EDB - UMR5174

As is true of virtually every realm of the biological sciences, our understanding of speciation is increasingly informed by the genomic revolution of the past decade. Investigators can ask detailed questions relating to both the extrinsic (e.g. inter- and intra-population and ecological interactions) and intrinsic (e.g. genome content and architecture) forces that drive speciation. Technologies ranging from restriction-site associated DNA sequencing (RADseq), to whole genome sequencing and assembly, to transcriptomics, to CRISPR are revolutionizing the means by which investigators can both frame and test hypotheses of lineage diversification. Our review aims to examine both extrinsic and intrinsic aspects of speciation.(...)

Consumer‐driven nutrient recycling can have substantial effects on primary production and patterns of nutrient limitation in aquatic ecosystems by altering the rates as well as the relative supplies of the key nutrients nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P). While variation in nutrient recycling stoichiometry has been well‐studied among species, the mechanisms that explain intraspecific variation in recycling N:P are not well‐understood. We examined the relative importance of potential drivers of variation in nutrient recycling by the fish Gambusia marshi among aquatic habitats in the Cuatro Ciénegas basin of Coahuila, Mexico.(...)

Primary biodiversity data represent the fundamental elements of any study in systematics and evolution. They are, however, no longer gathered as they used to be and the mass-production of observation-based occurrences is overthrowing the collection of specimen-based occurrences. Although this change in practice is a major upheaval with significant consequences in the study of biodiversity, it remains understudied and has not attracted yet the attention it deserves. Analyzing 536 million occurrences from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) mediated data, we show that this spectacular change affects the 24 eukaryote taxonomic classes we targeted : from 1970 to 2016 the proportion of occurrences marked as traceable to tangible material (i.e. specimen-based occurrences) fell from 68 to 18% ; moreover, most of those specimen based-occurrences cannot be readily traced back to a specimen because the necessary information is missing. Ethical, practical or legal reasons responsible for this shift are known, and this situation appears unlikely to be reversed. Still, we urge scholars to acknowledge this dramatic change, embrace it and actively deal with it.(...)

While the ecological impacts of fishing the waters beyond national jurisdiction (the “high seas”) have been widely studied, the economic rationale is more difficult to ascertain because of scarce data on the costs and revenues of the fleets that fish there. Newly compiled satellite data and machine learning now allow us to track individual fishing vessels on the high seas in near real time. These technological advances help us quantify high-seas fishing effort, costs, and benefits, and assess whether, where, and when high-seas fishing makes economic sense. We characterize the global high-seas fishing fleet and report the economic benefits of fishing the high seas globally, nationally, and at the scale of individual fleets.(...)

Whether long‐distance animal migration facilitates or hampers pathogen transmission depends on how infections affect the routes and timing of migrating hosts. If an infection directly or indirectly impedes migratory flight capacity, infected individuals lag behind their uninfected conspecifics. Although such temporal segregation can limit parasite transmission and thus play an important role for host–parasite interactions, empirical evidence remains scarce. Here, we investigated haemosporidians – blood parasites commonly infecting birds – in four passerine species on spring passage and linked infection status to passage date. As a step towards identifying the mechanisms behind infection‐related delays, we incorporated sets of individual, energetic, haematological and biometric variables into the analysis.(...)