Hasil untuk "Ecology"

Y. O. Prilepsky, S. V. Konyaev

The purpose of the research is to assess the current distribution of the nematode Dirofilaria repens in the Northwestern (NWFD) and Central (CFD) Federal Districts of Russia using molecular genetic methods.Materials and methods. A single-center retrospective study was conducted. A total of 4,431 whole blood samples from dogs collected in various locations were analyzed using a species-specific polymerase chain reaction (PCR).Results and discussion. D. repens DNA was detected in 7.69% (341/4,431) of the analyzed samples. The parasite was detected in 19 of the 26 regions studied. The PCR confirmed D. repens for the first time in 13 regions of the Russian Federation that were not previously considered endemic, including the Arkhangelsk, Kaliningrad, Pskov, Novgorod, Tambov, Lipetsk, Yaroslavl, Tver, Bryansk, Ivanovo, Kaluga, Ryazan, and Tula Regions. The highest infection prevalence (IP) was recorded in the Ivanovo Region (63.9 ), the Kursk Region (50.0%), and the Pskov Region (46.7%). Previously known endemic foci such as the Belgorod Region (IP = 18.6%) and the Voronezh Region (IP = 17.1%) also showed positive results. The obtained data indicate a significant expansion of the D. repens range in northern and northwestern directions across European Russia. A significant limitation of the study was the inability to completely rule out cases of imported infection due to the lack of data on animal displacements. Furthermore, targeted sampling from animals clinically suspected of having dirofilariasis may have led to an overestimation of prevalence estimates. Nevertheless, the high proportion of positive samples in regions with representative sampling clearly indicates active local pathogen transmission in most of the studied areas.

Marcelo S. Tedesco, Gonzalo Marquez

Persistent economic competition is often justified as a mechanism of innovation, efficiency, and welfare maximization. Yet empirical evidence across disciplines reveals that competition systematically generates fragility, inequality, and ecological degradation, emergent outcomes not of isolated failures but of underlying systemic dynamics. This work reconceptualizes economic ecosystems as real complex adaptive systems, structurally isomorphic with biological and social ecosystems. Integrating complexity science, evolutionary biology, ecology, and economic and business theory, we classify economic interactions according to their systemic effects and propose a theoretical model of ecosystemic equilibrium based on the predominance of beneficial versus non-beneficial relationships. Recognizing economies as ecologically embedded and structurally interdependent systems provides a novel framework for analyzing systemic resilience, reframing competition as a non-beneficial mechanism.

Valentin Gabeff, Haozhe Qi, Brendan Flaherty et al.

Monitoring wildlife is essential for ecology and ethology, especially in light of the increasing human impact on ecosystems. Camera traps have emerged as habitat-centric sensors enabling the study of wildlife populations at scale with minimal disturbance. However, the lack of annotated video datasets limits the development of powerful video understanding models needed to process the vast amount of fieldwork data collected. To advance research in wild animal behavior monitoring we present MammAlps, a multimodal and multi-view dataset of wildlife behavior monitoring from 9 camera-traps in the Swiss National Park. MammAlps contains over 14 hours of video with audio, 2D segmentation maps and 8.5 hours of individual tracks densely labeled for species and behavior. Based on 6135 single animal clips, we propose the first hierarchical and multimodal animal behavior recognition benchmark using audio, video and reference scene segmentation maps as inputs. Furthermore, we also propose a second ecology-oriented benchmark aiming at identifying activities, species, number of individuals and meteorological conditions from 397 multi-view and long-term ecological events, including false positive triggers. We advocate that both tasks are complementary and contribute to bridging the gap between machine learning and ecology. Code and data are available at: https://github.com/eceo-epfl/MammAlps

Stylianos Stasinos, Martino Mensio, Elena Lazovik et al.

Biodiversity research requires complete and detailed information to study ecosystem dynamics at different scales. Employing data-driven methods like Machine Learning is getting traction in ecology and more specific biodiversity, offering alternative modelling pathways. For these methods to deliver accurate results there is the need for large, curated and multimodal datasets that offer granular spatial and temporal resolutions. In this work, we introduce BioCube, a multimodal, fine-grained global dataset for ecology and biodiversity research. BioCube incorporates species observations through images, audio recordings and descriptions, environmental DNA, vegetation indices, agricultural, forest, land indicators, and high-resolution climate variables. All observations are geospatially aligned under the WGS84 geodetic system, spanning from 2000 to 2020. The dataset is available at https://huggingface.co/datasets/ BioDT/BioCube, the acquisition and processing code base at https://github.com/BioDT/bfm-data.

Zachary Jackson, Mathew A. Leibold, Robert D. Holt et al.

A major challenge for community ecology is using spatio-temporal data to infer parameters of dynamical models without conducting laborious experiments. We present a novel framework from statistical physics -- Maximum Caliber -- to characterize the temporal dynamics of complex ecological systems in spatially extended landscapes and infer parameters from empirical data. As an extension of Maximum Entropy modeling, Maximum Caliber aims at modeling the probability of possible trajectories of a stochastic system, rather than focusing on system states. We demonstrate the ability of the Maximum Caliber framework to capture ecological processes ranging from near- to far from- equilibrium, using an array of species interaction motifs including random interactions, apparent competition, intraguild predation, and non-transitive competition, along with dispersal among multiple patches. For spatio-temporal data of species occupancy in a metacommunity, the parameters of a Maximum Caliber model can be estimated through a simple logistic regression to reveal migration rates between patches, interactions between species, and local environmental suitabilities. We test the accuracy of the method over a range of system sizes and time periods, and find that these parameters can be estimated without bias. We introduce ``entropy production'' as a measure of irreversibility in system dynamics, and use ``pseudo-$R^2$'' to characterize predictability of future states. We show that our model can predict the dynamics of metacommunities that are far from equilibrium. The capacity to estimate basic parameters of dynamical metacommunity models from spatio-temporal data represents an important breakthrough for the study of metacommunities with application to practical problems in conservation and restoration ecology.

Liyu Zhang, Huan He, Jiayin Wang et al.

<i>Taraxacum kok-saghyz</i> (TKS) is a natural rubber (NR)-producing plant with great development prospects. Accurately understanding the molecular mechanism of natural rubber biosynthesis is of great significance. Cis-prenyltransferase (CPT) and cis-prenyltransferase-like (CPTL) proteins catalyze the elongation of natural rubber molecular chains and play an essential role in rubber biosynthesis. In this study, we performed a genome-wide identification of the <i>TkCPT</i>/<i>CPTL</i> family, with eight <i>CPT</i> and two <i>CPTL</i> members. We analyzed the gene structures, evolutionary relationships and expression patterns, revealing five highly conserved structural domains. Based on systematic evolutionary analysis, CPT/CPTL can be divided into six subclades, among which the family members are most closely related to the orthologous species <i>Taraxacum mongolicum.</i> Collinearity analyses showed that fragment duplications were the primary factor of amplification in the <i>TkCPT/CPTL</i> gene family. Induced by ethylene and methyl jasmonate hormones, the expression levels of most genes increased, with significant increases in the expression levels of <i>TkCPT5</i> and <i>TkCPT6</i>. Our results provide a theoretical basis for elucidating the role of the <i>TkCPT</i>/<i>CPTL</i> gene family in the mechanism of natural rubber synthesis and lay a foundation for molecular breeding of <i>T. kok-saghyz</i> and candidate genes for regulating natural rubber biosynthesis in the future.

Chuang Xu

Reaction networks have been widely used as generic models in diverse areas of applied science, such as biology, chemistry, ecology, epidemiology, and computer science. Reaction networks incorporating noisy effect are modelled as continuous time Markov chains (CTMC), and are called stochastic reaction systems. Non-explosivity is a concept that characterizes regularity of CTMCs. In this paper, we study non-explosivity of stochastic reaction systems, in the sense of their underlying CTMCs. By constructing a simple linear Lyapunov function, we obtain non-explosivity for a class of endotactic stochastic reaction systems containing second-order endotactic stochastic mass-action systems as a subset. As a consequence, we prove that every bimolecular weakly reversible stochastic mass-action system is non-explosive. We apply our results to diverse models in biochemistry, epidemiology, ecology, and synthetic biology in the literature.

Federica Stolf, David B. Dunson

Joint species distribution models are popular in ecology for modeling covariate effects on species occurrence, while characterizing cross-species dependence. Data consist of multivariate binary indicators of the occurrences of different species in each sample, along with sample-specific covariates. A key problem is that current models implicitly assume that the list of species under consideration is predefined and finite, while for highly diverse groups of organisms, it is impossible to anticipate which species will be observed in a study and discovery of unknown species is common. This article proposes a new modeling paradigm for statistical ecology, which generalizes traditional multivariate probit models to accommodate large numbers of rare species and new species discovery. We discuss theoretical properties of the proposed modeling paradigm and implement efficient algorithms for posterior computation. Simulation studies and applications to fungal biodiversity data provide compelling support for the new modeling class.

Alann Caderhoussin, David Couvin, Gaëlle Gruel et al.

IntroductionThis study aimed to understand the origin and to explain the maintenance of extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL) Enterobacteriaceae isolated from food-producing animals in a third-generation cephalosporin (3GC)-free farm.MethodsCulture and molecular approaches were used to test molecules other than 3GC such as antibiotics (tetracycline and oxytetracycline), antiparasitics (ivermectin, flumethrin, fenbendazol, and amitraz), heavy metal [arsenic, HNO3, aluminum, HNO3, cadmium (CdSO4), zinc (ZnCl2), copper (CuSO4), iron (FeCl3), and aluminum (Al2SO4)], and antioxidant (butylated hydroxytoluene) as sources of selective pressure. Whole-genome sequencing using short read (Illumina™) and long read (Nanopore™) technologies was performed on 34 genomes. In silico gene screening and comparative analyses were used to characterize the genetic determinants of resistance, their mobility, and the genomic relatedness among isolates.ResultsOur analysis unveiled a low diversity among the animal ESBL-producing strains. Notably, E. coli ST3268 was recurrently isolated from both flies (n = 9) and cattle (n = 5). These E. coli ST3268/blaCTX-M-15/blaTEM-1B have accumulated multiple plasmids and genes, thereby representing a reservoir of resistance and virulence factors. Our findings suggest that flies could act as effective mechanical vectors for antimicrobial gene transfer and are capable of transporting resistant bacteria across different environments and to multiple hosts, facilitating the spread of pathogenic traits. A significantly higher mean minimum inhibitory concentration of oxytetracycline (841.4 ± 323.5 mg/L vs. 36.0 ± 52.6 mg/L, p = 0.0022) in ESBL E. coli than in non-ESBL E. coli and blaCTX-M-15 gene overexpression in oxytetracycline-treated vs. untreated ESBL E. coli (RQOxy = 3.593, p = 0.024) confirmed oxytetracycline as a source of selective pressure in ESBL E. coli.DiscussionThe occurrence of ESBL E. coli in a farm without 3GC use is probably due to an as yet undefined human origin of Enterobacteriaceae blaCTX-M-15 gene transmission to animals in close contact with cattle farm workers and the maintenance of the local ESBL E. coli reservoir by a high fly diversity and oxytetracycline selective pressure. These findings highlight the critical need for stringent vector control to mitigate antimicrobial resistance spread for preserving public health. Addressing this issue necessitates a multifaceted approach combining microbial genetics, vector ecology, and farm management practices.

ناهید معرف‌زاده, هادی خاطری, سعید عباسی

Rhizoctonia root rot of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) caused by Rhizoctonia solani is among the most important soil-borne fungal diseases worldwide. In this study, nine arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) including Acaulospora longula, Funneliformis mosseae, Gigaspora margarita, Glomus caledonium, G. claroideum, G. etunicatum, G. fasciculatum, G. versiform and Rhizophagus irregularis were evaluated for their effect on some growth traits and inhibition of R. solani in bean plants under greenhouse conditions. Six AMF species (F. mosseae, G. claroideum, G. etunicatum, G. margarita, G. caledonium and G. versiform) significantly reduced the disease severity index and the first four of these also reduced the incidence of disease compared with the infected control. The lowest disease severity and incidence were obtained by F. mosseae and G. claroideum, respectively. Compared with the infected control, the root length was significantly improved by all AMF. The other growth traits were also significantly improved by all AMF species with some exceptions as follows: root wet and dry weights (except G. fasciculatum), shoot wet weight (excep G. versiform), shoot length (except G. claroideum, G. versiform and G. etunicatum) and shoot dry weight (except G. etunicatum, G. fasciculatum, G. caledonium and G. margarita). Glomus fasciculatum had the highest root colonization. According to the results of this study, many AMF fungi improved plant growth and partially compensated for Rhizoctonia root rot on common bean, and they could be considered as good candidates for studying the biological control of this disease under field conditions.

André L. Luza, André L. Giles, Pedro J. Bergamo et al.

Synthesis science is an emergent research field for harmonizing different data, concepts, and theories to create new insights and endorse novel approaches. Here we provide a brief general overview of synthesis science, emphasize the geographically biased location of synthesis centers一particularly their paucity in the Global South一and highlight the pioneering role of the Synthesis Center on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (SinBiose, CNPq) concerning transdisciplinary aspirations in the Global South. Working with the ecosystem service dimension requires breaking discipline boundaries to approach society, stakeholders, and decision-makers, which SinBiose fosters and is rarely found elsewhere. This article features a “Brazilian experience” of synthesis science through the perception of SinBiose’s postdoctoral researchers, which have a central role in the workflow as the only professionals dedicated exclusively to the projects. As a conclusion, we present recommendations for improving the support for postdoctoral researchers and arguments for a continued funding of synthesis science in Brazil.

Jiajing Wu, Kaixin Lin, Dan Lin et al.

At present, the concept of metaverse has sparked widespread attention from the public to major industries. With the rapid development of blockchain and Web3 technologies, the decentralized metaverse ecology has attracted a large influx of users and capital. Due to the lack of industry standards and regulatory rules, the Web3-empowered metaverse ecosystem has witnessed a variety of financial crimes, such as scams, code exploit, wash trading, money laundering, and illegal services and shops. To this end, it is especially urgent and critical to summarize and classify the financial security threats on the Web3-empowered metaverse in order to maintain the long-term healthy development of its ecology. In this paper, we first outline the background, foundation, and applications of the Web3 metaverse. Then, we provide a comprehensive overview and taxonomy of the security risks and financial crimes that have emerged since the development of the decentralized metaverse. For each financial crime, we focus on three issues: a) existing definitions, b) relevant cases and analysis, and c) existing academic research on this type of crime. Next, from the perspective of academic research and government policy, we summarize the current anti-crime measurements and technologies in the metaverse. Finally, we discuss the opportunities and challenges in behavioral mining and the potential regulation of financial activities in the metaverse. The overview of this paper is expected to help readers better understand the potential security threats in this emerging ecology, and to provide insights and references for financial crime fighting.

Nathan TeBlunthuis, Benjamin Mako Hill

Platforms often host multiple online groups with overlapping topics and members. How can researchers and designers understand how related groups affect each other? Inspired by population ecology, prior research in social computing and human-computer interaction has studied related groups by correlating group size with degrees of overlap in content and membership, but has produced puzzling results: overlap is associated with competition in some contexts but with mutualism in others. We suggest that this inconsistency results from aggregating intergroup relationships into an overall environmental effect that obscures the diversity of competition and mutualism among related groups. Drawing on the framework of community ecology, we introduce a time-series method for inferring competition and mutualism. We then use this framework to inform a large-scale analysis of clusters of subreddits that all have high user overlap. We find that mutualism is more common than competition.

S. Montoya-Molina, P. Jakubec, J. Qubaiová et al.

Abstract Coleoptera are currently considered a fundamental tool to help solve criminal investigations, allowing forensic entomologists to estimate post-mortem intervals and obtain other ecology-related information. Thanatophilus rugosus (Linnaeus, 1758) is an important necrophagous beetle distributed through most of the Palaearctic region, where it is readily found on human bodies and animal carcasses. In this study, the new thermal summation models for all the developmental stages of Thanatophilus rugosus are provided. Beetles were reared at six different constant and ecologically relevant temperatures (12, 14, 16, 18, 20, and 22 °C), and their developmental times were measured. Thermal summation constants were calculated for each developmental stage (egg, three larval instars, post-feeding stage, and pupa).

Christian Aarset, Christian Pötzsche

We study local bifurcations of periodic solutions to time-periodic (systems of) integrodifference equations over compact habitats. Such infinite-dimensional discrete dynamical systems arise in theoretical ecology as models to describe the spatial dispersal of species having nonoverlapping generations. Our explicit criteria allow us to identify branchings of fold- and crossing curve-type, which include the classical transcritical-, pitchfork- and flip-scenario as special cases. Indeed, not only tools to detect qualitative changes in models from e.g. spatial ecology and related simulations are provided, but these critical transitions are also classified. In addition, the bifurcation behavior of various time-periodic integrodifference equations is investigated and illustrated. This requires a combination of analytical methods and numerical tools based on Nyström discretization of the integral operators involved.

Jerald B. Johnson, Mark C. Belk

Predation is ubiquitous in nature and can be an important component of both ecological and evolutionary interactions. One of the most striking features of predators is how often they cause evolutionary diversification in natural systems. Here, we review several ways that this can occur, exploring empirical evidence and suggesting promising areas for future work. We also introduce several papers recently accepted in <i>Diversity</i> that demonstrate just how important and varied predation can be as an agent of natural selection. We conclude that there is still much to be done in this field, especially in areas where multiple predator species prey upon common prey, in certain taxonomic groups where we still know very little, and in an overall effort to actually quantify mortality rates and the strength of natural selection in the wild.

Qingwei Gao, Yumeng Zhang, Shuting Xu et al.

In modern chemical engineering processes, the involvement of solid/fluid interface is the most important component of process intensification techniques, such as confined membrane separation and catalysis. In the review, we summarized the research progress of the latest theoretical and experimental works to elucidate the contribution of interface to the fluid properties and structures at nano- and micro-scale. We mainly focused on water, alcohol aqueous solution, and ionic liquids, because they are classical systems in interfacial science and/or widely involved in the industrialization process. Surface-induced fluids were observed in all reviewed systems and played a critical role in physicochemical properties and structures of outside fluid. It can even be regarded as a new interface, when the adsorption layer has a strong interaction with the solid surface. Finally, we proposed a perspective on scientific challenges in the modern chemical engineering processes and outlined future prospects.

Alyson F Brokaw, Michael Smotherman

Many animals display morphological adaptations of the nose that improve their ability to detect and track odors. Bilateral odor sampling improves an animals' ability to navigate using olfaction and increased separation of the nostrils facilitates olfactory source localization. Many bats use odors to find food and mates and bats display an elaborate diversity of facial features. Prior studies have quantified how variations in facial features correlate with echolocation and feeding ecology, but surprisingly none have asked whether bat noses might be adapted for olfactory tracking in flight. We predicted that bat species that rely upon odor cues while foraging would have greater nostril separation in support of olfactory tropotaxis. Using museum specimens, we measured the external nose and cranial morphology of 40 New World bat species. Diet had a significant effect on external nose morphology, but contrary to our predictions, insectivorous bats had the largest relative separation of nostrils, while nectar feeding species had the narrowest nostril widths. Furthermore, nasal echolocating bats had significantly narrower nostrils than oral emitting bats, reflecting a potential trade-off between sonar pulse emission and stereo-olfaction in those species. To our knowledge, this is the first study to evaluate the evolutionary interactions between olfaction and echolocation in shaping the external morphology of a facial feature using modern phylogenetic comparative methods. Future work pairing olfactory morphology with tracking behavior will provide more insight into how animals such as bats integrate olfactory information while foraging.

Edson Ferreira Duarte, Daiane Sampaio Almeida, Jaylson Araujo dos Santos et al.

As espécies nativas carecem de informações sobre a maturação de seus frutos e sementes. Objetivou-se avaliar a maturação de frutos e sementes de inhaíba (Lecythis lurida). Fez-se a marcação de flores em antese e a posterior colheita de frutos e sementes após 1, 2, 3, 4 e 5 meses, quando foram analisados e feita a descrição morfológica. Aos 4 meses de idade, os frutos de semiglobosos passaram a ter o formato cilíndrico-comprimidos. As sementes apresentaram um arilo vestigial, além do tegumento inicialmente de cor bege e que tornou-se marrom a partir do terceiro mês. O embrião branco manteve-se envolto pelo endosperma e não apresentou diferenciação morfológica. O máximo desenvolvimento morfológico das sementes ocorreu aos 4 meses, quando apresentaram as maiores dimensões (50,9 x 50,8 x 43,3 mm), as máximas germinação (84,8%) e massa seca (32 g), a menor mortalidade das sementes (19%), caracterizando a maturidade fisiológica e o momento de colheita. Nesse momento, os teores de N P K eram menores que 5% e o amido tornou-se o componente predominante nas reservas (47,8% da massa seca). As sementes maduras representam mais de 50% da massa dos frutos e apresentam dormência embrionária e resistência tegumentar que atrasam a emergência das plântulas.

Sergei V. Shekhovtsov, Sergei V. Shekhovtsov, Sergei V. Shekhovtsov et al.

Eisenia nordenskioldi (Eisen, 1879) is the only autochthonous Siberian earthworm with a large distribution that ranges from tundra to steppe and broadleaved forests. This species has a very high morphological, ecological, karyological, and genetic diversity, so it was proposed that E. nordenskioldi should be split into several species. However, the phylogeny of the complex was unclear due to the low resolution of the methods used and the high diversity that should have been taken into account. We investigated this question by (1) studying the diversity of the COI gene of E. nordenskioldi throughout its range and (2) sequencing transcriptomes of different genetic lineages to infer its phylogeny. We found that E. nordenskioldi is monophyletic and is split into two clades. The first one includes the pigmented genetic lineages widespread in the northern and western parts of the distribution, and the second one originating from the southern and southeastern part of the species' range and representing both pigmented and non-pigmented forms. We propose to split the E. nordenskioldi complex into two species, E. nordenskioldi and Eisenia sp. 1 (aff. E. nordenskioldi), corresponding to these two clades. The currently recognized non-pigmented subspecies E. n. pallida will be abolished as a polyphyletic and thus a non-natural taxon, while Eisenia sp. 1 will be expanded to include several lineages earlier recognized as E. n. nordenskioldi and E. n. pallida.