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4,669 results for “Environment;”
400 events with dates and times of the worst-case severe environments
<p>400 events with dates and times of the worst-case severe environments</p>
Data from: What drives selection on flowering time? An experimental manipulation of the inherent correlation between genotype and environment
The optimal timing of the seasonal switch from somatic growth to reproduction can depend on an individual's condition at reproduction, the quality of the environment in which it will reproduce, or both. In annual plants, vegetative size (a function of age at flowering) affects resources available for seed production, while exposure to mutualists, antagonists, and abiotic stresses in the environment (functions of Julian date of flowering), influences success in converting resources into offspring. The inherent tight correlation between age, size, and environment obscures their independent fitness contributions. We isolated the fitness effects of these factors by experimentally manipulating the correlation between age at flowering and date of flowering in Brassica rapa. We staggered the planting dates of families with differing ages at flowering to produce experimental populations in which age at flowering and date of flowering were positively-, negatively-, or uncorrelated. In all populations, plants with an early date of flowering produced more seed than those flowering late, regardless of age or size at flowering onset. The temporal environment was thus the principal driver of selection on flowering time, but its importance relative to that of age and size varied with the presence/absence of herbivores and seed predators.
Data from: Fluorescent protein-mediated colour polymorphism in reef corals: multi-copy genes extend the adaptation/acclimatization potential to variable light environments
The genomic framework that enables corals to adjust to unfavourable conditions is crucial for coral reef survival in a rapidly changing climate. We have explored the striking intraspecific variability in the expression of coral pigments from the green fluorescent protein (GFP) family to elucidate the genomic basis for the plasticity of stress responses among reef corals. We show that multi-copy genes can greatly increase the dynamic range over which corals can modulate transcript levels in response to the light environment. Using the red fluorescent protein amilFP597 in the coral Acropora millepora as a model, we demonstrate that its expression increases with light intensity, but both the minimal and maximal gene transcript levels vary markedly among colour morphs. The pigment concentration in the tissue of different morphs is strongly correlated with the number of gene copies with a particular promoter type. These findings indicate that colour polymorphism in reef corals can be caused by the environmentally regulated expression of multi-copy genes. High-level expression of amilFP597 is correlated with reduced photodamage of zooxanthellae under acute light stress, supporting a photoprotective function of this pigment. The cluster of light-regulated pigment genes can enable corals to invest either in expensive high-level pigmentation, offering benefits under light stress, or to rely on low tissue pigment concentrations and use the conserved resources for other purposes, which is preferable in less light-exposed environments. The genomic framework described here allows corals to pursue different strategies to succeed in habitats with highly variable light stress levels. In summary, our results suggest that the intraspecific plasticity of reef corals' stress responses is larger than previously thought.
Data from: Time-limited environments affect the evolution of egg - body size allometry
Initial offspring size is a fundamental component of absolute growth rate, where large offspring will reach a given adult body size faster than smaller offspring. Yet, our knowledge regarding the co-evolution between offspring and adult size is limited. In time-constrained environments, organisms need to reproduce at a high rate and reach a reproductive size quickly. In order to rapidly attain a large adult body size, we hypothesize that, in seasonal habitats, large species are bound to having a large initial size, and consequently, the evolution of egg size will be tightly matched to that of body size, compared to less time-limited systems. We tested this hypothesis in killifishes, and found a significantly steeper allometric relationship between egg size and body size in annual, compared to non-annual species. We also found higher rates of evolution of egg and body size in annual compared to non-annual species. Our results suggest that time-constrained environments impose strong selection on rapidly reaching a species-specific body size, and reproduce at a high rate, which in turn imposes constraints on the evolution of egg sizes. In combination, these distinct selection pressures result in different relationships between egg and body size among species in time-constrained versus permanent habitats.
Data from: Time to extinction in deteriorating environments
Habitat degradation and destruction are the predominant drivers of population extinction, but there is little theory to guide the analysis of population viability in deteriorating environments. To address this gap, we investigated extinction times in time-varying, demographically stochastic versions of the logistic model for population dynamics. A property of these models is the "extinction delay," a quantitative measure of the time lag in extinction created by species-specific extinction debt. For completeness, three models were constructed to represent the different demographic routes by which deterioration may affect population dynamics. Numerical analysis for two notional life histories indicated that the demographic response to environmental deterioration had a large effect on extinction delay, but a third analysis showed that the trajectory of the decline in carrying capacity ultimately characterized its magnitude. A concave decline in carrying capacity produced a large extinction delay while a small delay occurred with a convex decline. Furthermore, our results explore the non-monotonicity of extinction debt with respect to the speed of deterioration. A peak is present at low levels of deterioration, and the height of the peak and the asymptote of delay are affected by both life history parameterizations and the rate of change of the carrying capacity. The results suggest that population viability analyses must consider not only environmental deterioration, but also the effects of deterioration on the trajectory of the decline in carrying capacity.
Data from: Isolation by environment in white-breasted nuthatches (Sitta carolinensis) of the Madrean Archipelago sky islands: a landscape genomics approach
Understanding landscape processes driving patterns of population genetic differentiation and diversity has been a long-standing focus of ecology and evolutionary biology. Gene flow may be reduced by historical, ecological or geographic factors, resulting in patterns of isolation by distance (IBD) or isolation by environment (IBE). Although IBE has been found in many natural systems, most studies investigating patterns of IBD and IBE in nature have used anonymous neutral genetic markers, precluding inference of selection mechanisms or identification of genes potentially under selection. Using landscape genomics, the simultaneous study of genomic and ecological landscapes, we investigated the processes driving population genetic patterns of White-breasted Nuthatches (Sitta carolinensis) in sky islands (montane forest habitat islands) of the Madrean Archipelago. Using more than 4000 single nucleotide polymorphisms and multiple tests to investigate the relationship between genetic differentiation and geographic or ecological distance, we identified IBE, and a lack of IBD, among sky island populations of S. carolinensis. Using three tests to identify selection, we found 79 loci putatively under selection; of these, seven matched CDS regions in the Zebra Finch. The loci under selection were highly associated with climate extremes (maximum temperature of warmest month and minimum precipitation of driest month). These results provide evidence for IBE – disentangled from IBD – in sky island vertebrates and identify potential adaptive genetic variation.
Data from: Invasive alien plants benefit more from clonal integration in heterogeneous environments than natives
What confers invasive alien plants a competitive advantage over native plants remains open to debate. Many of the world's worst invasive alien plants are clonal and able to share resources within clones (clonal integration), particularly in heterogeneous environments. Here, we tested the hypothesis that clonal integration benefits invasive clonal plants more than natives and thus confers invasives a competitive advantage. We selected five congeneric and naturally co-occurring pairs of invasive alien and native clonal plants in China, and grew pairs of connected and disconnected ramets under heterogeneous light, soil nutrient and water conditions that are commonly encountered by alien plants during their invasion into new areas. Clonal integration increased biomass of all plants in all three heterogeneous resource environments. However, invasive plants benefited more from clonal integration than natives. Consequently, invasive plants produced more biomass than natives. Our results indicate that clonal integration may confer invasive alien clonal plants a competitive advantage over natives. Therefore, differences in the ability of clonal integration could potentially explain, at least partly, the invasion success of alien clonal plants in areas where resources are heterogeneously distributed.
Data from: The influence of developmental environment on courtship song in cactophilic Drosophila
Closely related species often differ in the signals involved in sexual communication and mate recognition. Determining the factors influencing signal quality (i.e. signal's content and conspicuousness) provides an important insight into the potential pathways by which these interspecific differences evolve. Host specificity could bias the direction of the evolution of sexual communication and the mate recognition system, favoring sensory channels that work best in the different host conditions. In this study, we focus on the cactophilic sibling species Drosophila buzzatii and D. koepferae that have diverged not only in the sensory channel used for sexual communication and mate recognition but also in the cactus species that use as primary hosts. We evaluate the role of the developmental environment in generating courtship song variation using an isofemale line design. Our results show that host environment during development induces changes in the courtship song of D. koepferae males, but not in D. buzzatii males. Moreover, we report for the first time that host rearing environment affects the conspicuousness of courtship song (i.e. song volume). Our results are mainly discussed in the context of the sensory drive hypothesis.
Data from: Quantifying genotype x environment effects in long-term common wheat yield trials from an agroecologically diverse production region
Multienvironment trials (METs) are used to investigate the performance of crop genotypes. To efficiently generate reliable performance estimates, the magnitude and patterns of genotype × environment interaction (G×E) in MET data must be known. We quantified G×E in fall-planted common wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) in California, with the goal of increasing the reliability and efficiency of statewide variety testing activities. Linear mixed models and the genotype main effects plus G×E interaction effects (GGE) biplot method were used to analyze MET data for 211 common wheat genotypes, the MET consisted of 9 locations and 14 seasons. The representativeness and discriminating power of the MET locations were tested, and estimates of the optimum number of test locations were made. The analyses did not find evidence for significant, repeatable, crossover G×E. The genotype and G×E effects were of a similar magnitude, and the G×E effects were relatively strong compared with other sources of variance but were dominated by seasonal effects, with potentially repeatable genotype-by-location (G×L) effects being relatively weak. The GGE analyses did not detect repeatable G×L patterns across seasons. As a result, we conclude that the cereal production regions of California consist of a single, but unstable, mega-environment for common wheat grain yield. The test location evaluation found few significant differences between test locations in terms of how well they represent the target production environment. We estimate that the number of test locations could be reduced while maintaining trial accuracy, which would improve the resource use efficiency of statewide trial activities without sacrificing information about variety-specific common wheat yield performance.
Data from: Carry-over effects of the social environment on future divorce probability in a wild bird population
Initial mate choice and re-mating strategies (infidelity and divorce) influence individual fitness. Both of these should be influenced by the social environment, which determines the number and availability of potential partners. While most studies looking at this relationship take a population-level approach, individual-level responses to variation in the social environment remain largely unexplored. Here, we explore carry-over effects on future mating decisions of the social environment in which the initial mating decision occurred,. Using detailed data on the winter social networks of great tits we tested whether the probability of subsequent divorce, a year later, could be predicted by measures of the social environment at the time of pairing. We found that males that had a lower proportion of female associates, and whose partner ranked lower amongst these, as well as inexperienced breeders, were more likely to divorce after breeding. We found no evidence that a female's social environment influenced the probability of divorce. Our findings highlight the importance of the social environment that individuals experience during initial pair formation on later pairing outcomes, and demonstrate that such effects can be delayed. Exploring these extended effects of the social environment can give valuable insights into processes and selective pressures acting upon the mating strategies that individuals adopt.
Data from: The effects of male social environment on sperm phenotype and genome integrity
Sperm function and quality are primary determinants of male reproductive performance and hence fitness. The presence of rival males has been shown to affect ejaculate and sperm traits in a wide range of taxa. However, male physiological conditions may not only affect sperm phenotypic traits but also their genetic and epigenetic signatures, affecting the fitness of the resulting offspring. We investigated the effects of male-male competition on sperm quality using TUNEL assays and geometric morphometrics in the zebrafish, Danio rerio. We found that the sperm produced by males exposed to high male-male competition had smaller heads but larger midpiece and flagellum than sperm produced by males under low competition. Head and flagella also appeared less sensitive to the osmotic stress induced by activation with water. In addition, more sperm showed signals of DNA damage in ejaculates of males under high competition. These findings suggest that the presence of a rival male may have positive effects on phenotypic traits but negative effects on DNA integrity. Overall, males facing the presence of rival males may produce faster swimming and more competitive sperm but this may come at a cost for the next generation.
Data from: How does environment influence fighting? The effects of tidal flow on resource value and fighting costs in sea anemones
An animal's decision to enter into a fight depends on the interaction between perceived resource value (V) and fighting costs (C). Both could be altered by predictable environmental fluctuations. For intertidal marine animals, such as the sea anemone Actinia equina, exposure to high flow during the tidal cycle may increase V by bringing more food. It may also increase C via energy expenditure needed to attach to the substrate. We asked whether simulated tidal cycles would alter decisions in fighting A. equina. We exposed some individuals to still water and others to simulated tidal cycles. To gain insights into V, we measured their startle responses before and after exposure to the treatments, before staging dyadic fights. Individuals exposed to flow present shorter startle responses, suggesting that flowing water indicates high V compared with still water. A higher probability of winning against no-flow individuals and longer contests between flow individuals suggests that increased V increases persistence. However, encounters between flow individuals were less likely to escalate, suggesting that C is not directly related to V. Therefore, predictable environmental cycles alter V and C, but in complex ways.
Data from: Slowly switching between environments facilitates reverse evolution in small populations
Natural populations must constantly adapt to ever-changing environmental conditions. A particularly interesting question is whether such adaptations can be reversed by returning the population to an ancestral environment. Such evolutionary reversals have been observed in both natural and laboratory populations. However, the factors that determine the reversibility of evolution are still under debate. The timescales of environmental change vary over a wide range, but little is known about how the rate of environmental change influences the reversibility of evolution. Here we demonstrate computationally that slowly switching between environments increases the reversibility of evolution for small populations, which are subject to only modest clonal interference. For small populations, slow switching reduces the mean number of mutations acquired in a new environment and also increases the probability of reverse evolution at each of these "genetic distances." As the population size increases, slow switching no longer reduces the genetic distance, thus decreasing the evolutionary reversibility. We confirm this effect using both a phenomenological model of clonal interference and also a Wright-Fisher stochastic simulation that incorporates genetic diversity. Our results suggest that the rate of environmental change is a key determinant of the reversibility of evolution, and provides testable hypotheses for experimental evolution.
Data from: Sex differences in parental care: gametic investment, sexual selection and social environment
Male and female parents often provide different type and amount of care to their offspring. Three major drivers have been proposed to explain parental sex roles: (i) differential gametic investment by males and females that precipitates into sex difference in care, (ii) different intensity of sexual selection acting on males and females, and (iii) biased social environment that facilitates the more common sex to provide more care. Here we provide the most comprehensive assessment of these hypotheses using detailed parental care data from 792 bird species covering 126 families. We found no evidence for the gametic investment hypothesis: neither gamete sizes nor gamete production by males relative to females was related to sex difference in parental care. However, sexual selection correlated with parental sex roles, because the male share in care relative to female decreased with both extra-pair paternity and frequency of polygamy. Parental sex roles were also related to social environment, because male parental care increased with male-biased adult sex ratios. Taken together, our results are consistent with recent theories suggesting that gametic investment is not tied to parental sex roles, and highlight the importance of both sexual selection and adult sex ratios in influencing parental sex roles.
Data from: Evolutionary rescue of sexual and asexual populations in a deteriorating environment
The environmental change experienced by many contemporary populations of organisms poses a serious risk to their survival. From the theory of evolutionary rescue we predict that the combination of sex and genetic diversity should increase the probability of survival by increasing variation and thereby the probability of generating a type that can tolerate the stressful environment. We tested this prediction by comparing experimental populations of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii that differ in sexuality and in the initial amount of genetic diversity. The lines were serially propagated in an environment where the level of stress caused by salt increased over time from fresh water to the limits of marine conditions. In the long term, the combination of high diversity and obligate sexuality was most effective in supporting evolutionary rescue. Most of the adaptation to high-salt environments in the obligate sexual-high diversity lines had occurred by mid-way through the experiment, indicating that positive genetic correlations of adaptation to lethal stress with adaptation to sublethal stress greatly increased the probability of evolutionary rescue. The evolutionary rescue events observed in this study provide evidence that major shifts in ways of life can arise within short time frames through the action of natural selection in sexual populations.
Data from: Inbreeding depression does not increase after exposure to a stressful environment: a test using compensatory growth
Background: Inbreeding is often associated with a decrease in offspring fitness ('inbreeding depression'). Moreover, it is generally assumed that the negative effects of inbreeding are exacerbated in stressful environments. This G × E interaction has been explored in many taxa under different environmental conditions. These studies usually manipulate environmental conditions either in adulthood or throughout an individual's entire life. Far fewer studies have tested how stressful environments only experienced during development subsequently influence the effects of inbreeding on adult traits. Results: We experimentally manipulated the diet (control versus low food) of inbred and outbred juvenile Eastern mosquitofish (Gambusia holbrooki) for three weeks (days 7-28) to test whether experiencing a presumably stressful environment early in life influences their subsequent growth and adult phenotypes. The control diet was a standard laboratory food regime, while fish on the low food diet received less than 25 % of this amount of food. Unexpectedly, despite a large sample size (237 families, 908 offspring) and a quantified 23 % reduction in genome-wide heterozygosity in inbred offspring from matings between full-siblings (f = 0.25), neither inbreeding nor its interaction with early diet affected growth trajectories, juvenile survival or adult size. Individuals did not mitigate a poor start in life by showing 'compensatory growth' (i.e. faster growth once the low food treatment ended), but they showed 'catch-up growth' by delaying maturation. There was, however, no effect of inbreeding on the extent of catch-up growth. Conclusions: There were no detectable effects of inbreeding on growth or adult size, even on a low food diet that should elevate inbreeding depression. Thus, the long-term costs of inbreeding due to lower male reproductive success we have shown in another study appear to be unrelated to inbreeding depression for adult male size or the growth rates that are reported in the current study.
Data from: High and dry: trade-off in arboreal calling in a treefrog mediated by local environment
Trade-offs shaping behavioral variation are often influenced by the environment. We investigated the role that the environment plays in mediating trade-offs using a widespread frog with a conspicuous mating display, Pseudacris crucifer. We first demonstrated, using playback and desiccation experiments, that calling site selection involves a trade-off between sound transmission and desiccation. We then determined the influence of local environmental conditions on the intensity of the trade-off by examining range-wide behavioral and environmental data. We showed that the benefit of improved call transmission is positively influenced by vegetation density and ground cover. Behavioral data are consistent with this relationship: sites with a greater transmission benefit have increased prevalence of arboreally-calling males. We also found that the prevalence of arboreal calling behavior increases with relative humidity and air temperature, suggesting an influence of these environmental variables on the desiccation cost of arboreal calling. This study provides a clear example of the role of the environment in mediating trade-off intensities and shaping critical behavioral traits.
Data from: Mutant invasions and adaptive dynamics in variable environments
The evolution of natural organisms is ultimately driven by the invasion and possible fixation of mutant alleles. The invasion process is highly stochastic, however, and the probability of success is generally low, even for advantageous alleles. Additionally, all organisms live in a stochastic environment, which may have a large influence on what alleles are favorable, but also contributes to the uncertainty of the invasion process. We calculate the invasion probability of a beneficial, mutant allele in a monomorphic, large population subject to stochastic environmental fluctuations, taking into account density- and frequency-dependent selection, stochastic population dynamics and temporal autocorrelation of the environment. We treat both discrete and continuous time population dynamics, and allow for overlapping generations in the continuous time case. The results can be generalized to diploid, sexually reproducing organisms embedded in communities of interacting species. We further use these results to derive an extended canonical equation of adaptive dynamics, predicting the rate of evolutionary change of a heritable trait on long evolutionary time scales.
Data from: Meek mothers with powerful daughters: effects of novel host environments and small trait differences on parasitoid competition
Outcomes of competition may depend both on subtle differences in traits relevant to fitness and on how those traits are expressed in the context of the environment. Environmental effects on traits impacting population dynamics are often overlooked in studies of parasitic wasp (parasitoid) competition. Lineages of the parasitoid Diachasma alloeum (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) differ in relative ovipositor length (a trait affecting the proportion of hosts available for parasitism). Since the size of natal hosts affects the overall body size of many adult parasitoids, outcomes of competition between D. alloeum lineages should be influenced by both their natal host's size and their inherited ovipositor:body size ratios. Previous genetic work showed the unexpected result that the apparently inferior competitor (the lineage with smaller ovipositors in its ancestral environment) has successfully colonized a new host. We present body size measurements and a phenomological model of competition showing that relative ovipositor sizes of the two lineages predict success of the apparently inferior wasp lineage in the new host. We present several variants of the model, including simulations: 1) wherein competitors have either ancestral trait values or trait values acquired in the novel environment; 2) that allow varying rates of constant immigration from the inferior competitor's source population; and 3) with stochastic immigration from both lineages' source populations. We show that ancestral trait differences and changes in environmentally mediated traits interact to affect outcomes of competition. Apparently inferior female parasitoids ('meek mothers') attacking a host in a novel environment can produce highly successful daughters if those daughters inherit large ovipositor:body size ratios and grow to a larger size in the new environment. Predictive models of parasitoid competition that consider effects of environmentally mediated trait changes may be particularly important for biocontrol programs wherein parasitoids are introduced into new environments or used to control novel hosts.
Data from: An experimental test of the relationship between yolk testosterone and the social environment in a colonial passerine
Maternal hormones can be transferred to offspring during prenatal development in response to the maternal social environment, and may adaptively alter offspring phenotype. For example, numerous avian studies show that aggressive competition with conspecifics tends to result in females allocating more testosterone to their egg yolks, and this may cause offspring to have more competitive phenotypes. However, deviations from this pattern of maternal testosterone allocation are found, largely in studies of colonial species, and have yet to be explained. Colonial species may have different life-history constraints causing different yolk testosterone allocation strategies in response to conspecific competition, but few studies have experimentally tested whether colonial species do indeed differ from that of solitary species. To test this, we collected eggs from zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata), a colonial species, in the presence and absence of conspecific intrusions. Females did not alter the concentration of testosterone deposited in eggs laid during intrusions despite becoming more aggressive. These results suggest that maternal effects are not characterized by a uniform response to the social environment, but rather need to be contextualized with life-history traits.
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Allen Brain Atlas
Allen Brain Atlas is an Allen Institute collection of brain map atlases, datasets, APIs, and analysis tools covering mouse, human, and non-human primate brain resources.
Annotated Behaviour and Observability Dataset (ABODe)
ABODe is a University of Edinburgh DataShare dataset for behavior classification in group-housed mice using home-cage video, identities, bounding boxes, ground-plate positions, and annotator labels.
DANDI Archive for NWB datasets
DANDI is a BRAIN Initiative archive for publishing and sharing neurophysiology data, including electrophysiology, optophysiology, and behavioral data packaged as NWB and related standards.
International Brain Laboratory public data
The International Brain Laboratory public data releases expose standardized mouse decision-making experiments, including Neuropixels recordings, widefield calcium imaging, behavior, and session metadata accessed through the ONE API.
OpenNeuro
OpenNeuro is a free, open platform for sharing neuroimaging datasets, with public search, dataset pages, and download paths for web, S3, DataLad, and the OpenNeuro CLI.