The Late Orchid Catches the Bee: Frost Damage and Pollination Success in the Face of Global Warming in a European Terrestrial Orchid.

Global warming changes flowering times of many plant species, with potential impacts on frost damage and their synchronization with pollinator activity. These effects can have severe impacts on plant fitness, yet we know little about how frequently they occur and the extent of damage they cause. We addressed this topic in a thermophilic orchid with a highly specific pollination mechanism, the Small Spider Orchid, RchB, in six populations in Northern Switzerland.

Accelerated body size evolution in upland environments is correlated with recent speciation in South American freshwater fishes.

Speciation rates vary greatly among taxa and regions and are shaped by both biotic and abiotic factors. However, the relative importance and interactions of these factors are not well understood. Here we investigate the potential drivers of speciation rates in South American freshwater fishes, the most diverse continental vertebrate fauna, by examining the roles of multiple biotic and abiotic factors.

The geography of climate and the global patterns of species diversity.

Climate's effect on global biodiversity is typically viewed through the lens of temperature, humidity and resulting ecosystem productivity. However, it is not known whether biodiversity depends solely on these climate conditions, or whether the size and fragmentation of these climates are also crucial. Here we shift the common perspective in global biodiversity studies, transitioning from geographic space to a climate-defined multidimensional space.

Interannual climate variability improves niche estimates for ectothermic but not endothermic species.

Climate is an important limiting factor of species' niches and it is therefore regularly included in ecological applications such as species distribution models (SDMs). Climate predictors are often used in the form of long-term mean values, yet many species experience wide climatic variation over their lifespan and within their geographical range which is unlikely captured by long-term means. Further, depending on their physiology, distinct groups of species cope with climate variability differently.

Diel niche partitioning of a plant-hummingbird network in the Atlantic forest of Brazil.

Niche partitioning is an important mechanism that allows species to coexist. Within mutualistic interaction networks, diel niche partitioning, i.e.

Landscape dynamics and diversification of the megadiverse South American freshwater fish fauna.

Landscape dynamics are widely thought to govern the tempo and mode of continental radiations, yet the effects of river network rearrangements on dispersal and lineage diversification remain poorly understood. We integrated an unprecedented occurrence dataset of 4,967 species with a newly compiled, time-calibrated phylogeny of South American freshwater fishes-the most species-rich continental vertebrate fauna on Earth-to track the evolutionary processes associated with hydrogeographic events over 100 Ma. Net lineage diversification was heterogeneous through time, across space, and among clades.

Re-thinking the environment in landscape genomics.

Detecting the extrinsic selective pressures shaping genomic variation is critical for a better understanding of adaptation and for forecasting evolutionary responses of natural populations to changing environmental conditions. With increasing availability of geo-referenced environmental data, landscape genomics provides unprecedented insights into how genomic variation and underlying gene functions affect traits potentially under selection. Yet, the robustness of genotype-environment associations used in landscape genomics remains tempered due to various limitations, including the characteristics of environmental data used, sampling designs employed, and statistical frameworks applied.

Seasonal structure of interactions enhances multidimensional stability of mutualistic networks.

Community ecologists have made great advances in understanding how natural communities can be both diverse and stable by studying communities as interaction networks. However, focus has been on interaction networks aggregated over time, neglecting the consequences of the seasonal organization of interactions (hereafter 'seasonal structure') for community stability. Here, we extended previous theoretical findings on the topic in two ways: (i) by integrating empirical seasonal structure of 11 plant-hummingbird communities into dynamic models, and (ii) by tackling multiple facets of network stability together.

Voter preferences as a source of descriptive (mis)representation by social class.

This paper presents the results of a conjoint survey experiment in which Swiss citizens were asked to choose among parliamentary candidates with different class profiles determined by occupation, education and income. Existing survey-experimental literature on this topic suggests that respondents are indifferent to the class profiles of candidates or biased against candidates with high-status occupations and high incomes. We find that respondents are biased against upper middle-class candidates as well as routine working-class candidates.

Plot size matters: Toward comparable species richness estimates across plot-based inventories.

To understand the state and trends in biodiversity beyond the scope of monitoring programs, biodiversity indicators must be comparable across inventories. Species richness (SR) is one of the most widely used biodiversity indicators. However, as SR increases with the size of the area sampled, inventories using different plot sizes are hardly comparable.

Objective Assessments in Diagnoses and Treatment: A Proposed Change in Paradigm.

For patients with psychiatric disorders, current diagnostic and treatment approaches are far from optimal. The clinical interview drives the standard approach-matching symptoms to diagnostic criteria-and results in standardized pharmacological and behavioral treatments, often, with inadequate outcome; but now, recent imaging advances can correlate behavioral assessments with brain function and measure them against normative databases to provide data critical for the reevaluation of patient diagnosis and treatment. This article addresses the data that support a redefinition of our current paradigm.

Analysing the quality of Swiss National Forest Inventory measurements of woody species richness.

Background: Under ongoing climate and land-use change, biodiversity is continuously decreasing and monitoring biodiversity is becoming increasingly important. National Forest Inventory (NFI) programmes provide valuable time-series data on biodiversity and thus contribute to assessments of the state and trends in biodiversity, as well as ecosystem functioning. Data quality in this context is of paramount relevance, particularly for ensuring a meaningful interpretation of changes.

Disentangling the effects of geographic peripherality and habitat suitability on neutral and adaptive genetic variation in Swiss stone pine.

It is generally accepted that the spatial distribution of neutral genetic diversity within a species' native range mostly depends on effective population size, demographic history, and geographic position. However, it is unclear how genetic diversity at adaptive loci correlates with geographic peripherality or with habitat suitability within the ecological niche. Using exome-wide genomic data and distribution maps of the Alpine range, we first tested whether geographic peripherality correlates with four measures of population genetic diversity at > 17,000 SNP loci in 24 Alpine populations (480 individuals) of Swiss stone pine (Pinus cembra) from Switzerland.

The Geography of Ecological Niche Evolution in Mammals.

Convergent adaptive evolution of species' ecological niches-i.e., the appearance of similar niches in independent lineages-is the result of natural selection acting on niche-related species traits ("traits" hereafter) and contrasts with neutral evolution [1-4].

Fossils matter: improved estimates of divergence times in Pinus reveal older diversification.

Background: The taxonomy of pines (genus Pinus) is widely accepted and a robust gene tree based on entire plastome sequences exists. However, there is a large discrepancy in estimated divergence times of major pine clades among existing studies, mainly due to differences in fossil placement and dating methods used. We currently lack a dated molecular phylogeny that makes use of the rich pine fossil record, and this study is the first to estimate the divergence dates of pines based on a large number of fossils (21) evenly distributed across all major clades, in combination with applying both node and tip dating methods.

Available Climate Regimes Drive Niche Diversification during Range Expansion.

Climate is a main predictor of biodiversity on a global scale, yet how climate availability affects niche evolution remains poorly explored. Here we assess how intercontinental climate differences may affect the evolution of climate niches and suggest three possible processes: niche truncation along major environmental gradients, intercontinental differences in available climate causing differences in selective regimes, and niche shifts associated with long-distance dispersals leading to a pattern of punctuated evolution. Using the globally distributed danthonioid grasses, we show significant niche differentiation among continents and several instances of niche truncation.

Genomics of the divergence continuum in an African plant biodiversity hotspot, I: drivers of population divergence in Restio capensis (Restionaceae).

Understanding the drivers of population divergence, speciation and species persistence is of great interest to molecular ecology, especially for species-rich radiations inhabiting the world's biodiversity hotspots. The toolbox of population genomics holds great promise for addressing these key issues, especially if genomic data are analysed within a spatially and ecologically explicit context. We have studied the earliest stages of the divergence continuum in the Restionaceae, a species-rich and ecologically important plant family of the Cape Floristic Region (CFR) of South Africa, using the widespread CFR endemic Restio capensis (L.

Small and ugly? Phylogenetic analyses of the "selfing syndrome" reveal complex evolutionary fates of monomorphic primrose flowers.

One of the most common trends in plant evolution, loss of self-incompatibility and ensuing increases in selfing, is generally assumed to be associated with a suite of phenotypic changes, notably a reduction of floral size, termed the selfing syndrome. We investigate whether floral morphological traits indeed decrease in a deterministic fashion after losses of self-incompatibility, as traditionally expected, using a phylogeny of 124 primrose species containing nine independent transitions from heterostyly (heteromorphic incompatibility) to homostyly (monomorphic self-compatibility), a classic system for evolution of selfing. We find similar overall variability of homostylous and heterostylous species, except for diminished herkogamy in homostyles.

Effects of a fire response trait on diversification in replicated radiations.

Fire has been proposed as a factor explaining the exceptional plant species richness found in Mediterranean regions. A fire response trait that allows plants to cope with frequent fire by either reseeding or resprouting could differentially affect rates of species diversification. However, little is known about the generality of the effects of differing fire response on species evolution.

Mutualism with sea anemones triggered the adaptive radiation of clownfishes.

Background: Adaptive radiation is the process by which a single ancestral species diversifies into many descendants adapted to exploit a wide range of habitats. The appearance of ecological opportunities, or the colonisation or adaptation to novel ecological resources, has been documented to promote adaptive radiation in many classic examples. Mutualistic interactions allow species to access resources untapped by competitors, but evidence shows that the effect of mutualism on species diversification can greatly vary among mutualistic systems.

Assessing rapid evolution in a changing environment.

Climate change poses a serious threat to species persistence. Effective modelling of evolutionary responses to rapid climate change is therefore essential. In this review we examine recent advances in phylogenetic comparative methods, techniques normally used to study adaptation over long periods, which allow them to be applied to the study of adaptation over shorter time scales.

Spontaneous emission of a nanoscopic emitter in a strongly scattering disordered medium.

Fluorescence lifetimes of nitrogen-vacancy color centers in individual diamond nanocrystals were measured at the interface between a glass substrate and a strongly scattering medium. Comparison of the results with values recorded from the same nanocrystals at the glass-air interface revealed fluctuations of fluorescence lifetimes in the scattering medium. After discussing a range of possible systematic effects, we attribute the observed lengthening of the lifetimes to the reduction of the local density of states.

InP-based compact photonic crystal directional coupler with large operation range.

We present the design, fabrication and measurement of photonic crystal directional couplers in the InP/InGaAsP/InP material system. A comprehensive analysis of the dependence of the coupling length and usable wavelength range on the diameter of the holes next to the waveguides is given. The possibility to trade-off coupling length against usable wavelength range is shown.