Climate effects on nesting phenology in Nebraska turtles.

A frequent response of organisms to climate change is altering the timing of reproduction, and advancement of reproductive timing has been a common reaction to warming temperatures in temperate regions. We tested whether this pattern applied to two common North American turtle species over the past three decades in Nebraska, USA. The timing of nesting (either first date or average date) of the Common Snapping Turtle () was negatively correlated with mean December maximum temperatures of the preceding year and mean May minimum and maximum temperatures in the nesting year and positively correlated with precipitation in July of the previous year.

Growth and survival of the superorganism: Ant colony macronutrient intake and investment.

In this study, we used two common ant species ( and ) to assay how they translate variation in the diet (both in composition and frequency) into growth. We measured colony development for over 8 months and measured several phenotypic traits of the worker caste, and examined whether forager preference corresponded with diet quality. Optimal colony growth was a balance between survival and growth, and each of these was maximized with different nutrient regimes.

Understanding reproductive allometry in turtles: A slippery "slope".

Measures of reproductive output in turtles are generally positively correlated with female body size. However, a full understanding of reproductive allometry in turtles requires logarithmic transformation of reproductive and body size variables prior to regression analyses. This allows for slope comparisons with expected linear or cubic relationships for linear to linear and linear to volumetric variables, respectively.

Projected changes in climatic suitability for turtles by 2050 and 2070.

Chelonians are expected to be negatively impacted by climate change due to limited vagility and temperature-dependent sex determination. However, few studies have examined how freshwater turtle distributions may shift under different climate change scenarios. We used a maximum entropy approach to model the distribution of five widespread North American species (, , , , and ) under four climate change scenarios.

Microbial community responses to soil tillage and crop rotation in a corn/soybean agroecosystem.

The acreage planted in corn and soybean crops is vast, and these crops contribute substantially to the world economy. The agricultural practices employed for farming these crops have major effects on ecosystem health at a worldwide scale. The microbial communities living in agricultural soils significantly contribute to nutrient uptake and cycling and can have both positive and negative impacts on the crops growing with them.