Royal Society Open Science最新文献

Science relies on integrity and trustworthiness. But scientists under career pressure are lured to purchase fake publications from 'paper mills' that use AI-generated data, text and image fabrication. The number of low-quality or fraudulent publications is rising to hundreds of thousands per year, which-if unchecked-will damage the scientific and economic progress of our societies. The result is editor and reviewer fatigue, irreproducible experiments, misguided experiments, disinformation and escalating costs that devour funding from taxpayers intended for research. It is high time to reevaluate current publishing models and outline a global plan to stop this unhealthy development. A conference was therefore organized by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to draft an action plan with specific recommendations, as follows. (i) Academia should resume control of publishing using non-profit publishing models (e.g. diamond open-access). (ii) Adjust incentive systems to merit quality, not quantity, in a reputation economy where the gaming of publication numbers and citation metrics distorts the perception of academic excellence. (iii) Implement mechanisms to prevent and detect fake publications and fraud which are independent of publishers. (iv) Draft and implement legislations, regulations and policies to increase publishing quality and integrity. This is a call to action for universities, academies, science organizations and funders to unite and join this effort.

Multiverse analysis is increasingly recognized as a systematic framework for assessing the robustness of scientific results across alternative defensible data processing and analysis pipelines. However, defining the multiverse, by identifying defensible combinations of options across multiple nodes in the analysis workflow, remains a cognitively and logistically demanding and complex task. Consequently, documentation of how multiverse analyses are constructed and the rationale behind decisions made is often incomplete, which risks the transparency and interpretability of robustness claims. The Systematic Multiverse Analysis Registration Tool (SMART) addresses this gap. SMART guides users from diverse scientific disciplines through the construction of multiverse analyses via a transparent, stepwise workflow. It guides the users through all defensibility and equivalence decisions and documents each decision made. This supports the creation of complete multiverses within user-defined criteria, with visual and numerical feedback to highlight potential errors along the procedure. The exportable documentation can be used for preregistration or included as supplementary material alongside the published manuscript to report uncertainty at the level of multiverse construction. By increasing the transparency, reproducibility and rigour in multiverse construction, and bringing cohesion to this procedure across multiverse analyses, SMART facilitates more interpretable robustness assessments and contributes to the broader goals of open and reproducible science.

Courtship displays indicate individual quality and can direct mate choice. Cooperative displays are particularly interesting because the choice can be complex, involving the evaluation of multiple individuals' coordination. Here, we characterize the consistency of the cooperative display of the swallow-tailed manakin (Chiroxiphia caudata), in which males aggregate in courtship groups of up to six individuals. We generated a time series of a set of displays and calculated its temporal frequency, number of males and consistency. We applied the recurrence quantification analysis to characterize consistency in terms of two metrics that describe the overall pattern-recurrence rate and determinism-and one metric that detects subtle changes on the display-microstate entropy. We assumed that consistency increases as the first two measures increase and the latter decreases. Our results revealed that microstate entropy was the only metric sensitive to group size, suggesting that males reduce individual energy expenditure through cooperative displays. Despite the dance's overall stability across group sizes, females preferentially visited and copulated with males performing highly consistent displays (higher recurrence rate, lower microstate entropy). This demonstrates that fine-scale temporal precision-rather than display frequency or group size-drives female choice, implicating consistency as a target of sexual selection in swallow-tailed manakins.

Sponges have thrived in diverse environmental conditions since the early Cambrian until today. However, little is known about how their adaptive capability and strategies have been shaped throughout evolutionary history. Here, we explore this question based on a new leptomitid sponge fossil from the Cambrian Stage 4. The family Leptomitidae was an abundant sponge group inhabiting Cambrian soft substrates but significantly declined thereafter. The new species exhibits a sophisticated set of morphological characteristics adaptive to a shallow siliciclastic environment, which are unprecedented among leptomitids. These include (i) a robust body wall woven by spirally twisted monaxonic spicules; (ii) a thick stub-like root tuft for anchoring; (iii) spicules radiating out from the sponge body to prevent clogging and sinking; and (iv) the inferred capability to close the osculum against unfavourable stimuli. Nevertheless, the new fossil species maintains a leptomitid body plan and lacks modularity and morphological plasticity, the two common and critical attributes in extant sponges to enhance flexibility and resilience in changing environmental conditions. This juxtaposition of evolutionary innovation and structural conservatism offers a compelling case for further exploration of the evolutionary mechanisms that shaped early sponge lineages.

Eye movements generate a perceptual challenge, that of distinguishing self-induced sensations from movement in the world. We ask about the mechanisms involved in suppressing eye movements towards self-induced sensation, ensuring visual stability. When tracking with the eyes an object moving against a textured background, the background retinal image moves in the opposite direction to the smooth pursuit eye movement. Optokinetic responses, such as optokinetic nystagmus or ocular tracking to this reafferent signal, must be suppressed to sustain the pursuit of the object of interest. We varied the contrast of a brief background motion signal to tell apart two plausible accounts of the suppression of optokinesis during pursuit; a visuomotor gain modulation account, which predicts that ocular tracking of background motion is suppressed in the same proportion irrespective of contrast, and a sensory attenuation account, which predicts that larger contrasts are needed to elicit the same response. Unexpectedly, neither account fit ocular tracking in the reafferent signal direction. The combination of contrast-dependent gating, with maximal suppression observed with higher contrasts, and either contrast gain or visuomotor gain modulation, provides a good fit for most observers' data. Contrast-dependent gating promotes visuomotor stability in response to most salient signals, as a likely adaptation to the statistics of the environment.

Regular self-organized spatial patterns can be observed in many ecological systems. Some such patterns are quasi-stable; that is, they can switch to a different spatial pattern on a relatively short time scale in the absence of external changes in environmental conditions, aside from minor stochastic events. They are referred to as long transients. Although long transients have been studied mathematically, the detailed mechanisms by which a pattern can suddenly switch in nature are not well understood. Here we study, through spatial simulation of spatial patterns of an empirically based model, a type of intransitive loop plane travelling wave, which can switch to different spatial patterns through minor events. Close study of the simulations allows the causal chains involved in the switch to be determined in precise ecological detail by focusing on local interactions. In particular, this indicates that in real ecological systems, even though they may be resilient over long time periods, there can be vulnerabilities. These vulnerabilities include time lags in some interactions, which even small perturbations can eventually expose, leading to instabilities changing the spatial pattern. We show that patterns from intransitive loops are especially susceptible to such instabilities. The results are applicable to ecological systems of interest.

Biofouling on netting poses a significant challenge, as it can considerably increase the weight of the nets and shorten their service lifespan. This study investigates the properties of polyethylene-grafted poly(hexamethylene guanidine) (PE-g-PHMG) modified ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) monofilaments. The results show that the addition of PE-g-PHMG decreases the degree of crystallinity, average lattice spacing and crystallite size of the blend monofilaments, leading to relatively low rigidity and high toughness. The incorporation of PE-g-PHMG enhances both the knot strength (increased by 17.9%) and the overall antibacterial performance (efficacy rates of 99.4% and 97.2% against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus) of the blend monofilaments. Furthermore, blend monofilaments (UHMWPE-20%) after washing 30 times exhibit high efficacy rates against E. coli and S. aureus. This article provides a method for preparing fishing grade polyethylene monofilaments that effectively combines favourable characteristics, including enhanced knot strength and good antibacterial properties.

As the world's population and industrial sector rapidly expand, the demand for energy is rising. Solar cells can address both global energy and environmental needs. With the aim to enhance dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) efficiency, we designed four metal-free biphenylamine- and triphenylamine-based dyes (RK2-RK5) based on the reference dye RK1, increasing the donor strength (substituting different groups such as biphenylamine and triphenylamine into the donor side of the dye) as such dyes improved DSSC power conversion efficiency. Density functional theory (DFT) was applied at the B3LYP/6-31G** level to calculate the ground-state (S₀) optimized geometries of RK1-RK5. Time-dependent DFT was used to compute the absorption spectra, utilizing four functionals (B3LYP, CAM-B3LYP, PBE1PBE and BHandHLYP), in the gas phase and in solvents such as dichloromethane and ethanol. Comprehensive analysis of RK1-RK5 as well as dyes@TiO₂ was performed, and light was shed on the optoelectronic properties. Frontier molecular orbitals' charge density distribution revealed the sensitizers' intramolecular charge transfer from the donor to the acceptor unit. After adsorption of the dyes on TiO₂, charge transfer was seen from sensitizer to the TiO₂ semiconductor's surface in dyes@TiO₂. Adsorption of the dyes on the TiO₂ cluster would be stable, as revealed by the dyes@TiO₂ cluster's negative binding energy. Additionally, it was found that the presence of two donor groups raises the electronic coupling and electron injection constants in RK4 and RK5, indicating that the charge injection in these newly designed dyes would be superior. As a result, the DSSC efficiency in the newly designed derivatives has been improved to 8.05% for RK5 by substituting the triphenylamine unit at the R1 and R2 positions in the parent compound. These well established correlations between structure-property relationships and performance provide profound insight into how improving the donor moiety strength in organic sensitizers affects device performance. It boosted photovoltaic performance through enhanced short-circuit current density and light-harvesting efficiency. For high efficiency in DSSCs, this can provide a useful rational molecular design strategy for D-π-A organic sensitizers.

Open science (OS) practices-such as data sharing, study preregistration and transparent methods-aim to increase transparency of research. While OS practices are gaining popularity-particularly through bottom-up initiatives-their adoption rate among early career researchers remains unclear. To investigate this, we analysed dissertations from two German-speaking psychology departments with varying degree of OS implementation from 2018 to 2022. We manually coded n = 379 studies from k = 91 theses and surveyed former PhD students about perceived norms, attitudes and perceived behavioural control regarding OS practices. Our findings revealed a modest increase of OS over time but no significant difference between departments with more or less-established OS practices. Additionally, attitudes and perceived control appeared to affect OS use more than perceived norms of PhD students' surroundings. As more than a decade has passed since the replication crisis emerged, this highlights a need to intensify measures at universities to implement OS.

Coral reefs are experiencing global decline, and their recovery relies heavily on asexual reproduction through fragmentation, the success of which hinges on self-sustaining attachment to the reef substrate. However, despite decades of research into coral biology, we still lack a comprehensive understanding of the attachment process and how to optimize efforts exploiting it. We recently proposed a model explaining the attachment process in Acropora millepora (Lewis BM, Suggett DS, Prentis PJ, Nothdurft LD. 2022 Cellular adaptations leading to coral fragment attachment on artificial substrates in Acropora millepora (Am-CAM). Sci. Rep. 12, 18431. (doi:10.1038/s41598-022-23134-8)). To determine if the model is conserved across coral species, we employed cutting-edge integrated optical and electron microscopy techniques to observe attachment development in two key reef-forming coral genera, including Montipora mollis and Pocillopora verrucosa, comparing them with the previous model, A. millepora. Although developmental steps were broadly conserved, we identified taxonomically distinct variations in immune responses, behaviour, tissue development and skeletal microstructure. These differences explain why certain coral species, like M. mollis and A. millepora, can exhibit faster and stronger attachment compared with P. verrucosa. These findings provide critical diagnostics for asexual success and offer actionable insights into coral fundamental biology and for enhancing reef restoration efforts.