Ecology and Evolution最新文献

Sect. Camellia plants, widely distributed across southern China, hold significant economic value through their dual applications in landscape greening, ornamental horticulture, and oilseed production. However, with rapid changes in the global climate, it is becoming increasingly important to study the habitat distributions of species and the factors influencing their adaptations. Using the maximum entropy model, we predicted the past, present, and future distribution areas of suitable habitats for sect. Camellia under different climate scenarios. The results revealed that under current climate conditions, the total suitable area of sect. Camellia was 17.04 × 10⁵ km², and the highly suitable area was 1.95 × 10⁵ km². The distribution of sect. Camellia was strongly influenced by key environmental factors, such as the maximum temperature in the hottest month (Bio5), the minimum temperature in the coldest month (Bio6), the annual difference in temperature (Bio7), and the slope (Slope). In view of future climate change, the suitable distribution center of sect. Camellia is expected to shift to higher latitudes and may undergo northward movement to adapt to new environmental conditions, leading to an expansion of the total suitable area.

Invasive species, including multiple domestic species, can devastate local biodiversity. Domestic cats (Felis catus) can cause declines in select prey species around the world, and multiple methods are employed to monitor cat diet and predatory habits. These methods have not yet been compared against one another in a meta-analytical way, and therefore, the aim here was to evaluate the relative proportions of different taxa reported in the cat diet. We compared 88 studies using a beta regression model conducted on four different taxa, where methodology, location and duration of study were included as variables. Mammals were further divided into rodents, insectivores and medium-sized mammals for a subset of European studies, using Wilcoxon Rank Sum tests to compare methods. Proportions of mammals were lowest, and those of herptiles were highest in studies using collar-mounted cameras. However, greater proportions of birds were recorded in return questionnaires, suggesting detectability bias, as bird remains are easier to detect. Mammal figures were lower in Australasian studies, whereas birds were more frequently reported in Australasia than in other mainland locations, likely reflecting a difference in prey availability. In Europe, insectivores were found to be more frequently returned than eaten, supporting the existing hypothesis that this group is largely unpalatable to cats. Care should be taken when extrapolating data gathered by different methods, as each one fundamentally measures a different aspect of diet. Only six (6.8%) studies here used video cameras and, although a useful monitoring technique, video results showed a different pattern in taxonomic proportions to data gathered using consumed or returned prey. More research using cat cameras in locations of varying faunal composition is necessary, improving the general applicability of video data to cat populations globally. Palatability and detectability of prey appear to influence the data reported, and these aspects should be considered when calculating total predation rates.

Interspecific interactions play a central role in structuring animal communities and food webs. In particular, carnivores are important topdown regulators in ecological communities and the loss of carnivore species can have devastating ecosystem effects. Similarly, carnivore reintroductions are successful if the prey base is sufficient to support population growth, making the case for the importance of bottom-up regulation processes. As such, rewilding efforts targeted at restoring food webs and natural community regulation processes (trophic rewilding) have become increasingly popular. However, investigations of regulation processes in terrestrial vertebrate communities often take place in heavily altered systems, potentially biasing inference on the presence or importance of top-down versus bottom-up regulation processes. Here, we use a stable mammalian assemblage in the Romanian Carpathians to evaluate the relative importance of top-down and bottom-up processes and provide a benchmark for understanding the effects and the success of rewilding initiatives. To do so, we used camera trap data from two consecutive years in the Southern Romanian Carpathians and developed hypothesisbased interaction pathways for top-down and bottom-up regulation in a piecewise structural equation modeling (SEM) framework. Results from SEMs indicate that while both top-down (wolf and Eurasian lynx-driven) and bottom-up processes (driven by roe deer, red deer, wild boar and hare abundance) play important roles in shaping community structure, landscape characteristics (i.e., terrain ruggedness, road density, elevation, and forest cover) have a greater effect on both predators and prey. The results of this research have implications for rewilding efforts in Europe and globally. This study highlights the importance of preserving natural habitats, underscoring that effective species conservation and coexistence must go hand in hand with conserving natural spaces.

Environmental and individual experiences can result in immediate and persistent changes in behaviour. Often, such effects are also sex-dependent. Intraspecific interactions can be one of the most important environments an individual faces. Such social interactions are expected to affect a suite of behavioural traits and their correlations. Here, we used Drosophila melanogaster and high-throughput automated behavioural phenotyping to determine how social environment (group mixed sex, group single sex, and social isolation) and sex interact to affect basic behaviours (exploration, movement within a y-maze, and habituation to a startle) that likely underlie more complex behaviours such as mate searching and foraging. We show that such behaviours and some behavioural correlations are indeed context- and sex-dependent. Males tended to show greater exploration, while females were more likely to show a habituation response to startle. Males and females from the mixed sex and isolated treatments showed opposite exploratory behaviour in the Y-maze, and social treatment interacted with sex to affect the rate of habituation to a startle. Females also tended to have slightly stronger trait correlations compared to males. These results show that social environment and sex can play a significant role in shaping behaviour in Drosophila melanogaster. Our study provides insights into how the type of social stimulation and sex can interact to affect behaviours that are important in forming critical behaviours related to foraging and mate searching.

Immediately after hatching, larvae of coral reef fish leave their natal reef environment and begin their pelagic larval phase probably to avoid high predation on the reef. The time they spend in the open ocean (pelagic larval duration, PLD), before settlement varies from species to species and depends partly on developmental processes that eventually require re-settlement to a reef. The polyglutamine region (PolyQ) as part of the clock gene has been suggested as a possible candidate that could control developmental processes and potentially the time until settlement, which can be determined by counting the rings of the otoliths. We studied the potential relationship between the number of glutamine repeats in 20 species of pomacentrids and their PLDs. Most pomacentrids came from similar locations, so we avoided the impact of latitudinal clines on PLD. Within the clock gene, we found two main distinguishable, variable glutamine-rich regions (PolyQ and Qrich). Considering phylogenetic relationships, PolyQ/Qrich repeat length and pelagic larval duration were significantly positively correlated. However, when analyzing this relationship in a single species, the neon damselfish (Pomacentrus coelestis), we did not find a significant correlation between PolyQ length variation and PLD. Instead, we found a significant reduction of PLD in years with increased habitat availability. Our results show that glutamine-rich regions can influence the timing of settlement on a broader scale, but that ecological factors—such as habitat availability—can also have a significant impact.

The wind energy industry presents a green-green dilemma whereby it aims to reduce CO₂ emissions and combat climate change, benefiting biodiversity, but its development also negatively impacts biodiversity. To reconcile this, the first action in the mitigation hierarchy is to avoid development in high-risk areas for vulnerable species. For raptors, development is often restricted within a certain distance from nests, or more recently, by using predictive habitat use models to define site- and species-specific areas of high collision risk. One such model has been used to predict areas of high collision risk where development should be avoided for Verreaux's Eagles (Aquila verreauxii) in South Africa, but industry use of this tool has declined (research-implementation gap, RIG). Uncertainty over the model outputs is a likely cause of the RIG because the model results in variably sized exclusion areas for each development. To reduce this uncertainty and increase implementation of the model, we explore if limiting these predicted risk areas to protect the same amount of space or less, as a circular buffer around the nest, provides improved protection for the species. We found that by fixing the area of risk to be equal to the area of the current circular buffer recommendation, eagle protection, that is, the proportion of space used by eagles that is protected, was improved by around 6%–7% compared to circular buffers or by 2%–3% compared to previous threshold-based classifications. This fixed-area approach ensures that by applying the collision risk potential model there is no unexpected loss in developable area for wind energy developers. Our study demonstrates the importance of understanding and adapting tools that aim to promote sustainable development of renewable energy. Responding to stakeholder needs and balancing conservation with practical applications is critical, particularly in countries where policy enforcement is lacking.

Strategies for restoring degraded ecosystems vary widely in the levels of human intervention. It has commonly been assumed that recovery with artificial inputs would be quicker and more efficient. However, is this truly the situation? We conducted a meta-analysis to evaluate the differences and applicability between ecological restoration and ecological rehabilitation. Relationships between soil phosphorus content, plant diversity, and soil microbial diversity were analyzed using 463 valid experimental data points collected from 72 publications. The results indicated that in grassland ecosystems, ecological restoration outperformed rehabilitation by 35%, 68%, 38%, and 48% in belowground biomass, community coverage, plant richness, and Shannon diversity, respectively. In forests, rehabilitation trailed behind restoration by 58%, 26%, and 92% in belowground biomass, Simpson diversity, and bacterial Shannon diversity. Furthermore, there was minimal difference in the recovery mode among different fungal and bacterial phyla. Rehabilitation demonstrated lower stability and efficiency in long-term phosphorus cycling compared to restoration. Overall, ecological restoration offers more stable and efficient long-term phosphorus cycling, thereby questioning the effectiveness of ecological rehabilitation for sustainable ecosystem recovery, especially for species diversity and phosphorus cycling.

Freshwater fishes are among the most threatened taxa in the world. A major challenge for the conservation and management of threatened fishes is scarce information regarding life history, habitat requirements, and the drivers of declines. Species distribution models (SDMs) that leverage existing occurrence records and geospatial data have aided in addressing these challenges. We used SDMs to better understand large-scale distributional patterns of Bluntface Shiner (Cyprinella camura; BFS), a minnow facing declines across its range. We modeled the potential distribution of BFS based on natural, abiotic factors and existing occurrence records to identify landscape-scale factors underlying their distribution. We also compared environmental conditions between their disjunct ranges east and west of the Mississippi River and examined model transferability when projecting models into opposing ranges. Our analyses revealed a naturally fragmented distribution both east and west of the Mississippi River, but populations to the east of the Mississippi River occupy streams with broadscale environmental conditions that differ from those to the west. Models projected across the Mississippi River did not reflect the contemporary range of BFS, underscoring differences in occupied niches on either side of the biogeographic divide and emphasizing the need for caution when projecting SDMs to novel ranges. Our results provide a baseline to gauge range loss of BFS, highlight areas of high suitability for conservation, and identify locations where further sampling or research may be warranted.

The reintroduced Eastern Migratory Population (EMP) of Whooping Cranes (Grus americana) has exhibited appropriate breeding behavior, including pair formation, territory defense, nest building, and fertile egg production. However, recruitment has been lower than what is needed for a self-sustaining population due to high chick mortality. During 2006–2023, 194 chicks hatched in the EMP, with only 36 surviving to fledging. For the population to succeed without continued releases of captive-reared individuals, we must develop management strategies that increase recruitment to a level above mortality rates. We examined apparent weekly survival data of wild-hatched Whooping Crane chicks collected via aerial and ground surveys using radio telemetry from 2006 to 2023. In this study, we explored relationships between chick survival and a host of potentially impactful predictor variables including parental experience, parental life history, habitat, ecoregion, weather, and climate, as well as nest and clutch characteristics using Cox Proportional Hazard Regression Models. Our results indicate that a chick without a sibling has an increased probability of survival. Survival probability also increased with collective parental experience and warm days (> 32°C) during the first 4 weeks after hatch. Our data indicate that parental experience is a reliable predictor of recruitment. Adult survival may therefore be indirectly linked with low chick survival as experienced adults are too often lost from this population. Additionally, our results suggest that efforts to collect a single egg from two-egg nests may improve weekly survival of Whooping Crane chicks.

The utility and importance of whole-genome sequences are recognized across various fields, including evolution and conservation. However, for some taxa, like extinct species, using methods to generate contiguous genomes that rely on high-quality DNA is impossible. In such cases, an alternative may be to employ synteny-based methods using a genome from a closely related taxon to generate more complete genomes. Here we update the reference genome for the Pinta Island Galapagos giant tortoise (Chelonoidis abingdonii) without conducting additional sequencing through rescaffolding against the most closely related chromosome-level genome assembly, the Aldabra giant tortoise (Aldabrachelys gigantea). This effort resulted in a much more contiguous genome, CheloAbing_2.0, with an N50 that is two orders of magnitude longer and large reductions in L50 and the number of gaps. We then examined the impact of the CheloAbing_2.0 genome on estimates of runs of homozygosity (ROH) using genome resequencing data from 37 individual Galapagos giant tortoises from the 13 extant lineages to test the mechanisms by which a fragmented assembly may over- or underestimate the number and extent of ROH. The use of CheloAbing_2.0 resulted in individual estimates of inbreeding, including ROH proportion (F_ROH), number (N_ROH), and cumulative length (S_ROH), that were statistically different from those derived from the earlier genome assembly. This improved genome will serve as a resource for future efforts focusing on the ecology, evolution, and conservation of this species group. More broadly, our results highlight that synteny-based scaffolding is promising for generating contiguous genomes without needing additional data types.