Spatial ecology, biodiversity, and abiotic determinants of Congo's bai ecosystem.

Canopy gaps are foundational features of rainforest biodiversity and successional processes. The bais of Central Africa are among the world's largest natural forest clearings and thought to be critically important islands of open-canopy habitat in an ocean of closed-canopy rainforest. However, while frequently denoted as a conservation priority, there are no published studies on the abundance or distribution of bais across the landscape, nor on their biodiversity patterns, limiting our understanding of their ecological contribution to Congolese rainforests.

An Opiliones-specific ultraconserved element probe set with a near-complete family-level phylogeny.

Sequence capture of ultraconserved elements (UCEs) has transformed molecular systematics across many taxa, with arachnids being no exception. The probe set available for Arachnida has been repeatedly used across multiple arachnid lineages and taxonomic levels, however more specific probe sets for spiders have demonstrated that more UCEs can be recovered with higher probe specificity. In this study, we develop an Opiliones-specific UCE probe set targeting 1915 UCEs using a combination of probes designed from genomes and transcriptomes, as well as the most useful probes from the Arachnida probe set.

Evidence of nutrient translocation in response to smoke exposure by the East African ant acacia, .

Fire is a major selective force on arid grassland communities, favoring traits such as the smoke-induced seed germination response seen in a wide variety of plant species. However, little is known about the relevance of smoke as a cue for plants beyond the seedling stage.We exposed a fire-adapted savanna tree, (=) , to smoke and compared nutrient concentrations in leaf and root tissues to unexposed controls.