Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences This is an RSS file. You can use it to subscribe to this data in your favourite RSS reader or to display this data on your own website or blog.

Non-stationary climate-salmon relationships in the Gulf of Alaska
Studies of climate effects on ecology often account for non-stationarity in individual physical and biological variables, but rarely allow for non-stationary relationships among variables. Here, we show that non-stationary relationships among physical and biological variables are central to understanding climate effects on salmon (Onchorynchus spp.) in the Gulf of Alaska during 1965–2012. The relative importance of two leading patterns in North Pacific climate, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and North Pacific Gyre Oscillation (NPGO), changed around 1988/1989 as reflected by changing correlations with leading a...
Source: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences - November 7, 2018 Category: Biology Authors: Litzow, M. A., Ciannelli, L., Puerta, P., Wettstein, J. J., Rykaczewski, R. R., Opiekun, M. Tags: ecology, environmental science Source Type: research

Tropical tree diversity mediates foraging and predatory effects of insectivorous birds
Biodiversity affects the structure of ecological communities, but little is known about the interactive effects of diversity across multiple trophic levels. We used a large-scale forest diversity experiment to investigate the effects of tropical tree species richness on insectivorous birds, and the subsequent indirect effect on predation rates by birds. Diverse plots (four tree species) had higher bird abundance (61%), phylogenetic diversity (61%), and functional diversity (55%) than predicted based on single-species monocultures, which corresponded to higher attack rates on artificial caterpillars (65%). Tree diversity ef...
Source: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences - November 7, 2018 Category: Biology Authors: Nell, C. S., Abdala-Roberts, L., Parra-Tabla, V., Mooney, K. A. Tags: ecology Source Type: research

Dental ontogeny in extinct synapsids reveals a complex evolutionary history of the mammalian tooth attachment system
This study shows for the first time that the ligamentous tooth attachment system is not unique to crown mammals within Synapsida, having arisen in several non-mammalian therapsid clades as a result of neoteny and progenesis in dental ontogeny. Mammalian tooth attachment is here re-interpreted as a paedomorphic condition relative to the ancestral synapsid form of tooth attachment. (Source: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences)
Source: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences - November 7, 2018 Category: Biology Authors: LeBlanc, A. R. H., Brink, K. S., Whitney, M. R., Abdala, F., Reisz, R. R. Tags: palaeontology, evolution Palaeobiology Source Type: research

Local meteorological conditions reroute a migration
For migrating animals, realized migration routes and timing emerge from hundreds or thousands of movement decisions made along migration routes. Local weather conditions along migration routes continually influence these decisions, and even relatively small changes in en route weather may cumulatively result in major shifts in migration patterns. Here, we analysed satellite tracking data to score a discrete navigation decision by a large migratory bird as it navigated a high-latitude, 5000 m elevation mountain range to understand how those navigational decisions changed under different weather conditions. We showed that wi...
Source: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences - November 7, 2018 Category: Biology Authors: Eisaguirre, J. M., Booms, T. L., Barger, C. P., McIntyre, C. L., Lewis, S. B., Breed, G. A. Tags: behaviour, ecology, environmental science Source Type: research

Elements of time and place: manganese and barium in shark vertebrae reflect age and upwelling histories
As upper-level predators, sharks are important for maintaining marine food web structure, but populations are threatened by fishery exploitation. Sustainable management of shark populations requires improved understanding of migration patterns and population demographics, which has traditionally been sought through physical and/or electronic tagging studies. The application of natural tags such as elemental variations in mineralized band pairs of elasmobranch vertebrae cartilage could also reveal endogenous and exogenous processes experienced by sharks throughout their life histories. Here, elemental profiles were characte...
Source: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences - November 7, 2018 Category: Biology Authors: Mohan, J. A., Miller, N. R., Herzka, S. Z., Sosa-Nishizaki, O., Kohin, S., Dewar, H., Kinney, M., Snodgrass, O., Wells, R. J. D. Tags: biochemistry, ecology Source Type: research

Building the differences: a case for the ground tissue patterning in plants
A key question in biology is to understand how interspecies morphological diversities originate. Plant roots present a huge interspecific phenotypical variability, mostly because roots largely contribute to adaptation to different kinds of soils. One example is the interspecific cortex layer number variability, spanning from one to several. Here, we review the latest advances in the understanding of the mechanisms expanding and/or restricting cortical layer number in Arabidopsis thaliana and their involvement in cortex pattern variability among multi-cortical layered species such as Cardamine hirsuta or Oryza sativa. (Sour...
Source: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences - November 7, 2018 Category: Biology Authors: Di Ruocco, G., Di Mambro, R., Dello Ioio, R. Tags: plant science, developmental biology, evolution Review articles Source Type: research

Sexual dimorphism in a top predator (Notophthalmus viridescens) drives aquatic prey community assembly
Intraspecific variation can have important consequences for the structure and function of ecological communities, and serves to link community ecology to evolutionary processes. Differences between the sexes are an overwhelmingly common form of intraspecific variation, but its community-level consequences have never been experimentally investigated. Here, we manipulate the sex ratio of a sexually dimorphic predacious newt in aquatic mesocosms, then track their impact on prey communities. Female and male newts preferentially forage in the benthic and pelagic zones, respectively, causing corresponding reductions in prey abun...
Source: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences - November 7, 2018 Category: Biology Authors: Start, D., De Lisle, S. Tags: ecology, evolution Source Type: research

Contrasting evolutionary history, anthropogenic declines and genetic contact in the northern and southern white rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum)
The white rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum) has a discontinuous African distribution, which is limited by the extent of sub-Saharan grasslands. The southern population (SWR) declined to its lowest number around the turn of the nineteenth century, but recovered to become the world's most numerous rhinoceros. In contrast, the northern population (NWR) was common during much of the twentieth century, declining rapidly since the 1970s, and now only two post-reproductive individuals remain. Despite this species's conservation status, it lacks a genetic assessment of its demographic history. We therefore sampled 232 individuals f...
Source: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences - November 7, 2018 Category: Biology Authors: Moodley, Y., Russo, I.-R. M., Robovsky, J., Dalton, D. L., Kotze, A., Smith, S., Stejskal, J., Ryder, O. A., Hermes, R., Walzer, C., Bruford, M. W. Tags: genetics, evolution Source Type: research

Marginal sinks or potential refuges? Costs and benefits for coral-obligate reef fishes at deep range margins
Escalating climate-related disturbances and asymmetric habitat losses will increasingly result in species living in more marginal habitats. Marginal habitats may represent important refuges if individuals can acquire adequate resources to survive and reproduce. However, resources at range margins are often distributed more sparsely; therefore, increased effort to acquire resources can result in suboptimal performance and lead to marginal populations becoming non-self-sustaining sink-populations. Shifting resource availability is likely to be particularly problematic for dietary specialists. Here, we use extensive in situ b...
Source: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences - November 7, 2018 Category: Biology Authors: MacDonald, C., Jones, G. P., Bridge, T. Tags: ecology Source Type: research

Locomotor constraints favour the evolution of the human pygmy phenotype in tropical rainforests
The convergent evolution of the human pygmy phenotype in tropical rainforests is widely assumed to reflect adaptation in response to the distinct ecological challenges of this habitat (e.g. high levels of heat and humidity, high pathogen load, low food availability, and dense forest structure), yet few precise adaptive benefits of this phenotype have been proposed. Here, we describe and test a biomechanical model of how the rainforest environment can alter gait kinematics such that short stature is advantageous in dense habitats. We hypothesized that environmental constraints on step length in rainforests alter walking mec...
Source: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences - November 7, 2018 Category: Biology Authors: Venkataraman, V. V., Yegian, A. K., Wallace, I. J., Holowka, N. B., Tacey, I., Gurven, M., Kraft, T. S. Tags: behaviour, biomechanics, ecology Morphology and biomechanics Source Type: research

Transmission strategies in a chemosynthetic symbiosis: detection and quantification of symbionts in host tissues and their environment
Transmission of bacteria vertically through host tissues ensures offspring acquire symbionts; however, horizontal transmission is an effective strategy for many associations and plays a role in some vertically transmitted symbioses. The bivalve Solemya velum and its gammaproteobacterial chemosynthetic symbionts exhibit evolutionary evidence of both transmission modes, but the dominant strategy on an ecological time scale is unknown. To address this, a specific primer set was developed and validated for the S. velum symbiont using a novel workflow called specific marker design (SMD). Symbionts were quantified in spawned egg...
Source: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences - October 31, 2018 Category: Biology Authors: Russell, S. L., McCartney, E., Cavanaugh, C. M. Tags: microbiology, cellular biology, ecology Source Type: research

Temperature-mediated inhibition of a bumblebee parasite by an intestinal symbiont
Competition between organisms is often mediated by environmental factors, including temperature. In animal intestines, nonpathogenic symbionts compete physically and chemically against pathogens, with consequences for host infection. We used metabolic theory-based models to characterize differential responses to temperature of a bacterial symbiont and a co-occurring trypanosomatid parasite of bumblebees, which regulate body temperature during flight and incubation. We hypothesized that inhibition of parasites by bacterial symbionts would increase with temperature, due to symbionts having higher optimal growth temperatures ...
Source: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences - October 31, 2018 Category: Biology Authors: Palmer-Young, E. C., Raffel, T. R., McFrederick, Q. S. Tags: microbiology, ecology, health and disease and epidemiology Source Type: research

Bands of brothers and in-laws: Waorani warfare, marriage and alliance formation
The root of modern human warfare lies in the lethal coalitionary violence of males in small-scale societies. However, there is a paucity of quantitative data concerning the form and function of coalitionary violence in this setting. Debates exist over how lethal coalitions are constituted, as well as the motivations and benefits for males to join such groups. Data from a lowland Amazonian population, the Waorani of Ecuador, illuminate three issues: (i) the degree to which raiding parties are composed of groups of fraternal kin as opposed to strategic alliances of actual or potential affinal kin; (ii) the extent to which in...
Source: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences - October 31, 2018 Category: Biology Authors: Macfarlan, S. J., Erickson, P. I., Yost, J., Regalado, J., Jaramillo, L., Beckerman, S. Tags: behaviour, ecology Source Type: research

Competition between strains of Borrelia afzelii inside the rodent host and the tick vector
This study suggests that in multiple-strain vector-borne pathogens there are trade-offs in competitive ability between the vertebrate host and the arthropod vector. Such trade-offs could play an important role in the coexistence of pathogen strains. (Source: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences)
Source: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences - October 31, 2018 Category: Biology Authors: Genne, D., Sarr, A., Gomez-Chamorro, A., Durand, J., Cayol, C., Rais, O., Voordouw, M. J. Tags: ecology, health and disease and epidemiology Source Type: research

A widespread thermodynamic effect, but maintenance of biological rates through space across life's major domains
For over a century, the hypothesis of temperature compensation, the maintenance of similar biological rates in species from different thermal environments, has remained controversial. An alternative idea, that fitness is greater at higher temperatures (the thermodynamic effect), has gained increasing traction. This alternative hypothesis is also being used to understand large-scale biodiversity responses to environmental change. Yet evidence in favour of each of these contrasting hypotheses continues to emerge. In consequence, the fundamental nature of organismal thermal responses and its implications remain unresolved. He...
Source: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences - October 31, 2018 Category: Biology Authors: Sorensen, J. G., White, C. R., Duffy, G. A., Chown, S. L. Tags: ecology Source Type: research