47 Works
Nightly selection of resting sites and group behavior reveal anti-predator strategies in giraffe
Anna Lena Burger, Julian Fennessy, Stephanie Fennessy & Paul W. Dierkes
This study presents the first findings on nocturnal behavior patterns of wild Angolan giraffe. We characterized their nocturnal behavior and analyzed the influence of ecological factors such as group size, season and habitat use. Giraffe were observed using night vision systems and thermal imaging cameras on Okapuka Ranch, Namibia. A total of 77 giraffe were observed during 24 nights over two distinct periods – July-August 2016 (dry season) and February-March 2017 (wet season). Photoperiod had...
Differences in oxidative status explain variation in thermal acclimation capacity between individual mosquitofish (Gambusia holbrooki)
Frank Seebacher & Isabella Loughland
1. Evolutionary theory predicts that the capacity to acclimate should be favoured in variable environments. However, perfect compensation for thermal variation is rare and the capacity for thermal acclimation can vary considerably between individuals within natural populations. This variation may be explained by costs associated with acclimation, but it is not clear what these costs are. 2. We tested the hypothesis that oxidative stress is a cost of acclimation that could explain the variation between...
Transcriptomic characteristics of bronchoalveolar lavage fluid and peripheral blood mononuclear cells in COVID-19 patients
Yong Xiong, Yuan Liu, Liu Cao, Dehe Wang, Ming Guo, Ao Jiang, Dong Guo, Wenjia Hu, Jiayi Yang, Zhidong Tang, Honglong Wu, Yongquan Lin, Meiyuan Zhang, Qi Zhang, Mang Shi, Yingle Liu, Yu Zhou, Ke Lan & Yu Chen
Circulating in China and 158 other countries and areas, the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak has caused devastating mortality and posed a great threat to public health. However, efforts to identify effectively supportive therapeutic drugs and treatments has been hampered by our limited understanding of host immune response for this fatal disease. To characterize the transcriptional signatures of host inflammatory response to SARS-CoV-2 (HCoV-19) infection, we carried out transcriptome sequencing of the RNAs isolated from the bronchoalveolar...
Data from: Deciphering genetic mate choice: not so simple in group-housed conservation breeding programs
Katherine Farquharson, Carolyn Hogg, Katherine Belov & Catherine Grueber
Incorporating mate choice into conservation breeding programs can improve reproduction and the retention of natural behaviours. However, different types of genetic-based mate choice can have varied consequences for genetic diversity management. As a result, it is important to examine mechanisms of mate choice in captivity to assess its costs and benefits. Most research in this area has focused on experimental pairing trials, however this resource-intensive approach is not always feasible in captive settings and can...
Dataset: Multiplexed Illumination for Classifying Visually Similar Objects
Taihua Wang & Danserau Donald GData from: Tradeoffs affect the adaptive value of plasticity: Stronger cannibal-induced defenses incur greater costs in toad larvae
Jayna DeVore, Michael Crossland & Richard Shine
Adaptive developmental plasticity allows individuals to match their phenotype with their environment, which can increase fitness where threats are inconsistently present. Because adaptive traits are not ubiquitously nor infinitely plastic, tradeoffs between benefits and costs or limits are theoretically necessary to constrain plastic responses. Systems in which extreme risk can be reliably detected are ideal for investigating mechanisms that constrain plasticity, as even costly responses may be adaptive where risk is severe. Cane toads (Rhinella...
The ongoing COVID-19 epidemic in Minas Gerais, Brazil: insights from epidemiological data and SARS-CoV-2 whole genome sequencing
Joilson Xavier, Marta Giovanetti, Talita Adelino, Vagner Fonseca, Alana Vitor Barbosa da Costa, Adriana Aparecida Ribeiro, Katlin Nascimento Felicio, Clara Guerra Duarte, Marcos Vinicius Ferreira Silva, Álvaro Salgado, Mauricio Teixeira Lima, Ronaldo de Jesus, Allison Fabri, Cristiane Franco Soares Zoboli, Thales Gutemberg Souza Santos, Felipe Iani, Massimo Ciccozzi, Ana Maria Bispo de Filippis, Marilda Agudo Mendonça Teixeira de Siqueira, André Luiz de Abreu, Vasco de Azevedo, Dario Brock Ramalho, Carlos F. Campelo de Albuquerque, Tulio de Oliveira, Edward C. Holmes … & Marluce Aparecida Assunção Oliveira
The recent emergence of a coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), first identified in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019, has had major public health and economic consequences. Although 61,888 confirmed cases were reported in Brazil by 28 April 2020, little is known about the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in this country. To better understand the recent epidemic in the second most populous state in southeast Brazil - Minas Gerais (MG) - we sequenced 40 complete SARS-CoV-2 genomes from...
Flick SMART multi-catch rodent station and bait station data sets: Council of the city of Sydney, October 2019 to July 2020
Miguel A Bedoya Perez, Michael P Ward, Max Loomes & Mathew S Crowther
Shortly after the enactment of preventative measures aimed at limiting the spread of COVID-19, local governments and public health authorities around the world reported an increased sighting of rats. We combined multi-catch rodent station data, rodent bait stations data, and rodent-related residents’ complaints data to explore the effects that social distancing and lockdown measures might have had on the rodent population within the City of Sydney, Australia. We found that rodent captures, activity, and rodent...
Carbon allocation to the rhizosphere is affected by drought and nitrogen addition
Ruzhen Wang, Timothy Cavagnaro, Yong Jiang, Claudia Keitel, Feike Dijkstra, Timothy R. Cavagnaro & Feike A. Dijkstra
Photosynthetic carbon (C) allocated below-ground can be shared with mycorrhizal fungi in exchange for nutrients, but also added into soil as rhizodeposits that potentially increases plant nutrient supply by supporting microbial nutrient mineralization from organic matter. How water and nitrogen (N) availabilities affect plant C allocation to the rhizosphere, including both arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) symbionts and rhizodeposits, remains largely unknown. We used a 13CO2 pulse labelling experiment to assess effects of drought and N...
The geometry of resource constraint: an empirical study of the golden snub-nosed monkey
Rong Hou, Colin Chapman, Jessica Rothman, He Zhang, Kang Huang, Songtao Guo, Baoguo Li & David Raubenheimer
1. Apposite conceptualization and measurement of resource variation is critical for understanding many issues in ecology, including ecological niches, persistence and distribution of populations, the structure of communities, and population resilience to perturbations. 2. We apply the nutritional geometry framework to conceptualise and quantify the responses of a temperate-living primate, the golden snub-nosed monkey (Rhinopithecus roxellana) to variation in resource quality and quantity and in nutrient requirements associated with seasonal environments. 3. We present a...
Queen pheromone modulates the expression of epigenetic modifier genes in the brain of honeybee workers
, Isobel Ronai, Klaus Hartfelder & Benjamin Oldroyd
Pheromones are used by many insects to mediate social interactions. In the highly eusocial honeybee (Apis mellifera) queen mandibular pheromone (QMP) is involved in the regulation of the reproductive and other behaviour of workers. The molecular mechanisms by which QMP acts are largely unknown. Here we investigate how genes responsible for epigenetic modifications to DNA, RNA and histones respond to the presence of QMP in the environment. We show that several of these genes are...
Multidisciplinary perspectives and practices of wheelchair prescription for children with neuromuscular conditions
Sarah-Grace Paguinto, Nadine A. Kasparian, Paula Bray & Michelle Farrar
Clinical practice guidelines for paediatric neuromuscular disorders (NMDs) recommend timely provision of wheelchair equipment. The aim of this qualitative study was to understand healthcare professionals’ clinical perspectives and practices when recommending wheelchair equipment for the first time, as well as perceived barriers and enablers to timely wheelchair provision. Twenty-one healthcare professionals (HCPs) from Australia and the United States participated in an interview (response rate: 88%, 16/21 women). Participants were from diverse disciplines, based in hospital...
The hidden army: coralivorous Crown of Thorns seastars can spend years as herbivorous juveniles
Dione Deaker, Antonio Agüera, Huang-An Lin, Corinne Lawson, Claire Budden, Symon Dworjanyn, Benjamin Moss & Maria Byrne
Crown of Thorns seastar (COTS) outbreaks are a major threat to coral reefs. Although the herbivorous juveniles and their switch to corallivory are key to seeding outbreaks, they remain a black box in our understanding of COTS. We investigated the impact of a delay in diet transition due to coral scarcity in cohorts reared on coralline algae for 10 months and 6.5 yrs before being offered coral. Both cohorts achieved an asymptotic size (16–18 mm...
Data from: Amelioration of ocean acidification and warming effects through physiological buffering of a macroalgae
Steve Doo, Aero Leplastrier, Alexia Graba-Landry, Januar Harianto, Ross Coleman & Maria Byrne
Concurrent anthropogenic global climate change and ocean acidification is expected to have a negative impact on calcifying marine organisms. While knowledge of biological responses of organisms to oceanic stress has emerged from single species experiments, these do not capture ecologically relevant scenarios where the potential for multi-organism physiological interactions is assessed. Marine algae provide an interesting case study, as their photosynthetic activity elevates pH in the surrounding microenvironment, potentially buffering more acidic conditions for associated...
Data for: Angels in disguise: Sympatric hybridization in the marine angelfishes is widespread and occurs between deeply divergent lineages
Yi-Kai Tea, Jean-Paul Hobbs, Federico Vitelli, Joseph DiBattista, Simon Ho & Nathan Lo
Hybridization is not uncommon in marine environments where physical barriers are attenuated. Research conducted on hybridization in coral reefs has grown rapidly, but the majority of studies have focused on parapatric species along biogeographical suture zones. Comparatively little attention has been directed towards sympatric hybridization on coral reefs, despite the large amount of biogeographical overlap that occurs among coral reef species. Here we investigate if the propensity for hybridization along suture zones represents a general...
Colonization history affects heating rates of invasive cane toads
Gregory P. Brown, Richard Shine & Georgia Kosmala
Amphibians in hot climates may be able to avoid high temperatures by controlling their rates of heating. In northern Australia, invasive cane toads (Rhinella marina) experience hot dry conditions in newly-colonized (western) sites but milder conditions in longer-occupied (eastern) sites. Under standardized conditions, toads from western sites heated less rapidly than did conspecifics from an eastern site. The availability of free water slowed heating rates of eastern but not western toads. Thus, the colonization of...
The ongoing COVID-19 epidemic in Minas Gerais, Brazil: insights from epidemiological data and SARS-CoV-2 whole genome sequencing
Joilson Xavier, Marta Giovanetti, Talita Adelino, Vagner Fonseca, Alana Vitor Barbosa da Costa, Adriana Aparecida Ribeiro, Katlin Nascimento Felicio, Clara Guerra Duarte, Marcos Vinicius Ferreira Silva, Álvaro Salgado, Mauricio Teixeira Lima, Ronaldo de Jesus, Allison Fabri, Cristiane Franco Soares Zoboli, Thales Gutemberg Souza Santos, Felipe Iani, Massimo Ciccozzi, Ana Maria Bispo de Filippis, Marilda Agudo Mendonça Teixeira de Siqueira, André Luiz de Abreu, Vasco de Azevedo, Dario Brock Ramalho, Carlos F. Campelo de Albuquerque, Tulio de Oliveira, Edward C. Holmes … & Marluce Aparecida Assunção Oliveira
The recent emergence of a coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), first identified in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019, has had major public health and economic consequences. Although 61,888 confirmed cases were reported in Brazil by 28 April 2020, little is known about the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in this country. To better understand the recent epidemic in the second most populous state in southeast Brazil - Minas Gerais (MG) - we sequenced 40 complete SARS-CoV-2 genomes from...
Stability of elemental content correlates with plant resistance to soil impoverishment
Ruzhen Wang, Linyou Lü, Yanzhuo Cao, Jordi Sardans, Heyong Liu, Yuge Zhang, Josep Peñuelas, Feike Dijkstra & Yong Jiang
Aims We investigated whether plant resistance to soil impoverishment would depend on their flexibility in taking up nutrients and on maintaining elemental stoichiometry. Methods We mixed sand with grassland soil in mass proportions of 0, 10, 30, 50 and 70% to simulate soil impoverishment as caused by a gradient of desertification intensity and examined how plant nitrogen (N) uptake (15NH4NO3 and NH415NO3 labelling) and nutrient stoichiometry were associated with plant growth responses of a sedge...
To clean or not to clean: cleaning mutualism breakdown in a tidal environment
Katie Dunkley, Ashley Ward, Sarah Perkins & Jo Cable
The dynamics and prevalence of mutualistic interactions, which are responsible for the maintenance and structuring of all ecological communities, are vulnerable to changes in abiotic and biotic environmental conditions. Mutualistic outcomes can quickly shift from cooperation to conflict, but it unclear how resilient and stable mutualistic outcomes are to more variable conditions. Tidally controlled coral atoll lagoons that experience extreme diurnal environmental shifts thus provide a model from which to test plasticity in mutualistic behavior...
Characterising biogeochemical fluctuations in a world of extremes
Kennedy Wolfe & Maria Byrne
Coastal and intertidal habitats are at the forefront of anthropogenic influence and environmental change. The species occupying these habitats are adapted to a world of extremes, which may render them robust to the changing climate or more vulnerable if they are at their physiological limits. We characterised the diurnal, seasonal and interannual patterns of flux in biogeochemistry across an intertidal gradient on a temperate sandstone platform in eastern Australia over six years (2009–2015) and present...
Management of urban wetlands for conservation can reduce aquatic biodiversity and increase mosquito risk
Jayne Hanford, Cameron Webb & Dieter Hochuli
1. Global wetland loss means constructed urban wetlands are an increasingly valuable resource for conservation. However, priorities for managing urban wetlands for conservation are often seen to conflict with management to reduce potential mosquito risks. Understanding the ecological and public health consequences of wetland management practices is vital to maximise the conservation value of urban wetlands without negatively impacting public health, however are often untested. 2. We conducted a landscape-scale experiment to test the ecological...
Efficient learning of quantum noise
Robin Harper, Steven Flammia & Joel Wallman
Noise is the central obstacle to building large-scale quantum computers. Quantum systems with sufficiently uncorrelated and weak noise could be used to solve computational problems that are intractable with current digital computers. There has been substantial progress towards engineering such systems. However, continued progress depends on the ability to characterize quantum noise reliably and efficiently with high precision. Here we introduce a protocol that comprehensively and efficiently characterizes the error rates of quantum noise and...
Skin morphology in cane toads
Richard Shine, Gregory Brown & Georgia Kosmala
The structure of the skin may evolve rapidly during a biological invasion, for two reasons. First, novel abiotic challenges such as hydric conditions may modify selection on traits (such as skin thickness) that determine rates of evaporative water loss. Second, invaders might benefit from enhanced rates of dispersal, with locomotion possibly facilitated by thinner (and hence more flexible) skin. We quantified thickness of layers of the skin in cane toads (Rhinella marina) from the native...
Concordance to link IUCN Red List Threats to CPC economic sectors
Amanda Irwin
This concordance was used to connect IUCN Red List Threat data to economic sectors, classified according to the UN Statistics Division's Central Product Classification.
Fatal and non-fatal events within 14 days after early, intensive mobilization post stroke
Julie Bernhardt, Karen Borschmann, Janice Collier, Amanda Thrift, Peter Langhorne, Sandy Middleton, Richard Lindley, Helen Dewey, Philip Bath, Catherine Said, Leonid Churilov, Fiona Ellery, Christopher Bladin, Christopher Reid, Judith Frayne, Velandai Srikanth, Stephen Read & Geoffrey Donnan
Objective: We examined fatal and non-fatal Serious Adverse Events (SAEs) at 14 days within AVERT. Method: A prospective, parallel group, assessor blinded, randomized international clinical trial comparing very early intensive mobilization training (VEM) with usual care (UC); with follow up to 3 months. Included: Patients with ischaemic and haemorrhagic stroke within 24 hours of onset and physiological parameters within set limits. Treatment with thrombolytics allowed. Excluded: Patients with severe premorbid disability and/or comorbidities. Interventions continued...