We propose a novel approach to reconstructing curvilinear tree structures evolving over time, such as road networks in 2D aerial images or neural structures in 3D microscopy stacks acquired in vivo. To enforce temporal consistency, we simultaneously process all images in a sequence, as opposed to reconstructing structures of interest in each image independently. We formulate the problem as a Quadratic Mixed Integer Program and demonstrate the additional robustness that comes from using all available visual clues at once, instead of working frame by frame. Furthermore, when the linear structures undergo local changes over time, our approach automatically detects them.
Adaptive radiations are rich laboratories for exploring, testing, and understanding key theories in evolution and ecology because they offer spectacular displays of speciation and ecological adaptation. Particular challenges to the study of adaptive radiation include high levels of species richness, rapid speciation, and gene flow between species. Over the last decade, high-throughput sequencing technologies and access to population genomic data have lessened these challenges by enabling the analysis of samples from many individual organisms at whole-genome scales.
Habitat selection in animals results from a careful balance of individual requirements, environmental conditions, and ecological disturbances. Preferences can vary across sexes and ages due to differences in survival and reproductive priorities. Despite this variability, most studies have traditionally focused on isolated aspects of either sex or age-related differences in habitat selection, rather than considering a comprehensive range of influencing factors.
Departamento Académico de Ingeniería Forestal y Medio Ambiente, Universidad Nacional Amazónica de Madre Dios, Av. Jorge Chavez 1160, Puerto Maldonado 17001, Peru.
Anthropogenic activities (e.g., logging, gold-mining, agriculture, and uncontrolled urban expansion) threaten the forests in the southeast of the Peruvian Amazon, one of the most diverse ecosystems worldwide.
Center for Ecosystem Design and fuTuRE EcoSystems Lab (TREES), Institute of Environment and Ecology, Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School, Tsinghua University, Shenzhen, China.
Blue carbon ecotones (BCEs) play a critical role in regulating abiotic and biotic ecological fluxes underpinning services which are also crucial for the protection of the land-ocean function. Here, we proposed a Benefit-Pressure-Transformation Risk model (BPT) to calculate the Ecosystem Health Index (EHI) for mangrove, salt marsh, and seagrass as core BCEs globally (at a resolution of 1° × 1 °lat-long), based on habitat structure, species morphological features and vulnerability, niche overlap, nature and human pressures, and ecosystem services. Our assessments identify that around 20% of BCEs as vulnerable globally.
Departamento de Ciencias de la Vida, Universidad de Alcalá, Facultad de Ciencias, Área de Ecología, Ctra. Madrid-Barcelona, km.33, 600, 28805, Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, Spain.
Climate change is one of the main challenges that human societies are currently facing. Given that forests represent major natural carbon sinks in terrestrial ecosystems, administrations worldwide are launching broad-scale programs to promote forests, including stands of non-native trees. Yet, non-native trees may have profound impacts on the functions and services of forest ecosystems, including the carbon cycle, as they may differ widely from native trees in structural and functional characteristics.
