Hasil untuk "Natural history (General)"

Jun Liang, Jun Liang, Yongdong Zhou et al.

IntroductionLike pelagic fishes, cephalopods represent fishery resources with high worldwide potential and an important evolutionary node animal group. Thus, exploring the spatial and seasonal variations in cephalopod distribution and their associations with environmental factors is important for elucidating cephalopod diversity and the distribution of cephalopods under changing environmental conditions and for developing reasonable resource management and conservation measures.MethodsOn the basis of trawl survey data from 123 stations in the coastal waters of Zhejiang, China, in the spring and autumn of 2021, the relationships among the cephalopod species composition and diversity characteristics and the spatial and seasonal changes and environmental factors were investigated via the relative importance index (IRI), the alpha diversity index, and the GAM.ResultsThe results revealed that the cephalopods in the coastal waters of Zhejiang belonged to three orders, six families, and 10 genera and that the dominant species were gradually replaced by species of minor economic importance and endemic small-scale fishery species. In spring, Uroteuthis duvaucelii was the dominant species, the resource density in the southern coastal waters of Zhejiang was relatively high, and the overall distribution increased from northeast to southwest. In autumn, U. duvaucelii and Abralia multihamata were the dominant species, and the coastal waters of Zhejiang presented two high-density distribution areas in the northern and central waters, with lower resource density in the southern waters. Analysis of the alpha diversity index revealed relatively low cephalopod community diversity, with significant differences in spatial and seasonal distributions. The GAM revealed that, in spring, surface dissolved oxygen and sea bottom temperature led to significant changes in cephalopod resource density (p<0.05), and water depth significantly affected cephalopod resource density (p<0.01); in autumn, only water depth significantly affected cephalopod resource density (p<0.01).DiscussionThe cephalopod resources in the coastal waters of Zhejiang are under the dual stresses of fishing and environmental changes. The protection and restoration of traditional economic cephalopod resources are needed to ensure their sustainable development and utilization.

Sophie L. Loca, Amy Garbett, Jonathan D. R. Houghton et al.

Abstract Elasmobranchs, specifically skate species (superorder Batoidea), are at risk of extinction, with over one‐third currently listed as Endangered, exacerbated due to their k‐selected life strategy. A regional conservation approach is required to support the collection of rigorous, species‐specific data alongside collaborative efforts across sectors and jurisdictions. Skate species that extend beyond jurisdictional boundaries encounter additional complexities from divergent national legal frameworks, monitoring requirements, and conservation priorities, resulting in inconsistent data collection. Here we present an innovative research “toolbox,” initially devised for the Critically Endangered flapper skate (Dipturus intermedius) in the North‐East Atlantic, but applicable to most demersal elasmobranchs. This toolbox offers a systematic approach (Why, What, Who, Where, and When?) to obtain critical information for the conservation of elasmobranchs, with a focus on standardization and cross‐border collaboration. Recent advancements in understanding flapper skate ecology highlight the potential for regional conservation initiatives, emphasizing the importance of coordinated actions, and serve as an illustrative example within the context of the “toolbox.”

Yuriy Kvach, Carol A. Stepien, Galyna G. Minicheva et al.

Abstract Background The effects of war on biodiversity, habitats, ecosystem services, and water, seafood, and fishing resources are complex and long-lasting, yet their ongoing environmental analyses are limited. The Russia–Ukraine War (2022–present) comprises a unique ecological situation to examine biodiversity effects on the distinctive cold-temperate northern Black Sea ecosystem, which has an intriguing biogeographic history and high endemism resulting from geographic isolation and differentiation. Results We summarize negative and positive effects from the War on the aquatic (marine, estuarine, and freshwater) biota and their habitats, focusing on investigations by the Institute of Marine Biology, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. Negative effects include toxins and habitat damage from oil spills, shelling, mining, explosions, flooding, and fires; along with disregard of Protected Areas. Positive effects are reduced anthropogenic loads from less shipping, fishing, trawling, recreation, hydraulic engineering, construction, and tourism. The Kakhovka Dam’s destruction on June 6, 2023 was the greatest ecological catastrophe to date, causing extensive downstream flooding with freshwaters and pollutants that destroyed many populations and habitats. We discern that many effects have been temporary, with habitats and species replenishing, and some reverting to their historical biota characteristic of lower salinity regimes. However, significant habitat destruction, disturbances, and pollutant damages remain. Since many of the native species evolved in conditions favoring broad salinity, temperature, and oxygen tolerances, the northern Black Sea ecosystem appears pre-adapted for ecological recovery and persistence, which may equate to ecological resilience during and after the War. Conclusions The native biota exhibits long-term adaptiveness to marked salinity and temperature fluctuations, alongside a background of invasive species. An evolutionary and recent history of broad environmental tolerances by a large proportion of Black Sea species may enhance their ability to withstand marked environmental changes, including habitat destruction, as during the Kakhovka Dam's breakage and other stressors that continue during the Russia–Ukraine War. The Black Sea community’s overall ecological resilience is likely to facilitate persistence and adaptation to the War’s effects and the accelerating impacts of climate change, increased global transportation, and invasive species—meriting worldwide conservation agency focus and cooperation.

Yosuke Mikami, Daiki Matsuoka, Hitomi Yanaka

Natural Language Inference (NLI) involving comparatives is challenging because it requires understanding quantities and comparative relations expressed by sentences. While some approaches leverage Large Language Models (LLMs), we focus on logic-based approaches grounded in compositional semantics, which are promising for robust handling of numerical and logical expressions. Previous studies along these lines have proposed logical inference systems for English comparatives. However, it has been pointed out that there are several morphological and semantic differences between Japanese and English comparatives. These differences make it difficult to apply such systems directly to Japanese comparatives. To address this gap, this study proposes ccg-jcomp, a logical inference system for Japanese comparatives based on compositional semantics. We evaluate the proposed system on a Japanese NLI dataset containing comparative expressions. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our system by comparing its accuracy with that of existing LLMs.

Chao Liu, Chao Liu, Lin Zhang et al.

There is much controversy surrounding factors that affect the distribution of mangrove plants across the intertidal gradient. It was previously hypothesized that mangrove zonation was attributed to tidal sorting (TSH) of its propagules according to size (weight) or differential ability of propagules to establish in deep water. However, observational and experimental evidence have provided little support for the actual mechanism(s) of mangrove zonation. In general, species distribution pattern is the consequence of propagule dispersal. The specific gravity of water-borne mangrove propagules may affect their buoyancy, with inherent links to dispersal, thereby potentially influencing tree zonation. Propagule specific gravity can influence the distribution of mangroves in the context of global change, particularly in response to changes in seawater salinity. In this study, we measured the specific gravity and weight of 35 mangrove species propagules. There was no correlation between the weight of the propagule and its specific gravity. The specific gravity of propagules of true mangrove species was significantly greater than that of semi-mangrove. The results of the correlation between propagule specific gravity and the relative surface elevation of field distribution support the hypothesis that propagules are subject to tidal sorting and are not related to weight but to specific gravity. This newfound understanding of mangrove dispersal and distribution is critical in the context of mangrove protection and restoration, especially in projecting the effects of anthropogenic activities and global change on mangrove communities.

Yibo Hu, Yibo Hu, Yibo Hu et al.

The Yellow Sea is a strongly tidally-driven and highly stratified shallow sea due to the presence of the Yellow Sea Cold Water Masses. Observations show that the near-inertial event sustains for 10 days with a peak near-inertial velocity of 0.15m/s, which accounts for 30% of the total velocity during the passage of a cyclone. Near-inertial velocity is dominated by the first baroclinic mode with one zero-crossing at the depth of the maximum stratification and two velocity peaks in the mixed layer and below the thermocline, respectively. Combined with numerical simulation analysis, it was found that the two velocity peaks are controlled by stratification and tides. In the mixed layer, the near-inertial peak is induced by wind stress, but the strong stratification constrains the downward propagation of the near-inertial energy. With respect to the near-inertial peak below the thermocline, it is associated with a barotropic wave generated at the coast and propagating offshore. However, the near-inertial flow within the bottom layer is reduced by the eddy viscosity of the tidal currents. Within the thermocline, the pronounced vertical convection due to velocity shear weakens the intensity of the near-inertial flow.

Cludio Oddino, Francisco Giordano, Juan Paredes et al.

Las enfermedades son el principal problema sanitario del maní (Arachis hypogaea L.), siendo viruela (Cercospora arachidicola Hori y Cercosporidium personatum (Berck. & Curt Deighton)) la más importante del mundo, y la que mayores pérdidas produce en nuestra región. Su manejo es a través del control químico, siendo importante evaluar los nuevos fungicidas que se registran en el cultivo. El objetivo de este estudio fue evaluar el efecto de nuevos fungicidas sobre la intensidad de viruela y el rendimiento de maní. El estudio se realizó en 2015/16 y 2016/17, en General Cabrera y Vicuña Mackenna, Córdoba. Se probaron los tratamientos: T1) Pyraclostrobin(13,3%)+epoxiconazole(5%)(750cc/ha), T2) Trifloxistrobin(18,75%)+prothioconazole(17,5%)(700cc/ha), T3) Azoxistrobina (20%)+difenoconazole(12,5%) (500cc/ha), T4) Difenoconazole(25%)(400cc/ha), T5) Clorotalonil(72%)(1400cc/ha), T6) Fluxapyroxad(5%)+epoxyconazole(5%) + pyraclostrobin(8,1%)(1200cc/ha), T7) Penthiopirad(10%)+picoxystrobin(10%) (800cc/ha), T8) Benzovindiflupyr(15%)+azoxistrobina(30%)(200grs/ha) y T9) Testigo sin fungicida. La evaluación de viruela se realizó cada 15 días desde la primera aplicación considerando su incidencia (% de folíolos afectados) y severidad total (% de área foliar perdida). La producción se evaluó en 2 m2 de cada parcela, determinándose el rendimiento en vainas, granos y granos tamaño confitería. La comparación entre tratamientos se realizó a través de un modelo lineal mixto y test de comparación de medias DGC (p<0,05). En ambas campañas y localidades, se observó que los nuevos fungicidas a base de carboxamidas y clorotalonil presentan un mejor control de viruela y respuesta en el rendimiento de maní respecto a las mezclas de estrobilurinas + triazoles utilizadas en la última década; siendo estos, una alternativa importante para un control correcto de la enfermedad.

Martin Lopez-Corredoira

Since the beginning of the 20th century, a continuous evolution and perfection of what we today call the standard cosmological model has been produced, although some authors like to distinguish separate periods within this evolution. A possible historical division of the development of cosmology into six periods is: (1) the initial period (1917-1927); (2) the period of development (1927-1945); (3) the period of consolidation (1945-1965); (4) the period of acceptance (1965-1980); (5) the period of enlargement (1980-1998); and (6) the period of high-precision experimental cosmology (1998-now). The last period started with a epistemological optimism that has declined with time, and the expression "crisis in cosmology" is now stubbornly reverberating in the media. The initial expectation of removing the pending minor problems arising from the increased accuracy of measurements has backfired: the higher the precision with which the standard model tries to fit the data, the greater the number of tensions that arise, the problems proliferating rather than diminishing.

Izunna Okpala, Guillermo Romera Rodriguez, Andrea Tapia et al.

This study aims to demonstrate the methods for detecting negations in a sentence by uniquely evaluating the lexical structure of the text via word-sense disambiguation. The proposed framework examines all the unique features in the various expressions within a text to resolve the contextual usage of all tokens and decipher the effect of negation on sentiment analysis. The application of popular expression detectors skips this important step, thereby neglecting the root words caught in the web of negation and making text classification difficult for machine learning and sentiment analysis. This study adopts the Natural Language Processing (NLP) approach to discover and antonimize words that were negated for better accuracy in text classification using a knowledge base provided by an NLP library called WordHoard. Early results show that our initial analysis improved on traditional sentiment analysis, which sometimes neglects negations or assigns an inverse polarity score. The SentiWordNet analyzer was improved by 35%, the Vader analyzer by 20% and the TextBlob by 6%.

Dimitrios Psaltis

The Kerr-Newman metric is the unique vacuum solution of the General Relativistic field equations, in which any singularities or spacetime pathologies are hidden behind horizons. They are believed to describe the spacetimes of massive astrophysical objects with no surfaces, which we call black holes. This spacetime, which is defined entirely by the mass, spin, and charge of the black hole, gives rise to a variety of phenomena in the motion of particles and photons outside the horizons that have no Newtonian counterparts. Moreover, the Kerr-Newman spacetime remains remarkably resilient to many attempts in modifying the underlying theory of gravity. The monitoring of stellar orbits around supermassive black holes, the detection of gravitational waves from the coalescence of stellar-mass black holes, and the observation of black-hole shadows in images with horizon-scale resolution, all of which have become possible during the last decade, are offering valuable tools in testing quantitatively the predictions of this remarkable solution to Einstein's equations.

Nina J. O’Hanlon, Nina J. O’Hanlon, Nina J. O’Hanlon et al.

Understanding both the distribution and habitat use of populations through the annual cycle is vital to understanding how vulnerable species are to environmental change. However, distributions and habitat use can vary among individuals and populations, particularly in generalist species, with variation depending on external environmental factors, such as resource availability. Comprehensive information across multiple populations is important to guide spatial planning of protected areas and is increasingly available for breeding individuals, but it is still lacking for many species, particularly seabirds, during the non-breeding season, especially those with declining populations. We investigated within-species variation in migratory strategies, non-breeding habitat selection and habitat and spatial specialisation in a declining, opportunistic, generalist seabird, the European herring gull Larus argentatus, from multiple breeding colonies across northwest England and southwest Scotland using global positioning system (GPS) tracking during the non-breeding season of 2014/15. Although several individuals stayed within the area of the breeding colony, the majority of individuals migrated in a southerly direction and spent half of the annual cycle (on average 53%) away from the breeding area and kept moving through the non-breeding period. During non-breeding, herring gulls selected mainly marine intertidal, but also a range of anthropogenic terrestrial habitats. However, habitat selection differed between geographical regions, within a geographical region and among individuals. There was a generalist use of non-breeding habitats at the population level, but some habitat specialisation at the individual level that was repeatable through the non-breeding period despite individuals showing low spatial specialisation. The results highlight the importance of intertidal habitat and a mix of alternative foraging habitats in the wintering areas of herring gulls. The results also highlight that habitat selection in an opportunistic generalist can vary even between nearby regions and that appropriate conservation management plans may need to be tailored to regional differences in specific non-breeding areas.

Nubia C.S. Marques, Ricardo B. Machado, Ludmilla M.S. Aguiar et al.

Protected areas (PAs) are a widely recognized tool for biodiversity and ecosystem conservation. However, megadiverse countries struggle to manage, maintain, and expand PAs as they face mounting human pressures. The Brazilian Cerrado biome (a biodiversity hotspot) is experiencing increasing land-use changes paired with a loss of natural vegetation, and only 3.2% of its land area is under strict protections. The Brazilian Long-Term Ecological Research Program (LTER) was created in 1997 to monitor long-term changes in protected and non-protected areas in Brazilian biomes. The Environmental Protected Area of the Gama and Cabeça de Veado (AGCV) watersheds in Central Brazil's core distribution of the Cerrado (Brasília, Federal District), was one of the first sites to participate in the Brazilian LTER. The main goal of the AGCV-LTER site is to monitor long-term changes and ecological processes in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems in PAs that are surrounded by landscapes facing extreme ecosystem shifts. Over 22 years, we investigated the effects of drivers such as fire, noise and light pollution, eutrophication, and biological invasions on aquatic (invertebrates and water quality) and terrestrial ecosystems (vegetation, vertebrates, and invertebrates). The results indicate that even within a PA, changes in the surrounding landscape affects biodiversity and ecosystem functions, revealing the essential nature of continuous monitoring for biodiversity conservation.

Francois Besnier, Fernando Ayllon, Øystein Skaala et al.

Abstract The release of domesticated conspecifics into the natural environment, whether deliberate or accidental, has the potential to alter the genetic integrity and evolutionary trajectory of wild populations. This widespread challenge is of particular concern for wild Atlantic salmon. By investigating phenotypic differences between the offspring of domesticated, hybrid, and wild Atlantic salmon released into the natural environment, earlier studies have documented the short‐term consequences of introgression from domesticated fish into wild salmon populations. However, few studies have investigated the joined product of introgression and natural selection after several generations. Here, we investigated the phenotypic response of an Atlantic salmon population that has been subjected to an average of 24% genetic admixture by domesticated conspecifics escaping from fish farms over three decades (approximately 6–7 generations). Individual levels of admixture were positively correlated with increased size at the smolt and adult stages for both sexes, a decrease in the age of male smolts, and a decrease in the age at maturity for males. These life history changes are presumably the consequence of the well‐documented directional selection for increased growth in domesticated salmon and are likely maladaptive. However, the most novel result of this study is that admixture was positively linked with delayed date of return to the river, with highly admixed fish arriving up to 26 days later than nonadmixed fish. Potentially, this phenological change provides admixed individuals with a survival advantage in the later phase of the life cycle as it reduces their period of exposure to selection through rod and line angling. We, therefore, conclude that while gene flow from domesticated conspecifics changes life history and phenological traits of wild Atlantic salmon populations, most of which are likely to be maladaptive, when pressured by additional anthropogenic challenges, some changes may confer a fitness advantage for a short part of the life cycle.

Tyler Cody, Niloofar Shadab, Alejandro Salado et al.

Engineering methods are centered around traditional notions of decomposition and recomposition that rely on partitioning the inputs and outputs of components to allow for component-level properties to hold after their composition. In artificial intelligence (AI), however, systems are often expected to influence their environments, and, by way of their environments, to influence themselves. Thus, it is unclear if an AI system's inputs will be independent of its outputs, and, therefore, if AI systems can be treated as traditional components. This paper posits that engineering general intelligence requires new general systems precepts, termed the core and periphery, and explores their theoretical uses. The new precepts are elaborated using abstract systems theory and the Law of Requisite Variety. By using the presented material, engineers can better understand the general character of regulating the outcomes of AI to achieve stakeholder needs and how the general systems nature of embodiment challenges traditional engineering practice.

Yanzhao Zheng, Haibin Wang, Baohua Dong et al.

Recently, context-dependent text-to-SQL semantic parsing which translates natural language into SQL in an interaction process has attracted a lot of attention. Previous works leverage context-dependence information either from interaction history utterances or the previous predicted SQL queries but fail in taking advantage of both since of the mismatch between natural language and logic-form SQL. In this work, we propose a History Information Enhanced text-to-SQL model (HIE-SQL) to exploit context-dependence information from both history utterances and the last predicted SQL query. In view of the mismatch, we treat natural language and SQL as two modalities and propose a bimodal pre-trained model to bridge the gap between them. Besides, we design a schema-linking graph to enhance connections from utterances and the SQL query to the database schema. We show our history information enhanced methods improve the performance of HIE-SQL by a significant margin, which achieves new state-of-the-art results on the two context-dependent text-to-SQL benchmarks, the SparC and CoSQL datasets, at the writing time.

Rachel P. Martineac, Alexey V. Vorobev, Mary Ann Moran et al.

Uncovering which biogeochemical processes have a critical role controlling dissolved organic matter (DOM) compositional changes in complex estuarine environments remains a challenge. In this context, the aim of this study is to characterize the dominant patterns of variability modifying the DOM composition in an estuary off the Southeastern U.S. We collected water samples during three seasons (July and October 2014 and April 2015) at both high and low tides and conducted short- (1 day) and long-term (60 days) dark incubations. Samples were analyzed for bulk DOC concentration, and optical (CDOM) and molecular (FT-ICR MS) compositions and bacterial cells were collected for metatranscriptomics. Results show that the dominant pattern of variability in DOM composition occurs at seasonal scales, likely associated with the seasonality of river discharge. After seasonal variations, long-term biodegradation was found to be comparatively more important in the fall, while tidal variability was the second most important factor correlated to DOM composition in spring, when the freshwater content in the estuary was high. Over shorter time scales, however, the influence of microbial processing was small. Microbial data revealed a similar pattern, with variability in gene expression occurring primarily at the seasonal scale and tidal influence being of secondary importance. Our analyses suggest that future changes in the seasonal delivery of freshwater to this system have the potential to significantly impact DOM composition. Changes in residence time may also be important, helping control the relative contribution of tides and long-term biodegradation to DOM compositional changes in the estuary.

Bhavi P. Modi, Haq Nawaz Khan, Robin van der Lee et al.

Guanidinoacetate methyltransferase (GAMT) deficiency is a creatine deficiency disorder and an inborn error of metabolism presenting with progressive intellectual and neurological deterioration. As most cases are identified and treated in early childhood, adult phenotypes that can help in understanding the natural history of the disorder are rare. We describe two adult cases of GAMT deficiency from a consanguineous family in Pakistan that presented with a history of global developmental delay, cognitive impairments, excessive drooling, behavioral abnormalities, contractures and apparent bone deformities initially presumed to be the reason for abnormal gait. Exome sequencing identified a homozygous nonsense variant in GAMT: NM_000156.5:c.134G>A (p.Trp45*). We also performed a literature review and compiled the genetic and clinical characteristics of all adult cases of GAMT deficiency reported to date. When compared to the adult cases previously reported, the musculoskeletal phenotype and the rapidly progressive nature of neurological and motor decline seen in our patients is striking. This study presents an opportunity to gain insights into the adult presentation of GAMT deficiency and highlights the need for in-depth evaluation and reporting of clinical features to expand our understanding of the phenotypic spectrum.

Ryland B. Taylor, Martha E. Mather, Joseph M. Smith et al.

Identifying patterns of organismal distribution can provide valuable insights for basic and applied marine and coastal ecology because understanding where animals are located is foundational to both research and science-based conservation. Understanding variation in distributional patterns can lead to a better assessment of ecological drivers and an improved ability to predict consequences of natural and altered relationships. Here, our purpose is to explore if quantifying coexisting groups of individual fish predators advances our understanding of field distribution patterns. Toward this end, we quantified locations of 59 acoustically tagged striped bass (Morone saxatilis) within a 26-stationary unit telemetry receiver array in Plum Island Estuary (PIE), MA, United States. We then used cluster analyses on spatial and temporal-spatial metrics from this dataset to (1) assess if distinct groups of individuals coexisted, (2) quantify group characteristics, and (3) test associations between groups and distribution (e.g., physical site type and region). Based on multiple lines of evidence, we identified four groups of striped bass with different space use patterns that persisted across seasons (summer and fall). Similar-sized striped bass clustered at spatial and temporal scales at which individuals within distinct groups could, and did, physically overlap. In addition, distributional groups were linked to components of physical site type and region suggesting that discrete groups of individuals can interact differently with the environment within the same ecological system. The identification of these distinct groups of individuals creates a baseline from which to explore further ecological implications of grouping behavior for research and conservation in geographically large, temporally dynamic, and spatially heterogeneous marine and coastal environments.

Mikael K. Sejr, Mikael K. Sejr, Kim N. Mouritsen et al.

Understanding the influence of physical drivers and their scale-dependent interactions on ecosystem structure and function is becoming increasingly relevant as ecologists are challenged to quantify and predict the biological implications of anthropogenic activities and climate changes. Here, we aim to quantify the impact of multiple physical drivers (ice scour, wave exposure, and air temperature) and their interactions with small scale modifying factors (tidal level, substrate rugosity, and canopy forming macroalgae) on rocky intertidal community structure. We did this by quantifying intertidal biomass, cover and species richness at three tidal levels (high, mid, and low) at four sites in a sub-arctic Greenland fjord. We found a well-developed intertidal community, with a total of 16 macroalgae and 20 invertebrate species. At one locality, the total biomass was dominated by canopy forming algae exceeding 16 kg wet weight per m–2. Physical stress from ice scour, waves, and air exposure had negative effects on all three community metrics but important interactions and modifying processes were identified. The effect of tidal level differed between sites ranging from an absence of organisms at both high- and mid-intertidal level at the most ice- and wave exposed site to extensive cover across all three tidal levels at the wave and ice sheltered site. Canopy forming macroalgae and substrate rugosity both modified the impacts of physical stress. In the absence of ice scour, canopy forming algae formed extensive cover that modified extreme air temperatures, and the abundance of dominant invertebrate species were all positively related to the biomass of macroalgae. Rugosity provided refuge from ice scour, facilitating increased species richness and cover at exposed sites. Moreover, we detected no negative effects of fast ice, and ice scour impacts were primarily found where presence of glacial ice was combined with wave exposure. Our results provide an example of how large-scale physical factors pass through a filter of several modifying smaller scale processes before their impact on plot scale community structure is manifested.