89 new PhDs from the University of Iceland in 2025
December 1st is a ceremony for the new PhDs
5 of those were from Biology programme, spanning #Arcticcharr #genomics, #whale #bioacoustics, #speciesInteractions, #invasionbiology and #transgenerational #plasticity , all with #AquaticAnimals
Picture #UIceland
https://english.hi.is/news/almost-90-candidates-completed-phd-university
I love how delightfully diabolical evolution can be.
A new article in Annual Review of Entomology is about the plant pathogens that are vectored between plants by herbivorous insects. These plant pathogens invade plant tissues and make plants sick. To get between plants they hitch a ride inside plant-feeding insects. The healthier the insect the more plants it will feed on.
So, what do the microbes do? They manufacture chemicals that make their insect hosts stronger. Several ways that they do this have been discovered "from balancing a nutritionally deficient diet" to "upgrading its defensive biochemistry against natural enemies."
Wild!
"Plant Pathogens Moonlighting as Beneficial Insect Symbionts" by
Aileen Berasategui and Hassan Salem
https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-ento-121423-013411
#entomology #SpeciesInteractions #mutualism #ecology #PlantPathogens #Herbivory #insects
Herbivorous insects can shape the epidemiology of disease in plants by vectoring numerous phytopathogens. While the consequences of infection are often well-characterized in the host plant, the extent to which phytopathogens alter the physiology and development of their insect vectors remains poorly understood. In this review, we highlight how insect-borne phytopathogens can promote vector fitness, consistent with theoretical predictions that selection should favor a mutualistic or commensal phenotype. In doing so, we define the metabolic features predisposing plant pathogens to engage in beneficial partnerships with herbivorous insects and how these mutualisms promote the microbe's propagation to uninfected plants. For the vector, the benefits of co-opting microbial pathways and metabolites can be immense: from balancing a nutritionally deficient diet and unlocking a novel ecological niche to upgrading its defensive biochemistry against natural enemies. Given the independent origins of these tripartite interactions and a number of convergent features, we also discuss the evolutionary and genomic signatures underlying microbial adaptation to its dual lifestyle as both a plant pathogen and an insect mutualist. Finally, as host association can constrain the metabolic potential of microbes over evolutionary time, we outline the stability of these interactions and how they impact the virulence and transmission of plant pathogens.
So this came online over the weekend: My dive into the "definition" of coevolution is online ahead of publication in @journal_evo
Don’t ask "when is it coevolution?" — ask "how?"
https://doi.org/10.1093/evolut/qpaf194
#science #evolution #ecology #SpeciesInteractions #coevolution #history
One of the classics of NZ ecological science is this Auckland study by Sandra Anderson and colleagues. They showed, in extraordinary detail, how the loss of two endemic flower-pollinating birds from mainland Auckland (korimako and hihi), and the relative rarity of another (tūī), have caused the population to falter of the endemic bird-pollinated plant taurepo, Rhabdothamnus solandri.
Plus, Australian silvereyes, now widespread in NZ, were nectar robbers and damaged a lot of the flowers.
Everything is connected, and the effects of species declines can be unexpected and initially easy to overlook.
"Nectar robbing by silvereyes, revealed by slit corolla tubes, was always rare on islands (means 3.2% of flowers near Whangarei and 4.3% near Auckland) compared with the mainland (14.1 and 79.2% in Whangarei and Auckland regions... These data reinforce the conclusion that a shortage of visits by endemic bird pollinators on the mainland is the cause of the failure of seed production and that recently self-introduced silvereyes are not effective substitute pollinators."
Anderson, S. H., Kelly, D., Ladley, J. J., Molloy, S., and Terry, J. 2011. Cascading effects of bird functional extinction reduce pollination and plant density. Science, 331:1068–1071. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1199092
#BirdPollination #nz #TrophicCascade #ecology #SpeciesInteractions
Mechanisms of coexistence are often un-intuitive. In a new Special Feature, Werner et al. explore species interactions across different environmental scenarios to bridge theoretical and empirical approaches to coexistence. Read now ahead of print! https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/733382
Referenced link: https://phys.org/news/2023-04-nature-chefs-scientists-food-making-species.html
Discuss on https://discu.eu/q/https://phys.org/news/2023-04-nature-chefs-scientists-food-making-species.html
Originally posted by Phys.org / @physorg_com: http://nitter.platypush.tech/physorg_com/status/1648742062580170767#m
Nature's chefs: Scientists propose food-making as means of understanding #speciesinteractions @ncstate https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance-article/doi/10.1093/biosci/biad026/7115688 https://phys.org/news/2023-04-nature-chefs-scientists-food-making-species.html
An interdisciplinary group of researchers is proposing a new way to think of some interactions between species, classifying a variety of plants, animals and fungi as "nature's chefs." Specifically, nature's chefs are organisms that provide food—or the illusion of food—to other organisms. The concept offers a new perspective on species interactions, which can inform how people think about food across the tree of life as well as disparate research disciplines.
I've put together a list of the links to my sites in case you want to find out more about how I use experiments and theory to understand how species interactions shape ecosystem stability and functioning.
#Ecology #CommunityEcology #PhD #Science #Research #Ecosystems #Networks #SpeciesInteractions #Experiments #Thesis #Stability #Coexistence #Nature #AcademicMastodon
Does anyone know of datasets where multiple types of species interactions were measured in the same community? I can find plenty of food webs, plant-pollinator networks, etc, but no single community where, for example, both plant-pollinator and predator-prey interactions were measured.
charrvein
Jon Sullivan
Jeremy B. Yoder 🖖🏻🌿🏳️🌈📈
Marc Robinson-Rechavi
American Naturalist
Carolannie
Phys.org
Rodrigo R. Granjel
Dr. Emily Dolson