Linear infrastructure and associated wildlife accidents create an ecological trap for an apex predator and scavenger.

Animals may fall into an 'ecological trap' when they select seemingly attractive habitats at the expense of their fitness. This maladaptive behavior is often the result of rapid, human-induced changes in their natal environment, such as the construction of energy and transportation infrastructure. We tested the ecological trap hypothesis regarding human-created linear infrastructure on a widely distributed apex predator and scavenger-the Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaetos), whose range spans the entire Northern Hemisphere.

To breed or not to breed: Territory occupancy is predicted by reproductive performance and habitat heterogeneity.

Species life history and anthropogenic influence are important drivers of population performance and viability in human-dominated ecosystems. How these factors affect habitat selection and occupancy in long-lived species is an important topic for their conservation. Long-term datasets are needed for establishing the underlying drivers of this process.

Coexistence from a lion's perspective: Movements and habitat selection by African lions (Panthera leo) across a multi-use landscape.

Diminishing wild space and population fragmentation are key drivers of large carnivore declines worldwide. The persistence of large carnivores in fragmented landscapes often depends on the ability of individuals to move between separated subpopulations for genetic exchange and recovery from stochastic events. Where separated by anthropogenic landscapes, subpopulations' connectivity hinges on the area's socio-ecological conditions for coexistence and dispersing individuals' behavioral choices.

Animal migration in the Anthropocene: threats and mitigation options.

Animal migration has fascinated scientists and the public alike for centuries, yet migratory animals are facing diverse threats that could lead to their demise. The Anthropocene is characterised by the reality that humans are the dominant force on Earth, having manifold negative effects on biodiversity and ecosystem function. Considerable research focus has been given to assessing anthropogenic impacts on the numerical abundance of species/populations, whereas relatively less attention has been devoted to animal migration.

Body mass is associated with hibernation length, body temperature, and heart rate in free-ranging brown bears.

Background: Despite centuries of research, debate remains on the scaling of metabolic rate to mass especially for intraspecific cases. The high variation of body mass within brown bears presents a unique opportunity to study the intraspecific effects of body mass on physiological variables. The amplitude of metabolic rate reduction in hibernators is dependent on body mass of the species.

Increased summer temperature is associated with reduced calf mass of a circumpolar large mammal through direct thermoregulatory and indirect, food quality, pathways.

Climate change represents a growing ecological challenge. The (sub) arctic and boreal regions of the world experience the most rapid warming, presenting an excellent model system for studying how climate change affects mammals. Moose (Alces alces) are a particularly relevant model species with their circumpolar range.

Population fluctuations and synanthropy explain transmission risk in rodent-borne zoonoses.

Population fluctuations are widespread across the animal kingdom, especially in the order Rodentia, which includes many globally important reservoir species for zoonotic pathogens. The implications of these fluctuations for zoonotic spillover remain poorly understood. Here, we report a global empirical analysis of data describing the linkages between habitat use, population fluctuations and zoonotic reservoir status in rodents.

Tunable phase transitions in half-Heusler TbPtBi compound.

We report various phase transitions in half-Heusler TbPtBi compound using density functional theory. Specifically, the inclusion of spin-orbit coupling (SOC) leads to the band inversion resulting in the transition from the metallic to the topological semimetallic phase. However, in the presence of SOC, there is a phase transition from the topological semimetal to the trivial semimetal when the material is subjected to compressive strain-7%.

Urban forest soils harbour distinct and more diverse communities of bacteria and fungi compared to less disturbed forest soils.

Anthropogenic changes to land use drive concomitant changes in biodiversity, including that of the soil microbiota. However, it is not clear how increasing intensity of human disturbance is reflected in the soil microbial communities. To address this issue, we used amplicon sequencing to quantify the microbiota (bacteria and fungi) in the soil of forests (n = 312) experiencing four different land uses, national parks (set aside for nature conservation), managed (for forestry purposes), suburban (on the border of an urban area) and urban (fully within a town or city), which broadly represent a gradient of anthropogenic disturbance.

Body temperature patterns during pregnancy and parturition in moose.

Gestation and lactation have high energetic requirements. Up to three-fourths of the gestation period in moose (Alces alces) overlaps with the food-scarce period in winter. During this period, moose deal with the limited forage resources available through hypometabolism with decreased heart rate and body temperature (T).

The case of itinerant magnetism in CaMnAl: self-consistent renormalisation (SCR) theory study.

We have applied the powerful self-consistent renormalization theory of spin fluctuations for the system CaMnAldiscovered in 2015 and was conjectured to be an itinerant magnet. We have calculated the inverse static i.e.

Large mammal telomere length variation across ecoregions.

Background: Telomere length provides a physiological proxy for accumulated stress in animals. While there is a growing consensus over how telomere dynamics and their patterns are linked to life history variation and individual experience, knowledge on the impact of exposure to different stressors at a large spatial scale on telomere length is still lacking. How exposure to different stressors at a regional scale interacts with individual differences in life history is also poorly understood.

Puumala Orthohantavirus Infection Does Not Affect the Trapping Success of Its Reservoir Host.

Pathogens might affect behavior of infected reservoir hosts and hence their trappability, which could bias population estimates of pathogen prevalence. In this study, we used snap-trapping data on Puumala orthohantavirus (PUUV)-infected ( = 1619) and noninfected ( = 6940) bank voles () from five vole cycles, normally representing increase, peak, and decline phase, to evaluate if infection status affected trapping success. If PUUV infection, as previously suggested, increases activity and/or mobility, we would expect a higher proportion of infected than noninfected specimens in the first trapping night.

Ovarian cancer and KiSS-1 gene expression: A consideration of the use of Kisspeptin plus Kisspeptin aptamers in diagnostics and therapy.

Gynaecological cancers continue to present a significant health burden upon the health of the global female population. This deficit is most prominent with ovarian cancer which possesses the lowest survival rate compared to all other cancers occurring within this anatomical region, with an annual UK-mortality of 7,300. The poor tolerability and selectively of the treatment options that are currently available is likely to have contributed to this high mortality rate thus, demonstrating the need for the development of enhanced therapeutic approaches.

Integrating omics to characterize eco-physiological adaptations: How moose diet and metabolism differ across biogeographic zones.

With accelerated land conversion and global heating at northern latitudes, it becomes crucial to understand, how life histories of animals in extreme environments adapt to these changes. Animals may either adapt by adjusting foraging behavior or through physiological responses, including adjusting their energy metabolism or both. Until now, it has been difficult to study such adaptations in free-ranging animals due to methodological constraints that prevent extensive spatiotemporal coverage of ecological and physiological data.

Evolution of chain migration in an aerial insectivorous bird, the common swift Apus apus.

Spectacular long-distance migration has evolved repeatedly in animals enabling exploration of resources separated in time and space. In birds, these patterns are largely driven by seasonality, cost of migration, and asymmetries in competition leading most often to leapfrog migration, where northern breeding populations winter furthest to the south. Here, we show that the highly aerial common swift Apus apus, spending the nonbreeding period on the wing, instead exhibits a rarely found chain migration pattern, where the most southern breeding populations in Europe migrate to wintering areas furthest to the south in Africa, whereas the northern populations winter to the north.

A theory of resistivity in Kondo lattice materials: memory function approach.

We have theoretically analysed DC resistivity () in the Kondo-lattice materials using the powerful memory function formalism. The complete temperature evolution ofis investigated using the Wölfle-Götze expansion of the memory function. The resistivity in this model originates from spin-flip magnetic scattering of conduction-electron off the quasi-localizedorelectron spins.

Divergence in parturition timing and vegetation onset in a large herbivore-differences along a latitudinal gradient.

In northern environments, the period of access to high-quality forage is limited, exerting strong selective pressure to optimize the timing of parturition. We analysed timing and variation in moose () parturition dates of 555 females at 18 study sites across 12° of latitude (56-68° N, 1350 km) in Sweden. We found evidence for a spatial match of parturition timing to vegetation onset, but no evidence that moose adjust parturition to vegetation onset in a given year.

Airborne microbial biodiversity and seasonality in Northern and Southern Sweden.

Microorganisms are essential constituents of ecosystems. To improve our understanding of how various factors shape microbial diversity and composition in nature it is important to study how microorganisms vary in space and time. Factors shaping microbial communities in ground level air have been surveyed in a limited number of studies, indicating that geographic location, season and local climate influence the microbial communities.

Northern lesser galagos (Galago senegalensis) increase the production of loud calls before and at dawn.

Functional explanations for loud calling in nocturnal primates include territorial or sexual advertisement, maintenance of cohesiveness, and group coordination. It is generally accepted that loud calls of lesser galagos (genus Galago) are used for territorial advertisement and long-distance spacing. Field studies suggest that they are uttered at dusk and dawn, when the animals leave and reunite at their sleeping sites.

Lipidomics Reveals Seasonal Shifts in a Large-Bodied Hibernator, the Brown Bear.

Prior to winter, heterotherms retain polyunsaturated fatty acids ("PUFA"), resulting in enhanced energy savings during hibernation, through deeper and longer torpor bouts. Hibernating bears exhibit a less dramatic reduction (2-5°C) in body temperature, but lower their metabolism to a degree close to that of small hibernators. We determined the lipid composition, via lipidomics, in skeletal muscle and white adipose tissues ("WAT"), to assess lipid retention, and in blood plasma, to reflect lipid trafficking, of winter hibernating and summer active wild Scandinavian brown bears ().

Rate of Cooling in a Moose () Carcass.

Postmortem body temperature is used to estimate time of death in humans, but the available models are not validated for most nonhuman species. Here, we report that cooling in an adult female moose () equipped with a rumen temperature monitor was extremely slow, with a rumen temperature of 27-28 C as late as 40 h postmortem.

Saigas on the brink: Multidisciplinary analysis of the factors influencing mass mortality events.

In 2015, more than 200,000 saiga antelopes died in 3 weeks in central Kazakhstan. The proximate cause of death is confirmed as hemorrhagic septicemia caused by the bacterium type B, based on multiple strands of evidence. Statistical modeling suggests that there was unusually high relative humidity and temperature in the days leading up to the mortality event; temperature and humidity anomalies were also observed in two previous similar events in the same region.

Moving in the Anthropocene: Global reductions in terrestrial mammalian movements.

Animal movement is fundamental for ecosystem functioning and species survival, yet the effects of the anthropogenic footprint on animal movements have not been estimated across species. Using a unique GPS-tracking database of 803 individuals across 57 species, we found that movements of mammals in areas with a comparatively high human footprint were on average one-half to one-third the extent of their movements in areas with a low human footprint. We attribute this reduction to behavioral changes of individual animals and to the exclusion of species with long-range movements from areas with higher human impact.