Animals often increase their fitness by moving across space in response to temporal variation in habitat quality and resource availability, and as a result of intra and inter-specific interactions. The long-term persistence of populations and even whole species depends on the collective patterns of individual movements, yet animal movements have been poorly studied at the landscape level. We quantified movement behavior within four native species of Hawaiian forest birds in a complex lava-fragmented landscape: Hawai‛i...

Numerous studies have demonstrated biodiversity–productivity relationships in plant communities, and analogous genetic diversity–productivity studies using genotype mixtures of single species may show similar patterns. Alternatively, competing individuals among genotypes within a species are less likely to exhibit resource-use complementarity, even when they exhibit large differences in their effects on ecosystem function. In this study, we test the impact of genotype diversity and genetic identity on ecosystem function using an ecosystem-scale common garden experiment. Distinct tree...

The effects of climate change on tropical forests may have global consequences due to the forests’ high biodiversity and major role in the global carbon cycle. In this study, we document the effects of experimental warming on the abundance and composition of a tropical forest floor herbaceous plant community in the Luquillo Experimental Forest, Puerto Rico. This study was conducted within Tropical Responses to Altered Climate Experiment (TRACE) plots, which use infrared heaters under free-air,...

Uncertainties surrounding tree carbon allocation to growth are a major limitation to projections of forest carbon sequestration and response to climate change. The prevalence and extent to which carbon assimilation (source) or cambial activity (sink) mediate wood production are fundamentally important and remain elusive. We quantified source-sink relations across biomes by combining eddy-covariance gross primary production with extensive on-site and regional tree ring observations. We found widespread temporal decoupling between carbon assimilation and tree growth,...

The rhizome of Rohdea chinensis (Baker) N.Tanaka (RRc) is a famous folk medicine for the treatment of carbuncles and pharyngitis. Steroidal saponins (SSs) were considered to be the most abundant active constituents in RRc. However, to date, the in-depth study of SSs is still lacking. This study was aimed to investigate the SSs profiles of RRc extract by HPLC-ESI-QTOF-MS/MS. Analysis was performed on an Agilent poroshell 120 EC-C18 column (2.1 mm × 100 mm, i.d.,...

Abstract Background Developing economically viable pathways to produce renewable energy has become an important research theme in recent years. Lignocellulosic biomass is a promising feedstock that can be converted into second-generation biofuels and bioproducts. Global warming has adversely affected climate change causing many environmental changes that have impacted earth surface temperature and rainfall patterns. Recent research has shown that environmental growth conditions altered the composition of drought-stressed switchgrass and directly influenced the extent of biomass...

The rhizome of Rohdea chinensis (Baker) N.Tanaka (RRc) is a famous folk medicine for the treatment of carbuncles and pharyngitis. Steroidal saponins (SSs) were considered to be the most abundant active constituents in RRc. However, to date, the in-depth study of SSs is still lacking. This study was aimed to investigate the SSs profiles of RRc extract by HPLC-ESI-QTOF-MS/MS. Analysis was performed on an Agilent poroshell 120 EC-C18 column (2.1 mm × 100 mm, i.d.,...

Vitamin D is widely considered to have a regulatory effect on the immune system. Some clinical investigations have shown that the demand for vitamin D increases with age. Calcitriol is the biologically active form of vitamin D. However, its effect on human natural killer (NK) cells remains unclear. Therefore, in this study, we investigated the anti-aging and immunomodulatory effects of calcitriol on NK cells using a series of immunological methods to explore its important role...

Stroke is a main cause of disability and death worldwide, and ischemic stroke accounts for most stroke cases. Recently, microRNAs (miRNAs) have been verified to play critical roles in the development of stroke. Herein, we explored effects of miR-152-3p on vascular endothelial cell functions under hypoxia. Human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) were treated with hypoxia to mimic cell injury in vitro. Reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction revealed that miR-152-3p exhibited high expression in...

Many mycophagous Drosophila species have adapted to tolerate high concentrations of mycotoxins, an ability not reported in any other eukaryotes. Although an association between mycophagy and mycotoxin tolerance has been established in many Drosophila species, the genetic mechanisms of the tolerance are unknown. This study presents the inter- and intraspecific variation in the mycotoxin tolerance trait. We studied the mycotoxin tolerance in four Drosophila species from four separate clades within the immigrans-tripunctata radiation from two...

Abstract Background Although people are more and more aware of the cardiotoxicity caused by immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) in the treatment of lung cancer, its incidence rate has not been systematically analyzed. This study aims to evaluate the incidence of cardiotoxicity related to the ICI therapies for lung cancer, so as to enhance clinicians' attention to cardiotoxicity, implement proper prevention and intervention for high-risk patients, and minimize the risk of cardiac dysfunction during and after...

Networks of direct and indirect biotic interactions underpin the complex dynamics and stability of ecological systems, yet experimental and theoretical studies often yield conflicting evidence regarding the direction (positive or negative) or magnitude of these interactions. We revisited pioneering datasets collected at the deciduous forested Horonai Stream and conducted ecosystem-level syntheses to demonstrate that the direction of direct and indirect interactions can change depending on the timescale of observation. Prior experimental studies showed that terrestrial...

How are rainforest birds faring in the Anthropocene? We use bird captures spanning >35 years from 55 sites within a vast area of intact Amazonian rainforest to reveal reduced abundance of terrestrial and near-ground insectivores in the absence of deforestation, edge effects, or other direct anthropogenic landscape change. Because undisturbed forest includes far fewer terrestrial and near-ground insectivores than it did historically, today’s fragments and second growth are more impoverished than shown by comparisons with...

A hallmark of industrialization is the construction of dams for water management and roads for transportation, leading to fragmentation of aquatic ecosystems. Many nations are striving to address both maintenance backlogs and mitigation of environmental impacts as their infrastructure ages. Here, we test whether accounting for road repair needs could offer opportunities to boost conservation efficiency by piggybacking connectivity restoration projects on infrastructure maintenance. Using optimization models to align fish passage restoration sites with likely...

We deployed 7 broadband seismometers and 7 infrasonic microphones at the summit of Stromboli Volcano, Italy in May 2018. Our aim was to capture tilt and very long period earthquakes in the shallow subsurface and subaerial activity: explosions and jetting.

Proposed mechanisms for the decline of terrestrial and understory insectivorous birds in the tropics include a related subset that together has been termed the “microclimate hypothesis.” One prediction from this hypothesis is that sensitivity to bright light environments discourages birds of the dimly lit rainforest interior from using edges, gaps, or disturbed forest. Using a hierarchical Bayesian framework and capture data across time and space, we tested this by first determining vulnerability based on differences...

Data Overview Mapped attributes: Fuel consumption derived from ALS data Post-fire fuel load derived from ALS data Pre-fire fuel load derived from ALS data Fuel consumption derived from FCCS data Post-fire fuel load derived from FCCS data Pre-fire fuel load derived from FCCS data Supplements: ALS data extent Tepee fire perimeter Prior forest fuel treatments Description Landscape scale estimates of pre-fire fuel load and fuel consumption are valuable resources for land managers and scientists. We...

A fundamental question about the ecology of herbivore populations pertains to the relative influence of biotic and abiotic processes on nutritional condition. Nutritional condition is influenced in important, yet poorly understood, ways by plant secondary metabolites (PSMs) which can adversely affect a herbivore’s physiology and energetics. Here we assess the relative influence of various abiotic (weather) and biotic (intraspecific competition, predation risk and diet composition) factors on indicators of nutritional condition and the energetic costs...

Additional file 2: Fig S1. Mitochondrial DNA haplotype gene tree of the cytochrome B region of the mitochondrial control region. Accession numbers are from NCBI GenBank; accession numbers that match sequences from this study are labeled with their detection location. Species code Vv represents the outgroup red fox (Vulpes vulpes), Clu is gray wolf (Canis lupus), Cll is eastern wolf (Canis lupus lycaon), Cla is coyote (Canis latrans), and Cru red is red wolf (Canis...

This study aimed to investigate the preventive effect of isostrictiniin (ISO) from Nymphaea candida against CCl4-induced hepatic fibrosis (HF) in mice. HF in mice was induced by intraperitoneally injecting 10% CCl4 olive oil solution twice a week. After intragastric administration for 8 weeks. ISO (25, 50, or 100 mg/kg) could significantly reduce the serum AST, ALT, ALP, HA, LN, PC-III, C-IV, IL-1β, and TNF-α levels in HF mice, and the collagen fiber deposition in ISO...

This document includes: Table S1. Composition of dominant tree species for forest sites and number of woody plant species (diameter at breast height greater > 1 cm) in temperate, warm-temperate, and tropical climatic zones. Table S2. Results (F-values and P-values) of one-way ANOVAs or t-tests (t-values and P-values) testing the effects of climatic zone on climate (MAP and MAT) and plant (alpha-, beta- and gamma-diversity of woody plants and GPP) properties. Table S3. Results of...

This document includes: Table S1. Composition of dominant tree species for forest sites and number of woody plant species (diameter at breast height greater > 1 cm) in temperate, warm-temperate, and tropical climatic zones. Table S2. Results (F-values and P-values) of one-way ANOVAs or t-tests (t-values and P-values) testing the effects of climatic zone on climate (MAP and MAT) and plant (alpha-, beta- and gamma-diversity of woody plants and GPP) properties. Table S3. Results of...

Additional file 1. Supplemental methods and data: biomass composition, hydrolysate composition, and statistical analyses.

This dataset is from the manuscript "Successful management of invasive rats across a fragmented landscape" and provides the details on snap trap and tracking card data in a broadscale rat removal effort 2011-2015 in the Upper Waiakea Forest Reserve on the Island of Hawai‘i. It describes the successful trapping efforts as well as long term tracking data, which allow us to describe patterns of habitat use of non-native vertebrate species in these naturally fragmented forests...