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Article Reference Temperature dissimilarity drives flower–visitor interaction turnover across elevation in the Mexican Transition Zone
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2023
Article Reference Temperature, salinity and growth rate dependences of Mg/Ca and Sr/Ca ratios of the skeleton of the sea urchin Paracentrotus lividus (Lamarck): an experimental approach
The skeletal Mg/Ca ratio of echinoderms is known to increase with temperature but the relation has never been established in controlled experimental conditions. The present study investigated the eVect of temperature, salinity and growth rate on Mg/Ca and Sr/Ca ratios in calcite skeletons of juvenile sea urchins grown in experimental conditions. Mg/Ca ratio was positively related to temperature, increasing until a plateau at high but Weld occurring temperatures. It was not linked to salinity nor growth rate. We suggest that this plateau is due to properties of the organic matrix of mineralization and recommend to take it into account for the use of Mg/Ca as proxy of seawater Mg/Ca. Skeletal Sr/Ca ratio was mainly dependent on temperature and growth rate, as usually observed in calcite skeletons.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications
Article Reference Temporal Changes to Migratory Fuel Load in Migratory Birds Across Europe
Climate change is a major threat to biodiversity, and migratory animals are particularly vulnerable, due partly to their reliance upon good resource availability across a network of sites at specific times. Migrants perform vital ecosystem functions, transferring significant resources across large spatial scales, but the impacts of climate change on the ability of individuals to complete these journeys are poorly studied. Collecting the large-scale and long-term data on the condition of individuals during migration to address this is challenging, but in migratory birds, we have a model system for which a large network of ringers (banders) collect individual data on body size and mass, enabling variation in body condition to be tracked. We used long-term ringing data on 33 Afro–Palearctic migratory bird species at 286 sites across Europe to demonstrate a large-scale decrease in migratory fuel loads during autumn over the last 40 years, but not in spring. Declines were strongest across southern Europe and linked to rising temperatures. The timing of autumn fuelling has also shifted, occurring earlier at northern sites and later at southern sites. These relationships varied depending on diet and breeding cycle length. Obligate insectivores were more constrained by temperature in the timing and magnitude of fuelling than frugivores. Species with short breeding cycles departed later at southern sites in warmer years, likely reflecting an extended breeding season. Altogether, these latitudinally varying findings suggest a trade-off between maximising productivity or maximising adult survival as climate drives changing constraints on breeding season length and resource availability. Similar climate-induced trade-offs may be happening in other migratory taxa with the potential to influence population trends.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2025
Article Reference chemical/x-molconn-Z Temporal dynamics in a shallow coastal benthic food web: insights from fatty acid biomarkers and their stable isotopes
Located in Library / No RBINS Staff publications
Article Reference Ten millennia of hepatitis B virus evolution
Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infections represent a worldwide human health concern. To study the history of this pathogen, Kocher et al. identified 137 human remains with detectable levels of virus dating between 400 and 10,000 years ago. Sequencing and analyses of these ancient viruses suggested a common ancestor between 12,000 and 20,000 years ago. There is no evidence indicating that HBV was present in the earliest humans as they spread out of Africa; however, HBV was likely present in human populations before farming. Furthermore, the virus was present in the Americas by about 9000 years ago, representing a lineage sister to the viral strains found in Eurasia that diverged about 20,000 years ago. —LMZ Genomic data from more than 100 individuals elucidates hepatitis B virus evolution in ancient Eurasians and Native American genomes. Hepatitis B virus (HBV) has been infecting humans for millennia and remains a global health problem, but its past diversity and dispersal routes are largely unknown. We generated HBV genomic data from 137 Eurasians and Native Americans dated between 10,500 and 400 years ago. We date the most recent common ancestor of all HBV lineages to between 20,000 and 12,000 years ago, with the virus present in European and South American hunter-gatherers during the early Holocene. After the European Neolithic transition, Mesolithic HBV strains were replaced by a lineage likely disseminated by early farmers that prevailed throughout western Eurasia for 4000 years, declining around the end of the 2nd millennium BCE. The only remnant of this prehistoric HBV diversity is the rare genotype G, which appears to have reemerged during the HIV pandemic.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2021
Article Reference Terminal Maastrichtian ammonites from the Cretaceous-Paleogene Global Stratotype Section and Point, El Kef Tunisia.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications
Article Reference Termite mounds Effects on Composition and Plant Species Functional Types and Traits in Pendjari Biosphere Reserve (Benin, West – Africa).
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2016
Article Reference Termites (Isoptera) in Kibale Forest National Park, Western Uganda
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications
Article Reference Terrestrial contributions to Afrotropical aquatic food webs: The Congo River case
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2019
Article Reference Testing for Depéret’s Rule (body size increase) in Mammals using Combined Extinct and Extant Data
Whether or not evolutionary lineages in general show a tendency to increase in body size has often been discussed. This tendency has been dubbed “Cope’s rule” but because Cope never hypothesized it, we suggest renaming it after Depéret, who formulated it clearly in 1907. Depéret’s rule has traditionally been studied using fossil data, but more recently a number of studies have used present-day species. While several paleontological studies of Cenozoic placental mammals have found support for increasing body size, most studies of extant placentals have failed to detect such a trend. Here we present a method to combine information from present-day species with fossil data in a Bayesian phylogenetic framework. We apply the method to body mass estimates of a large number of extant and extinct mammal species, and find strong support for Depéret’s rule. The tendency for size increase appears to be driven not by evolution towards larger size in established species, but by processes related to the emergence of new species. Our analysis shows that complementary data from extant and extinct species can greatly improve inference of macroevolutionary processes.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications