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No Consistent Evidence For Advancing Or Delaying Trends In Spring Phenology On The Tibetan Plateau, Xufeng Wang, Jingfeng Xiao, Xin Li, Guodong Cheng, Mingguo Ma, Tao Che, Shaoying Wang, Jinkui Wu

Faculty Publications

Vegetation phenology is a sensitive indicator of climate change and has significant effects on the exchange of carbon, water, and energy between the terrestrial biosphere and the atmosphere. The Tibetan Plateau, the Earth's “third pole,” is a unique region for studying the long‐term trends in vegetation phenology in response to climate change because of the sensitivity of its alpine ecosystems to climate and its low‐level human disturbance. There has been a debate whether the trends in spring phenology over the Tibetan Plateau have been continuously advancing over the last two to three decades. In this study, we examine the trends …

Connecting The Dots: Stopover Strategies Of An Intercontinental Migratory Songbird In The Context Of The Annual Cycle, Kristina Paxton, Frank R. Moore

Faculty Publications

The phases of the annual cycle for migratory species are inextricably linked. Yet, less than five percent of ecological studies examine seasonal interactions. In this study, we utilized stable hydrogen isotopes to geographically link individual black-and-white warblers (Mniotilta varia) captured during spring migration with breeding destinations to understand a migrant's stopover strategy in the context of other phases of the annual cycle. We found that stopover strategy is not only a function of a bird's current energetic state, but also the distance remaining to breeding destination and a bird's time-schedule, which has previously been linked to habitat conditions experienced …

Repeated Evolution Of Vertebrate Pollination Syndromes In A Recently Diverged Andean Plant Clade, Laura P. Lagomarsino, Elisabeth J. Forrestel, Nathan Muchhala, Charles C. Davis

Faculty Publications

© 2017 The Author(s). Evolution © 2017 The Society for the Study of Evolution. Although specialized interactions, including those involving plants and their pollinators, are often invoked to explain high species diversity, they are rarely explored at macroevolutionary scales. We investigate the dynamic evolution of hummingbird and bat pollination syndromes in the centropogonid clade (Lobelioideae: Campanulaceae), an Andean-centered group of ∼550 angiosperm species. We demonstrate that flowers hypothesized to be adapted to different pollinators based on flower color fall into distinct regions of morphospace, and this is validated by morphology of species with known pollinators. This supports the existence of …

Economic Growth And Mortality: Do Social Protection Policies Matter?, Usama Bilal, Richard Cooper, Francis Abreu, Claudia Nau, Manuel Franco, Thomas A. Glass

Faculty Publications

Background: In the 20th century, periods of macroeconomic growth have been associated with increases in population mortality. Factors that cause or mitigate this association are not well understood. Evidence suggests that social policy may buffer the deleterious impact of economic growth. We sought to explore associations between changing unemployment (as a proxy for economic change) and trends in mortality over 30 years in the context of varying social protection expenditures. Methods: We model change in all-cause mortality in 21 OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries from 1980 to 2010. Data from the Comparative Welfare States Data Set and …

Capacity Of Blood Plasma Is Higher In Birds Breeding In Radioactively Contaminated Areas, Magdalena Ruiz-Rodríguez, Anders P. Møller, Timothy Mousseau, Juan J. Soler

Faculty Publications

Background Environmental pollution in general, and radioactive contamination in particular, may deeply affect host-parasite relationships and their consequences for the evolution of organisms. The nuclear accident that occurred more than 30 years ago in Chernobyl resulted in significant changes in diversity and richness of microbial communities that could influence characteristics of animal-bacteria interactions, including host immune responses and competitive interference by bacteria. Given the high mortality rate of birds breeding in radioactively contaminated zones, those with stronger defences against infections should experience significant fitness advantages.

Methodology/Principal Findings Here we characterized antimicrobial capacity of barn swallows (Hirundo rustica) from different Ukrainian …

Bacteria Associated With Piezodorus Guildinii (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae), With Special Reference To Those Transmitted By Feeding, Claudia Husseneder, Jong Seok Park, Andrea Howells, Chinmay V. Tikhe, Jeffrey A. Davis

Faculty Publications

The redbanded stink bug, Piezodorus guildinii (Westwood) (Hemiptera: Heteroptera: Pentatomidae), is a rapidly growing pest damaging southern US agriculture. Pentatomid stink bugs are known to vector bacterial, fungal, and viral plant diseases. However, bacteria associated with redbanded stink bugs and their vector potential have not yet been assessed. In this study, we 1) cultured and identified bacteria transmitted by feeding of redbanded stink bug and 2) described bacteria from guts of redbanded stink bug individuals using next-generation sequencing of 16S rRNA genes. Nineteen bacteria transmitted by feeding of redbanded stink bug on soybean agar were isolated and identified via Sanger …

Combining Biodiversity Resurveys Across Regions To Advance Global Change Research, Kris Verheyen, Pieter De Frenne, Lander Baeten, Donald M. Waller, Radim Hédl, Michael P. Perring, Haben Blondeel, Jörg Brunet, Markéta Chudomelová, Guillaume Decocq, Emiel De Lombaerde, Leen Depauw, Thomas Dirnböck, Tomasz Durak, Ove Eriksson, Frank S. Gilliam, Thilo Heinken, Steffi Heinrichs, Martin Hermy, Bogdan Jaroszewicz, Michael A. Jenkins, Sarah E. Johnson, Keith J. Kirby, Martin Kopecký, Dries Landuyt, Jonathan Lenoir, Daijiang Li, Martin Macek, Sybryn L. Maes, František Máliš, Fraser J.G. Mitchell, Tobias Naaf, George Peterken

Faculty Publications

More and more ecologists have started to resurvey communities sampled in earlier decades to determine long-term shifts in community composition and infer the likely drivers of the ecological changes observed. However, to assess the relative importance of and interactions among multiple drivers, joint analyses of resurvey data from many regions spanning large environmental gradients are needed. In this article, we illustrate how combining resurvey data from multiple regions can increase the likelihood of driver orthogonality within the design and show that repeatedly surveying across multiple regions provides higher representativeness and comprehensiveness, allowing us to answer more completely a broader range …

Responses To Prescribed Fire At Big Thicket National Preserve, Texas, Usa, B. P. Oswald, D. M. Boensch, H. M. Williams, I-Kuai Hung

Faculty Publications

US Federal land managers have utilized hand ignited prescribed fire at Big Thicket National Preserve in efforts to restore the structure and diversity of the longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) forest. A fire ecology study was initiated by Rice University in the early 1990’s and the National Park Service has continued monitoring the plots. Ordination was applied to species abundance data to examine changes in vegetation communities from a variety of prescribed fire treatments and controls. The vegetation data was separated by size class to include overstory, small tree, large sapling and seedling data. Across the size classes and treatments, the …

Report And Recommendations Concerning Environmental Aspects Of The New York State Constitution, New York State Bar Association Environmental And Energy Law Section, Mary L. Lyndon

Faculty Publications

The purpose of the Report is to inform and enrich understanding of environmental issues which may be considered at a Constitutional Convention (should one occur) or with respect to proposals to amend the Constitution through the legislative process.

Integrating Community Assembly And Biodiversity To Better Understand Ecosystem Function: The Community Assembly And The Functioning Of Ecosystems (Cafe) Approach, Katherine H. Bannar‐Martin, Colin T. Kremer, S.K. Morgan Ernest, Mathew A. Leibold, Harald Auge, Jonathan Chase, Steven A.J. Declerck, Nico Eisenhauer, Stanley Harpole, Helmut Hillebrand, Forest Isbell, Thomas Koffel, Stefano Larsen, Anita Narwani, Jana S. Petermann, Christiane Roscher, Juliano Sarmento Cabral, Sarah R. Supp

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Skills And Knowledge For Data-Intensive Environmental Research, Stephanie E. Hampton, Matthew B. Jones, Leah A. Wasser, Mark P. Schildhauer, Sarah R. Supp

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.