Postglacial Recolonization of the Southern Ocean by Elephant Seals Occurred From Multiple Glacial Refugia.

The Southern Ocean is warming more rapidly than other parts of our planet. How this region's endemic biodiversity will respond to such changes can be illuminated by studying past events through genetic analyses of time-series data sets, including historic and fossil remains. Archaeological and subfossil remains show that the southern elephant seal (Mirounga leonina) was common along the coasts of Australia and New Zealand in the recent past.

Fungal and bacterial community composition and assemblage in managed and unmanaged urban landscapes in Wisconsin.

Microbial communities play crucial roles in ecosystem functioning, yet their diversity and assembly in urban turfgrass systems remain underexplored. In 2017, microbial communities within 48 samples from managed turfgrass (home lawns, golf course fairways, and putting greens) and an unmanaged grass mixture in Madison, WI, USA were analyzed across leaf, thatch, rhizoplane, and rhizosphere habitats Intensive management, particularly in nitrogen-rich, sand-based putting greens, reduced fungal richness and diversity, whereas bacterial diversity patterns varied. Beta diversity analyses revealed distinct clustering: fungal communities differed most in unmanaged systems, while bacterial communities clustered within managed systems.

Strontium isotopes track female dispersal in Taï chimpanzees.

Objectives: Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) are patrilocal, with males remaining in their natal community and females dispersing when they reach sexual maturity. However, the details of female chimpanzee dispersal, such as their possible origin, are difficult to assess, even in habituated communities. This study investigates the utility of Sr/Sr analysis for (1) assessing Sr baseline differences between chimpanzee territories and (2) identifying the status (immigrant or natal) of females of unknown origin within the territories of five neighboring communities in Taï National Park (Côte d'Ivoire).

Persistence of Fungicides Applied to Control Snow Mold of Turfgrass as Influenced by Snow Cover and Antitranspirants.

Turfgrass managers rely on fungicides to suppress snow mold diseases in areas with persistent snow cover, which are commonly applied once or twice in late fall prior to snow cover. Fungicide applications targeting snow mold are expected to control snow mold diseases for the duration of winter; however, climate change is increasing the frequency of winter rainfall and snowmelts and may alter the duration of snow mold control. A 3-year study was conducted in Madison, WI, to assess the impact of snow cover and antitranspirants on the persistence of the commonly used fungicides chlorothalonil and propiconazole.

Unexpected decadal density-dependent shifts in California sea lion size, morphology, and foraging niche.

Many marine mammal populations are recovering after long eras of exploitation. To what degree density-dependent body size declines in recovering species reflect a general response to increased resource competition is unknown. We examined skull size (as a proxy for body size), skull morphology, and foraging dynamics of the top marine predator, the California sea lion (Zalophus californianus), which have been steadily increasing over the last few decades and have approached or reached their carrying capacity in southern California.

Feeding morphology and body size shape resource partitioning in an eared seal community.

Body size and feeding morphology influence how animals partition themselves within communities. We tested the relationships among sex, body size, skull morphology and foraging in sympatric otariids (eared seals) from the eastern North Pacific Ocean, the most diverse otariid community in the world. We recorded skull measurements and stable carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) isotope values (proxies for foraging) from museum specimens in four sympatric species: California sea lions (), Steller sea lions (), northern fur seals () and Guadalupe fur seals ().

Analyzing golf course pesticide risk across the US and Europe-The importance of regulatory environment.

This study quantifies golf course pesticide risk in five regions across the US (Florida, East Texas, Northwest, Midwest, and Northeast) and three countries in Europe (UK, Denmark, and Norway) with the objective of determining how pesticide risk on golf courses varied as a function of climate, regulatory environment, and facility-level economic factors. The hazard quotient model was used to estimate acute pesticide risk to mammals specifically. Data from 68 golf courses are included in the study, with a minimum of at least five golf courses in each region.

Oh, the shark has such teeth: Did megatooth sharks play a larger role in prehistoric food webs?

Extinct megatooth sharks were globally distributed and contributed to ocean food chains that were potentially one to two steps longer than any food chain today.

Rapid Detection of the Recently Identified Turfgrass Pathogen Using Recombinase Polymerase Amplification.

is a recently identified root-infecting pathogen of fine fescue ( spp.) turfgrasses. Although it is phylogenetically similar to other root-infecting turfgrass pathogens such as , management of is distinct and highlights the need for fast and accurate identification.

Mummified baboons reveal the far reach of early Egyptian mariners.

The Red Sea was witness to important events during human history, including the first long steps in a trade network (the spice route) that would drive maritime technology and shape geopolitical fortunes for thousands of years. Punt was a pivotal early node in the rise of this enterprise, serving as an important emporium for luxury goods, including sacred baboons (), but its location is disputed. Here, we use geospatial variation in the oxygen and strontium isotope ratios of 155 baboons from 77 locations to estimate the geoprovenance of mummified baboons recovered from ancient Egyptian temples and tombs.

Dollar Spot Suppression on Creeping Bentgrass in Response to Repeated Foliar Nitrogen Applications.

Dollar spot is caused by the fungus spp. and is the most economically important disease of golf course turfgrass in temperate regions of the United States. Previous research has demonstrated that nitrogen (N) fertilization may reduce dollar spot severity, but the results have been inconsistent, and the impact of N as part of repeated foliar fertilization applications to golf course putting greens remains unclear.

Incidence and Distribution of Puccinia coronata and P. graminis on Turfgrass in the Midwestern United States.

Crown rust (caused by Puccinia coronata) and stem rust (caused by P. graminis) are two common and destructive diseases of turfgrass in the United States. Crown rust has been associated with perennial ryegrass and stem rust with Kentucky bluegrass when identified based solely on fungal morphology.

Plio-Pleistocene decline of African megaherbivores: No evidence for ancient hominin impacts.

It has long been proposed that pre-modern hominin impacts drove extinctions and shaped the evolutionary history of Africa's exceptionally diverse large mammal communities, but this hypothesis has yet to be rigorously tested. We analyzed eastern African herbivore communities spanning the past 7 million years-encompassing the entirety of hominin evolutionary history-to test the hypothesis that top-down impacts of tool-bearing, meat-eating hominins contributed to the demise of megaherbivores prior to the emergence of We document a steady, long-term decline of megaherbivores beginning ~4.6 million years ago, long before the appearance of hominin species capable of exerting top-down control of large mammal communities and predating evidence for hominin interactions with megaherbivore prey.

Amino acid isotope discrimination factors for a carnivore: physiological insights from leopard sharks and their diet.

Stable isotopes are important ecological tools, because the carbon and nitrogen isotopic composition of consumer tissue reflects the diet. Measurements of isotopes of individual amino acids can disentangle the effects of consumer physiology from spatiotemporal variation in dietary isotopic values. However, this approach requires knowledge of assimilation patterns of dietary amino acids.

Data for designing two isothermal amplification assays for the detection of root-infecting fungi on cool-season turfgrasses.

Loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) and recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA) are two rapid isothermal amplification methods for detecting three common fungal root pathogens of cool-season turfgrass: , and Detection of root-infecting fungi on cool-season turfgrasses using loop-mediated isothermal amplification and recombinase polymerase amplification (Karakkat et al., 2018) [1]. The data provided here describe the information for designing primers and probes for LAMP and RPA, how specific they are for each of the three fungi, and the evaluation of RPA on field samples.

Detection of root-infecting fungi on cool-season turfgrasses using loop-mediated isothermal amplification and recombinase polymerase amplification.

Root-infecting fungal pathogens such as Gaeumannomyces avenae, Ophiosphaerella korrae, and Magnaporthiopsis poae cause extensive damage to amenity turfgrasses in temperate climates. The diseases they cause are difficult to diagnose by visual symptoms or microscopic inspection, and traditional polymerase chain reaction-based assays require large financial investments in equipment such as thermal cyclers and highly trained staff. The primary objective of this research was to develop fast and accurate detection assays for the three pathogens listed above that did not require the use of thermal cycling equipment.

What difference does a century make? Shifts in the ecosystem structure of the Ross Sea, Antarctica, as evidenced from a sentinel species, the Weddell seal.

The arrival of humans to Antarctica's Ross Sea (100+ years ago) led to a slow, but sustained increase in human activities in the area. To investigate if human presence has influenced the structure of the ecosystem over the last century, we compared historical ( 100 years old) and modern samples of a sentinel species, the Weddell seal (), using both bulk tissue and compound-specific stable isotope analysis. The historical isotopic niche of Weddell seals was over five times larger than the modern niche.

Temperature Impacts on Soil Microbial Communities and Potential Implications for the Biodegradation of Turfgrass Pesticides.

Maintaining healthy turfgrass often results in the use of pesticides to manage weed, insect, and disease pests. To identify and understand potential nontarget impacts of pesticide usage while still maintaining attractive and functional turfgrass sites, it is important to improve our understanding of how pesticides degrade in various environments throughout the growing season. Temperature heavily influences microbial community composition and activity, and the microbial community often heavily influences pesticide degradation in soil ecosystems.

Isotopic ecology of coyotes from scat and road kill carcasses: A complementary approach to feeding experiments.

Scat is frequently used to study animal diets because it is easy to find and collect, but one concern is that gross fecal analysis (GFA) techniques exaggerate the importance of small-bodied prey to mammalian mesopredator diets. To capitalize on the benefits of scat, we suggest the analysis of scat carbon and nitrogen isotope values (δ13C and δ15N). This technique offers researchers a non-invasive method to gather short-term dietary information.

Merging paleobiology with conservation biology to guide the future of terrestrial ecosystems.

Conservation of species and ecosystems is increasingly difficult because anthropogenic impacts are pervasive and accelerating. Under this rapid global change, maximizing conservation success requires a paradigm shift from maintaining ecosystems in idealized past states toward facilitating their adaptive and functional capacities, even as species ebb and flow individually. Developing effective strategies under this new paradigm will require deeper understanding of the long-term dynamics that govern ecosystem persistence and reconciliation of conflicts among approaches to conserving historical versus novel ecosystems.

Pleistocene megafaunal interaction networks became more vulnerable after human arrival.

The end of the Pleistocene was marked by the extinction of almost all large land mammals worldwide except in Africa. Although the debate on Pleistocene extinctions has focused on the roles of climate change and humans, the impact of perturbations depends on properties of ecological communities, such as species composition and the organization of ecological interactions. Here, we combined palaeoecological and ecological data, food-web models and community stability analysis to investigate if differences between Pleistocene and modern mammalian assemblages help us understand why the megafauna died out in the Americas while persisting in Africa.

Effects of decalcification on bulk and compound-specific nitrogen and carbon isotope analyses of dentin.

Rationale: For bulk carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis of dentin, samples are typically decalcified. Since the non-protein carbon in dentin is low, whole sample analysis may produce reliable data. Compound-specific isotope analysis (CSIA) of bone and tooth dentin protein is a powerful tool for reconstructing the flow of carbon and nitrogen in modern and past food webs.

Carbon and nitrogen isotopes from top predator amino acids reveal rapidly shifting ocean biochemistry in the outer California Current.

Climatic variation alters biochemical and ecological processes, but it is difficult both to quantify the magnitude of such changes, and to differentiate long-term shifts from inter-annual variability. Here, we simultaneously quantify decade-scale isotopic variability at the lowest and highest trophic positions in the offshore California Current System (CCS) by measuring δ15N and δ13C values of amino acids in a top predator, the sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus). Using a time series of skin tissue samples as a biological archive, isotopic records from individual amino acids (AAs) can reveal the proximate factors driving a temporal decline we observed in bulk isotope values (a decline of ≥1 ‰) by decoupling changes in primary producer isotope values from those linked to the trophic position of this toothed whale.