Nonlinear transcriptomic responses to compounded environmental changes across temperature and resources in a pest beetle, Callosobruchus maculatus (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae).

Many species are experiencing drastic and multidimensional changes to their environment due to anthropogenic events. These multidimensional changes may act nonadditively on physiological and life history responses, and thus may not be predicted by responses to single dimensional environmental changes. Therefore, work is needed to understand species' responses to multiple aspects of change.

Mechanism of injury, resource utilisation and outcomes for patients admitted with head injuries under General Surgery.

Background: There has been a noticeable change in Irish hospitals in the demographics of patients sustaining head injuries that now includes many older patients suffering head injuries from low impact trauma.

Aims: This study sought to define the demographic nature of patients admitted with head injuries over a 3-month period to Beaumont Hospital and to determine the mechanisms of head injuries sustained, resource utilisation during the inpatient admission and the outcomes for these patients.

Methods: All head injuries admitted between December 1, 2023, and February 29, 2024, were captured and data pertaining to patient demographics, mechanism of injury, resource utilisation and outcomes were assessed.

A role of epigenetic mechanisms in regulating female reproductive responses to temperature in a pest beetle.

Many species are threatened by climate change and must rapidly respond to survive in changing environments. Epigenetic modifications, such as DNA methylation, can facilitate plastic responses by regulating gene expression in response to environmental cues. Understanding epigenetic responses is therefore essential for predicting species' ability to rapidly adapt in the context of global environmental change.

A global initiative for ecological and evolutionary hologenomics.

The Earth Hologenome Initiative (EHI) is a global collaboration to generate and analyse hologenomic data from wild animals and associated microorganisms using standardised methodologies underpinned by open and inclusive research principles. Initially focused on vertebrates, it aims to re-examine ecological and evolutionary questions by studying host-microbiota interactions from a systemic perspective.

Mammals show distinct functional gut microbiome dynamics to identical series of environmental stressors.

In our manuscript, we report the first interspecific comparative study about the plasticity of the gut microbiota. We conducted a captivity experiment that exposed wild-captured mammals to a series of environmental challenges over 45 days. We characterized their gut microbial communities using genome-resolved metagenomics and modeled how the taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional microbial dynamics varied across a series of disturbances in both species.

Enriching captivity conditions with natural elements does not prevent the loss of wild-like gut microbiota but shapes its compositional variation in two small mammals.

As continued growth in gut microbiota studies in captive and model animals elucidates the importance of their role in host biology, further pursuit of how to retain a wild-like microbial community is becoming increasingly important to obtain representative results from captive animals. In this study, we assessed how the gut microbiota of two wild-caught small mammals, namely Crocidura russula (Eulipotyphla, insectivore) and Apodemus sylvaticus (Rodentia, omnivore), changed when bringing them into captivity. We analyzed fecal samples of 15 A.

Maladaptive plasticity facilitates evolution of thermal tolerance during an experimental range shift.

Background: Many organisms are responding to climate change with dramatic range shifts, involving plastic and genetic changes to cope with novel climate regimes found at higher latitudes. Using experimental lineages of the seed beetle Callosobruchus maculatus, we simulated the initial phase of colonisation to progressively cooler and/or more variable conditions, to investigate how adaptation and phenotypic plasticity contribute to shifts in thermal tolerance during colonisation of novel climates.

Results: We show that heat and cold tolerance rapidly evolve during the initial stages of adaptation to progressively cooler and more variable climates.