Ice-inhabiting species of Bdelloidea Rotifera reveal a pre-Quaternary ancestry in the Arctic cryosphere.

Historical climate data indicate that the Earth has passed through multiple geological periods with much warmer-than-present climates, including epochs of the Miocene (23-5.3 mya BP) with temperatures 3-4°C above present, and more recent interglacial stages of the Quaternary, for example, Marine Isotope Stage 11c (approx. 425-395 ka BP) and Middle Holocene thermal maximum (7.

A regionally coherent ecological fingerprint of climate change, evidenced from natural history collections.

Climate change has dramatic impacts on ecological systems, affecting a range of ecological factors including phenology, species abundance, diversity, and distribution. The breadth of climate change impacts on ecological systems leads to the occurrence of fingerprints of climate change. However, climate fingerprints are usually identified across broad geographical scales and are potentially influenced by publication biases.

Ancient RNA from Late Pleistocene permafrost and historical canids shows tissue-specific transcriptome survival.

While sequencing ancient DNA (aDNA) from archaeological material is now commonplace, very few attempts to sequence ancient transcriptomes have been made, even from typically stable deposition environments such as permafrost. This is presumably due to assumptions that RNA completely degrades relatively quickly, particularly when dealing with autolytic, nuclease-rich mammalian tissues. However, given the recent successes in sequencing ancient RNA (aRNA) from various sources including plants and animals, we suspect that these assumptions may be incorrect or exaggerated.

Macroalgal browsing on a heavily degraded, urbanized equatorial reef system.

The removal of macroalgal biomass is critical to the health of coral reef ecosystems. Previous studies on relatively intact reefs with diverse and abundant fish communities have quantified rapid removal of macroalgae by herbivorous fishes, yet how these findings relate to degraded reef systems where fish diversity and abundance are markedly lower and algal biomass substantially higher, is unclear. We surveyed roving herbivorous fish communities and quantified their capacity to remove the dominant macroalga Sargassum ilicifolium on seven reefs in Singapore; a heavily degraded urbanized reef system.

The environmental impact of sewage and wastewater outfalls in Antarctica: An example from Davis station, East Antarctica.

We present a comprehensive scientific assessment of the environmental impacts of an Antarctic wastewater ocean outfall, at Davis station in East Antarctica. We assessed the effectiveness of current wastewater treatment and disposal requirements under the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty. Macerated wastewater has been discharged from an outfall at Davis since the failure of the secondary treatment plant in 2005.

Dispersal and dilution of wastewater from an ocean outfall at Davis Station, Antarctica, and resulting environmental contamination.

The Antarctic Treaty permits the discharge of wastewater into Antarctic marine waters providing that conditions exist for initial dilution and rapid dispersal. We investigated the dilution and dispersal of macerated wastewater around Australia's Davis Station in East Antarctica and examined sediments for evidence of contaminants. Methods used to examine hydrodynamic conditions included current meters, dye release experiments and measurement of sewage-associated microbial markers and surfactants in the water column.

Prickly business: abundance of sea urchins on breakwaters and coral reefs in Dubai.

Echinometra mathaei is a common echinoid on tropical reefs and where abundant plays an important role in the control of algal communities. Despite high prevalence of E. mathaei on southern Persian/Arabian Gulf reefs, their abundance and distribution is poorly known.

Coral settlement on a highly disturbed equatorial reef system.

Processes occurring early in the life stages of corals can greatly influence the demography of coral populations, and successful settlement of coral larvae that leads to recruitment is a critical life history stage for coral reef ecosystems. Although corals in Singapore persist in one the world's most anthropogenically impacted reef systems, our understanding of the role of coral settlement in the persistence of coral communities in Singapore remains limited. Spatial and temporal patterns of coral settlement were examined at 7 sites in the southern islands of Singapore, using settlement tiles deployed and collected every 3 months from 2011 to 2013.

Stranded dolphin stomach contents represent the free-ranging population's diet.

Diet is a fundamental aspect of animal ecology. Cetacean prey species are generally identified by examining stomach contents of stranded individuals. Critical uncertainty in these studies is whether samples from stranded animals are representative of the diet of free-ranging animals.

Telomeres as age markers in vertebrate molecular ecology.

Chronological age is a fundamental and yet elusive variable in studies of many wild animals. Telomeres are nucleoprotein structures on the ends of chromosomes that change size throughout the life of many animals and because of this property have been advocated as a means to estimate age. In this review, we assess the existing and potential application of using telomeres for age estimation.

DNA-based diet analysis for any predator.

Background: Prey DNA from diet samples can be used as a dietary marker; yet current methods for prey detection require a priori diet knowledge and/or are designed ad hoc, limiting their scope. I present a general approach to detect diverse prey in the feces or gut contents of predators.

Methodology/principal Findings: In the example outlined, I take advantage of the restriction site for the endonuclease Pac I which is present in 16S mtDNA of most Odontoceti mammals, but absent from most other relevant non-mammalian chordates and invertebrates.