Fine-Scale Geographic Variation of in Across the Palauan Archipelago.

Symbiont genotype plays a vital role in the ability of a coral host to tolerate rising ocean temperatures, with some members of the family Symbiodiniaceae possessing more thermal tolerance than others. While existing studies on genetic structure in symbiont populations have focused on broader scales of 10-100 s of km, there is a noticeable gap in understanding the seascape genetics of coral symbionts at finer-yet ecologically and evolutionarily relevant-scales. Here, we mapped short reads from 271 holobiont genome libraries of individual colonies to protein coding genes from the chloroplast genome to identify patterns of symbiont population genetic structure.

Driving impairment due to psychoactive substances and attention deficit disorder: A pilot study.

Objective: Attention disorder and substance use disorder are linked to driving impairment and increased road crash involvement. This study explores attention deficits in a population of drivers found driving under the influence (DUI) of psychoactive substances.

Methods: A case-control study was conducted comparing subjects with a previous DUI episode (cases) to subjects who were negative for DUI offenses (controls).

A landmark environmental law looks ahead.

In late December 1973, the United States enacted what some would come to call "the pitbull of environmental laws." In the 50 years since, the formidable regulatory teeth of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) have been credited with considerable successes, obliging agencies to draw upon the best available science to protect species and habitats. Yet human pressures continue to push the planet toward extinctions on a massive scale.

Small-scale genetic structure of coral populations in Palau based on whole mitochondrial genomes: Implications for future coral resilience.

The ability of local populations to adapt to future climate conditions is facilitated by a balance between short range dispersal allowing local buildup of adaptively beneficial alleles, and longer dispersal moving these alleles throughout the species range. Reef building corals have relatively low dispersal larvae, but most population genetic studies show differentiation only over 100s of km. Here, we report full mitochondrial genome sequences from 284 tabletop corals () from 39 patch reefs in Palau, and show two signals of genetic structure across reef scales from 1 to 55 km.