1 Introduction One of the most important decisions that a sexually reproducing organism must make in its lifetime is with whom shall it mate？ From an evolutionary perspective, the importance of this decision is para...1 Introduction One of the most important decisions that a sexually reproducing organism must make in its lifetime is with whom shall it mate？ From an evolutionary perspective, the importance of this decision is paramount： make the right choice and your offspring will continue your genetic legacy; make the wrong choice and your lineage will be at a disadvantage or worse,展开更多
The Great Green Macaw Ara ambiguus is an endangered species whose most important food resource and nesting site in Costa Rica is the mountain almond tree Dipteryx panamensis, threatened mainly by deforestation. In thi...The Great Green Macaw Ara ambiguus is an endangered species whose most important food resource and nesting site in Costa Rica is the mountain almond tree Dipteryx panamensis, threatened mainly by deforestation. In this study, we analyse the suitability of reintroducing A. ambiguus in the South Caribbean Coast of Costa Rica by examining whether the ecological and socio-cultural conditions required for the reintroduction are met in the area. The methods developed in this work include biological sampling, cartographical analysis and semi-structured interviews, among others. We set La Ceiba Nature Reserve as study unit and starting point of the analysis due both to its conservation status, favouring the potential release of individuals, and its ecosystem representativeness. Our results suggest that the habitat is suitable for reintroduction, with frequent presence of D. panamensis in the region, as well as other feeding options and potential nesting sites in the study area. The cartographic study reveals that the species could rely on a forested surface of up to 7000 hectares, which would be sufficient for sustaining a viable population. As for the socio-cultural analysis, illegal logging and low protective frameworks were identified as the main potential threats for the species. Nevertheless, we perceived positive conservation attitudes among local people and a pro-active commitment of political stakeholders. We conclude that a viable South Caribbean reintroduction of A. ambiguus is possible in conjunction with a threat mitigation programme.展开更多
Dissimilar vulnerabilities of different prey types and preferences of predators are factors likely to contribute to community dynamics.This may happen via differential individual properties of prey animals(e.g.vigilan...Dissimilar vulnerabilities of different prey types and preferences of predators are factors likely to contribute to community dynamics.This may happen via differential individual properties of prey animals(e.g.vigilance,escape)or via habitat effects making hunting by a predator easier and more rewarding in some habitats,or both.Furthermore,community dynamics may be influenced by predator mediated apparent competition,in which an increase in one prey type has negative effects on another prey type indirectly via the shared predator.We summarize the current knowledge from the field in a model predator–prey system consisting of sympatric boreal vole species and their common specialist predator and review field studies using predator manipulation and studies on the responses of individuals in the laboratory and in outdoor enclosures.The vole species studied represent different prey types that are thought to have different vulnerabilities.Our observations on the main resident specialist predator,the least weasel(Mustela nivalis nivalis L.),show that it hunts according to prey availability and suitability of the hunting habitat.Prey voles respond to the presence of the predator behaviorally in various ways to avoid predation.We conclude that even if the least weasel is a specialized predator of small rodents it acts like a generalist predator within the small rodent guild and may facilitate the coexistence of prey species via predator switching.This may lead to interspecific synchrony between prey populations,which has often been observed.We suggest that the processes determining the community impact of predator–prey interactions are driven by the behavioral arms race between the predator and the prey,together with the habitat-dependent density of prey and net gain for the predator.展开更多
Plant pathogenic fungi are a large and diverse assemblage of eukaryotes with substantial impacts on natural ecosystems and human endeavours.These taxa often have complex and poorly understood life cycles,lack observab...Plant pathogenic fungi are a large and diverse assemblage of eukaryotes with substantial impacts on natural ecosystems and human endeavours.These taxa often have complex and poorly understood life cycles,lack observable,discriminatory morphological characters,and may not be amenable to in vitro culturing.As a result,species identification is frequently difficult.Molecular(DNA sequence)data have emerged as crucial information for the taxonomic identification of plant pathogenic fungi,with the nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer(ITS)region being the most popular marker.However,international nucleotide sequence databases are accumulating numerous sequences of compromised or low-resolution taxonomic annotations and substandard technical quality,making their use in the molecular identification of plant pathogenic fungi problematic.Here we report on a concerted effort to identify high-quality reference sequences for various plant pathogenic fungi and to re-annotate incorrectly or insufficiently annotated public ITS sequences from these fungal lineages.A third objective was to enrich the sequences with geographical and ecological metadata.The results-a total of 31,954 changes-are incorporated in and made available through the UNITE database for molecular identification of fungi(http://unite.ut.ee),including standalone FASTA files of sequence data for local BLAST searches,use in the next-generation sequencing analysis platforms QIIME and mothur,and related applications.The present initiative is just a beginning to cover the wide spectrum of plant pathogenic fungi,and we invite all researchers with pertinent expertise to join the annotation effort.展开更多
文摘1 Introduction One of the most important decisions that a sexually reproducing organism must make in its lifetime is with whom shall it mate？ From an evolutionary perspective, the importance of this decision is paramount： make the right choice and your offspring will continue your genetic legacy; make the wrong choice and your lineage will be at a disadvantage or worse,
文摘The Great Green Macaw Ara ambiguus is an endangered species whose most important food resource and nesting site in Costa Rica is the mountain almond tree Dipteryx panamensis, threatened mainly by deforestation. In this study, we analyse the suitability of reintroducing A. ambiguus in the South Caribbean Coast of Costa Rica by examining whether the ecological and socio-cultural conditions required for the reintroduction are met in the area. The methods developed in this work include biological sampling, cartographical analysis and semi-structured interviews, among others. We set La Ceiba Nature Reserve as study unit and starting point of the analysis due both to its conservation status, favouring the potential release of individuals, and its ecosystem representativeness. Our results suggest that the habitat is suitable for reintroduction, with frequent presence of D. panamensis in the region, as well as other feeding options and potential nesting sites in the study area. The cartographic study reveals that the species could rely on a forested surface of up to 7000 hectares, which would be sufficient for sustaining a viable population. As for the socio-cultural analysis, illegal logging and low protective frameworks were identified as the main potential threats for the species. Nevertheless, we perceived positive conservation attitudes among local people and a pro-active commitment of political stakeholders. We conclude that a viable South Caribbean reintroduction of A. ambiguus is possible in conjunction with a threat mitigation programme.
基金We are grateful to the Academy of Finland(projects 52045,44887 and 208478)for funding our research.Konnevesi Research Station has provided facilities for experimentation and thinking,as has Helsinki.
文摘Dissimilar vulnerabilities of different prey types and preferences of predators are factors likely to contribute to community dynamics.This may happen via differential individual properties of prey animals(e.g.vigilance,escape)or via habitat effects making hunting by a predator easier and more rewarding in some habitats,or both.Furthermore,community dynamics may be influenced by predator mediated apparent competition,in which an increase in one prey type has negative effects on another prey type indirectly via the shared predator.We summarize the current knowledge from the field in a model predator–prey system consisting of sympatric boreal vole species and their common specialist predator and review field studies using predator manipulation and studies on the responses of individuals in the laboratory and in outdoor enclosures.The vole species studied represent different prey types that are thought to have different vulnerabilities.Our observations on the main resident specialist predator,the least weasel(Mustela nivalis nivalis L.),show that it hunts according to prey availability and suitability of the hunting habitat.Prey voles respond to the presence of the predator behaviorally in various ways to avoid predation.We conclude that even if the least weasel is a specialized predator of small rodents it acts like a generalist predator within the small rodent guild and may facilitate the coexistence of prey species via predator switching.This may lead to interspecific synchrony between prey populations,which has often been observed.We suggest that the processes determining the community impact of predator–prey interactions are driven by the behavioral arms race between the predator and the prey,together with the habitat-dependent density of prey and net gain for the predator.
基金financial support from European Funds through COMPETENational Funds through the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology(FCT)within projects PTDC/AGR-FOR/3807/2012-FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-027979 and PEst-C/MAR/LA0017/2013+4 种基金supported by National Science Foundation Grant DBI 1046115supported by FFG,BMWFJ,BMVIT,ZIT,Zukunftsstiftung Tirol,and Land Steiermark within the Austrian COMET program FFG Grant 824186Financial support to JP was partially provided by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education(MNiSW),grant no.NN303_548839financial support from FAPEMIG and CNPqfunded by the Government of Canada through Genome Canada and the Ontario Genomics Institute through the Biomonitoring 2.0 project(OGI-050).
文摘Plant pathogenic fungi are a large and diverse assemblage of eukaryotes with substantial impacts on natural ecosystems and human endeavours.These taxa often have complex and poorly understood life cycles,lack observable,discriminatory morphological characters,and may not be amenable to in vitro culturing.As a result,species identification is frequently difficult.Molecular(DNA sequence)data have emerged as crucial information for the taxonomic identification of plant pathogenic fungi,with the nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer(ITS)region being the most popular marker.However,international nucleotide sequence databases are accumulating numerous sequences of compromised or low-resolution taxonomic annotations and substandard technical quality,making their use in the molecular identification of plant pathogenic fungi problematic.Here we report on a concerted effort to identify high-quality reference sequences for various plant pathogenic fungi and to re-annotate incorrectly or insufficiently annotated public ITS sequences from these fungal lineages.A third objective was to enrich the sequences with geographical and ecological metadata.The results-a total of 31,954 changes-are incorporated in and made available through the UNITE database for molecular identification of fungi(http://unite.ut.ee),including standalone FASTA files of sequence data for local BLAST searches,use in the next-generation sequencing analysis platforms QIIME and mothur,and related applications.The present initiative is just a beginning to cover the wide spectrum of plant pathogenic fungi,and we invite all researchers with pertinent expertise to join the annotation effort.
