Birds increase crop yields via consumption of pests in some contexts but disrupt pest control via intraguild predation in others. Landscape complexity acts as an inconsistent mediator, sometimes increasing, decreasing, or not impacting pest control. Here, we examined how landscape context and seasonal variation mediate the impact of birds on arthropod pests and natural enemies, leaf damage, and yields of broccoli (Brassica oleracea) on highly diversified farms that spanned the USA West Coast. Our study...

Aim: Protected areas in China have typically been designed by considering one or several focal taxa (e.g., relict plant and vertebrate species), but the effectiveness of these “protective umbrellas” in safeguarding insects remains unclear. In this study, we aim to investigate the distribution and diversity of endemic true bugs for four family groups (i.e., Miridae, Lygaeoidea, Pentatomidae, and Reduviidae) in China, the environment factors shaping these diversity patterns, as well as the effectiveness of China’s...

Antarctic winters are challenging for terrestrial invertebrates, and species that live there have specialized adaptations to conserve energy and protect against cold injury in the winter. However, rapidly occurring climate change in these regions will increase the unpredictability of winter conditions, and there is currently a dearth of knowledge on how the highly adapted invertebrates of Antarctica will respond to changes in winter temperatures. We evaluated the response of larvae of the Antarctic midge, Belgica...

Sampling fecal droppings (scat) to genetically identify individual animals is an established method for monitoring mammal populations and could be highly useful for monitoring reptile populations. Whereas existing protocols for obtaining DNA from reptile scat focus on analyses of whole, fresh scat deposited during animal handling, the collection of scat naturally deposited by reptiles in situ, as required for non-invasive population monitoring, requires protocols to extract highly degraded DNA. Using surface swabs from such scats...

Data for the manuscript entitled: Habitability of Polygonal Soils in the Hyper-arid Atacama Desert after a Simulated Rain Experiment
Authors: Christof Sager, Alessandro Airo, Kai Mangelsdorf, Felix L. Arens, Cornelia Karger, Dirk Schulze-Makuch

Climatic conditions are widely thought to govern the distribution and abundance of ectoparasites, such as the blacklegged tick (Ixodes scapularis), vector of the agents of Lyme disease and other emerging human pathogens. However, translating physiological tolerances to distributional limits or mortality is challenging. Ticks may be able to avoid or tolerate unsuitable conditions, and what is lethal to one life history stage may not extend to others. Thus, even after decades of research there are...

Controlled drainage and subirrigation (CDSI) is an important water management strategy in many regions, but the conditions under which CDSI is most likely to increase crop yield and soil moisture are not fully understood. A meta-analysis, consisting of 154 pairwise observations from replicated and randomized trials in 30 peer-reviewed primary research articles on CDSI (6 controlled drainage, 24 CDSI, analyzed together due to data scarcity), was conducted to study the responses of yield and soil...

UAS imagery data and data products from Camas, Cedar Gulch and Rocky Canyon Idaho. Data were collected in both summer and winter seasons between 2013-2015. Data products include digital surface models (DSM), orthorectified color imagery (Ortho), and las point cloud files for each site and season; the dataset also contains 5-cm and 25-cm resolution canopy height models (CHM) for the Camas and Cedar Gulch sites during the summer sampling season. Processing reports are provided for...

Direct observation of evolution in response to natural environmental change can resolve fundamental questions about adaptation including its pace, temporal dynamics, and underlying phenotypic and genomic architecture. We tracked evolution of fitness-associated phenotypes and allele frequencies genome-wide in ten replicate field populations of Drosophila melanogaster over ten generations from summer to late fall. Adaptation was evident over each sampling interval (1-4 generations) with exceptionally rapid phenotypic adaptation and large allele frequency shifts at many independent...

While selfing populations harbor little genetic variation limiting evolutionary potential, the causes are unclear. We experimentally evolved large, replicate populations of Mimulus guttatus for nine generations in greenhouses with or without pollinating bees and studied DNA polymorphism in descendants. Populations without bees adapted to produce more selfed seed yet exhibited striking reductions in DNA polymorphism despite large population sizes. Importantly, the genome-wide pattern of variation cannot be explained by a simple reduction in effective population...

The final stage of migration, when animals terminate migratory movements and transition to a more sedentary state, remains the least understood phase of migration. Whereas migrants that return to the same locations each year may use mechanisms associated with locating a specific destination, migrants with low site fidelity, such as nomadic migrants, may rely on local environmental cues to determine when to cease migratory movements. Using an experiment with captive birds, we tested whether the...

Our understanding of state-dependent behavior is reliant on identifying physiological indicators of condition. Telomeres are of growing interest for understanding behavior as they capture differences in biological state and residual lifespan. To understand the significance of variable telomere lengths for behavior and test two hypotheses describing the relationship between telomeres and behavior (i.e., the causation and the selective adoption hypotheses), we assessed if telomere lengths are longitudinally repeatable traits related to spring migratory behavior in...

Plant communities are composed of complex phenotypes that not only differ among taxonomic groups and habitats but also change over time within a species. Restoration projects (e.g., translocations, reseeding) can introduce new functional variation in plants, which further diversifies phenotypes and complicates our ability to identify locally adaptive phenotypes for future restoration. Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) offers one approach to detect the chemical phenotypes that differentiate plant species, populations, and phenological states of individual plants over...

C2 photosynthesis is characterized by recapturing photorespiratory CO2 by RuBisCO in Kranz-like cells and is therefore physiologically intermediate between C3 and C4 photosynthesis. C2 can be interpreted as an evolutionary precursor of C4 and/or as the result of hybridization between a C3 and C4 lineage. We compared the expression of photosynthetic traits among populations of the Salsola divaricata agg. (C2) from humid subtropical to arid habitats on the coasts of the Canary Islands and Morocco...

Amplified by warming temperatures and drought, recent outbreaks of native bark beetles (Curculionidae: Scolytinae) have caused extensive tree mortality throughout Europe and North America. Despite their ubiquitous nature and important effects on ecosystems, forest recovery following such disturbances is poorly understood, particularly across regions with varying abiotic conditions and outbreak effects. To better understand post-outbreak recovery across a topographically complex region, we synthesized data from 16 field studies spanning subalpine forests in the Southern Rocky...

Reproducible research serves as a pillar of the scientific method and is a foundation for scientific advancement. However, estimates for irreproducibility of preclinical science range from 75% to 90%. The importance of reproducible science has not been assessed in the context of mechanics-based modeling of human joints such as the knee, despite this being an area that has seen dramatic growth. Framed in the context of five experienced teams currently documenting knee modeling procedures, the...

A respiratory disease epizootic at the National Bison Range (NBR) in Montana in 2016-2017 caused an 85% decline in the bighorn sheep population, documented by observations of its unmarked but individually identifiable members, the subjects of an ongoing long-term study. The index case was likely one of a small group of young bighorn sheep on a short-term exploratory foray in early summer of 2016. Disease subsequently spread through the population, with peak mortality in September...

Context The amount and composition of phytochemicals in forage plants influences habitat quality for wild herbivores. However, evaluating forage quality at fine resolutions across broad spatial extents (i.e., foodscapes) is challenging. Unmanned aerial systems (UAS) provide an avenue for bridging this gap in spatial scale. Objectives We evaluated the potential for UAS technology to accurately predict nutritional quality of sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) across landscapes. We mapped seasonal forage quality across two sites in Idaho, USA,...

Our understanding of the mechanisms mediating the resilience of organisms to environmental change remains lacking. Heavy metals negatively affect processes at all biological scales, yet organisms inhabiting contaminated environments must maintain homeostasis to survive. Tar Creek in Oklahoma, USA, contains high concentrations of heavy metals and an abundance of Western mosquitofish (Gambusia affinis), though several fish species persist at lower frequency. To test hypotheses about the mechanisms mediating the persistence and abundance of mosquitofish in...

In mutualisms, variation at genes determining partner fitness provides the raw material upon which coevolutionary selection acts, setting the dynamics and pace of coevolution. However, we know little about variation in the effects of genes that underlie symbiotic fitness in natural mutualist populations. In some species of legumes that form root nodule symbioses with nitrogen-fixing rhizobial bacteria, hosts secrete nodule-specific cysteine-rich (NCR) peptides that cause rhizobia to differentiate in the nodule environment. However, rhizobia can...

Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.), as a dedicated bioenergy crop, can provide cellulosic feedstock for biofuel production while improving or maintaining soil quality. However, comprehensive evaluations of how switchgrass cultivation and nitrogen (N) management impact soil and plant parameters remain incomplete. We conducted field trials in three years (2016–2018) at six locations in the North Central Great Lakes Region to evaluate the effects of cropping systems (switchgrass, restored prairie, undisturbed control) and N rates (0, 56...

UV-Vis spectroscopic titration studies of ATF ligands 6, 8 and 10 with Cu salts were prepared as follows: ligand solutions were prepared to 1.45 x 10-4 M in acetonitrile. 1.2 mL of ATF solution was added to a quartz cuvette. Titrations were performed with Cu halide salts and [N(Bu4)2(µ-I)-Cu2I4] utilizing 1.35 mM stock solutions in acetonitrile and sequentially adding 13 µL (roughly 0.1 equivalent of metal salt) until reaching a metal salt concentration of three...

How intensely animals use habitat features depends on their functional properties (i.e., how the feature influences fitness) and the spatial and temporal scale considered. For herbivores, habitat use is expected to reflect the competing risks of starvation, predation, and thermal stress, but the relative influence of each functional property is expected to vary in space and time. We examined how a dietary and habitat specialist, the pygmy rabbit (Brachylagus idahoensis), used these functional properties of...

In this study we present the first genetic evidence of the phylogenetic position of Tarsius pumilus, the mountain tarsier of Sulawesi, Indonesia. This mysterious primate is the only Eastern tarsier species that occurs exclusively in cloud forests above 1800 m asl. It exhibits striking morphological peculiarities – most prominently its extremely reduced body size, which led to the common name of “pygmy tarsier”. However, our results indicate that T. pumilus is not an aberrant form...

In an era of climate change, impacts on the marine environment include warming and ocean acidification. These effects can be amplified in shallow coastal regions where conditions often fluctuate widely. This type of environmental variation is potentially important for many nearshore species that are broadcast spawners, releasing eggs and sperm into the water column for fertilization. We conducted two experiments to investigate: 1) the impact of water temperature on sperm swimming characteristics and fertilization rate...