists and wildlife managers to gain experience in the use of evidence-based conservation, by way of critical analysis and understanding of the context and application of conservation actions. We developed a teaching case and activity for undergraduate and graduate courses in conservation biology, wildlife management etc., although it could also be adopted for upper-level high school classes. The case is based on a recent study that assesses hatchery practices in India. Hatcheries are commonly established to protect sea turtle eggs and hatchlings from threats at the nesting beach. Guidelines for sea turtle hatcheries have been widely available and followed by sea turtle conservationists for decades, and their use has potentially contributed to successful conservation of some sea turtle populations worldwide. However, best practices in the collection, transport, and incubation of eggs, and holding and release of hatchlings should be followed to ensure hatchling production and fitness exceeds that of unprotected nests. The teaching activity builds conservation science literacy as students identify studies describing methods to assess risks to in situ clutches and mitigate threats including tidal inundation, depredation, and illegal take. A practical exercise asks students to assess threats at multiple nesting beaches on an island and propose which protection strategy (protect in situ, relocate to safer individual location on the beach, or relocate to a hatchery) would be most appropriate at different locations

Urbanization displaces agriculture and natural ecosystems, constraining food security and carbon (C) sinks. A proposed solution, Urban Food Forestry (UFF), promises local food from trees that can sequester C faster than other land cover types as long as soil function improves. We compared fine-scale variation in soil physical, chemical and biological properties within and between UFF and traditional lawn for evidence of changes in belowground ecosystem services. Both land covers sequestered C, but UFF did so nearly an order of magnitude faster, especially in upper soil strata where soil bulk density fell by 50% and microbial activity increased by an order of magnitude. Species richness of both soil fungi and bacteria increased along with nutrient concentrations. Contrary to expectations, that different tree traits would drive increasing fine scale variability in C density, soils beneath the UFF became more uniform, which is consistent with the rapid emergence of system-level regulation. Soil C mass balance may distinguish forests from collections of trees and determine how long UFF helps cities store their carbon and eat it too.

Zu et al (Science, 19 Jun 2020, p. 1377) propose that an ‘information arms-race’ between plants and herbivores explains plant-herbivore communication at the community level. However, our analysis shows that key assumptions of the proposed model either a) conflict with standard evolutionary theory or b) are not supported by the available evidence. We also show that the presented statistical patterns can be explained more parsimoniously (e.g. through a null model) without invoking an unlikely process of community selection.

Society is confronted by interconnected threats to ecological sustainability. Among these is the devastation of forests by destructive non-native pathogens and insects introduced through global trade, leading to the loss of critical ecosystem services and a global forest health crisis. We argue that the forest health crisis is a public good social dilemma and propose a response framework that incorporates principles of collective action. This framework will enable scientists to better engage policymakers and empower the public to advocate for proactive biosecurity and forest health management. Collective action in forest health will feature broadly inclusive stakeholder engagement to build trust and set goals; accountability for destructive pest introductions; pooled support for weakest-link partners; and inclusion of intrinsic and non-market values of forest ecosystems in risk assessment. We provide short-term and longer-term measures that incorporate the above principles to shift the societal and ecological forest health paradigm to a more resilient state.

In recent years, we witnessed an increasing number of funding agencies, scientific journals and scientists agreeing that society and science benefit from open access to research data. Benefits derive mainly from increased access to knowledge for all and improved transparency in academia. However, despite the advances in open science and open data, three significant aspects still need considerable policing: data quality, the accompanying summaries with basic information of the data files (i.e., metadata), and codes used to generate the research outcomes. Only by having these three components together, we can achieve efficient data sharing and reuse, and hence higher transparency. Here, we propose two complementary approaches that potentially can help with shared data quality: (i) data file(s) sharing should be guided step-by-step in public archives with mandatory metadata, and (ii) journals creating assistant data editor positions at editorial boards with a leading role in data quality and computational reproducibility. Forty-four editors-in-chief in the field of behaviour, ecology and evolution shared their opinion with us regarding these two approaches. Although most of the views were divided, the majority estimated that their current editorial board members do not have the necessary skills to assess the quality of shared data. Since data is the core of research studies, we should consider not only data presence but also quality as a requirement for publication.

1. The patterns of successional change of decomposer communities is unique in that resource availability predictably decreases as decomposition proceeds. Saproxylic (i.e., deadwood-dependent) beetles are a highly diverse and functionally important decomposer group, and their community composition is affected by both deadwood characteristics and other environmental factors. Understanding how communities change along faunal succession is important as this process influences terrestrial carbon dynamics. 2. Here, we evaluate how beta-diversity of saproxylic beetle communities change with succession, as well as the effects of different major drivers of beta-diversity, such as deadwood tree species, spatial distance between locations and forest structure. 3. We studied spatial beta-diversity (i.e., dissimilarity of species composition between deadwood logs in the same year) of saproxylic beetle communities over eight years of wood decomposition. Our study included 379 experimental deadwood logs comprising 13 different tree species in 30 forest stands in Germany with differences in forest structure that is influenced by management regimes. We hypothesized that the effect of tree species dissimilarity, measured by phylogenetic distance, on spatial beta-diversity decreases over time, while the effects of spatial distance between logs (1m to ~600km) and differences in forest structure increase. 4. Spatial beta-diversity of saproxylic beetle communities was high throughout the first eight years of succession and even increased slightly over time except when focusing on dominant species (i.e., q = 2 in the Hill number calculation). Beta-diversity increased with increasing phylogenetic distance between tree species, spatial distance, and differences in forest structure. While effects of space and forest structure were constant over time, the effect of phylogenetic distance decreased over time. 5. Our results show that the strength of the different drivers of saproxylic beetle community beta-diversity changes along deadwood succession. Beta-diversity of early decay communities was strongly associated with differences between tree species. Although this effect decreased over time, beta-diversity remained high throughout succession. Possible explanations for this pattern include differences in decomposition rates and fungal communities between logs or the priority effect of early successional communities. Our results suggest that saproxylic beetle diversity can be promoted by high diversity in tree species and forest structural characteristics.

The gut microbiome impacts host health and fitness, in part through the diversification of gut metabolic function and pathogen protection. Elevations in glucocorticoids (GCs) appear to reduce gut microbiome diversity in experimental studies, suggesting that a loss of microbial diversity may be a negative consequence of increased GCs. However, given that ecological factors like food availability and population density may independently influence both GCs and microbial diversity, understanding how these factors structure the GC-microbiome relationship is crucial to interpreting its significance in wild populations. Here, we used an ecological framework to investigate the relationship between GCs and gut microbiome diversity in wild North American red squirrels (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus). As expected, higher GCs predicted lower gut microbiome diversity and an increase in metabolic taxa. Surprisingly, but in line with prior empirical studies on wild animals, gastrointestinal pathogens decreased as GCs increased. Both dietary heterogeneity and an upcoming food pulse exhibited direct effects on gut microbiome diversity, whereas conspecific density and reproductive activity impacted diversity indirectly via changes in host GCs. Our results provide evidence of a gut–brain axis in wild red squirrels and highlight the importance of situating the GC-gut microbiome relationship within an ecological framework.

Spatial and social behaviour are fundamental aspects of an animal’s biology, and the social and spatial environments are indelibly linked through mutual causes and shared consequences. Behavioural variation at the “spatial-social interface”, which we define as the intersection of social and spatial aspects of individuals’ phenotypes and environments, has implications for ecological and evolutionary processes including pathogen transmission, population dynamics, and the evolution of social systems. Traditionally, the spatial and social dimensions of animal biology have been studied separately despite many conceptual and practical similarities. The lack of shared vocabulary or direct alignment of analogous concepts has prevented unification of social and spatial behaviour, which diminishes the potential for synthesis, reduces the power of integrated analyses, and results in missed opportunities to test both spatial and social hypotheses. We bridge the spatial-social interface by outlining a foundation of shared theory, vocabulary, and methods. We discuss the integration of spatial and social behaviour, identify shared concepts and approaches, and discuss how these concepts can be integrated to identify and test questions at the spatial-social interface.

The knowledge on thermal inactivation kinetics of enzymes is necessary to allow their adequate utilization as natural biopreservatives in the food industry and technology applications. In this work, the kinetics of thermal inactivation was studied for the previously purified and characterized xylanases Xyl1 and Xyl2 from Macrotermes subhyalinus little soldier. Samples of xylanases were treated at different time-temperature combinations in the range of 5-60 min at 50-65°C and the kinetic and thermodynamic parameters for xylanases were calculated. The inactivation kinetic follows a first-order reaction with k-values between 0.0192 ± 0.0002 to 0.0405 ± 0.0003 and 0.0119 ± 0.0005 to 0.0418 ± 0.0004 min-1 for Xyl1 and Xyl2, respectively. Activation energy (Ea) and Z-values were estimated to 48.08 ± 1.84 kJ mol-1 and 43.47 ± 3.02°C for Xyl1, 75.52 ± 3.52 kJ.mol-1 and 27.77 ± 1.87°C for Xyl2. The catalytic reactions of both xylanases are endothermic due to positive enthalpy. The high value obtained for the variation in enthalpy of activation indicates that a high amount of energy is required to initiate denaturation, probably due to the molecular conformation of xylanases. All results suggest that both xylanases are relatively resistant to long heat treatments up to 50°C.

This study aimed to assess the effects of a fortified diet on nutritional indicators of growing rats undergoing a protein-energy restriction. For this purpose, three experiments of 30 days were carried out. The first experiment was performed to evaluate the effects of a protein-energy restriction on the growth of 24 rats. The second experiment was intended to rehabilitate by restitution with appropriate diets 24 rats after a period of restriction. The last one was performed on 18 rats with a fortified restitution diet. After two weeks, protein-energy restriction induced a sharp drop in rat growth from the beginning to the end of the experiment. The average values of the nutritional characteristics of treated rats were lower than those of control rats. After protein-energy restitution, the daily average values of the nutritional characteristics of treated rats resume slightly. The restitution with fortification leads to a great resumption of growth and a consequent increase in nutritional characteristics of rats. In conclusion, for protein-energy restitution to be effective, it must be fortified with a complex of essential amino acids and trace elements.

Recent genomic evidence suggest that kea (Nestor notabilis) have a non-functional RH2 opsin gene potentially leading to impaired vision in the green region of the electromagnetic spectrum. In New Zealand, it is standard procedure to add green dye to aerial poison baits used in mammalian predator control operations to deter native birds from eating toxic bait. A visual deficiency could impact how kea perceive and interact with green-dyed baits and thus have unforeseen consequences for kea conservation. Here, we sequenced the partial RH2 gene of seven wild kea and re-analysed the kea genome raw sequencing data of the RH2 locus. We demonstrate that the reported premature stop codon is most likely an assembly artefact. An extended analysis of the published genomes of all three extant New Zealand parrots of the superfamily Strigopoidea confirms that the RH2 gene is functional in this entire group.

Animals breeding in anthropogenic shelters such as nest-boxes experience nesting environment in which they did not originally evolve. Over the past decades, they are additionally challenged by climate change – a major environmental force influencing their reproductive ecology. Despite the central importance of nesting microclimate for offspring development and fitness, very little is known about the thermal properties of human-provided nests compared to natural ones. While it has been demonstrated that artificial nests provide poorer thermal insulation in comparison to natural breeding sites, there is no evidence on how these shifts are shaped along the reproductive stages. In particular, comparisons focusing on the time when offspring are in the nest are lacking. Here, we compare the microclimatic conditions (temperature and absolute humidity) along the nesting cycle (from nest-site choice in early spring until post-fledging) in natural cavities and nest-boxes used by several species of hollow-nesting passerines in a temperate deciduous forest. We confirm that across all nesting stages, nest-boxes are thermally unstable when compared to natural cavities, with higher temperature maximums, larger amplitudes and worse insulation from maximum ambient temperatures relative to natural cavities. Importantly, in the presence of young, and after they start to thermoregulate on their own, nest-boxes are also more humid than natural cavities. Artificial nest microclimate is likely to amplify the adverse effects of projected temperature increases modelled under climate change scenarios, specifically by compromising thermoregulation and increasing water requirements of developing animals. In contrast, internal microclimatic shifts were mitigated in natural cavities 3.0 times more effectively than in nest-boxes when offspring were in the nest (in terms of mean daily differences from ambient temperature). We stress that conservation efforts should focus on the protection of habitats offering natural breeding-hollows to reduce climate change impacts on breeding animals.

Macrophysiological research is vital to our understanding of mechanisms underpinning global life history variation and adaptation to diverse environments. Here, we examined latitudinal and elevational variation in a key substrate of energy metabolism and an emerging physiological component of pace-of-life syndromes, blood glucose concentration. Our data, collected from 61 European temperate and 99 Afrotropical passerine species, revealed that baseline blood glucose increases with both latitude and elevation, whereas blood glucose stress response shows divergent directions, being stronger at low latitudes and high elevations. Low baseline glucose in tropical birds, compared to their temperate counterparts, was mainly explained by their low fecundity, consistent with the slow pace-of-life syndrome in the tropics. In contrast, elevational variation in this trait was decoupled from fecundity, implying a unique montane pace-of-life syndrome combining slow-paced life histories with fast-paced physiology. The observed patterns suggest that pace-of-life syndromes do not evolve along the single fast-slow axis.

Cooperatively breeding species exhibit a range of social behaviors associated with different costs and benefits to group-living, often in association with different environmental conditions. For example, species in which collective-care of offspring reduces the cost of reproduction are more common in harsh environments (true cooperative breeding), while species that collectively defend resources are present in benign environments (family-living). Here, we examine whether environment also shapes sociality within cooperatively-breeding species. We illustrate that Purple-backed Fairywrens, which primarily gain intrinsic, or collective-care benefits, have larger groups in hot, dry environments and smaller groups in cool, wet environments, whereas Superb Fairywrens which primarily gain extrinsic, or resource defense benefits, exhibit the opposite trend. We suggest differences in the costs and benefits of sociality contribute to these opposing ecogeographic patterns, demonstrating that comparisons of intraspecific patterns of social variation across species can provide insight into how ecology shapes transitions between social systems.

We thank Leslie Brandt and Gregory McPherson (USDA Forest Service, USA), Jakub Kronenberg (University of Lodz, Poland), Shawn Landry (University of South Florida, USA) and Per Anker Pedersen (Faculty of Landscape and Society, Norwegian University of Life Sciences) for their thoughts and contributions. MER, PR, SP and MGT thank Leigh Staas (Macquarie University) and funding from the Hort Frontiers Green Cities Fund, part of the Hort Frontiers strategic partnership initiative developed by Hort Innovation, with coinvestment from Macquarie University, Western Sydney University and the NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment and contributions from the Australian Government. DNB acknowledges support from the Research Council of Norway to the ENABLE project through the BiodivERsA COFUND 2015-2016 call for research proposals. BW acknowledges support from FORMAS (dia.nr 2016-20098). Finally, we thank the anonymous reviewers for their critical observations and thoughtful contributions that improved this work. The opinions and findings expressed in this paper are those of the authors and should not be construed to represent any official USDA or US Government determination or policy., Societal Impact Statement Globally, cities are planning for resilience through urban greening initiatives as governments understand the importance of urban forests in improving quality of life and mitigating climate change. However, the persistence of urban forests and the ecosystem benefits they provide are threatened by climate change, and systematic assessments of causes of tree dieback and mortality in urban environments are rare. Long-term monitoring studies and adaptive management are needed to identify and prevent climate change-driven failures and mortality. Research and monitoring when coupled with systematic forecasting will enable governments to incorporate climate change resilience into urban forestry planning. Future scenarios in which urban forests are resilient or in decline will depend on the management and planning actions we make today., The management of urban forests is a key element of resilience planning in cities across the globe. Urban forests provide ecosystem services as well as other nature-based solutions to 4.2 billion people living in cities. However, to continue to do so effectively, urban forests need to be able to thrive in an increasingly changing climate. Trees in cities are vulnerable to extreme heat and drought events, which are predicted to increase in frequency and severity under climate change. Knowledge of species' vulnerability to climate change, therefore, is crucial to ensure provision of desired ecosystem benefits, improve species selection, maintain tree growth and reduce tree mortality, dieback and stress in urban forests. Yet, systematic assessments of causes of tree dieback and mortality in urban environments are rare. We reviewed the state of knowledge of tree mortality in urban forests globally, finding very few frameworks that enable detection of climate change impacts on urban forests and no long-term studies assessing climate change as a direct driver of urban tree dieback and mortality. The effects of climate change on urban forests remain poorly understood and quantified, constraining the ability of governments to incorporate climate change resilience into urban forestry planning., Hort Frontiers Green Cities Fund, Hort Frontiers strategic partnership initiative, Research Council of Norway, Swedish Research Council Formas 2016-20098

The coastal zone of the Canadian Arctic represents 10% of the world’s coastline and is one of the most rapidly changing marine regions on the planet. To predict the consequences of these environmental changes, a better understanding of how environmental gradients shape coastal habitat structure in this area is required. We quantified the abundance and diversity of canopy forming seaweeds throughout the nearshore zone (5–15 m) of the Eastern Canadian Arctic using diving surveys and benthic collections at 55 sites distributed over 3,000 km of coastline. Kelp forests were found throughout, covering on average 40.4% (±29.9 SD) of the seafloor across all sites and depths, despite thick sea ice and scarce hard substrata in some areas. Total standing macroalgal biomass ranged from 0 to 32 kg m–2 wet weight and averaged 3.7 kg m–2 (±0.6 SD) across all sites and depths. Kelps were less abundant at depths of 5 m compared to 10 or 15 m and distinct regional assemblages were related to sea ice cover, substratum type, and nutrient availability. The most common community configuration was a mixed assemblage of four species: Agarum clathratum (14.9% benthic cover ± 12.0 SD), Saccharina latissima (13% ± 14.7 SD), Alaria esculenta (5.4% ± 1.2 SD), and Laminaria solidungula (3.7% ± 4.9 SD). A. clathratum dominated northernmost regions and S. latissima and L. solidungula occurred at high abundance in regions with more open water days. In southeastern areas along the coast of northern Labrador, the coastal zone was mainly sea urchin barrens, with little vegetation. We found positive relationships between open water days (days without sea ice) and kelp biomass and seaweed diversity, suggesting kelp biomass could increase, and the species composition of kelp forests could shift, as sea ice diminishes in some areas of the Eastern Canadian Arctic. Our findings demonstrate the high potential productivity of this extensive coastal zone and highlight the need to better understand the ecology of this system and the services it provides.

Behavioral flexibility, the ability to adapt behavior to new circumstances, is thought to play an important role in a species’ ability to successfully adapt to new environments and expand its geographic range. However, flexibility is rarely directly tested in species in a way that would allow us to determine how flexibility works to predict a species’ ability to adapt their behavior to new environments. We use great-tailed grackles (Quiscalus mexicanus; a bird species) as a model to investigate this question because they have recently rapidly expanded their range into North America. We attempted to manipulate grackle flexibility using colored tube reversal learning to determine whether flexibility is generalizable across contexts (multi-access box), and what learning strategies grackles employ. We found that flexibility was manipulatable: birds in the manipulated group took fewer trials to pass criterion with increasing reversal number, and they reversed a color preference in fewer trials by the end of their serial reversals compared to control birds who had only one reversal. Birds that passed their last reversal faster were also more flexible (faster to switch between loci) and innovative (solved more loci) on a multi-access box. All grackles in the manipulated reversal learning group used one learning strategy (epsilon-decreasing: long exploration period) in all reversals and did not use the epsilon-first strategy: quickly shift their preference), and none used a particular exploration or exploitation strategy earlier or later in their serial reversals. Understanding how flexibility causally relates to other traits will allow researchers to develop robust theory about what flexibility is and when to invoke it as a primary driver in a given context, such as a rapid geographic range expansion.

Ferns and lycophytes are unique among land plants for having sporophyte (diploid) and gametophyte (haploid) generations that can grow independently of each other. While most studies of fern ecology focus on the more obvious sporophytic stage, the gametophyte is critically important, as it is the sexual phase of the life cycle. Yet, fern gametophytes have long been neglected in field studies due to their small size and cryptic morphology. DNA barcoding is a powerful method that can be used to identify field-collected gametophytes to species and allow for detailed study of their ecology. Here, we review the state of DNA barcoding as applied to fern gametophytes. First, we trace the history of DNA barcoding and how it has come to be applied to fern gametophytes. Next, we summarize case studies that show how DNA barcoding has been used to better understand fern species distributions, gametophyte ecology, and community ecology. Finally, we propose avenues for future research using this powerful tool, including next-generation DNA sequencing for in-field identification of cryptic gametophytes.

Although the influence of developmental conditions on the expression of sexually selected traits is established, the physiological mechanisms that modulate such effects remain a matter of intense debate. Here, we test the role of the developmental environment in shaping adult mitochondrial function and link mitochondrial function to expression of a sexually selected trait in males (bird song). We exposed male zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) to corticosterone (CORT) treatment during development. After males reached adulthood, we quantified mitochondrial function from whole red blood cells and measured baseline CORT and testosterone levels, body condition/composition, and song structure. CORT-treated males had less efficient mitochondrial function (FCRL/R), lower mitochondrial ‘working pace’ (FCRR/ETS), and higher baseline levels of CORT as adults compared to control males. Using structural equation modelling, we found that the effects of CORT treatment during development on adult mitochondrial function were indirect and modulated by baseline CORT levels, which are programmed by CORT treatment during development. Developmental treatment had an indirect effect on song peak frequency. Males treated with CORT during development sang songs with higher peak frequency than control males, but this effect was modulated through increased CORT levels and decreased mitochondrial efficiency (FCRL/R). CORT-treated males had smaller tarsi compared to control males; however, there were no associations between body size and measures of song frequency. Here, we provide the first evidence supporting links between the developmental environment, mitochondrial function, and the expression of a sexually selected display (bird song).

The pace of divergence and likelihood of complete speciation may depend how and when different types of reproductive barriers evolve. After initial reproductive barriers evolve, questions remain about how subsequently evolving barriers may facilitate additional divergence and potential speciation. We tested for the presence of sexual isolation (reduced mating between populations due to divergent mating preferences and traits) in Rhagoletis pomonella flies, a model system for incipient ecological speciation. We measured the strength of sexual isolation between two very recently diverged (~170 generations) sympatric populations, adapted to different host fruits. We found that sexual isolation was significantly stronger than expectations of random mating. Thus, sexual isolation may play an important role in reducing gene flow allowed by earlier-acting ecological barriers. We also tested how warmer temperatures predicted under climate change could alter sexual isolation and found that sexual isolation was markedly asymmetric between the sexes of each population when flies were reared under warmer temperatures. Our findings provide a window into the early divergence process and the role of sexual isolation after initial ecological divergence, in addition to examining how environmental conditions could shape the likelihood of further divergence.