Background: Analysis of dynamic (temporal) networks allows an identification of important targets of treatment. Objective: This study examined the dynamic network of symptoms in patients diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) during exposure therapy. Method: Patients (n = 65) were randomized to either standard prolonged exposure, which includes imaginal exposure to the traumatic memory, or modified prolonged exposure, where imagery re-scripting of the memory replaced imaginal exposure, in a 10-week residential program. They completed a...

Sperm morphology varies enormously across the animal kingdom. While knowledge of the factors that drive the evolution of interspecific variation in sperm morphology is accumulating, we currently have little understanding of factors that may constrain evolutionary change in sperm traits. We investigated whether susceptibility to sperm abnormalities could represent such a constraint in songbirds, a group characterised by a distinctive helical sperm head shape. Specifically, using 36 songbird species and data from light- and scanning...

Aim: Although the effects of climate on species richness are known, regional processes may lead to different species richness-climate relationships across continents resulting in species richness anomalies, especially for tropical groups. Phylogenetic niche conservatism may also influence species richness-climate relationships of different lineages. Here, we tested whether regional effects also exist for temperate lineages using the genus Quercus. Location: Northern Hemisphere Time period: Present day Major taxa studied: Quercus (Fagaceae) Methods: We used a dated...

The evolutionary consequences of phenotypic plasticity are debated. For example, reproductive barriers between incipient species can depend on the social environment, but most evidence for this comes from studies focussing on the effects of experiencing heterospecific individuals of the opposite sex. In Drosophila melanogaster, males are well known to invest strategically in ejaculate components and show different courtship behaviour when reared in the presence of male competitors. It is unknown whether such plasticity in response...

Genes of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) are essential in vertebrate adaptive immunity, and they are highly diverse and duplicated in many lineages. While it is widely established that pathogen-mediated selection maintains MHC diversity through balancing selection, the role of mate choice in shaping MHC diversity is debated. Here, we investigate female mating preferences for MHC class II (MHCII) in the bluethroat (Luscinia svecica), a passerine bird with high levels of extra-pair paternity and extremely...

Many vector-borne diseases are transmitted through complex pathogen-vector-host networks, which makes it challenging to identify the role of specific host groups in disease emergence. Lyme borreliosis in humans is now the most common vector-borne zoonosis in the northern hemisphere. The disease is caused by multiple genospecies of Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato bacteria transmitted by ixodid (hard) ticks, and the major host groups transmit Borrelia genospecies with different pathogenicity, causing variable clinical symptoms in humans. The...

Life history theory predicts that females' age and size affect the level of maternal investment in current reproduction, balanced against future reproductive effort, maintenance and survival. Using long-term (30 years) individual data on 193 female polar bears (Ursus maritimus), we assessed age- and size-specific variation on litter size. Litter size varied with maternal age, younger females had higher chances of losing a cub during their first months of life. Results suggest an improvement of reproductive...

The magnitude of morphological integration is a major aspect of multivariate evolution, providing a simple measure of the intensity of association between morphological traits. Studies concerned with morphological integration usually translate phenotypes into morphometric representations to quantify how different morphological elements covary. Geometric and classic morphometric representations translate biological form in different ways, raising the question if magnitudes of morphological integration estimates obtained from different morphometric representations are compatible. Here we sought to answer this...

1. Most ectotherms follow the temperature-size rule (TSR): in cold environments individuals grow slowly but reach a large asymptotic length. Intraspecific competition can induce plastic changes of growth rate and asymptotic length and competition may itself be modulated by temperature. 2. Our aim is to disentangle the joint effects of temperature and intraspecific competition on growth rate and asymptotic length. 3. We used two distinct clonal lineages of the Collembola Folsomia candida, to describe thermal...

Is speciation generally a ‘special time’ in morphological evolution or are lineage splitting events just ‘more of the same’ where the end product happens to be two separate lineages? Data on evolutionary dynamics during anagenetic and cladogenetic events among closely related lineages within a clade are rare, but the fossil record of the bryozoan genus Metrarabdotos is considered a textbook example of a clade where speciation causes rapid evolutionary change against a backdrop of morphological...

Pathogens represent a significant threat to human health leading to the emergence of strategies designed to help manage their negative impact. We examined how spiritual beliefs developed to explain and predict the devastating effects of pathogens and spread of infectious disease. Analysis of existing data in Studies 1 and 2 suggests that moral vitalism (beliefs about spiritual forces of evil) is higher in geographical regions characterized by historical higher levels of pathogens. Furthermore, drawing on...

The discussion of an early postglacial dual-route colonization of the Scandinavian Peninsula is largely based on associating genomic data to an early dispersal of lithic technology from the East European Plain. However, a direct link between the two has been lacking. We tackle this problem by analysing human DNA from birch bark pitch mastics, “chewing gums”, from Huseby Klev, a site in western Sweden with eastern lithic technology. We generate genome-wide data for three individuals,...

Impact assessments for sonar operations typically use received sound levels to predict behavioural disturbance in marine mammals. However, there are indications that cetaceans may learn to associate exposures from distant sound sources with lower perceived risk. To investigate the roles of source distance and received level in an area without frequent sonar activity, we conducted multi-scale controlled exposure experiments (n = 3) with 12 northern bottlenose whales near Jan Mayen, Norway. Animals were tagged with...

With climate change, the effect of global warming on snow cover is expected to cause range expansion and enhance habitat suitability for species at their northern distribution limits. However, how this depend on landscape topography and sex in size-dimorphic species remains uncertain, and is further complicated for migratory animals following climate-driven seasonal resource fluctuations across vast landscapes. Using 11 years of data from a partially migratory ungulate at their northern distribution ranges, the red deer...

Dramatic and persistent reductions in Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) are common in many coastal areas. While offshore cod stocks still were abundant and productive, the Swedish west coast showed signs of diminishing adult cod abundance at the beginning of the 1980s, where the local cod component was considered to be extirpated. To survey the present cod spawning activity and stock composition, we initiated egg trawling over two consecutive years (203 hauls in total) in combination...

Aim: It is unknown whether fungi show similar trends to other organisms in their macroecological patterns of abundance and spatial distribution. Here, we investigated fungal abundance-occupancy relationships to determine whether fungi that are common at a local scale tend to be more widely distributed. Location: UK and Switzerland Time period: 1950 - 2014 Major taxa studied: Fungi Methods: We used a local dataset of fruiting records of 2,319 species in the UK, accumulated over 65...

Researchers have assembled thousands of eukaryotic genomes using Illumina reads, but traditional mate-pair libraries cannot span all repetitive elements, resulting in highly fragmented assemblies. However, both chromosome conformation capture techniques, such as Hi-C and Dovetail Genomics Chicago libraries and long-read sequencing, such as Pacific Biosciences and Oxford Nanopore, help span and resolve repetitive regions and therefore improve genome assemblies. One important livestock species of arid regions that does not have a high-quality contiguous reference genome...

Despite sophisticated mathematical models, the theory of microevolution is mostly treated as a qualitative rather than a quantitative tool. Numerical measures of selection, constraints, and evolutionary potential are often too loosely connected to theory to provide operational predictions of the response to selection. In this paper, we study the ability of a set of operational measures of evolvability and constraint to predict short‐term selection responses generated by individual‐based simulations. We focus on the effects of...

In a rapidly changing world, it is important to understand how urban environments impact wildlife. For example, supplementary feeding of birds, though well‐intended, might have unexpected negative effects on the health of individual animals. Sunflower seeds are commonly provided in garden bird feeders, but they contain high levels of linoleic acid (LA), an omega‐6 polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA). Omega‐6 PUFAs are associated with increased oxidative stress, which can damage cell membranes, and in particular sperm...

The aim of this study was to investigate differential expression profiles of the brown rot fungus Rhodonia placenta (previously Postia placenta) harvested at several time points when grown on radiata pine (Pinus radiata) and radiata pine with three different levels of modification by furfuryl alcohol, an environmentally benign commercial wood protection system. The entire gene expression pattern of a decay fungus is followed in untreated and modified wood from initial to advanced stages of decay....

Research is a highly competitive profession where evaluation plays a central role; journals are ranked and individuals are evaluated based on their publication number, the number of times they are cited, and their h-index. Yet, such evaluations are often done in inappropriate ways that are damaging to individual careers, particularly for young scholars, and to the profession. Furthermore, as with all indices, people can play games to better their scores. This has resulted in the...

This dataset includes dissolved organic radiocarbon content and dissolved organic carbon concentration data for river waters around the globe. The riverine dataset contains already published (n=1163) and new (n=101) data between the years 1962 – 2015. Soil solution data (n=139) from North American and European natural and semi-natural ecosystems are also included, which cover the period 1988 – 2008. Groundwater data containing 49 data points from boreholes in Europe and North America are also provided....

On 6 December 2019 we start the 10th year of the European Journal of Psychotraumatogy (EJPT), a full Open Access journal on psychotrauma. This editorial is part of a special issue celebrating the 10 years anniversary of the journal and acknowledging some of our most impactful articles of the past decade. In this editorial the editors present a decennial review of the field addressing a range of topics that are core to both the journal...

Background: Analysis of dynamic (temporal) networks allows an identification of important targets of treatment. Objective: This study examined the dynamic network of symptoms in patients diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) during exposure therapy. Method: Patients (n = 65) were randomized to either standard prolonged exposure, which includes imaginal exposure to the traumatic memory, or modified prolonged exposure, where imagery re-scripting of the memory replaced imaginal exposure, in a 10-week residential program. They completed a...