MEDI: Macronutrient Extraction and Determination from invertebrates, a rapid, cheap and streamlined protocol.

Macronutrients, comprising carbohydrates, proteins and lipids, underpin many ecological processes, but their quantification in ecological studies is often inaccurate and laborious, requiring large investments of time and bulk samples, which make individual-level studies impossible. This study presents Macronutrient Extraction and Determination from Invertebrates (MEDI), a protocol for the direct, rapid and relatively low-cost determination of macronutrient content from single small macroinvertebrates.Macronutrients were extracted by a sequential process of soaking in 1:12 chloroform:methanol solution to remove lipid and then solubilising tissue in 0.

Transfer efficiency of carbon, nutrients, and polyunsaturated fatty acids in planktonic food webs under different environmental conditions.

The trophic transfer efficiency (TTE) is an important indicator of ecosystem functioning. However, TTE data from freshwater food webs are ambiguous due to differences in time scales and methods. We investigated the transfer of essential substances (carbon, nutrients, and polyunsaturated fatty acids) through plankton communities in 30 Polish lakes with different trophic status in the middle of summer.

Effects of fire on ground-dwelling arthropods in a shrub-dominated grassland.

Arthropods are abundant and diverse animals in many terrestrial food webs. In western Oklahoma, some shrublands are interspersed with discrete, dense thickets of tall, woody vegetation, known as mottes. Some of these shrublands are managed with prescribed burning.

Temperature dependency of predation: Increased killing rates and prey mass consumption by predators with warming.

Temperature dependency of consumer-resource interactions is fundamentally important for understanding and predicting the responses of food webs to climate change. Previous studies have shown temperature-driven shifts in herbivore consumption rates and resource preference, but these effects remain poorly understood for predatory arthropods. Here, we investigate how predator killing rates, prey mass consumption, and macronutrient intake respond to increased temperatures using a laboratory and a field reciprocal transplant experiment.

Vocal divergence is concordant with genomic evidence for strong reproductive isolation in grasshopper mice ().

Behavioral barriers to gene flow often evolve faster than intrinsic incompatibilities and can eliminate the opportunity for hybridization between interfertile species. While acoustic signal divergence is a common driver of premating isolation in birds and insects, its contribution to speciation in mammals is less studied. Here we characterize the incidence of, and potential barriers to, hybridization among three closely related species of grasshopper mice (genus ).

Collinearity in ecological niche modeling: Confusions and challenges.

Ecological niche models are widely used in ecology and biogeography. Maxent is one of the most frequently used niche modeling tools, and many studies have aimed to optimize its performance. However, scholars have conflicting views on the treatment of predictor collinearity in Maxent modeling.

Dietary protein supplementation and its consequences for intake, digestion, and physical activity of a carnivorous marsupial, .

Diet regulation behavior can mediate the consequences of imbalanced diets for animal well-being, particularly for captive species that have little dietary choice. Dasyurids (carnivorous marsupials) are of conservation concern in Australia, and many species are in captive breeding programmes. However, their nutrient targets and dietary regulation behaviors are poorly understood, a limitation that may decrease the breeding success and well-being of captive animals.

Evolutionary aspects of resurrection ecology: Progress, scope, and applications-An overview.

This perspective provides an overview to the Special Issue on Resurrection Ecology (RE). It summarizes the contributions to this Special Issue, and provides background information and future prospects for the use of RE in both basic and applied evolutionary studies.