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Figures 8–11 in Neotropical Copestylum (Diptera, Syrphidae) breeding in Agavaceae and Cactaceae including seven new species

Figures 8–11. Adult Copestylum, male genitalia; scale bar = 0.30 mm. 8–9, Copestylum multipunctatum sp. nov., male holotype: 8, genitalia and associated structures, lateral view; 9, hypandrium, ventral view. 10–11, Copestylum cochabamba sp. nov., male holotype: 10, genitalia and associated structures, lateral view; 11, hypandrium, ventral view.

Figures 25–27 in Neotropical Copestylum (Diptera, Syrphidae) breeding in Agavaceae and Cactaceae including seven new species

Figures 25–27. Third stage larval Copestylum, whole larva, head to the right; scale bar = 7 mm. 25. Copestylum apiciferum; 26, Copestylum isabellina; 27, Copestylum sica.

Figures 74–75 in Neotropical Copestylum (Diptera, Syrphidae) breeding in Agavaceae and Cactaceae including seven new species

Figures 74–75. Puparium of Copestylum haagii, scanning electron photomicrographs, scales as indicated on images. 74, posterior breathing tube (prp), dorsal view width at TR = 1.03 mm; 75, prp, apical view width = 1.0 mm.

Figures 1–4 in Neotropical Copestylum (Diptera, Syrphidae) breeding in Agavaceae and Cactaceae including seven new species

Figures 1–4. Adult Copestylum, lateral view of the head; scale bar = 2 mm. 1, Copestylum multipunctatum sp. nov., male holotype; 2, Copestylum santarosae sp. nov., male holotype; 3, Copestylum tetetzoi sp. nov., male holotype; 4, Copestylum truncatum sp. nov., male holotype.

Figures 5–7 in Neotropical Copestylum (Diptera, Syrphidae) breeding in Agavaceae and Cactaceae including seven new species

Figures 5–7. Adult Copestylum, lateral view of the head; scale bar = 2 mm. 5, Copestylum cochabamba sp. nov., male holotype; 6, Copestylum milae sp. nov., male holotype; 7, Copestylum hidalgense sp. nov., male holotype.

Figures 16–19 in Neotropical Copestylum (Diptera, Syrphidae) breeding in Agavaceae and Cactaceae including seven new species

Figures 16–19. Adult Copestylum, male genitalia; scale bar = 0.30 mm. 16–19, Copestylum milae sp. nov., male holotype: 16, genitalia and associated structures, lateral view; 17, hypandrium, ventral view. 18–19, Copestylum hidalgense sp. nov., male holotype: 18, genitalia and associated structures, lateral view; 19, hypandrium, ventral view.

Figures 66–67 in Neotropical Copestylum (Diptera, Syrphidae) breeding in Agavaceae and Cactaceae including seven new species

Figures 66–67. Puparium of Copestylum apiciferum, scanning electron photomicrographs, scales as indicated on images. 66, posterior breathing tube (prp), dorsal view width at TR = 1.25 mm; 67, pupal spiracle, dorsolateral view length = 0.85 mm.

Figures 48–53 in Neotropical Copestylum (Diptera, Syrphidae) breeding in Agavaceae and Cactaceae including seven new species

Figures 48–53. Pupal spiracles of Copestylum, scanning electron photomicrographs. 48, 50, Copestylum fornax; 48, dorsolateral view length 0.38 mm; 50, whole view from above scale as indicated; 49, Copestylum satur, lateral view length 0.73 mm; 51, 53, Copestylum marginatum; 51, dorsolateral view length 0.82 mm; 53, sculpture between openings, view from above; 52, Copestylum limbipenne, sculpture between openings, view from above.

opencc-zeroSep 2021View details →

How to achieve a higher selection plateau in forest tree breeding? Fostering heterozygote x homozygote relationships in optimal contribution selection in the case study of Populus nigra

In breeding, Optimal Contribution Selection (OCS) is one of the most effective strategies to balance short- and long-term genetic responses, by maximizing genetic gain and minimizing global coancestry. Considering genetic diversity in the selection dynamic – through coancestry – is undoubtedly the reason for the success of OCS, as it avoids intial loss of favorable alleles. Originally formulated with the pedigree relationship matrix, global coancestry can nowadays be assessed with one of the possible formulations of the realized genomic relationship matrix. Most formulations were optimized for genomic evaluation, but few for the management of coancestry. We introduce here an alternative formulation specifically developed for Genomic OCS (GOCS), intended to better control heterozygous loci, and thus better account for Mendelian sampling. We simulated a multi-generation breeding program with mate allocation and under GOCS for twenty generations, solved with quadratic programming. With the case study of Populus nigra, we have shown that, although the dynamic was mainly determined by the trade-off between genetic gain and genetic diversity, better formulations of the genomic relationship matrix, especially those fostering individuals carrying multiple heterozygous loci, can lead to better short-term genetic gain and a higher selection plateau.

opencc-zeroOct 2021View details →

Airflow modelling predicts seabird breeding habitat across islands

Wind is fundamentally related to shelter and flight performance: two factors that are critical for birds at their nest sites. Despite this, airflows have never been fully integrated into models of breeding habitat selection, even for well-studied seabirds. Here we use computational fluid dynamics to provide the first assessment of whether flow characteristics (including wind speed and turbulence) predict the distribution of seabird colonies, taking common guillemots (Uria aalge) breeding on Skomer island as our study system. This demonstrates that occupancy is driven by the need to shelter from both wind and rain/ wave action, rather than airflow characteristics alone. Models of airflows and cliff orientation both performed well in predicting high quality habitat in our study site, identifying 80% of colonies and 93% of avoided sites, as well as 73% of the largest colonies on a neighbouring island. This suggests generality in the mechanisms driving breeding distributions, and provides an approach for identifying habitat for seabird reintroductions considering current and projected wind speeds and directions.

opencc-zeroOct 2021View details →

Data for: The association between personalities, alternative breeding strategies, and reproductive success in dunnocks

Although consistent between-individual differences in behaviour (i.e. animal personality) are ubiquitous in natural populations, relatively few studies have examined how personalities influence the formation of social relationships. Yet, behavioural characteristics of both sexes might be key when it comes to pair-bond formation, and the cooperation with partners to successfully rear offspring. We here use a wild population of dunnocks (Prunella modularis) to first investigate whether individuals mate non-randomly (i.e. assortative mating) with regard to four behavioural traits – flight-initiation distance (FID), provisioning, activity, and vigilance – that differ in repeatability and have previously been associated with mating patterns and fitness in other species. Second, we test whether an individual's FID is associated with variability in the dunnocks' mating system (i.e. monogamous pairs vs. polygamous groups). Finally, we determine whether FID and provisioning of males and females associate with their reproductive success. We found no statistical support for assortative mating in FID between males and females. Interestingly, in polygamous groups, co-breeding males differed in their FIDs with dominant alpha-males having significantly shorter FIDs compared to subordinate beta-males. Moreover, there was evidence for assortative mating in provisioning for alpha-males and females in polygamous groups. We also found that male provisioning influenced reproductive success of both sexes, while female provisioning rates only positively correlated with her own but not their partner(s) reproductive output. Our results suggest that personality differences may have important implications for social relationships, the emergence of different mating patterns and ultimately reproductive success within populations.

opencc-by-4.0Oct 2024View details →

Yelkouan shearwater (Puffinus yelkouan) Maltese Islands' colony differences in feather corticosterone, bulk stable isotopes, mercury concentration, adult breeding success and foraging strategies

All data and scripts uploaded and described here are related to the manuscript being submitted under the title: "Feather corticosterone and stable isotopes explain fledging and adult breeding success in a burrow-nesting seabird, the Yelkouan shearwater Puffinus yelkouan", accepted for publication in Marine Biology (doi: 10.1007/s00227-025-04748-8). <h2>Adult Breeding success </h2> In the script “YESH_Malta_BreedingSuccess_DSR_Rmark.R” apparent breeding success and daily nest survival rates are estimated for yelkouan shearwater nests in Maltese colonies based on the nest log data found in “BreedingSuccessSummaryData.zip”. <h2>Nestling and fledgling feather growth, corticosterone, stable isotopes and mercury</h2> The R script “YESH_FeatherGrowth_CORT_SI_Hg_chicks_Malta_Script.R” was written to load, combine and analyse all the data related to measurements of nestling growth, feather corticosterone, bulk stable isotopes and mercury analysis. The folder “YESH_FeatherGrowth_CORT_SI_Hg_chicks_Malta_Data.zip” contains the files with these data as named and loaded in the script. The folder also contains the original outputs from the corticosterone measurements by plate, including standard curves, provided in the subfolder: “CORT_Output_by_plate”. Original outputs as sent from the LIENs laboratory for stable isotopes and mercury can be found in the subfolder “SI_Hg_Outputs”. <h2>Adult shearwater tracking data analysis</h2> The R script written to analyse gps-logger data is named: “YESH_RM_MJ_ChickRearPeriod_ForagingStrategies.R” Adult yelkouan shearwater gps-logger tracking data during the chick-rearing period from the two colonies compared, Majjistral (MJ) and Rdum tal-Madonna (RM): “YESH_Malta_RM_MJ_ChickRearPeriod.csv”. Apart from the consolidated form the tracking data from the chick-rearing period can be found on BirdLife International Seabird Tracking Database: 2012, 2013 & 2014: <a href="https://data.seabirdtracking.org/dataset/836">https://data.seabirdtracking.org/dataset/836</a> <a href="https://data.seabirdtracking.org/dataset/837">https://data.seabirdtracking.org/dataset/837</a> <a href="https://data.seabirdtracking.org/dataset/952">https://data.seabirdtracking.org/dataset/952</a> 2019: <a href="https://data.seabirdtracking.org/dataset/1935">https://data.seabirdtracking.org/dataset/1935</a> 2021: https://data.seabirdtracking.org/dataset/2223 https://data.seabirdtracking.org/dataset/2224 2022: <a href="https://data.seabirdtracking.org/dataset/1855">https://data.seabirdtracking.org/dataset/1855</a>  “TRACKID_2012_2022_DIAGNOSTICSV3.csv” describes the completeness of tracks based on visual assessment and is loaded during the running of the script. Output shapefiles produced by running the script are provided in the folder: “YESH_RM_MJ_ShapefileOutputs_KDE.zip”. <h2>Acknowledgements and Funding</h2> We are grateful to the German Ornithologists’ Society through which all laboratory analysis was funded with funds from the Ursula Honig estate. Tracking was funded under EU-LIFE+ Malta Seabird Project (LIFE10NAT/MT/090), EU-LIFE Artina (LIFE17 NAT/HR/000594) and EU-LIFE PanPuffinus! (LIFE19 NAT/MT/000982), co-financed respectively by the Maltese Ministry for Sustainable Development, the Environment and Climate Change; Ministry of Education and Employment and Ministry for Agriculture, Fisheries and Animal Rights. All handling and sampling of shearwaters were carried out under permits from the Environment & Resources Authority (ERA) and the Wild Birds Regulation Unit (WBRU). We thank all staff and volunteers of BirdLife Malta having taken part in fieldwork, and all members of the public who contact us for grounded shearwaters. We are grateful to Gaël Guillou of the platform “Analyses isotopiques” for running the stable isotope analyses and to Maud Brault-Favrou of the platform “Analyses élémentaires” for running Hg analyses, both at the LIENSs laboratory. Thanks are due to the CPER (Contrat de Projet Etat-Région) and the FEDER (Fonds Européen de Développement Régional) for funding the AMA and the IRMS of LIENSs. Contributor PB is an honorary member of the IUF (Institut Universitaire de France).

opencc-zeroOct 2022View details →

Resources from: Gut microbiome composition better reflects host phylogeny than diet diversity in breeding wood-warblers

Understanding the factors that shape microbiomes can provide insight on the importance of host-symbiont interactions and on co-evolutionary dynamics. Unlike for mammals, previous studies have found little or no support for an influence of host evolutionary history on avian gut microbiome diversity and instead have suggested a greater influence of the environment or diet due to fast gut turnover. Because effects of different factors may be conflated by captivity and sampling design, examining natural variation using large sample sizes is important. Our goal was to overcome these limitations by sampling wild birds to compare environmental, dietary, and evolutionary influences on gut microbiome structure. We performed fecal metabarcoding to characterize both the gut microbiome and diet of fifteen wood-warbler species across a four-year period and from two geographic localities. We find host taxonomy generally explained ~10% of the variation between individuals, which is ~6-fold more variation of any other factor considered, including diet diversity. Further, gut microbiome similarity was more congruent with the host phylogeny than with host diet similarity and we found little association between diet diversity and microbiome diversity. Together, our results suggest evolutionary history is the strongest predictor of gut microbiome differentiation among wood-warblers. Although the phylogenetic signal of the warbler gut microbiome is not very strong, our data suggest that a stronger influence of diet (as measured by diet diversity) does not account for this pattern. The mechanism underlying this phylogenetic signal is not clear, but we argue host traits may filter colonization and maintenance of microbes.

opencc-by-4.0Nov 2022View details →

Data from Lamb et al.: "Hanging out at the club: breeding status and territoriality affect individual space use, multi-species overlap, and pathogen transmission risk at a seabird colony"

This dataset consists of two files: ams_sku_all provides GPS locations from tracked skuas. Skua_GPS_Metadata provides information on tracked skuas. The file consists of two workseets, the data table ("skua_gps_metadata", and a key providing descriptions of the column names and values ("Key")

opencc-zeroNov 2022View details →

Data for: Similar environmental cues guide timing of breeding and seasonal shifts in songbird social structure

Seasonally breeding animals often exhibit different social structures during non-breeding and breeding periods that coincide with seasonal environmental variation. Therefore, ongoing climate change may play an important role in determining the future structure of animal societies, especially if climate determines when seasonal shifts in social structure occur. However, we know little about the environmental cues that determine the timing of seasonal shifts in social structure, a lack of knowledge that contrasts with our well-defined knowledge of the environmental cues that trigger a shift to breeding physiology in seasonally breeding species. Here we tested whether the environmental cues that drive seasonal shifts in social structure are similar to those that determine timing of breeding in the red-backed fairywren (Malurus melanocephalus), an Australian songbird. Social network analyses revealed that social groups, which are highly territorial during the breeding season, interact in social "communities" on larger ranges during the non-breeding season. Interactions among non-breeding groups were related to rainfall, with more rainfall leading to reductions in home range size and fewer interactions among non-breeding social groups. Similarly, onset of breeding was also determined by rainfall during the non-breeding season, with greater rainfall leading to earlier breeding. These findings reveal that for some species, the cues that determine the timing of shifts in social structure across seasonal boundaries can be similar to those that determine timing of breeding. This study increases our understanding of how social structure and the selection pressures that result from different social structures might respond to changing climates.

Fig. 2 in Larval Development And Habitat Usage Of Stream-Breeding Fire Salamanders In An Urban Environment

Fig. 2. Changes in the number of salamander larvae and rainfall. The bold black continuous line shows the mean number of salamander larvae detected during the surveys in the three 10 day intervals of months in Hűvös-ér stream, 2011–2014. The bar graph shows the mean amount (and SD) of precipitation (mm) during the three 10-day intervals of months

Fig. 3 in Larval Development And Habitat Usage Of Stream-Breeding Fire Salamanders In An Urban Environment

Fig. 3. Mean density of salamander larvae (number of larvae/m2) detected in the 16 segments during surveys every 10 days in "Hűvös-ér" stream, 2011–2014 (2011: thin line, 2012:

Fig. 5 in Larval Development And Habitat Usage Of Stream-Breeding Fire Salamanders In An Urban Environment

Fig. 5. Mean number of salamander larvae detected per a year in the "releasing" 2–6 upper segments (continuous bold line), in the "strong collector" middle segments: 7–9 (dashed line) and the "weak collector" lower segments: 10–13 (dotted line) during surveys every 10 days in "Hűvös-ér" stream between 2011–2014. Data from segment 1 have not been plotted because larvae were present at only one time point

opencc-zeroDec 2021View details →

Data for: Zebra finch song ecology: monitoring of breeding, observational transects, focal and year-round acoustic recordings, and a large-scale simultaneous playback experiment

Male songbirds sing to establish territories and to attract mates. However, increasing reports of singing in non-reproductive contexts and by females show that song use is more diverse than previously considered. Therefore, alternative functions of song, such as social cohesion and synchronisation of breeding, by and large were overlooked even in such well-studied species as the zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata). In these social songbirds only the males sing and pairs breed synchronously in loose colonies following aseasonal rain events in their arid habitat. As males are not territorial, and pairs form long-term monogamous bonds early in life, conventional theory predicts that zebra finches should not sing much at all; yet they do and their song is the focus of hundreds of lab-based studies. We hypothesise that zebra finch song functions to maintain social cohesion and to synchronise breeding. Here we test this idea using data from five years of field studies, including observational transects, focal and year-round audio recordings, and a large-scale playback experiment. We show that zebra finches frequently sing while in groups, that breeding status influences song output at the nest and at aggregations, that they sing year-round, and that they predominantly sing when with their partner, suggesting that song remains important after pair formation. Our playback reveals that song actively features in social aggregations as it attracts conspecifics. Together, these results demonstrate that birdsong has important functions beyond territoriality and mate choice, illustrating its importance in coordination and cohesion of social units within larger societies.

Fig. 1 in Larval Development And Habitat Usage Of Stream-Breeding Fire Salamanders In An Urban Environment

Fig. 1. Segments of "Hűvös-ér" stream, where Salamandra salamandra larvae were surveyed. (Numbers indicate individual stream segments, bold meandering line = main branch of the stream, thin branch- ing line = tributaries of the stream, straight lines = segment boundaries, four-pointed stars at segment boundaries and in the stream bed = water steps, double line = main road between Budapest and Solymár, P = "Paprikás"-stream)