Cyanobacteria are amongst the most important primary producers on the Earth. However, the evolutionary forces driving cyanobacterial species diversity remain largely enigmatic due to both their distinction from macroorganisms, and an undersampling of sequenced genomes. Thus, we present a new genome of a Synechococcus-like cyanobacterium from a novel evolutionary lineage. Further, we analyse all existing 16S rRNA sequences and genomes of Synechococcus-like cyanobacteria. Chronograms showed extremely polyphyletic relationships in Synechococcus, which has not been observed...

1. Plant responses to major environmental drivers like precipitation can influence important aspects of carbon (C) cycling like soil CO2 efflux (JCO2). These responses may be predicted by two independent classes of drivers: plant size—larger plants respire more and produce a larger quantity of labile C, and plant economics—plants possessing more acquisitive plant economics strategies (i.e., high metabolic rate and tissue nutrient content) produce higher-quality tissue that respires rapidly and decomposes quickly. 2. At two...

All original data used in figures and tables of the manuscript are available in the dataset, which includes the XRD, variable temperature dielectric, room temperature frequency spectrum and ferroelectric performance measurements.A sol-gel method is employed for preparing high quality lead-free glass-ceramic samples (1-x) BCZT-x BBS – incorporating Ba0.85Ca0.15Zr0.1Ti0.9O3 (BCZT) powder and Bi2O3-B2O3-SiO2 (BBS) glass doped additives with different values of x (x = 0, 0.05, 0.1, 0.15). With the increase of BBS content, the polarization...

Additional file 5: File S4. Source code (in R) for EchinoDB, EchinoidDB, and OphiuroidDB. We have also provided three R scripts one for each app.

Invasive lionfish (Pterois volitans/miles) pose a serious threat to marine ecosystems throughout the western Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea. The development of a fishery for lionfish has been proposed as a strategy for controlling populations; however, there is concern about consumption of this species by humans due to its high trophic position and potential for bioaccumulation of mercury. We analyzed total mercury (THg) in tissues of lionfish from two locations on the east coast of...

Ecological effects of climate change are difficult to predict because climate change is a multi‐variable phenomenon that can impact ecosystems through diverse pathways. Despite this fact, climate change ecology research has been dominated by relatively simplistic experiments and models. To test the importance of assessing more realistic climate and ecological scenarios an experiment was conducted to assess the interactive effects of multiple climate change variables (warming, drought) on survival and reproductive fitness across three trophic...

Additional file 5: File S4. Source code (in R) for EchinoDB, EchinoidDB, and OphiuroidDB. We have also provided three R scripts one for each app.

Patterns of population structure, genetic demographics, and gene flow in the small coastal shark Carcharhinus isodon (finetooth shark) sampled from two discrete nurseries along the southeastern US coast (Atlantic) and three nurseries in the northern Gulf of Mexico (Gulf), were assessed using 16 nuclear-encoded microsatellites and 1077 base pairs of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) control region. Significant heterogeneity in microsatellite allele distributions was detected among all localities except between the two in the Atlantic. Significant...

The isotopic composition of tooth-bound collagen has long been used to reconstruct dietary patterns of animals in extant and paleoecological systems. For sharks that replace teeth rapidly in a conveyor-like system, stable isotopes of tooth collagen (δ13Ctooth & δ15Ntooth) are poorly understood and lacking in ecological context relative to other non-lethally sampled tissues. This tissue holds promise, because shark jaws may preserve isotopic chronologies from which to infer individual-level ecological patterns across a range of...

Additional file 1: Table S1. Raw reads from the various echinoderm species are available in NCBI’s SRA and is also available at Zenodo (doi: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6985492 ).

Black caiman (Melanosuchus niger) are one of the largest predators in South America, yet we know little about adult diets. We studied stomach contents of adults in Guyana and found the largest individuals target mammals instead of fish and males exhibit cannibalism, a behavior never recorded for this species previously.

Atmospheric CO2 enrichment usually increases aboveground productivity (ANPP) of grassland vegetation, but the magnitude of the ANPP-CO2 response differs among ecosystems. Soil properties affect ANPP via multiple mechanisms and vary over topographic to geographic gradients, but have received little attention as potential modifiers of the ANPP-CO2 response. We assessed effects of three soil types, sandy loam, silty clay, and clay, on the ANPP response of perennial C3/C4 grassland communities to a subambient to elevated CO2...

Additional file 1: Table S1. Raw reads from the various echinoderm species are available in NCBI’s SRA and is also available at Zenodo (doi: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6985492 ).

Sex-biased dispersal is expected to homogenize nuclear genetic variation relative to variation in genetic material inherited through the philopatric sex. When site fidelity occurs across a heterogeneous environment, local selective regimes may alter this pattern. We assessed spatial patterns of variation in nuclear-encoded, single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and sequences of the mitochondrial control region in bonnethead sharks (Sphyrna tiburo), a species thought to exhibit female philopatry, collected from summer habitats used for gestation. Geographic patterns...

Patterns of population structure and historical genetic demography of blacknose sharks in the western North Atlantic Ocean were assessed using variation in nuclear-encoded microsatellites and sequences of mitochondrial (mt)DNA. Significant heterogeneity and/or inferred barriers to gene flow, based on microsatellites and/or mtDNA, revealed the occurrence of five genetic populations localized to five geographic regions: the southeastern U.S Atlantic coast, the eastern Gulf of Mexico, the western Gulf of Mexico, Campeche Bay in the southern Gulf...