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Bibliography on: Ecological Informatics

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ESP: PubMed Auto Bibliography 11 Apr 2025 at 01:47 Created: 

Ecological Informatics

Wikipedia: Ecological Informatics Ecoinformatics, or ecological informatics, is the science of information (Informatics) in Ecology and Environmental science. It integrates environmental and information sciences to define entities and natural processes with language common to both humans and computers. However, this is a rapidly developing area in ecology and there are alternative perspectives on what constitutes ecoinformatics. A few definitions have been circulating, mostly centered on the creation of tools to access and analyze natural system data. However, the scope and aims of ecoinformatics are certainly broader than the development of metadata standards to be used in documenting datasets. Ecoinformatics aims to facilitate environmental research and management by developing ways to access, integrate databases of environmental information, and develop new algorithms enabling different environmental datasets to be combined to test ecological hypotheses. Ecoinformatics characterize the semantics of natural system knowledge. For this reason, much of today's ecoinformatics research relates to the branch of computer science known as Knowledge representation, and active ecoinformatics projects are developing links to activities such as the Semantic Web. Current initiatives to effectively manage, share, and reuse ecological data are indicative of the increasing importance of fields like Ecoinformatics to develop the foundations for effectively managing ecological information. Examples of these initiatives are National Science Foundation Datanet projects, DataONE and Data Conservancy.

Created with PubMed® Query: ( "ecology OR ecological" AND ("data management" OR informatics) NOT "assays for monitoring autophagy" ) NOT pmcbook NOT ispreviousversion

Citations The Papers (from PubMed®)

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RevDate: 2025-04-10
CmpDate: 2025-04-10

Ding DY, Tang Z, Zhu B, et al (2025)

Quantitative characterization of tissue states using multiomics and ecological spatial analysis.

Nature genetics, 57(4):910-921.

The spatial organization of cells in tissues underlies biological function, and recent advances in spatial profiling technologies have enhanced our ability to analyze such arrangements to study biological processes and disease progression. We propose MESA (multiomics and ecological spatial analysis), a framework drawing inspiration from ecological concepts to delineate functional and spatial shifts across tissue states. MESA introduces metrics to systematically quantify spatial diversity and identify hot spots, linking spatial patterns to phenotypic outcomes, including disease progression. Furthermore, MESA integrates spatial and single-cell multiomics data to facilitate an in-depth, molecular understanding of cellular neighborhoods and their spatial interactions within tissue microenvironments. Applying MESA to diverse datasets demonstrates additional insights it brings over prior methods, including newly identified spatial structures and key cell populations linked to disease states. Available as a Python package, MESA offers a versatile framework for quantitative decoding of tissue architectures in spatial omics across health and disease.

RevDate: 2025-04-09
CmpDate: 2025-04-09

Dsouza N, Cohen E, Ossebaard H, et al (2025)

The Ecological Footprint of Gynecology: Lessons from Dutch Hospitals and Implications for Future Healthcare Management.

Studies in health technology and informatics, 323:424-428.

In 2023, global temperatures reached record-breaking highs, highlighting the urgent need for climate action. Healthcare is responsible for 4-8% of global carbon emissions, contributing to global warming and impacting the health of billions of people. Within healthcare, gynecology has a significant ecological footprint due to its high volume and broad range of care services. However, little is known on how gynecology departments' management structures, information systems and processes can be optimized to reduce the ecological footprint of this specialty. Therefore, a sustainability maturity model based on Donabedian's structure-process-outcome model for quality improvement was used to assess sustainability performance in two gynecology practices with different organizational structures (centralized vs. decentralized). Maturity model scores and interview findings were analyzed to extract lessons and recommendations for optimizing sustainability within gynecology. As the first assessment of its kind, this study provides a foundation for healthcare management seeking to improve environmental performance in gynecological care.

RevDate: 2025-04-08
CmpDate: 2025-04-09

Antala M, Kovar M, Sporinová L, et al (2025)

High-throughput phenotyping of buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum Moench.) genotypes under water stress: exploring drought resistance for sustainable agriculture.

BMC plant biology, 25(1):444.

BACKGROUND: As global agriculture faces the challenge of climate change, characterized by longer and more severe drought episodes, there is an increasing need for crop diversification and improved plant breeding. Buckwheat is one of the climate-resilient candidates for future important crops with remarkable adaptability to various biotic and abiotic stresses. As an underbred crop, a large number of genotypes should be assessed for the breeding of superior plants. Therefore, this study investigates the response of various buckwheat genotypes to water stress by high-throughput phenotyping and auxiliary plant physiology measurements.

RESULTS: We assessed six buckwheat genotypes from different regions under mild and severe water stress, focusing on morphological and physiological changes to understand drought tolerance mechanisms. Our findings revealed that reallocation of assimilated carbon from growth to secondary metabolite production is a common response to drought stress. Among the genotypes tested, Panda emerged as the most drought-resistant, with its morphology remaining the most stable under mild water stress and its ability to rapidly accumulate protective pigments in response to drought. Silver Hull also demonstrated resilience, maintaining its aboveground biomass under mild water stress at levels comparable to the control group. Additionally, the response magnitude to drought stress was linked to the biomass production potential of the genotypes, which was higher for those from warmer regions (Bhutan, Zimbabwe) and lower for those from colder regions (Poland, Canada).

CONCLUSION: The diversity in genotypic responses highlights the significant role of genetic variability in shaping drought resistance strategies in buckwheat. This research not only enhances our understanding of buckwheat's physiological responses to water stress but also holds promise for developing drought-resistant buckwheat varieties. These advancements are crucial for promoting sustainable agriculture in the face of climate change.

RevDate: 2025-04-08
CmpDate: 2025-04-09

Hu X, Pan L, Fu C, et al (2025)

A multi-omics analysis reveals candidate genes for Cd tolerance in Paspalum vaginatum.

BMC plant biology, 25(1):441.

Cadmium (Cd) pollution in the farmland has become a serious global issue threatening both human health and plant biomass production. Seashore paspalum (Paspalum vaginatum Sw.), a halophytic turfgrass, has been recognized as a Cd-tolerant species. However, the underlying genetic basis of natural variations in Cd tolerance still remains unknown. This study is possibly the first to apply genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and selective sweep analysis to identify potential Cd stress-responsive genes in P. vaginatum. We identified a total of 89 candidate genes and 656 putative selective sweeps regions. Based on the correlation analysis of differentially expressed metabolites (DEMs) and differentially expressed genes (DEGs), we identified the 55 key genes associated with metabolic changes induced by Cd treatment as the Cd tolerance-related genes. These genes showed significantly higher expression in Cd-tolerant accessions as compared to Cd-susceptive accessions. Therefore, our multi-omics study revealed the molecular and genetic basis of Cd tolerance, which may help develop Cd tolerant crop varieties.

RevDate: 2025-04-08
CmpDate: 2025-04-08

Chaudhary VB, Nokes LF, González JB, et al (2025)

TraitAM, a global spore trait database for arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi.

Scientific data, 12(1):588.

Knowledge regarding organismal traits supports a better understanding of the relationship between form and function and can be used to predict the consequences of environmental stressors on ecological and evolutionary processes. Most plants on Earth form symbioses with mycorrhizal fungi, but our ability to make trait-based inferences for these fungi is limited due to a lack of publicly available trait data. Here, we present TraitAM, a comprehensive database of multiple spore traits for all described species of the most common group of mycorrhizal fungi, the arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi (subphylum Glomeromycotina). Trait data for 344 species were mined from original species descriptions and used to calculate newly developed fungal trait metrics that can be employed to explore both intra- and inter-specific variation in traits. TraitAM also includes an updated phylogenetic tree that can be used to conduct phylogenetically-informed multivariate analyses of AM fungal traits. TraitAM will aid our further understanding of the biology, ecology, and evolution of these globally widespread, symbiotic fungi.

RevDate: 2025-04-08
CmpDate: 2025-04-08

Holmqvist S, Kaplan M, Chaturvedi R, et al (2025)

Longitudinal and Combined Smartwatch and Ecological Momentary Assessment in Racially Diverse Older Adults: Feasibility, Adherence, and Acceptability Study.

JMIR human factors, 12:e69952 pii:v12i1e69952.

BACKGROUND: Due to the rising prevalence of Alzheimer disease and related dementias, easily deployable tools to quantify risk are needed. Smartphones and smartwatches enable unobtrusive and continuous monitoring, but there is limited information regarding the feasibility, adherence, and acceptability of digital data collection among racially diverse older adults.

OBJECTIVE: This paper examined the feasibility, adherence, and acceptability of a 4-week combined smartwatch monitoring and ecological momentary assessment (EMA) study in a racially diverse sample of older adults.

METHODS: A total of 44 older adults (aged ≥55 y) with either mild cognitive impairment or healthy cognition completed an informed consent comprehension quiz, baseline cognitive testing, training regarding digital data collection, and questionnaires. Participants were instructed to wear a Garmin Vivosmart 4 smartwatch for 23 h/d for 4 weeks, sync 2 smartphone apps (Garmin and Labfront) daily, and complete a daily EMA survey with automated prompts for surveys and charging. Training time, smartwatch adherence (eg, wear time), daily EMA survey response rate, and performance on the consent quiz were quantified. Associations between feasibility and adherence metrics and participant factors were evaluated. Self-reported usability of the apps and smartwatch was collected at study end.

RESULTS: Consent comprehension quiz scores were high (mean 97.33%, SD 6.86% correct), and training sessions lasted on average 17.93 (SD 6.89) minutes. During the 4-week study, participants wore the smartwatch for an average of 21 h/d (SD 1.53) and showed an average response rate of 94% (SD 9.58%) to daily EMA surveys. In unadjusted bivariate analyses, age, race, and cognition were associated with feasibility and adherence measures, but only age and race remained significant in multivariate models. After accounting for all participant factors, older age was a significant predictor of longer training time, and Black race was a significant predictor of lower daily wear time. On the usability survey, all participants (45/45, 100%) indicated willingness to participate in future smartwatch studies, >80% (37/45) had a positive experience, and >90% (41/45) were satisfied with smartphone app syncing.

CONCLUSIONS: Smartwatch monitoring, requiring daily wear, smartphone syncing, and daily EMA survey completion, is highly feasible in older adults because adherence to daily wear and EMA surveys was high, as was general satisfaction on usability surveys. Although older participants may require more training on smartwatch and smartphone procedures and automated prompting during the study period, longitudinal monitoring with the Garmin Vivosmart 4 smartwatch and Labfront app is acceptable and feasible for collecting nearly continuous data in Black and White older adults, including those with mild cognitive impairment and those without.

RevDate: 2025-04-08
CmpDate: 2025-04-08

Huan F, Gao S, Gu Y, et al (2025)

Molecular Allergology: Epitope Discovery and Its Application for Allergen-Specific Immunotherapy of Food Allergy.

Clinical reviews in allergy & immunology, 68(1):37.

The prevalence of food allergy continues to rise, posing a significant burden on health and quality of life. Research on antigenic epitope identification and hypoallergenic agent design is advancing allergen-specific immunotherapy (AIT). This review focuses on food allergens from the perspective of molecular allergology, provides an overview of integration of bioinformatics and experimental validation for epitope identification, highlights hypoallergenic agents designed based on epitope information, and offers a valuable guidance to the application of hypoallergenic agents in AIT. With the development of molecular allergology, the characterization of the amino acid sequence and structure of the allergen at the molecular level facilitates T-/B-cell epitope identification. Alignment of the identified epitopes in food allergens revealed that the amino acid sequence of T-/B-cell epitopes barely overlapped, providing crucial data to design allergen molecules as a promising form for treating (FA) food allergy. Manipulating antigenic epitopes can reduce the allergenicity of allergens to obtain hypoallergenic agents, thereby minimizing the severe side effects associated with AIT. Currently, hypoallergenic agents are mainly developed through synthetic epitope peptides, genetic engineering, or food processing methods based on the identified epitope. New strategies such as DNA vaccines, signaling molecules coupling, and nanoparticles are emerging to improve efficiency. Although significant progress has been made in designing hypoallergenic agents for AIT, the challenge in clinical translation is to determine the appropriate dose and duration of treatment to induce long-term immune tolerance.

RevDate: 2025-04-09

Rotstein NM, Cohen ZD, Welborn A, et al (2025)

Investigating low intensity focused ultrasound pulsation in anhedonic depression-A randomized controlled trial.

Frontiers in human neuroscience, 19:1478534.

INTRODUCTION: Anhedonic depression is a subtype of depression characterized by deficits in reward processing. This subtype of depression is associated with higher suicide risk and longer depressive episodes, underscoring the importance of effective treatments. Anhedonia has also been found to correlate with alterations in activity in several subcortical regions, including the caudate head and nucleus accumbens. Low intensity focused ultrasound pulsation (LIFUP) is an emerging technology that enables non-invasive stimulation of these subcortical regions, which were previously only accessible with surgically-implanted electrodes.

METHODS: This double-blinded, sham-controlled study aims to investigate the effects of LIFUP to the left caudate head and right nucleus accumbens in participants with anhedonic depression. Participants in this protocol will undergo three sessions of LIFUP over the span of 5-9 days. To investigate LIFUP-related changes, this 7-week protocol collects continuous digital phenotyping data, an array of self-report measures of depression, anhedonia, and other psychopathology, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) before and after the LIFUP intervention. Primary self-report outcome measures include Ecological Momentary Assessment, the Positive Valence Systems Scale, and the Patient Health Questionnaire. Primary imaging measures include magnetic resonance spectroscopy and functional MRI during reward-based tasks and at rest. Digital phenotyping data is collected with an Apple Watch and participants' personal iPhones throughout the study, and includes information about sleep, heart rate, and physical activity.

DISCUSSION: This study is the first to investigate the effects of LIFUP to the caudate head or nucleus accumbens in depressed subjects. Furthermore, the data collected for this protocol covers a wide array of potentially affected modalities. As a result, this protocol will help to elucidate potential impacts of LIFUP in individuals with anhedonic depression.

RevDate: 2025-04-09
CmpDate: 2025-04-09

Morris JS (2025)

Tracking vaccine effectiveness in an evolving pandemic, countering misleading hot takes and epidemiologic fallacies.

American journal of epidemiology, 194(4):898-907.

With the emergence of Omicron during the pandemic and the establishment of antibody waning over time, vaccine effectiveness, especially against infection, declined sharply from the original levels seen after the initial rollout. However, studies have demonstrated that they still provided substantial protection vs severe/fatal disease even with Omicron and after waning. Social media has been rife with reports claiming vaccines provided no benefit and some even claiming they made things worse, often driven by simple presentations of raw observational data using erroneous arguments involving epidemiologic fallacies including the base rate fallacy, Simpson's paradox, and the ecological fallacy and ignoring the extensive bias especially from confounding that is an inherent feature of these data. Similar fallacious arguments have been made by some in promoting vaccination policies, as well. Generally, vaccine effectiveness cannot be accurately estimated from raw population summaries but instead require rigorous, careful studies using epidemiologic designs and statistical analysis tools attempting to adjust for key confounders and sources of bias. This article summarizes what aggregated evidence across studies reveals about effectiveness of the mRNA vaccines as the pandemic has evolved, chronologically summarized with emerging variants and highlighting some of the fallacies and flawed arguments feeding social media-based claims that have obscured society's collective understanding.

RevDate: 2025-04-05

Chen L, Guo Y, López-Güell K, et al (2025)

Immunity Debt for Seasonal Influenza After the COVID-19 Pandemic and as a Result of Nonpharmaceutical Interventions: An Ecological Analysis and Cohort Study.

Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) [Epub ahead of print].

Non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) during the COVID-19 pandemic significantly reduced influenza transmission. This study explores the hypothesis of "immunity debt" which suggests increased vulnerability to influenza following reduced exposure during the pandemic. World Health Organization aggregated data on influenza from 116 countries and its association with NPI intensity as measured by the COVID-19 Stringency Index is analyzed. Where individual-level data available (France, the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Belgium, and Romania), the analyses of influenza monthly rates in six European countries (France, the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Belgium, and Romania) are replicated. The results indicate globally a 46.3% (95%CI: 15.79-70.78%) reduction in influenza cases during COVID-19 restrictions in the winter season, followed by a 131.7% (95%CI: 34.95-255.78%) increase in the first postrelaxation winter and a 161.2% (95%CI: 31.88-382.16%) increase in the summer as compared to the predicted level based on historical influenza epidemic trends. In addition, a positive association between the Stringency Index and post-relaxation influenza surge is observed globally (R[2] = 0.14-0.17) and replicated regionally. The findings support the population immunity debt hypothesis for influenza and call for proactive preparations against its consequences in future pandemics.

RevDate: 2025-04-07
CmpDate: 2025-04-07

Wu Z, Huang Z, Tang N, et al (2025)

Research on Sports Injury Rehabilitation Detection Based on IoT Models for Digital Health Care.

Big data, 13(2):144-160.

Physical therapists specializing in sports rehabilitation detection help injured athletes recover from their wounds and avoid further harm. Sports rehabilitators treat not just commonplace sports injuries but also work-related musculoskeletal injuries, discomfort, and disorders. Sensor-equipped Internet of Things (IoT) monitors the real-time location of medical equipment such as scooters, cardioverters, nebulizer treatments, oxygenation pumps, or other monitor gear. Analysis of medicine deployment across sites is possible in real time. Health care delivery based on digital technology to improve access, affordability, and sustainability of medical treatment is known as digital health care. The challenging characteristics of such sports injury rehabilitation for digital health care are playing position, game strategies, and cybersecurity. Hence, in this research, health care IoT-enabled body area networks (HIoT-BAN) have been designed to improve sports injury rehabilitation detection for digital health care. The health care sector may benefit significantly from IoT adoption since it allows for enhanced patient safety; health care investment management includes controlling the hospital's pharmaceutical stock and monitoring the heat and humidity levels. Digital health describes a group of programmers made to aid health care delivery, whether by assisting with clinical decision-making or streamlining back-end operations in health care institutions. A HIoT-BAN effectively predicts the rise in sports injury rehabilitation detection with faster digital health care based on IoT. The research concludes that the HIoT-BAN effectively indicates sports injury rehabilitation detection for digital health care. The experimental analysis of HIoT-BAN outperforms the IoT method in terms of performance, accuracy, prediction ratio, and mean square error rate.

RevDate: 2025-04-04
CmpDate: 2025-04-04

Amin NU, Islam F, Umar M, et al (2025)

Evaluation of crop phenology using remote sensing and decision support system for agrotechnology transfer.

Scientific reports, 15(1):11582.

The decision support system for agro-technology transfer (DSSAT) is a worldwide crop modeling platform used for crops growth, yield, leaf area index (LAI), and biomass estimation under varying climatic, soil and management conditions. This study integrates DSSAT with satellite remote sensing (RS) data to estimates canopy state variables like LAI and biomass. For LAI estimation, Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) product (MCD15A3H for LAI and MOD17A2 / MOD17A3 products for biomass) are used. Field data for Sheikhupura district is provided by National Agriculture Research Council (NARC) and used for the calibration and validation of the model. The results indicate strong agreement between the DSSAT and RS derived estimates. Correlation coefficients (R[2]) for LAI varied from 0.82 to 0.90, while for biomass ranged from 0.92 to 0.99 over two farms and two growing seasons (2012-2014). The index of agreement (D-index) ranged from 0.79 to 0.96 across the two farms and two growing seasons (2012-2014) affirming the model's durability. However, the biomass estimated from RS data is underestimated due to saturation phenomenon in the optical RS. The performance metrics, comprising the coefficient of residual mass (CRM) and normalized root mean square error (nRMSE), further substantiate the approach utilized. This study will help decision and policymakers and researchers to apply geospatial techniques for the sustainable agriculture practices.

RevDate: 2025-04-04

Mills MB, Shenkin A, Wilkes P, et al (2025)

Investigating the accuracy of tropical woody stem CO2 efflux estimates: scaling methods, and vertical and diel variation.

The New phytologist [Epub ahead of print].

Stem CO2 efflux (EA) significantly contributes to autotrophic and ecosystem respiration in tropical forests, but field methodologies often introduce biases and uncertainty. This study evaluates these biases and their impact on scaling EA at the stand-level. Diel and vertical patterns of EA were investigated, along with the accuracy of estimating stem surface area from allometric equations vs terrestrial light dection and ranging (LiDAR) scanning (TLS) in Maliau Basin Conservation Area, Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. Diel EA exhibited no uniform pattern due to inter-tree variability, but results suggest measuring EA before 15:00 h. EA was significantly higher on buttresses and above the first major branching point, but vertical variations in EA did not impact stand-level EA when stem surface area was accurately estimated. Allometric equations underestimated total stem surface area by c. 40% compared with TLS, but applying a site-specific correction factor yielded a similar stand-level EA and total stem surface area to TLS. This study provides guidance for measuring EA in the field and suggests that measuring at one time point and one height along the stem can produce accurate results if conducted using the correct time frame and if stem surface area is accurately estimated.

RevDate: 2025-04-03
CmpDate: 2025-04-04

González AL, Merder J, Andraczek K, et al (2025)

StoichLife: A Global Dataset of Plant and Animal Elemental Content.

Scientific data, 12(1):569.

The elemental content of life is a key trait shaping ecology and evolution, yet organismal stoichiometry has largely been studied on a case-by-case basis. This limitation has hindered our ability to identify broad patterns and mechanisms across taxa and ecosystems. To address this, we present StoichLife, a global dataset of 28,049 records from 5,876 species spanning terrestrial, freshwater, and marine realms. Compiled from published and unpublished sources, StoichLife documents elemental content and stoichiometric ratios (%C, %N, %P, C:N, C:P, and N:P) for individual plants and animals. The dataset is standardized and, where available, includes information on taxonomy, habitat, body mass (for animals), geography, and environmental conditions such as temperature, solar radiation, and nutrient availability. By providing an unprecedented breadth of organismal stoichiometry, StoichLife enables the exploration of global patterns, ecological and evolutionary drivers, and context-dependent variations. This resource advances our understanding of the chemical makeup of life and its responses to environmental change, supporting progress in ecological stoichiometry and related fields.

RevDate: 2025-04-04
CmpDate: 2025-04-04

Brait N, Hackl T, S Lequime (2025)

detectEVE: Fast, Sensitive and Precise Detection of Endogenous Viral Elements in Genomic Data.

Molecular ecology resources, 25(4):e14083.

Endogenous viral elements (EVEs) are fragments of viral genomic material embedded within the host genome. Retroviruses contribute to the majority of EVEs because of their genomic integration during their life cycle; however, the latter can also arise from non-retroviral RNA or DNA viruses, then collectively known as non-retroviral (nr) EVEs. Detecting nrEVEs poses challenges because of their sequence and genomic structural diversity, contributing to the scarcity of specific tools designed for nrEVEs detection. Here, we introduce detectEVE, a user-friendly and open-source tool designed for the accurate identification of nrEVEs in genomic assemblies. detectEVE deviates from other nrEVE detection pipelines, which usually classify sequences in a more rigid manner as either virus-associated or not. Instead, we implemented a scaling system assigning confidence scores to hits in protein sequence similarity searches, using bit score distributions and search hints related to various viral characteristics, allowing for higher sensitivity and specificity. Our benchmarking shows that detectEVE is computationally efficient and accurate, as well as considerably faster than existing approaches, because of its resource-efficient parallel execution. Our tool can help to fill current gaps in both host-associated fields and virus-related studies. This includes (i) enhancing genome annotations with metadata for EVE loci, (ii) conducting large-scale paleo-virological studies to explore deep viral evolutionary histories, and (iii) aiding in the identification of actively expressed EVEs in transcriptomic data, reducing the risk of misinterpretations between exogenous viruses and EVEs.

RevDate: 2025-04-04
CmpDate: 2025-04-04

Shi T, Gao Z, Zhang Y, et al (2025)

A Strategy of Assessing Gene Copy Number Differentiation Between Populations Using Ultra-Fast De Novo Assembly of Next-Generation Sequencing Data.

Molecular ecology resources, 25(4):e14080.

Gene duplication and loss play pivotal roles in the evolutionary dynamics of genomes, contributing to species phenotypic diversity and adaptation. However, detecting copy number variations (CNVs) in homoploid populations and newly-diverged species using short reads from next-generation sequencing (NGS) with traditional methods can often be challenging due to uneven read coverage caused by variations in GC content and the presence of repetitive sequences. To address these challenges, we developed a novel pipeline, ST4gCNV, which leverages ultra-fast de novo assemblies of NGS data to detect gene-specific CNVs between populations. The pipeline effectively reduces the variance of read coverage due to technical factors such as GC bias, providing a reliable CNV detection with a minimum sequencing depth of 10. We successfully apply ST4gCNV to the resequencing analysis of homoploid species Nelumbo nucifera and Nelumbo lutea (lotus). We reveal significant CNV-driven differentiation between these species, particularly in genes related to petal colour diversity such as those involved in the anthocyanin pathway. By highlighting the extensive gene duplication and loss events in Nelumbo, our study demonstrates the utility of ST4gCNV in population genomics and underscores its potential of integrating genomic CNV analysis with traditional SNP-based resequencing analysis.

RevDate: 2025-04-04
CmpDate: 2025-04-04

Anderson EC, Giglio RM, DeSaix MG, et al (2025)

gscramble: Simulation of Admixed Individuals Without Reuse of Genetic Material.

Molecular ecology resources, 25(4):e14069.

While a best practice for evaluating the behaviour of genetic clustering algorithms on empirical data is to conduct parallel analyses on simulated data, these types of simulation techniques often involve sampling genetic data with replacement. In this paper we demonstrate that sampling with replacement, especially with large marker sets, inflates the perceived statistical power to correctly assign individuals (or the alleles that they carry) back to source populations-a phenomenon we refer to as resampling-induced, spurious power inflation (RISPI). To address this issue, we present gscramble, a simulation approach in R for creating biologically informed individual genotypes from empirical data that: (1) samples alleles from populations without replacement and (2) segregates alleles based on species-specific recombination rates. This framework makes it possible to simulate admixed individuals in a way that respects the physical linkage between markers on the same chromosome and which does not suffer from RISPI. This is achieved in gscramble by allowing users to specify pedigrees of varying complexity in order to simulate admixed genotypes, segregating and tracking haplotype blocks from different source populations through those pedigrees, and then sampling-using a variety of permutation schemes-alleles from empirical data into those haplotype blocks. We demonstrate the functionality of gscramble with both simulated and empirical data sets and highlight additional uses of the package that users may find valuable.

RevDate: 2025-04-03
CmpDate: 2025-04-04

Schmitz MA, Dimonaco NJ, Clavel T, et al (2025)

Lineage-specific microbial protein prediction enables large-scale exploration of protein ecology within the human gut.

Nature communications, 16(1):3204.

Microbes use a range of genetic codes and gene structures, yet these are often ignored during metagenomic analysis. This causes spurious protein predictions, preventing functional assignment which limits our understanding of ecosystems. To resolve this, we developed a lineage-specific gene prediction approach that uses the correct genetic code based on the taxonomic assignment of genetic fragments, removes incomplete protein predictions, and optimises prediction of small proteins. Applied to 9634 metagenomes and 3594 genomes from the human gut, this approach increased the landscape of captured expressed microbial proteins by 78.9%, including previously hidden functional groups. Optimised small protein prediction captured 3,772,658 small protein clusters, which form an improved microbial protein catalogue of the human gut (MiProGut). To enable the ecological study of a protein's prevalence and association with host parameters, we developed InvestiGUT, a tool which integrates both the protein sequences and sample metadata. Accurate prediction of proteins is critical to providing a functional understanding of microbiomes, enhancing our ability to study interactions between microbes and hosts.

RevDate: 2025-04-03
CmpDate: 2025-04-03

Dejeante R, Valeix M, S Chamaillé-Jammes (2025)

Do Mixed-Species Groups Travel as One? An Investigation on Large African Herbivores Monitored Using Animal-Borne Video Collars.

The American naturalist, 205(4):451-458.

AbstractAlthough prey foraging in mixed-species groups benefit from a reduced risk of predation, whether heterospecific groupmates move together in the landscape, and more generally to what extent mixed-species groups remain cohesive over time and space, remains unknown. Here, we used GPS collars with video cameras to investigate the movements of plains zebras (Equus quagga) in mixed-species groups. Blue wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus), impalas (Aepyceros melampus), and giraffes (Giraffa camelopardalis) commonly form mixed-species groups with zebras in savanna ecosystems. We found that zebras adjust their movement decisions solely on the basis of the presence of giraffes, being more likely to move in zebra-giraffe herds, and this was correlated with a higher cohesion of such groups. Additionally, zebras moving with giraffes spent more time grazing, suggesting that zebras benefit from foraging in the proximity of giraffes. Our results provide new insights into animal movements in mixed-species groups, contributing to a better consideration of mutualism in movement ecology.

RevDate: 2025-04-03
CmpDate: 2025-04-03

Davín AA, Woodcroft BJ, Soo RM, et al (2025)

A geological timescale for bacterial evolution and oxygen adaptation.

Science (New York, N.Y.), 388(6742):eadp1853.

Microbial life has dominated Earth's history but left a sparse fossil record, greatly hindering our understanding of evolution in deep time. However, bacterial metabolism has left signatures in the geochemical record, most conspicuously the Great Oxidation Event (GOE). We combine machine learning and phylogenetic reconciliation to infer ancestral bacterial transitions to aerobic lifestyles, linking them to the GOE to calibrate the bacterial time tree. Extant bacterial phyla trace their diversity to the Archaean and Proterozoic, and bacterial families prior to the Phanerozoic. We infer that most bacterial phyla were ancestrally anaerobic and adopted aerobic lifestyles after the GOE. However, in the cyanobacterial ancestor, aerobic metabolism likely predated the GOE, which may have facilitated the evolution of oxygenic photosynthesis.

RevDate: 2025-04-03
CmpDate: 2025-04-03

Riobueno-Naylor A, Gomez I, Quan S, et al (2025)

Methods for integrating public datasets: insights from youth disaster mental health research.

European journal of psychotraumatology, 16(1):2481699.

Introduction: Weather-related disasters pose significant risks to youth mental health. Exposure to multiple disasters is becoming more common; however, the effects of such exposure remain understudied. This study demonstrates the application of integrative data approaches and FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) data principles to evaluate the relationship between cumulative disaster exposure and youth depression and suicidality in the United States, taking into account contextual factors across levels of social ecology.Methods: We combined data from five public sources, including the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBS), Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), United States Census Bureau, Center for Homeland Defense and Security School Shooting Safety Compendium, and Global Terrorism Database. The integrative dataset included 415,701 youth from 37 districts across the United States who completed the YRBS between 1999 and 2021. The YRBS served as the core dataset.Results: This data note highlights strategies for harmonizing diverse data formats, addressing geographic and temporal inconsistencies, and validating integrated datasets. Automated data cleaning and visualization techniques enhance accuracy and efficiency. Planning for sensitivity analyses before data cleaning is recommended to improve the data integration process and enhance the robustness of findings.Discussion: This integrative approach demonstrates how leveraging FAIR principles can advance trauma research by facilitating large-scale analyses of complex public health questions. The methods provide a replicable framework for examining population-level impacts of phenomena and highlight opportunities for expanding trauma research.

RevDate: 2025-04-04

Pärtel M, Tamme R, Carmona CP, et al (2025)

Global impoverishment of natural vegetation revealed by dark diversity.

Nature [Epub ahead of print].

Anthropogenic biodiversity decline threatens the functioning of ecosystems and the many benefits they provide to humanity[1]. As well as causing species losses in directly affected locations, human influence might also reduce biodiversity in relatively unmodified vegetation if far-reaching anthropogenic effects trigger local extinctions and hinder recolonization. Here we show that local plant diversity is globally negatively related to the level of anthropogenic activity in the surrounding region. Impoverishment of natural vegetation was evident only when we considered community completeness: the proportion of all suitable species in the region that are present at a site. To estimate community completeness, we compared the number of recorded species with the dark diversity-ecologically suitable species that are absent from a site but present in the surrounding region[2]. In the sampled regions with a minimal human footprint index, an average of 35% of suitable plant species were present locally, compared with less than 20% in highly affected regions. Besides having the potential to uncover overlooked threats to biodiversity, dark diversity also provides guidance for nature conservation. Species in the dark diversity remain regionally present, and their local populations might be restored through measures that improve connectivity between natural vegetation fragments and reduce threats to population persistence.

RevDate: 2025-04-03
CmpDate: 2025-04-03

Vivien R, P Martin (2025)

Maintaining taxonomic accuracy in genetic databases: A duty for taxonomists-Reanalysis of the DNA sequences from Mercan et al. (2024) on the genus Potamothrix (Annelida, Clitellata) in Turkish lakes.

Zootaxa, 5575(4):555-562.

Public DNA sequence databases such as GenBank are widely used for identification of organisms in ecological and taxonomic studies. It is important that these public databases contain as few mistakes as possible and that any errors detected in these databases are reported. Here, we reanalyzed the COI sequences of Mercan et al. (2024) and showed that they were mistakenly considered by these authors as belonging to different populations (haplotypes) within the species Potamothrix hammoniensis (Tubificinae). We found that they corresponded to four distinct Tubificinae lineages (species), Pothamothrix alatus paravanicus, Potamothrix bavaricus, Tubifex sp. and Potamothrix sp. Despite these identification errors, the data from Mercan et al. (2024) remain interesting as they provide new information on the diversity of the genus Potamothrix in Turkey. Prompt measures must be taken to correct these errors and prevent them from being detrimental to future studies.

RevDate: 2025-04-03
CmpDate: 2025-04-03

Eales O, Shearer FM, JM McCaw (2025)

How immunity shapes the long-term dynamics of influenza H3N2.

PLoS computational biology, 21(3):e1012893.

Since its emergence in 1968, influenza A H3N2 has caused yearly epidemics in temperate regions. While infection confers immunity against antigenically similar strains, new antigenically distinct strains that evade existing immunity regularly emerge ('antigenic drift'). Immunity at the individual level is complex, depending on an individual's lifetime infection history. An individual's first infection with influenza typically elicits the greatest response with subsequent infections eliciting progressively reduced responses ('antigenic seniority'). The combined effect of individual-level immune responses and antigenic drift on the epidemiological dynamics of influenza are not well understood. Here we develop an integrated modelling framework of influenza transmission, immunity, and antigenic drift to show how individual-level exposure, and the build-up of population level immunity, shape the long-term epidemiological dynamics of H3N2. Including antigenic seniority in the model, we observe that following an initial decline after the pandemic year, the average annual attack rate increases over the next 80 years, before reaching an equilibrium, with greater increases in older age-groups. Our analyses suggest that the average attack rate of H3N2 is still in a growth phase. Further increases, particularly in the elderly, may be expected in coming decades, driving an increase in healthcare demand due to H3N2 infections.

RevDate: 2025-04-03
CmpDate: 2025-04-03

Vande Moortele T, Verschaffelt P, Huang Q, et al (2025)

PathwayPilot: A User-Friendly Tool for Visualizing and Navigating Metabolic Pathways.

Molecular & cellular proteomics : MCP, 24(3):100918.

Metaproteomics, the study of collective proteomes in environmental communities, plays a crucial role in understanding microbial functionalities affecting ecosystems and human health. Pathway analysis offers structured insights into the biochemical processes within these communities. However, no existing tool effectively combines pathway analysis with peptide- or protein-level data. We here introduce PathwayPilot, a web-based application designed to improve metaproteomic data analysis by integrating pathway analysis with peptide- and protein-level data, filling a critical gap in current metaproteomics bioinformatics tools. By allowing users to compare functional annotations across different samples or multiple organisms within a sample, PathwayPilot provides valuable insights into microbial functions. In the re-analysis of a study examining the effects of caloric restriction on gut microbiota, the tool successfully identified shifts in enzyme expressions linked to short-chain fatty acid biosynthesis, aligning with its original findings. PathwayPilot's user-friendly interface and robust capabilities make it a significant advancement in metaproteomics, with the potential for widespread application in microbial ecology and health sciences. All code is open source under the Apache2 license and is available at https://pathwaypilot.ugent.be.

RevDate: 2025-04-03
CmpDate: 2025-04-03

Xu S, Akhatayeva Z, Liu J, et al (2025)

Genetic advancements and future directions in ruminant livestock breeding: from reference genomes to multiomics innovations.

Science China. Life sciences, 68(4):934-960.

Ruminant livestock provide a rich source of products, such as meat, milk, and wool, and play a critical role in global food security and nutrition. Over the past few decades, genomic studies of ruminant livestock have provided valuable insights into their domestication and the genetic basis of economically important traits, facilitating the breeding of elite varieties. In this review, we summarize the main advancements for domestic ruminants in reference genome assemblies, population genomics, and the identification of functional genes or variants for phenotypic traits. These traits include meat and carcass quality, reproduction, milk production, feed efficiency, wool and cashmere yield, horn development, tail type, coat color, environmental adaptation, and disease resistance. Functional genomic research is entering a new era with the advancements of graphical pangenomics and telomere-to-telomere (T2T) gap-free genome assembly. These advancements promise to improve our understanding of domestication and the molecular mechanisms underlying economically important traits in ruminant livestock. Finally, we provide new perspectives and future directions for genomic research on ruminant genomes. We suggest how ever-increasing multiomics datasets will facilitate future studies and molecular breeding in livestock, including the potential to uncover novel genetic mechanisms underlying phenotypic traits, to enable more accurate genomic prediction models, and to accelerate genetic improvement programs.

RevDate: 2025-04-02

Zhang H, Guo G, Li H, et al (2025)

A new numerical method for calculating residual deformation in mined-out areas considering water-rock interaction and its application.

Scientific reports, 15(1):11207.

Globally, extensive land regions have fallen victim to coal mining subsidence, rendering the reuse of goaf sites a crucial concern. The residual deformation amount of these sites is the linchpin for determining their reusability. Presently, numerical computations of residual deformation in goafs, which overlook water-rock coupling, breed significant errors, posing severe threats to the safety of on-site structures. To remedy the situation, this research hinges on the mechanical experiment results of fractured rock masses under water-rock interaction within the goaf. By leveraging an embedded programming language, it pinpoints the irregular damage range of overlying strata due to water-rock effects. Then, corresponding mechanical parameters are allocated to the surrounding rocks at diverse spatial positions, with the erosive impact of water-soaked coal pillars also factored in. This gives rise to a novel numerical method that more precisely gauges groundwater's influence on strata movement and surface subsidence. Using the 01 working face of a Shandong mine as a practical backdrop, the new method verifies its reliability and accuracy. When contrasted with traditional approaches, be it neglecting water filling or assuming full saturation in the goaf, it slashes the calculation error by 20%, furnishing new approaches for residual deformation calculation and novel perspectives for evaluating site stability under complex geological conditions.

RevDate: 2025-04-02

Boyes D, Hutchinson F, Crowley LM, et al (2025)

The genome sequence of the Large Birch Bell moth, Large Birch Roller, Epinotia brunnichana (Linnaeus, 1767).

Wellcome open research, 10:101.

We present a genome assembly from a female Epinotia brunnichana (Large Birch Bell, Large Birch Roller; Arthropoda; Insecta; Lepidoptera; Tortricidae). The genome sequence has a total length of 943.10 megabases. Most of the assembly (99.68%) is scaffolded into 29 chromosomal pseudomolecules, including the W and Z sex chromosomes. The mitochondrial genome has also been assembled and is 15.7 kilobases in length. Gene annotation of this assembly on Ensembl identified 12,003 protein-coding genes.

RevDate: 2025-04-01

Sato K, Watanabe S, Noda T, et al (2025)

Biologging intelligent Platform (BiP): an integrated and standardized platform for sharing, visualizing, and analyzing biologging data.

Movement ecology, 13(1):23.

Sharing biologging data can facilitate collaborative research and biological conservation by providing maps showing animals' distribution and movements. It is a critical social mission to preserve not only horizontal position data, but also behavioral data such as diving depth, flight altitude, speed, and acceleration, as well as physiological data such as body temperature, along with related metadata, ensuring their preservation for future generation. Moreover, although biologging was initially developed in the field of biology, it now contributes to diverse fields such as meteorology and oceanography, leading to expanded opportunities for secondary data utilization. In light of social and academic requirements, we developed "Biologging intelligent Platform (BiP)", which adheres to internationally recognized standards for sensor data and metadata storage. As a result, BiP not only stores sensor data along with metadata but also standardizes this information to facilitate secondary data analysis, facilitating broader applications of biologging data across various disciplines. By visiting the website (https://www.bip-earth.com) and completing the user registration, data owners can interactively upload sensor data, input metadata associated with individual animals, devices, and deployments, standardize data formats, and choose between open and private settings for sharing data. Anyone interested in utilizing the data can access metadata and visualized route maps, irrespective of the data's open or private status. Users can freely download open datasets that are available under the CC BY 4.0 license, which permits copying, redistribution, and modification while adhering to the metadata's credit requirements. To use private datasets, users can contact the data owner to request permission. A unique feature of BiP is the Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) tools that calculate environmental parameters, such as surface currents, ocean winds, and waves from data collected by animals. Algorithms published in some previous studies are integrated into the OLAP which can estimate the environmental and behavioral parameters. To enhance data accessibility, BiP allows users to search for datasets using the DOI of the paper in which the data was used. We believe that linking with other databases for data exchange and multi-repository storage could enhance the sustainability of the data itself.

RevDate: 2025-04-02
CmpDate: 2025-04-02

De Moor D, Skelton M, MacaqueNet, et al (2025)

MacaqueNet: Advancing comparative behavioural research through large-scale collaboration.

The Journal of animal ecology, 94(4):519-534.

There is a vast and ever-accumulating amount of behavioural data on individually recognised animals, an incredible resource to shed light on the ecological and evolutionary drivers of variation in animal behaviour. Yet, the full potential of such data lies in comparative research across taxa with distinct life histories and ecologies. Substantial challenges impede systematic comparisons, one of which is the lack of persistent, accessible and standardised databases. Big-team approaches to building standardised databases offer a solution to facilitating reliable cross-species comparisons. By sharing both data and expertise among researchers, these approaches ensure that valuable data, which might otherwise go unused, become easier to discover, repurpose and synthesise. Additionally, such large-scale collaborations promote a culture of sharing within the research community, incentivising researchers to contribute their data by ensuring their interests are considered through clear sharing guidelines. Active communication with the data contributors during the standardisation process also helps avoid misinterpretation of the data, ultimately improving the reliability of comparative databases. Here, we introduce MacaqueNet, a global collaboration of over 100 researchers (https://macaquenet.github.io/) aimed at unlocking the wealth of cross-species data for research on macaque social behaviour. The MacaqueNet database encompasses data from 1981 to the present on 61 populations across 14 species and is the first publicly searchable and standardised database on affiliative and agonistic animal social behaviour. We describe the establishment of MacaqueNet, from the steps we took to start a large-scale collective, to the creation of a cross-species collaborative database and the implementation of data entry and retrieval protocols. We share MacaqueNet's component resources: an R package for data standardisation, website code, the relational database structure, a glossary and data sharing terms of use. With all these components openly accessible, MacaqueNet can act as a fully replicable template for future endeavours establishing large-scale collaborative comparative databases.

RevDate: 2025-04-02
CmpDate: 2025-04-02

Lee CE, Messer LF, Wattiez R, et al (2025)

Decoding Microbial Plastic Colonisation: Multi-Omic Insights Into the Fast-Evolving Dynamics of Early-Stage Biofilms.

Proteomics, 25(7):e202400208.

Marine plastispheres represent dynamic microhabitats where microorganisms colonise plastic debris and interact. Metaproteomics has provided novel insights into the metabolic processes within these communities; however, the early metabolic interactions driving the plastisphere formation remain unclear. This study utilised metaproteomic and metagenomic approaches to explore early plastisphere formation on low-density polyethylene (LDPE) over 3 (D3) and 7 (D7) days, focusing on microbial diversity, activity and biofilm development. In total, 2948 proteins were analysed, revealing dominant proteomes from Pseudomonas and Marinomonas, with near-complete metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs). Pseudomonas dominated at D3, whilst at D7, Marinomonas, along with Acinetobacter, Vibrio and other genera became more prevalent. Pseudomonas and Marinomonas showed high expression of reactive oxygen species (ROS) suppression proteins, associated with oxidative stress regulation, whilst granule formation, and alternative carbon utilisation enzymes, also indicated nutrient limitations. Interestingly, 13 alkanes and other xenobiotic degradation enzymes were expressed by five genera. The expression of toxins, several type VI secretion system (TVISS) proteins, and biofilm formation proteins by Pseudomonas indicated their competitive advantage against other taxa. Upregulated metabolic pathways relating to substrate transport also suggested enhanced nutrient cross-feeding within the more diverse biofilm community. These insights enhance our understanding of plastisphere ecology and its potential for biotechnological applications.

RevDate: 2025-04-02
CmpDate: 2025-04-02

Xu C, Song LY, Li J, et al (2025)

MangroveDB: A Comprehensive Online Database for Mangroves Based on Multi-Omics Data.

Plant, cell & environment, 48(5):2950-2962.

Mangroves are dominant flora of intertidal zones along tropical and subtropical coastline around the world that offer important ecological and economic value. Recently, the genomes of mangroves have been decoded, and massive omics data were generated and deposited in the public databases. Reanalysis of multi-omics data can provide new biological insights excluded in the original studies. However, the requirements for computational resource and lack of bioinformatics skill for experimental researchers limit the effective use of the original data. To fill this gap, we uniformly processed 942 transcriptome data, 386 whole-genome sequencing data, and provided 13 reference genomes and 40 reference transcriptomes for 53 mangroves. Finally, we built an interactive web-based database platform MangroveDB (https://github.com/Jasonxu0109/MangroveDB), which was designed to provide comprehensive gene expression datasets to facilitate their exploration and equipped with several online analysis tools, including principal components analysis, differential gene expression analysis, tissue-specific gene expression analysis, GO and KEGG enrichment analysis. MangroveDB not only provides query functions about genes annotation, but also supports some useful visualization functions for analysis results, such as volcano plot, heatmap, dotplot, PCA plot, bubble plot, population structure, and so on. In conclusion, MangroveDB is a valuable resource for the mangroves research community to efficiently use the massive public omics datasets.

RevDate: 2025-04-01

Wang TY, Wu YW, Lu HJ, et al (2025)

Chromosome-Level Genome Assembly of the Loach Goby Rhyacichthys aspro Offers Insights Into Gobioidei Evolution.

Molecular ecology resources [Epub ahead of print].

The percomorph fish clade Gobioidei is a suborder that comprises over 2200 species distributed in nearly all aquatic habitats. To understand the genetics underlying their species diversification, we sequenced and annotated the genome of the loach goby, Rhyacichthys aspro, an early-diverging group, and compared it with nine additional Gobioidei species. Within Gobioidei, the loach goby possesses the smallest genome at 594 Mb, and a rise in species diversity from early-diverging to more recently diverged lineages is mirrored by enlarged genomes and a higher presence of transposable elements (TEs), particularly DNA transposons. These DNA transposons are enriched in genic and regulatory regions and their copy number increase is strongly correlated with substitution rate, suggesting that DNA repair after transposon excision/insertion leads to nearby mutations. Consequently, the proliferation of DNA transposons might be the crucial driver of Gobioidei diversification and adaptability. The loach goby genome also points to mechanisms of ecological adaptation. It contains relatively few genes for lateral line development but an overrepresentation of synaptic function genes, with genes putatively under selection linked to synapse organisation and calcium signalling, implicating a sensory system distinct from other Gobioidei species. We also see an overabundance of genes involved in neurocranium development and renal function, adaptations likely connected to its flat morphology suited for strong currents and an amphidromous life cycle. Comparative analyses with hill-stream loaches and the European eel reveal convergent adaptations in body shape and saltwater balance. These findings shed new light on the loach goby's survival mechanisms and the broader evolutionary trends within Gobioidei.

RevDate: 2025-04-01

Gu Y, Meng L, Wang Y, et al (2025)

Uncovering the role of solar radiation and water stress factors in constraining decadal intra-site spring phenology variability in diverse ecosystems across the Northern Hemisphere.

The New phytologist [Epub ahead of print].

The spring phenology has advanced significantly over recent decades with climate change, impacting large-scale biogeochemical cycles, climate feedback, and other essential ecosystem processes. Although numerous prognostic models have been developed for spring phenology, regional analyses of the optimality (OPT) strategy model that incorporate environmental variables beyond temperature and photoperiod remain lacking. We investigated the roles of solar radiation (SR) and three water stress factors (precipitation (P), soil moisture, and vapor pressure deficit (VPD)) on spring phenology from 1982 to 2015 using the OPT model with Global Inventory Modeling and Mapping Studies NDVI3g dataset and environmental data from TerraClimate, CRU_TS, and Global Land Data Assimilation System across the Northern Hemisphere (> 30°N). Our results show that SR and water stress factors significantly impacted intrasite decadal spring phenology variability, with water stress factors dominant in grassland ecosystems while SR dominated in the rest of the ecosystem types. Enhanced models incorporating SR (OPT-S) and VPD (OPT-VPD) outperformed the original OPT model, likely due to improved representation of the adaptive strategy of spring phenology to optimize photosynthetic carbon gain while minimizing frost risk. Our research enhances the understanding of the key environmental drivers influencing decadal spring phenology variation in the Northern Hemisphere and contributes to more accurate forecasts of ecological responses to global environmental change.

RevDate: 2025-03-31
CmpDate: 2025-03-29

van Kessel SAM, Wielders CCH, Schoffelen AF, et al (2025)

Enhancing antimicrobial resistance surveillance and research: a systematic scoping review on the possibilities, yield and methods of data linkage studies.

Antimicrobial resistance and infection control, 14(1):25.

BACKGROUND: Surveillance data on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) determinants such as antibiotic use, prevalence of AMR, antimicrobial stewardship, and infection prevention and control are mostly analysed and reported separately, although they are inextricably linked to each other. The impact of surveillance and research can be enhanced by linking these data. This systematic scoping review aims to summarize the studies that link AMR data and evaluate whether they yield new results, implications, or recommendations for practice.

METHODS: For this review, data linkage is defined as the process of linking records, from at least two independent data sources on either (I) at least two AMR determinants or (II) one AMR determinant and one or more general population characteristics. Data linkage should be performed on the level of a certain entity which, in the context of this review, can encompass persons, healthcare institutes, geographical regions or countries. A systematic literature search was performed on February 7th 2025 in Embase.com, PubMed and Scopus to identify AMR data linkage studies.

RESULTS: Forty-eight articles were included in our review. Most data linkage studies used two data sources, and most studies were published in the last 5 years (n = 23 in 2020-2024). A predominance of studies linked data on geographical location, and thirteen studies linked data on individual patient level. Findings demonstrate that the majority of studies (43/48) had added value and provided recommendations for clinical practice and future policies or had suggestions for further research and surveillance. Additionally, data linkage studies appeared to be suitable for hypothesis generating. Several limitations were identified. Most studies had ecological designs, which are prone to ecological fallacy and unobserved confounding, making it hard to establish causality.

CONCLUSION: This systematic scoping review showed that AMR data linkage studies are increasingly performed. They have potential to gain a more comprehensive understanding of AMR dynamics by generating hypotheses, assisting in optimisation of surveillance, and interpretation of data in the context of guideline/policy development. To increase the added value of data linkage, more studies should be performed to improve knowledge on methodological approaches, data access, data management, and governance issues.

CLINICAL TRIAL NUMBER: Not applicable.

RevDate: 2025-04-01
CmpDate: 2025-04-01

Jyoti J, MT Hütt (2025)

Evaluating changes in attractor sets under small network perturbations to infer reliable microbial interaction networks from abundance patterns.

Bioinformatics (Oxford, England), 41(4):.

MOTIVATION: Inferring microbial interaction networks from microbiome data is a core task of computational ecology. An avenue of research to create reliable inference methods is based on a stylized view of microbiome data, starting from the assumption that the presences and absences of microbiomes, rather than the quantitative abundances, are informative about the underlying interaction network. With this starting point, inference algorithms can be based on the notion of attractors (asymptotic states) in Boolean networks. Boolean network framework offers a computationally efficient method to tackle this problem. However, often existing algorithms operating under a Boolean network assumption, fail to provide networks that can reproduce the complete set of initial attractors (abundance patterns). Therefore, there is a need for network inference algorithms capable of reproducing the initial stable states of the system.

RESULTS: We study the change of attractors in Boolean threshold dynamics on signed undirected graphs under small changes in network architecture and show, how to leverage these relationships to enhance network inference algorithms. As an illustration of this algorithmic approach, we analyse microbial abundance patterns from stool samples of humans with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), with colorectal cancer and from healthy individuals to study differences between the interaction networks of the three conditions. The method reveals strong diversity in IBD interaction networks. The networks are first partially deduced by an earlier inference method called ESABO, then we apply the new algorithm developed here, EDAME, to this result to generate a network that comes nearest to satisfying the original attractors.

Implementation code is freely available at https://github.com/Jojo6297/edame.git.

RevDate: 2025-03-30
CmpDate: 2025-03-30

Yang JZ, Li JH, Liu JL, et al (2025)

Multiomics analysis revealed the effects of polystyrene nanoplastics at different environmentally relevant concentrations on intestinal homeostasis.

Environmental pollution (Barking, Essex : 1987), 372:126050.

Nanoplastics pollution is a global issue, with the digestive tract being one of the first affected organs, requiring further research on its impact on intestinal health. This study involved orally exposing mice to polystyrene nanoplastics (PS-NPs) at doses of 0.1, 0.5, or 2.5 mg/d for 42 days. The effects on intestinal health were thoroughly assessed via microbiomics, metabolomics, transcriptomics, and molecular biology. Our study demonstrated that the administration of all three doses of PS-NPs resulted in increased colonic permeability, heightened colonic and peripheral inflammation, reduced levels of antimicrobial peptides, and shortened colonic length. These effects may be attributed to a reduction in the abundance of probiotic bacteria, such as Clostridia_UCG-014, Roseburia, and Akkermansia, alongside an increase in the abundance of the pathogenic bacterium Desulfovibrionaceae induced by PS-NPs. Furthermore, we underscored the crucial role of histidine metabolism in PS-NPs-induced colonic injury, characterized by a significant reduction of L-histidine, which is closely related to microbial ecological dysregulation. Corresponding to microbiota deterioration and metabolic dysregulation, transcriptome analysis revealed that PS-NPs may disrupt colonic immune homeostasis by activating the TLR4/MyD88/NF-κB/NLRP3 signaling pathway. In conclusion, this study provided novel insights into the mechanisms by which PS-NPs disrupt intestinal homeostasis through integrated multiomics analysis, revealing critical molecular pathway and providing a scientific basis for future risk assessment of nanoplastics exposure.

RevDate: 2025-03-29
CmpDate: 2025-03-29

Rehbein M, Escobari B, Fischer S, et al (2025)

Quantitative and qualitative Data on historical Vertebrate Distributions in Bavaria 1845.

Scientific data, 12(1):525.

Archival collections contain an underutilized wealth of biodiversity data, encapsulated in government files and other historical documents. In 1845, the Bavarian government conducted a comprehensive national survey on the occurrence of 44 selected vertebrate species across the country. The detailed expert responses from 119 forestry offices, totalling 520 handwritten pages, have been preserved in the Bavarian State Archives. In this study, we digitized, annotated, geographically referenced, and published these historical records, making them widely available as data for research and conservation planning. Our dataset, openly accessible through the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and Zenodo, contains 5,467 species occurrence records from 1845. Besides the binary presence/absence data, we have also published the original textual survey responses, which contain rich qualitative information, such as species abundances, population trends, habitats, forest management practices, and human-nature relationships. This information can be further processed and interpreted to address a range of questions in historical and contemporary ecology.

RevDate: 2025-03-28

Boyes D, Holland PWH, University of Oxford and Wytham Woods Genome Acquisition Lab, et al (2021)

The genome sequence of the poplar hawk-moth, Laothoe populi (Linnaeus, 1758).

Wellcome open research, 6:237.

We present a genome assembly from an individual female Laothoe populi (the poplar hawk-moth; Arthropoda; Insecta; Lepidoptera; Sphingidae). The genome sequence is 576 megabases in span. Most of the assembly is scaffolded into 29 chromosomal pseudomolecules, with the W and Z sex chromosome assembled.

RevDate: 2025-03-27
CmpDate: 2025-03-27

Culot A, Abriat G, KP Furlong (2025)

High-Performance Genome Annotation for a Safer and Faster-Developing Phage Therapy.

Viruses, 17(3): pii:v17030314.

Phage therapy, which uses phages to decrease bacterial load in an ecosystem, introduces a multitude of gene copies (bacterial and phage) into said ecosystem. While it is widely accepted that phages have a significant impact on ecology, the mechanisms underlying their impact are not well understood. It is therefore paramount to understand what is released in the said ecosystem, to avoid alterations with difficult-to-predict-but potentially huge-consequences. An in-depth annotation of therapeutic phage genomes is therefore essential. Currently, the average published phage genome has only 20-30% functionally annotated genes, which represents a hurdle to overcome to deliver safe phage therapy, for both patients and the environment. This study aims to compare the effectiveness of manual versus automated phage genome annotation methods. Twenty-seven phage genomes were annotated using SEA-PHAGE and Rime Bioinformatics protocols. The structural (gene calling) and functional annotation results were compared. The results suggest that during the structural annotation step, the SEA-PHAGE method was able to identify an average of 1.5 more genes per phage (typically a frameshift gene) and 5.3 gene start sites per phage. Despite this difference, the impact on functional annotation appeared to be limited: on average, 1.2 genes per phage had erroneous functions, caused by the structural annotation. Rime Bioinformatics' tool (rTOOLS, v2) performed better at assigning functions, especially where the SEA-PHAGE methods assigned hypothetical proteins: 7.0 genes per phage had a better functional annotation on average, compared to SEA PHAGE's 1.7. The method comparison detailed in this article indicate that (1) manual structural annotation is marginally superior to rTOOLS automated structural annotation; (2) rTOOLS automated functional annotation is superior to manual functional annotation. Previously, the only way to obtain a high-quality annotation was by using manual protocols, such as SEA-PHAGES. In the relatively new field of phage therapy, which requires support to advance, manual work can be problematic due to its high cost. Rime Bioinformatics' rTOOLS software allows for time and money to be saved by providing high-quality genome annotations that are comparable to manual results, enabling a safer and faster-developing phage therapy.

RevDate: 2025-03-27
CmpDate: 2025-03-27

Tahir Ul Qamar M, Fatima K, Rao MJ, et al (2025)

Comparative genomics profiling of Citrus species reveals the diversity and disease responsiveness of the GLP pangenes family.

BMC plant biology, 25(1):388.

Citrus is an important nutritional fruit globally; however, its yield is affected by various stresses. This study presents the draft pangenome of Citrus, developed using 11 species to examine their genetic diversity and identify members of the germin-like proteins (GLPs) gene family involved in disease responsiveness. The developed sequence-based pangenome contains 954 Mb sequence and 74,755 genes. The comparative genomics analysis revealed the presence-absence variations (PAVs) among the Citrus genomes and species-specific protein-coding genes. Gene-based pangenome analysis revealed 4,936 new genes missing in the reference genome and highlighted the core and shell genes with putative functions in stress regulation. The pangenome-wide identification of GLP gene family members indicated the intraspecies diversity among the members across 11 genomes by analyzing their gene structure, motifs, and chromosomal distribution patterns. The synteny and evolutionary constraints analyses of Citrus GLPs provide detailed evidence of their evolutionary conservation and divergence. Further, the interaction, functional enrichment, and promoter analysis revealed their involvement in abiotic-, biotic-stress, signaling, and development-related pathways. The expression patterns of C. sinensis GLPs were studied in Huanglongbing (HLB) and Citrus canker disease. Several genes including CsGLPs1-2 and CsGLPs8-4 showed changes in expression patterns under both disease conditions. The qRT-PCR analysis revealed that these two genes were highly expressed in leaves infected with HLB disease across seven HLB-tolerant and susceptible citrus species. This Citrus pangenome and pangenes family study offers a comprehensive resource and new insights into the structural and functional diversity, identifying candidate genes that are important for future research to understand the stress-responsive mechanisms in Citrus.

RevDate: 2025-03-26
CmpDate: 2025-03-26

Tam CC, Young SD, Harrison S, et al (2025)

Theory-Based Social Media Intervention for Nonmedical Use of Prescription Opioids in Young Adults: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial.

JMIR research protocols, 14:e65847 pii:v14i1e65847.

BACKGROUND: The nonmedical use of prescription opioids (NMUPO) in young adults in the United States is concerning and is robustly influenced by many psychosocial factors. Given the advantages of flexibility, wide coverage, and real-time responses and assessment, using social media appears to be a promising and innovative approach to delivering psychosocial intervention to young adults. However, few theory-based social media interventions are available for NMUPO targeting this at-risk population.

OBJECTIVE: Guided by the information-motivation-behavioral skills model, the proposed research aims to address critical gaps by theoretically exploring psychosocial content associated with NMUPO among young adults via formative assessment. These findings will then be used to develop and evaluate the feasibility and preliminary efficacy of a peer-led social media intervention to reduce NMUPO among young adults.

METHODS: The proposed study will comprise serial research activities. First, formative research will be conducted through semistructured interviews among 30 young adults engaged in NMUPO. Qualitative data will be synthesized using a pragmatic approach for identifying psychosocial content associated with NMUPO. Second, qualitative findings will be used for developing a peer-led social media intervention to reduce NMUPO among young adults by integrating promising psychotherapy principles and incorporating them with well-trained recovery coaches. Third, the social media intervention will be evaluated through a 12-week randomized controlled trial among 70 young adults (n=35, 50% in the intervention group and control group) engaged in NMUPO via mixed methods, including pre- and postintervention surveys, social media paradata (eg, time-series reactions to posts) collection, and ecological momentary assessment during the intervention. The control group will not receive an intervention but will complete the pre- and postintervention surveys. The primary outcomes will be feasibility, usability, and acceptability, while the secondary outcomes will be psychosocial and behavioral measures, such as past-3-month NMUPO, intention, psychological distress, self-efficacy, resilience, and coping strategies.

RESULTS: The proposed study was funded in May 2024. Social media campaigns have received responses from a total of 379 individuals, with 24 (6.3%) identified as eligible. As of February 10, 2025, we have completed formative interviews with 8 eligible participants.

CONCLUSIONS: The proposed study will be one of the first efforts to develop and deliver a theory-based peer-led intervention on social media, incorporating empirical findings on the psychosocial mechanism of NMUPO. The findings of the proposed study will provide valuable insights into opioid risk reduction for young adults through an innovative approach. If the tested trial is found to be feasible, the proposed study will contribute to future scaled-up and fully powered psychosocial interventions among young adults and other key populations at risk for NMUPO.

TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClincialTrials.gov NCT06469749; https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT06469749.

DERR1-10.2196/65847.

RevDate: 2025-03-26

Sfriso AA, Juhmani AS, Tomio Y, et al (2025)

Microbial dynamics in seagrass restoration: Unveiling hidden indicators of ecological success.

Marine environmental research, 208:107089 pii:S0141-1136(25)00146-1 [Epub ahead of print].

Seagrass transplantation significantly alters sediment microbial communities, shaping their composition and metabolic functions. One year after Zostera marina transplantation, the microbial community structure and functions at the recipient site began shifting toward those of the donor site. Key microbial taxa associated with seagrass meadow sediment, such as Firmicutes (Hungateiclostridiaceae, Defluviitaleaceae) and Campylobacterota (Sulfurovum), increased in abundance, correlating with sediment organic matter content and carbon availability. Four functional groups were identified, each with distinct metabolic roles: (1) Opportunistic Anaerobic Degraders, (2) Seagrass-Driven Carbon Recyclers, (3) Anaerobic Fermenters and Hydrocarbon Recyclers and (4) Oxygen-Linked Carbon and Sulfur Cyclers. The sediments of transplanted Z. marina meadows exhibited increased cellulolysis and aerobic chemoheterotrophy, along with a reduction in nitrogen metabolism one year post transplant. Despite these microbial shifts, sediment isotopic signatures remained indicative of algal biomass, suggesting an incomplete transition toward a mature seagrass environment. Multivariate analysis further confirmed that the microbial community at the recipient site had not yet fully converged with that of the donor meadow, indicating that complete sediment maturation may require longer timescales. These findings demonstrate that microbial community composition and functional annotations serve as early indicators of seagrass restoration success. Long-term monitoring is essential to track ecosystem recovery and assess the stabilization of sediment conditions.

RevDate: 2025-03-26
CmpDate: 2025-03-26

Ferrari YAC, Jesus CVF, Batista JFC, et al (2025)

Secular trend of cervical cancer mortality in Brazil and regions.

Ciencia & saude coletiva, 30(3):e09962023.

The scope of this study was to describe the secular trend of cervical cancer mortality in Brazil and its various regions from 1980 to 2021. It involved a populational and ecological study, based on data available at the Department of Informatics of the Unified Health System, using codes 180 and C53. Crude rates, age-specific rates, and age-standardized rates were calculated for the Brazilian and world population. The Average Annual Percent Change (AAPC) was obtained by trend analysis using the Joinpoint Regression Program, with a significance level of 0.05 and 95% confidence intervals (95%CI). There were 171,793 deaths from cervical cancer. In Brazil (AAPC -0.3; CI95%-1.0; 0.4), North (AAPC 0.6; 95%CI -0.1; 1.3) and South (AAPC 0.0; 95%CI -0.5; 0.5) the trends were stationary, increasing in the Northeast (AAPC 0.6; 95%CI 0.3; 0.8) and in the Midwest (AAPC -1.3; 95%CI -1.5; -1.1), and decreasing in the Southeast (AAPC -0.9; 95%CI -1.4; -0.5). Regional differences indicate that public policies need to be improved regarding women's access to a health system that offers adequate prevention, screening and treatment through management strategies that include the most vulnerable population.

RevDate: 2025-03-26

Pekar JE, Wang Y, Wang JC, et al (2025)

Transmission dynamics of the 2022 mpox epidemic in New York City.

Nature medicine [Epub ahead of print].

The 2022 global mpox epidemic was caused by transmission of MPXV clade IIb, lineage B.1 through sexual contact networks, with New York City (NYC) experiencing the first and largest outbreak in the United States. By performing phylogeographic analysis of MPXV genomes sampled from 757 individuals in NYC between April 2022 and April 2023, and 3,287 MPXV genomes sampled around the world, we identify over 200 introductions of MPXV into NYC with at least 84 leading to onward transmission. These infections primarily occurred among men who have sex with men, transgender women and nonbinary individuals. Through a comparative analysis with HIV in NYC, we find that both MPXV and HIV genomic cluster sizes are best fit by scale-free distributions, and that people in MPXV clusters are more likely to have previously received an HIV diagnosis and be a member of a recently growing HIV transmission cluster. We model MPXV transmission through sexual contact networks and show that highly connected individuals would be disproportionately infected at the start of an epidemic, which would likely result in the exhaustion of the most densely connected parts of the network, and, therefore, explain the rapid expansion and decline of the NYC outbreak. By coupling the genomic epidemiology of MPXV and HIV with epidemic modeling, we demonstrate that the transmission dynamics of MPXV in NYC can be understood by general principles of sexually transmitted pathogens.

RevDate: 2025-03-25
CmpDate: 2025-03-25

Liu X, Milesi E, Fontsere C, et al (2025)

Time-lagged genomic erosion and future environmental risks in a bird on the brink of extinction.

Proceedings. Biological sciences, 292(2043):20242480.

Global biodiversity is rapidly declining due to habitat degradation and genomic erosion, highlighting the urgent need to monitor endangered species and their genetic health. Temporal genomics and ecological modelling offer finer resolution than single-time-point measurements, providing a comprehensive view of species' recent and future trajectories. We investigated genomic erosion and environmental suitability in the critically endangered regent honeyeater (Anthochaera phrygia) by sequencing whole genomes of historical and modern specimens and building multi-temporal species distribution models (SDMs) across the last century. The species has declined from hundreds of thousands of individuals to fewer than 300 over the past 100 years. SDMs correctly predicted known patterns of local extinction in southeast Australia. Our demographic reconstructions revealed a gradual population decline from 2000 to 2500 years ago, sharply accelerating in the last 500 years due to climate variability and habitat loss. Despite this substantial demographic collapse, the regent honeyeater has lost only 9% of its genetic diversity, with no evidence of inbreeding or connectivity loss. Also, it exhibits higher diversity than many other threatened bird species. Forward-in-time genomic simulations indicate that this time lag between population decline and genetic diversity loss conceals the risk of ongoing genomic erosion into a future of rapidly degrading environmental suitability. Our work underscores the need for targeted conservation efforts and continuous genetic monitoring to prevent species extinction.

RevDate: 2025-03-27
CmpDate: 2025-03-26

Dinnage R, M Kleineberg (2025)

Generative AI extracts ecological meaning from the complex three dimensional shapes of bird bills.

PLoS computational biology, 21(3):e1012887.

Data on the three dimensional shape of organismal morphology is becoming increasingly available, and forms part of a new revolution in high-throughput phenomics that promises to help understand ecological and evolutionary processes that influence phenotypes at unprecedented scales. However, in order to meet the potential of this revolution we need new data analysis tools to deal with the complexity and heterogeneity of large-scale phenotypic data such as 3D shapes. In this study we explore the potential of generative Artificial Intelligence to help organize and extract meaning from complex 3D data. Specifically, we train a deep representational learning method known as DeepSDF on a dataset of 3D scans of the bills of 2,020 bird species. The model is designed to learn a continuous vector representation of 3D shapes, along with a 'decoder' function, that allows the transformation from this vector space to the original 3D morphological space. We find that approach successfully learns coherent representations: particular directions in latent space are associated with discernible morphological meaning (such as elongation, flattening, etc.). More importantly, learned latent vectors have ecological meaning as shown by their ability to predict the trophic niche of the bird each bill belongs to with a high degree of accuracy. Unlike existing 3D morphometric techniques, this method has very little requirements for human supervised tasks such as landmark placement, increasing it accessibility to labs with fewer labour resources. It has fewer strong assumptions than alternative dimension reduction techniques such as PCA. Once trained, 3D morphology predictions can be made from latent vectors very computationally cheaply. The trained model has been made publicly available and can be used by the community, including for finetuning on new data, representing an early step toward developing shared, reusable AI models for analyzing organismal morphology.

RevDate: 2025-03-26
CmpDate: 2025-03-26

Aquino ÉC, Borowicc SL, Alves-Souza SN, et al (2025)

Distribution of garbage codes in the Mortality Information System, Brazil, 2000 to 2020.

Ciencia & saude coletiva, 30(3):e09442023.

The analysis of the causes of death is essential to understand the main problems that affect the health level of the population of a region or country. The garbage codes (GC) provide little useful information about causes of death. This study aims to identify the proportion of GC among the deaths registered and to analyze their temporal distribution in Brazil from 2000 to 2020. It's an ecological time-series study of the evolution of the proportion of GC in Brazil. Time series analysis was performed using segmented linear regression models (joinpoint). Between 2000 and 2020, 39.9% of deaths that occurred in Brazil were coded with GC. Between 2000 and 2007, there was a continuous and persistent reduction in the proportion of GC (APC -2.1; P < 0.001). Between 2007 and 2015, there continued to be a reduction, albeit to a lesser extent (APC = -0.7; P = 0.013). Between 2015 and 2018, there was no significant trend of the proportion of GC (APC = -2.3; P = 0.172), which persisted from 2018 (APC 3.2; P < 0.079). Although a reduction in the proportion of GC in Brazil was observed until 2018, this trend did not persist after that year. Reducing the proportion of GC allows managers to plan health policies more adequately for the population.

RevDate: 2025-03-26
CmpDate: 2025-03-25

Aucello R, Pernice S, Tortarolo D, et al (2025)

UnifiedGreatMod: a new holistic modelling paradigm for studying biological systems on a complete and harmonious scale.

Bioinformatics (Oxford, England), 41(3):.

MOTIVATION: Computational models are crucial for addressing critical questions about systems evolution and deciphering system connections. The pivotal feature of making this concept recognizable from the biological and clinical community is the possibility of quickly inspecting the whole system, bearing in mind the different granularity levels of its components. This holistic view of system behaviour expands the evolution study by identifying the heterogeneous behaviours applicable, e.g. to the cancer evolution study.

RESULTS: To address this aspect, we propose a new modelling paradigm, UnifiedGreatMod, which allows modellers to integrate fine-grained and coarse-grained biological information into a unique model. It enables functional studies by combining the analysis of the system's multi-level stable states with its fluctuating conditions. This approach helps to investigate the functional relationships and dependencies among biological entities. This is achieved, thanks to the hybridization of two analysis approaches that capture a system's different granularity levels. The proposed paradigm was then implemented into the open-source, general modelling framework GreatMod, in which a graphical meta-formalism is exploited to simplify the model creation phase and R languages to define user-defined analysis workflows. The proposal's effectiveness was demonstrated by mechanistically simulating the metabolic output of Escherichia coli under environmental nutrient perturbations and integrating a gene expression dataset. Additionally, the UnifiedGreatMod was used to examine the responses of luminal epithelial cells to Clostridium difficile infection.

GreatMod https://qbioturin.github.io/epimod/, epimod_FBAfunctions https://github.com/qBioTurin/epimod_FBAfunctions, first case study E. coli  https://github.com/qBioTurin/Ec_coli_modelling, second case study C. difficile  https://github.com/qBioTurin/EpiCell_CDifficile.

RevDate: 2025-03-24

Broad GR, Holt S, Sivess L, et al (2025)

The genome sequence of the Scorched Wing moth, Plagodis dolabraria (Linnaeus, 1767).

Wellcome open research, 10:111.

We present a genome assembly from a male specimen of Plagodis dolabraria (Scorched Wing; Arthropoda; Insecta; Lepidoptera; Geometridae). The genome sequence has a total length of 939.07 megabases. Most of the assembly (99.59%) is scaffolded into 31 chromosomal pseudomolecules, including the Z sex chromosome. The mitochondrial genome has also been assembled and is 16.97 kilobases in length.

RevDate: 2025-03-23
CmpDate: 2025-03-23

Kelliher JM, Rodriguez FE, Johnson LYD, et al (2025)

Quantifying the impact of workshops promoting microbiome data standards and data stewardship.

Scientific reports, 15(1):9887.

The field of microbiome research continues to grow at a rapid pace, with multi-omics approaches becoming widely used to interrogate diverse microbiome samples. However, due to lagging awareness and implementation of standards and data stewardship, many datasets are produced that are not comparable, reproducible, or reusable. In 2021, the National Microbiome Data Collaborative launched its Ambassador Program, which utilizes a community-learning model to annually train a cohort of early-career researchers in microbiome data stewardship best practices. These Ambassadors then host workshops and other events to communicate these themes to their respective microbiome research communities. To quantify the impact of this learning model for promoting awareness of and experience with microbiome data, we conducted a survey of workshop participants from events hosted by the 2023 Ambassador cohort. The 2023 cohort of 13 National Microbiome Data Collaborative Ambassadors collectively hosted 21 events, reaching over 550 researchers. The Ambassadors distributed an anonymous post-workshop survey to their event participants to quantify the effectiveness of the training materials, the workshop format, and the thematic content. From the 21 events, survey results were successfully collected for 15 of those events from a total of 122 researchers. Overall, 122 participants working with a range of microbiome types and from a variety of institutions responded to the survey and reported overwhelmingly positive experiences with the workshop content and materials, with 98% of respondents reporting that they gained knowledge from the event. Participants across the events also reported an increase in their post-workshop understanding of metadata standards, principles for microbiome data management and reporting, and the importance of standardization in microbiome data processing. Participants also expressed a willingness to apply what they learned about microbiome data stewardship to their own research. The results of this study demonstrate the effectiveness of hands-on workshops and community-learning for communicating data stewardship best practices to microbiome researchers. The lessons learned and details about the implementation of this cohort-based learning model contained herein are intended to assist other groups in their efforts to create or improve similar learning strategies.

RevDate: 2025-03-22

Eaton WD, McGee KM, Glahn A, et al (2025)

Use of a logging road in a Costa Rican forest changes the composition and stability of soil microbial decomposer communities, and the conversion of organic carbon into biomass.

Journal of applied microbiology pii:8090501 [Epub ahead of print].

AIMS: The effects of a tropical forest logging road on soil C and N, and the compositions of Actinobacteria, Acidobacteria, and wood rot/lignin-degrading fungal (WRT/LD) decomposer communities were evaluated.

METHODS AND RESULTS: Soils from a healthy Costa Rican old growth forest before Hurricane Otto and from an adjacent, recently formed logging road built after Hurricane Otto were collected over 4 years and assessed for C and N metrics, and characteristics of the 3 decomposer communities determined by Illumina amplicon sequencing methods. The Logging Road negatively impacted the soil total organic C, respiration, biomass C, qCO2, and total N, while the Actinobacterial and Acidobacterial communities changed from stable compositions of copiotrophic taxa in the rich forest soil to stable compositions of oligotrophic taxa in the poor logging road soil, and the wood rot/lignin degrading (WRT/LD) community changed from stable compositions of copiotrophic taxa in the forest soils to an unstable community of oligotrophic taxa with almost no overlap in genera between Logging Road soils.

CONCLUSIONS: The logging road negatively influenced 3 decomposer communities and associated C and N metrics, with the two bacterial communities taxonomically stabilizing, but the fungal community taxonomically diverging into an unstable composition over time. Monitoring efforts are on-going to provide local forest land managers with potential indicators of soil ecosystem damage and recovery.

RevDate: 2025-03-22

Hanly J, Anon , Perret J, et al (2025)

Disability in ecology and evolution.

Trends in ecology & evolution pii:S0169-5347(25)00033-3 [Epub ahead of print].

RevDate: 2025-03-22

Pinkert S, Reuber V, Krug LM, et al (2025)

Burrowing facilitated the survival of mammals in harsh and fluctuating climates.

Current biology : CB pii:S0960-9822(25)00278-7 [Epub ahead of print].

Species' ability to cope with climatic instability varies greatly, influenced by factors such as dispersal, physiological adaptations, and phylogenetic conservatism. Here, we investigate how burrowing behavior, a key component of species' endurance strategies and ecosystem functioning, shaped the contemporary patterns of species richness and range size as well as the diversification of mammalian lineages. Analyzing 4,407 terrestrial mammal species, excluding bats, combined with novel trait data on 3,096 species, we reveal contrasting responses to climatic factors between burrowing and non-burrowing species. Burrowing lineages are disproportionately species-rich at lower temperatures and productivity. Both range size and species richness steeply increase with climate seasonality in burrowing species as opposed to non-burrowing species. The proportion of burrowing species increases with latitude, with regions above 20°, especially those exhibiting greater Pleistocene temperature changes, being almost exclusively composed of burrowing species. Trait conservatism, higher net diversification rates, and Eocene peak diversification provide the evolutionary context for these contemporary patterns, underscoring the role of burrowing for mammalian radiations into temperate climates. Moreover, the lower extinction rate of burrowing species and peak diversification at the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) boundary support the longstanding hypothesis that burrowing behavior promoted survival during the "impact winter" that marks the replacement of non-avian dinosaurs by mammals. Our study highlights the potential of readily available trait information for understanding the ecological and evolutionary processes that shape species distributions through space and time. The careful integration of divergent environmental constraints bears vast improvements for forecasts of species' responses to climatic changes and global models of biodiversity patterns.

RevDate: 2025-03-23
CmpDate: 2025-03-23

Huang JN, Gao CC, Ren HY, et al (2025)

Multi-omics association pattern between gut microbiota and host metabolism of a filter-feeding fish in situ exposed to microplastics.

Environment international, 197:109360.

Microplastics (MPs) are widespread in water environments and can affect gut microbiota and host metabolism of fish, but whether changes in host metabolism under MPs are mediated by gut microbiota remains unclear. Here, silver carp, a filter-feeding fish with important ecological functions, was in-situ exposure to environmentally relevant MPs. Multi-omics analysis and fecal microbiota transplantation were used to reveal the metabolic responses of carp along gut-liver-muscle axis. After three months of in situ exposure to MPs, community structure of gut microbiota of carp was reshaped, and five dominate phyla were significantly changed, including increased Cyanobacteria, Chloroflexi and Planctomycetota but decreased Firmicutes and Fusobacteriota. Weighted gene co-expression network analysis was further performed between these phyla and liver transcription spectrum, showing that the hub gene module contained up-regulated hppD, maiA and plg and activated ubiquinone and other terpenoid-quinone biosynthesis and phenylalanine metabolism. By fecal microbiota transplantation, the key gene module associated with core microbiota phyla of carp was verified in germ-free zebrafish. Interestingly, up-regulated hppD, maiA and plg and enriched phenylalanine metabolism were also observed in this module. Subsequently, metabolome performed in carp liver also shared activated phenylalanine metabolism, including increased trans-cinnamic acid and L-tyrosine. Furthermore, high-associated mapping showed that the differentially expressed metabolites (gamma-aminobutyric acid, ornithine and L-serine) related to amino acid metabolism in carp muscle were significantly accompanied with increased L-tyrosine in its liver. Overall, MPs exposure could change gut microbiome of silver carp and alter host metabolism especially amino acid metabolism along the gut-liver-muscle axis.

RevDate: 2025-03-23
CmpDate: 2025-03-23

Schroeder MW, Frumkin MR, RA Mace (2025)

Proof-of-concept for integrating multimodal digital health assessments into lifestyle interventions for older adults with dementia risk factors.

Journal of behavioral medicine, 48(2):373-384.

Multimodal digital health assessments overcome the limitations of patient-reported outcomes by allowing for continuous and passive monitoring but remain underutilized in older adult lifestyle interventions for brain health. Therefore, we aim to (1) report ecological momentary assessment (EMA) and ActiGraph adherence among older adults during a lifestyle intervention; and (2) use dynamic data collected via EMA and ActiGraph to examine person-specific patterns of mindfulness, steps, and sleep throughout the intervention. We analyzed EMA and ActiGraph data from a pilot study of the 8-week My Healthy Brain program (N = 10) lifestyle group for older adults (60+) with subjective cognitive decline. EMA adherence metrics included proportion of EMA completed and the proportion of days with at least 10 mindfulness minutes. ActiGraph GT9X adherence metrics included the number of valid wear days (≥ 7 h) and the number of days participants achieved their step goal. We used linear mixed-effects models to examine person-specific patterns of step count, sleep efficiency, and mindfulness practice. On average, participants completed 39 of the 49 possible EMAs (80%) during the program. ActiGraph adherence was slightly higher than EMA (M = 61.40 days, 87.71%). Participants achieved the daily mindfulness goal (10 min/day) and step goal on 46.32% and 55.10% of days, respectively. Dynamic data revealed that on average, participant step counts increased by approximately 16.5 steps per day (b = 16.495, p = 0.002). However, some participants exhibited no changes while improvements made by other participants returned to baseline levels of activity. There was substantial heterogeneity in trajectories of mindfulness practice and sleep efficiency. EMA and ActiGraph are feasible for older adults enrolled in dementia risk reduction lifestyle interventions. Future studies are needed to better understand how mechanisms of lifestyle behaviors captured by EMA and ActiGraph are related to cognitive outcomes in older adults.

RevDate: 2025-03-22
CmpDate: 2025-03-22

Li M, Wu L, Shi Y, et al (2025)

Bioinformatics and Functional Analysis of OsASMT1 Gene in Response to Abiotic Stress.

Biochemical genetics, 63(2):1527-1540.

The study aimed to elucidate the functional characteristics of OsASMT1 gene under copper (Cu) or sodium chloride (NaCl) stress. Bioinformatics scrutiny unveiled that OsASMT1 is situated on chromosome 9. Its protein architecture, comprising dimerization and methyltransferase domains, showed significant similarities to OsASMT2 and OsASMT3. High expression in roots and panicles, along with abiotic stress putative cis-regulatory elements in the promoter, indicated potential stress responsiveness. Real-time quantitative PCR confirmed OsASMT1 induction under Cu and NaCl stress in rice. Surprisingly, yeast expressing OsASMT1 did not exhibit enhanced resistance to abiotic stresses. The results of subcellular localization analysis indicated that OsASMT1 plays a role in the cytoplasm. While OsASMT1 responded to Cu and NaCl stress in rice, its heterologous expression in yeast failed to confer abiotic stress resistance, highlighting the need for further investigation of its functional implications.

RevDate: 2025-03-21

Hesson JC, Haba Y, McBride CS, et al (2025)

A chromosomal reference genome sequence for the northern house mosquito, Culex pipiens form pipiens, Linnaeus, 1758.

Wellcome open research, 10:107.

We present a genome assembly from an individual female Culex pipiens sensu stricto (the northern house mosquito; Arthropoda; Insecta; Diptera; Culicidae), from a wild population in Sweden. The genome sequence is 533 megabases in span. Most of the assembly is scaffolded into three chromosomal pseudomolecules. The complete mitochondrial genome was also assembled and is 15.6 kilobases in length.

RevDate: 2025-03-20

Dong J, Dai W, Xu J, et al (2025)

Impact and elastic modulus of coal mining on terrestrial ecosystems.

Scientific reports, 15(1):9454.

The energy consumption structure is gradually evolving into a "diversified energy structure" against the backdrop of the global implementation of energy-saving and low-carbon policies. Coal, as the main energy source in China, is difficult to change in the short term, given the characteristics of China's energy and resource endowments, as well as the actual social and economic development at the present stage. Nevertheless, coal mining inevitably leads to a range of ecological issues. Identifying the impact of coal mining on terrestrial ecosystems and adopting resilient recovery measures are crucial prerequisites for advancing green coal mining efforts and attaining carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals. Using China's open-pit coal mining as a case study: (1) the research examines the fundamental attributes and evolving patterns of spatial distribution among these mines within the country. Furthermore, it delineates the life cycle stages and distinctive features of the five principal open-pit coal mines. The life cycle of a coal mining area is divided into four distinct development phases: the initial phase, the accelerated phase, the stable phase, and the declining phase. The spatial relationship between the life cycle stages of coal mining and ecosystem succession is elucidated by examining the evolutionary types of ecosystems within coal mine area. In the accelerated and stable development phase, the adverse effects of coal mining on the ecosystem are in a long-term increasing trend, causing the key elements of the ecosystem to gradually surpass their threshold values. The ecosystem is out of balance, severely damaged, and gradually undergoing degradation or extreme degradation. The types of ecological succession in coal mining areas can be categorized as follows: terrestrial succession leading to a new terrestrial ecosystem, terrestrial to aquatic ecosystem transitions, or the development of an amphibious symbiotic ecosystem. (2) The research quantitatively assessed the impact of surface coal mining on terrestrial ecosystems by utilizing remote sensing data in conjunction with coal production information. In 2022, the affected areas of the five major open-pit coal mines due to coal mining activities amounted to approximately 0.02% of China's total land area. Meanwhile, the nationwide affected areas of all open-pit coal mines combined reached to approximately 0.13% of China's land area. Open-pit coal mining activities have a significant impact on the surface. (3) By incorporating the ecological resilience theory, we establish a model for the ecosystem's elastic modulus in coal mining areas, taking into account landscape diversity, vegetation coverage, land type, and climate factors, which are based on the concepts of elastic strength and elastic limit. A conceptual model for recognizing ecological thresholds in coal mining areas is developed by incorporating the comprehensive integrity index of the ecosystem. The comprehensive integrity of the ecosystem within a coal mining area undergoes significant alterations as it crosses three distinct ecological thresholds: the elastic point, the yield point, and the mutational point. There should be a corresponding constant (or constant interval) at the three ecological thresholds of ecosystem resilience, the elastic point, the yield point, and the mutational point, which is closely related to the scale of mining operations, mining technology, and the service life in coal mining areas. The established models for identifying ecological thresholds and the resilience modulus degree serve as both theoretical references and practical bases for managing the progress and trends of ecosystem changes during coal resource extraction, making ecological restoration in coal mine areas more target-oriented and specific.

RevDate: 2025-03-20
CmpDate: 2025-03-20

Mammides C, Ieronymidou C, H Papadopoulos (2025)

An ecoacoustic dataset collected on the island of Cyprus in the Mediterranean Basin biodiversity hotspot.

Scientific data, 12(1):461.

There is growing interest in using novel technologies for large-scale biodiversity monitoring. Passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) represents a promising approach for surveying vocalizing animals. However, further development of PAM methods is needed to improve their accuracy. The availability of extensive ecoacoustic datasets from biodiverse areas can facilitate this development. In this study, we present a large ecoacoustic dataset (1.58 TB) collected at sixty-one study sites on the island of Cyprus between March and May 2023. The dataset comprises >313,000 audio files, representing over 5,200 hours of recordings. It can be used for a range of applications, such as developing and refining species identification algorithms, acoustic indices, and protocols for processing acoustic data to exclude non-focal sounds, e.g., those produced by human activities. It can also be used to explore fundamental ecological questions. To facilitate its use, the complete dataset has been made available on the Hugging Face repository and the ARBIMON platform, operated by Rainforest Connection[TM], which offers a range of free tools for ecoacoustic analyses.

RevDate: 2025-03-20
CmpDate: 2025-03-20

Zhang G, Ristola P, Su H, et al (2025)

BioArchLinux: community-driven fresh reproducible software repository for life sciences.

Bioinformatics (Oxford, England), 41(3):.

MOTIVATION: The BioArchLinux project was initiated to address challenges in bioinformatics software reproducibility and freshness. Relying on Arch Linux's user-driven ecosystem, we aim to create a comprehensive and continuously updated repository for life sciences research.

RESULTS: BioArchLinux provides a PKGBUILD-based system for seamless software packaging and maintenance, enabling users to access the latest bioinformatics tools across multiple programming languages. The repository includes Docker images, Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) support, and Junest for nonroot environments, enhancing accessibility across platforms. Although being developed and maintained by a small core team, BioArchLinux is a fast-growing bioinformatics repository that offers a participatory and community-driven environment.

The repository, documentation, and tools are freely available at https://bioarchlinux.org and https://github.com/BioArchLinux. Users and developers are encouraged to contribute and expand this open-source initiative.

RevDate: 2025-03-19
CmpDate: 2025-03-19

Rank M, Kather A, Wilke D, et al (2025)

Limitations of estimating antibiotic resistance using German hospital consumption data - a comprehensive computational analysis.

Scientific reports, 15(1):9244.

For almost a century, antibiotics have played an important role in the treatment of infectious diseases. However, the efficacy of these very drugs is now threatened by the development of resistances, which pose major challenges to medical professionals and decision-makers. Thereby, the consumption of antibiotics in hospitals is an important driver that can be targeted directly. To illuminate the relation between consumption and resistance depicts a very important step in this procedure. With the help of comprehensive ecological and clinical data, we applied a variety of different computational approaches ranging from classical linear regression to artificial neural networks to analyze antibiotic resistance in Germany. These mathematical and statistical models demonstrate that the amount and particularly the structure of currently available data sets lead to contradictory results and do, therefore, not allow for profound conclusions. More effort and attention on both data collection and distribution is necessary to overcome this problem. In particular, our results suggest that at least monthly or quarterly antibiotic use and resistance data at the department and ward level for each hospital (including application route and type of specimen) are needed to reliably determine the extent to which antibiotic consumption influences resistance development.

RevDate: 2025-03-19
CmpDate: 2025-03-19

Árvay J, Hauptvogl M, Demková L, et al (2025)

GIS-based Visualization of Elemental Distribution in Neoboletus Luridiformis Fruiting Body.

Biological trace element research, 203(4):2271-2283.

The fruiting body of Neoboletus luridiformis (Scarletina bolete) mushroom was used to determine the level of bioconcentration and subsequent distribution of seventeen elements (Ag, Al, Ba, Ca, Cd, Cr, Cu, Fe, K, Mg, Mn, Na, Ni, Pb, Se, Sr, and Zn). A two-centimeter-thick vertical section of the entire fruit body was divided into 101 partial sub-samples where the contents of the studied elements were determined using ICP OES. The actual distribution of the elements in the fruiting body profile was visualized using a GIS interpolation method resulting in distribution maps. The study provides valuable insights into the distribution patterns of 17 elements within the fruiting body of N. luridiformis. Based on the visualization of the elemental content, the determined elements can be divided into three categories. Elements accumulated primarily (i) in the cap (Al, Ag, Ca, Cd, Cu, Fe, K, Mg, Ni, and Zn), (ii) in the stipe (Ba, Mn, Na, Pb, and Se), and (iii) elements with non-specific distribution (Cr and Sr). Since such detailed information supported by graphical visualization has not been published to date, the information in this study will help to better understand the accumulation and distribution of elements within the fruiting bodies of wild as well as cultivated mushroom species.

RevDate: 2025-03-18

Sivell O, Sivell D, Mitchell R, et al (2025)

The genome sequence of the Small Red Damselfly, Ceriagrion tenellum (de Villers, 1789).

Wellcome open research, 10:79.

We present a genome assembly from a male specimen of Ceriagrion tenellum (Small Red Damselfly; Arthropoda; Insecta; Odonata; Coenagrionidae). The genome sequence has a total length of 2,077.00 megabases. Most of the assembly (99.28%) is scaffolded into 14 chromosomal pseudomolecules, including the X sex chromosome. The mitochondrial genome has also been assembled and is 17.21 kilobases in length.

RevDate: 2025-03-18
CmpDate: 2025-03-18

Rakkannan G, Mohanty AK, Das II, et al (2025)

Triflumezopyrim induced oxidative stress, DNA damage and apoptosis on Labeo rohita: Insights from Bioinformatics, Histopathological and Molecular approaches.

International journal of biological macromolecules, 304(Pt 2):140911.

Triflumezopyrim is a novel mesoionic pesticide used in Asian rice fields to control brown plant hopper, which can reach aquatic environments through drift during application or surface runoff. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the effect of chronic exposure of sub-lethal concentrations of triflumezopyrim (2.468 ppm, 1.480 ppm, and 0.740 ppm) on freshwater carp, Labeo rohita.This study encompassed a multi-pronged approach, including molecular docking studies to elucidate the interactions between triflumezopyrim and selected proteins, an assessment of 8-OHdG (8-hydroxy-2-deoxyguanosine) activity to gauge DNA damage, histopathological examinations to identify cellular alterations, and expression of genes involved in oxidative stress, DNA repair, and apoptosis in L. rohita. We observed dose-dependent responses in 8-OHdG activity and the expression of select genes, with higher concentrations of triflumezopyrim yielding more pronounced transcriptional alterations. Notably, histopathological examinations of liver and brain tissues vividly portrayed the impact of triflumezopyrim on L. rohita. These findings contribute to the assessment of biological toxicity and the environmental footprint left by chemical pollutants such as triflumezopyrim. The study emphasizes the crucial role of monitoring histopathological alterations, 8-OHdG activity and gene expression changes as potential biomarkers for assessing exposures to triflumezopyrim. This research provides valuable insights into the ecological implications of triflumezopyrim in aquatic ecosystems.

RevDate: 2021-10-21
CmpDate: 2014-04-23

Weston ED, Whitfield DP, Travis JM, et al (2013)

When do young birds disperse? Tests from studies of golden eagles in Scotland.

BMC ecology, 13:42.

BACKGROUND: Dispersal comprises three broad stages - departure from the natal or breeding locations, subsequent travel, and settlement. These stages are difficult to measure, and vary considerably between sexes, age classes, individuals and geographically. We used tracking data from 24 golden eagles, fitted with long-lived GPS satellite transmitters as nestlings, which we followed during their first year. We estimated the timing of emigration from natal sites using ten previously published methods. We propose and evaluate two new methods. The first of these uses published ranging distances of parents as a measure of the natal home range, with the requirement that juveniles must exceed it for a minimum of 10 days (a literature-based measure of the maximum time that a juvenile can survive without food from its parents). The second method uses the biggest difference in the proportion of locations inside and outside of the natal home range smoothed over a 30 day period to assign the point of emigration. We used the latter as the standard against which we compared the ten published methods.

RESULTS: The start of golden eagle dispersal occurred from 39 until 250 days after fledging (based on method 12). Previously published methods provided very different estimates of the point of emigration with a general tendency for most to apparently assign it prematurely. By contrast the two methods we proposed provided very similar estimates for the point of emigration that under visual examination appeared to fit the definition of emigration much better.

CONCLUSIONS: We have used simple methods to decide when an individual has dispersed - they are rigorous and repeatable. Despite one method requiring much more information, both methods provided robust estimates for when individuals emigrated at the start of natal dispersal. Considerable individual variation in recorded behaviour appears to account for the difficulty capturing the point of emigration and these results demonstrate the potential pitfalls associated with species exhibiting complex dispersal behaviour. We anticipate that coupled with the rapidly increasing availability of tracking data, our new methods will, for at least some species, provide a far simpler and more biologically representative approach to determine the timing of emigration.

RevDate: 2024-05-06
CmpDate: 2013-12-11

Hardisty A, Roberts D, Biodiversity Informatics Community, et al (2013)

A decadal view of biodiversity informatics: challenges and priorities.

BMC ecology, 13:16.

Biodiversity informatics plays a central enabling role in the research community's efforts to address scientific conservation and sustainability issues. Great strides have been made in the past decade establishing a framework for sharing data, where taxonomy and systematics has been perceived as the most prominent discipline involved. To some extent this is inevitable, given the use of species names as the pivot around which information is organised. To address the urgent questions around conservation, land-use, environmental change, sustainability, food security and ecosystem services that are facing Governments worldwide, we need to understand how the ecosystem works. So, we need a systems approach to understanding biodiversity that moves significantly beyond taxonomy and species observations. Such an approach needs to look at the whole system to address species interactions, both with their environment and with other species.It is clear that some barriers to progress are sociological, basically persuading people to use the technological solutions that are already available. This is best addressed by developing more effective systems that deliver immediate benefit to the user, hiding the majority of the technology behind simple user interfaces. An infrastructure should be a space in which activities take place and, as such, should be effectively invisible.This community consultation paper positions the role of biodiversity informatics, for the next decade, presenting the actions needed to link the various biodiversity infrastructures invisibly and to facilitate understanding that can support both business and policy-makers. The community considers the goal in biodiversity informatics to be full integration of the biodiversity research community, including citizens' science, through a commonly-shared, sustainable e-infrastructure across all sub-disciplines that reliably serves science and society alike.

RevDate: 2021-10-21
CmpDate: 2013-06-06

Tonk L, Bongaerts P, Sampayo EM, et al (2013)

SymbioGBR: a web-based database of Symbiodinium associated with cnidarian hosts on the Great Barrier Reef.

BMC ecology, 13:7.

BACKGROUND: The algal endosymbionts (genus Symbiodinium) associated with scleractinian corals (and other reef invertebrates) have received a lot of research attention in the past decade, particularly as certain host-symbiont associations appear more affected by increasing seawater temperatures than others. With the rapid accumulation of information on the diversity of Symbiodinium, it is becoming increasingly difficult to compare newly acquired Symbiodinium data with existing data to detect patterns of host-symbiont specificity on broader spatial scales. The lack of a general consensus on the classification of Symbiodinium species coupled with the variety of different markers used to identify the genus Symbiodinium (ITS1, ITS2, LSU D1/D2, chloroplast 23S rDNA and psbA minicircle) further complicate direct comparison.

DESCRIPTION: The SymbioGBR database compiles all currently available Symbiodinium sequences and associated host information of data collected from the Great Barrier Reef into a single relational database that is accessible via a user-friendly, searchable web-based application (http://www.SymbioGBR.org). SymbioGBR allows users to query Symbiodinium types or sequences sourced from various genetic markers (e.g. ITS1, ITS2, LSU D1/D2 and chloroplast 23S) and invertebrate host species to explore their reported associations. In addition, as the database includes sequence information of multiple genetic markers, it allows cross-referencing between conventional (e.g. ITS2 region) and novel markers that exhibit low intragenomic variability (e.g. psbA region). Finally, the database is based on the collection details of individual specimens. Such host-symbiont associations can be assessed quantitatively and viewed in relation to their environmental and geographic context.

CONCLUSIONS: The SymbioGBR database provides a comprehensive overview of Symbiodinium diversity and host-associations on the Great Barrier Reef. It provides a quick, user-friendly means to compare newly acquired data on Symbiodinium (e.g. raw sequences or characterized Symbiodinium types) with previous data on the diversity of invertebrate host-symbiont associations on the GBR. The inclusion of psbAncr sequence information allows for validation of widely used ITS1/ITS2 markers and their ability to accurately identify relevant sequences. Most importantly, centralization of sequence information from multiple genetic markers will aid the classification of Symbiodinium species diversity and allow researchers to easily compare patterns of host-Symbiodinium associations.

RevDate: 2024-03-21
CmpDate: 2013-04-22

Renaud AK, Savage J, SJ Adamowicz (2012)

DNA barcoding of Northern Nearctic Muscidae (Diptera) reveals high correspondence between morphological and molecular species limits.

BMC ecology, 12:24.

BACKGROUND: Various methods have been proposed to assign unknown specimens to known species using their DNA barcodes, while others have focused on using genetic divergence thresholds to estimate "species" diversity for a taxon, without a well-developed taxonomy and/or an extensive reference library of DNA barcodes. The major goals of the present work were to: a) conduct the largest species-level barcoding study of the Muscidae to date and characterize the range of genetic divergence values in the northern Nearctic fauna; b) evaluate the correspondence between morphospecies and barcode groupings defined using both clustering-based and threshold-based approaches; and c) use the reference library produced to address taxonomic issues.

RESULTS: Our data set included 1114 individuals and their COI sequences (951 from Churchill, Manitoba), representing 160 morphologically-determined species from 25 genera, covering 89% of the known fauna of Churchill and 23% of the Nearctic fauna. Following an iterative process through which all specimens belonging to taxa with anomalous divergence values and/or monophyly issues were re-examined, identity was modified for 9 taxa, including the reinstatement of Phaonia luteva (Walker) stat. nov. as a species distinct from Phaonia errans (Meigen). In the post-reassessment data set, no distinct gap was found between maximum pairwise intraspecific distances (range 0.00-3.01%) and minimum interspecific distances (range: 0.77-11.33%). Nevertheless, using a clustering-based approach, all individuals within 98% of species grouped with their conspecifics with high (>95%) bootstrap support; in contrast, a maximum species discrimination rate of 90% was obtained at the optimal threshold of 1.2%. DNA barcoding enabled the determination of females from 5 ambiguous species pairs and confirmed that 16 morphospecies were genetically distinct from named taxa. There were morphological differences among all distinct genetic clusters; thus, no cases of cryptic species were detected.

CONCLUSIONS: Our findings reveal the great utility of building a well-populated, species-level reference barcode database against which to compare unknowns. When such a library is unavailable, it is still possible to obtain a fairly accurate (within ~10%) rapid assessment of species richness based upon a barcode divergence threshold alone, but this approach is most accurate when the threshold is tuned to a particular taxon.

RevDate: 2021-10-21
CmpDate: 2013-04-22

Sherwood AR, Wang N, Carlile AL, et al (2012)

The Hawaiian Freshwater Algal Database (HfwADB): a laboratory LIMS and online biodiversity resource.

BMC ecology, 12:22.

BACKGROUND: Biodiversity databases serve the important role of highlighting species-level diversity from defined geographical regions. Databases that are specially designed to accommodate the types of data gathered during regional surveys are valuable in allowing full data access and display to researchers not directly involved with the project, while serving as a Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS). The Hawaiian Freshwater Algal Database, or HfwADB, was modified from the Hawaiian Algal Database to showcase non-marine algal specimens collected from the Hawaiian Archipelago by accommodating the additional level of organization required for samples including multiple species.

DESCRIPTION: The Hawaiian Freshwater Algal Database is a comprehensive and searchable database containing photographs and micrographs of samples and collection sites, geo-referenced collecting information, taxonomic data and standardized DNA sequence data. All data for individual samples are linked through unique 10-digit accession numbers ("Isolate Accession"), the first five of which correspond to the collection site ("Environmental Accession"). Users can search online for sample information by accession number, various levels of taxonomy, habitat or collection site. HfwADB is hosted at the University of Hawaii, and was made publicly accessible in October 2011. At the present time the database houses data for over 2,825 samples of non-marine algae from 1,786 collection sites from the Hawaiian Archipelago. These samples include cyanobacteria, red and green algae and diatoms, as well as lesser representation from some other algal lineages.

CONCLUSIONS: HfwADB is a digital repository that acts as a Laboratory Information Management System for Hawaiian non-marine algal data. Users can interact with the repository through the web to view relevant habitat data (including geo-referenced collection locations) and download images of collection sites, specimen photographs and micrographs, and DNA sequences. It is publicly available at http://algae.manoa.hawaii.edu/hfwadb/.

RevDate: 2024-03-20
CmpDate: 2011-12-05

Gonzalez SC, Soto-Centeno JA, DL Reed (2011)

Population distribution models: species distributions are better modeled using biologically relevant data partitions.

BMC ecology, 11:20.

BACKGROUND: Predicting the geographic distribution of widespread species through modeling is problematic for several reasons including high rates of omission errors. One potential source of error for modeling widespread species is that subspecies and/or races of species are frequently pooled for analyses, which may mask biologically relevant spatial variation within the distribution of a single widespread species. We contrast a presence-only maximum entropy model for the widely distributed oldfield mouse (Peromyscus polionotus) that includes all available presence locations for this species, with two composite maximum entropy models. The composite models either subdivided the total species distribution into four geographic quadrants or by fifteen subspecies to capture spatially relevant variation in P. polionotus distributions.

RESULTS: Despite high Area Under the ROC Curve (AUC) values for all models, the composite species distribution model of P. polionotus generated from individual subspecies models represented the known distribution of the species much better than did the models produced by partitioning data into geographic quadrants or modeling the whole species as a single unit.

CONCLUSIONS: Because the AUC values failed to describe the differences in the predictability of the three modeling strategies, we suggest using omission curves in addition to AUC values to assess model performance. Dividing the data of a widespread species into biologically relevant partitions greatly increased the performance of our distribution model; therefore, this approach may prove to be quite practical and informative for a wide range of modeling applications.

RevDate: 2021-10-20
CmpDate: 2008-01-25

Blundell AG, TV Burkey (2007)

A database of schemes that prioritize sites and species based on their conservation value: focusing business on biodiversity.

BMC ecology, 7:10.

BACKGROUND: Biodiversity offsets are conservation projects used mainly by business to counterbalance the environmental impacts of their operations, with the aim of achieving a net neutral or even beneficial outcome for biodiversity. Companies considering offsets need to know: (1) if there are areas of such biological importance that no impact is acceptable, and outside of these no-go areas, (2) the relative importance of biodiversity in the impacted site versus the site(s) proposed for protection, to ensure that the offset is of equal or greater status than that lost through the company's operations. We compiled a database of 40 schemes that use various methods to assess conservation priorities, and we examined if the schemes would allow companies to answer the above questions.

DESCRIPTION: Overall, schemes tend to be designed to guide conservation organizations in their own priority setting or they categorize species based on conservation status. Generally, the schemes do not provide all the necessary information for offsets because they operate at a broad spatial scale or with low spatial resolution, which make it difficult to assess sites at the project level. Furthermore, most schemes do not explicitly incorporate threat, which we consider key to assessing whether offsets protect habitats or species that would otherwise be lost (i.e., provide additionality). The schemes are useful, however, for identifying the major conservation issues in different ecosystems around the globe.

CONCLUSION: Companies can proceed by first avoiding, reducing, and mitigating impacts, and then using existing schemes to identify i) no-go areas and ii) appropriate offsets to compensate for any unavoidable loss in biodiversity. If existing schemes are inadequate, then companies should use integrated conservation planning techniques to define offset options within the region of their operations.

RevDate: 2024-03-15
CmpDate: 2007-01-10

Johnson K, Neville TB, P Neville (2006)

GIS habitat analysis for lesser prairie-chickens in southeastern New Mexico.

BMC ecology, 6:18.

BACKGROUND: We conducted Geographic Information System (GIS) habitat analyses for lesser prairie-chicken (LPCH, Tympanuchus pallidicinctus) conservation planning. The 876,799 ha study area included most of the occupied habitat for the LPCH in New Mexico. The objectives were to identify and quantify: 1. suitable LPCH habitat in New Mexico, 2. conversion of native habitats, 3. potential for habitat restoration, and 4. unsuitable habitat available for oil and gas activities.

RESULTS: We found 16% of suitable habitat (6% of the study area) distributed in 13 patches of at least 3,200 ha and 11% of suitable habitat (4% of the study area) distributed in four patches over 7,238 ha. The area converted from native vegetation types comprised 17% of the study area. Ninety-five percent of agricultural conversion occurred on private lands in the northeastern corner of the study area. Most known herbicide-related conversions (82%) occurred in rangelands in the western part of the study area, on lands managed primarily by the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM). We identified 88,190 ha (10% of the study area) of habitats with reasonable restoration potential. Sixty-two percent of the primary population area (PPA) contained occupied, suitable, or potentially suitable habitat, leaving 38% that could be considered for oil and gas development.

CONCLUSION: Although suitable LPCH habitat appears at first glance to be abundant in southeastern New Mexico, only a fraction of apparently suitable vegetation types constitute quality habitat. However, we identified habitat patches that could be restored through mesquite control or shin-oak reintroduction. The analysis also identified areas of unsuitable habitat with low restoration potential that could be targeted for oil and gas exploration, in lieu of occupied, high-quality habitats. Used in combination with GIS analysis and current LPCH population data, the habitat map represents a powerful conservation and management tool.

RevDate: 2025-03-15

Hartley GA, Okhovat M, Hoyt SJ, et al (2025)

Centromeric transposable elements and epigenetic status drive karyotypic variation in the eastern hoolock gibbon.

Cell genomics pii:S2666-979X(25)00064-3 [Epub ahead of print].

Great apes have maintained a stable karyotype with few large-scale rearrangements; in contrast, gibbons have undergone a high rate of chromosomal rearrangements coincident with rapid centromere turnover. Here, we characterize fully assembled centromeres in the eastern hoolock gibbon, Hoolock leuconedys (HLE), finding a diverse group of transposable elements (TEs) that differ from the canonical alpha-satellites found across centromeres of other apes. We find that HLE centromeres contain a CpG methylation centromere dip region, providing evidence that this epigenetic feature is conserved in the absence of satellite arrays. We uncovered a variety of atypical centromeric features, including protein-coding genes and mismatched replication timing. Further, we identify duplications and deletions in HLE centromeres that distinguish them from other gibbons. Finally, we observed differentially methylated TEs, topologically associated domain boundaries, and segmental duplications at chromosomal breakpoints, and thus propose that a combination of multiple genomic attributes with propensities for chromosome instability shaped gibbon centromere evolution.

RevDate: 2025-03-15
CmpDate: 2025-03-15

Mbuba E, Mañas-Chavernas N, Moore SJ, et al (2025)

Estimating the hole surface area of insecticide-treated nets using image analysis, manual hole counting and exact hole measurements.

Malaria journal, 24(1):82.

BACKGROUND: The physical integrity of insecticidal-treated nets (ITNs) is important for creating a barrier against host-seeking mosquitoes and, therefore, influences people's perception of the net's effectiveness and their willingness to use it. Monitoring the physical integrity of ITNs over time provides information for replenishment schedules and purchasing decisions. Currently, the assessment of physical integrity of ITNs is conducted by manually counting holes and estimating their size to class the net as functional or not. This approach is laborious to routinely conduct during field surveys of ITNs. Automated image analysis may provide a rapid assessment of the physical integrity of ITNs but it is not known if the images can capture sufficient information. As a first step, this study aimed to assess the agreement between estimated hole surface areas derived from (1) manually segmented images, (2) manual hole counting compared to (3) ground truth obtained by calibrated close-up shots of individual holes.

METHODS: The physical integrity of 75 ITNs purposely selected from an ongoing study was assessed by manual hole counting, image analysis and ground truth. For the image analysis, a graphical user interface was developed and used for the segmentation of holes visible in photographs taken from each side of the net. The hole surface area was then computed from this data. The agreement between the estimates from image analysis and manual hole counting was compared to the ground truth using the Bland-Altman method.

RESULTS: There was substantial agreement between the manually segmented image analysis estimates and the ground truth hole surface areas. The overall bias was small, with a mean ratio of the hole surface area from image analysis to the ground truth of 0.70, and the 95% limits of agreement ranging from 0.35 to 1.38. Manual hole counting underestimated the hole surface area compared to the ground truth, particularly among nets with holes above 10 cm in diameter.

CONCLUSION: Images coupled with manual segmentation contain sufficient information to calculate hole surface area. This lays the groundwork for incorporating automatic hole detection, and then assessing whether this method will offer a fast and objective method for routine assessment of physical integrity of ITNs. While the WHO method underestimated the hole surface area, it remains useful in classifying nets as either serviceable or too torn because the cut-off is specific to this method.

RevDate: 2025-03-14

Dong L, Mu L, X Huang (2025)

Exploring lipid remodeling and antioxidant responses in Chlorella pyrenoidosa exposed to streptomycin sulfate stress.

Food chemistry, 478:143565 pii:S0308-8146(25)00816-7 [Epub ahead of print].

Microalgae, particularly Chlorella pyrenoidosa, are valuable for bioactive compounds and biofuel production, but antibiotic use in large-scale cultivation can impact growth and biochemical productivity. This study examines the physiological and molecular responses of C. pyrenoidosa to streptomycin sulfate (STRS) stress. STRS exposure significantly reduced cell density (15.31 × 10[6] to 11.20 × 10[6] cells/mL, p < 0.001) and photosynthetic efficiency (Fv/fm from 0.45 to 0.15). Multi-omics analysis revealed a dual adaptive strategy: (1) activation of antioxidant defenses, including upregulated superoxide dismutase (SOD, 19-fold) and ascorbate peroxidase (APX, 32-fold); (2) lipid remodeling, with increased α-linolenic acid (ALA) content (17.43 % to 21.25 %, p < 0.001) due to β-oxidation downregulation. These findings enhance understanding of microalgal stress adaptation and highlight potential applications in biofuel and food/feed industries. Future studies should optimize genetic and cultivation strategies to enhance these adaptive traits while ensuring ecological sustainability.

RevDate: 2025-03-13
CmpDate: 2025-03-13

Tang Y, Hu H, Chen S, et al (2025)

Multi-omics analysis revealed the novel role of NQO1 in microenvironment, prognosis and immunotherapy of hepatocellular carcinoma.

Scientific reports, 15(1):8591.

NAD(P)H dehydrogenase quinone 1 (NQO1) is overexpressed in various cancers and is strongly associated with an immunosuppressive microenvironment and poor prognosis. In this study, we explored the role of NQO1 in the microenvironment, prognosis and immunotherapy of Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) using multi-omics analysis and machine learning. The results revealed that NQO1 was significantly overexpressed in HCC cells. NQO1[+]HCC cells were correlated with poor prognosis and facilitated tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) polarization to M2 macrophages. We identified core NQO1-related genes (NRGs) and developed the NRGs-related risk-scores in hepatocellular carcinoma (NRSHC). The comprehensive nomogram integrating NRSHC, age, and pathological tumor-node-metastasis (pTNM) Stage achieved an area under the curve (AUC) above 0.7, demonstrating its accuracy in predicting survival outcomes and immunotherapy responses of HCC patients. High-risk patients exhibited worse prognoses but greater sensitivity to immunotherapy. Additionally, a web-based prediction tool was designed to enhance clinical utility. In conclusion, NQO1 may play a critical role in M2 polarization and accelerates HCC progression. The NRSHC model and accompanying tools offer valuable insights for personalized HCC treatment.

RevDate: 2025-03-13
CmpDate: 2025-03-13

Wei P, Song Y, Tian R, et al (2025)

CaecilianTraits, an individual level trait database of Caecilians worldwide.

Scientific data, 12(1):428.

Functional traits differ among species, which determine the ecological niche a species occupies and its ability to adapt to environment. However, differences in traits also exist at intraspecific level. Such variations shape differences in individual survival capabilities. Investigating intraspecific differences of functional traits is important for ecology, evolutionary biology and biodiversity conservation. Individual trait-based approaches have been applied in plant ecology. But for animals, most databases only provide data at the species level. In this study, we presented a global database of morphological traits for caecilians (Amphibia, Gymnophiona) at both species and individual level. Caecilians are a unique group of amphibians characterized by their secretive habits, which have limited our understanding of this taxon. We compiled the most comprehensive database covering 218 out of 222 known species, with 215 of them have individual level data. This database will facilitate research in the ecology, evolutionary biology, conservation biology, and taxonomy of caecilians. Furthermore, this dataset can be utilized to test ecological and evolutionary hypotheses at the individual level.

RevDate: 2025-03-13

Vršanský P, Sendi H, Kotulová J, et al (2025)

Jurassic Park approached: a coccid from Kimmeridgian cheirolepidiacean Aintourine Lebanese amber.

National science review, 12(3):nwae200.

With the exception of a fly and a mite from the Triassic of Italy, all Mesozoic amber arthropods are from the Cretaceous. Late Jurassic Lebanese amber from Aintourine revealed a completely preserved adult coccid male (wing length 0.8 mm), Jankotejacoccus libanogloria gen. et sp. n., the earliest record of a plant sucking scale insect. Associated plant material included the cheirolepidiaceans Protopodocarpoxylon, Brachyphyllum and Classostrobus, plus Classopolis pollen, suggesting a forested temporary swamp habitat with ferns, tree ferns, water ferns, tall araucarian and ginkgoacean trees and shrubs. (Sub)tropic lateritic soil with vegetation debris underwent incomplete microbial decomposition in an anoxic water environment of peat swamp development. Strata-associated marine organisms support the Kimmeridgian age revealed by zircons. The discovery opens a new field of research in Jurassic amber fossils.

RevDate: 2025-03-12
CmpDate: 2025-03-12

Pieroni A, Zocchi DM, Alrhmoun M, et al (2025)

Not "just necessity"? Two-x-eco-cultural dilemmas and the ethnobiological importance of the informal grannies' markets in Moldova.

Journal of ethnobiology and ethnomedicine, 21(1):17.

Informal food markets, particularly those managed by (elderly) women in post-communist Eastern Europe, represent a biocultural phenomenon of profound significance since globalisation and increasingly strict legal frameworks often threaten these reservoirs of biocultural food heritage. In the fall of 2022 and 2023, a preliminary field study was conducted by visiting the informal markets of six Moldovan centres: Chișinău, Orhei, Bălți, Călărași, Comrat, and Taraclia, and conversing with approximately 40 mid-aged and elderly sellers. We argue that these markets are crucial in sustaining small-scale farming, preserving biodiversity, and maintaining a connection between urban communities and rural communities and, ultimately, between these rural citizens and their nature, keeping small-scale family farming and domestic traditional gastronomic activities alive. By trading fresh, homegrown, and homemade food and goods (including handicrafts), these mid-aged and elderly vendors support local economies, promote environmental sustainability, and safeguard traditional ecological knowledge and cultural heritage. This paper explores how grannies' markets contribute to biocultural diversity and sustainable food practices, especially amid the country's recent turbulent political, socioeconomic, and demographic challenges. The analysis advocates for the survival rights of these ecological, economic, and cultural (2-x-eco-cultural) refugia and invites ethnobiologists, food studies and cultural heritage scholars, rural sociologists, and agricultural economists to defend the biocultural diversity of informal food markets, moving them from an "out of necessity" status to a solid pillar of a possible future, new, family farming and small-scale ecological and gastronomic (conscientious) tourism. Policymakers should protect and enhance these informal spaces, especially the socioecological farming systems behind them, as essential socioeconomic and environmental assets. They should emphasise their importance as hubs for biological diversity, cultural preservation, community cohesion, and ecological sustainability.

RevDate: 2025-03-11

Weeks F, Myerson R, Gangnon R, et al (2025)

Intrapartum Care Experiences Associated With Postpartum Visit Attendance.

Birth (Berkeley, Calif.) [Epub ahead of print].

INTRODUCTION: The postpartum visit is an important opportunity to prevent pregnancy-related morbidity and mortality; however, about 1 in 10 birthing people do not attend this visit. Intrapartum care experiences are an understudied factor that may contribute to postpartum healthcare engagement.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: We analyze data from a novel survey supplement on intrapartum care experiences administered to a probability-based population sample of people who have recently given birth through the Wisconsin Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System.

RESULTS: In regression models adjusting for a robust set of individual characteristics and birth hospital clustering, we find that lower provider responsiveness during intrapartum care is associated with increased odds of forgoing the postpartum visit (aOR 1.4, 95% CI 1.0-2.0).

DISCUSSION: The quality of care received during the birth hospitalization may shape how birthing people feel about health care providers and their willingness to attend future visits. Experiences of care during the intrapartum period may contribute to future health care utilization. Improving these experiences is an opportunity to promote long-term health.

RevDate: 2025-03-11
CmpDate: 2025-03-11

Roman J, Abraham AJ, Kiszka JJ, et al (2025)

Migrating baleen whales transport high-latitude nutrients to tropical and subtropical ecosystems.

Nature communications, 16(1):2125.

Baleen whales migrate from productive high-latitude feeding grounds to usually oligotrophic tropical and subtropical reproductive winter grounds, translocating limiting nutrients across ecosystem boundaries in their bodies. Here, we estimate the latitudinal movement of nutrients through carcasses, placentas, and urea for four species of baleen whales that exhibit clear annual migration, relying on spatial data from publicly available databases, present and past populations, and measurements of protein catabolism and other sources of nitrogen from baleen whales and other marine mammals. Migrating gray, humpback, and North Atlantic and southern right whales convey an estimated 3784 tons N yr[-1] and 46,512 tons of biomass yr[-1] to winter grounds, a flux also known as the "great whale conveyor belt"; these numbers might have been three times higher before commercial whaling. We discuss how species recovery might help restore nutrient movement by whales in global oceans and increase the resilience and adaptative capacity of recipient ecosystems.

RevDate: 2025-03-11
CmpDate: 2025-03-11

Crespo-Bellido A, Martin DP, S Duffy (2025)

Recombination Analysis of Geminiviruses Using Recombination Detection Program (RDP).

Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.), 2912:125-143.

Geminiviruses are recombination-prone, and characterizing this evolutionary process within their genomes is a frequent goal of researchers. RDP is a stand-alone Windows program combining many algorithms that detect and characterize recombination. It has been widely used by the geminivirus community (and beyond). Here we describe the use of RDP4 and RDP5 for analysis of geminiviral nucleotide sequences including: (i) obtaining a reasonable dataset for analysis, (ii) making a credible multiple sequence alignment and (iii) analyzing an alignment with RDP on that alignment. RDP to both characterize recombination events and to produce statistically recombination-free datasets for other molecular evolution analyses.

RevDate: 2025-03-10

Smith LB, Ahlich E, Lang B, et al (2025)

Glycemic variability and weight-focused eating behaviors among adolescents and young adults with type 1 diabetes†.

Journal of pediatric psychology pii:8068908 [Epub ahead of print].

OBJECTIVE: Type 1 diabetes (T1D) disease management and associated glycemic fluctuations can disrupt experiences of hunger and satiety, which may increase risk for disordered eating behaviors. Glycemic variability may be a useful trigger for just-in-time interventions for disordered eating behaviors. In this exploratory study, we hypothesized that two metrics of glycemic variability would be associated with greater hunger and predict eating behaviors for weight loss or maintenance in adolescents and young adults with T1D.

METHODS: Individuals with T1D were recruited from a university diabetes clinic (N = 34; 50% female, Mage = 19.53 years, MHbA1c = 7.98%; 29% Hispanic/Latinx; 79% White). Participants wore a blinded continuous glucose monitor for 5 days, and completed ecological momentary assessments (four prompts per day) that included measures of hunger and eating behaviors for weight loss or maintenance purposes. Generalized and linear mixed models were used to test hypotheses.

RESULTS: Approximately 30% of participants were at risk for an eating disorder based on Diabetes Eating Problem Survey-Revised scores. Greater glycemic variability did not predict hunger, but was associated with increased odds of endorsing any eating behavior for weight loss or maintenance purposes within-person (ps<.05). Greater hunger was associated with increased odds of endorsing disordered eating behavior within-person (p<.05).

CONCLUSIONS: This exploratory study provides some preliminary evidence that times of greater hunger and glycemic variability may be when individuals with T1D may be at higher risk of engaging in behaviors to lose or maintain weight.

RevDate: 2025-03-11
CmpDate: 2025-03-11

Li Z, Meng C, Azad MAK, et al (2025)

Effects of the Salvia miltiorrhiza, Ligustrum lucidum, and Taraxacum mongolicum ultra-fine powder formula on meat quality of aged layers by multi-omics.

Poultry science, 104(2):104783.

This study was aimed to identify the targets of 1% ultra-fine Chinese medicine formula (UCMF, 0.5% Salvia miltiorrhiza Bge. + 0.25% Ligustrum lucidum Ait. + 0.25% Taraxacum mongolicum Hand.-Mazz.) in delaying aging and explore its impacts on meat quality of aged layers. The effective components of the above three Chinese herbs were screened, and the network pharmacology analysis identified 91 common targets and enriched pathways between herbs and aging. The results showed that cellular response to chemical stimulus, response to oxidative stress, and response to oxygen-containing compound pathways were crucial for UCMF to resist aging. Further in vivo analyses confirmed that UCMF supplementation enhanced the antioxidant function in breast muscles of aged layers by upregulating (P < 0.05) the SOD2 gene expression. Meanwhile, UCMF supplementation reduced (P < 0.05) yellowness (b* value) and drip loss while enhancing (P < 0.05) cooked meat percentage of aged layers. For the health lipid indices in breast muscles, UCMF supplementation increased (P < 0.05) polyunsaturated fatty acids/saturated fatty acids and hypocholesterolemic/hypercholesterolemic ratios and decreased (P < 0.05) the thrombogenic index. The UCMF supplementation optimized the cecal microbiota of aged layers by enhancing the relative abundance of Firmicutes and reducing the relative abundances of Bacteroidetes and Spirochaetes (P < 0.05), which may be related to improving meat quality. In conclusion, dietary UCMF supplementation may be an effective strategy for improving antioxidant function and the meat quality of aged layers.

RevDate: 2025-03-11
CmpDate: 2025-03-11

Zhao X, Jiang WY, Liu JJ, et al (2025)

Unraveling the impact of PFOA toxicity on Zostera marina using a multi-omics approach: Insights from growth, physiological, transcriptomic, and metabolomic signatures.

Journal of hazardous materials, 486:137024.

Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), an anthropogenic organic pollutant known for its persistence, resistance to degradation, and toxicity, has raised significant concerns about its potential ecological impacts. Zostera marina, a common submerged seagrass species in temperate offshore areas, is highly vulnerable to pollutant stressors. However, the impact of PFOA on Z. marina remains unclear. In this study, Z. marina was exposed to different concentrations of PFOA (0, 0.5, 1, 5, 10, and 20 μg/L) for 14 days. We subsequently assessed survival rates, growth patterns, physiological indices, transcriptomic profiles, and metabolomic characteristics. The results revealed dose-dependent PFOA accumulation in Z. marina tissues and significant growth inhibition. Furthermore, exposure to PFOA resulted in a significant reduction in photosynthetic pigment content (IBRv2 indices: 2.78-10.29) and elevated enzyme activity (IBRv2 indices: 2.90-8.96). Transcriptomic analysis identified 1511 differentially expressed genes associated with 11 KEGG pathways predominantly affected by PFOA exposure. Weighted gene co-expression network analysis highlighted the crucial role of the hydroxyphenylpyruvate reductase (hppr) gene in antioxidant defense mechanisms and detoxification processes against PFOA-induced stress. Metabolomics identified 412 differentially expressed metabolites, mainly consisting of flavonoids, organic acids, and lipids. In summary, PFOA exposure resulted in the down-regulation of gene expression related to photosynthesis and energy metabolism while also affecting metabolite synthesis. The response of Z. marina to PFOA stress involves modulation of the cytoskeletal dynamics and signal transduction pathways, as well as activation of a suite of genes and metabolites to initiate defense mechanisms.

RevDate: 2025-03-11
CmpDate: 2025-03-11

Zhang L, Du Y, Li Y, et al (2025)

Mitochondrial mechanism of florfenicol-induced nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in zebrafish using multi-omics technology.

Journal of hazardous materials, 486:136958.

Florfenicol (FF), a third-generation chloramphenicol antibiotic widely used in food-producing animals, has become a "pseudopersistent" environmental contaminant, raising concerns about its potential ecological and human health impacts. However, its bioaccumulation behavior and hepatotoxic mechanisms remain poorly understood. This study aims to address these gaps with a 28-day exposure experiment in adult zebrafish at 0.05 and 0.5 mg/L FF. Multiomic analyses (metabolomics, lipidomics, and transcriptomics), combined with histological and mitochondrial function assessments, were employed. Higher bioaccumulation was observed at 0.05 mg/L, potentially due to metabolic saturation at higher concentrations. Histological analysis revealed significant hepatic steatosis (>5 % steatosis area), indicative of moderate nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Multiomic data demonstrated global dysregulation in energy metabolism, including marked alterations in lipids (accumulation of toxic sphingolipids, excessive fatty acids, and acylglycerol), amino acids, tricarboxylic acid cycle intermediates, and nucleotides. Crucially, mitochondrial dysfunction was identified as a central mechanism, with impaired respiratory chain activities, adenosine triphosphate depletion, elevated reactive oxygen species, and oxidative stress promoting NAFLD progression. These findings highlight mitochondrial impairment and oxidative stress as key drivers of FF-induced hepatotoxicity, providing novel insights into its toxicological mechanisms and emphasizing the ecological risks posed by antibiotic pollution in aquatic systems.

RevDate: 2025-03-10

Boyes D, Davis J, University of Oxford and Wytham Woods Genome Acquisition Lab, et al (2025)

The genome sequence of the Sandy Carpet moth, Perizoma flavofasciatum (Thunberg, 1792).

Wellcome open research, 10:40.

We present a genome assembly from a male specimen of Perizoma flavofasciatum (Sandy Carpet; Arthropoda; Insecta; Lepidoptera; Geometridae). The genome sequence has a total length of 369.30 megabases. Most of the assembly (99.88%) is scaffolded into 30 chromosomal pseudomolecules, including the Z sex chromosome. The mitochondrial genome has also been assembled and is 16.61 kilobases in length. Gene annotation of this assembly on Ensembl identified 11,915 protein-coding genes.

RevDate: 2025-03-10

Boyes D, Boyes C, University of Oxford and Wytham Woods Genome Acquisition Lab, et al (2025)

The genome sequence of the Alder Moth, Acronicta alni (Linnaeus, 1767).

Wellcome open research, 10:68.

We present a genome assembly from a male Acronicta alni (Alder Moth; Arthropoda; Insecta; Lepidoptera; Noctuidae). The assembly contains two haplotypes with total lengths of 470.37 megabases and 472.86 megabases. Most of haplotype 1 (98.95%) is scaffolded into 31 chromosomal pseudomolecules, including the Z chromosome. Haplotype 2 was assembled to scaffold level. The mitochondrial genome has also been assembled and is 15.38 kilobases in length.

RevDate: 2025-03-10
CmpDate: 2025-03-10

Ab Kadir MA, Abdul Manaf R, Mokhtar SA, et al (2025)

Identifying leptospirosis hotspots in Selangor: uncovering climatic connections using remote sensing and developing a predictive model.

PeerJ, 13:e18851.

BACKGROUND: Leptospirosis is an endemic disease in countries with tropical climates such as South America, Southern Asia, and Southeast Asia. There has been an increase in leptospirosis incidence in Malaysia from 1.45 to 25.94 cases per 100,000 population between 2005 and 2014. With increasing incidence in Selangor, Malaysia, and frequent climate change dynamics, a study on the disease hotspot areas and their association with the hydroclimatic factors could enhance disease surveillance and public health interventions.

METHODS: This ecological cross-sectional study utilised a geographic information system (GIS) and remote sensing techniques to analyse the spatiotemporal distribution of leptospirosis in Selangor from 2011 to 2019. Laboratory-confirmed leptospirosis cases (n = 1,045) were obtained from the Selangor State Health Department. Using ArcGIS Pro, spatial autocorrelation analysis (Moran's I) and Getis-Ord Gi* (hotspot analysis) was conducted to identify hotspots based on the monthly aggregated cases for each subdistrict. Satellite-derived rainfall and land surface temperature (LST) data were acquired from NASA's Giovanni EarthData website and processed into monthly averages. These data were integrated into ArcGIS Pro as thematic layers. Machine learning algorithms, including support vector machine (SVM), Random Forest (RF), and light gradient boosting machine (LGBM) were employed to develop predictive models for leptospirosis hotspot areas. Model performance was then evaluated using cross-validation and metrics such as accuracy, precision, sensitivity, and F1-score.

RESULTS: Moran's I analysis revealed a primarily random distribution of cases across Selangor, with only 20 out of 103 observed having a clustered distribution. Meanwhile, hotspot areas were mainly scattered in subdistricts throughout Selangor with clustering in the central region. Machine learning analysis revealed that the LGBM algorithm had the best performance scores compared to having a cross-validation score of 0.61, a precision score of 0.16, and an F1-score of 0.23. The feature importance score indicated river water level and rainfall contributes most to the model.

CONCLUSIONS: This GIS-based study identified a primarily sporadic occurrence of leptospirosis in Selangor with minimal spatial clustering. The LGBM algorithm effectively predicted leptospirosis hotspots based on the analysed hydroclimatic factors. The integration of GIS and machine learning offers a promising framework for disease surveillance, facilitating targeted public health interventions in areas at high risk for leptospirosis.

RevDate: 2025-03-07
CmpDate: 2025-03-07

Guerrero PC, Contador T, Díaz A, et al (2025)

Southern Islands Vascular Flora (SIVFLORA) dataset: A global plant database from Southern Ocean islands.

Scientific data, 12(1):397.

The Southern Islands Vascular Flora (SIVFLORA) dataset is a globally significant, open-access resource that compiles essential biodiversity data on vascular plants from islands across the Southern Ocean. The SIVFLORA dataset was generated through five steps: study area delimitation, compiling the dataset, validating and harmonizing taxonomy, structuring dataset attributes, and establishing file format and open access. Covering major taxonomic divisions, SIVFLORA offers a comprehensive overview of plant occurrences, comprising 14,589 records representing 886 species, 95 families, and 42 orders. This dataset documents that 58.62% of the taxa are native, 9.61% are endemic, and 31.77% are alien species. The Falkland/Malvinas Archipelago, the most species-rich, contrast sharply with less diverse islands like the South Orkney Archipelago. SIVFLORA serves as a taxonomically harmonized, interoperable resource for investigating plant diversity patterns, ecosystem responses to climate change in extreme environments, island biogeography, endemism, and the effects of anthropogenic pressures on Southern Ocean flora.

RevDate: 2025-03-07
CmpDate: 2025-03-07

Ferrer-Paris JR, Sánchez-Mercado A, Cornwell WK, et al (2025)

Fire ecology database for documenting plant responses to fire events in Australia.

Scientific data, 12(1):399.

An understanding of fire-response traits is essential for predicting how fire regimes structure plant communities and for informing fire management strategies for biodiversity conservation. Quantification of these traits is complex, encompassing several levels of data abstraction scaling up from field observations of individuals, to general categories of species responses. We developed the Fire Ecology Database to accommodate this complexity. Its conceptual framework is underpinned by a flexible data pipeline enabling links between fire-related trait data and event information at individual, population, and community levels. Key features include: (a) concise and documented trait and method vocabularies; (b) documented uncertainty in observations and aggregation; and (c) documented origin of data including field observations, laboratory experiments, and expert elicitation. We demonstrated application of our framework using data from new field surveys and existing data sets in New South Wales, Australia. The database includes 14 traits for 6,287 plant species derived from 8,936 field work records from 2007 to 2018, 7,054 field records from surveys after 2019, and 48,306 records from 301 existing sources.

RevDate: 2025-03-07

Guarischi M, Montagnani E, Catalano G, et al (2025)

From motion to interaction: How multisensory information shapes motor behaviors in children with visual impairment.

Research in developmental disabilities, 159:104956 pii:S0891-4222(25)00040-X [Epub ahead of print].

BACKGROUND: The ability to move independently enables children to develop perceptual, cognitive, and social interaction skills. Concerning this, vision holds a key role. As a result, children with visual impairment (VI) might be more challenged in their ability to move within their surroundings and interact with their caregivers.

AIM: This study investigated whether the use of multisensory stimuli could influence the motor exploration of children with VI and shape their interaction with the caregivers. For this, the present work examined the variability of children's motor trajectory and the distance between children and caregivers in a setting with and without multisensory cues.

METHODS AND PROCEDURES: A Motion Capture System was used within an ecological playroom environment. The Strange Situation paradigm was simplified and adapted by placing three TechARMs in the corners of the playroom to deliver audio-visual stimuli, used instead of the stranger.

OUTCOMES AND RESULTS: Children with VI showed larger variability within their motor trajectory and kept a shorter distance from the caregivers when multisensory cues were introduced in the playroom.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: Multisensory signals were considered unusual and influenced the kinematic parameters. Motor control of the environment was achieved by managing attention flexibility. WHAT DOES THIS PAPER ADD?: This study enriches available evidence about the study of motor and social interaction in children with VI, highlighting how multisensory stimuli could either support or hinder social and motor behaviors. Moreover, enhancing ecological validity could drive progress in the development and application of technological devices to clinical and research setting.

RevDate: 2025-03-08
CmpDate: 2025-03-06

Agyapong D, Propster JR, Marks J, et al (2025)

Cross-validation for training and testing co-occurrence network inference algorithms.

BMC bioinformatics, 26(1):74.

BACKGROUND: Microorganisms are found in almost every environment, including soil, water, air and inside other organisms, such as animals and plants. While some microorganisms cause diseases, most of them help in biological processes such as decomposition, fermentation and nutrient cycling. Much research has been conducted on the study of microbial communities in various environments and how their interactions and relationships can provide insight into various diseases. Co-occurrence network inference algorithms help us understand the complex associations of micro-organisms, especially bacteria. Existing network inference algorithms employ techniques such as correlation, regularized linear regression, and conditional dependence, which have different hyper-parameters that determine the sparsity of the network. These complex microbial communities form intricate ecological networks that are fundamental to ecosystem functioning and host health. Understanding these networks is crucial for developing targeted interventions in both environmental and clinical settings. The emergence of high-throughput sequencing technologies has generated unprecedented amounts of microbiome data, necessitating robust computational methods for network inference and validation.

RESULTS: Previous methods for evaluating the quality of the inferred network include using external data, and network consistency across sub-samples, both of which have several drawbacks that limit their applicability in real microbiome composition data sets. We propose a novel cross-validation method to evaluate co-occurrence network inference algorithms, and new methods for applying existing algorithms to predict on test data. Our method demonstrates superior performance in handling compositional data and addressing the challenges of high dimensionality and sparsity inherent in real microbiome datasets. The proposed framework also provides robust estimates of network stability.

CONCLUSIONS: Our empirical study shows that the proposed cross-validation method is useful for hyper-parameter selection (training) and comparing the quality of inferred networks between different algorithms (testing). This advancement represents a significant step forward in microbiome network analysis, providing researchers with a reliable tool for understanding complex microbial interactions. The method's applicability extends beyond microbiome studies to other fields where network inference from high-dimensional compositional data is crucial, such as gene regulatory networks and ecological food webs. Our framework establishes a new standard for validation in network inference, potentially accelerating discoveries in microbial ecology and human health.

RevDate: 2025-03-07
CmpDate: 2025-03-07

Bougiouri K (2025)

Mind the Gap: A Neural Network Framework for Imputing Genotypes in Non-Model Species.

Molecular ecology resources, 25(3):e14066.

Reduced representation sequencing (RRS) has proven to be a cost-effective solution for sequencing subsets of the genome in non-model species for large-scale studies. However, the targeted nature of RRS approaches commonly introduces large amounts of missing data, leading to reduced statistical power and biased estimates in downstream analyses. Genotype imputation, the statistical inference of missing sites across the genome, is a powerful alternative to overcome the caveats associated with missing sites. Typically, genotype imputation requires the presence of a reference panel of haplotypes, however, this is not always feasible for non-model species. In this issue of Molecular Ecology Resources, Mora-Márquez et al. (2024) develop gtImputation, an unsupervised machine learning imputation tool with an interactive GUI, which leverages information from the underlying data structure itself, without the need for a reference panel. They showcase that their method performs equally well and even surpasses existing haplotype-clustering and unsupervised machine learning algorithms, particularly for sites with low minor allele frequency (MAF) and for data sets with strong underlying population structure. This innovative framework adds to the ongoing efforts to expand the applicability of imputation to non-model species, offering the opportunity to apply varied types of analyses requiring dense sets of markers, while also maintaining lower sequencing costs.

RevDate: 2025-03-07
CmpDate: 2025-03-07

Bard NW, Davies TJ, QCB Cronk (2025)

Teknonaturalist: A Snakemake Pipeline for Assessing Fungal Diversity From Plant Genome Bycatch.

Molecular ecology resources, 25(3):e14056.

Relatively little is known of the host associations and compatibility of fungal plant pathogens and endophytes. Publicly available plant genomic DNA can be mined to detect incidental fungal DNA, but taxonomic assignment can be challenging due to short lengths and variable discriminative power among different genomic regions and taxa. Here, we introduce a computationally lightweight and accessible Snakemake pipeline for rapid detection and classification (identification and assignment to taxonomic rank) of pathogenic and endophytic fungi (and other fungi associated with plants) that targets the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region, a fungal barcode standard. We include methods for maximising query sequence length, which gives higher support for ITS1 and ITS2 taxonomic classifications by extending to other fragments of the ITS region and providing taxon-specific local cut-off and confidence scores. We demonstrate our pipeline with a case study using public genomic sequence data for six diverse plant species, including four species within Betula, an ecologically and economically important broadleaved forest tree genus, a shrub and a grass. Our pipeline classified fungi within minutes to a few hours per host individual, with 204 different fungal genera identified at high confidence (≥ 70%). Our pipeline detected and classified pathogenic and endophytic genera known to associate with Betula, and many others with no prior record of association. Our pipeline, leveraging existing sequence data, has several potential applications, including detecting cryptic fungal pathogens and helping characterise the endophytic fungal microbiome, bioprospecting commercially useful fungal species, and determining the plant host range of fungi.

RevDate: 2025-03-07
CmpDate: 2025-03-07

Armstrong EE, Li C, Campana MG, et al (2025)

A Pipeline and Recommendations for Population and Individual Diagnostic SNP Selection in Non-Model Species.

Molecular ecology resources, 25(3):e14048.

Despite substantial reductions in the cost of sequencing over the last decade, genetic panels remain relevant due to their cost-effectiveness and flexibility across a variety of sample types. In particular, single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) panels are increasingly favoured for conservation applications. SNP panels are often used because of their adaptability, effectiveness with low-quality samples, and cost-efficiency for population monitoring and forensics. However, the selection of diagnostic SNPs for population assignment and individual identification can be challenging. The consequences of poor SNP selection are under-powered panels, inaccurate results, and monetary loss. Here, we develop a novel and user-friendly SNP selection pipeline (mPCRselect) that can be used to select SNPs for population assignment and/or individual identification. mPCRselect allows any researcher, who has sufficient SNP-level data, to design a successful and cost-effective SNP panel for a diploid species of conservation concern.

RevDate: 2025-03-07
CmpDate: 2025-03-07

Beemelmanns A, Bouchard R, Michaelides S, et al (2025)

Development of SNP Panels from Low-Coverage Whole Genome Sequencing (lcWGS) to Support Indigenous Fisheries for Three Salmonid Species in Northern Canada.

Molecular ecology resources, 25(3):e14040.

Single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) panels are powerful tools for assessing the genetic population structure and dispersal of fishes and can enhance management practices for commercial, recreational and subsistence mixed-stock fisheries. Arctic Char (Salvelinus alpinus), Brook Trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) and Lake Whitefish (Coregonus clupeaformis) are among the most harvested and consumed fish species in Northern Indigenous communities in Canada, contributing significantly to food security, culture, tradition and economy. However, genetic resources supporting Indigenous fisheries have not been widely accessible to northern communities (e.g. Inuit, Cree, Dene). Here, we developed Genotyping-in-Thousands by sequencing (GT-seq) panels for population assignment and mixed-stock analyses of three salmonids, to support fisheries stewardship or co-management in Northern Canada. Using low-coverage Whole Genome Sequencing data from 418 individuals across source populations in Cambridge Bay (Nunavut), Great Slave Lake (Northwest Territories), James Bay (Québec) and Mistassini Lake (Québec), we developed a bioinformatic SNP filtering workflow to select informative SNP markers from genotype likelihoods. These markers were then used to design GT-seq panels, thus enabling high-throughput genotyping for these species. The three GT-seq panels yielded an average of 413 autosomal loci and were validated using 525 individuals with an average assignment accuracy of 83%. Thus, these GT-seq panels are powerful tools for assessing population structure and quantifying the relative contributions of populations/stocks in mixed-stock fisheries across multiple regions. Interweaving genomic data derived from these tools with Traditional Ecological Knowledge will ensure the sustainable harvest of three culturally important salmonids in Indigenous communities, contributing to food security programmes and the economy in Northern Canada.

RevDate: 2025-03-07
CmpDate: 2025-03-07

Li J, Gao Y, Shu G, et al (2025)

HMicroDB: A Comprehensive Database of Herpetofaunal Microbiota With a Focus on Host Phylogeny, Physiological Traits, and Environment Factors.

Molecular ecology resources, 25(3):e14046.

Symbiotic microbiota strongly impact host physiology. Amphibians and reptiles occupy a pivotal role in the evolutionary history of Animalia, and they are of significant ecological, economic, and scientific value. Many prior studies have found that symbiotic microbiota in herpetofaunal species are closely associated with host phylogeny, physiological traits, and environmental factors; however, insufficient integrated databases hinder researchers from querying, accessing, and reanalyzing these resources. To rectify this, we built the first herpetofaunal microbiota database (HMicroDB; https://herpdb.com/) that integrates 11,697 microbiological samples from 337 host species (covering 23 body sites and associated with 23 host phenotypic or environmental factors), and we identified 11,084 microbial taxa by consistent annotation. The standardised analysis process, cross-dataset integration, user-friendly interface, and interactive visualisation make the HMicroDB a powerful resource for researchers to search, browse, and explore the relationships between symbiotic microbiota, hosts, and environment. This facilitates research in host-microbiota coevolution, biological conservation, and resource utilisation.

RevDate: 2025-03-05

Aguirre-Gutiérrez J, Rifai SW, Deng X, et al (2025)

Canopy functional trait variation across Earth's tropical forests.

Nature [Epub ahead of print].

Tropical forest canopies are the biosphere's most concentrated atmospheric interface for carbon, water and energy[1,2]. However, in most Earth System Models, the diverse and heterogeneous tropical forest biome is represented as a largely uniform ecosystem with either a singular or a small number of fixed canopy ecophysiological properties[3]. This situation arises, in part, from a lack of understanding about how and why the functional properties of tropical forest canopies vary geographically[4]. Here, by combining field-collected data from more than 1,800 vegetation plots and tree traits with satellite remote-sensing, terrain, climate and soil data, we predict variation across 13 morphological, structural and chemical functional traits of trees, and use this to compute and map the functional diversity of tropical forests. Our findings reveal that the tropical Americas, Africa and Asia tend to occupy different portions of the total functional trait space available across tropical forests. Tropical American forests are predicted to have 40% greater functional richness than tropical African and Asian forests. Meanwhile, African forests have the highest functional divergence-32% and 7% higher than that of tropical American and Asian forests, respectively. An uncertainty analysis highlights priority regions for further data collection, which would refine and improve these maps. Our predictions represent a ground-based and remotely enabled global analysis of how and why the functional traits of tropical forest canopies vary across space.

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In the early 1990's, Robert Robbins was a faculty member at Johns Hopkins, where he directed the informatics core of GDB — the human gene-mapping database of the international human genome project. To share papers with colleagues around the world, he set up a small paper-sharing section on his personal web page. This small project evolved into The Electronic Scholarly Publishing Project.

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In 1995, Robbins became the VP/IT of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, WA. Soon after arriving in Seattle, Robbins secured funding, through the ELSI component of the US Human Genome Project, to create the original ESP.ORG web site, with the formal goal of providing free, world-wide access to the literature of classical genetics.

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Although the methods of molecular biology can seem almost magical to the uninitiated, the original techniques of classical genetics are readily appreciated by one and all: cross individuals that differ in some inherited trait, collect all of the progeny, score their attributes, and propose mechanisms to explain the patterns of inheritance observed.

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This is a must read book for anyone with an interest in invasion biology. The full title of the book lays out the author's premise — The New Wild: Why Invasive Species Will Be Nature's Salvation. Not only is species movement not bad for ecosystems, it is the way that ecosystems respond to perturbation — it is the way ecosystems heal. Even if you are one of those who is absolutely convinced that invasive species are actually "a blight, pollution, an epidemic, or a cancer on nature", you should read this book to clarify your own thinking. True scientific understanding never comes from just interacting with those with whom you already agree. R. Robbins

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Papers in Classical Genetics

The ESP began as an effort to share a handful of key papers from the early days of classical genetics. Now the collection has grown to include hundreds of papers, in full-text format.

Digital Books

Along with papers on classical genetics, ESP offers a collection of full-text digital books, including many works by Darwin and even a collection of poetry — Chicago Poems by Carl Sandburg.

Timelines

ESP now offers a large collection of user-selected side-by-side timelines (e.g., all science vs. all other categories, or arts and culture vs. world history), designed to provide a comparative context for appreciating world events.

Biographies

Biographical information about many key scientists (e.g., Walter Sutton).

Selected Bibliographies

Bibliographies on several topics of potential interest to the ESP community are automatically maintained and generated on the ESP site.

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