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2,315 results for “maintainability”
Data from: Pollinator-mediated selection on floral size and tube color in Linum pubescens: can differential behavior and preference in different times of the day maintain dimorphism?
Diversity of flower traits is often proposed as the outcome of selection exerted by pollinators. Positive directional pollinator-mediated selection on floral size has been widely shown to reduce phenotypic variance. However, the underlying mechanism of maintaining within-population floral color polymorphism is poorly understood. Divergent selection, mediated by different pollinators or by both mutualists and antagonists, may create and maintain such polymorphism, but it has rarely been shown to result from differential behavior of one pollinator. We tested whether different behaviors of the same pollinators in morning and evening are associated with dimorphic floral trait in Linum pubescens, a Mediterranean annual plant that exhibits variable within-population frequencies of dark and light-colored flower tube. Usia bicolor bee-flies, the major pollinators of L. pubescens, are mostly feeding in the flower in the morning, while in the evening they are mostly visiting the flowers for mating. In two years of studying L. pubescens in a single large population in the Carmel, Israel, we found in one year that dark-centered flowers received significantly higher fraction of visits in the morning. Fitness was positively affected by number of visits, but no fitness differences were found between tube-color morphs, suggesting that both morphs have similar pollination success. Using mediation analysis, we found that flower size was under positive directional pollinator-mediated selection in both years, but pollinator behavior did not explain entirely this selection, which was possibly mediated also by other agents, such as florivores or a-biotic stresses. While most pollinator-mediated selection studies show that flower size signals food reward, in L. pubescens it may also signals for mating place, which may drive positive selection. While flower size found to be under pollinator-mediated selection in L. pubescens, but differential behavior of the pollinators in morning and evening did not seem to explain flower color polymorphism.
Data from: The relative importance of predation risk and water temperature in maintaining Bergmann's rule in a marine ectotherm
Bergmann's rule - an increase in body size with latitude - correlates with latitudinal declines in ambient temperature and predation risk, but relatively few studies simultaneously explore the relative importance of these factors. Along temperate Atlantic shorelines, the isopod Idotea balthica from high latitudes are 53% longer on average than are isopods from low latitudes. When reared at 6°- 24°C, juveniles increased growth and development rates with temperature. Because the increase in growth rate with temperature outstripped increases in development rate, female size at maturity increased with temperature. This thermal sensitivity of growth cannot account for the latitudinal pattern in body size. Within temperature treatments, females from low latitudes reached sexual maturity at younger ages and at a smaller size than did females from higher latitudes. This shift in life-history strategy is predicted by latitudinal declines in predation pressure, which we tested using field-tethering experiments. Overall, isopods at low latitudes had a 44% greater mortality risk from daytime predators relative to isopods at higher latitudes. We conclude that a latitudinal gradient in predation risk, and not temperature, is principally responsible for Bergmann's rule in I. balthica. Increases in body size during future warming of oceans may be constrained by local patterns of predation risk.
Data from: Presence of a loner strain maintains cooperation and diversity in well-mixed bacterial communities
Cooperation and diversity abound in nature despite cooperators risking exploitation from defectors and superior competitors displacing weaker ones. Understanding the persistence of cooperation and diversity is therefore a major problem for evolutionary ecology, especially in the context of well-mixed populations, where the potential for exploitation and displacement is greatest. Here, we demonstrate that a 'loner effect', described by economic game theorists, can maintain cooperation and diversity in real-world biological settings. We use mathematical models of public-good-producing bacteria to show that the presence of a loner strain, which produces an independent but relatively inefficient good, can lead to rock–paper–scissor dynamics, whereby cooperators outcompete loners, defectors outcompete cooperators and loners outcompete defectors. These model predictions are supported by our observations of evolutionary dynamics in well-mixed experimental communities of the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa. We find that the coexistence of cooperators and defectors that produce and exploit, respectively, the iron-scavenging siderophore pyoverdine, is stabilized by the presence of loners with an independent iron-uptake mechanism. Our results establish the loner effect as a simple and general driver of cooperation and diversity in environments that would otherwise favour defection and the erosion of diversity.
Data from: Range-edge genetic diversity: locally poor extant southern patches maintain a regionally diverse hotspot in the seagrass Zostera marina
Refugial populations at the rear edge are predicted to contain higher genetic diversity than those resulting from expansion, such as in post-glacial recolonizations. However, peripheral populations are also predicted to have decreased diversity compared to the center of a species' distribution. We aim to test these predictions by comparing genetic diversity in populations at the limits of distribution of the seagrass Zostera marina, with populations in the species' previously described central diversity 'hotspot'. Zostera marina populations show decreased allelic richness, heterozygosity and genotypic richness in both the 'rear' edge and the 'leading' edge compared to the diversity 'hotspot' in the North Sea / Baltic region. However, when populations are pooled, genetic diversity at the southern range is as high as in the North Sea / Baltic region while the 'leading edge' remains low in genetic diversity. The decreased genetic diversity in these Southern Iberia populations compared to more central populations is possibly the effect of drift due to small effective population size, as a result of reduced habitat, low sexual reproduction and low gene flow. However, when considering the whole southern edge of distribution rather than per population, diversity is as high as in the central 'hotspot' in the North Sea / Baltic region. We conclude that diversity patterns assessed per population can mask the real regional richness that is typical of rear edge populations, which have played a key role in the species biogeographic history and as marginal diversity hotspots have very high conservation value.
Data from: Mating preferences do not maintain the tailspot polymorphism in the platyfish, Xiphophorus variatus
Negative assortative, or disassortative, mating describes the scenario when individuals tend to mate with dissimilar phenotypes more often than by random chance alone. This form of nonrandom mating has the power to select for the maintenance of polymorphism in conspicuous traits, for example, when females prefer mates that have a different trait value than their own. The livebearing variable platyfish, Xiphophorus variatus, exhibits high polymorphism for a melanic pigmentation trait called tailspots, which results in variation in a conspicuous visual cue. Livebearers often exhibit female mating preferences based on morphological traits and disassortative mating has been suggested in a related species. Whether mating choice contributes to the maintenance of tailspot variation has never been tested. Here, we examined mating preferences of wild-caught females for pairs of male stimuli differing in their tailspot pattern. Females showed no evidence for either assortative or disassortative association preferences, spending equal time with males of different patterns. These results corroborate data on natural mating patterns in X. variatus, suggesting that mate choice for tailspots is either nonexistent or at least insufficient to account for the maintenance of tailspot variation.
Data from: Ant colonies maintain social homeostasis in the face of decreased density
Interactions lie at the heart of social organization, particularly in ant societies. Interaction rates are presumed to increase with density, but there is little empirical evidence for this. We manipulated density within carpenter ant colonies of the species Camponotus pennsylvanicus by quadrupling nest space and by manually tracking 6.9 million ant locations and over 3200 interactions to study the relationship between density, spatial organization and interaction rates. Colonies divided into distinct spatial regions on the basis of their underlying spatial organization and changed their movement patterns accordingly. Despite a reduction in both overall and local density, we did not find the expected concomitant reduction in interaction rates across all colonies. Instead, we found divergent effects across colonies. Our results highlight the remarkable organizational resilience of ant colonies to changes in density, which allows them to sustain two key basic colony life functions, that is food and information exchange, during environmental change.
Data from: Asymmetric introgression between the M and S molecular forms of the malaria vector, Anopheles gambiae, maintains divergence despite extensive hybridisation.
The suggestion that genetic divergence can arise and/or be maintained in the face of gene flow, has been contentious since first proposed. Partially reproductively isolated taxa have been highlighted as offering unique opportunities for identifying the mechanisms underlying the maintenance of divergence with gene flow. The African malaria vector, Anopheles gambiae s.s., is widely regarded as consisting of two sympatric forms, thought by many to represent incipient species, the M and S molecular forms. However, there has been much debate about the extent of reproductive isolation between M and S, with one view positing that divergence may have arisen and is being maintained in the presence of gene flow, and the other proposing a more advanced speciation process with little realized gene flow due to low fitness of hybrids. These hypotheses have been difficult to address because hybrids are typically very rare (<1%). Here, we assess samples from an area of high hybridisation and demonstrate that hybrids are fit and responsible for extensive introgression. Nonetheless, we show that strong divergent selection at a subset of loci combined with highly asymmetric introgression has enabled M and S to remain genetically differentiated despite extensive gene flow. We propose that the extent of reproductive isolation between M and S varies across West Africa resulting in a "geographic mosaic of reproductive isolation"; a finding which adds further complexity to our understanding of divergence in this taxon and which has considerable implications for transgenic control strategies.
Data from: Is floral divergence sufficient to maintain species boundaries upon secondary contact in Mediterranean food-deceptive orchids?
Analysing the processes that determine whether species boundaries are maintained upon secondary contact may shed light on the early phase of speciation. In Anacamptis morio and A. longicornu, two Mediterranean orchid sister-species, we used molecular and morphological analyses, together with estimates of pollination success and experimental crosses, to assess whether floral isolation can shelter the species' genomes from genetic admixture upon secondary contact. We found substantial genetic and morphological homogenization in sympatric populations in combination with an apparent lack of postmating isolation. We further detected asymmetric introgression in the sympatric populations and an imbalance in cytotype representation, which may be due either to a difference in flowering phenology or else be a consequence of cytonuclear incompatibilities. Estimates of genetic clines for markers across sympatric zones revealed markers that significantly deviated from neutral expectations. We observed a significant correlation between spur length and reproductive success in sympatric populations, which may suggest that directional selection is the main cause of morphological differentiation in this species pair. Our results suggest that allopatric divergence has not led to the evolution of sufficient reproductive isolation to prevent genomic admixture upon secondary contact in this orchid species pair.
Data from: Phylogenetic diversity is maintained despite richness losses over time in restored tallgrass prairie plant communities
Ecosystem restoration is an important tool for mitigating biodiversity loss and recovering critical ecosystem services to humanity, but restoration rarely takes into account the evolutionary attributes of the community being restored. Phylogenetic diversity (PD) represents a potentially valuable measure of restoration success because it can correlate with functional trait diversity that drives ecosystem function. However, PD patterns in restored communities are rarely assessed. We surveyed plant communities in restored tallgrass prairies 2–19 years old and calculated two PD measures, SESMNTD and SESMPD, of the communities and seed mixture applied to sites. We also identified high-threat exotic species present in each site to determine whether PD of the seed mixture applied was related to resistance against invasion. We show that PD in North American tallgrass prairie restorations, as measured by both SESMNTD and SESMPD, is maintained over time even as richness declines. Neither the resulting community PD nor invasion by high-threat exotic species was affected by PD of the seed mixture used in site restoration. Thus, simply maximizing PD of seed mixtures without considering the particular component species is unlikely to help achieve restoration goals. Synthesis and applications. These results suggest that species losses over time are not biased towards species with or without close relatives in the community. If phylogenetic diversity (PD) reflects functional trait diversity in communities, then local declines in species richness may not necessarily mean the loss of ecosystem function in restoration projects. However, PD of restored communities may be limited by low establishment rates for most species. Conservation practitioners should consider PD with careful planning to maintain overall community diversity and potentially maximize ecosystem function and services in restorations. This perspective will require a deeper understanding of the relationships between phylogenetic relatedness and traits associated with competition and fitness.
Data from: HDAC1/2-dependent P0 expression maintains paranodal and nodal integrity independently of myelin stability through interactions with neurofascins
The pathogenesis of peripheral neuropathies in adults is linked to maintenance mechanisms that are not well understood. Here, we elucidate a novel critical maintenance mechanism for Schwann cell (SC)–axon interaction. Using mouse genetics, ablation of the transcriptional regulators histone deacetylases 1 and 2 (HDAC1/2) in adult SCs severely affected paranodal and nodal integrity and led to demyelination/remyelination. Expression levels of the HDAC1/2 target gene myelin protein zero (P0) were reduced by half, accompanied by altered localization and stability of neurofascin (NFasc)155, NFasc186, and loss of Caspr and septate-like junctions. We identify P0 as a novel binding partner of NFasc155 and NFasc186, both in vivo and by in vitro adhesion assay. Furthermore, we demonstrate that HDAC1/2-dependent P0 expression is crucial for the maintenance of paranodal/nodal integrity and axonal function through interaction of P0 with neurofascins. In addition, we show that the latter mechanism is impaired by some P0 mutations that lead to late onset Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease.
Data from: Introgression maintains the genetic integrity of the sex-determining chromosome of the fungus Neurospora tetrasperma
Genome evolution is driven by a complex interplay of factors, including selection, recombination, and introgression. The regions determining sexual identity are particularly dynamic parts of eukaryotic genomes that are prone to molecular degeneration associated with suppressed recombination. In the fungus Neurospora tetrasperma, it has been proposed that this molecular degeneration is counteracted by the introgression of non-degenerated DNA from closely related species. In this study, we used comparative and population genomic analyses of variation among 92 genomes from eight phylogenetically and reproductively isolated lineages of N. tetrasperma, and its three closest relatives, to investigate the factors shaping the evolutionary history of the genomes. We found that suppressed recombination extends across at least 6 Mbp (~63%) of the mating-type (mat) chromosome in N. tetrasperma, and is associated with decreased genetic diversity, which is likely the result primarily of selection at linked sites. Furthermore, analyses of molecular evolution revealed an increased mutational load in this region, relative to recombining regions. However, comparative genomic and phylogenetic analyses indicate that the mat chromosomes are temporarily regenerated via introgression from sister species; six out of eight lineages show introgression into one of their mat chromosomes, with at least three other Neurospora species acting as donors. The introgressed tracts have been driven to fixation in lineages, suggesting that they confer an adaptive advantage in natural populations, and our analyses support the presence of selective sweeps in at least one of the lineages. Thus, these data strongly support the previously hypothesized role of introgression as a mechanism for the maintenance of mating-type determining chromosomal regions.
Maintaining an open landscape: a 15-year multi-site experiment comparing seven management methods for semi-natural grasslands
<p>The data and publications presented here stems from a field trial started in Sweden ca 1972 (at one site still running in 2023). The purpose of the trial was to compare traditional management of semi-natural grasslands by grazing or annual mowing with five alternative management methods. At <strong>e</strong>leven locations in southern Sweden, block experiments were conducted evaluating seven treatments in 5 m * 20 m plots: grazing, annual mowing, annual spring burning, mowing every third year, mechanical removal of woody plants, herbicide control of woody plants, and untreated control. After approximately 13 years, trends for woody plants and species richness, and the occurrence of management-dependent plant species, low-grown species, and pollinator-attracting plant species were analysed. Overall, the annual mowing and grazing treatments resulted in fewer woody plants, the highest species richness, and more management-dependent, low-grown, and pollinator-attracting species. The untreated control plots showed the opposite effect, whereas less intense management (annual burning, mowing every third year, and mechanical and chemical treatments of woody plants) showed mixed and often intermediate effects. </p><p>On this ZENODO-page, one can find all the orginal publication, most in Swqedish. An article summarizing much of results can be found here: <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gecco.2023.e02721">https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gecco.2023.e02721</a></p>
Evidence of cognitive spezialization in an insect: proficiency is maintained across elemental and higher-order visual learning but not between sensory modalities in honey bees
<p>Individuals differing in their cognitive abilities and foraging strategies may confer a valuable benefit to their social groups as variability may help responding flexibly in scenarios with different resource availability. Individual l<span>earning proficiency may either be absolute or vary with the complexity or the nature of the problem considered. D</span>etermining if learning abilities correlate between tasks of different complexity or between sensory modalities has a high interest for research on brain modularity and task-dependent specialisation of neural circuits. <span>The honeybee <i>Apis mellifera</i> constitutes an attractive model to address this question due to its capacity to successfully learn a large range of tasks in various sensory domains.</span> <span>Here </span><span>we studied </span>whether the performance of individual bees in a simple visual discrimination task (a discrimination between two visual shapes) is stable over time and correlates with their capacity to solve either a higher-order visual task (a conceptual discrimination based on spatial relations between objects) or an elemental olfactory task (a discrimination between two odorants)<span>. </span>We found that individual learning proficiency within a given task was maintained over time and that some individuals performed consistently better than others within the visual modality, thus showing consistent aptitude across visual tasks of different complexity. By contrast, performance in the elemental visual-learning task did not predict performance in the equivalent elemental olfactory task. Overall, our results suggest the existence of cognitive specialisation within the hive, which may contribute to ecological social success.</p>
DNA metabarcoding reveals broad woodpecker diets in fire-maintained forests
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">Ecological disturbance is a key agent shaping the spatial and temporal landscape of food availability. In forests of western North America, disturbance from fire can lead to resource pulses of deadwood-associated arthropods that provide important prey for woodpeckers. Although the foraging strategies among woodpecker species often demonstrate pronounced differences, little is known about the ways in which woodpeckers exploit and partition prey in disturbed areas. In this study, we employed DNA metabarcoding to characterize and compare the arthropod diets of four woodpecker species in Washington and California, USA – Black-backed Woodpecker (<i>Picoides arcticus</i>), Hairy Woodpecker (<i>Dryobates villosus</i>), Northern Flicker (<i>Colaptes auratus</i>), and White-headed Woodpecker (<i>D. albolarvatus</i>) – primarily using nestling fecal samples from burned forests 1–13 years post-fire. Successful sequencing from 78 samples revealed the presence of over 600 <a name="_Hlk73784549">operational taxonomic units (OTUs) </a>spanning 32 arthropod orders. <a name="_Hlk87260574">The nestling diets of two species in particular</a> – Northern Flicker and Black-backed Woodpecker – proved to be much broader than previous observational studies suggest. <a name="_Hlk87260757">Northern Flicker nestlings demonstrated</a> significantly higher diet diversity compared to other focal species, all of which displayed considerable overlap in diversity. Wood-boring beetles, which colonize dead and dying trees after fire, were particularly important diet items for Black-backed, Hairy, and White-headed woodpeckers. Diet composition differed among species, and diets showed limited differences between newer (≤5 yr) and older (>5 yr) post-fire forests. Our results show mixed evidence for dietary resource partitioning, with three of the four focal species exhibiting relatively high diet overlap, perhaps due to the pulsed subsidy of deadwood-associated arthropods in burned forests. Woodpeckers are frequently used as management indicator species for forest health, and our study provides one of the first applications of DNA metabarcoding to build a more complete picture of woodpecker diets.</p>
Fig. 1 in The Role Of Different Mollusk Species In Maintaining The Transmission Of Polyhostal Trematode Species In Ukrainian Polissya Waters: The Specificity Of Trematode Parthenogenetic Generations To Mollusk Hosts
Fig. 1. The distribution of polyxenic trematode species in the parthenitae host species of mollusks: A — O. ranae; B — P. elegans.
Long-term balancing selection for pathogen resistance maintains trans-species polymorphisms in a planktonic crustacean
<p>Data related to the manuscript "Long-term balancing selection for pathogen resistance maintains trans-species polymorphisms in a planktonic crustacean"</p>
Evaluating the Effectiveness of LLMs in Fixing Maintainability Issues in Real-World Projects
<p><strong>Contacts:</strong></p> <p><strong>website:</strong> https://labsoft-ufmg.github.io/</p> <p><strong>email:</strong> henrique.mg.bh@gmail.com</p>
Evaluating the Effectiveness of LLMs in Fixing Maintainability Issues in Real-World Projects
<p><strong>Contact</strong></p> <p><strong>website:</strong> https://labsoft-ufmg.github.io/</p> <p><strong>email:</strong> henrique.mg.bh@gmail.com</p>
Data from: Species selection maintains self-incompatibility
Identifying traits that affect rates of speciation and extinction and hence explain differences in species diversity among clades is a major goal of evolutionary biology. Detecting such traits is especially difficult when they undergo frequent transitions between states. Self-incompatibility, the ability of hermaphrodites to enforce outcrossing, is frequently lost in flowering plants, enabling self-fertilization. We show, however, that in the nightshade plant family (Solanaceae), species with functional self-incompatibility diversify at a significantly higher rate than those without it. Apparent short-term advantages of potentially self-fertilizing individuals are therefore offset by strong species selection, which favors obligate outcrossing.
Winter damage is more important than summer temperature for maintaining the krummholz growth form above alpine treeline
<p><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>1. Understanding the processes that control alpine treelines, the elevational limits of tree growth forms, has been a central question in ecology and is growing in importance with concern over climate change. Cool summer air temperatures are currently thought to be the ultimate limiter of upright tree growth at alpine treelines globally. However, winter damage has long been recognized as a shaping force near alpine treelines. Low-growing krummholz growth forms provide an opportunity to test hypotheses about the controls of upright growth in environments above current treelines.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p> <p><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>2. To distinguish between effects of growing season temperature, winter damage and their interaction on preventing upright growth in krummholz, we conducted a field experiment on krummholz growth forms of <i>Pinus albicaulis </i>over the summer and winter of 2015-2016 at 10 mountain top sites in the Tobacco Root Mountains, Montana, USA. We experimentally manipulated four factors using a fully crossed design: shoot position (natural low position in the krummholz mat vs. propped up above the krummholz mat), summer warming (warming chamber vs. ambient), winter exposure (shelter cage vs. exposed), and elevation position (local high vs. low krummholz limits). We also conducted an observational study of the climatic conditions associated with recent natural emergent stem establishment from krummholz. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p> <p><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>3. Experimentally propped shoots that were exposed in winter experienced the highest mortality (10-50%), while propped shoots in shelter cages and shoots located within the krummholz mat, whether caged or not, had low mortality (0-10%). Summer warming had little influence on shoot mortality. Surviving mat shoots had marginally higher growth rates than surviving propped shoots during the early growing season after treatments were established. Natural emergent stem establishment was associated with warmer than average summer temperatures, but also warmer winter temperatures, lower winter wind speeds, and lower snowpack.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p> <p><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>4. <i>Synthesis</i>. Our results suggest winter damage plays a more important role than does growing season temperature in maintaining the krummholz growth form. While warming may increase opportunities for emergent shoot establishment above krummholz mats, establishment of upright trees in the krummholz zone will also require climatic change that reduces wind and snow transport which cause winter damage.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p>
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These curated guides explain access requirements, typical timelines, costs, and reuse considerations for widely used research datasets.
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.