Colonial-nesting organisms can strongly alter the chemical and biotic conditions around their aggregation sites, with cascading impacts on other components of the ecosystem. In tropical Australia, Metallic Starlings (Aplonis metallica) nest in large colonies far above the forest canopy, in emergent trees. The ground beneath those trees is open, in stark contrast to the dense foliage all around. We surveyed the areas beneath 27 colony trees (and nearby randomly chosen trees lacking bird colonies) to quantify the birds' impacts on soil and vegetation characteristics, and to test alternative hypotheses about the proximate mechanisms responsible for the lack of live vegetation beneath colony trees. Nutrient levels were greatly elevated beneath colony trees (especially, those with larger colonies), potentially reaching levels toxic to older trees. However, seedlings thrived in the soil from beneath colony trees. The primary mechanism generating open areas beneath colony trees is disturbance by scavengers (feral pigs and native Turkeys) that are attracted in vast numbers to these nutrient hotspots. Seedlings flourished within exclosures inaccessible to vertebrate herbivores, but were rapidly consumed if unprotected. Our results contrast with previous studies of colonies of seabirds on remote islands, where a lack of large terrestrial herbivores results in bird colonies encouraging rather than eliminating vegetation in areas close to the nesting site. In our continental study system, scavengers may rapidly dilute the spatial heterogeneity generated by the massive nutrient subsidy from bird colonies.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ecy.1642 | DOI Listing |
J Law Med Ethics
December 2024
GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY, WASHINGTON, D.C., USA.
This article argues that beneath the veneer of legitimacy in the organ, tissue, and body part transplantation systems exists a horrifying history of human commodification whose vestiges surprisingly linger in contemporary supply and allocation systems. This history, as the Article demonstrates, dates back to the colonial period in the United States, where "grave robbing" became an important feature in the advancement of medicine. This legacy lives on.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMaterials (Basel)
September 2024
School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China.
Plant Dis
July 2024
Rutgers The State University of New Jersey, 59 Dudley Rd., New Brunswick, New Jersey, United States, 08901;
Turfgrasses are susceptible to a wide variety of ectotrophic root-infecting (ERI) fungi that cause root rot (Tredway et al., 2023). Among the root rot diseases, fairway patch, caused by Phialocephala bamuru P.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPlant Dis
May 2024
Kashi University, College of Modern Agriculture College, Kashi, Xinjiang, China;
Euphrates poplar (Populus euphratica Oliv.) constitutes about 61% of the global poplar population, thriving in arid regions of western China (Wu et al. 2023).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFbioRxiv
March 2024
Department of Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Micropatterned human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) treated with BMP4 (2D gastruloids) are among the most widely used stem cell models for human gastrulation. Due to its simplicity and reproducibility, this system is ideal for high throughput quantitative studies of tissue patterning and has led to many insights into the mechanisms of mammalian gastrulation. However, 2D gastruloids have only been studied up to 48h.
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