Effects of socioeconomic and human-modified landscape variables on medicinal species richness at a macroscale: the case of the Caatinga, Brazil.

Background: Ethnobiological studies at local scales have shown that knowledge of medicinal species tends to decrease as socioeconomic status and the extent of human-modified landscapes increase. However, it remains largely unknown whether these same factors can predict knowledge of useful species at broader scales and whether their interaction might create scenarios that enhance knowledge of medicinal species.

Methods: To address this, we tested whether knowledge of woody medicinal species-measured as the number of species known-is influenced by socioeconomic status, human-modified landscapes, and their interaction.

Long-term increases in wing length occur independently of changes in climate and climate-driven shifts in body size.

Recent widespread reductions in body size across species have been linked to increasing temperatures; simultaneous increases in wing length relative to body size have been broadly observed but remain unexplained. Size and shape may change independently of one another, or these morphological shifts may be linked, with body size mediating or directly driving the degree to which shape changes. Using hierarchical Bayesian models and a morphological time series of 27 366 specimens from five North American migratory passerine bird species, we tested the roles that climate and body size have played in shifting wing length allometry over four decades.

Chicago Riders' Choice of Uber and Lyft over Transit Implies a Median Breakeven Value of Travel Time Equal to the Regional Hourly Wage of $30 per Hour.

The use of transportation network companies (TNCs), such as Uber and Lyft, is widespread in many US cities, including those with good transit. However, transit use produces smaller externalities relative to private vehicles and is cheaper but can increase travel time. Here we compare the benefits and costs of real TNC trips in Chicago to a counterfactual in which they are performed by transit.

The population dynamics of clustered consumer-resource spatial patterns: Insights from the demographics of a Turing mechanism.

In ecology, Alan Turing's proposed activation-inhibition mechanism has been abstracted as corresponding to several ecological interaction types to explain pattern formation in ecosystems. Consumer-resource interactions have strong theoretical arguments linking them to both the Turing mechanism and pattern formation, but there is little empirical support to demonstrate these claims. Here, we connect several lines of evidence to support the proposition that consumer-resource interactions can create empirically observed spatial patterns through a mechanism similar to Turing's theory.

Meta-analysis reveals global variations in plant diversity effects on productivity.

Positive effects of plant diversity on productivity have been globally demonstrated and explained by two main effects: complementarity effects and selection effects. However, plant diversity experiments have shown substantial variation in these effects, with driving factors poorly understood. On the basis of a meta-analysis of 452 experiments across the globe, we show that productivity increases on average by 15.

Genetic and morphological shifts associated with climate change in a migratory bird.

Background: Rapid morphological change is emerging as a consequence of climate change in many systems. It is intuitive to hypothesize that temporal morphological trends are driven by the same selective pressures that have established well-known ecogeographic patterns over spatial environmental gradients (e.g.

Integrating crowdsourced data in the built environment studies: A systematic review.

The integration of crowdsourced data has become central to contemporary built environment studies, driven by the rapid growth in digital technologies and participatory approaches that characterize modern urbanism. Despite its potential, a systematic framework for its analysis remains underdeveloped. This review, conducted in accordance with the PRISMA protocol, examines the use of crowdsourced data in shaping the built environment, scrutinizing its applications, crowdsourcing techniques, methodologies, and comparison with other big data forms.

Identifying Settler Colonial Determinants of Indigenous Health Within the United States: A Discursive Paper.

Aim(s): This discursive article aims to examine how systemic factors (both) reproduce the structure of settler colonialism and influence health outcomes among Indigenous peoples in the United States through settler colonial determinants of Indigenous health (SCDoIH).

Design: Discursive paper.

Methods: This discursive paper demonstrates how settler colonialism and health relate to each other within a nursing context.

Extreme rainfall disproportionately impacts E. coli concentrations in Texas recreational waterbodies.

Waterborne pathogen contamination poses a significant threat to water resources globally and the exposure to waterborne pathogen contamination is widely recognized as unevenly distributed. Extreme weather events could exacerbate inequalities in waterborne disease as climate variability continues to escalate. However, there is a limited understanding of how extreme rainfall affects E.

Winner-loser plant trait replacements in human-modified tropical forests.

Anthropogenic landscape modification may lead to the proliferation of a few species and the loss of many. Here we investigate mechanisms and functional consequences of this winner-loser replacement in six human-modified Amazonian and Atlantic Forest regions in Brazil using a causal inference framework. Combining floristic and functional trait data for 1,207 tree species across 271 forest plots, we find that forest loss consistently caused an increased dominance of low-density woods and small seeds dispersed by endozoochory (winner traits) and the loss of distinctive traits, such as extremely dense woods and large seeds dispersed by synzoochory (loser traits).

With a little help from my friends: Social support, hope and climate change engagement.

Hope is a future-oriented emotion that attunes people to the possibility of positive change, and thus could potentially catalyse societal engagement with climate change. A recent meta-analysis suggests that the relationship between hope and climate action is most robust when the target of hope is climate engagement (i.e.

High temperatures are associated with decreased immune system performance in a wild primate.

Rising temperatures due to climate change are predicted to threaten the persistence of wild animals, but there is little evidence that climate change has pushed species beyond their thermal tolerance. The immune system is an ideal avenue to assess the effects of climate change because immune performance is sensitive to changes in temperature and immune competency can affect reproductive success. We investigate the effect of rising temperatures on a biomarker of nonspecific immune performance in a wild population of capuchin monkeys and provide compelling evidence that immune performance is associated with ambient temperature.

Historical datasets (1950-2022) of monthly water balance components for the Laurentian Great Lakes.

This study develops a 73-year dataset of water balance components from 1950 to 2022 for the Laurentian Great Lakes Basins. This is carried out using the Large Lakes Statistical Water Balance Model (L2SWBM), which provides a Bayesian statistical framework that assimilates binational input datasets sourced from the United States and Canada. The L2SWBM infers feasible water balance component estimates through this Bayesian framework by constraining the output with a standard water balance equation.

The case for investment in nutritional interventions to prevent and reduce childhood and adolescent overweight and obesity in Peru: a modelling study.

Background: Between 2006 and 2016 the prevalence of overweight and obesity among children and adolescents aged 5-19 years in Peru increased from 22.7 to 27.0%.

Tracking individual animals can reveal the mechanisms of species loss.

As biodiversity loss continues, targeted conservation interventions are increasingly necessary. Stemming species loss requires mechanistic understanding of the processes governing population dynamics. However, this information is unavailable for most animals because it requires data that are difficult to collect using traditional methods.

Environmental justice of Texas recreational water quality - The disproportionate E. coli levels and trends.

The presence of pathogens is one of the leading causes of stream water quality impairment in the US. Escherichia coli (E. coli) is a fecal pathogen indicator and also signals the presence of more pathogenic microbes.

Rapid shifts in grassland communities driven by climate change.

Many terrestrial plant communities, especially forests, have been shown to lag in response to rapid climate change. Grassland communities may respond more quickly to novel climates, as they consist mostly of short-lived species, which are directly exposed to macroclimate change. Here we report the rapid response of grassland communities to climate change in the California Floristic Province.

The LTAR Cropland Common Experiment at the Kellogg Biological Station.

The Kellogg Biological Station Long-term Agroecosystem Research site (KBS LTAR) joined the national LTAR network in 2015 to represent a northeast portion of the North Central Region, extending across 76,000 km of southern Michigan and northern Indiana. Regional cropping systems are dominated by corn (Zea mays)-soybean (Glycine max) rotations managed with conventional tillage, industry-average rates of fertilizer and pesticide inputs uniformly applied, few cover crops, and little animal integration. In 2020, KBS LTAR initiated the Aspirational Cropping System Experiment as part of the LTAR Common Experiment, a co-production model wherein stakeholders and researchers collaborate to advance transformative change in agriculture.