Precipitation Drives Frugivory in a Subtropical Generalist Herbivore, the Gopher Tortoise, and Alters Its Functional Role as a Seed Disperser.

Consumers employ a variety of foraging strategies, and oftentimes the foraging strategy employed is related to resource availability. As consumers acquire resources, they may interact with their resource base in mutualistic or antagonistic ways-falling along a mutualism-antagonism continuum-with implications for ecological processes such as seed dispersal. However, patterns of resource use vary temporally, and textbook herbivores may switch foraging tactics to become more frugivorous in periods of greater fleshy fruit availability.

Panzootic chytrid fungus exploits diverse amphibian host environments through plastic infection strategies.

While some pathogens are limited to single species, others can colonize many hosts, likely contributing to the emergence of novel disease outbreaks. Despite this biodiversity threat, traits associated with host niche expansions are not well understood in multihost pathogens. Here, we aimed to uncover functional machinery driving multihost invasion by focusing on Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), a pathogen that infects the skin of hundreds of amphibians worldwide.