Salinized rivers: degraded systems or new habitats for salt-tolerant faunas?

abstract：:Dated phylogenies of fossil taxa allow palaeobiologists to estimate the timing of major divergences and placement of extinct lineages, and to test macroevolutionary hypotheses. Recently developed Bayesian 'tip-dating' methods simultaneously infer and date the branching relationships among fossil taxa, and infer putati...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Bapst DW,Wright AM,Matzke NJ,Lloyd GT

更新日期：2016-07-01 00:00:00

abstract：:Pectinodontid limpets are important members of deep-sea hot vents and cold seeps as can be seen by their conspicuous presence in both extant and extinct systems. They have traditionally been classified into different genera and species based on shell and radula characteristics; the reliability of these characters has ...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Chen C,Watanabe HK,Nagai Y,Toyofuku T,Xu T,Sun J,Qiu JW,Sasaki T

更新日期：2019-10-31 00:00:00

abstract：:Loss of Arctic sea ice owing to climate change is the primary threat to polar bears throughout their range. We evaluated the potential response of polar bears to sea-ice declines by (i) calculating generation length (GL) for the species, which determines the timeframe for conservation assessments; (ii) developing a st...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Regehr EV,Laidre KL,Akçakaya HR,Amstrup SC,Atwood TC,Lunn NJ,Obbard M,Stern H,Thiemann GW,Wiig Ø

更新日期：2016-12-01 00:00:00

abstract：:During the last half million years, pulses of gigantism in the anagenetic lineage of land snails of the subgenus Poecilozonites on Bermuda were correlated with glacial periods when lower sea level resulted in an island nearly an order of magnitude larger than at present. During those periods, the island was colonized ...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Olson SL,Hearty PJ

更新日期：2010-12-23 00:00:00

abstract：:The outcomes of agonistic interactions modulate access to resources and thereby affect fitness. Success in agonistic encounters may depend on intrinsic physical and physiological performance, and on social experience. Here we test the hypothesis that previous experience will override physical strength in determining t...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Seebacher F,Wilson RS

更新日期：2007-10-22 00:00:00

abstract：:Since its discovery in the winter of 2005-2006, white-nose syndrome (WNS) has killed over one million little brown bats (Myotis lucifugus) in the American northeast. Although many studies have reported die-offs of bats at winter hibernacula, it is important to understand how bat mortality linked to WNS at winter hiber...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Dzal Y,McGuire LP,Veselka N,Fenton MB

更新日期：2011-06-23 00:00:00

abstract：:Ecosystem dynamics are driven by both biotic and abiotic processes, and perturbations can push ecosystems into novel dynamical regimes. Plant-plant, plant-soil and mycorrhizal associations all affect plant ecosystem dynamics; however, the direction and magnitude of these effects vary by context and their contribution ...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Bonsall MB,Froyd CA,Jeffers ES

更新日期：2020-01-01 00:00:00

abstract：:Social insect cuticular hydrocarbon (CHC) mixtures are among the most complex chemical cues known and are important in nest-mate, caste and species recognition. Despite our growing knowledge of the nature of these cues, we have very little insight into how social insects actually perceive and discriminate among these ...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： van Wilgenburg E,Felden A,Choe DH,Sulc R,Luo J,Shea KJ,Elgar MA,Tsutsui ND

更新日期：2012-02-23 00:00:00

abstract：:Fire is the most frequent disturbance in the Ericaceous Belt (ca 3000-4300 m.a.s.l.), one of the most important plant communities of tropical African mountains. Through resprouting after fire, Erica establishes a positive fire feedback under certain burning regimes. However, present-day human activity in the Bale Moun...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Gil-Romera G,Adolf C,Benito BM,Bittner L,Johansson MU,Grady DA,Lamb HF,Lemma B,Fekadu M,Glaser B,Mekonnen B,Sevilla-Callejo M,Zech M,Zech W,Miehe G

更新日期：2019-07-26 00:00:00

abstract：:The extreme body size of blue whales requires a high energy intake and therefore demands efficient foraging strategies. As an obligate lunge feeder on aggregations of small zooplankton, blue whales engulf a large volume of prey-laden water in a single, rapid gulp. The efficiency of this feeding mechanism is strongly d...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Goldbogen JA,Calambokidis J,Friedlaender AS,Francis J,DeRuiter SL,Stimpert AK,Falcone E,Southall BL

更新日期：2013-02-23 00:00:00

abstract：:With an increasing amount of data becoming available, comparative analyses have called attention to the associations between cooperative breeding, monogamy and relatedness. We focus here upon the association between allomaternal care and relatedness among females within a social unit. Previous studies found a positive...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Briga M,Pen I,Wright J

更新日期：2012-08-23 00:00:00

abstract：:Quantifying how key life-history traits respond to climatic change is fundamental in understanding and predicting long-term population prospects. Age at first reproduction (AFR), which affects fitness and population dynamics, may be influenced by environmental stochasticity but has rarely been directly linked to clima...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Fjelldal MA,Layton-Matthews K,Lee AM,Grøtan V,Loonen MJJE,Hansen BB

更新日期：2020-04-01 00:00:00

abstract：:Studies of animal populations suggest that low genetic heterozygosity is an important risk factor for infection by a diverse range of pathogens, but relatively little research has looked to see whether similar patterns exist in humans. We have used microsatellite genome screen data for tuberculosis (TB), hepatitis and...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Lyons EJ,Frodsham AJ,Zhang L,Hill AV,Amos W

更新日期：2009-08-23 00:00:00

abstract：:Twenty years ago, the field of ancient DNA was launched with the publication of two short mitochondrial (mt) DNA sequences from a single quagga (Equus quagga) museum skin, an extinct South African equid (Higuchi et al. 1984 Nature312, 282-284). This was the first extinct species from which genetic information was retr...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Leonard JA,Rohland N,Glaberman S,Fleischer RC,Caccone A,Hofreiter M

更新日期：2005-09-22 00:00:00

abstract：:One prediction of optimal digestion theory is that organisms will increase the relative length of their digestive tracts when food resources become limited. We used theory of optimal digestion to test whether tadpoles can adjust the relative length of their intestines when challenged with the fungal pathogen Batrachoc...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Venesky MD,Hanlon SM,Lynch K,Parris MJ,Rohr JR

更新日期：2013-02-27 00:00:00

abstract：:The Kommandorskiye Islands population of Steller's sea cow (Hydrodamalis gigas) was extirpated ca 1768 CE. Until now, Steller's sea cow was thought to be restricted in historic times to Bering and Copper Islands, Russia, with other records in the last millennium from the western Aleutian Islands. However, Steller's se...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Crerar LD,Crerar AP,Domning DP,Parsons EC

更新日期：2014-11-01 00:00:00

abstract：:Soil oxygen availability may influence blue carbon, which is carbon stored in coastal wetlands, by controlling the decomposition of soil organic matter. We are beginning to quantify soil oxygen availability in wetlands, but we lack a precise understanding of how oxygen controls soil carbon dynamics. In this paper, we ...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Chapman SK,Hayes MA,Kelly B,Langley JA

更新日期：2019-01-31 00:00:00

abstract：:To cope with the post-fire challenges of decreased availability of food and shelter, brown antechinus (Antechinus stuartii), a small marsupial mammal, increase the use of energy-conserving torpor and reduce activity. However, it is not known how long it takes for animals to resume pre-fire torpor and activity patterns...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Stawski C,Hume T,Körtner G,Currie SE,Nowack J,Geiser F

更新日期：2017-05-01 00:00:00

abstract：:Flight feather moult in small passerines is realized in several ways. Some species moult once after breeding or once on their wintering grounds; others even moult twice. The adaptive significance of this diversity is still largely unknown. We compared the resistance to mechanical fatigue of flight feathers from the ch...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Weber TP,Borgudd J,Hedenström A,Persson K,Sandberg G

更新日期：2005-03-22 00:00:00

abstract：:The birth sex ratio of vertebrates with chromosomal sex determination has been shown to respond to environmental variability, such as temperature. However, in humans the few previous studies on environmental temperature and birth sex ratios have produced mixed results. We examined whether reconstructed annual mean tem...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Helle S,Helama S,Jokela J

更新日期：2008-02-23 00:00:00

abstract：:Despite having a profound effect on population dynamics, the reasons that animals disperse are poorly understood. Evolutionary explanations have focused on inbreeding and competition, where the potential cost of philopatry is negated through dispersal. Such scenarios lead to the prediction that less successful individ...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Shafer AB,Poissant J,Côté SD,Coltman DW

更新日期：2011-06-23 00:00:00

abstract：:Of more than 800 species of eels of the order Anguilliformes, only freshwater eels (genus Anguilla with 16 species plus three subspecies) spend most of their lives in freshwater during their catadromous life cycle. Nevertheless, because their spawning areas are located offshore in the open ocean, they migrate back to ...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Inoue JG,Miya M,Miller MJ,Sado T,Hanel R,Hatooka K,Aoyama J,Minegishi Y,Nishida M,Tsukamoto K

更新日期：2010-06-23 00:00:00

abstract：:The associations between habitat and other factors that lead to the risk of bovine tuberculosis (bTB) in diary cattle were examined in an unmatched case-control study. Data from 60 herds with recent history of bTB and 60 controls were analysed using logistic regression. The predictors included farmland habitat, topogr...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Mathews F,Lovett L,Rushton S,Macdonald DW

更新日期：2006-06-22 00:00:00

abstract：:Reciprocity constitutes the prevalent mating mechanism among simultaneous hermaphrodites. Yet, when copulations in the female role confer fitness costs through male manipulation, it becomes advantageous sometimes to mate unilaterally in the male role only. In the sea slug Siphopteron quadrispinosum, acting males stab ...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Anthes N,Michiels NK

更新日期：2007-04-22 00:00:00

abstract：:Colonial breeding in birds is widely considered to benefit individuals through enhanced protection against predators or transfer of information about foraging sites. This view, however, is largely based on studies of seabirds carried out under favourable conditions. Recent breeding failures at many seabird colonies in...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Ashbrook K,Wanless S,Harris MP,Hamer KC

更新日期：2008-12-23 00:00:00

abstract：:Worldwide, many plant species are experiencing an earlier onset of spring phenophases due to climate warming. Rapid recent temperature increases on the Tibetan Plateau (TP) have triggered changes in the spring phenology of the local vegetation. However, remote sensing studies of the land surface phenology have reached...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Zhou HK,Yao BQ,Xu WX,Ye X,Fu JJ,Jin YX,Zhao XQ

更新日期：2014-08-01 00:00:00

abstract：:Double cones (DCs) are the most common cone types in fish, reptiles and birds. It has been suggested that DCs are used for achromatic tasks such as luminance, motion and polarization vision. Here we show that a reef fish Rhinecanthus aculeatus can discriminate colours on the basis of the difference between the signals...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Pignatelli V,Champ C,Marshall J,Vorobyev M

更新日期：2010-08-23 00:00:00

abstract：:In polygynous species, mate choice is an integrated part of sexual selection. However, whether mate choice occurs independently of the genetic relatedness among mating pairs has received little attention, although inbreeding may have fitness consequences. We studied whether genetic relatedness influenced females' choi...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Holand O,Askim KR,Røed KH,Weladji RB,Gjøstein H,Nieminen M

更新日期：2007-02-22 00:00:00

abstract：:Dromaeosaurid theropod dinosaurs possess a strongly recurved, hypertrophied and hyperextensible ungual claw on pedal digit II. This feature is usually suggested to have functioned as a device for disembowelling herbivorous dinosaurs during predation. However, modelling of dromaeosaurid hindlimb function using a roboti...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Manning PL,Payne D,Pennicott J,Barrett PM,Ennos RA

更新日期：2006-03-22 00:00:00

abstract：:Given the high costs of avian obligate brood parasitism, host individuals are selected to reject parasitic eggs they recognize as foreign. We show that rejection may not necessarily follow egg discrimination when selective removal of the parasitic egg is difficult. We studied egg rejection behaviour in a small host of...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Antonov A,Stokke BG,Moksnes A,Røskaft E

更新日期：2009-04-23 00:00:00