Vangpark4954

By linking venation structure to leaf shape and using water potential as the constraint, our model provides a physical explanation for the general pattern of the covariance of leaf traits through the safety-efficiency trade-off of leaf hydraulic design. © 2020 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.Retention forestry, which retains a portion of the original stand at the time of harvesting to maintain continuity of structural and compositional diversity, has been originally developed to mitigate the impacts of clear-cutting. Retention of habitat trees and deadwood has since become common practice also in continuous-cover forests of Central Europe. While the use of retention in these forests is plausible, the evidence base for its application is lacking, trade-offs have not been quantified, it is not clear what support it receives from forest owners and other stakeholders and how it is best integrated into forest management practices. The Research Training Group ConFoBi (Conservation of Forest Biodiversity in Multiple-use Landscapes of Central Europe) focusses on the effectiveness of retention forestry, combining ecological studies on forest biodiversity with social and economic studies of biodiversity conservation across multiple spatial scales. The aim of ConFoBi is to assess whether and how structural iodiversity conservation into forest management in temperate forests. © 2020 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.Genomic tools are lacking for invasive and native populations of sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus). Our objective was to discover single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) loci to conduct pedigree analyses to quantify reproductive contributions of adult sea lampreys and dispersion of sibling larval sea lampreys of different ages in Great Lakes tributaries. Additional applications of data were explored using additional geographically expansive samples. We used restriction site-associated DNA sequencing (RAD-Seq) to discover genetic variation in Duffins Creek (DC), Ontario, Canada, and the St. Clair River (SCR), Michigan, USA. We subsequently developed RAD capture baits to genotype 3,446 RAD loci that contained 11,970 SNPs. Based on RAD capture assays, estimates of variance in SNP allele frequency among five Great Lakes tributary populations (mean F ST 0.008; range 0.00-0.018) were concordant with previous microsatellite-based studies; however, outlier loci were identified that contributed substantially to spatial population genetic structure. At finer scales within streams, simulations indicated that accuracy in genetic pedigree reconstruction was high when 200 or 500 independent loci were used, even in situations of high spawner abundance (e.g., 1,000 adults). Based on empirical collections of larval sea lamprey genotypes, we found that age-1 and age-2 families of full and half-siblings were widely but nonrandomly distributed within stream reaches sampled. Using the genomic scale set of SNP loci developed in this study, biologists can rapidly genotype sea lamprey in non-native and native ranges to investigate questions pertaining to population structuring and reproductive ecology at previously unattainable scales. © 2020 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.Gyrodactylus konovalovi is an ectoparasite on the Amur minnow (Rhynchocypris lagowskii) that is widely distributed in the cold fresh waters of East Asia. In the present study, the phylogeography and demographic history of G. konovalovi and the distribution of its host in the Qinling Mountains are examined. A total of 79 individual parasites was sequenced for a 528 bp region of the mitochondrial NADH dehydrogenase subunit 5 (ND5) gene, and 25 haplotypes were obtained. The substitution rate (dN/dS) was 0.068 and indicated purifying selection. Haplotype diversity (h) and nucleotide diversity (π) varied widely in the Qinling Mountains. Phylogenetic trees based on Bayesian inference (BI), maximum likelihood (ML), and maximum parsimony (MP) methods and network analysis revealed that all haplotypes were consistently well-supported in three different lineages, indicating a significant geographic distribution pattern. There was a significant positive correlation between genetic differentiation (F st) and geographic distance. The results of mismatch distribution, neutrality test and Bayesian skyline plot analyses showed that whole populations underwent population contraction during the Pleistocene. Based on the molecular clock calibration, the most common ancestor was estimated to have emerged in the middle Pleistocene. Our study suggests for the first time that a clearly phylogeography of G. konovalovi was shaped by geological events and climate fluctuations, such as orogenesis, drainage capture changes, and vicariance, during the Pleistocene in the Qinling Mountains. © 2020 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.Understanding the relationships among species is central to ecological research; however, many knowledge gaps remain regarding how desert plant species interact. In the present study, we assessed the effect of rainfall on the belowground interactions and root morphology of two desert shrubs, Reaumuria soongorica (Tamaricaceae) and Salsola passerina (Chenopodiaceae), from three communities with similar landforms and soil environments. The roots of both R. soongorica and S. passerina were deeper when grown together than grown singly. Interestingly, the belowground biomass of R. soongorica was higher, but the belowground biomass of S. passerina was lower when grown together than when grown alone. This suggests that S. passerina benefitted from the association with R. soongorica. When grown together under conditions of low rainfall, the roots of R. soongorica were deeper than those of S. passerina, which suggests that R. soongorica is more robust than S. passerina when subjected to periods of decreased rainfall. We concluded that the symbiotic relationship between these two shrub species can lead to deeper roots and that the plants are affected by rainfall availability. Combined with the output results of climate change models, we speculated that the distribution area of these two species will expand to the west, which has important implications on how the interactions of other desert species may change in response to climate variability. © 2020 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.Colletotrichum species complexes are among the top 10 economically important fungal plant pathogens worldwide because they can infect climacteric and nonclimacteric fruit at the pre and/or postharvest stages. C. truncatum is the major pathogen responsible for anthracnose of green and red bell pepper fruit worldwide. C. brevisporum was recently reported to be a minor pathogen of red bell pepper fruit in Trinidad, but has recently been reported as pathogenic to other host species in other countries. The ability of these phytopathogens to produce and secrete cutinase is required for dismantling the cuticle of the host plant and, therefore, crucial to the necrotrophic phase of their infection strategy. In vitro bioassays using different lipid substrates confirmed the ability of C. truncatum and C. brevisporum isolates from green and red bell peppers to secrete cutinase. The diversity, structure and organization and synteny of the cutinase gene were determined among different Colletotrichum species. Cluster analysween species and the arrangement of flanking protein domains were also conserved and shared for those domains immediately located at the N- and C-terminus of the cutinase domain. Among these were an RNA recognition motif, translation elongation factor, signal peptide, pentatricopeptide repeat, and Hsp70 family of chaperone proteins, all of which support the expression of the cutinase gene. The findings of this study are important to understanding the evolution of the cutinase gene in C. truncatum as a key component of the biotrophic-necrotrophic switch which may be useful in developing gene-targeting strategies to decrease the pathogenic potential of Colletotrichum species. © 2020 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.Field studies have shown that waterbirds, especially members of the Anatidae family, are major vectors of dispersal by endozoochory for a broad range of plants lacking a fleshy fruit, yet whose propagules can survive gut passage. Widely adopted dispersal syndromes ignore this dispersal mechanism, and we currently have little understanding of what traits determine the potential of angiosperms for endozoochory by waterbirds. Results from previous experimental studies have been inconsistent as to how seed traits affect seed survival and retention time in the gut and have failed to control for the influence of plant phylogeny. Using 13 angiosperm species from aquatic and terrestrial habitats representing nine families, we examined the effects of seed size, shape, and hardness on the proportion of seeds surviving gut passage through mallards (Anas platyrhynchos) and their retention time within the gut. We compiled a molecular phylogeny for these species and controlled for the nonindependence of taxa due to common ished by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.Cryptic coloration is an adaptative defensive mechanism against predators. Color patterns can become cryptic through background coloration-matching and disruptive coloration. Disruptive coloration may evolve in visually heterogeneous microhabitats, whereas background matching could be favored in chromatically homogeneous microhabitats. In this work, we used digital photography to explore the potential use of disruptive coloration and background matching in males and females of two grasshopper species of the Sphenarium genus in different habitats. We found chromatic differences in the two grasshopper species that may be explained by local adaptation. We also found that the females and males of both species are dichromatic and seem to follow different color cryptic strategies, males are more disruptive than females, whereas females have a high background matching with less disruptive elements. The selective pressures of the predators in different microhabitats and the differences in mobility between sexes may explain the color pattern divergence between females and males. Nevertheless, more field experiments are needed in order to understand the relative importance of disruptive and background matching coloration in the evolution of sexual dichromatism in these grasshoppers. © 2020 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.Sichuan taimen (Hucho bleekeri) is critically endangered fish listed in The Red List of Threatened Species compiled by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Specific locus amplified fragment sequencing (SLAF-seq)-based genotyping was performed for Sichuan taimen with 43 yearling individuals from three locations in Taibai River (a tributary of Yangtze River) that has been sequestered from its access to the ocean for more than 30 years since late 1980s. Applying the inbreeding level and genetic relatedness estimation using 15,396 genome-wide SNP markers, we found that the inbreeding level of this whole isolated population was at a low level (2.6 × 10-3 ± 0.079), and the means of coancestry coefficients within and between the three sampling locations were all very low (close to 0), too. SMIFH2 manufacturer Genomic differentiation was negatively correlated with the geographical distances between the sampling locations (p  less then  .001), and the 43 individuals could be considered as genetically independent two groups.