Cryptic species - genetically distinct species that are morphologically difficult to distinguish - present challenges to systematists. Operationally, cryptic species are very difficult to identify and sole usage of genetic data or morphological data can fail to recognize evolutionarily isolated lineages. We use morphometric data to test species boundaries hypothesized with genetic data in the North Caribbean Bark Anole (Anolis distichus), a suspected species complex. We use univariate and multivariate analyses to test if candidate...

Standard methods for studying the association between two ecologically important variables provide only a small slice of the information content of the association, but statistical approaches are available that provide comprehensive information. In particular, available approaches can reveal tail associations, i.e., accentuated or reduced associations between the more extreme values of variables. We here study the nature and causes of tail associations between phenological or population-density variables of co-located species, and their ecological importance. We...

Extant and extinct terebratulide brachiopod species have been defined primarily on the basis of morphology. What is the fidelity of morphological species to biological species? And how can we test this fidelity with fossils? Taxonomically and phylogenetically, the most informative internal feature in the brachiopod suborder Terebratellidina is the geometrically complex long-looped brachidium, which, given their fragile nature, are not commonly preserved in the fossil record. In their absence, it is essential to test other...

Geographic range size and abundance are important determinants of extinction risk in fossil and extant taxa. However, the relationship between these variables and extinction risk has not been tested extensively during evolutionarily ‘quiescent’ times of low extinction and speciation in the fossil record. Here we examine the influence of geographic range size and abundance on extinction risk during the late Paleozoic (Mississippian–Permian), a time of ‘sluggish’ evolution when global rates of origination and extinction were...

Some of the most important insights into the ecological and evolutionary processes of diversification and speciation have come from studies of island adaptive radiations, yet relatively little research has examined how these radiations initiate. We suggest that Anolis sagrei is a candidate for understanding the origins of the Caribbean Anolis adaptive radiation and how a colonizing anole species begins to undergo allopatric diversification, phenotypic divergence and, potentially, speciation. We undertook a genomic and morphological analysis...

1. Periodical cicadas exhibit an extraordinary capacity for self-organising spatially synchronous breeding behavior. The regular emergence of periodical cicada broods across the US is a phenomenon of longstanding public and scientific interest, as the cicadas of each brood emerge in huge numbers and briefly dominate their ecosystem. During the emergence, the 17-year periodical cicada species Magicicada cassini is found to form synchronised choruses, and we investigated their chorusing behavior from the standpoint of spatial synchrony....

There is considerable variation in sleep duration, timing and quality in human populations, and sleep dysregulation has been implicated as a risk factor for a range of health problems. Human sleep traits are known to be regulated by genetic factors, but also by an array of environmental and social factors. These uncontrolled, non-genetic effects complicate powerful identification of the loci contributing to sleep directly in humans. The model system, Drosophila melanogaster, exhibits a behavior that...

Population cycles are fundamentally linked with spatial synchrony, the prevailing paradigm being that populations with cyclic dynamics are easily synchronized. That is, population cycles help give rise to spatial synchrony. Here we demonstrate this process can work in reverse, with synchrony causing population cycles. We show that timescale-specific environmental effects, by synchronizing local population dynamics on certain timescales only, cause major population cycles over large areas in white-tailed deer. An important aspect of the new...

We describe the small chondrichthyan Ferromirum oukherbouchi n.gen. et sp. from the Famennian (Late Devonian) of the Maïder region in Morocco. This chondrichthyan is exceptionally well preserved and displays not only mineralized soft tissues but also undeformed cartilages of the head, gills, and shoulder girdle. A reconstruction of the head using 3D-prints revealed a previously unknown kind of jaw articulation. Here, we make the original cropped image stack and PLY-files of the single cartilaginous elements...

Reconstructing ecological niche evolution can provide insight into the biogeography and diversification of evolving lineages. However, comparative phylogenetic methods can infer the history of ecological niche evolution inaccurately because (1) species’ niches are often poorly characterized; and (2) phylogenetic comparative methods rely on niche summary statistics rather than full estimates of species’ environmental tolerances. Here we propose a new framework for coding ecological niches and reconstructing their evolution that explicitly acknowledges and incorporates the uncertainty...

Molecular phylogenies have yielded strong support for many parts of the amphibian Tree of Life, but poor support for the resolution of deeper nodes, including relationships among families and orders. To clarify these relationships, we provide a phylogenomic perspective on amphibian relationships by developing a taxon-specific Anchored Hybrid Enrichment protocol targeting hundreds of conserved exons which are effective across the class. After obtaining data from 220 loci for 286 species (representing 94% of the families...

Hosts and viruses are constantly evolving in response to each other: as hosts attempt to suppress the virus, the virus attempts to evade and suppress the host’s immune system. This arms race results in the evolution of novel pathways in both the host and virus to gain the upper hand. Here we describe the coevolution between Drosophila species and a common and virulent DNA virus. We identify two distinct viral types that differ 100-fold in...

Perennial crops in agricultural systems can increase sustainability and the magnitude of ecosystem services, but yield may depend upon biotic context, including soil mutualists, pathogens and cropping diversity. These biotic factors themselves may interact with abiotic factors such as drought. We tested whether perennial crop yield depended on soil microbes, water availability and crop diversity by testing monocultures and mixtures of three perennial crop species: a novel perennial grain (intermediate wheatgrass—Thinopyrum intermedium-- that produces the...

Recent phylogenetic studies of gekkonid lizards have revealed unexpected, widespread paraphyly and polyphyly among genera, unclear generic boundaries, and a tendency towards the nesting of taxa exhibiting specialized, apomorphic morphologies within geographically widespread “generalist” clades. This is especially true in Australasia, where monophyly of Gekko proper has been questioned with respect to phenotypically ornate flap-legged geckos of the genus Luperosaurus, the Philippine false geckos of the genus Pseudogekko, and even the elaborately “derived” parachute geckos...

Although aerobic respiration is a hallmark of eukaryotes, a few unicellular lineages, growing in hypoxic environments, have secondarily lost this ability. In the absence of oxygen, the mitochondria of these organisms have lost all or parts of their genomes and evolved into mitochondria related organelles (MROs). There has been debate regarding the presence of MROs in animals. Using deep sequencing approaches, we discovered that a member of the Cnidaria, the myxozoan Henneguya salminicola, has no...

Plant response to climate depends on a species’ adaptive potential. To address this, we used reciprocal gardens to detect genetic and environmental plasticity effects on phenotypic variation and combined with genetic analyses. Four reciprocal garden sites were planted with three regional ecotypes of Andropogon gerardii, a dominant Great Plains prairie grass, using dry, mesic, wet ecotypes originating from western KS to Illinois that span 500 to 1,200 mm rainfall year-1. We aimed to answer: (1)...

Both mutualistic and pathogenic soil microbes are known to play important roles in shaping the fitness of plants, likely affecting plants at different life cycle stages. In order to investigate the differential effects of native soil mutualists and pathogens on plant fitness, we compared survival and reproduction of two annual tallgrass prairie plant species (Chamaecrista fasciculata and Coreopsis tinctoria) in a field study using 3 soil inocula treatments containing different compositions of microbes. The soil...

Aim: Assessing the relevance of niche evolution in the diversification patterns and geographical distribution of species driven by climate remains a challenge. We apply an integrative approach to evaluate the role of the environment on the phylogeography of bear species, incorporating fossil data to characterize the changes in the ecological niche through time. We evaluate our approach with the four extant species of bears within Ursus, the best represented taxon in the fossil record of...

Although the importance of the soil microbiome in mediating plant community structures and functions has been increasingly emphasized in ecological studies, the biological processes driving crop diversity overyielding remain unexplained in agriculture. Based on the plant-soil feedback (PSF) theory and method, we quantified how much soil microbes contributed to intercropping overyielding and detected which microbial groups mediated this effect. Soils were collected as inocula and sequenced from a unique 10-year field experiment, consisting of monoculture,...

Genome-scale data have greatly facilitated the resolution of recalcitrant nodes that Sanger-based datasets have been unable to resolve. However, phylogenomic studies continue to utilize traditional methods such as bootstrapping to estimate branch support; and high bootstrap values are still interpreted as providing strong support for the correct topology. Furthermore, relatively little attention is given to assessing discordances between gene and species trees, and the underlying processes that produce phylogenetic conflict. We generated novel genomic datasets...

The Drumian Wheeler Konservat-Lagerstätte of the House Range of Utah (Wheeler-HR) has yielded one of the most diverse exceptionally-preserved Cambrian biotas of North America. The discovery of soft-bodied fossils invariably provides precious insights on this remarkable Miaolingian biota, for most of its non-biomineralizing components are known from very few specimens. This contribution describes some 30 new exceptionally-preserved fossils of Wheeler panarthropods. Two new species are recognized, the radiodont Hurdia sp. nov. A and the megacheiran...

Frequent fires maintain nearly 50% of terrestrial ecosystems, and drive ecosystem changes that govern future fires. Since fires are dependent on available plant or fine fuels, ecosystem processes that alter fine fuel loads like microbial decomposition are particularly important and could modify future fires. We hypothesized that variation in short-term fire history would influence fuel dynamics in such ecosystems. We predicted that frequent fires within a short-time period would slow microbial decomposition of new fine...

Fires shape the biogeochemistry and functioning of many ecosystems, and fire frequencies are changing across much of the globe. Frequent fires can change soil carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) storage by altering the quantity and chemistry of plant inputs through changes in plant biomass and composition as well as altering decomposition of soil organic matter. How decomposition rates change with shifting inputs remains uncertain because most studies focus on the effects of single fires, where...

Aim: Variation in species diversity among different geographic areas may result from differences in speciation and extinction rates, immigration and time for diversification. An area with high species diversity may be the result of a high net diversification rate, multiple immigration events from adjacent regions,anda long time available for the accumulation of species (know as the “time-for-speciation effect”). Here, we examine the relative importance of the three aforementionedprocesses in shaping the geographic diversity patterns of...

A key question in paleoecology and macroevolution is whether assemblages of species (paleocommunities) are persistent entities that endure over millions of years. Whilst community turnover in the face of abiotic change is the presumed norm, paleocommunities have been shown to persist for long time periods and regardless of environmental disruption. It remains an open question however, as to what processes allow for this. We investigate these questions by analyzing the Carboniferous brachiopod paleocommunities from the...