In temperate climates, the recurring seasonal exigencies of winter represent a fundamental physiological challenge for a wide range of organisms. In response, many temperate insects enter diapause, an alternative developmental program, including developmental arrest, that allows organisms to synchronize their life cycle with seasonal environmental variation. Geographic variation in diapause phenology contributing to local climatic adaptation is well documented. However, few studies have examined how the rapid evolution of a suite of traits expressed across...

Social behavior is an important driver of infection dynamics, though identifying the social interactions that foster infectious disease transmission is challenging. Here we examine how social behavior impacts disease transmission in Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus) using an easily identifiable skin disease and social network data. We analyzed tattoo skin disease (TSD) lesions based on photographs collected as part of a 34-year longitudinal study in relation to the sociality of T. aduncus using three metrics...

Migrating birds require en route habitats to rest and refuel. Yet habitat use has never been integrated with passage to understand factors that determine where and when birds stopover during spring and autumn migration. Here, we introduce the stopover-to-passage ratio (SPR), the percentage of passage migrants that stop in an area, and use eight years of data from 12 weather surveillance radars to estimate over 50% SPR during spring and autumn through the Gulf of...

Direct pathogen and parasite transmission is fundamentally driven by a population’s contact network structure, its demographic composition, and is further modulated by pathogen life history traits. Importantly, populations are most often concurrently exposed to a suite of pathogens, which is rarely investigated, because contact networks are typically inferred from spatial proximity only. Here, we use five years of detailed observations of Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus) that distinguish between four different types of social contact....

Numerous studies have found that predators can suppress prey densities and thereby impact important ecosystem processes such as plant productivity and decomposition. However, prey suppression by spiders can be highly variable. Unlike predators that feed on prey within a single energy channel, spiders often consume prey from asynchronous energy channels, such as grazing (live plant) and epigeic (soil surface) channels. Spiders undergo few life cycle changes and thus appear to be ideally suited to link...

Recurring seasonal changes can lead to the evolution of phenological cues. For example, many arthropods undergo photoperiodic diapause, a programmed developmental arrest induced by short autumnal day length. The selective mechanisms that determine the timing of autumnal diapause initiation have not been empirically identified. We quantified latitudinal clines in genetically determined diapause timing of an invasive mosquito, Aedes albopictus, on two continents. We show that variation in diapause timing within and between continents is explained...

Supplemental data: NNagaraja_12292019_DWI_Reversal_In_AIS_Review_Supplemental_File Supplemental Figure e-1: DWI reversal in acute ischemic stroke Supplemental Table e-1: Search Strategy Supplemental Table e-2: Variables extracted for the review Supplemental Table e-3: Imaging protocols for included studies Supplemental Table e-4: DWIR definitions used in the selected studies Supplemental Table e-5: Imaging characteristics of patients Supplemental Table e-6: QUADAS-2 tool for quality assessment of diagnostic accuracy studies by evaluating risk of bias and applicability concerns.

Botanists have long identified bilaterally symmetrical (zygomorphic) flowers with more specialized pollination interactions than radially symmetrical (actinomorphic) flowers. Zygomorphic flowers facilitate more precise contact with pollinators, guide pollinator behaviour and exclude less effective pollinators. However, whether zygomorphic flowers are actually visited by a smaller subset of available pollinator species has not been broadly evaluated. We compiled 53 609 floral visitation records in 159 communities and classified the plants' floral symmetry. Globally and within individual communities,...

Cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) are a prominent stromal cell type in solid tumors and molecules secreted by CAFs play an important role in tumor progression and metastasis. CAFs coexist as heterogeneous populations with potentially different biological functions. Although CAFs are a major component of the breast cancer stroma, molecular and phenotypic heterogeneity of CAFs in breast cancer is poorly understood. In this study, we investigated CAF heterogeneity in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) using a syngeneic mouse...

Background & Aims: Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinomas (PDAC) are characterized by fibrosis and an abundance of cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs). We investigated strategies to disrupt interactions among CAFs, the immune system, and cancer cells, focusing on adhesion molecule cadherin 11 (CDH11), which has been associated with other fibrotic disorders and is expressed by activated fibroblasts. Methods: We compared levels of CDH11mRNA in human pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer tissues and cells, compared with normal pancreas, and measured levels...

Supplemental data: NNagaraja_12292019_DWI_Reversal_In_AIS_Review_Supplemental_File Supplemental Figure e-1: DWI reversal in acute ischemic stroke Supplemental Table e-1: Search Strategy Supplemental Table e-2: Variables extracted for the review Supplemental Table e-3: Imaging protocols for included studies Supplemental Table e-4: DWIR definitions used in the selected studies Supplemental Table e-5: Imaging characteristics of patients Supplemental Table e-6: QUADAS-2 tool for quality assessment of diagnostic accuracy studies by evaluating risk of bias and applicability concerns.

Aims Numerous invasive plant species can increase soil nitrate (NO3-) by altering the nitrification process through plant-soil microbe interactions with ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) and ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB). We evaluated how the invasive species Microstegium vimineum influenced physico-chemical soil properties, inorganic nitrogen (N) cycling, and AOA and AOB abundances under various environmental conditions. Methods We paired 75 M. vimineum-invaded plots with 75 neighboring reference plots across forests, open fields, and forested wetlands within a state park...

Reproduction in wild animals can divert limited resources away from immune defence, resulting in increased parasite burdens. A longstanding prediction of life history theory states that these parasites can harm the individual, reducing the organism’s subsequent fitness and producing reproduction-fitness tradeoffs. Here, we examined associations among reproductive allocation, immunity, parasitism, and subsequent fitness in a wild population of individually identified red deer ( Cervus elaphus ). Using path analysis, we investigated whether costs of lactation...

Once-eliminated vaccine-preventable childhood diseases, such as measles, are resurging across the United States. Understanding the spatio-temporal trends in vaccine exemptions is crucial to targeting public health intervention to increase vaccine uptake and anticipating vulnerable populations as cases surge. However, prior available data on childhood disease vaccination is either on too rough a spatial scale for this spatially-heterogeneous issue, or is only available for small geographic regions, making general conclusions infeasible. Here, we have collated school...

Sexual habitat segregation during the wintering period is a widespread phenomenon and has important implications for the ecology and conservation of migratory birds. We studied Black-and-white Warblers (Mniotilta varia) wintering in second-growth scrub and old-growth mangrove forest in Jamaica to quantify sexual habitat segregation and explore whether patterns of habitat occupation have consequences on physical condition. We then used this information along with a body size analysis and simulated territorial intrusions to assess whether behavioral...