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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
Biodiversity Assessment Of A Mississippi River Backwater Complex Using Edna Metabarcoding, Eric J. Ludwig, Veronica M. Lee, Leah K. Berkman, Aaron D. Geheber, David D. Duvernell
Biodiversity Assessment Of A Mississippi River Backwater Complex Using Edna Metabarcoding, Eric J. Ludwig, Veronica M. Lee, Leah K. Berkman, Aaron D. Geheber, David D. Duvernell
Biological Sciences Faculty Research & Creative Works
The backwater lowland habitats of large rivers, like the Mississippi River in North America, present complex and often inaccessible environments for traditional capture-based fish biodiversity sampling. Our knowledge of the assemblages of the fishes that occupy such habitats is often incomplete, and this can compromise management efforts. We employed environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding methods to sample a Mississippi River bottom wetland system to assess the ichthyofaunal diversity and the assemblage structure across habitat types, and we compared our results with capture-based survey records for the same habitats. We collected water samples in the spring and fall of 2022 from slough, …
Scale-Dependent Spatial Ecology Of Paleotropical Leaf Litter Ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), Lillian Germeroth, Theodore Sumnicht, Robin M. Verble
Scale-Dependent Spatial Ecology Of Paleotropical Leaf Litter Ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), Lillian Germeroth, Theodore Sumnicht, Robin M. Verble
Biological Sciences Faculty Research & Creative Works
The Grain for Which an Observer Conducts a Study is an Important Determinant of its Outcome. Studies of Ants Have Considered Spatial Grains Spanning from Single Meters to Entire Forest Ecosystems and Found Patterns Related to Nutrient Availability, Leaf Litter Depth, Disturbance, and Forest Composition. Here, We Examine a Bornean Leaf Litter Ant Community at Small (1–4 M) and Large (50–250 M) Spatial Scales and Consider the Differences in Community Structure using Structured 1 M2 Quadrats Sampled Via Leaf Litter Sifting and Berlese Extraction. We Found that Small-Scale Patterns in Ant Abundance and Richness Did Not Spatially Auto correlate within …
Aridity-Driven Shift In Biodiversity-Soil Multifunctionality Relationships, Weigang Hu, Jinzhi Ran, Longwei Dong, Qiajun Du, Mingfei Ji, Shuran Yao, Chen Hou, For Full List Of Authors, Download The Pdf.
Aridity-Driven Shift In Biodiversity-Soil Multifunctionality Relationships, Weigang Hu, Jinzhi Ran, Longwei Dong, Qiajun Du, Mingfei Ji, Shuran Yao, Chen Hou, For Full List Of Authors, Download The Pdf.
Biological Sciences Faculty Research & Creative Works
Relationships between biodiversity and multiple ecosystem functions (that is, ecosystem multifunctionality) are context-dependent. Both plant and soil microbial diversity have been reported to regulate ecosystem multifunctionality, but how their relative importance varies along environmental gradients remains poorly understood. Here, we relate plant and microbial diversity to soil multifunctionality across 130 dryland sites along a 4,000 km aridity gradient in northern China. Our results show a strong positive association between plant species richness and soil multifunctionality in less arid regions, whereas microbial diversity, in particular of fungi, is positively associated with multifunctionality in more arid regions. This shift in the relationships …
Toward A Metabolic Theory Of Life History, Joseph Robert Burger, Chen Hou, James H. Brown
Toward A Metabolic Theory Of Life History, Joseph Robert Burger, Chen Hou, James H. Brown
Biological Sciences Faculty Research & Creative Works
The life histories of animals reflect the allocation of metabolic energy to traits that determine fitness and the pace of living. Here, we extend metabolic theories to address how demography and mass-energy balance constrain allocation of biomass to survival, growth, and reproduction over a life cycle of one generation. We first present data for diverse kinds of animals showing empirical patterns of variation in life-history traits. These patterns are predicted by theory that highlights the effects of 2 fundamental biophysical constraints: demography on number and mortality of offspring; and mass-energy balance on allocation of energy to growth and reproduction. These …