Publications by authors named "L K Rollins"
Does a biological invasion modify host immune responses to parasite infection?
R Soc Open Sci
January 2025
Biological invasions can disrupt the close and longstanding coevolved relationships between host and parasites. At the same time, the shifting selective forces acting on demography during invasion can result in rapid evolution of traits in both host and parasite. Hosts at the invasion front may reduce investment into costly immune defences and redistribute those resources to other fitness-enhancing traits.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe invasion of cane toads (Rhinella marina) across tropical Australia has resulted in the rapid evolution of traits that enable higher rates of dispersal, and that adapt toads to hot dry climates. In anurans, a larger heart facilitates both locomotor activity and desiccation tolerance. Heart size is also often affected, either directly or indirectly, by parasite infections.
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- Researchers studied yellow-spotted monitors, large varanid lizards in tropical Australia, finding they reach sexual maturity in under a year but have short lifespans, rarely living beyond 2 years for females and 4 for males, particularly before the arrival of toxic cane toads.
- The study revealed a faster life history for these lizards compared to other monitor species, with males growing rapidly during the wet season but facing high predation risk from pythons.
- The yellow-spotted monitors are vital to their ecosystem as apex predators, but their high feeding rates and communal nesting make food webs more susceptible to disruption from invasive cane toads.
EXPRESS: Eye Movements as Indices of Spatial and Associative Memory.
Q J Exp Psychol (Hove)
November 2024
Previous research has shown that eye movements can serve as an indirect indicator of relational memory. The goal of the current research was to assess how eye movements coincide with different forms of spatial and associative memory. Young adults encoded object-scene combinations and were subsequently presented with repeated, novel, and manipulated scenes.
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- - The growth of human populations has led to the increase of invasive species around the world, making it crucial to study how their introduction and subsequent processes affect current diversity and structure.
- - The European starling, introduced to New Zealand in the 19th century, serves as a case study for examining genetic population structure and diversity through reduced representation sequencing.
- - Findings revealed limited gene flow within New Zealand's starling population, confirmed historical translocation events, and highlighted the importance of genomic analysis for understanding invasive species management and gene flow.