Museum specimens of a landlocked pinniped reveal recent loss of genetic diversity and unexpected population connections.

The Saimaa ringed seal () is endemic to Lake Saimaa in Finland. The subspecies is thought to have originated when parts of the ringed seal population of the Baltic region were trapped in lakes emerging due to postglacial bedrock rebound around 9000 years ago. During the 20th century, the population experienced a drastic human-induced bottleneck.

Amino acid nitrogen and carbon isotope data: Potential and implications for ecological studies.

Explaining food web dynamics, stability, and functioning depend substantially on understanding of feeding relations within a community. Bulk stable isotope ratios (SIRs) in natural abundance are well-established tools to express direct and indirect feeding relations as continuous variables across time and space. Along with bulk SIRs, the SIRs of individual amino acids (AAs) are now emerging as a promising and complementary method to characterize the flow and transformation of resources across a diversity of organisms, from microbial domains to macroscopic consumers.

A novel mind-set in primate experimentation: Implications for primate welfare.

We emphasize the importance of studying the primate brain in cognitive neuroscience and suggest a new mind-set in primate experimentation within the boundaries of animal welfare regulations. Specifically, we list the advantages of investigating both genes and neural mechanisms and processes in the emergence of behavioral and cognitive functions, and propose the establishment of an open field of primate research. The latter may be conducted by implementing and harmonizing experimental practices with ethical guidelines that regulate (1) management of natural parks with free-moving populations of target nonhuman primates, (2) establishment of indoor-outdoor labs for both system genetics and neuroscience investigations, and (3) hotel space and technologies which remotely collect and dislocate information regarding primates geographically located elsewhere.

Characterizing niche differentiation among marine consumers with amino acid δC fingerprinting.

Marine food webs are highly compartmentalized, and characterizing the trophic niches among consumers is important for predicting how impact from human activities affects the structuring and functioning of marine food webs. Biomarkers such as bulk stable isotopes have proven to be powerful tools to elucidate trophic niches, but they may lack in resolution, particularly when spatiotemporal variability in a system is high. To close this gap, we investigated whether carbon isotope (δC) patterns of essential amino acids (EAAs), also termed δC fingerprints, can characterize niche differentiation in a highly dynamic marine system.

Bayesian Analysis of the Glacial-Interglacial Methane Increase Constrained by Stable Isotopes and Earth System Modeling.

The observed rise in atmospheric methane (CH) from 375 ppbv during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM: 21,000 years ago) to 680 ppbv during the late preindustrial era is not well understood. Atmospheric chemistry considerations implicate an increase in CH sources, but process-based estimates fail to reproduce the required amplitude. CH stable isotopes provide complementary information that can help constrain the underlying causes of the increase.

Behavioural Type Affects Space Use in a Wild Population of Crows ().

While personality-dependent dispersal is well studied, local space use has received surprisingly little attention in this context, despite the multiple consequences on survival and fitness. Regarding the coping style of individuals, recent studies on personality-dependent space use within a habitat indicate that 'proactive' individuals are wider ranging than 'reactive' ones. However, such studies are still scarce and cover limited taxonomic diversity, and thus, more research is needed to explore whether this pattern generalises across species.