Find research datasets worth reusing
Search datasets from major research repositories and use ShareScore to quickly assess how well each record supports discovery, access, and reuse.
161
datasets available to search
ShareScore release 0.9.0
Dataset results
161 results for “specialisation”
Plant specialisation may limit climate‐induced vegetation change to within topographic and edaphic niches on a sub‐Antarctic island
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Data from: Ant-plant specialisation influenced more by network types than by disturbance, elevation, or latitude
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Effects of intraspecific competition and body mass on diet specialisation in a mammalian scavenger
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Fovea-like photoreceptor specialisations underlie single UV-cone driven prey capture behaviour in zebrafish
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Multivariate flower phenotype and proboscis length shape specialised pollination niches
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Effects of competition and predation risk from a life history intraguild predator on individual specialisation
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Niche partitioning among three snail-eating snakes revealed by dentition asymmetry and prey specialisation
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Data from: Feeding specialisation and longer generation time are associated with relatively larger brains in bees
<p>Despite their miniature brains, insects exhibit substantial variation in brain size. Although the functional significance of this variation is increasingly recognized, research on whether differences in insect brain sizes are mainly the result of constraints or selective pressures has hardly been performed. Here, we address this gap by combining prospective and retrospective phylogenetic-based analyses of brain size for a major insect group, bees (superfamily Apoidea). Using a brain dataset of 93 species from North America and Europe, we found that body size was the single best predictor of brain size in bees. However, the analyses also revealed that substantial variation in brain size remained even when adjusting for body size. We consequently asked whether such variation in relative brain size might be explained by adaptive hypotheses. We found that ecologically specialized species with single generations have larger brains —relative to their body size— than generalist or multi-generation species, but we did not find an effect of sociality on relative brain size. Phylogenetic reconstruction further supported the existence of different adaptive optima for relative brain size in lineages differing in feeding specialisation and reproductive strategy. Our findings shed new light on the evolution of the insect brain, highlighting the importance of ecological pressures over social factors and suggesting that these pressures are different from those previously found to influence brain evolution in other taxa.</p>
Data from: Competition and specialisation in an African forest carnivore community
Globally, human activities have led to the impoverishment of species assemblages and the disruption of ecosystem function. Determining whether this poses a threat to future ecosystem stability necessitates a thorough understanding of mechanisms underpinning community assembly and niche selection. Here, we tested for niche segregation within an African small carnivore community in Kibale National Park, Uganda. We used occupancy modelling based on systematic camera trap surveys and fine-scale habitat measures, to identify opposing preferences between closely related species (cats, genets and mongooses). We modelled diel activity patterns using kernel density functions, and calculated the overlap of activity periods between related species. We also used co-occupancy modelling and activity overlap analyses to test whether African golden cats Caracal aurata influenced the smaller carnivores along the spatial and/or temporal axes. There was some evidence that related species segregated habitat and activity patterns. Specialisation was particularly strong among forest species. The cats and genets partitioned habitat, while the mongooses partitioned both habitat and activity period. We found little evidence for interference competition between African golden cats and other small carnivores, although weak interference competition was suggested by lower detection probabilities of some species at stations where African golden cats were present. This suggests that community assemblage and co-existence in this ecosystem are primarily driven by more complex processes. The studied carnivore community contains several forest specialists, which are typically more prone to localised extinction. Preserving the observed community assembly will therefore require the maintenance of a large variety of habitats, with a particular focus on those required by the more specialised carnivores.
Data from: Evolutionary dynamics of specialisation in herbivorous stick insects
Understanding the evolutionary dynamics underlying herbivorous insect mega-diversity requires investigating the ability of insects to shift and adapt to different host plants. Feeding experiments with nine related stick insect species revealed that insects retain the ability to use ancestral host plants after shifting to novel hosts, with host plant shifts generating fundamental feeding niche expansions. These expansions were however not accompanied by expansions of the realized feeding niches, as species on novel hosts are generally ecologically specialized. For shifts from angiosperm to chemically challenging conifer hosts, generalist fundamental feeding niches even evolved jointly with strong host plant specialization, indicating that host plant specialization is not driven by constraints imposed by plant chemistry. By coupling analyses of plant chemical compounds, fundamental and ecological feeding niches in multiple insect species, we provide novel insights into the evolutionary dynamics of host range expansion and contraction in herbivorous insects.
Data from: Determinants of individual foraging specialisation in large marine vertebrates, the Antarctic and Subantarctic fur seals
1. The degree of individual specialization in resource use differs widely among wild populations where individuals range from fully generalized to highly specialized. This interindividual variation has profound implications in many ecological and evolutionary processes. A recent review proposed four main ecological causes of individual specialization: interspecific and intraspecific competition, ecological opportunity and predation. 2. Using the isotopic signature of subsampled whiskers, we investigated to what degree three of these factors (interspecific and intraspecific competition and ecological opportunity) affect the population niche width and the level of individual foraging specialization in two fur seal species, the Antarctic and subantarctic fur seals (Arctocephalus gazella and Arctocephalus tropicalis), over several years. 3. Population niche width was greater when the two seal species bred in allopatry (low interspecific competition) than in sympatry or when seals bred in high-density stabilized colonies (high intraspecific competition). In agreement with the niche variation hypothesis (NVH), higher population niche width was associated with higher interindividual niche variation. However, in contrast to the NVH, all Antarctic females increased their niche width during the interbreeding period when they had potential access to a wider diversity of foraging grounds and associated prey (high ecological opportunities), suggesting they all dispersed to a similar productive area. 4. The degree of individual specialization varied among populations and within the annual cycle. Highest levels of interindividual variation were found in a context of lower interspecific or higher intraspecific competition. Contrasted results were found concerning the effect of ecological opportunity. Depending on seal species, females exhibited either a greater or lower degree of individual specialization during the interbreeding period, reflecting species-specific biological constraints during that period. 5. These results suggest a significant impact of ecological interactions on the population niche width and degree of individual specialization. Such variation at the individual level may be an important factor in the species plasticity with significant consequences on how it may respond to environmental variability.
Genetic consequences of plant edaphic specialisation to solfatara fields; phylogenetic and population genetic analysis of Carex angustisquama (Cyperaceae)
<p>Edaphic specialisation is one of the main drivers of plant diversification and has multifaceted effects on population dynamics. Carex angustisquama is a sedge plant growing only on heavily acidified soil in solfatara fields, where only extremophytes can survive. Because of the lack of closely related species in similar habitats and its disjunct distribution, the species offers ideal settings to investigate the effects of adaptation to solfatara fields and historical biogeography on genetic consequences of plant edaphic specialisation to solfatara fields. Here, genome-wide single-nucleotide polymorphisms were used to reveal the phylogenetic origin of C. angustisquama, and 16 expressed sequence tag–simple sequence repeat markers were employed to infer population demography of C. angustisquama. Molecular phylogenetic analysis strongly indicated that C. angustisquama formed a monophyletic clade with C. doenitzii, a species growing on non-acidified soil in sympatric sub-alpine zone. The result of population genetic analysis showed that C. angustisquama possesses much lower genetic diversity than the sister species, and notably, all 16 loci were completely homozygous in most individuals of C. angustisquama. Approximate Bayesian computation analysis supported the model that assumed hierarchical declines of population size through its evolutionary sequence. We propose that the edaphic specialist in solfatara fields has newly attained the adaptation to solfatara fields in the process of speciation. Furthermore, we found evidence of a drastic reduction in genetic diversity in C. angustisquama, suggesting that the repeated founder effects associated with edaphic specialisation and subsequent population demography bring the loss of genetic diversity to the extremophyte in solfatara fields.</p>
From Training to Professional Practice and Vice-Versa: Sight Translation as a Specialisation Subject in the Interpreter Training Programme of the Advanced School of Translators and Interpreters (ASTI)
<p>The remarkable increase in the number of interpretation training programmes across the world for the past twenty or thirty years (Gile, 2009) has given way to an increasing interest in evaluating these programmes. This evaluation, while it may not be comprehensive, should an evaluation ever be so, can simply be limited to considering a particular aspect of a programme. Sight translation is a fairly common exercise present in interpreter training programmes. However, its relevance and/or its pedagogical weight are sometimes questioned according to the context and level in the training process. This article aims at contributing to this debate. It therefore takes as case study, the interpreter training programme of the Advanced School of Translators and Interpreters (ASTI) of the University of Buea in Cameroon and based on statistical data, looks into the place occupied by sight translation in the professional practice by graduates of this programme, between 2008 and 2015. The results, which are quite edifying, are supportive of maintaining and even reinforcing this exercise in the programme, given the peculiarity of the Cameroonian professional context and the African context in general.</p>
Cranial functional specialisation for strength precedes morphological evolution in Oviraptorosauria
<p>This dataset contains 3D models (.stl), Hypermesh (.hm), and Abaqus (.odb and .rpt) files for finite element analysis on the crania of oviraptorosaurian theropod species <em>Incisivosaurus gautheri</em>, <em>Citipati osmolskae</em>, <em>Khaan mckennai</em>, and <em>Conchoraptor gracilis</em> supporting the paper ‘Cranial functional specialisation for strength precedes morphological evolution in Oviraptorosauria' published in <em>Communications Biology</em> [https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-024-06137-1].</p> <p>[Unzipped total size 47.2GB]</p>
Data from: A phylogenetic study to assess the link between biome specialisation and diversification in swallowtail butterflies
<p><span>The resource-use hypothesis, proposed by E.S. Vrba, states that habitat fragmentation caused by climatic oscillations would affect particularly biome specialists (species inhabiting only one biome), which might show higher speciation and extinction rates than biome generalists. If true, lineages would accumulate biome-specialist species. This effect would be particularly exacerbated for biomes located at the periphery of the global climatic conditions, namely, biomes that have high/low precipitation and high/low temperature such as rainforest (warm-humid), desert (warm-dry), steppe (cold-dry), and tundra (cold-humid). Here, we test these hypotheses in swallowtail butterflies, a clade with more than 570 species, covering all the continents but Antarctica, and all climatic conditions. Swallowtail butterflies are among the most studied insects, and they are a model group for evolutionary biology and ecology studies. Continental macroecological rules are normally tested using vertebrates, this means that there are fewer examples exploring terrestrial invertebrate patterns at global scale. Here, we compiled a large GIS database on swallowtail butterflies' distribution maps and used the most complete time-calibrated phylogeny to quantify diversification rates. In this paper we aim to answer the following questions: 1) Are there more biome-specialists swallowtail butterflies than biome-generalists? 2) Is diversification rate related to biome specialisation? 3) If so, do swallowtail butterflies inhabiting extreme biomes show higher diversification rates? 4) What is the effect of species distribution area? Our results showed that swallowtail family presents a great number of biome specialists which showed substantially higher diversification rates compared to generalists. We also found that biome-specialists are unevenly distributed across biomes. Overall, our results are consistent with the resource-use hypothesis., species climatic niche and biome fragmentation as key factors promoting isolation.</span></p>
Figures 2–4 in More than meets the eye: regional specialisation and microbial cover of the blade of Porphyra umbilicalis (Bangiophyceae, Rhodophyta)
Figures 2–4: Microbial colonisation of blade margins from a wild plant of Porphyra UMbilicalis (Figures 2 and 3) and a cultured descendent (Figure 4) of a wild plant brought into laboratory culture and maintained without antibiotic treatment. Bacteria occur in patches along portions (Figure 2, arrows) but not all (Figure 3, arrows mark neutral spores) of the same wild blade, with much greater density of filamentous bacteria in Figure 2. Cultured blades (Figure 4) have a dense cover of bacteria, including filamentous cyanobacteria (arrows); contemporaneous light microscopic observations found at least three distinct cyanobacteria on these cultured blades, including a probable Calothrix. Wild P. UMbilicalis (n = 6 plants) were collected along a 30-m transect (~5 m apart) in the high intertidal zone at Schoodic Point, Acadia National Park (44.33380000, −68.05805556; 30 December 2016, permit ACAD-2017-SCI-0006). For each plant, one piece of reproductive margin (0.5–1 cm2) and the holdfast were removed with sterile techniques, transported on ice, fixed (4°C) in 5% glutaraldehyde in 0.1 M sodium cacodylate buffer (pH 7.0) containing 0.2 M sucrose, post-fixed in 1% OsO4 in 0.07 M sodium cacodylate, dehydrated in an ethanol series, critical point dried, and sputter-coated with gold-palladium to give a final coating that was 27 nm thick; see Royer 2017 for complete details. All six plants were observed, and representative images are presented. The cultured specimens (Figure 4) were maintained through successive generations by standard techniques (Royer et al. 2018) after collection of the parent on 5 May 2015 at Lubec, Maine.
Figure 12 in More than meets the eye: regional specialisation and microbial cover of the blade of Porphyra umbilicalis (Bangiophyceae, Rhodophyta)
Figure 12: Neutral spore discharged from the neutral sporangium. Note residual mucilage around the bottom half of the neutral spore, the large stellate chloroplast (C), nucleus (N), mitochondria (M), some floridean starch (arrows), and vesicles (V) that may contain mucilage. (See Figures 2–4 for techniques). Scale bar = 1 µm.
Figures 9 and 10 in More than meets the eye: regional specialisation and microbial cover of the blade of Porphyra umbilicalis (Bangiophyceae, Rhodophyta)
Figures 9 and 10: Holdfast structure. (9) TEM of rhizoid cells in holdfast. The holdfast is a thick, flexible structure made of polysaccharide secreted by the pear-shaped rhizoid cells. Note the large amount of floridean starch (arrows) in the pear-shaped end of the rhizoid cell where the large plastid and its pyrenoid are evident. (10) Toluidine blue O-stained holdfast section. The polysaccharide that is secreted includes a thick, metachromatic pad at the base of the holdfast, and the cell walls of rhizoid cells are also metachromatic (arrows). Holdfasts from blades collected at Schoodic Point (ME) in November 2009 were fixed in 2% glutaraldehyde in seawater for 2 h, post-fixed in 4% OsO4, dehydrated in a standard series of ethanol and propylene oxide and embedded in Epon. Holdfasts from additional blades fixed as above were embedded in Spurr's resin (EM Sciences) and semithin sections stained with toluidine blue O (TBO) per Brawley and Quatrano (1979).
Figure 1 in More than meets the eye: regional specialisation and microbial cover of the blade of Porphyra umbilicalis (Bangiophyceae, Rhodophyta)
Figure 1: Anatomy of a typical blade of Porphyra UMbilicalis on the Maine coast. Cartoons show the regions of the blade en face (A) and as a longitudinal cross-section from the margin to the holdfast (M mature spores, N developing neutral spores, V central vegetative area, R rhizoid cells), which is composed of thousands of rhizoid cells. The middle panel and right panels, confocal and brightfield images respectively, show representative areas of four distinct regions of the blade: mature spores – A, B; developing neutral spores – D, E; central vegetative area – F, G; and rhizoid cells – H, I. Note the change in spacing of cells and amount of intervening cell wall (confocal images generated by exciting photosynthetic pigments) and transition in colour from green to red (longitudinal cartoon, brightfield images). Scale bars = 20 µm.
Figures 5–8 in More than meets the eye: regional specialisation and microbial cover of the blade of Porphyra umbilicalis (Bangiophyceae, Rhodophyta)
Figures 5–8: Microbial colonisation of holdfast regions of wild blades. (5) A peeling area of mucilage and/or biofilm shows the intimate association of bacteria within mucilage on a flat surface adjacent to the holdfast, and most of the bacteria are rod-shaped or filamentous. Communities surrounding the holdfast disc contain dense, often encrusting, masses of epiphytic bacteria, but become patchier towards the centre of the blade (Figure 6). (7–8) At higher magnification of the area shown in Figure 6, microbial community diversity is apparent, and it includes bacteria that are structurally similar to some of the baeocyte-producing pleurocapsalean cyanobacteria. White arrow in Figure 7 shows an intact individual, and black arrows in Figures 7 and 8 indicate possible baeocyte/endospore release and mucilage trails from epiphytes on two different wild plants.
ScienceDex guides
Understand access before you commit
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.