Dispersal can evolve as an adaptation to escape competition with conspecifics or kin. Locations with a low density of conspecifics, however, may also lead to reduced opportunities for mating, especially in sessile marine invertebrates with proximity-dependent mating success. Since there are few experimental investigations, we performed a series of field experiments using an experimentally tractable species (the bryozoan Bugula neritina) to test the hypothesis that the density, spatial arrangement, and genetic relatedness of neighbors differentially affects survival, growth, reproduction, paternity, and sperm dispersal.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWhile the presence of morphologically cryptic species is increasingly recognized, we still lack a useful understanding of what causes and maintains co-occurring cryptic species and its consequences for the ecology, evolution, and conservation of communities. We sampled 724 corals from five habitat zones (the fringing reef, back reef, and fore reef at 5, 10, and 20 m) at four sites around the island of Moorea, French Polynesia. Using validated genetic markers, we identified six sympatric species of , most of which cannot be reliably identified based on morphology: (42.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWarming global temperatures have consequences for biological rates. Feeding rates reflect the intake of energy that fuels survival, growth and reproduction. However, temperature can also affect food abundance and quality, as well as feeding behavior, which all affect feeding rate, making it challenging to understand the pathways by which temperature affects the intake of energy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSleep difficulties can co-occur with autistic traits and have been frequently reported in children diagnosed with autism. Thus, sleep difficulties may impact neural development, cognition, and behavioural functioning in children with autism. Interventions, such as repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), that target aberrant neural structures underpinning autistic traits and sleep difficulties in children could have beneficial effects.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnderstanding population dynamics is a long-standing objective of ecology, but the need for progress in this area has become urgent. For coral reefs, achieving this objective is impeded by a lack of information on settlement versus post-settlement events in determining recruitment and population size. Declines in coral abundance are often inferred to be associated with reduced densities of recruits, which could arise from mechanisms occurring at larval settlement, or throughout post-settlement stages.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAbstractDispersal emerges as an outcome of organismal traits and external forcings. However, it remains unclear how the emergent dispersal kernel evolves as a by-product of selection on the underlying traits. This question is particularly compelling in coastal marine systems, where dispersal is tied to development and reproduction and where directional currents bias larval dispersal downstream, causing selection for retention.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPocillopora tuahiniensis sp. nov. is described based on mitochondrial and nuclear genomic data, algal symbiont genetic data, geographic isolation, and its distribution pattern within reefs that is distinct from other sympatric Pocillopora species (Johnston et al.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis paper describes the longitudinal change in sleep, functional, and behavioural characteristics in a cohort of children with Down syndrome, including the effect of sleep interventions in a subset. A prospective longitudinal cohort study was undertaken in children with Down syndrome aged 3-16 years comparing (1) children referred to a tertiary sleep medicine clinic who received sleep hygiene advice and an additional sleep treatment (DSref_I) with (2) children attending the same clinic who only received sleep hygiene advice (DSref_N) and (3) children recruited from the community who, were not receiving any treatment (DScomm). Data collected included demographic and medical history information, Child Sleep Habits Questionnaire-Abbreviated (CSHQ-A), Life-Habits Questionnaire (Life-H) and Child Behaviour Checklist (CBCL) at baseline and then 6-monthly for a total of 18 months.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe severity of marine heatwaves (MHWs) that are increasingly impacting ocean ecosystems, including vulnerable coral reefs, has primarily been assessed using remotely sensed sea-surface temperatures (SSTs), without information relevant to heating across ecosystem depths. Here, using a rare combination of SST, high-resolution in-situ temperatures, and sea level anomalies observed over 15 years near Moorea, French Polynesia, we document subsurface MHWs that have been paradoxical in comparison to SST metrics and associated with unexpected coral bleaching across depths. Variations in the depth range and severity of MHWs was driven by mesoscale (10s to 100s of km) eddies that altered sea levels and thermocline depths and decreased (2007, 2017 and 2019) or increased (2012, 2015, 2016) internal-wave cooling.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFor nearly 50 years, analyses of coral physiology have used small coral fragments (nubbins) to make inferences about larger colonies. However, scaling in corals shows that linear extrapolations from nubbins to whole colonies can be misleading, because polyps in nubbins are divorced of their morphologically complex and physiologically integrated corallum. We tested for the effects of integration among branches in determining size-dependent calcification of the coral spp.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: Sleep disorders are prevalent in children with Down Syndrome (DS). However, sleep treatment is not always readily accessed by this group. This study aims to understand families' experiences of having a child with DS and sleep difficulties, and in particular, their healthcare experiences, with the goal of informing practice improvements.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDispersal has far-reaching implications for individuals, populations, and communities, especially in sessile organisms. Escaping competition with conspecifics and with kin are theorized to be key factors leading to dispersal as an adaptation. However, manipulative approaches in systems in which adults are sessile but offspring have behaviors is required for a more complete understanding of how competition affects dispersal.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe congruence between phylogenies of tightly associated groups of organisms (cophylogeny) reflects evolutionary links between ecologically important interactions. However, despite being a classic example of an obligate symbiosis, tests of cophylogeny between scleractinian corals and their photosynthetic algal symbionts have been hampered in the past because both corals and algae contain genetically unresolved and morphologically cryptic species. Here, we studied co-occurring, cryptic Pocillopora species from Mo'orea, French Polynesia, that differ in their relative abundance across depth.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground And Objectives: Infants hospitalized with bronchiolitis are commenced on nasogastric feeding to maintain hydration. Feeding strategies vary according to physician or institution preference. The current study hypothesized that continuous nasogastric feeding would prolong length of stay (LOS) when compared to bolus feeding.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAim: To audit the feasibility and patient experience of home polysomnography (sleep study) for the investigation of a sleep disorder in children.
Methods: The signal quality and outcomes of a Level 2 (home) polysomnography in young people undergoing investigation between September 2020 and January 2021 in a single centre was reviewed. A successful home polysomnogram was defined as a study with ≥6 h of sleep and all channels (EEG, thoraco-abdominal bands, calculated airflow, and pulse oximetry) present for at least 90% of the study time.
Objective: To describe the sleep problems experienced by children with Down syndrome attending a tertiary sleep clinic and relationship with behaviour, function and cognition.
Methods: Data were collected from children with Down syndrome aged 3-18 years old. Carers completed the Abbreviated Child Sleep Habits Questionnaire, Child Behaviour Checklist and Life-Habits Questionnaire at enrolment.
AbstractThe diversity and consequences of development in marine invertebrates have, for a long time, provided the opportunity to understand different evolutionary solutions to living in variable environments. However, discrete classifications of development can impede a full understanding of adaptation to variable environments when behavioral, morphological, or physiological flexibility and variation exist within traditionally defined modes of development. We report here novel behavioral variability in hatchlings of a marine gastropod, the Florida crown conch (), that has broad significance for understanding the correlated evolution of development, dispersal, and reproductive strategies in variable environments.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFVariation among functionally similar species in their response to environmental stress buffers ecosystems from changing states. Functionally similar species may often be cryptic species representing evolutionarily distinct genetic lineages that are morphologically indistinguishable. However, the extent to which cryptic species differ in their response to stress, and could therefore provide a source of response diversity, remains unclear because they are often not identified or are assumed to be ecologically equivalent.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Children with Down Syndrome (DS) have a high prevalence of obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA). Non-respiratory sleep disorders also occur commonly but are less well recognised. This cross-sectional study evaluates the prevalence of sleep difficulties in a community sample of Australian children with DS (DS), using the Children's Sleep Habits Questionnaire (CSHQ), and compares them to children referred to the sleep clinic (DS).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe distance travelled by marine larvae varies by seven orders of magnitude. Dispersal shapes marine biodiversity, and must be understood if marine systems are to be well managed. Because warmer temperatures quicken larval development, larval durations might be systematically shorter in the tropics relative to those at high latitudes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFStudy Objectives: The aim of this review was to summarize the existing literature on the association between sleep problems and cognition, function, and behavior in children with Down syndrome.
Methods: Embase, PubMed, CINAHL, and PsychINFO databases were searched to retrieve all studies published between 1990 and 2018 that evaluated the relationship between sleep and cognition, function, or behavior in children with Down syndrome.
Results: Fifteen articles were included, which were mostly of a cohort or case-controlled design.
Inbreeding is a potent evolutionary force shaping the distribution of genetic variation within and among populations of plants and animals. Yet, our understanding of the forces shaping the expression and evolution of nonrandom mating in general, and inbreeding in particular, remains remarkably incomplete. Most research on plant mating systems focuses on self-fertilization and its consequences for automatic selection, inbreeding depression, purging, and reproductive assurance, whereas studies of animal mating systems have often assumed that inbreeding is rare, and that natural selection favors traits that promote outbreeding.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFExperiments with coral fragments (i.e. nubbins) have shown that net calcification is depressed by elevated Evaluating the implications of this finding requires scaling of results from nubbins to colonies, yet the experiments to codify this process have not been carried out.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFKin associations increase the potential for inbreeding. The potential for inbreeding does not, however, make inbreeding inevitable. Numerous factors influence whether inbreeding preference, avoidance, or tolerance evolves, and, in hermaphrodites where both self-fertilization and biparental inbreeding are possible, it remains particularly difficult to predict how selection acts on the overall inbreeding strategy, and to distinguish the type of inbreeding when making inferences from genetic markers.
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