Home range estimation is routine practice in ecological research. While advances in animal tracking technology have increased our capacity to collect data to support home range analysis, these same advances have also resulted in increasingly autocorrelated data. Consequently, the question of which home range estimator to use on modern, highly autocorrelated tracking data remains open. This question is particularly relevant given that most estimators assume independently sampled data. Here, we provide a comprehensive evaluation of...

Animal movement is fundamental for ecosystem functioning and species survival, yet the effects of the anthropogenic footprint on animal movements have not been estimated across species. Using a unique GPS-tracking database of 803 individuals across 57 species, we found that movements of mammals in areas with a comparatively high human footprint were on average one-half to one-third the extent of their movements in areas with a low human footprint. We attribute this reduction to behavioral...

Approximately 200 weed species are responsible for more than 90% of crop losses and these comprise less than one percent of all named plant species, suggesting that there are only a few evolutionary routes that lead to weediness. Agricultural weeds can evolve along three main paths: they can be escaped crops, wild species, or crop-wild hybrids. We tested these three hypotheses in weedy radish, a weed of small grains and an emerging model for investigating...

Predator feeding behavior and digestion regulate the flow of nutrients through ecosystems by determining the fate of prey nutrients. Most predators feed on a diversity of prey items, which differ widely in traits including their nutrient content. Yet, relatively little is known of the mechanisms through which variation in prey nutrient content affects the form by which nutrients are deposited into the environment. The overall goal of this study was to test how variation in...

1. The importance of symbiotic dinitrogen (N2) fixation in shaping the coupled nitrogen-carbon cycle is now known for most humid terrestrial ecosystems. However, whether N2 fixation can play a key role in the nitrogen and carbon budget of water-limited and seasonally dry ecosystems remains a mystery. 2. The maintenance of metabolically and physiologically costly symbiotic fixation in water-limited environments is highly complex. These costs are particularly high during the first developmental season, when allocation to...

Increasing crop productivity under climate change requires the identification, selection and utilization of novel alleles for breeding. We analyzed the genotype and field phenotype of the barley HEB-25 multi-parent mapping population under well-watered and water-limited (WW and WL) environments for two years. A genome-wide association study (GWAS) for genotype by-environment interactions was performed for ten traits including flowering time (HEA) and plant grain yield (PGY). Comparison of the GWAS for traits per-se to that for...

Near Eastern Neolithic farmers introduced several species of domestic plants and animals as they dispersed into Europe. Dogs were the only domestic species present in both Europe and the Near East prior to the Neolithic. Here, we assessed whether early Near Eastern dogs possessed a unique mitochondrial lineage that differentiated them from Mesolithic European populations. We then analysed mitochondrial DNA sequences from 99 ancient European and Near-Eastern dogs spanning the Upper Palaeolithic to the Bronze...

Fall-sown chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) yields are often double those of spring-sown chickpea in regions with Mediterranean climates that have mild winters. However, winter kill can limit the productivity of fall-sown chickpea. Developing cold-tolerant chickpea would allow the expansion of the current geographic range where chickpea is grown and also improve productivity. The objective of this study was to identify the quantitative trait loci (QTL) associated with cold tolerance in chickpea. An interspecific recombinant inbred...

Aim: Animal movement is an important determinant of individual survival, population dynamics, and ecosystem structure and function. Yet it is still unclear how local movements are related to resource availability and the spatial arrangement of resources. Using resident bird species and migratory bird species outside of the migratory period, we examined how the distribution of resources affect the movement patterns of both large terrestrial birds (e.g., raptors, bustards, hornbills) and waterbirds (e.g., cranes, storks, ducks,...