More stories

  • in

    Non-linear relationships between density and demographic traits in three Aedes species

    Hutchinson, G. E. An Introduction to Population Ecology (Yale University Press, 1978).MATH 

    Google Scholar 
    Fussman, G. F. & Heber, G. Food web complexity and chaotic population dynamics. Ecol. Lett. 5, 394–401 (1978).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Maron, J. L. & Crone, E. Herbivory: effects on plant abundance, distribution, and population growth. Proc. R. Soc. B. 272, 2575–2584 (1978).
    Google Scholar 
    Johst, K., Berryman, A. & Lima, M. From individual interactions to population dynamics: Individual resource partitioning simulation exposes the causes of nonlinear intra-specific competition. Pop. Ecol. 50, 79–90 (2008).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    McIntire, K. M. & Juliano, S. A. How can mortality increase population size? A test of two hypotheses. Ecology 99, 1660–1670 (2018).PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Mylius, S. D. & Deikmann, O. On evolutionary stable life histories, optimization and the need to be specific about density dependence. Oikos 74, 218–224 (1995).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Courchamp, F., Clutton-Brock, T. & Grenfell, B. Inverse density dependence and the Allee effect. Trends Ecol. Evol. 14, 405–410 (1999).CAS 
    PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    MacLean, R. C. & Gudelj, I. Resource competition and social conflict in experimental populations of yeast. Nature 44, 498–501 (2006).ADS 
    Article 
    CAS 

    Google Scholar 
    Khatchikian, C. E. et al. Recent and rapid population growth and range expansion of the Lyme disease tick vector, Ixodes scapularis North America. Evolution 69, 1678–1689 (2015).PubMed 
    PubMed Central 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Lafferty, K. D. & Holt, R. D. How should environmental stress affect the population dynamics of disease?. Ecol. Lett. 6, 654–664 (2003).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Sibley, R. M., Barker, D., Denham, M. C., Hone, J. & Pagel, M. On the regulation of populations of mammals, birds, fish, and insects. Science 309, 607–610 (2005).ADS 
    Article 
    CAS 

    Google Scholar 
    Bjorndal, K., Bolten, A. B. & Chaloupka, M. Y. Green turtle somatic growth model: evidence for density-dependence. Ecol. App. 10, 269–282 (2000).
    Google Scholar 
    Lamb, J. S., Satgé, Y. G. & Jodice, P. G. R. Influence of density-dependent competition on foraging and migratory behavior of a subtropical colonial seabird. Ecol. Evol. 7, 6469–6481 (2017).PubMed 
    PubMed Central 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Kobayashi, K. Sexual selection sustains biodiversity via producing negative density-dependent population growth. J. Ecol. 107, 1433–1438 (2018).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    López-Sepulcre, A. & Kokko, H. Territorial defense, territory size, and population regulation. Am. Nat. 166, 317–325 (2005).PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Maag, N., Cozzi, G., Clutton-Brock, T. & Ozgul, A. Density-dependent dispersal strategies in a cooperative breeder. Ecology 99, 1932–1941 (2018).PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Bonenfant, C. et al. Empirical evidence of density- dependence in populations of large herbivores. Adv. Ecol. Res. 41, 313–357 (2009).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Legros, M., Lloyd, A. L., Huang, Y. & Gould, F. Density-dependent intraspecific competition in the larval stage of Aedes aegypt (Diptera: Culicidae): Revisiting the current paradigm. J. Med. Entomol. 46, 409–419 (2009).PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Hixon, M. A. & Jones, G. P. Competition, predation, and density-dependent mortality in demersal marine fishes. Ecology 86, 2847–2859 (2006).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Vonesh, J. R. & De La Cruz, O. Complex life cycles and density dependence: Assessing the contribution of egg mortality to amphibian declines. Oecologia 133, 325–333 (2002).ADS 
    PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Southwood, T. R., Murdie, G., Yasuno, M., Tonn, R. J. & Reader, P. M. Studies on the life budget of Ae. aegypti in Wat Samphaya, Bangkok, Thailand. Bull. World Health Organ. 46, 211–226 (1972).CAS 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 

    Google Scholar 
    Dye, C. Intraspecific competition amongst larval Aedes aegypti: food exploitation or chemical interference. Ecol. Entomol. 7, 39–46 (1982).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Dye, C. Models for the population dynamics of the yellow fever mosquito, Aedes aegypti. J. Anim. Ecol. 53, 247–268 (1984).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Livdahl, T. P. & Willey, M. S. Prospects for an invasion: competition between Aedes albopictus and native Aedes triseriatus. Science 253, 189–191 (1991).ADS 
    CAS 
    PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Alto, B. W., Lounibos, L. P., Higgs, S. & Juliano, S. A. Larval competition differentially affects arbovirus infection in Aedes mosquito. Ecology 86, 3279–3288 (2005).PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Juliano, S. A. Population dynamics. J. Am. Mosq. Control Assoc. 23, 265–275 (2007).PubMed 
    PubMed Central 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Focks, D. A., Haile, D. G., Daniels, E. & Mount, G. A. Dynamics life table model for Aedes aegypti (diptera: Culicidae): simulation results and validation. J. Med. Entomol. 30, 1018–1028 (1993).CAS 
    PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Ellis, A. M., Garcia, A. J., Focks, D. A., Morrison, A. C. & Scott, T. W. Parameterization and sensitivity analysis of a complex simulation model for mosquito population dynamics, dengue transmission, and their control. Am. J. Trop. Med. Hyg. 85, 257–264 (2011).PubMed 
    PubMed Central 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Gilpin, M. E. & McClelland, G. A. H. Systems analysis of the yellow fever mosquito Aedes aegypti. Fortschr. Zool. 25, 355–388 (1979).CAS 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 
    Juliano, S. A. Species introduction and replacement among mosquitoes: Interspecific resource competition or apparent competition?. Ecology 79, 255–268 (1998).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Lord, C. C. Density dependence in larval Aedes albopictus (Diptera: Culicidae). J. Med. Entomol. 35, 825–829 (1998).CAS 
    PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Agnew, P., Hide, M., Sidobre, C. & Michalakis, Y. A minimalist approach to the effects of density-dependent competition on insect life-history traits. Ecol. Entomol. 27, 396–402 (2002).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Walsh, R. K., Facchinelli, L., Ramsey, J. M., Bond, J. G. & Gould, F. Assessing the impact of density dependence in field populations of Aedes aegypti. J. Vect. Ecol. 36, 300–307 (2011).CAS 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Walsh, R. K., Bradley, C., Apperson, C. S. & Gould, F. An experimental field study of delayed density dependence in natural populations of Aedes albopictus. PLoS ONE 7, e35959 (2012).ADS 
    CAS 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Walsh, R. K. et al. Regulation of Aedes aegypti population dynamics in field systems: Quantifying direct and delayed density dependence. Am. J. Trop. Med. Hyg. 89, 68–77 (2013).PubMed 
    PubMed Central 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Livdahl, T. P. & Sugihara, G. Non-linear interactions of populations and the importance of estimating per capita rates of change. J. Anim. Ecol. 53, 573–580 (1984).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Getz, W. M. A hypothesis regarding the abruptness of density dependence and the growth rate of populations. Ecology 77, 2014–2026 (1996).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Tenan, S., Tavecchia, G., Oro, D. & Pradel, R. Assessing the effect of density on population growth when modeling individual encounter data. Ecology 100, e02595 (2019).PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Arditi, R., Bersier, L. & Rohr, R. P. The perfect mixing paradox and the logistic equation: Verhulst vs. Lotka. Ecosphere 7, e01599 (2016).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Cortés, E. Perspectives on the intrinsic rate of population growth. Meth. Ecol. Evol. 7, 1136–1145 (2016).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Smith, F. E. Population dynamics in Daphnia magna and a new model for population growth. Ecology 4, 651–663 (1963).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Ayala, F. J., Gilpin, M. E. & Ehrenfeld, J. G. Competition between species: Theoretical models and experimental tests. Theor. Pop. Biol. 4, 331–356 (1973).MathSciNet 
    CAS 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Borlestean, A., Frost, P. C. & Murray, D. L. A mechanistic analysis of density dependence in algal population dynamics. Front. Ecol. Evol. 3, 37 (2015).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Clark, F., Brook, B. W., Delean, S., Akçakaya, H. R. & Bradshaw, C. J. A. The theta-logistic is unreliable for modelling most census data. Methods Ecol. Evol. 1, 253–262 (2010).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Chmielewski, M. W., Khatchikian, C. & Livdahl, T. Estimating the per capita rate of population change: How well do life-history surrogates perform?. Ann. Entomol. Soc. Am. 103, 734–741 (2010).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Neale, J. T. & Juliano, S. A. Finding the sweet spot: What levels of larval mortality lead to compensation or overcompensation in adult production?. Ecosphere. 10, e02855 (2019).PubMed 
    PubMed Central 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Armistead, J. S., Arias, J. R., Nishimura, N. & Lounibos, L. P. Interspecific larval competition between Aedes albopictus and Aedes japonicus (Diptera: Culicidae) in northern Virginia. J. Med. Entomol. 45, 629–637 (2008).CAS 
    PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Kaplan, L., Kendell, D., Robertson, D., Livdahl, T. & Khatchikian, C. Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus in Bermuda: Extinction, invasion, invasion and extinction. Bio. Invasions. 12, 3277–3288 (2010).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Juliano, S. A. Coexistence, exclusion, or neutrality? A meta-analysis of competition between Aedes albopictus and resident mosquitoes. Isr. J. Ecol. Evol. 56, 325–351 (2010).PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Murrell, E. G. & Juliano, S. A. Competitive abilities in experimental microcosms are accurately predicted by a demographic index for R*. PLoS ONE 7, e43458 (2012).ADS 
    CAS 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Leisnham, P. T. & Juliano, S. A. Interpopulation differences in competitive effect and response of the mosquito Aedes aegypti and resistance to invasion of a superior competitor. Oecologia 164, 221–230 (2010).ADS 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Leisnham, P. T., Lounibos, L. P., O’Meara, G. F. & Juliano, S. A. Interpopulation divergence in competitive interactions of the mosquito Aedes albopictus. Ecology 90, 2405–2413 (2009).CAS 
    PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Evans, M. V., Drake, J. M., Jones, L. & Murdock, C. C. Assessing temperature-dependent competition between two invasive mosquito species. Ecol. Appl. 31, e02334 (2021).PubMed 

    Google Scholar 
    Léonard, P. M. & Juliano, S. A. Effects of leaf litter and density on fitness and population performance of the hole mosquito Aedes triseriatus. Ecol. Entomol. 20, 125–136 (1995).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Chandrasegaran, K. & Juliano, S. A. How do trait-mediated non-lethal effects of predation affect population-level performance of mosquitoes?. Front. Ecol. Evol. 7, 25 (2019).PubMed 
    PubMed Central 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Yee, D. A., Kaufman, M. G. & Juliano, S. A. The significance of ratios of detritus types and microorganism productivity to competitive interactions between aquatic insect detritivores. J. Anim. Ecol. 76, 1105–1115 (2007).PubMed 
    PubMed Central 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Fader, J. E. & Juliano, S. A. An empirical test of the aggregation model of coexistence and consequences for competing container-dwelling mosquitoes. Ecology 94, 478–488 (2013).PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Murrell, E. G., Damal, K., Lounibos, L. P. & Juliano, S. A. Distributions of competing container mosquitoes depend on detritus types, nutrient ratios, and food availability. Ann. Entomol. Soc. Am. 104, 688–698 (2011).PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Tjørve, K. M. C. & Tjørve, E. The use of Gompertz models in growth analyses, and new Gompertz-model approach: An addition to the Unified-Richards family. PLoS ONE 12, e0178691 (2017).PubMed 
    PubMed Central 
    Article 
    CAS 

    Google Scholar 
    Motulsky, H. & Christopoulos, A. Fitting Models to Biological Data using Linear and Nonlinear Regression: A Practical Guide to Curve Fitting (Oxford University Press, 2004).MATH 

    Google Scholar 
    Osenberg, C. W. et al. Rethinking ecological inference: density dependence in reef fishes. Ecol. Lett. 5, 715–721 (2002).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Schmitt, R. J., Holbrook, S. J. & Osenberg, C. W. Quantifying the effects of multiple processes on local abundance: A cohort approach for open populations. Ecol. Lett. 2, 294–303 (1999).CAS 
    PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Fish, D. An analysis of adult size variation within natural mosquito population. In Ecology of Mosquitoes: Proceedings of a Workshop (eds Lounibos, L. P. et al.) 419–429 (Medical Entomology Laboratory, 1985).
    Google Scholar 
    Schneider, J. R., Chadee, D. D., Mori, A., Romero-Severson, J. & Severson, D. W. Heritability and adaptive phenotypic plasticity of adult body size in the mosquito Aedes aegypti with implications for dengue vector competence. Infect. Genet. Evol. 11, 11–16 (2011).PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Wormington, J. D. & Juliano, S. A. Sexually dimorphic body size and development time plasticity in Aedes mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae). Evol. Ecol. Res. 16, 1–12 (2014).
    Google Scholar 
    Steinwascher, K. Competition and growth among Aedes aegypti larvae: Effects of distributing food inputs over time. PLoS ONE 15, e0234676 (2020).CAS 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Barrera, R. Competition and resistance to starvation in larvae of container-inhabiting Aedes mosquitoes. Ecol. Entomol. 21, 117–127 (1996).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Servanty, S. et al. Assessing whether mortality is additive using marked animals: A Bayesian state-space modeling approach. Ecology 91, 1916–1923 (2010).PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Wolfe, M. L. et al. Is anthropogenic cougar mortality compensated by changes in natural mortality in Utah? Insights from long-term studies. Biol. Conserv. 182, 187–196 (2015).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Kogan, M. Integrated pest management: Historical perspectives and contemporary developments. Ann. Rev. Entomol. 43, 243–270 (1998).CAS 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Lounibos, L. P. Invasions by insect vectors of human diseases. Ann. Rev. Entomol. 47, 233–266 (2002).CAS 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Juliano, S. A. & Lounibos, L. P. Ecology of invasive mosquitoes: Effects on resident species and on human health. Ecol. Lett. 8, 558–574 (2005).PubMed 
    PubMed Central 
    Article 

    Google Scholar  More

  • in

    The effects of aqueous extract from watermelon (Citrullus lanatus) peel on the growth and physiological characteristics of Dolichospermum flos-aquae

    Barrington, D. J. & Ghadouani, A. Application of hydrogen peroxide for the removal of toxic cyanobacteria and other phytoplankton from wastewater. Environ. Sci. Technol. 42, 8916–8921. https://doi.org/10.1021/es801717y (2008).CAS 
    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 
    Vikrant, K. et al. Engineered/designer biochar for the removal of phosphate in water and wastewater. Sci. Total Environ. 616–617, 1242–1260. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.10.193 (2018).CAS 
    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 
    Merel, S. et al. State of knowledge and concerns on cyanobacterial blooms and cyanotoxins. Environ. Int. 59, 303–327. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2013.06.013 (2013).CAS 
    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 
    Paerl, H. W. & Otten, T. G. Harmful cyanobacterial blooms: Causes, consequences, and controls. Microb. Ecol. 65, 995–1010. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-012-0159-y (2013).CAS 
    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 
    Monchamp, M. E. et al. Homogenization of lake cyanobacterial communities over a century of climate change and eutrophication. Nat. Ecol. Evol. 2, 317–324. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-017-0407-0 (2018).Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 
    Paerl, H. W. & Fulton, R. S. Ecology of harmful cyanobacteria. In Ecology of Harmful Algae (eds Granéli, E. & Turner, J. T.) 95–109 (Springer, 2006).Chapter 

    Google Scholar 
    Guan, Y., Zhang, M., Yang, Z., Shi, X. & Zhao, X. Intra-annual variation and correlations of functional traits in Microcystis and Dolichospermum in Lake Chaohu. Ecol. Indic. 111, 106052. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2019.106052 (2020).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Zhang, M. et al. Spatial and seasonal shifts in bloom-forming cyanobacteria in Lake Chaohu: Patterns and driving factors. Phycol. Res. 64, 44–55. https://doi.org/10.1111/pre.12112 (2016).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Krishnamurthy, T., Carmichael, W. W. & Sarver, E. W. Toxic peptides from freshwater cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) I. Isolation, purification and characterization of peptides from Microcystis aeruginosa and Anabaena flos-aquae. Toxicon 24, 865–873. https://doi.org/10.1016/0041-0101(86)90087-5 (1986).CAS 
    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 
    Mahmood, N. A. & Carmichael, W. W. Anatoxin-a(s), an anticholinesterase from the cyanobacterium Anabaena flos-aquae NRC 525–17. Toxicon 25, 1221–1227. https://doi.org/10.1016/0041-0101(87)90140-1 (1987).CAS 
    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 
    Li, X., Dreher, T. W. & Li, R. An overview of diversity, occurrence, genetics and toxin production of bloom-forming Dolichospermum (Anabaena) species. Harmful Algae 54, 54–68. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hal.2015.10.015 (2016).CAS 
    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 
    Buratti, F. M. et al. Cyanotoxins: Producing organisms, occurrence, toxicity, mechanism of action and human health toxicological risk evaluation. Arch. Toxicol. 91, 1049–1130. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00204-016-1913-6 (2017).CAS 
    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 
    Iredale, R. S., McDonald, A. T. & Adams, D. G. A series of experiments aimed at clarifying the mode of action of barley straw in cyanobacterial growth control. Water Res. 46, 6095–6103. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2012.08.040 (2012).CAS 
    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 
    Zhang, S. H., Zhang, S. Y. & Li, G. Acorus calamus root extracts to control harmful cyanobacteria blooms. Ecol. Eng. 94, 95–101. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoleng.2016.05.053 (2016).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Mecina, G. F. et al. Effect of flavonoids isolated from Tridax procumbens on the growth and toxin production of Microcystis aeruginosa. Aquat. Toxicol. 211, 81–91. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aquatox.2019.03.011 (2019).CAS 
    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 
    Yuan, R. et al. The allelopathic effects of aqueous extracts from Spartina alterniflora on controlling the Microcystis aeruginosa blooms. Sci. Total Environ. 712, 13622. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.136332 (2020).CAS 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Tan, K. et al. A review of allelopathy on microalgae. Microbiology 165, 587–592. https://doi.org/10.1099/mic.0.000776 (2019).CAS 
    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 
    Mecina, G. F. et al. Response of Microcystis aeruginosa BCCUSP 232 to barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) straw degradation extract and fractions. Sci. Total. Environ. 599–600, 1837–1847. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.05.156 (2017).CAS 
    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 
    Zhao, W., Zheng, Z., Zhang, J., Roger, S. F. & Luo, X. Allelopathically inhibitory effects of eucalyptus extracts on the growth of Microcystis aeruginosa. Chemosphere 225, 424–433. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2019.03.070 (2019).CAS 
    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 
    Bottino, F. et al. Effects of macrophyte leachate on Anabaena sp. and Chlamydomonas moewusii growth in freshwater tropical ecosystems. Limnology 19, 171–176. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10201-017-0532-0 (2018).CAS 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Zhang, K., Yu, M., Xu, P., Zhang, S. & Benoit, G. Physiological and morphological response of Aphanizomenon flos-aquae to watermelon (Citrullus lanatus) peel aqueous extract. Aquat. Toxicol. 225, 105548. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aquatox.2020.105548 (2020).CAS 
    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 
    Lichtenthaler, H. K. & Buschmann, C. Chlorophylls and carotenoids: Measurement and characterization by UV-VIS spectroscopy. Curr. Protoc. Food Anal. Chem. 1, F4.3.1-F4.38 (2001).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Ozaki, K. et al. Electron microscopic study on lysis of a cyanobacterium Microcystis. J. Health Sci. 55, 578–585. https://doi.org/10.1248/jhs.55.578 (2009).CAS 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Staats, N., De Winder, B., Stal, L. J. & Mur, L. R. Isolation and characterization of extracellular polysaccharides from the epipelic diatoms Cylindrotheca closterium and Navicula salinarum. Eur. J. Phycol. 34, 161–169. https://doi.org/10.1080/09670269910001736212 (1999).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Hellebust, J. & Craigie, J. (eds) Handbook of Phycological Methods. Physiological and Biochemical Methods (Cambridge University, 1978).
    Google Scholar 
    Roháček, K. & Barták, M. Technique of the modulated chlorophyll fluorescence: Basic concepts, useful parameters, and some applications. Photosynthetica 37, 339–363. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1007172424619 (1999).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Zhang, T. T., He, M., Wu, A. P. & Nie, L. W. Inhibitory effects and mechanisms of Hydrilla verticillata (Linn.f.) royle extracts on freshwater algae. Bull. Environ. Contam. Toxicol. 88, 477–481. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00128-011-0500-z (2012).CAS 
    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 
    Zhao, S., Pan, W. & Ma, C. Stimulation and inhibition effects of algae-lytic products from Bacillus cereus strain L7 on Anabaena flos-aquae. J. Appl. Phycol. 24, 1015–1021. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10811-011-9725-9 (2012).CAS 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Kaminski, A. et al. Aquatic macrophyte Lemna trisulca (L.) as a natural factor for reducing anatoxin-a concentration in the aquatic environment and biomass of cyanobacterium Anabaena flos-aquae (Lyngb.) de Bréb. Algal Res. 9, 212–217. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.algal.2015.03.014 (2015).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Gumbo, J. R., Cloete, T. E., van Zyl, G. J. J. & Sommerville, J. E. M. The viability assessment of Microcystis aeruginosa cells after co-culturing with Bacillus mycoides B16 using flow cytometry. Phys. Chem. Earth. 72–75, 24–33. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pce.2014.09.004 (2014).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Fan, J., Ho, L., Hobson, P. & Brookes, J. Evaluating the effectiveness of copper sulphate, chlorine, potassium permanganate, hydrogen peroxide and ozone on cyanobacterial cell integrity. Water Res. 47, 5153–5164. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2013.05.057 (2013).CAS 
    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 
    Lu, Z. Studies on oxidative stress and programmed cell death of Microcystis aeruginosa induced by polyphenolic allelochemicals (D). Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (2014).Lu, Z. et al. Polyphenolic allelochemical pyrogallic acid induces caspase-3(like)-dependent programmed cell death in the cyanobacterium Microcystis aeruginosa. Algal Res. 21, 148–155. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.algal.2016.11.007 (2017).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Chen, Y. et al. Vitamin C modulates Microcystis aeruginosa death and toxin release by induced Fenton reaction. J. Hazard. Mater. 321, 888–895. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2016.10.010 (2017).CAS 
    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 
    Latifi, A., Ruiz, M. & Zhang, C. C. Oxidative stress in cyanobacteria. FEMS Microbiol. Rev. 33, 258–278. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1574-6976.2008.00134.x (2009).CAS 
    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 
    Shao, J. H., Wu, X. Q. & Li, R. H. Physiological responses of Microcystis aeruginosa PCC7806 to nonanoic acid stress. Environ. Toxicol. 24, 610–617. https://doi.org/10.1002/tox.20462 (2009).CAS 
    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 
    Hua, Q. et al. Allelopathic effect of the rice straw aqueous extract on the growth of Microcystis aeruginosa. Ecotox. Environ. Safe. 148, 953–959. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoenv.2017.11.049 (2018).CAS 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Chen, L., Wang, Y., Shi, L., Zhao, J. & Wang, W. Identification of allelochemicals from pomegranate peel and their effects on Microcystis aeruginosa growth. Environ. Sci. Pollut. Res. 26, 22389–22399. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-019-05507-1 (2019).CAS 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Zhang, S. H., Xu, P. Y. & Chang, J. J. Physiological responses of Aphanizomenon flos-aquae under the stress of Sagittaria sagittifolia extract. Bull. Environ. Contam. Toxicol. 97, 870–875. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00128-016-1948-7 (2016).CAS 
    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 
    Li, J. et al. Growth inhibition and oxidative damage of Microcystis aeruginosa induced by crude extract of Sagittaria trifolia tubers. J. Environ. Sci. 43, 40–47. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jes.2015.08.020 (2016).CAS 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Shao, J. et al. Inhibitory effects of sanguinarine against the cyanobacterium Microcystis aeruginosa NIES-843 and possible mechanisms of action. Aquat. Toxicol. 142–143, 257–263. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aquatox.2013.08.019 (2013).CAS 
    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 
    Apel, K. & Hirt, H. Reactive oxygen species: Metabolism, oxidative stress, and signal transduction. Annu. Rev. Plant. Biol. 55, 373–399. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.arplant.55.031903.141701 (2004).CAS 
    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 
    Zhang, S. & Benoit, G. Comparative physiological tolerance of unicellular and colonial Microcystis aeruginosa to extract from Acorus calamus rhizome. Aquat. Toxicol. 215, 105271. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aquatox.2019.105271 (2019).CAS 
    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 
    Derks, A., Schaven, K. & Bruce, D. Diverse mechanisms for photoprotection in photosynthesis. Dynamic regulation of photosystem II excitation in response to rapid environmental change. BBA-Bioenergetics 1847, 468–485. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbabio.2015.02.008 (2015).CAS 
    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 
    Jiang, H. & Qiu, B. Photosynthetic adaptation of a bloom-forming cyanobacterium Microcystis aeruginosa (cyanophyceae) to prolonged uv-b exposure. J. Phycol. 41, 983–992. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1529-8817.2005.00126.x (2005).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Azizullah, A., Richter, P. & Häder, D. P. Photosynthesis and photosynthetic pigments in the flagellate Euglena gracilis: As sensitive endpoints for toxicity evaluation of liquid detergents. J. Photochem. Photobiol. B Biol. 133, 18–26. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jphotobiol.2014.02.011 (2014).CAS 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Singh, D. P., Khattar, J. I. S., Gupta, M. & Kaur, G. Evaluation of toxicological impact of cartap hydrochloride on some physiological activities of a non-heterocystous cyanobacterium Leptolyngbya foveolarum. Pestic. Biochem. Phys. 110, 63–70. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pestbp.2014.03.002 (2014).CAS 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Movasaghi, Z., Rehman, S. & Rehman, I. U. Raman spectroscopy of biological tissues. Appl. Spectrosc. Rev. 42, 493–541. https://doi.org/10.1080/05704920701551530 (2007).CAS 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Li, K. et al. In vivo kinetics of lipids and astaxanthin evolution in Haematococcus pluvialis mutant under 15% CO2 using Raman microspectroscopy. Bioresource Technol. 244, 1439–1444. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biortech.2017.04.116 (2017).CAS 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Beutner, S. et al. Quantitative assessment of antioxidant properties of natural colorants and phytochemicals: Carotenoids, flavonoids, phenols and indigoids. The role of beta-carotene in antioxidant functions. J. Sci. Food. Agric. 81, 559–568. https://doi.org/10.1002/jsfa.849 (2001).CAS 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Kelman, D., Ben-Amotz, A. & Berman-Frank, I. Carotenoids provide the major antioxidant defence in the globally significant N2-fixing marine cyanobacterium Trichodesmiumem. Environ. Microbiol. 11, 1897–1908. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1462-2920.2009.01913.x (2009).CAS 
    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 
    Zhou, T. et al. Growth suppression and apoptosis-like cell death in Microcystis aeruginosa by H2O2: A new insight into extracellular and intracellular damage pathways. Chemosphere 211, 1098–1108. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2018.08.042 (2018).CAS 
    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 
    Schreiber, U., Quayle, P., Schmidt, S., Escher, B. I. & Mueller, J. F. Methodology and evaluation of a highly sensitive algae toxicity test based on multiwell chlorophyll fluorescence imaging. Biosens. Bioelectron. 22, 2554–2563. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bios.2006.10.018 (2007).CAS 
    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 
    Kumar, K. S. et al. Algal photosynthetic responses to toxic metals and herbicides assessed by chlorophyll a fluorescence. Ecotox. Environ. Safe. 104, 51–71. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoenv.2014.01.042 (2014).CAS 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Maxwell, K. & Johnson, G. N. Chlorophyll fluorescence: A practical guide. J Exp Bot 51, 659–668. https://doi.org/10.1093/jxb/51.345.659 (2000).CAS 
    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 
    Lürling, M. & Roessink, I. On the way to cyanobacterial blooms: Impact of the herbicide metribuzin on the competition between a green alga (Scenedesmus) and a cyanobacterium (Microcystis). Chemosphere 65, 618–626. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2006.01.073 (2006).CAS 
    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 
    Zhu, J. Y., Liu, B. Y., Wang, J., Gao, Y. N. & Wu, Z. B. Study on the mechanism of allelopathic influence on cyanobacteria and chlorophytes by submerged macrophyte (Myriophyllum spicatum) and its secretion. Aquat. Toxicol. 98, 196–203. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aquatox.2010.02.011 (2010).CAS 
    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 
    Wan, J., Guo, P., Peng, X. & Wen, K. Effect of erythromycin exposure on the growth, antioxidant system and photosynthesis of Microcystis flos-aquae. J. Hazard. Mater. 283, 778–786. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2014.10.026 (2015).CAS 
    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 
    Wang, R. et al. Evaluating the effects of allelochemical ferulic acid on Microcystis aeruginosa by pulse-amplitude-modulated (PAM) fluorometry and flow cytometry. Chemosphere 147, 264–271. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2015.12.109 (2016).CAS 
    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 
    Long, M. et al. Allelochemicals from Alexandrium minutum induce rapid inhibition of metabolism and modify the membranes from Chaetoceros muelleri. Algal Res. 35, 508–518. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.algal.2018.09.023 (2018).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Cosgrove, J. & Borowitzka, M. A. Chloreophyll fluorescence terminology: An introduction. In Chlorophyll a Fluorescence in Aquatic Sciences: Methods and Applications, Developments in Applied Phycology Vol. 4 (eds Sugget, D. J. et al.) 1–18 (Springer, 2010).
    Google Scholar 
    Kumar, K. S. & Han, T. Physiological response of Lemna species toherbicides and its probable use in toxicity testing. Toxicol. Environ. Health Sci. 2, 39–49. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03216512 (2010).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Ricart, M. et al. Primary and complex stressors in polluted mediterranean rivers: Pesticide effects on biological communities. J. Hydrol. 383, 52–61. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2009.08.014 (2010).CAS 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Deng, C., Pan, X. & Zhang, D. Influence of of loxacin on photosystems I and II activities of Microcystis aeruginosa and the potential role of cyclic electron flow. J. Biosci. Bioeng. 119, 159–164. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbiosc.2014.07.014 (2015).CAS 
    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 
    Pereira, S. et al. Complexity of cyanobacterial exopolysaccharides: Composition, structures, inducing factors and putative genes involved in their biosynthesis and assembly. FEMS Microbiol. Rev. 33, 917–941. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1574-6976.2009.00183.x (2009).CAS 
    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 
    Gao, L. et al. Extracellular polymeric substances buffer against the biocidal effect of H2O2 on the bloom-forming cyanobacterium Microcystis aeruginosa. Water Res. 69, 51–58. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2014.10.060 (2015).CAS 
    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 
    Zhang, S. et al. Ameliorating effects of extracellular polymeric substances excreted by Thalassiosira pseudonana on algal toxicity of CdSe quantum dots. Aquat. Toxicol. 126, 214–223. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aquatox.2012.11.012 (2013).CAS 
    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 
    Henriques, I. D. S. & Love, N. G. The role of extracellular polymeric substances in the toxicity response of activated sludge bacteria to chemical toxins. Water Res. 41, 4177–4185. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2007.05.001 (2007).CAS 
    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 
    Zheng, S. M. et al. Role of extracellular polymeric substances on the behavior and toxicity of silver nanoparticles and ions to green algae Chlorella vulgaris. Sci. Total Environ. 660, 1182–1190. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.01.067 (2019).CAS 
    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar  More

  • in

    Intolerant baboons avoid observer proximity, creating biased inter-individual association patterns

    All research methods included in this study were performed in accordance with the relevant guidelines and regulations, under ZA/LP/81996 research permit, with ethical approval from the Animal Welfare Ethical Review Board (AWERB) at Durham University. The authors confirm the study was carried out in compliance with ARRIVE guidelines.All inter-individual association data was collected between June 2018 and June 2019 on a wild habituated group of Afro-montane chacma baboons in the western Soutpansberg Mountains, South Africa (central coordinates S29.44031°, E23.02217°) (for study site description see2). The study group was habituated circa 2005 and was the focus of intermittent research attention until 2014. The study area experienced long-term anthropogenic activities (local farming, forestry, and residences) prior to 2005, as such, consistent interactions with humans have been ongoing with this population for some time. From 2007 onwards numerous researchers were able to collect expansive datasets on the study group (e.g. Refs.17,18), indicating that habituation was at a typical level found elsewhere (also validated by AA and RH, who had researched chacma baboons elsewhere). From 2014 the group received full day (dawn until dusk) follows 3–4 days a week, with occasional gaps of up to 5 weeks in duration. These gaps did not appear to effect habituation levels, likely due to the presence of other researchers at the field site who always tried to act benignly when encountering the habituated group. The follow schedule was designed so that the study group retained as much of their natural interactions with predators as possible by ensuring the baboons spent significant time without observers who may influence the frequency and nature of predator–prey interactions19.The study site was located in a private nature reserve and the study group was not hunted during observation gaps or engaged in any conflict with humans, other than occasionally being scared (chasing, yelling, throwing stones etc.) from a small plantation by local workers, usually resulting in alarm barks and fleeing responses. However, the study group appeared adept at recognising the differences between researchers and these threats20. The majority of the study group’s home-range typically overlapped with the core area of the Lajuma Research Centre, and as a result, interactions with staff living in the area, unfamiliar researchers, and tourists were frequent. However, the baboons had not engaged in ‘raiding’ residences, threatening humans, or any other potentially negative symptom of habituation before the end of this study.Sampling methodology for proximity associations30-s focal sampling was used to collect proximity associations between all group members (excluding infants). All data was collected between June and December 2018 and January and June 2019; the majority of 2018s data was collected during the wet season, whilst most of 2019s data was collected during the dry season. To account for time of day, each day was split into four time-periods that were seasonally adjusted ensuring each period accounted for 25% of the current day length. A randomly ordered list of individuals was produced for each day, the first individual identified from the top 15 (approx. 20% of group size) individuals on the list was sampled immediately. Individuals could only be sampled once per time period per day, and a maximum of twice total per day. All individuals received at least 14 focal observations per time period (56 total) across the study period (see below for how we handled uneven sampling for some individuals). A video camera was used by AA (the only observer to collect this data) to record all focal observations (Panasonic HC-W580 Camcorder). At the end of the 30-s focal observation the identities of all neighbouring conspecifics within 5 m, 2.5 m, 1 m, and touching the focal animal were recorded (audibly by AA). We chose the end of the focal observation to record this data as this was most likely to reflect the conditions during the focal, i.e., the observer had been in proximity for at least 30 s.Neighbour information was extracted from video footage and entered manually by AA and AW. Data was split into separate years to reflect an observation gap of several weeks and to understand whether there was consistency in the hypothesized effects through time and to reflect underlying differences in environmental conditions during the two study periods; during the dry season fruits and seeds are scarce and day lengths are several hours shorter than in the wet season such that day journey lengths are often shorter in the dry season and animals are much more sedentary which could impact inter-individual spacings. In 2018 each individual was sampled between 28 and 30 times; 28 focals were randomly selected from each individual to make sampling even. For 2019 there were between 25 and 27 focals per individual; 25 samples of each individual were randomly selected. Observations were undertaken at a range of distances. For both years the median end observer distance was 4.5 m; data was thus split into close focal observations of less than or equal to 4.5 m (2018: n = 918, 2019: n = 809), and observations greater than 4.5 m (2018: n = 902 2019: n = 816). See supporting information Table S1 for summary statistics of the observation distances of each individual.We did not make any attempt to record our focal data evenly across the various habitats at our field site (see Supporting information text S1 for complete habitat descriptions) as our previous research indicated there was little difference in general spatial cohesion/inter-individual proximity patterns across these habitats (see Supporting information text S2 and Table S2). As a result, we considered it unlikely that there were fundamental differences in inter-individual association patterns across habitats, or that observers struggled to reliably detect or identify neighbours in dense habitats. We do acknowledge, however, that there will always be an element of bias with such methods, as observations were avoided, aborted, or excluded if visual obstructions (e.g., cliffs, rocks, walls, buildings, very dense vegetation etc.) prohibited accurate assessments; the observations used in the current study are from occasions when these factors were not an issue.During this study the group contained between 85 and 92 individuals. Age-sex class was defined according to secondary sexual characteristics (e.g., testes descending/enlarging, sexual swelling, canine eruption) and changes in pelage throughout juvenile development (see Supporting information text S3 for full descriptions). All 65 non-infant individuals that were present during 2017 (when displacement tolerances were calculated) and still remaining in the group by the end of 2019 were used in this study (4 individuals from the prior FID study were no longer present). There were a high number of births between 2018 and 2019, but none were independent by the time either of our sampling periods begun in 2018 or 2019. There was no immigration of foreign individuals, but two individuals disappeared, both during the 2018 focal sampling period. As a result, we had a very consistent pool of individuals to sample from during this study. We removed all data associated with the two individuals who disappeared as their occurrences as neighbours would have been poorly sampled (due to missing more than half the study) relative to the rest of the group which would have led to statistical biases21.Flight initiation distance procedureIndividual displacement tolerance estimates were previously quantified in our previous research2 using a flight initiation distance (FID) procedure22 that was completed between October 2017 and April 2018, prior and independent to the commencement of proximity association focal sampling in June 2018. Individual baboons were approached by an observer, and the distance at which the animal displaced away from the observer measured (see Supporting information Table S2 for summary statistics). This procedure was repeated 24 times for each individual baboon, with approaches spread evenly across two observers differing in familiarity. At the beginning of each approach we also recorded several behavioural, social, and environmental factors that could have hypothetically influenced an individual’s FID2 including whether the animal was engaged (e.g., digging or grooming) or not engaged (e.g., resting, chewing food, being groomed), habitat type (open/closed: see Supporting text S1), whether the animal was on the ground or sat on a low branch or rock within 50 cm of the ground, the number of conspecifics within 5 m of the focal animal, and whether there had been any external events within the preceding 5 min (e.g., alarm calls, aggressions, encountering another group or predator). During the approach, we also recorded the visual orientation distance (the distance at which the focal animal directed its line of vision towards the head of the approaching observer) and whether one of the focal animal’s neighbours had displaced/fled before the focal animal. Although all but neighbour flee first and external events showed some importance for predicting looking (see Table S4), FID was found to be distinct amongst individuals and repeatable within each individual, evidence that displacement tolerance may be an individual level trait2. Full details of methods, statistical analysis, and results (including comparison to the original model) for this updated model are in Supporting information text S4, with model summary results for the previous and updated models in Tables S3 and S4.The notion of an observer approaching a habituated primate may be considered atypical or likely to result in habituation/sensitization effects or agonistic behaviours being directed towards the approaching observers. However, our previous study2 showed that almost all approaches resulted in the animal passively relocating (98.85%), a very benign response identical to the behaviours of subordinate baboons displacing away from dominant conspecifics. This suggests that in this group, observers may be considered equivalent to a high-level social threat2. Throughout observation periods on habituated animals, observers are likely to approach or displace animals either incidentally or accidentally multiple times throughout the day, especially during lengthy focal observations. As such, the approach methodology is unlikely to represent a stimulus outside of the norm for our study animals. This may explain why displacement responses were so passive and why there was no evidence of habituation or sensitization effects across the group or individually through a range of temporal periods2 or after life-threatening events20. As a result, our situation was possible without risk of causing stress or anxiety in the study subjects, eliciting agonistic behaviours towards observers, or interfering with their prior habituation levels.Statistical analysisInfluence of tolerance and observer distance on inter-individual association patternsQuantifying displacement toleranceTo quantify displacement tolerance towards observers we extracted the individual conditional modes from the updated FID model using the ranef function in brms. Conditional modes are often referred to as Best Linear Unbiased Predictors (BLUPs) and are the difference between the predicted mean population-level response for a given set of treatments (i.e., population-level effects) and the predicted responses for each individual, and therefore infer the extent to which each individual differs from the population mean. The conditional modes and their associated standard deviations can be found in supporting information Table S5.To validate that the conditional modes from the updated model were both representative of the individual’s flight responses and in line with the estimates produced from our previous study2 we performed additional tests. Firstly, we performed a Pearson’s correlation between the conditional modes from the updated model and the conditional modes from the previous article. Individual tolerance estimates were consistent (r(63) = 0.915, p  More

  • in

    New integrated hydrologic approach for the assessment of rivers environmental flows into the Urmia Lake

    Specifications of the study areaUrmia Lake, as the largest inland lake of Iran, is a national park and one of the largest Ramsar sites of Iran (Ramsar, 1971). The lake is formed in a natural depression within the catchment area in the northwest of Iran. The basin of the lake covers an area of 52,000 km2 and its area is about 5,700 km249. In addition, its maximum length and width are 140 and 50 km, respectively. Further, the lake catchment is a closed inland basin in which all rainwater runoff flows to the central saline lake, and evaporation from the surface of the lake is the only way out. More importantly, it is the largest saltwater lake in Iran and the second largest saltwater lake in the world.The current surface flow system to Urmia Lake consists of 10 main rivers with permanent flow potential, including Zola, Nazlu, Rozeh, Shahrchai, Baranduz, Gadar, Mahabad, Simineh, Zarrineh, and Aji. In terms of the water supply potential of Urmia Lake, Zarrineh, Simineh, Aji, and Nazlu rivers with a flow allocation of 41, 11, 10, and 6% have a key role, respectively.The rivers of this basin are originated from mountains and pass through the heights and enter the agricultural plains. The main usage in plains are for agriculture which cause the changes in natural rivers flow regime. On the other hand, the natural flow regime of the rivers should be considered as the basis for e-flow calculation. So, in the current study the obtained data from the stations situated in the upstream of the rivers and the stations before the agricultural plains are utilized to alleviate the effects of agricultural use on natural flow regime of the rivers. Also, to eliminate the effects of dam rule curve on river flow regime, stations situated in the upstream of the dams are considered as the main scale in the upstream of the dammed rivers like Zarrineh, Mahabad and Zola. Despite all the efforts made to select stations with the least human impact, the two stations related to Aji and Shahar Rivers have been affected by the structures built above them. Therefore, in order to eliminate the effects of the constructed structures at the upstream of the stations, flow naturalization methods were used only for the two stations of Venyar of Aji River and the Band Urmia station of Shahar River. There are several ways to naturalize hydrometric station data. Terrier et al.51 by studying flow naturalization methods in various researches were able to provide a comprehensive study of naturalization methods and selection criteria for each of these methods. According to their studies, the first and the most important prerequisite for stream naturalization is to identify the factors affecting the river and the quality of data in the region, which play a major role in choosing the flow naturalization method. Two factors play a major role in affecting river hydrology. The first factor is the construction of hydraulic structures along the path of rivers and the second factor is the change of land use that has occurred in the rivers basin. In the current study, the purpose of flow naturalization is to eliminate the effects of large dams built on the inlet rivers of the lake, which can affect the hydrology of the river flow. It should be noted that it is not possible to eliminate the effects of land use change due to the gradual nature of the changes, the inability to determine the exact amount and time of the changes and the lack of required data as well. Therefore, in this study, the effects of land use change at the upstream of the stations have been neglected. The most important reason that the Aji River needs to naturalize is the existence of several small dams upstream of Venyar station. To eliminate the effects of dams and flow naturalization at the upstream of this station, the spatial interpolation method introduced by Hughes and Smakhtin52 was used. In this method, Sahzab hydrometric station located at the upstream of the river was used as a base station to naturalize the flow. The next station which needs to be naturalized the flow is the Band Urmia station Shahar River. The main problem for this river has been the construction of a dam upstream of Band Urmia river station since 2004. The drainage area ratio method introduced by Hirsch53 was used to eliminate the effect of this dam on the station data. This method has been used by various researchers to naturalize river flow54,55,56 which is based on the upstream drainage area of the stations. In this method the ratio of the drainage area of the two stations is used to naturalize the flow in the affected station. For this purpose, the data of Bardehsoor station located upstream of the dam was used to naturalize the data of the Band Urmia station. So, anthropogenic effects are at the minimum level in calculations. The utilized stations to calculate the e-flow as upstream stations are illustrated in Fig. 1.Figure 1An overview of the Urmia Lake basin, the rivers, and selected gauging stations. Figure 1 was generated by ArcGIS v10.2 software50 (Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc., USA, URL http://www.esri.com/).Full size imageAppropriate criteria for allocating the EWR of the Urmia LakeDue to the high salinity of Urmia Lake, only a small number of invertebrates make up the living organisms of this huge water body. Saltwater shrimp or Artemia is a type of aquatic crustacean which can be found in saltwater lakes or coastal lagoons worldwide. Artemia can tolerate salinity less than 10 gl−1 up to 340 gl−1 and adapt to environmental conditions. Artemia Urmiana, the most well-known species of the Urmia Lake, is considered as the main food of migratory birds that spend part of their wintering period on the lake and surrounding wetlands. The presence of this species in the Urmia Lake was first reported by Gunter (1899), and many researchers have confirmed the existence of this bisexual creature in this lake57,58,59,60,61.One of the key factors in estimating the EWR of Urmia Lake is to create an appropriate environmental condition for its dominant species. Abbaspour and Nazari Doost39 identified the EWR of the Urmia Lake by considering the living conditions of Artemia as its dominant species. In this study, Artemia Urmaina was selected as a biological indicator, along with NaCl and elevation above mean sea level (AMSL) as the indicators of water quality and quantity, respectively. The combination of these three indicators forms the ecological basis of Urmia Lake. Therefore, salinity is considered to be equal to 240 gl−1 as the tolerable limit of the biological index. Using long-term statistics in the Urmia Lake and the relationship between quantitative and qualitative water indicators, the water level of 1274.1 m (AMSL) was chosen as the ecological level of the lake so that the balance of these three indicators remained within the allowable range. The study indicated that the calculated environmental water demand of Urmia Lake was equal to 3084 Mm3 per year provided by main rivers entering the lake. Therefore, the proposed new methods should be able to deliver this volume of water to the lake and simultaneously feed the EFR of the river. To supply this water volume, government has programs in order to mitigate the water consumption especially in agriculture. The most important program is 40 percent reduction in agricultural water consumption which is accompanied with the increase of efficiency. Also the government pursues urban wastewater treatment to retrieve some of domestic water to the lake. The mentioned programs are time consuming, however, the new methods presented in this study can be useful for managers in determining the allocation patterns and consumption management. Ordinary method of flow duration curve shifting (FDCS) in estimating e-flowSince the early 1990s, various methods have been developed based on the hydrological indices62 in order to determine the e-flow by taking into account the flow variability and adaptation to the ecological conditions of rivers. One of the intended diagrams in the study of the hydrological characteristics is the flow duration curve (FDC), which is used to assess the fluctuations and variability of water flow from an environmental point of view. Given the importance of the presence of flood currents in the restoration of the river and wetland ecosystems63,64, the FDC is one of the most practical methods to show the full range of river discharge characteristics from water shortage to flood events. This diagram also demonstrates the relationship between the amount and frequency of the flow which can be prepared for daily, annual, and monthly time intervals65. The FDCS is a method in which FDC is employed to estimate the river flow. This method was introduced by Smakhtin and Anputhas66 to evaluate the e-flow in the river system. The method, which is called FDCS, provides a hydrological regime to protect the river in the desired ecological conditions.In the previous research, most of the rivers in the Urmia Lake basin have been compatible with FDCS, and due to the lack of biological data regarding these rivers, it is always one of the top priorities among the methods of estimating the e-flow in rivers leading to the Urmia Lake67,68. It is noteworthy that the characteristics of calculation steps of the ordinary method are provided as follows.This method consists of four main steps:

    1.

    Assessing the existing hydrological conditions (preparing the FDC for a natural river flow regime),

    2.

    Selecting the appropriate environmental management class;

    3.

    Acquiring the environmental FDC;

    4.

    Generating e-flow time series.

    The first step is to prepare the FDC in the desired river range using monthly flow data. In this method, FDC for the natural river flow regime is prepared by 17 fixed percentage points of occurrence probabilities (0.01, 0.1, 1, 5, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 95, 99, 99.9, 99.99) where P1 = 99.99% and P17 = 0.01% represent the highest and lowest probability of occurrence, respectively. These points ensure that the entire flow range is adequately covered, as well as facilitating the continuation of the next steps.This method, which uses mean monthly flow (MMF) data, considers six environmental management classes (EMC) from A to F. The FDC of EFR (FDC-EFR) for each class in terms of EMC is determined based on the obtained natural river FDC by the MMF. The higher EMC needs more water to maintain the ecosystem. These classes are determined based on empirical relationships between the flow and ecological status of rivers, which currently have no specific criteria for identifying these limits. The selection of the appropriate class individually relies on the expert’s judgment of the river ecosystem condition.After obtaining the natural FDC, the next step is to calculate the FDC-EFR for each EMC using the lateral shifts of FDC to the left along the probabilistic axis. For EMC-A rivers, one lateral shift to the left is applied while two, three, and four lateral shifts are employed for EMC-B, EMC-C, and EMC-D rivers, respectively. It should be noted that the overall hydrological pattern of the flow will be maintained although the flow variation is lost for each shift.In the current study, global e-flow calculation (GEFC) v2.0 software69,70 has been utilized to compute the e-flow by the FDCS method. The long-term data (at least 20 years) of MMF are the required input data for this software.According to the research conducted on the rivers of the Urmia Lake basin, EMC-C is the minimum considered EMC for 10 main rivers of the lake, thus the EMC-C has been considered in this study, and all calculations for classes A, B, C have been performed accordingly.The description of new methods based on ordinary methodThe main purpose of presenting new methods is to combine the EWR of wetlands or lakes and the hydrological method of FDCS, which can be used to calculate the e-flow of rivers and meet the needs of lakes or wetlands in downstream. These methods relies on the FDCS while with the difference that the proposed method includes three fundamental changes compared to the original one.

    1.

    Applying monthly FDC (FDC for each month separately) instead of annual FDC,

    2.

    Employing daily flow data instead of MMF,

    3.

    Considering the downstream EWR in the amount of the lateral shift in the FDCS method.

    The use of the structure of new methods lead to a dynamic process that is based on the selected EMC of the river, the amount of the natural flow, and the date of occurrence and can compute the amount of the e-flow of the river on each day of the year.River hydrology greatly varies depending on the type of the basin, the climate of the area, and the relationship between the basin and the river each exhibiting different behaviors during the months of the year. Accordingly, the proposed methods should provide sufficient comprehensiveness in estimating the e-flow by considering different flow characteristics. Due to the type and timing of precipitation in the Urmia Lake basin, the rivers are full of water from March to June and spend extremely less flows during the other times of the year. For example, Fig. 2 shows the distribution of the Nazlu River flows in the west of Urmia Lake throughout the year. According to the data, 74% of the AF crosses the river from March to June, and the highest and lowest river discharges are related to May with 29% and September and August with 2% of the AF, respectively.Figure 2Historical hydrograph at the Tapik Station, Nazlu River: (a) Daily and mean monthly distribution of flows and (b) Magnified hydrograph for a typical year (1993).Full size imageAccording to the flow distribution throughout the year, the annual FDC is an average FDC of each month of the year. However, the flow of a river during the months of the year represents significant changes. Therefore, the monthly FDC is higher than the annual FDC in the high-water months (e.g., May). Additionally, this curve is lower compared to the annual FDC in the low-water months (e.g., September). Accordingly, the use of monthly FDCs provides more details of changes in the hydrological parameters of the flow and can be a better indicator of the hydrological index of river flows.In the conventional FDCS method, the FDC is obtained using the MMF data of each station. The obtained curve represents the monthly average of river flow and does not illustrates the minimum, maximum and the effect of flow fluctuations in the estimation of e-flows (Fig. 2).In the new methods, all FDC diagrams were obtained by daily data. Both annual (EFR-Ann) and monthly (EFR-Mon) methods are separately utilized to compare the calculation of the e-flow and to choose the best method. The annual FDC is a probabilistic chart for the whole year and the monthly FDC includes 12 probability curves for each year. Due to the use of FDC in e-flow estimations, it has been attempted to perform all calculations from this diagram. Therefore, concepts related to the flow volume can be integrated with the FDCS method. Some of the applied concepts for this purpose are as follows.In the FDCS method, the FDC is defined based on 17 probabilistic percentage points. To calculate the mean AF (MAF) volume, the theorem of the mean value for a definite integral is employed in the FDC diagram. Accordingly, considering that FDC is continuous between the first and seventeenth probability points, the mean flow (Fm) is obtained from Eq. (1) as.
    $$F_{m} = frac{1}{{P_{1} – P_{17} }}mathop smallint limits_{{P_{17} }}^{{p_{1} }} Fleft( p right)dp$$
    (1)
    Fm = Mean flow. P1, P17 = Points of FDC probability that P1 = 99.99 and P17 = 0.01.Given that the FDC consists of 17 probability points and the probability function ‘F(P)’ is unavailable for this curve as a mathematical equation, obtaining this equation for each flow curve increases the computational cost. Therefore, numerical integration methods can be used in this regard. The trapezoidal numerical solution method has been utilized for this purpose. By applying the trapezoidal method in solving Eq. (1), Eq. (2) is obtained, which is used to compute the mean flow of the FDC.$$F_{m} = frac{1}{{P_{1} – P_{17} }}mathop sum limits_{i = 1}^{17} frac{{left( {F_{i} + F_{i + 1} } right)}}{2}{*}left[ {P_{i} – P_{i + 1} } right]$$
    (2)
    Pi = 17 points of FDC probability that P1 = 99.99% and P17 = 0.01%. Fi = The amount of the river flow with the probability of the occurrence of Pi.To calculate the AF volume by monthly and annual FDCs, Eq. (3) can be applied for the AF volume in the EFR-Ann method, as well as employing Eqs. (4) and (5) for the monthly and AF volume in the EFR-Mon method, respectively.$${text{V}}_{{AF_{Ann} }} = frac{365*24*3600}{{P_{1} – P_{17} }}mathop sum limits_{i = 1}^{17} frac{{left( {F_{i} + F_{i + 1} } right)}}{2}{*}left[ {P_{i} – P_{i + 1} } right]$$
    (3)
    $${text{V}}_{Monthly } = frac{{D_{k} *24*3600}}{{P_{1} – P_{17} }}mathop sum limits_{i = 1}^{17} frac{{left( {F_{i} + F_{i + 1} } right)}}{2}{*}left[ {P_{i} – P_{i + 1} } right]$$
    (4)
    $${text{V}}_{{AF_{Mon} }} = mathop sum limits_{k = 1}^{12} left[ {{text{V}}_{Monthly } } right]_{k}$$
    (5)

    VAFAnn = AF volume using annual FDC. VMonthly = Monthly flow volume. VAFMon = AF volume using monthly FDC. Dk = Number of the days of the kth month. k = Number of each month.The required e-flow by wetlands and lakes must have two basic characteristics. The volume of EWR for maintaining their ecological level must be determined and provided by the studies of their ecosystems. In addition, fluctuations must be maintained in water levels in the lake due to hydrological conditions under the basins of the lake supplying rivers given the fact that maintaining the hydrological conditions of the river is one of the major goals of the FDCS method in estimating the e-flow of the river. On the other hand, the rehabilitation of the wetland or lake downstream of rivers requires a certain amount of water, and the new methods must be applied to combine these two goals. In this regard, the AF volume, which can be transferred to the lake (VL Mon or Ann) by these rivers, is calculated by taking into account the natural flow conditions of the rivers in the basin and without considering the consumptions,.$${text{V}}_{{L_{Ann} }} { } = mathop sum limits_{j = 1}^{{text{n}}} left[ {{text{V}}_{{AF_{Ann} }} } right]_{j}$$
    (6)
    $${text{V}}_{{L _{Mon} }} = mathop sum limits_{j = 1}^{{text{n}}} left[ {{text{V}}_{{AF_{Mon} }} } right]_{j}$$
    (7)

    n = Number of input rivers to the lake. VLAnn = AF volume, which can be transferred to the lake using annual FDC. VLMon = AF volume, which can be transferred to the lake using monthly FDC.The ratio of the EWR of the lake or wetland to the average annual volume of the basin should be determined at this stage.$$b = frac{{{text{V}}_{EWR} }}{{{text{V}}_{{L_{Ann} }} or {text{V}}_{{L _{Mon} }} }}$$
    (8)
    b = The ratio of the EWR of the lake or wetland to the average annual volume of the basin. VEWR = Volume of environmental water requirement of the lake or wetland.In the conventional FDCS method, which is determined using GEFC v2.0 software70 (It is then called the GEFC method), depending on the type of the river EMC, the allocation curve is obtained with one or more shifts of the FDC. Each EMC includes a certain ratio of the MAF volume of the river, and changing the flow EMC facilitates changing the flow volume. It is impossible to supply a specific and predetermined downstream water volume of the river. Therefore, in the new methods, a new process must be used to calculate the amount of the FDC shift in order to provide a certain volume of water in the shifting of the FDC. First, a new definition of the EMC was developed for the new methods. In this definition, instead of using a specific shift of the FDC, the range between the two classes was characterized as an EMC. For example, the region between the curve of EMC-A and the natural flow and the region between the EMC-A and EMC-B curves are defined as EMC-A and EMC-B areas, respectively. These regions can be defined for all EMCs (Fig. 3).Figure 3Comparison of the EFR allocated to each of the environmental management classes from this new approach (on the left) with the conventional FDCS methods (on the right).Full size imageBased on the new definition of the range of EMC, the FDC can be shifted as much as needed according to the volume of downstream EWR. The EWR can be defined as the annual percentage river flow respecting the shift of EMCs or a percentage between two specific classes. If the required flow volume is between two specific classes, Eq. (9) can be used to shift the FDC. In fact, with the new definition, any required probable shift can be applied to the FDC ِdiagram to reach a certain volume. In this case, new probable points are determined using Eq. (9), followed by performing the FDC shift similar to the FDCS method in the next step.$$P_{{i_{new} }} = P_{i} + a{*}left( {P_{i – 1} – P_{i} } right)quad i = t, ldots ,16$$
    (9)
    Pinew = New shifted probability point. Pi = 17 points of FDC probability that P1 = 99.99% and P17 = 0.01%. a = Coefficient of shift which defined between 0 and 1. t = Number of shifts performed on the FDC diagram numbered 1–6 for the areas of EMC A, B, C, D, E, F, respectively.The concept of numerical integration and Eqs. (9) and (3) were utilized to calculate the annual volume of different EMCs for each river, and Eqs. (10) and (12) were obtained for the new annual and monthly methods, respectively.$$begin{aligned} & {text{V}}_{{AF class_{t} Ann }} = frac{1}{{P_{1} – left[ {P_{17} + a*left( {P_{16} – P_{17} } right)} right]}} \ & quad quad quad quad quad *left[ {F_{1} *left[ {P_{1} – left[ {P_{t + 1} + a*left( {P_{t} – P_{t + 1} } right)} right]} right] + mathop sum limits_{{i = {text{t}} + 1}}^{16} frac{{left( {F_{i – t} + F_{i – t + 1} } right)}}{2}{*}left[ {P_{i} – P_{i + 1} + a{*}left( {P_{i – 1} – 2P_{i} + P_{i + 1} } right)} right]} right]*365*24*3600 \ end{aligned}$$
    (10)
    $$begin{aligned}&{text{V}}_{{ class_{t} Mon }} = frac{{D_{k} *24*3600}}{{P_{1} – left[ {P_{17} + a*left( {P_{16} – P_{17} } right)} right]}} \ & quad quad quad quad quad *left[ {F_{1} *left[ {P_{1} – left[ {P_{t + 1} + a*left( {P_{t} – P_{t + 1} } right)} right]} right] + mathop sum limits_{{i = {text{t}} + 1}}^{16} frac{{left( {F_{i – t} + F_{i – t + 1} } right)}}{2}{*}left[ {P_{i} – P_{i + 1} + a{*}left( {P_{i – 1} – 2P_{i} + P_{i + 1} } right)} right]} right] end{aligned}$$
    (11)
    $${text{V}}_{{AF class_{t} Mon}} = mathop sum limits_{K = 1}^{12} left[ {{text{V}}_{{ class_{t} Mon}} } right]_{k}$$
    (12)

    VAF classt Ann = AF volume for the related class of selected t for annual method. Vclasst Mon = Monthly flow volume for the related class of selected t for monthly method. VAF classt Mon = AF volume for the related class of selected t for monthly method.where t is the number of shifts performed on the FDC diagram numbered 1–6 for the areas of EMC A, B, C, D, E, F, respectively. To find the exact value of a in these equations, the scope of the EMC must be determined based on the required volume by downstream. Therefore, assuming a = 0 in these equations, the AF volume at the boundary of each class is obtained for both EFR-Mon (Eq. (10)) and EFR-Ann (Eq. (12)) methods. The nearest calculated annual volume is selected as the appropriate EMC which is smaller than the volume of downstream. Further, the corresponding t-class is used to solve the equations, representing the range of the selected EMC.At this stage, the value of the obtained ‘a’ from the FDC shift diagram equals the required volume of downstream. For this purpose, Eqs. (13) and (14) for the EFR-Ann and EFR-Mon methods are obtained from Eqs. (10) and (12), respectively.$$b{text{*V}}_{{AF_{Ann} }} = V_{{AF class_{t } Ann }}$$
    (13)
    $$b{text{*V}}_{{AF_{Mon} }} = V_{{AF class_{t} Mon }}$$
    (14)

    By solving Eqs. (13) and (14), the obtained value of a represents the annual and monthly methods, and the obtained shifted FDC stands for the required annual volume downstream.After determining the appropriate FDC, it is used to calculate the daily e-flow needs of the river using the spatial interpolation algorithm52, which is also employed in the FDCS method. To this end, the probability of the river flow occurrence from the annual or monthly FDCs (according to the selected method) is determined and then the required river flow in the specified probability of occurrence is obtained using the e-flow curve.The range of variability approach (RVA)71,72 is a complex method based on the use of e-flow for achieving the goals of river ecosystem management. This method is applied to compare the methods and select the best one based on the least hydrological change compared to the natural flow of the river. Furthermore, it is based on the importance of the hydrological feature impact of the river on the life, biodiversity of native aquatic species, and the natural ecosystem of the river and aims to provide complete statistical characteristics of the flow regime.In the RVA method, the indicators of hydrologic alteration (IHA) parameters related to the natural river flow are considered as a basis, and changes in the IHA parameters of different EMCs are evaluated accordingly. Richter et al.72 suggested that the distribution of the annual values of IHA parameters for maintaining river environmental conditions must be kept as close as possible to natural flow condition parameters. In several studies, this method was used to investigate changes in the hydrological parameters of a river over time37.Moreover, the total data related to the natural flow of the river for each IHA parameter are classified into three categories in the RVA method. In this study, this classification is based on Default software, and the 17% distance from the median is introduced as the boundary of the classes. By this definition, three classes of the same size are created, in which the middle category is between 34 and 67, and the lower and higher ranges are called the lowest and highest categories, respectively.Using the current change factor obtained from Eq. (15), the RVA method can quantify the change amount in the values of the 33 IHA parameters compared to the natural flow conditions.$$HA = left( {O_{f} – E_{f} } right)/E_{f}$$
    (15)
    HA = Hydrological alteration index. Of = Number of flows occurring within a certain category of the IHA parameter under changed flow conditions. Ef = Number of flows occurring in the same category specified by the parameter under natural flow conditions.In this case, for each IHA parameter, three HA factors are obtained, which can be separately examined for river flows in these three categories. In the analysis of parameters, the positive HA means that the number of occurrences of the phenomenon has increased in a certain IHA category compared to the natural conditions of the river flow. Negative values imply a decrease in the number of occurrences of the same phenomenon. To compare the number of changes in IHA parameters, the HA factor of the RVA method and IHA software (Version 7.1)73 was employed to allocate e-flows in different methods. The obtained results using RVA method calculates and represents HA of each 33 parameters. However, making decision to choose the best method, all parameters need to be assessed and presented as a total index. Due to calculate total HA index based on studies of Xue et al.74 Eq. (16) can be used.$$HA_{o} = sqrt {frac{{mathop sum nolimits_{i = 1}^{33} HA_{i}^{2} }}{33}} *100$$
    (16)
    HAo = Total hydrological alteration index. HAi = Hydrological alteration of each of 33 parameters.Determination of EFR for different EMCs for all methodsInitially, the MMF for each available statistical month was obtained by daily data from stations located in the upstream of the basin rivers of Urmia Lake (Fig. 1). The FDC for the natural flow and various EMCs were obtained using MMF values and GEFC software. Next, to perform the calculations in the EFR-Ann method, the FDC of a natural flow and different EMCs during the year were plotted by daily data. Finally, for the EFR-Mon method, the daily data of each month of the year were examined and the FDC of the natural flow and EMCs were separately plotted for each month.Based on the presented method in this research, Fig. 4 illustrates a step-by-step diagram for determining the e-flows of rivers in the Urmia Lake basin.Figure 4Step-by-step flowchart for determining the environmental flows of rivers in the Urmia Lake basin.Full size image More

  • in

    Microbial functional changes mark irreversible course of Tibetan grassland degradation

    Literature studyLiterature considering the effect of pasture degradation on SOC, N, and clay content, as well as bulk density (BD), was assembled by searching (i) Web of Science V.5.22.1, (ii) ScienceDirect (Elsevier B.V.) (iii) Google Scholar, and (iv) the China Knowledge Resource Integrated Database (CNKI). Search terms were “degradation gradient”, “degradation stages”, “alpine meadow”, “Tibetan Plateau”, “soil”, “soil organic carbon”, and “soil organic matter” in different combinations. The criteria for including a study in the analysis were: (i) a clear and comprehensible classification of degradation stages was presented, (ii) data on SOC, N, and/or BD were reported, (iii) a non-degraded pasture site was included as a reference to enable an effect size analysis and the calculation of SOC and N losses, (iv) sampling depths and study location were clearly presented. (v) Studies were only considered that took samples in 10 cm depth intervals, to maintain comparability to the analyses from our own study site. The degradation stages in the literature studies were regrouped into the six successive stages (S0–S5) according to the respective degradation descriptions. In total, we compiled the results of 49 publications published between 2002 and 2020.When SOM content was presented, this was converted to SOC content using a conversion factor of 2.032. SOC and N stocks were calculated using the following equation:$${{{{{rm{Elemental; stock}}}}}}=100* {{{{{rm{content}}}}}}* {{{{{rm{BD}}}}}}* {{{{{rm{depth}}}}}}$$
    (1)
    where elemental stock is SOC or N stock [kg ha−1]; content is SOC or N content [g kg−1]; BD is soil bulk density [g cm−3] and depth is the soil sampling depth [cm].The effect sizes of individual variables (i.e., SOC and N stocks as well as BD) were quantified as follows:$${{{{{rm{ES}}}}}}=,frac{(D-R)}{R* 100 % }$$
    (2)
    where ES is the effect size in %, D is the value of the corresponding variable in the relevant degradation stage and R is the value of each variable in the non-degraded stage (reference site). When ES is positive, zero, or negative, this indicates an increase, no change, or decrease, respectively, of the parameter compared to the non-degraded stage.Experimental design of the field studyLarge areas in the study region are impacted by grassland degradation. In total, 45% of the surface area of the Kobresia pasture ecosystem on the TP is already degraded2. The experiment was designed to differentiate and quantify SOC losses by erosion vs. net decomposition and identify underlying shifts in microbial community composition and link these to changes in key microbial functions in the soil C cycle. We categorized the range of Kobresia root-mat degradation from non-degraded to bare soils into six successive degradation stages (S0–S5). Stage S0 represented non-degraded root mats, while stages S1–S4 represented increasing degrees of surface cracks, and bare soil patches without root mats defined stage S5 (Supplementary Fig. 1). All six degradation stages were selected within an area of about 4 ha to ensure equal environmental conditions and each stage was sampled in four field replicates. However, the studied degradation patterns are common for the entire Kobresia ecosystem (Supplementary Fig. 1).Site descriptionThe field study was conducted near Nagqu (Tibet, China) in the late summer 2013 and 2015. The study site of about 4 ha (NW: 31.274748°N, 92.108963°E; NE: 31.274995°N, 92.111482°E; SW: 31.273488°N, 92.108906°E; SE: 31.273421°N, 92.112025°E) was located on gentle slopes (2–5%) at 4,484 m a.s.l. in the core area of the Kobresia pygmaea ecosystem according to Miehe et al.8. The vegetation consists mainly of K. pygmaea, which covers up to 61% of the surface. Other grasses, sedges, or dwarf rosette plants (Carex ivanoviae, Carex spp., Festuca spp., Kobresia pusilla, Poa spp., Stipa purpurea, Trisetum spp.) rarely cover more than 40%. The growing season is strongly restricted by temperature and water availability. At most, it lasts from mid-May to mid-September, but varies strongly depending on the onset and duration of the summer monsoon. Mean annual precipitation is 431 mm, with roughly 80% falling as summer rains. The mean annual temperature is −1.2 °C, while the mean maximum temperature of the warmest month (July) is +9.0 °C2.A characteristic feature of Kobresia pastures is their very compact root mats, with an average thickness of 15 cm at the study site. These consist mainly of living and dead K. pygmaea roots and rhizomes, leaf bases, large amounts of plant residue, and mineral particles. Intact soil is a Stagnic Eutric Cambisol (Humic), developed on a loess layer overlying glacial sediments and containing 50% sand, 33% silt, and 17% clay in the topsoil (0–25 cm). The topsoil is free of carbonates and is of neutral pH (pH in H2O: 6.8)5. Total soil depth was on average 35 cm.The site is used as a winter pasture for yaks, sheep, and goats from January to April. Besides livestock, large numbers of plateau pikas (Ochotona) are found on the sites. These animals have a considerable impact on the plant cover through their burrowing activity, in particular the soil thrown out of their burrows, which can cover and destroy the Kobresia turf.Sampling designThe vertical and horizontal extent of the surface cracks was measured for each plot (Supplementary Table 2). Vegetation cover was measured and the aboveground biomass was collected in the cracks (Supplementary Table 2). In general, intact Kobresia turf (S0) provided high resistance to penetration as measured by a penetrologger (Eijkelkamp Soil and Water, Giesbeek, NL) in 1 cm increments and four replicates per plot.Soil sampling was conducted using soil pits (30 cm length × 30 cm width × 40 cm depth). Horizons were classified and then soil and roots were sampled for each horizon directly below the cracks. Bulk density and root biomass were determined in undisturbed soil samples, using soil cores (10 cm height and 10 cm diameter). Living roots were separated from dead roots and root debris by their bright color and soft texture using tweezers under magnification, and the roots were subsequently washed with distilled water to remove the remaining soil. Because over 95% of the roots occurred in the upper 25 cm5, we did not sample for root biomass below this depth.Additional soil samples were taken from each horizon for further analysis. Microbial community and functional characterization were performed on samples from the same pits but with a fixed depth classification (0–5 cm, 5–15 cm, 15–35 cm) to reduce the number of samples.Plant and soil analysesSoil and roots were separated by sieving (2 mm) and the roots subsequently washed with distilled water. Bulk density and root density were determined by dividing the dry soil mass (dried at 105 °C for 24 h) and the dry root biomass (60 °C) by the volume of the sampling core. To reflect the root biomass, root density was expressed per soil volume (mg cm−3). Soil and root samples were milled for subsequent analysis.Elemental concentrations and SOC characteristicsTotal SOC and total N contents and stable isotope signatures (δ13C and δ15N) were analyzed using an isotope ratio mass spectrometer (Delta plus, Conflo III, Thermo Electron Cooperation, Bremen, Germany) coupled to an elemental analyzer (NA 1500, Fisons Instruments, Milano, Italy). Measurements were conducted at the Centre for Stable Isotope Research and Analysis (KOSI) of the University of Göttingen. The δ13C and δ15N values were calculated by relating the isotope ratio of each sample (Rsample = 13C/12C or 15N/14N) to the international standards (Pee Dee Belemnite 13C/12C ratio for δ13C; the atmospheric 15N/14N composition for δ15N).Soil pH of air-dried soil was measured potentiometrically at a ratio (v/v) of 1.0:2.5 in distilled water.Lignin phenols were depolymerized using the CuO oxidation method25 and analyzed with a gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC–MS) system (GC 7820 A, MS 5977B, Agilent Technologies, Waldbronn, Germany). Vanillyl and syringyl units were calculated from the corresponding aldehydes, ketones, and carboxylic acids. Cinnamyl units were derived from the sum of p-coumaric acid and ferulic acid. The sum of the three structural units (VSC = V + S + C) was considered to reflect the lignin phenol content in a sample.DNA extraction and PCRSamples were directly frozen on site at −20 °C and transported to Germany for analysis of microbial community structure. Total DNA was extracted from the soil samples with the PowerSoil DNA isolation kit (MoBio Laboratories Inc., Carlsbad, CA, USA) according to the manufacturer’s instructions, and DNA concentration was determined using a NanoDrop 1000 spectrophotometer (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Wilmington, DE, USA). The extracted DNA was amplified with forward and reverse primer sets suitable for either t-RFLP (fluorescence marked, FAM) or Illumina MiSeq sequencing (Illumina Inc., San Diego, USA): V3 (5’-CCT ACG GGN GGC WGC AG-3’) and V4 (5’-GAC TAC HVG GGT ATC TAA TCC-3’) primers were used for bacterial 16 S rRNA genes whereas ITS1 (5’-CTT GGT CAT TTA GAG GAA GTA A-3’), ITS1-F_KYO1 (5’-CTH GGT CAT TTA GAG GAA STA A-3’), ITS2 (5’-GCT GCG TTC TTC ATC GAT GC-3’) and ITS4 (5’-TCC TCC GCT TAT TGA TAT GC-3’) were used for fungi33,34. Primers for Illumina MiSeq sequencing included adaptor sequences (forward: 5’-TCG TCG GCA GCG TCA GAT GTG TAT AAG AGA CAG-3’; reverse: 5’-GTC TCG TGG GCT CGG AGA TGT GTA TAA GAG ACA G-3’)33. PCR was performed with the Phusion High-Fidelity PCR kit (New England Biolabs Inc., Ipswich, MA, USA) creating a 50 µl master mix with 28.8 µl H2Omolec, 2.5 µl DMSO, 10 µl Phusion GC buffer, 1 µl of forward and reverse primer, 0.2 µl MgCl2, 1 µl dNTPs, 0.5 µl Phusion HF DNA Polymerase, and 5 µl template DNA. PCR temperatures started with initial denaturation at 98 °C for 1 min, followed by denaturation (98 °C, 45 s), annealing (48/60 °C, 45 s), and extension (72 °C, 30 s). These steps were repeated 25 times, finalized again with a final extension (72 °C, 5 min), and cooling to 10 °C. Agarose gel electrophoresis was used to assess the success of the PCR and the amount of amplified DNA (0.8% gel:1.0 g Rotigarose, 5 µl Roti-Safe Gelstain, Carl Roth GmbH & Co. KG, Karlsruhe, Germany; and 100 ml 1× TAE-buffer). PCR product was purified after initial PCR and restriction digestion (t-RFLP) with either NucleoMag 96 PCR (16 S rRNA gene amplicons, Macherey-Nagel GmbH & Co. KG, Düren, Germany) or a modified clean-up protocol after Moreau (t-RFLP)35: 3× the volume of the reaction solution as 100% ethanol and ¼x vol. 125 mM EDTA was added and mixed by inversion or vortex. After incubation at room temperature for 15 min, the product was centrifuged at 25,000 × g for 30 min at 4 °C. Afterwards the supernatant was removed, and the inverted 96-well plate was centrifuged shortly for 2 min. Seventy microliters ethanol (70%) were added and centrifuged at 25,000 × g for 30 min at 4 °C. Again, the supernatant was removed, and the pallet was dried at room temperature for 30 min. Finally, the ethanol-free pallet was resuspended in H2Omolec.T-RFLP fingerprintingThe purified fluorescence-labeled PCR products were digested with three different restriction enzymes (MspI and BstUI, HaeIII) according to the manufacturer’s guidelines (New England Biolabs Inc., Ipswich, MA, USA) with a 20 µl master mix: 16.75 µl H2Omolec, 2 µl CutSmart buffer, 0.25 or 0.5 µl restriction enzyme, and 1 µl PCR product for 15 min at 37 °C (MspI) and 60 °C (BstUI, HaeIII), respectively. The digested PCR product was purified a second time35, dissolved in Super-DI Formamide (MCLAB, San Francisco, CA, USA) and, along with Red DNA size standard (MCLAB, San Francisco, USA), analyzed in an ABI Prism 3130 Genetic Analyzer (Applied Biosystems, Carlsbad, CA, USA). Terminal restriction fragments shorter than 50 bp and longer than 800 bp were removed from the t-RFLP fingerprints.16 S rRNA gene and internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequencing and sequence processingThe 16 S rRNA gene and ITS paired-end raw reads for the bacterial and fungal community analyses were deposited in the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) Sequence Read Archive (SRA) and can be found under the BioProject accession number PRJNA626504. This BioProject contains 70 samples and 139 SRA experiments (SRR11570615–SRR11570753) which were processed using CASAVA software (Illumina, San Diego, CA, USA) for demultiplexing of MiSeq raw sequences (2 × 300 bp, MiSeq Reagent Kit v3).Paired-end sequences were quality-filtered with fastp (version 0.19.4)36 using default settings with the addition of an increased per base phred score of 20, base-pair corrections by overlap (-c), as well as 5′- and 3′-end read trimming with a sliding window of 4, a mean quality of 20 and minimum sequence size of 50 bp. Paired-end sequences were merged using PEAR v0.9.1137 with default parameters. Subsequently, unclipped reverse and forward primer sequences were removed with cutadapt v1.1838 with default settings. Sequences were then processed using VSEARCH (v2.9.1)39. This included sorting and size-filtering (—sortbylength,—minseqlength) of the paired reads to ≥300 bp for bacteria and ≥140 bp for ITS1, dereplication (—derep_fulllength). Dereplicated sequences were denoised with UNOISE340 using default settings (—cluster_unoise—minsize 8) and chimeras were removed (—uchime3_denovo). An additional reference-based chimera removal was performed (—uchime_ref) against the SILVA41 SSU NR database (v132) and UNITE42 database (v7.2) resulting in the final set of amplicon sequence variants (ASVs)43. Quality-filtered and merged reads were mapped to ASVs (—usearch_global–id 0.97). Classification of ASVs was performed with BLAST 2.7.1+ against the SILVA SSU NR (v132) and UNITE (v7.2) database with an identity of at least 90%. The ITS sequences contained unidentified fungal ASVs after UNITE classification, these sequences were checked (blastn)44 against the “nt” database (Nov 2018) to remove non-fungal ASVs and only as fungi classified reads were kept. Sample comparisons were performed at the same surveying effort, utilizing the lowest number of sequences by random selection (total 15,800 bacteria, 20,500 fungi). Species richness, alpha and beta diversity estimates, and rarefaction curves were determined using the QIIME 1.9.145 script alpha_rarefaction.py.The final ASV tables were used to compute heatmaps showing the effect of degradation on the community using R (Version 3.6.1, R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria) and R packages “gplots”, “vegan”, “permute” and “RColorBrewer”. Fungal community functions were obtained from the FunGuild database46. Plant mycorrhizal association types were compiled from the literature38,39,40,41,47,48,49,50. If no direct species match was available, the mycorrhizal association was assumed to remain constant within the same genus.Enzyme activityEnzyme activity was measured to characterize the functional activity of the soil microorganisms. The following extracellular enzymes, involved in C, N, and P transformations, were considered: two hydrolases (β-glucosidase and xylanase), phenoloxidase, urease, and alkaline phosphatase. Enzyme activities were measured directly at the sampling site according to protocols after Schinner et al.51. Beta-glucosidase was incubated with saligenin for 3 h at 37 °C, xylanase with glucose for 24 h at 50 °C, phenoloxidase with L-3,4-dihydroxy phenylalanine (DOPA) for 1 h at 25 °C, urease with urea for 2 h at 37 °C and alkaline phosphatase on P-nitrophenyl phosphate for 1 h at 37 °C. Reaction products were measured photometrically at recommended wavelengths (578, 690, 475, 660, and 400 nm, respectively).SOC stocks and SOC lossThe SOC stocks (in kg C m−2) for the upper 30 cm were determined by multiplying the SOC content (g C kg−1) by the BD (g cm−3) and the thickness of the soil horizons (m). SOC losses (%) were calculated for each degradation stage and horizon and were related to the mean C stock of the reference stage (S0). The erosion-induced SOC loss of the upper horizon was estimated by considering the topsoil removal (extent of vertical soil cracks) of all degraded soil profiles (S1–S5) and the SOC content and BD of the reference (S0). To calculate the mineralization-derived SOC loss, we accounted for the effects of SOC and root mineralization on both SOC content and BD. Thus, we used the SOC content and BD from each degradation stage (S1–S5) and multiplied it by the mean thickness of each horizon (down to 30 cm) from the reference site (S0). The disentanglement of erosion-derived SOC loss from mineralization-derived SOC loss was based on explicit assumptions that (i) erosion-derived SOC losses are mainly associated with losses from the topsoil, and (ii) the decreasing SOC contents in the erosion-unaffected horizons were mainly driven by mineralization and decreasing root C input.Statistical analysesStatistical analyses were performed using PASW Statistics (IBM SPSS Statistics) and R software (Version 3.6.1). Soil and plant characteristics are presented as means and standard errors (means ± SE). The significance of treatment effects (S0–S5) and depth was tested by one-way ANOVA at p  More

  • in

    Physiological and morphological effects of a marine heatwave on the seagrass Cymodocea nodosa

    IPCC: IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate [Pörtner, H.-O. et al.] In press (2019).Oliver, E. C. J. et al. Longer and more frequent marine heatwaves over the past century. Nat. Commun. 9, 1324 (2018).ADS 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 
    Article 
    CAS 

    Google Scholar 
    Gibble, C. et al. Investigation of a largescale Common Murre (Uria aalge) mortality event in California, USA, in 2015. J. Wildl. Dis. 54, 569–574 (2018).PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Brodeur, R. D., Auth, T. D. & Phillips, A. J. Major shifts in pelagic micronekton and macrozooplankton community structure in an upwelling ecosystem related to an unprecedented marine heatwave. Front. Mar. Sci. 6, 212 (2019).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Le Nohaïc, M. et al. Marine heatwave causes unprecedented regional mass bleaching of thermally resistant corals in northwestern Australia. Sci. Rep. 7, 1–11 (2017).ADS 
    Article 
    CAS 

    Google Scholar 
    Hughes, T. P. et al. Global warming transforms coral reef assemblages. Nature 556, 492–496 (2018).ADS 
    CAS 
    PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Genevier, L. G., Jamil, T., Raitsos, D. E., Krokos, G. & Hoteit, I. Marine heatwaves reveal coral reef zones susceptible to bleaching in the Red Sea. Glob. Change Biol. 25, 2338–2351 (2019).ADS 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Leggat, W. P. et al. Rapid coral decay is associated with marine heatwave mortality events on reefs. Curr. Biol. 29, 2723–2730 (2019).CAS 
    PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Green, E. P. & Short, F. T. World Atlas of Seagrasses (University of California Press, 2003).Duarte, C. M. The future of seagrass meadows. Environ. Conserv. 29, 192–206 (2002).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Alongi, D. M. Blue Carbon: Coastal Sequestration for Climate Change Mitigation (Springer, Berlin, 2018).Book 

    Google Scholar 
    Blandon, A. & ZuErmgassen, P. S. Quantitative estimate of commercial fish enhancement by seagrass habitat in southern Australia. Estuarine Coast. Shelf Sci. 141, 1–8 (2014).ADS 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Boudouresque, C. F., Mayot, N. & Pergent, G. The outstanding traits of the functioning of the Posidonia oceanica seagrass ecosystem. Biol. Mar. Medit. 13, 109–113 (2006).
    Google Scholar 
    Carr, J., D’odorico, P., McGlathery, K. & Wiberg, P. L. Stability and bistability of seagrass ecosystems in shallow coastal lagoons: Role of feedbacks with sediment resuspension and light attenuation. J. Geophys. Res. Biogeosci. https://doi.org/10.1029/2009JG001103 (2010).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Welsh, D. T. Nitrogen fixation in seagrass meadows: regulation, plant–bacteria interactions and significance to primary productivity. Ecol. Lett. 3, 58–71. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1461-0248.2000.00111.x (2000).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Duarte, C. M. et al. Seagrass community metabolism: Assessing the carbon sink capacity of seagrass meadows. Glob. Biogeochem. Cycles. https://doi.org/10.1029/2010GB003793 (2010).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Cabaço, S. & Santos, R. Human-induced changes of the seagrass Cymodocea nodosa in Ria Formosa lagoon (Southern Portugal) after a decade. Cah. Biol. Mar. 55, 101–108 (2014).
    Google Scholar 
    Marbà, N., Krause-Jensen, D., Masqué, P. & Duarte, C. M. Expanding Greenland seagrass meadows contribute new sediment carbon sinks. Sci. Rep. 8, 1–8 (2018).Article 
    CAS 

    Google Scholar 
    Bañolas, G., Fernández, S., Espino, F., Haroun, R. & Tuya, F. Evaluation of carbon sinks by the seagrass Cymodocea nodosa at an oceanic island: Spatial variation and economic valuation. Ocean Coast. Manag. 187, 105112 (2020).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Duarte, C. M. & Krause-Jensen, D. Export from seagrass meadows contributes to marine carbon sequestration. Front. Mar. Sci. 4, 13 (2017).
    Google Scholar 
    Duarte, C. M., Middelburg, J. J. & Caraco, N. Major role of marine vegetation on the oceanic carbon cycle. Biogeosci. 2, 1–8 (2005).ADS 
    CAS 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Kennedy, H. et al. Seagrass sediments as a global carbon sink: Isotopic constraints. Glob. Biogeochem. Cycles https://doi.org/10.1029/2010GB003848 (2010).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Orth, R. J. et al. A global crisis for seagrass ecosystems. Bioscience 56, 987–996 (2006).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Waycott, M. et al. Accelerating loss of seagrasses across the globe threatens coastal ecosystems. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 106, 12377–12381 (2009).ADS 
    CAS 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Arias-Ortiz, A. et al. A marine heatwave drives massive losses from the world’s largest seagrass carbon stocks. Nat. Clim. Change 8, 338 (2018).ADS 
    CAS 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Collier, C. J. et al. Optimum temperatures for net primary productivity of three tropical seagrass species. Front. Plant Sci. 8, 1446 (2017).PubMed 
    PubMed Central 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    George, R., Gullström, M., Mangora, M. M., Mtolera, M. S. & Björk, M. High midday temperature stress has stronger effects on biomass than on photosynthesis: a mesocosm experiment on four tropical seagrass species. Ecol. Evol. 8, 4508–4517 (2018).PubMed 
    PubMed Central 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Savva, I., Bennett, S., Roca, G., Jordà, G. & Marbà, N. Thermal tolerance of Mediterranean marine macrophytes: Vulnerability to global warming. Ecol. Evol. 8, 12032–12043 (2018).PubMed 
    PubMed Central 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Massa, S. I., Arnaud-Haond, S., Pearson, G. A. & Serrão, E. A. Temperature tolerance and survival of intertidal populations of the seagrass Zostera noltii (Hornemann) in Southern Europe (Ria Formosa, Portugal). Hydrobiologia 619, 195–201 (2009).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Bergmann, N. et al. Population-specificity of heat stress gene induction in northern and southern eelgrass Zostera marina populations under simulated global warming. Mol. Ecol. 19, 2870–2883 (2010).PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Franssen, S. U. et al. Genome-wide transcriptomic responses of the seagrasses Zostera marina and Nanozostera noltii under a simulated heatwave confirm functional types. Mar. Genomics 15, 65–73 (2014).PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Qin, L. Z. et al. Influence of regional water temperature variability on the flowering phenology and sexual reproduction of the seagrass Zostera marina in Korean coastal waters. Estuaries Coasts 43, 449–462 (2020).CAS 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Gao, Y. et al. Photosynthetic and metabolic responses of eelgrass Zostera marina L. to short-term high-temperature exposure. J. Oceanol. Limnol. 37, 199–209 (2019).ADS 
    CAS 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Marín-Guirao, L. et al. Carbon economy of Mediterranean seagrasses in response to thermal stress. Mar. Pollut. Bull. 135, 617–629 (2018).PubMed 
    Article 
    CAS 

    Google Scholar 
    Costa, M. M., Silva, J., Barrote, I. & Santos, R. Heatwave effects on the photosynthesis and antioxidant activity of the seagrass Cymodocea nodosa under contrasting light regimes. Oceans 2, 448–460 (2021).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    de los Santos, C. et al. Recent trend reversal for declining European seagrass meadows. Nat. Commun. 10, 3356 (2019).Cunha, A. H., Assis, J. F. & Serrão, E. A. Reprint of “Seagrasses in Portugal: A most endangered marine habitat”. Aquat. Bot. 115, 3–13 (2014).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Olsen, Y. S., Sánchez-Camacho, M., Marbà, N. & Duarte, C. M. Mediterranean seagrass growth and demography responses to experimental warming. Estuaries Coasts 35, 1205–1213 (2012).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Marín-Guirao, L., Ruiz, J. M., Dattolo, E., Garcia-Munoz, R. & Procaccini, G. Physiological and molecular evidence of differential short-term heat tolerance in Mediterranean seagrasses. Sci. Rep. 6, 1–13 (2016).Article 
    CAS 

    Google Scholar 
    Lüning, K. Seaweeds. Their Environment, Biogeography, and Ecophysiology (Wiley-Interscience, New York, 1990).Lee, K. S., Park, S. R. & Kim, Y. K. Effects of irradiance, temperature, and nutrients on growth dynamics of seagrasses: a review. J. Exp. Mar. Biol. Ecol. 350, 144–175 (2007).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Franssen, S. U. et al. Transcriptomic resilience to global warming in the seagrass Zostera marina, a marine foundation species. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 108, 19276–19281 (2011).ADS 
    CAS 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Winters, G., Nelle, P., Fricke, B., Rauch, G. & Reusch, T. B. H. Effects of a simulated heat wave on photophysiology and gene expression of high- and low-latitude populations of Zostera marina. Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser. 435, 83–95 (2011).ADS 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Maxwell, K. & Johnson, G. N. Chlorophyll fluorescence—A practical guide. J. Exp. Bot. 51, 659–668 (2000).CAS 
    PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Schubert, N. et al. Photoacclimation strategies in northeastern Atlantic seagrasses: Integrating responses across plant organizational levels. Sci. Rep. 8, 1–14 (2018).CAS 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Miyake, C., Yonekura, K., Kobayashi, Y. & Yokota, A. Cyclic electron flow within PSII functions in intact chloroplasts from spinach leaves. Plant Cell Physiol. 43, 951–957 (2002).CAS 
    PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Rasmusson, L. M., Gullström, M., Gunnarsson, P. C. B., George, R. & Björk, M. Estimation of a whole plant Q10 to assess seagrass productivity during temperature shifts. Sci. Rep. 9, 1–9 (2019).CAS 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Buapet, P. & Björk, M. The role of O2 as an electron acceptor alternative to CO2 in photosynthesis of the common marine angiosperm Zostera marina L. Photosynth. Res. 129, 59–69 (2016).CAS 
    PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Mehler, A. H. Studies on reactions of illuminated chloroplasts. II Stimulation and inhibition of the reaction with molecular oxygen. Arch. Biochem. Biophys. 34, 339–51 (1951).CAS 
    PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Apel, K. & Hirt, H. Reactive oxygen species: metabolism, oxidative stress, and signal transduction. Annu. Rev. Plant Biol. 55, 373–399 (2004).CAS 
    PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Chalanika De Silva, H. C. & Asaeda, T. Effects of heat stress on growth, photosynthetic pigments, oxidative damage and competitive capacity of three submerged macrophytes. J. Plant Interact. 12, 228–236 (2017).Article 
    CAS 

    Google Scholar 
    Beer, S., Björk, M., Gademann, R. & Ralph, P. Measurements of photosynthetic rates in seagrasses. In Global Seagrass Research Methods pp. 183–198 (Elsevier Science, 2001).Brodersen, K. E., Kühl, M., Nielsen, D. A., Pedersen, O. & Larkum, A. W. Rhizome, root/sediment interactions, aerenchyma and internal pressure changes in seagrasses. In Seagrasses of Australia pp. 393–418; https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71354-0_13 (Springer, Cham, 2018).Purnama, P. R., Purnama, E. R., Manuhara, Y. S. W., Hariyanto, S. & Purnobasuki, H. Effect of high temperature stress on changes in morphology, anatomy and chlorophyll content in tropical seagrass Thalassia hemprichii. AACL Bioflux 11, 1825–1833 (2018).
    Google Scholar 
    Rosalina, D., Herawati, E. Y., Musa, M., Sofarini, D. & Risjani, Y. Anatomical changes in the roots, rhizomes and leaves of seagrass (Cymodocea serrulata) in response to lead. Biodiversitas 20, 2583–2588; https://doi.org/10.13057/biodiv/d200921 (2019).Beca-Carretero, P., Olesen, B., Marbà, N. & Krause-Jensen, D. Response to experimental warming in northern eelgrass populations: comparison across a range of temperature adaptations. Mar. Ecol. Progr. Ser. 589, 59–72; https://doi.org/10.3354/meps12439 (2018).Beca-Carretero, P., Guihéneuf, F., Krause-Jensen, D. & Stengel, D. B. Seagrass fatty acid profiles as a sensitive indicator of climate settings across seasons and latitudes. Mar. Env. Res. 161, 105075; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marenvres.2020.105075 (2020).Pérez, M. & Romero, J. Photosynthetic response to light and temperature of the seagrass Cymodocea nodosa and the prediction of its seasonality. Aquat. Bot. 43, 51–62; https://doi.org/10.1016/0304-3770(92)90013-9 (1992).Saha, M. et al. Response of foundation macrophytes to near‐natural simulated marine heatwaves. Global Change Biol. 26, 417–430; https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.14801 (2020).Tutar, O., Marín-Guirao, L., Ruiz, J. M. & Procaccini, G. Antioxidant response to heat stress in seagrasses. A gene expression study. Mar. Environ. Res. 132, 94–102; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marenvres.2017.10.011 (2017).Moreno‐Marín, F., Brun, F. G. & Pedersen, M. F. Additive response to multiple environmental stressors in the seagrass Zostera marina L. Limnol. Oceanogr. 63, 1528–1544; https://doi.org/10.1002/lno.10789 (2018).Kim, M. et al. Influence of water temperature anomalies on the growth of Zostera marina plants held under high and low irradiance levels. Estuaries Coasts 43, 463–476; https://doi.org/10.1007/s12237-019-00578-2 (2020).Egea, L. G., Jiménez-Ramos, R., Vergara, J. J., Hernández, I. & Brun, F. G. Interactive effect of temperature, acidification and ammonium enrichment on the seagrass Cymodocea nodosa. Mar. Pollut. Bull. 134, 14–26; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2018.02.029 (2018).Newton, A. & Mudge, S. M. Temperature and salinity regimes in a shallow, mesotidal lagoon, the Ria Formosa, Portugal. Estuarine Coastal Shelf Sci. 57, 73–85; https://doi.org/10.1016/S0272-7714(02)00332-3 (2003).Instituto Hidrográfico. Marés 81/82 Ria de Faro. Estudo das marés de oito estacões da Ria de Faro pp. 13 (Lisbon: Instituto Hidrográfico, 1986).Andrade, J. P. Aspectos Geomorfológicos, Ecológicos e Socioeconómicos da Ria Formosa pp. 91 (Faro: Universidade do Algarve, 1985).Hobday, A.J. et al. A hierarchical approach to defining marine heatwaves. Prog. Oceanogr. 141, 227–238; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pocean.2015.12.014 (2016).Hobday, A. J. et al. Categorizing and naming marine heatwaves. Oceanogr. 31, 162–173; https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2018.205 (2018).Cunha, A. H., Paulo, D. S., Sousa, I. & Serrão, E. The rediscovery of Caulerpa prolifera in Ria Formosa, Portugal, 60 years after the previous record. Cah. Biol. Mar. 54, 359–364 (2013).
    Google Scholar 
    Huang, B. et al. Improvements of the daily optimum interpolation sea surface temperature (DOISST) Version 2.1. J. Clim. 34, 2923–2939 (2020).ADS 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Reynolds, R. W. et al. Daily high-resolution-blended analyses for sea surface temperature. J. Clim. 20, 5473–5496 (2007).ADS 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Banzon, V., Smith, T. M., Chin, T. M., Liu, C. & Hankins, W. A long-term record of blended satellite and in situ sea-surface temperature for climate monitoring, modelling and environmental studies. Earth Syst. Sci. Data 8, 165–176 (2016).ADS 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Schlegel, R. W. Marine Heatwave Tracker. http://www.marineheatwaves.org/tracker; 10.5281/zenodo.3787872 (2020).Field, C. B., Barros, V., Stocker, T. F. & Dahe, Q. (Eds.). Managing the risks of extreme events and disasters to advance climate change adaptation: special report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) (Cambridge University Press, 2012).Silva, J., Barrote, I., Costa, M. M., Albano, S. & Santos, R. Physiological responses of Zostera marina and Cymodocea nodosa to light-limitation stress. PLoS One 8, e81058 (2013).ADS 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 
    Article 
    CAS 

    Google Scholar 
    Silva, J. & Santos, R. Can chlorophyll fluorescence be used to estimate photosynthetic production in the seagrass Zostera noltii?. J. Exp. Mar. Biol. Ecol. 307, 207–216 (2004).CAS 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Jassby, A. D. & Platt, T. Mathematical formulation of the relationship between photosynthesis and light for phytoplankton. Limnol. Oceanogr. 21, 540–547 (1976).ADS 
    CAS 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Henley, W. J. Measurement and interpretation of photosynthetic light-response curves in algae in the context of photoinhibition and diel changes. J. Phycol. 29, 729–739 (1993).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Genty, B., Briantais, J. M. & Baker, N. R. The relationship between the quantum yield of photosynthetic electron transport and quenching of chlorophyll fluorescence. Biochim. Biophys. Acta 990, 87–92 (1989).CAS 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Folin, O. & Ciocalteu, V. On tyrosine and tryptophane determinations in proteins. J. Biol. Chem. 73, 627–650 (1927).CAS 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Booker, F. L. & Miller, J. E. Phenylpropanoid metabolism and phenolic composition of soybean [Glycine max (L) Merr] leaves following exposure to ozone. J. Exp. Bot. 49, 1191–1202 (1998).CAS 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Re, R. et al. Antioxidant activity applying an improved ABTS radical cation decolorization assay. Free Radical Biol. Med. 26, 1231–1237 (1999).CAS 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Gillespie, K. M., Chae, J. M. & Ainsworth, E. A. Rapid measurement of total antioxidant capacity in plants. Nat. Protoc. 2, 867–870 (2007).CAS 
    PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Huang, D., Ou, B., Hampsch-Woodill, M., Flanagan, J. A. & Prior, R. L. High-Throughput Assay of Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity (ORAC) Using a Multichannel Liquid Handling System Coupled with a Microplate Fluorescence Reader in 96-Well Format. J. Agric. Food Chem. 50, 4437–4444 (2002).CAS 
    PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Hodges, D. M., DeLong, J. M., Forney, C. F. & Prange, R. K. Improving the thiobarbituric acid-reactive-substances assay for estimating lipid peroxidation in plant tissues containing anthocyanin and other interfering compounds. Planta 207, 604–611 (1999).CAS 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Rasband, W.S. ImageJ, U. S. National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA, 1997–2018. https://imagej.nih.gov/ij/ (1997).R Core Team. R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. http://www.R-project.org/ (2014).Devore, J. & Farnum, N. Applied Statistics for Engineers and Scientists (ed. Brooks/Cole) pp. 656 (Pacific Grove, CA, USA, 1999). More

  • in

    Population-specific association of Clock gene polymorphism with annual cycle timing in stonechats

    Kronfeld-Schor, N. & Dayan, T. Partitioning of time as an ecological resource. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Evol. Syst. 34, 153–181 (2003).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Tauber, E. & Kyriacou, C. P. Review: Genomic approaches for studying biological clocks. Funct. Ecol. 22, 19–29 (2008).
    Google Scholar 
    White, E. R. & Hastings, A. Seasonality in ecology: Progress and prospects in theory. Ecol. Complex. 44, 100867 (2020).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Ko, C. H. & Takahashi, J. S. Molecular components of the mammalian circadian clock. Hum. Mol. Genet. 15, R271–R277 (2006).CAS 
    PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Cassone, V. M. Avian circadian organization: A chorus of clocks. Front. Neuroendocrinol. 35, 76–88 (2014).PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Kyriacou, C. P., Peixoto, A. A., Sandrelli, F., Costa, R. & Tauber, E. Clines in clock genes: Fine-tuning circadian rhythms to the environment. Trends Genet. 24, 124–132 (2008).CAS 
    PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Partch, C. L., Green, C. B. & Takahashi, J. S. Molecular architecture of the mammalian circadian clock. Trends Cell Biol. 24, 90–99 (2014).CAS 
    PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Helm, B. et al. Two sides of a coin: ecological and chronobiological perspectives of timing in the wild. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. B Biol. Sci. 372, 20160246 (2017).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Kalmbach, D. A. et al. Genetic basis of chronotype in humans: Insights from three landmark GWAS. Sleep https://doi.org/10.1093/sleep/zsw048 (2017).Article 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 

    Google Scholar 
    Takahashi, J. S., Shimomura, K. & Kumar, V. Searching for genes underlying behavior: Lessons from circadian rhythms. Science 322, 909–912 (2008).CAS 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 
    Article 
    ADS 

    Google Scholar 
    Yoshimura, T. et al. Molecular analysis of avian circadian clock genes11Published on the World Wide Web on 23 May 2000. Mol. Brain Res. 78, 207–215 (2000).CAS 
    PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Gekakis, N. et al. Role of the CLOCK Protein in the Mammalian circadian mechanism. Science 280, 1564–1569 (1998).CAS 
    PubMed 
    Article 
    ADS 

    Google Scholar 
    Saleem, Q., Anand, A., Jain, S. & Brahmachari, S. K. The polyglutamine motif is highly conserved at the Clock locus in various organisms and is not polymorphic in humans. Hum. Genet. 109, 136–142 (2001).CAS 
    PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Darlington, T. K. et al. Closing the circadian loop: CLOCK-induced transcription of its own inhibitors per and tim. Science 280, 1599–1603 (1998).CAS 
    PubMed 
    Article 
    ADS 

    Google Scholar 
    King, D. P. et al. Positional cloning of the mouse circadian clock gene. Cell 89, 641–653 (1997).CAS 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Follett, B. Rhythms and photoperiodism in birds. Biological rhythms and photoperiodism in plants (1998).Hazlerigg, D. G. & Wagner, G. C. Seasonal photoperiodism in vertebrates: from coincidence to amplitude. Trends Endocrinol. Metab. 17, 83–91 (2006).CAS 
    PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Gwinner, E. Circadian and circannual programmes in avian migration. J. Exp. Biol. 199, 39–48 (1996).CAS 
    PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Stirland, J. A., Mohammad, Y. N. & Loudon, A. S. I. A mutation of the circadian timing system (tau gene) in the seasonally breeding Syrian hamster alters the reproductive response to photoperiod change. Proc. R Soc. London Ser. B Biol. Sci. 263, 345–350 (1996).CAS 
    Article 
    ADS 

    Google Scholar 
    Bradshaw, W. E. & Holzapfel, C. M. Evolution of animal photoperiodism. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Evol. Syst. 38, 1–25 (2007).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Graham, J. L., Cook, N. J., Needham, K. B., Hau, M. & Greives, T. J. Early to rise, early to breed: A role for daily rhythms in seasonal reproduction. Behav. Ecol. 28, 1266–1271 (2017).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Rittenhouse, J. L., Robart, A. R. & Watts, H. E. Variation in chronotype is associated with migratory timing in a songbird. Biol. Lett. 15, 20190453 (2019).PubMed 
    PubMed Central 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    O’Malley, K. G., Ford, M. J. & Hard, J. J. Clock polymorphism in Pacific salmon: Evidence for variable selection along a latitudinal gradient. Proc. R. Soc. B Biol. Sci. 277, 3703–3714 (2010).Article 
    CAS 

    Google Scholar 
    O’Malley, K. G. & Banks, M. A. A latitudinal cline in the Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) Clock gene: Evidence for selection on PolyQ length variants. Proc. R. Soc. B Biol. Sci. 275, 2813–2821 (2008).Article 
    CAS 

    Google Scholar 
    Peterson, M. P. et al. Variation in candidate genes CLOCK and ADCYAP1 does not consistently predict differences in migratory behavior in the songbird genus Junco. F1000Research 2, 115 (2013).PubMed 
    PubMed Central 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Saino, N. et al. Polymorphism at the Clock gene predicts phenology of long-distance migration in birds. Mol. Ecol. 24, 1758–1773 (2015).CAS 
    PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Saino, N. et al. Timing of molt of barn swallows is delayed in a rare Clock genotype. PeerJ 1, e17 (2013).PubMed 
    PubMed Central 
    Article 
    CAS 

    Google Scholar 
    Johnsen, A. et al. Avian Clock gene polymorphism: Evidence for a latitudinal cline in allele frequencies. Mol. Ecol. 16, 4867–4880 (2007).CAS 
    PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Liedvogel, M., Szulkin, M., Knowles, S. C. L., Wood, M. & Sheldon, B. C. Phenotypic correlates of Clock gene variation in a wild blue tit population: Evidence for a role in seasonal timing of reproduction. Mol. Ecol. 18, 2444–2456 (2009).PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Caprioli, M. et al. Clock gene variation is associated with breeding phenology and maybe under directional selection in the migratory barn swallow. PLoS ONE 7, e35140 (2012).CAS 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 
    Article 
    ADS 

    Google Scholar 
    Dor, R. et al. Clock gene variation in Tachycineta swallows. Ecol. Evol. 2, 95–105 (2012).PubMed 
    PubMed Central 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Dor, R. et al. Low variation in the polymorphic Clock gene poly-Q region despite population genetic structure across barn swallow (Hirundo rustica) populations. PLoS ONE 6, e28843 (2011).CAS 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 
    Article 
    ADS 

    Google Scholar 
    O’Brien, C. et al. Geography of the circadian gene clock and photoperiodic response in western North American populations of the three-spined stickleback Gasterosteus aculeatus. J. Fish Biol. 82, 827–839 (2013).PubMed 
    PubMed Central 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Mueller, J. C., Pulido, F. & Kempenaers, B. Identification of a gene associated with avian migratory behaviour. Proc. R. Soc. B Biol. Sci. 278, 2848–2856 (2011).CAS 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Liedvogel, M. & Sheldon, B. C. Low variability and absence of phenotypic correlates of Clock gene variation in a great tit Parus major population. J. Avian Biol. 41, 543–550 (2010).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Lugo-Ramos, J. S., Delmore, K. E. & Liedvogel, M. Candidate genes for migration do not distinguish migratory and non-migratory birds. J. Comp. Physiol. A 203, 383–397 (2017).CAS 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Majoy, S. B. & Heideman, P. D. Tau differences between short-day responsive and short-day nonresponsive white-footed mice (Peromyscus leucopus) do not affect reproductive photoresponsiveness. J. Biol. Rhythms 15, 501–513 (2000).CAS 
    PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    O’Brien, C. et al. Geography of the circadian gene clock and photoperiodic response in western North American populations of the threespine stickleback Gasterosteus aculeatus. J. Fish Biol. 82, 827–839 (2013).PubMed 
    PubMed Central 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Contina, A., Bridge, E. S., Ross, J. D., Shipley, J. R. & Kelly, J. F. Examination of clock and Adcyap1 gene variation in a neotropical migratory passerine. PLoS ONE 13, e0190859 (2018).PubMed 
    PubMed Central 
    Article 
    CAS 

    Google Scholar 
    Herzog, E. D. Neurons and networks in daily rhythms. Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 8, 790–802 (2007).CAS 
    PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Chahad-Ehlers, S. et al. Expanding the view of clock and cycle gene evolution in Diptera. Insect Mol. Biol. 26, 317–331 (2017).CAS 
    PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Denlinger, D. L., Hahn, D. A., Merlin, C., Holzapfel, C. M. & Bradshaw, W. E. Keeping time without a spine: What can the insect clock teach us about seasonal adaptation?. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. B Biol. Sci. 372, 20160257 (2017).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    van Noordwijk, A. J. et al. A framework for the study of genetic variation in migratory behaviour. J .Ornithol. 147, 221–233 (2006).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Newton, I. The Migration Ecology of Birds (Academic Press, 2008).
    Google Scholar 
    Gohli, J., Lifjeld, J. T. & Albrecht, T. Migration distance is positively associated with sex-linked genetic diversity in passerine birds. Ethol. Ecol. Evol. 28, 42–52 (2016).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Bazzi, G. et al. Clock gene polymorphism, migratory behaviour and geographic distribution: A comparative study of trans-Saharan migratory birds. Mol. Ecol. 25, 6077–6091 (2016).CAS 
    PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Doren, B. M. V., Liedvogel, M. & Helm, B. Programmed and flexible: Long-term Zugunruhe data highlight the many axes of variation in avian migratory behaviour. J. Avian Biol. 48, 155–172 (2017).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Helm, B., Gwinner, E. & Trost, L. Flexible seasonal timing and migratory behavior: Results from stonechat breeding programs. Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci. 1046, 216–227 (2005).PubMed 
    Article 
    ADS 

    Google Scholar 
    Helm, B. & Gwinner, E. Migratory restlessness in an equatorial nonmigratory bird. PLoS Biol. 4, e110 (2006).PubMed 
    PubMed Central 
    Article 
    CAS 

    Google Scholar 
    Helm, B. Geographically distinct reproductive schedules in a changing world: Costly implications in captive Stonechats. Integr Comp Biol 49, 563–579 (2009).CAS 
    PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Dhondt, A. A. Variations in the number of overwintering stonechats possibly caused by natural selection. Ringing Migr. 4, 155–158 (1983).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Brown, C. R. & Brown, M. B. Weather-mediated natural selection on arrival time in cliff swallows (Petrochelidon pyrrhonota). Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 47, 339–345 (2000).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    GOUDET, J. FSTAT, a program to estimate and test gene diversities and fixation indices, version 2.9.3. http://www2.unil.ch/popgen/softwares/fstat.htm (2001).Van Doren, B. M. et al. Correlated patterns of genetic diversity and differentiation across an avian family. Mol. Ecol. 26, 3982–3997 (2017).PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Illera, J. C., Richardson, D. S., Helm, B., Atienza, J. C. & Emerson, B. C. Phylogenetic relationships, biogeography and speciation in the avian genus Saxicola. Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. 48, 1145–1154 (2008).PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Illera, J. C. & Díaz, M. Reproduction in an endemic bird of a semiarid island: A food-mediated process. J. Avian Biol. 37, 447–456 (2006).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Illera, J. C. & Díaz, M. Site fidelity in the Canary Islands stonechat Saxicola dacotiae in relation to spatial and temporal patterns of habitat suitability. Acta Oecol. 34, 1–8 (2008).Article 
    ADS 

    Google Scholar 
    Gwinner, E. & Dittami, J. Endogenous reproductive rhythms in a tropical bird. Science 249, 906–908 (1990).CAS 
    PubMed 
    Article 
    ADS 

    Google Scholar 
    Dittami, J. & Gwinner, E. Annual cycles in the African stonechat Saxicola torquata axillaris and their relationship to environmental factors. J. Zool. 207, 357–370 (1985).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Gwinner, E. Circannual rhythms in tropical and temperate-zone stonechats: A comparison of properties under constant conditions. Ökologie der Vögel 13, 5–14 (1991).
    Google Scholar 
    Gwinner, E. Circannual Rhythms: Endogenous Annual Clocks in the Organization of Seasonal Processes (Springer, 2012).
    Google Scholar 
    Helm, B., Fiedler, W. & Callion, J. Movements of European stonechats Saxicola torquata according to ringing recoveries. ARDEA-WAGENINGEN- 94, 33 (2006).
    Google Scholar 
    Opaev, A., Red’kin, Y., Kalinin, E. & Golovina, M. Species limits in Northern Eurasian taxa of the common stonechats, Saxicola torquatus complex (Aves: Passeriformes, Muscicapidae). Vertebr.ate Zool. 68, 199 (2018).
    Google Scholar 
    Gwinner, E. & Czeschlik, D. On the significance of spring migratory restlessness in caged birds. Oikos 30, 364–372 (1978).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Krist, M., Munclinger, P., Briedis, M. & Adamík, P. The genetic regulation of avian migration timing: combining candidate genes and quantitative genetic approaches in a long-distance migrant. Oecologia https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-021-04930-x (2021).Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 
    Berthold, P. & Pulido, F. Heritability of migratory activity in a natural bird population. Proc. R. Soc. London Ser. B Biol. Sci. 257, 311–315 (1994).Article 
    ADS 

    Google Scholar 
    Pulido, F. & Berthold, P. Current selection for lower migratory activity will drive the evolution of residency in a migratory bird population. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 107, 7341–7346 (2010).CAS 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 
    Article 
    ADS 

    Google Scholar 
    Liedvogel, M. & Lundberg, M. The Genetics of Migration. In Animal Movement Across Scales (eds Hansson, L.-A. & Åkesson, S.) 219–231 (Oxford University Press, 2014). https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199677184.003.0012.Chapter 

    Google Scholar 
    Åkesson, S. & Helm, B. Endogenous programs and flexibility in bird migration. Front. Ecol. Evol. 8, 78 (2020).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Stevenson, T. J. & Kumar, V. Neural control of daily and seasonal timing of songbird migration. J. Comp. Physiol. A 203, 399–409 (2017).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Verhagen, I. et al. Genetic and phenotypic responses to genomic selection for timing of breeding in a wild songbird. Funct. Ecol. 33, 1708–1721 (2019).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Helm, B. & Gwinner, E. Timing of Postjuvenal molt in African (Saxicola Torquata Axillaris) and European (Saxicola Torquata Rubicola) stonechats: Effects of genetic and environmental factors. Auk 116, 589–603 (1999).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Zink, R. M., Pavlova, A., Drovetski, S., Wink, M. & Rohwer, S. Taxonomic status and evolutionary history of the Saxicola torquata complex. Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. 52, 769–773 (2009).CAS 
    PubMed 
    Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Flinks, H. & Pfeifer, F. Brutzeit, Gelegegröße und Bruterfolg beim Schwarzkehlchen (Saxicola torquata). Charadrius 23, 128–140 (1987).
    Google Scholar 
    Urquhart, E. Stonechats (Christopher Helm, 2002).
    Google Scholar 
    Glutz von Blotzheim, U. Bauer Handbuch der Vögel Mitteleuropas KM: Bd. 11. Aula, Wiesbaden (1988).Yamaura, Y. et al. Tracking the Stejneger’s stonechat Saxicola stejnegeri along the East Asian-Australian Flyway from Japan via China to southeast Asia. J. Avian Biol. 48, 197–202 (2017).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Gwinner, E., Neusser, V., Engl, D., Schmidl, D. & Bals, L. Haltung, Zucht und Eiaufzucht afrikanischer und europäischer Schwarzkehlchen Saxicola torquata. Gefiederte Welt 111, 118–120 (1987).
    Google Scholar 
    Flinks, H., Helm, B. & Rothery, P. Plasticity of moult and breeding schedules in migratory European Stonechats Saxicola rubicola. Ibis 150, 687–697 (2008).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Humphrey, P. S. & Parkes, K. C. An approach to the study of molts and plumages. Auk 76, 1–31 (1959).Article 

    Google Scholar 
    Berthold, P. Bird Migration: A General Survey (Oxford University Press, 2001).
    Google Scholar 
    RStudio | Open source & professional software for data science teams. https://rstudio.com/.R Core Team. R: A language and environment for statistical computing. (R Foundation for Statistical Computing, 2013).Bates, D., Mächler, M., Bolker, B. & Walker, S. Fitting linear mixed-effects models using lme4. http://arxiv.org/abs/1406.5823 (2014).Lüdecke, D. & Lüdecke, M. D. Package ‘sjPlot’. (2015).del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, D. A. & de Juana, E. Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive (Lynx Edicions, 2018).
    Google Scholar  More

  • in

    Cohort dominance rank and “robbing and bartering” among subadult male long-tailed macaques at Uluwatu, Bali

    Study siteWe conducted this research at the Uluwatu temple site in Bali, Indonesia. Uluwatu is located on the Island’s southern coast, in the Badung Regency. The temple at Uluwatu is a Pura Luhur, which is a significant temple for Balinese Hindus across the island and is therefore visited regularly for significant regional, community, family, and household rituals by Balinese people from different regions throughout the year18. During the period of data collection hundreds of tourists also visit the Uluwatu temple each day. The temple sits on top of a promontory cliff edge, with walking paths in front of it that continue in loops to the North and South. These looping pathways surround scrub forests, which the macaques frequently inhabit but the humans rarely enter.In 2017–2018 there were five macaque groups at Uluwatu, which ranged throughout the temple complex area, and beyond. All groups are provisioned daily with a mixed diet of corn, cucumbers, and bananas by temple staff members. The two groups included in this research are the Celagi and Riting groups. We selected these groups because they previously exhibited significant differences in robbing frequencies whereby Riting was observed exhibiting robbing and bartering more frequently than Celagi1. Furthermore, both groups include the same highly trafficked tourist areas in their overlapping home ranges relative to the other groups at Uluwatu, theoretically minimizing between group differences in the contexts of human interaction1,19.Data collectionJVP collected data from May, 2017 to March, 2018 totaling 197 focal observation hours on all 13 subadult males in Celagi and Riting that were identified in May–June 2017. Subadult male long-tailed macaques exhibit characteristic patterns of incomplete canine eruption, sex organ development, and body size growth, which achieves a maximum of 80% of total adult size18. Mean sampling effort per individual was 15.2 hours (h), with a range of 1.75 h, totaling 102.75 h for Riting and 94.75 h for Celagi. The data collection protocol consisted of focal-animal sampling and instantaneous scan sampling20 on all six subadult males in the Celagi group, and all seven subadult males in the Riting group. Focal follows were 15 minutes in length. Sampling effort per individual is presented in Table 1. A random number generator determined the order of focal follows each morning. In the event a target focal animal could not be located within 10 minutes of locating the group, the next in line was located and observed. Data presented here come from focal animal sampling records of state and event behaviors. Relevant event behaviors consist of agonistic gestures used for calculating dominance relationships, including the target, or interaction partner, of all communicative event behaviors and the time of its occurrence. All changes in the focal animal’s state behavior were noted, recording the time of the change to the minute.Table 1 Focal Subadult male long-tailed macaques in Celagi and Riting at Uluwatu, Bali, Indonesia.Full size tableDuring focal samples we recorded robbing and bartering as a sequence of mixed event and state behaviors. We scored both the robbery and exchange phases as event behaviors, and the interim phase of item possession as a state behavior. We record a robbery as successful if the focal animal took an object from a human and established control of the object with their hands or teeth, and as unsuccessful if the focal animal touched the object but was not able to establish control of it. For each successful robbery we recorded the object taken. Unsuccessful robberies end the sequence, whereas successful robberies are typically followed by various forms of manipulating the object.The robbing and bartering sequence ends with one of several event behavior exchange outcomes: (1) “Successful exchanges” consist of the focal animal receiving a food reward from a human and releasing the stolen object; (2) “forced exchanges” are when a human takes the object back without a bartering event; (3) “dropped objects” describe when the macaque loses control of the object while carrying it or otherwise locomoting, and is akin to an “accidental drop”; (4) “no exchange” includes instances of the macaque releasing the object for no reward after manipulating it; and (5) “expired observation” consists of instances in which the final result of the robbing and bartering event was unobserved in the sample period (i.e., the sample period ended while the macaque still had possession of the object). A 6th exchange outcome is “rejected exchange,” which occurs when the focal animal does not drop the stolen object after being offered, or in some cases even accepting, a food reward. The “rejected exchange” outcome is unique in that it does not end the robbing and bartering sequence because a human may have one or more exchange attempts rejected before eventually facilitating a successful exchange, or before one of the other outcomes (2–5) occurs. For each successful exchange we recorded the food item the macaques received. Food items are grouped into four categories: fruits, peanuts, eggs, and human snacks. Snacks include packaged and processed food items such as candy or chips.Data analysisWe grouped the broad range of stolen items into classes of general types. “Eyewear” combines eyeglasses and sunglasses, while “footwear” combines sandals and shoes. “Ornaments” includes objects attached to and/or hanging from backpacks, such as keychains, while “accessories” includes decorative objects attached to an individual’s body or clothing like bracelets and hair ties. “Electronics” covers cellular phones and tablets. “Hats” encompasses removable forms of headwear, most typically represented by baseball-style hats or sun hats. “Plastics” is an item class consisting of lighters and bottles, which may be filled with water, soda, or juice. The “unidentified” category is used for stolen items which could not be clearly observed during or after the robbing and bartering sequence.“Robbery attempts” refers to the combined total number of successful and unsuccessful robberies. “Robbery efficiency” is a novel metric referring to the number of successful robberies divided by the total number of robbery attempts. The “Exchange Outcome Index” is calculated by dividing the number of successful exchanges by the total number of robbery attempts. We make this calculation using robbery attempts instead of successful robberies to account for total robbery effort because failed robberies still factor into an individual’s total energy expenditure toward receiving a bartered food reward and their total exposure to the risks (e.g., physical retaliation) of stealing from humans relative to achieving the desired end result of a food reward.Social rank was measured with David’s Score, calculated using dyadic agonistic interactions. We coded “winners” of contests as those who exhibited the agonistic behavior, while “losers” were the recipients of those agonistic behaviors21,22. We excluded intergroup agonistic interactions in our calculations of David’s Score.To account for potential variation in the overall patterns of interaction with humans between groups we calculated a Human Interaction Rate, which is the sum of human-directed interactions from focal animals in each group divided by the total number of observation hours on focal animals in that group.Statistical analysisWe ran statistical tests in SYSTAT software with a significance level set at 0.05. We used chi-square goodness-of-fit tests to assess the significance of differences in successful robberies between individuals for each group. To avoid having cells with values of zero, two focal subjects, Minion and Spot from Celagi, are excluded from this test because neither were observed making a successful robbery during the observation period. We also used chi-square goodness-of-fit tests to assess exchange outcome occurrences within each group, as well as a Fisher’s exact to test for significant differences in robbery outcomes between groups due to low expected counts in 40% of the cells. “Rejected exchange” events were not included in the analysis of robbery outcomes because they do not end the sequence and are therefore not mutually exclusive with the other robbery outcomes.We further tested for the effect of dominance position on robbery outcomes. Due to our small sample size and the preliminary nature of this investigation, we used Spearman correlations to assess the relationship between subadult male dominance position via David’s Score and (1) robbing efficiency and (2) the Exchange Outcome Index.Compliance with ethical standardsThis research complied with the standards and protocols for observational fieldwork with nonhuman primates and was approved by the University of Notre Dame Compliance IACUC board (protocol ID: 16-02-2932), where JVP and AF were affiliated at the time of this research. This study did not involve human subjects. This research further received a research permit from RISTEK in Indonesia (permit number: 2C21EB0881-R), and complied with local laws and customary practices in Bali. More