Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
IN THE INTERTIDAL SNAIL NUCELLA LAPILLUS

The intertidal snail Nucella lapillus exhibits considerable variation in shell color both within and between populations differentially exposed to wave action. Populations from high- wave-energy shores tended to be highly polymorphic and were dominated by pigmented morphs (especially brown), while those at more sheltered locations exhibited less polymorphism and were predominantly white. Field and laboratory experiments were conducted to determine the role of physiological stress and selective predation in maintaining the observed distribution of color morphs. The results demonstrated that 1) physiological stress from high temperature and desiccation during periods of tidal emersion was greater on protected shores, 2) under similar natural conditions, brown morphs heated up faster, attained higher temperatures, desiccated more rapidly, and suffered greater mortality than did white morphs, and 3) when pairs of brown and white morphs were tethered intertidally there was virtually no mortality of either morph on the exposed shore or in shaded microhabitats on the protected shore, but brown morphs suffered much greater mortality in sunny microhabitats on the protected shore. These findings demonstrate that the interpopulation variation in shell color of N. lapillus is in part a response to a selective gradient in physiological stress. Selection for crypsis by visually hunting predators did not appear to play a prominent role; however, only adults were considered, and the predation experiments were conducted in the fall before shorebirds that prey on whelks had arrived from their summer feeding grounds. Further experimentation to quantify the effects of visual predators such as birds and fish, particularly on juvenile snails, is necessary to assess adequately the importance of predation.
Long-term effect of plastic film mulching and fertilization on bacterial communities in a brown soil revealed by high through-put sequencing

ABSTRACT The objective of this study was to access the effect of long-term fertilization and film mulching application on soil properties and bacterial community structure. We used 16S rRNA gene to investigate soil bacterial community composition by high through-put sequencing. The results demonstrated that predominant groups in the bacterial community were: Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Actinobacteria, Acidobacteria, Firmicutes, Planctomycetes, Gemmatimonadetes, Verrucomicrobia, Chloroflexi and Cyanobacteria. Long-term fertilization of combined manure and nitrogen application caused significant decrease in soil bacterial diversity and richness compared to non-fertilization control, though manure fertilization alone played a significant role in restoring bacterial diversity. Film mulching and manure fertilization significantly increased the relative abundances of soil bacterial groups mentioned above. Furthermore, film mulching played significant role in shaping the bacterial community structure regardless of fertilization. Redundancy analysis (RDA) showed that soil moisture content, pH, total N and soil organic C had significant (P < 0.05) influence on dominant bacterial groups. Altogether, plastic film mulching and manure application prevented loss of soil bacterial diversity and abundance during long-term fertilization. These findings showed the detrimental use of combined manure and nitrogen fertilization to soil microbes and the useful application of manure fertilization coupled with film mulching to soil biodiversity in long-term fertilization experiments.
Privet is a plague: You can help stop it

Spring 2004 H ave you noticed how privet appears to be exploding across the landscape? Privet is that rampant small-leaved shrub that stays green in winter and can be seen along many fencerows and forest edges, as well as invading interior forests. What at one time was considered the staple farm house shrub is now completely out of control. It has become a plague. In fact, it is spreading through our most precious forests — bottomland hardwoods and forest preserves. What was once considered beauty to grace our homes has turned against us to rapidly spread along roadsides and stream-sides to infiltrate our forests. Landowners and managers can either stand by and watch the takeover or start the process to battle this plant plague. To begin, we want to tell you how to identify the different species of privet that are invading our forests, and then explain how you can combat them. While a few flowering privet shrubs in spring was once a beautiful sight, thousands of plants have now become hideous and dominating. The dense stands prevent forest regeneration by displacing native trees and plants, and also deny management and recreational access. Recent surveys show that there is even more privet now in southern forests than kudzu. This explosive occupation by privet has been documented by a Natural Resources Conservation Service survey of privet shown in Figure 1. This figure shows the increasing invasion of only one species of privet — Chinese privet. Actually there are more than three different species that are causing us increasing problems. How to Identify Privets The most invasive non-native privet is Chinese privet (Ligustrum sinense) or what we often call “common privet. ” It was introduced into the United States from China in 1852. Like many introduced plants of that time, it was actually imported here from England after being transported there from China. Figure 1 shows how Chinese privet remained docile for about 100 years, occurring in only a few counties in the Southern US; then for some unexplained reason, it began to spread rapidly in the 1950’s and continues to do so today. Chinese privet is the smallest leaved privet (0.5 to1.5 inches long). It is termed semi-evergreen to evergreen, meaning it retains mostly green leaves during the winter. All privets have leaves that are opposite to one another along the branches. The other two species of privet that are increasingly invading our forests are truly evergreen, thick-leaved species, mainly glossy privet (Ligustrum lucidum) and Japanese privet (L. japonicum). Their leaves range from 2 to 6 inches long. As the name implies, Japanese privet came from Japan (through England), with introduction in about 1845, while glossy privet originated in China and was introduced way back in 1794. Only Japanese privet is still widely sold as an ornamental, while sales have stopped for the most part for Chinese and glossy privet because of their extremely invasive nature.
Evolution of the House Mouse: What can the Mus musculus musculus/M. m. domesticus hybrid zone tell us about speciation?

One of the crucial tasks in the study of speciation is to explain the genetic basis of reproductive barriers between diverged taxa. Despite the best endeavours of generations of evolutionary biologists since Darwin andWallace, our understanding of the genetics of speciation has lagged behind other fields of evolutionary biology. The reason may be simply that the greater the reproductive isolation, the less cross progeny we have to work with, butmore probably it is because the genetic factors involved are numerous, with complex interactions. Indeed, it appears that except for a few cases (Coyne and Orr, 2004) reproductive isolation arises in many small steps rather than a few strongly selected mutations, in agreement with theoretical predictions (Walsh, 1982; Barton and Charlesworth, 1984). Obviously, the more genes with small effect that are involved in reproductive isolation, the more difficult will be their identification, making traditional laboratory hybridization experiments and association studies challenging. It seems only common sense, therefore, to search for alternative approaches. One promising alternative is to study naturally occurring hybrid zones. The seeds for progress were sown by Barton and Hewitt (1985, 1989), who suggested the majority of hybrid zones were ‘tension zones’ (Box 14.1). While initially received with scepticism in some quarters, the tension zone paradigm now dominates the hybrid zone literature and is arguably the main justification for the view that hybrid zones are ‘natural laboratories’ (Hewitt, 1988) and ‘windows on evolutionary process’ (Harrison, 1990). The reason this paradigm is so important is that it unifies hybrid zone process over a diversity of species, geographic scales, and histories of contact into a single analytically tractable framework (Box 14.2) with intuitive, testable results and predictions that have been borne out repeatedly over the subsequent decades. Tension zones are measured relative to the scale of
Soil Organic Matter Content and Volumetric Water Content Affect Indaziflam–Soil Bioavailability

Indaziflam is a cellulose biosynthesis-inhibiting herbicide for annual weed control in various agricultural systems. Sporadic cases of unacceptable injury to desirable plants have been reported after indaziflam application, which may have been due to conditions favoring increased indaziflam–soil bioavailability. Research was conducted from 2013 to 2015 on a sandy soil to elucidate the effects of soil organic matter content (SOMC) and soil volumetric water content (SVWC) on indaziflam–soil bioavailability. Indaziflam was applied (50 or 100 g ha−1) at fall only, fall plus spring, and spring only timings to plots in a factorial arrangement of SOMC, pre–indaziflam application (PrIA) SVWC, and post–indaziflam application (PoIA) SVWC. After application, field soil cores were collected for a subsequent greenhouse bioassay experiment, where foliage mass reduction of perennial ryegrass seeded from 0 to 15 cm soil depth was used as an indicator of indaziflam–soil bioavailability throughout the profile. Significant edaphic effects were observed at 0 to 2.5, 2.5 to 5, and 5 to 7.5 cm depths, with increased bioavailability at low compared with high SOMC. Pre–indaziflam application SVWC did not affect bioavailability, whereas PoIA high SVWC increased indaziflam–soil bioavailability at 2.5 to 7.5 cm depth compared with PoIA low SVWC. Low SOMC–PoIA high SVWC decreased perennial ryegrass foliage mass 40 and 37% at 5 to 7.5 cm depth from cores collected 10 and 14 wk after treatment, respectively, whereas reductions from all other SOMC–PoIA SVWC combinations were < 12% and did not vary from each other. Pearson's correlation coefficients showed a moderate, positive relationship between perennial ryegrass mass reductions at 0 to 2.5, 2.5 to 5, 0 to 5, and 0 to 10 cm depths and hybrid bermudagrass cover reduction, which suggests conditions favoring increased indaziflam–soil bioavailability can adversely affect plant growth. Data from this research will aid land managers to use indaziflam effectively without adversely affecting growth of desirable species. Nomenclature: Indaziflam; hybrid bermudagrass, Cynodon dactylon (L.) Pers. × Cynodon transvaalensis Burtt–Davey; perennial ryegrass, Lolium perenne L.
Howlers and marmosets in Pacatuba: an overcrowded existence in a semi-deciduous Atlantic forest fragment?

Abstract The Atlantic forest of Brazil is extremely fragmented. This fragmentation has had a toll on the mammal’s assemblages. Although different species are not equally susceptible to fragmentation, populations of some species have become locally extinct. Primate populations in these fragments are in decline or have gone locally extinct. However, there is a dearth of information on density of primates in the highly fragmented Atlantic forest of NE Brazil. We conducted a series of censuses to record primates and other mammals in the Pacatuba semi deciduous forest (~267 ha). Most of the midsized and large mammals disappeared, even fragment-tolerant species such as sloths and coatis are missing in the area. Currently, marmosets (Callithrix jacchus Linnaeus, 1758) and red handed howlers (Alouatta belzebul Linnaeus, 1766) are the most abundant species. Howlers preferred areas with larger trees and marmosets were more common in edge habitat. Marmosets were the most abundant species (264 individual/km2). Howlers attained the highest densities recorded so far in the Atlantic forest (94.7 individual/km2), and the fragment is probably hyper abundant with howlers. The high availability of larger trees and fruit resources combined with the lack of natural predators, the reduced possibility of dispersal and the semi-deciduousness of the forest could explain these results.
Reproductive and molecular ecology of the European lobster : implications for conservation management

The European lobster (Homarus gammarus) is an ecologically important benthic decapod which supports fisheries that are critical to the economic prosperity of coastal communities. However, populations across its range are pressured by rising exploitation, from which management has failed to prevent stock collapses in the recent past. Fisheries management of the species is significantly hindered by deficiencies in our knowledge of fundamental characteristics of population biology, including the connectivity and genetic diversity of stocks. As a result, the effectiveness of strategies designed to conserve recruitment and ensure harvests are sustainable is poorly understood. This thesis focuses on elucidating aspects of reproductive and molecular ecology in H. gammarus which can be used to inform and appraise conservation management initiatives, currently applied via both the regulation of capture and the wild release of hatchery-reared juveniles. The size-specific fecundity of reproducing females was defined around southwestern UK, and spatial variation in clutch size between populations was linked to a longitudinal gradient in oceanic temperature range across Northern Europe. The reconstruction of paternal genotypes show that single males fertilise individual clutches, which hints at demographic stability within a productive Atlantic fishery. Population genetic structure, investigated at a fine spatial scale in the same region, evidenced high connectivity and suggests that the localised interventions of an active hatchery do not lead to juveniles being released beyond areas they might naturally recruit via planktonic dispersal. However, genetic differentiation and isolation-by-distance at a broad geographic scale indicate that direct gene flow between remote populations is limited, so that (i) a failure to maintain spawning stock biomass may negatively affect local recruitment, (ii) the utilisation of non-resident broodstock for hatchery stocking may cause a loss of adaptive potential, and (iii) the recovery of depleted stocks is likely to be problematic. Finally, simulations indicated that genetic parentage assignment will prove accurate in distinguishing cultured individuals from natural stock among admixed populations in the wild, an important development that should facilitate the optimisation of hatchery stocking and lead to rigorous assessments of the conservation value of releasing lobsters reared in captivity.
Wood-inhabiting fungi with tight associations with other species have declined as a response to forest management

N. Abrego (nerea.abrego@ntnu.no) and P. Halme, Dept of Biological and Environmental Science, Univ. of Jyväskylä, Finland. PH also at: Natural History Museum, Univ. of Jyväskylä, Finland. – I. Salcedo and NA, Plant Biology and Ecology (Botany), Fac. of Science and Technology, Univ. of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Bilbao, Spain. – O. Ovaskainen, Dept of Biosciences, Univ. of Helsinki, Finland. OO and present address for NA: Centre for Biodiversity Dynamics, Dept of Biology, Norwegian Univ. of Science and Technology, NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway. – D. Dunson, Dept of Statistical Science, Duke University, Durham, USA.
Remediation of a major acid mine drainage point source discharge restores headwater connectivity for a diadromous native fish

ABSTRACT Rivers receiving acid mine drainage (AMD) are frequently depauperate in fish and impacts may extend long distances downstream. AMD inputs may form chemical barriers for migratory species and isolate fish in unimpacted headwaters. We investigated the response of a diadromous fish, kōaro (Galaxias brevipinnis), to remediation of an AMD tributary in a 5th order river in New Zealand. A 2005 survey indicated limited recruitment of kōaro in the river likely due to the chemical barrier of AMD. By 2010, water treatment in the contaminated tributary had raised pH from a median value of 4.3 to 6 and reduced metals in the lower river, notably aluminium from a median of 2.48 to 0.41 mg/L. In 2012, kōaro density had increased by an order of magnitude relative to 2005. Furthermore, a greater proportion of juvenile fish were present. These results indicate that large-scale remediation of discharges can reverse the impacts of AMD on fish migration.
Life history and life tables of Rhizoglyphus robini Claparède (Acari: Astigmata: Acaridae)

R.r. est eleve au laboratoire sur trois regimes alimentaires et sous quatre regimes de temperature. On discute de l'effet combine de differents facteurs modifies par la nutrition, tels que la survie, la taille du corps et la fecondite sur les changements dans les populations d'acariens
INTERVESSEL PIT MEMBRANE THICKNESS AS A KEY DETERMINANT OF EMBOLISM RESISTANCE IN ANGIOSPERM XYLEM

Pit membranes in bordered pits between neighbouring vessels play a major role in the entry of air-water menisci from an embolised vessel into a water-filled vessel (i.e., air-seeding). Here, we investigate intervessel pit membrane thickness (TPM) and embolism resistance (P50, i.e., the water potential corresponding to 50% loss of hydraulic conductivity) across a broad range of woody angiosperm species. Data on TPM and double intervessel wall thickness (TVW) were compiled based on electron and light microscopy. Fresh material that was directly fixated for transmission electron microscopy (TEM) was investigated for 71 species, while non-fresh samples were frozen, stored in alcohol, or air dried prior to TEM preparation for an additional 60 species. TPM and P50 were based on novel observations and literature. A strong correlation between TPM and P50 was found for measurements based on freshly fixated material (r = 0.78, P >0.01, n = 37), and between TPM and TVW (r = 0.79, P >0.01, n = 59), while a slightly weaker relationship occurred between TVW and P50 (r = 0.40, P >0.01, n = 34). However, non-fresh samples showed no correlation between TPM and P50, and between TPM and TVW. Intervessel pit membranes in non-fresh samples were c.28% thinner and more electron dense than fresh samples. Our findings demonstrate that TPM measured on freshly fixated material provides one of the strongest wood anatomical correlates of droughtinduced embolism resistance in angiosperms. Assuming that cellulose microfibrils show an equal spatial density, TPM is suggested to affect the length and the shape of intervessel pit membrane pores, but not the actual pore size. Moreover, the shrinking effect observed for TPM after dehydration and frost is associated with an increase in microfibril density and porosity, which may provide a functional explanation for embolism fatigue.
Differential demographic responses of two sympatric turtle species to anthropogenic disturbance

Species extinction is a major crisis facing the biological world today. Conservation biologists are striving to determine what factors contribute to species declines. Many of these factors are anthropogenic, with issues such as climate change, invasive species, pollution, and habitat alteration and destruction concurrently affecting populations. Turtles have proven to be particularly vulnerable; among the vertebrate taxa, turtles are the most endangered. These studies seek to determine the effects of anthropogenic habitat alteration on two sympatric species of turtles: the painted turtle (Chrysemys picta) and the ornate box turtle (Terrapene ornata) using fecundity, survival estimates, and/or capture-mark-recapture data from long-term research sites. The first study examines how fecundity and survival rates vary across age classes for a riverine, anthropogenically-affected population of C. picta compared to previously studied smaller, more remote systems. The second study examines how different amounts of human development affect survivorship of adult T. ornata. According to the results of the first study, C. picta appear to be resilient across age classes to the effects of human presence. This was somewhat surprising, given observations of road mortality and injuries to adult turtles, as well as increased amount of disturbance while turtles were nesting. Juvenile survivorship was very low, though this could be due to methodological issues or biological causes. More research into juvenile survivorship is needed. The second study found that the survivorship of adult female T. ornata decreased in a developed area compared to a refuge site. This implies that construction of cottages and the management of vegetation associated with development was a deleterious effect on survivorship. However, the same pattern was not seen with the construction of a bike path through the refuge
Evaluation of some industrially important enzymes in filamentous cyanobacteria.

ABSTRACT Preliminary studies involving nine filamentous cyanobacterial isolates for the screening for amylase, protease, beta lactamae and phosphatase enzymes were carried out. Best growth was observed in C. membranacea. O. proboscidea showed a complete absence of amylase activity in the external medium, extracellular (EC) activity, and P. boryanum showed the highest amount of EC enzyme activity on the 8 day amongst non-heterocystous forms. In P. boryanum, the amylase intracellular (IC) activity was present consistently throughout the period of study with a gradual increase from zero day (day of inoculation) up to the 20 day. Amongst the heterocystous forms, A. variabilis showed the highest amylase EC and IC activities. All the non-heterocystous forms showed highest protease EC activity on the 16 day except O. proboscidea, which registered detectable protease EC activity only on the 16 and 20 day. The heterocystous forms, N. paludosum and W. iyengarii showed a consistent presence of the protease EC activity throughout the study period. N. paludosum and W. iyengarii had a sharp increase of protease IC activity on the 4 day, which incidentally was the highest activity. Beta-lactamase EC activity observed in L. spiralis on day 4 was the highest amongst the non-heterocystous forms. In A. variabilis and C. membranacea, the beta-lactamase EC activity was the highest on day 4 compared with other heterocystous forms. The EC activity of acid phosphatase enzyme in the non-heterocystous forms, P. minnesotensis and P. boryanum, showed a decrease as the growth increased, reaching negligible levels on the 20 day. In the heterocystous forms, both the acid phosphatase EC and IC activities were absent up to a period of 8 days. In the case of alkaline phosphatase IC activities, a gradual decrease in the enzyme content from the first interval is observed in almost all the forms. W. iyengarii showed higher EC activity compared with other heterocystous forms but the maximum IC activity was observed in A. variabilis.