Richterbruun0427

In addition, body condition began to recover earlier in years when consumption of both pine nuts and salmon was high. Furthermore, females with offspring had poorer body condition than solitary females, in particular in late August in years with low salmon consumption. Our findings suggest that coastal and subalpine foods, which are unique to the Shiretoko Peninsula, determine the summer body condition of female brown bears, as well as their survival and reproductive success.The evolution of plant defenses is often constrained by phylogeny. Many of the differences between competing plant defense theories hinge upon the differences in the location of meristem damage (apical versus auxiliary) and the amount of tissue removed. We analyzed the growth and defense responses of 12 Quercus (oak) species from a well-resolved molecular phylogeny using phylogenetically independent contrasts. Access to light is paramount for forest-dwelling tree species, such as many members of the genus Quercus. We therefore predicted a greater investment in defense when apical meristem tissue was removed. We also predicted a greater investment in defense when large amounts of tissue were removed and a greater investment in growth when less tissues were removed. We conducted five simulated herbivory treatments including a control with no damage and alterations of the location of meristem damage (apical versus auxiliary shoots) and intensity (25% versus 75% tissue removal). We measured growth, defense, and nutrient re-allocation traits in response to simulated herbivory. Phylomorphospace models were used to demonstrate the phylogenetic nature of trade-offs between characteristics of growth, chemical defenses, and nutrient re-allocation. We found that growth-defense trade-offs in control treatments were under phylogenetic constraints, but phylogenetic constraints and growth-defense trade-offs were not common in the simulated herbivory treatments. Growth-defense constraints exist within the Quercus genus, although there are adaptations to herbivory that vary among species.Fossil pollen believed to be related to extant Hagenia abyssinica were discovered in the early Miocene (21.73 Ma) Mush Valley paleoflora, Ethiopia, Africa. Both the fossil and extant pollen grains of H. abyssinica were examined with combined light microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and transmission electron microscopy to compare the pollen and establish their relationships. Based on this, the fossil pollen grains were attributed to Hagenia. The presence of Hagenia in the fossil assemblage raises the questions if its habitat has changed over time, and if the plants are/were wind pollinated. To shed light on these questions, the morphology of extant anthers was also studied, revealing specialized hairs inside the anthers, believed to aid in insect pollination. Pollen and anther morphology are discussed in relation to the age and origin of the genus within a molecular dated phylogenetic framework, the establishment of complex topography in East Africa, other evidence regarding pollination modes, and the palynological record. The evidence presented herein, and compiled from the literature, suggests that Hagenia was an insect-pollinated lowland rainforest element during the early Miocene of the Mush Valley. The current Afromontane habitat and ambophilous (insect and wind) pollination must have evolved in post-mid-Miocene times.Black Amur bream (Megalobrama terminalis), a dominant species, resides in the Pearl River basin, known for its high plasticity in digestive ability. During spawning season, M. Fingolimod terminalis individuals with large body size and high fertility undergo a spawn migratory phase, while other smaller individuals prefer to settlement over migration. It is well known that gut microbial community often underpins the metabolic capability and regulates a wide variety of important functions in fish. However, little was known about how the gut microbiomes affect fish breeding migration. To investigate the variations in the gut microbiome of M. terminalis during the migration, we used high-throughput 16S rRNA gene sequencing to reveal the distinct composition and diversity of the whole gut microbiome of migrated and nonmigrated population during period of peak reproduction, respectively. Our results indicated that nonmigrated population in estuary had a higher alpha diversity than that of migrated population in main stem. link2 Additionally, an obvious abundant taxa shift between the gut microbiota community of nonmigrated and migrated M. terminalis was also observed. Change of dominant gut taxa from nonmigrated to migrated population was thought to be closely related to their degradation enzymes. Our results suggested that amino acid metabolism and lipid metabolism in migrated population were higher than that in nonmigrated population, providing a line of evidence for that M. terminalis change from partial herbivorous to partial carnivorous diet during breeding migration. We further concluded that, in order to digest foods of higher nutrition to supply energy to spawning migration, M. terminalis regulate activities of the gut microbiome and degradation enzymes, considered to be a key physiological strategy for reproduction.Plankton biodiversity is a key component of marine pelagic ecosystems. They are at the base of the food web, control the productivity of marine ecosystems, and provide many provisioning and regulating ecological services. It is therefore important to understand how plankton are organized in both space and time. Here, we use data of varying taxonomic resolution, collected by the Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) survey, to map phytoplankton and zooplankton biodiversity in the North Atlantic and its adjacent seas. We then decompose biodiversity into 24 species assemblages and investigate their spatial distribution using ecological units and ecoregions recently proposed. Finally, we propose a descriptive method, which we call the environmental chromatogram, to characterize the environmental signature of each plankton assemblage. The method is based on a graphic that identifies where species of an assemblage aggregate along an environmental gradient composed of multiple ecological dimensions. The decomposition of the biodiversity into species assemblages allows us to show (a) that most marine regions of the North Atlantic are composed of coenoclines (i.e., gradients of biocoenoses or communities) and (b) that the overlapping spatial distribution of assemblages is the result of their environmental signatures. It follows that neither the ecoregions nor the ecological units identified in the North Atlantic are characterized by a unique assemblage but instead by a mosaic of assemblages that overlap in many places.The evolution of local adaptation is crucial for the in situ persistence of populations in changing environments. However, selection along broad environmental gradients could render local adaptation difficult, and might even result in maladaptation. We address this issue by quantifying fitness trade-offs (via common garden experiments) along a salinity gradient in two populations of the Neotropical water strider Telmatometra withei-a species found in both fresh (FW) and brackish (BW) water environments across Panama. We found evidence for local adaptation in the FW population in its home FW environment. However, the BW population showed only partial adaptation to the BW environment, with a high magnitude of maladaptation along naturally occurring salinity gradients. Indeed, its overall fitness was ~60% lower than that of the ancestral FW population in its home environment, highlighting the role of phenotypic plasticity, rather than local adaptation, in high salinity environments. This suggests that populations seemingly persisting in high salinity environments might in fact be maladapted, following drastic changes in salinity. Thus, variable selection imposed by salinization could result in evolutionary mismatch, where the fitness of a population is displaced from its optimal environment. Understanding the fitness consequences of persisting in fluctuating salinity environments is crucial to predict the persistence of populations facing increasing salinization. It will also help develop evolutionarily informed management strategies in the context of global change.Trait differences among plant species can favor species coexistence. The role that such differences play in the assembly of diverse plant communities maintained by frequent fires remains unresolved. This lack of resolution results in part from the possibility that species with similar traits may coexist because none has a significant fitness advantage and in part from the difficulty of experimental manipulation of highly diverse assemblages dominated by perennial species. We examined a 65-year chronosequence of losses of herbaceous species following fire suppression (and subsequent encroachment by Pinus elliottii) in three wet longleaf pine savannas. We used cluster analysis, similarity profile permutation tests, and k-R cluster analysis to identify statistically significant functional groups. We then used randomization tests to determine if the absence of functional groups near pines was greater (or less) than expected by chance. We also tested whether tolerant and sensitive species were less (or more) likely to co-occur by chance in areas in savannas away from pines in accordance with predictions of modern coexistence theory. Functional group richness near pines was lower than expected from random species extirpations. Wetland perennials with thick rhizomes and high leaf water content, spring-flowering wetland forbs (including Drosera tracyi), orchids, Polygala spp., and club mosses were more likely to be absent near pines than expected by chance. C3 grasses and sedges with seed banks and tall, fall-flowering C4 grasses were less likely to be absent near pines than expected by chance. Species sensitive to pine encroachment were more likely to co-occur with other such species away from pines at two of the three sites. Results suggest that herb species diversity in frequently burned wet savannas is maintained in part by a weak fitness (e.g., competitive) hierarchy among herbs, and not as a result of trait differences among co-occurring species.Genetic studies are increasingly detecting cryptic taxa that likely represent a significant component of global biodiversity. However, cryptic taxa are often criticized because they are typically detected serendipitously and may not receive the follow-up study required to verify their geographic or evolutionary limits. link3 Here, we follow-up a study of Eucalyptus salubris that unexpectedly detected two divergent lineages but was not sampled sufficiently to make clear interpretations. We undertook comprehensive sampling for an independent genomic analysis (3,605 SNPs) to investigate whether the two purported lineages remain discrete genetic entities or if they intergrade throughout the species' range. We also assessed morphological and ecological traits, and sequenced chloroplast DNA. SNP results showed strong genome-wide divergence (F ST = 0.252) between two discrete lineages one dominated the north and one the southern regions of the species' range. Within lineages, gene flow was high, with low differentiation (mean F ST = 0.