Catálogo de publicaciones - revistas

<jats:title>ABSTRACT</jats:title><jats:p>Given the marked variation in abiotic and biotic conditions between day and night, many species specialise their physical activity to being diurnal or nocturnal, and it was long thought that these strategies were commonly fairly fixed and invariant. The term ‘cathemeral’, was coined in 1987, when Tattersall noted activity in a Madagascan primate during the hours of both daylight and darkness. Initially thought to be rare, cathemerality is now known to be a quite widespread form of time partitioning amongst arthropods, fish, birds, and mammals. Herein we provide a synthesis of present understanding of cathemeral behaviour, arguing that it should routinely be included alongside diurnal and nocturnal strategies in schemes that distinguish and categorise species across taxa according to temporal niche. This synthesis is particularly timely because (<jats:italic>i</jats:italic>) the study of animal activity patterns is being revolutionised by new and improved technologies; (<jats:italic>ii</jats:italic>) it is becoming apparent that cathemerality covers a diverse range of obligate to facultative forms, each with their own common sets of functional traits, geographic ranges and evolutionary history; (<jats:italic>iii</jats:italic>) daytime and nighttime activity likely plays an important but currently neglected role in temporal niche partitioning and ecosystem functioning; and (<jats:italic>iv</jats:italic>) cathemerality may have an important role in the ability of species to adapt to human‐mediated pressures.</jats:p>

<jats:title>ABSTRACT</jats:title><jats:p>Uncertainty has long been of interest to economists and psychologists and has more recently gained attention among ecologists. In the ecological world, animals must regularly make decisions related to finding resources and avoiding threats. Here, we describe uncertainty as a perceptual phenomenon of decision‐makers, and we focus specifically on the functional ecology of such uncertainty regarding predation risk. Like all uncertainty, uncertainty about predation risk reflects informational limitations. When cues are available, they may be novel (i.e. unknown information), incomplete, unreliable, overly abundant and complex, or conflicting. We review recent studies that have used these informational limitations to induce uncertainty of predation risk. These studies have typically used either over‐responses to novelty (i.e. neophobia) or memory attenuation as proxies for measuring uncertainty. Because changes in the environment, particularly unpredictable changes, drive informational limitations, we describe studies assessing unpredictable variance in spatio‐temporal predation risk, intensity of predation risk, predator encounter rate, and predator diversity. We also highlight anthropogenic changes within habitats that are likely to have dramatic impacts on information availability and thus uncertainty in antipredator decisions in the modern world.</jats:p>

<jats:title>ABSTRACT</jats:title><jats:p>Conservation translocation is a common strategy to offset mounting rates of population declines through the transfer of captive‐ or wild‐origin organisms into areas where conspecific populations are imperilled or completely extirpated. Translocations that supplement existing populations are referred to as reinforcements and can be conducted using captive‐origin animals [<jats:italic>ex situ</jats:italic> reinforcement (ESR)] or wild‐origin animals without any captive ancestry [<jats:italic>in situ</jats:italic> reinforcement (ISR)]. These programs have been criticized for low success rates and husbandry practices that produce individuals with genetic and performance deficits, but the post‐release performance of captive‐origin or wild‐origin translocated groups has not been systematically reviewed to quantify success relative to wild‐resident control groups. To assess the disparity in post‐release performance of translocated organisms relative to wild‐resident conspecifics and examine the association of performance disparity with organismal and methodological factors across studies, we conducted a systematic review and meta‐analysis of 821 performance comparisons from 171 studies representing nine animal classes (101 species). We found that translocated organisms have 64% decreased odds of out‐performing their wild‐resident counterparts, supporting claims of systemic issues hampering conservation translocations. To help identify translocation practices that could maximize program success in the future, we further quantified the impact of broad organismal and methodological factors on the disparity between translocated and wild‐resident conspecific performance. Pre‐release animal enrichment significantly reduced performance disparities, whereas our results suggest no overall effects of taxonomic group, sex, captive generation time, or the type of fitness surrogate measured. This work is the most comprehensive systematic review to date of animal conservation translocations in which wild conspecifics were used as comparators, thereby facilitating an evaluation of the overall impact of this conservation strategy and identifying specific actions to increase success. Our review highlights the need for conservation managers to include both sympatric and allopatric wild‐reference groups to ensure the post‐release performance of translocated animals can be evaluated. Further, our analyses identify pre‐release animal enrichment as a particular strategy for improving the outcomes of animal conservation translocations, and demonstrate how meta‐analysis can be used to identify implementation choices that maximize translocated animal contributions to recipient population growth and viability.</jats:p>

<jats:title>ABSTRACT</jats:title><jats:p>Stoneworts (Charales) are green algae that represent an important food resource for many waterbird species in Europe and elsewhere. Browsing avian herbivores (e.g. swan, goose, duck and coot species) consume Charales plant vegetative parts, by head‐dipping, up‐ending or diving. A lower fibre content and longer growing season may make Charales as attractive to such herbivores as sympatric submerged higher plant species in some circumstances. Charales respond to environmental stress (e.g. drought) by producing abundant diaspores, in the form of oospores (sexual) and bulbils (asexual), both rich in starch, generating abundant food for waterbirds at critical stages in their annual migratory cycles. Waterbirds feed on these by diving (e.g. common pochard <jats:italic>Aythya ferina</jats:italic> and red‐crested pochard <jats:italic>Netta rufina</jats:italic>) or by filtering from the water column (e.g. dabbling duck species), ensuring dispersal of sexually produced and vegetative diaspores locally (because of predator swamping) and remotely (through endo‐ and ectozoochorous dispersal by long‐distance migratory waterbirds). Greater invertebrate density and diversity associated with Charales canopies enhances their attractiveness over other submerged macrophyte beds to diving predators [e.g. tufted duck <jats:italic>Aythya fuligula</jats:italic>, common pochard and Eurasian coot <jats:italic>Fulica atra</jats:italic> (hereafter coot)]. Fish fry preying on these invertebrates use such vegetation as predator cover, in turn providing prey for avian piscivores such as grebes and cormorants. Abundant Charales contribute to maintaining a transparent water column due to canopy density, nutrient effects, dampening of sedimentation/remobilisation of suspended matter and nutrients and allelopathic effects on other plants (especially phytoplankton). Shallow, relatively eutrophic waters can flip between clear‐water high‐biodiversity (where Charales thrive) and turbid species‐poor depauperate stable states (lacking Charales). Shifts between turbid conditions and rich submerged Charales beds have profound elevating effects on aquatic diversity, to which waterbirds show rapid aggregative responses, making them ideal indicator species of ecological change; in the case of Charales specialists (such as red‐crested and common pochard), indicators of the presence and abundance of these plants. Large‐bodied colonial nesting birds (e.g. cormorants, gulls, heron and egrets) aggregating along lake shores contribute high N and P loadings to water bodies sensitive to such external and internal inputs and can cause local eutrophication and potential loss of Charales. Despite variation from complete seasonal removal of Charales biomass to undetectable grazing effects by herbivorous birds, evidence suggests little effect of avian grazing on biomass accumulation or the stability of community composition (under otherwise stable conditions), but we urge more research on this under‐researched topic. We also lack investigations of the relative foraging profitability of different Charales organs to waterbirds and the degree of viability of gyrogonites (fertilised and calcified oospores), vegetative bulbils and plant fragments after passage through the guts of waterbirds. We especially need to understand better how much the carbonate armour of these organs affects their viability/dispersal <jats:italic>via</jats:italic> waterbirds and urge more research on these neglected plants and their relationships and interactions with other organisms in the aquatic biota.</jats:p>

<jats:title>ABSTRACT</jats:title><jats:p>Agricultural intensification at field and landscape scales, including increased use of agrochemicals and loss of semi‐natural habitats, is a major driver of insect declines and other community changes. Efforts to understand and mitigate these effects have traditionally focused on ecological responses. At the same time, adaptations to pesticide use and habitat fragmentation in both insects and flowering plants show the potential for rapid evolution. Yet we lack an understanding of how such evolutionary responses may propagate within and between trophic levels with ensuing consequences for conservation of species and ecological functions in agroecosystems. Here, we review the literature on the consequences of agricultural intensification on plant and animal evolutionary responses and interactions. We present a novel conceptualization of evolutionary change induced by agricultural intensification at field and landscape scales and emphasize direct and indirect effects of rapid evolution on ecosystem services. We exemplify by focusing on economically and ecologically important interactions between plants and pollinators. We showcase available eco‐evolutionary theory and plant–pollinator modelling that can improve predictions of how agricultural intensification affects interaction networks, and highlight available genetic and trait‐focused methodological approaches. Specifically, we focus on how spatial genetic structure affects the probability of propagated responses, and how the structure of interaction networks modulates effects of evolutionary change in individual species. Thereby, we highlight how combined trait‐based eco‐evolutionary modelling, functionally explicit quantitative genetics, and genomic analyses may shed light on conditions where evolutionary responses impact important ecosystem services.</jats:p>

<jats:title>ABSTRACT</jats:title><jats:p>Ectotherms that maintain thermal balance in the face of varying climates should be able to colonise a wide range of habitats. In lizards, thermoregulation usually appears as a variety of behaviours that buffer external influences over physiology. Basking species rely on solar radiation to raise body temperatures and usually show high thermoregulatory precision. By contrast, species that do not bask are often constrained by climatic conditions in their habitats, thus having lower thermoregulatory precision. While much focus has been given to the effects of mean habitat temperatures, relatively less is known about how seasonality affects the thermal biology of lizards on a macroecological scale. Considering the current climate crisis, assessing how lizards cope with temporal variations in environmental temperature is essential to understand better how these organisms will fare under climate change. Activity body temperatures (<jats:italic>T</jats:italic><jats:sub>b</jats:sub>) represent the internal temperature of an animal measured in nature during its active period (i.e. realised thermal niche), and preferred body temperatures (<jats:italic>T</jats:italic><jats:sub>pref</jats:sub>) are those selected by an animal in a laboratory thermal gradient that lacks thermoregulatory costs (i.e. fundamental thermal niche). Both traits form the bulk of thermal ecology research and are often studied in the context of seasonality. In this study, we used a meta‐analysis to test how environmental temperature seasonality influences the seasonal variation in the <jats:italic>T</jats:italic><jats:sub>b</jats:sub> and <jats:italic>T</jats:italic><jats:sub>pref</jats:sub> of lizards that differ in thermoregulatory strategy (basking <jats:italic>versus</jats:italic> non‐basking). Based on 333 effect sizes from 137 species, we found that <jats:italic>T</jats:italic><jats:sub>b</jats:sub> varied over a greater magnitude than <jats:italic>T</jats:italic><jats:sub>pref</jats:sub> across seasons. Variations in <jats:italic>T</jats:italic><jats:sub>b</jats:sub> were not influenced by environmental temperature seasonality; however, body size and thermoregulatory strategy mediated <jats:italic>T</jats:italic><jats:sub>b</jats:sub> responses. Specifically, larger species were subjected to greater seasonal variations in <jats:italic>T</jats:italic><jats:sub>b</jats:sub>, and basking species endured greater seasonal variations in <jats:italic>T</jats:italic><jats:sub>b</jats:sub> compared to non‐basking species. On the other hand, the seasonal variation in <jats:italic>T</jats:italic><jats:sub>pref</jats:sub> increased with environmental temperature seasonality regardless of body size. Thermoregulatory strategy also influenced <jats:italic>T</jats:italic><jats:sub>pref</jats:sub>, suggesting that behaviour has an important role in mediating <jats:italic>T</jats:italic><jats:sub>pref</jats:sub> responses to seasonal variations in the thermal landscape. After controlling for phylogenetic effects, we showed that <jats:italic>T</jats:italic><jats:sub>b</jats:sub> and <jats:italic>T</jats:italic><jats:sub>pref</jats:sub> varied significantly across lizard families. Taken together, our results support the notion that the relationship between thermal biology responses and climatic parameters can be taxon and trait dependent. Our results also showcase the importance of considering ecological and behavioural aspects in macroecological studies. We further highlight current systematic, geographical, and knowledge gaps in thermal ecology research. Our work should benefit those who aim to understand more fully how seasonality shapes thermal biology in lizards, ultimately contributing to the goal of elucidating the evolution of temperature‐sensitive traits in ectotherms.</jats:p>

<jats:title>ABSTRACT</jats:title><jats:p>Microbiome science has provided groundbreaking insights into human and animal health. Similarly, evolutionary medicine – the incorporation of eco‐evolutionary concepts into primarily human medical theory and practice – is increasingly recognised for its novel perspectives on modern diseases. Studies of host–microbe relationships have been expanded beyond humans to include a wide range of animal taxa, adding new facets to our understanding of animal ecology, evolution, behaviour, and health. In this review, we propose that a broader application of evolutionary medicine, combined with microbiome science, can provide valuable and innovative perspectives on animal care and conservation. First, we draw on classic ecological principles, such as alternative stable states, to propose an eco‐evolutionary framework for understanding variation in animal microbiomes and their role in animal health and wellbeing. With a focus on mammalian gut microbiomes, we apply this framework to populations of animals under human care, with particular relevance to the many animal species that suffer diseases linked to gut microbial dysfunction (e.g. gut distress and infection, autoimmune disorders, obesity). We discuss diet and microbial landscapes (i.e. the microbes in the animal's external environment), as two factors that are (<jats:italic>i</jats:italic>) proposed to represent evolutionary mismatches for captive animals, (<jats:italic>ii</jats:italic>) linked to gut microbiome structure and function, and (<jats:italic>iii</jats:italic>) potentially best understood from an evolutionary medicine perspective. Keeping within our evolutionary framework, we highlight the potential benefits – and pitfalls – of modern microbial therapies, such as pre‐ and probiotics, faecal microbiota transplants, and microbial rewilding. We discuss the limited, yet growing, empirical evidence for the use of microbial therapies to modulate animal gut microbiomes beneficially. Interspersed throughout, we propose 12 actionable steps, grounded in evolutionary medicine, that can be applied to practical animal care and management. We encourage that these actionable steps be paired with integration of eco‐evolutionary perspectives into our definitions of appropriate animal care standards. The evolutionary perspectives proposed herein may be best appreciated when applied to the broad diversity of species under human care, rather than when solely focused on humans. We urge animal care professionals, veterinarians, nutritionists, scientists, and others to collaborate on these efforts, allowing for simultaneous care of animal patients and the generation of valuable empirical data.</jats:p>

<jats:title>ABSTRACT</jats:title><jats:p>The evolution of microRNAs (miRNAs) has been studied extensively to understand their roles in gene regulation and evolutionary processes. This review focuses on how miRNA‐mediated regulation has evolved in bilaterian animals, highlighting both convergent and divergent evolution. Since animals and plants display significant differences in miRNA biogenesis and target recognition, the ‘independent origin’ hypothesis proposes that miRNA pathways in these groups independently evolved from the RNA interference (RNAi) pathway, leading to modern miRNA repertoires through convergent evolution. However, recent evidence raises the alternative possibility that the miRNA pathway might have already existed in the last common ancestor of eukaryotes, and that the differences in miRNA pathway and miRNA repertoires among animal and plant lineages arise from lineage‐specific innovations and losses of miRNA pathways, miRNA acquisition, and loss of miRNAs after eukaryotic divergence. The repertoire of miRNAs has considerably expanded during bilaterian evolution, primarily through <jats:italic>de novo</jats:italic> creation and duplication processes, generating new miRNAs. Although ancient functionally established miRNAs are rarely lost, many newly emerged miRNAs are transient and lineage specific, following a birth–death evolutionary pattern aligning with the ‘out‐of‐the‐testis’ and ‘transcriptional control’ hypotheses. Our focus then shifts to the convergent molecular evolution of miRNAs. We summarize how miRNA clustering and seed mimicry contribute to this phenomenon, and we review how miRNAs from different sources converge to degrade maternal messenger RNAs (mRNAs) during animal development. Additionally, we describe how miRNAs evolve across species due to changes in sequence, seed shifting, arm switching, and spatiotemporal expression patterns, which can result in variations in target sites among orthologous miRNAs across distant strains or species. We also provide a summary of the current understanding regarding how the target sites of orthologous miRNAs can vary across strains or distantly related species. Although many paralogous miRNAs retain their seed or mature sequences after duplication, alterations can occur in the seed or mature sequences or expression patterns of paralogous miRNAs, leading to functional diversification. We discuss our current understanding of the functional divergence between duplicated miRNAs, and illustrate how the functional diversification of duplicated miRNAs impacts target site evolution. By investigating these topics, we aim to enhance our current understanding of the functions and evolutionary dynamics of miRNAs. Additionally, we shed light on the existing challenges in miRNA evolutionary studies, particularly the complexity of deciphering the role of miRNA‐mediated regulatory network evolution in shaping gene expression divergence and phenotypic differences among species.</jats:p>

<jats:title>ABSTRACT</jats:title><jats:p>Foraging is risk sensitive if choices depend on the variability of returns from the options as well as their mean return. Risk‐sensitive foraging is important in behavioural ecology, psychology and neurophysiology. It has been explained both in terms of mechanisms and in terms of evolutionary advantage. We provide a critical review, evaluating both mechanistic and evolutionary accounts. Some derivations of risk sensitivity from mechanistic models based on psychophysics are not convincing because they depend on an inappropriate use of Jensen's inequality. Attempts have been made to link risk sensitivity to the ecology of a species, but again these are not convincing. The field of risk‐sensitive foraging has provided a focus for theoretical and empirical work and has yielded important insights, but we lack a simple and empirically defendable general account of it in either mechanistic or evolutionary terms. However, empirical analysis of choice sequences under theoretically motivated experimental designs and environmental settings appears a promising avenue for mapping the scope and relative merits of existing theories. Simply put, the devil is in the sequence.</jats:p>

<jats:title>ABSTRACT</jats:title><jats:p>The mammalian cranium (skull without lower jaw) is representative of mammalian diversity and is thus of particular interest to mammalian biologists across disciplines. One widely retrieved pattern accompanying mammalian cranial diversification is referred to as ‘craniofacial evolutionary allometry’ (CREA). This posits that adults of larger species, in a group of closely related mammals, tend to have relatively longer faces and smaller braincases. However, no process has been officially suggested to explain this pattern, there are many apparent exceptions, and its predictions potentially conflict with well‐established biomechanical principles. Understanding the mechanisms behind CREA and causes for deviations from the pattern therefore has tremendous potential to explain allometry and diversification of the mammalian cranium. Here, we propose an amended framework to characterise the CREA pattern more clearly, in that ‘longer faces’ can arise through several kinds of evolutionary change, including elongation of the rostrum, retraction of the jaw muscles, or a more narrow or shallow skull, which all result in a generalised gracilisation of the facial skeleton with increased size. We define a standardised workflow to test for the presence of the pattern, using allometric shape predictions derived from geometric morphometrics analysis, and apply this to 22 mammalian families including marsupials, rabbits, rodents, bats, carnivores, antelopes, and whales. Our results show that increasing facial gracility with size is common, but not necessarily as ubiquitous as previously suggested. To address the mechanistic basis for this variation, we then review cranial adaptations for harder biting. These dictate that a more gracile cranium in larger species must represent a structural sacrifice in the ability to produce or withstand harder bites, relative to size. This leads us to propose that facial gracilisation in larger species is often a product of bite force allometry and phylogenetic niche conservatism, where more closely related species tend to exhibit more similar feeding ecology and biting behaviours and, therefore, absolute (size‐independent) bite force requirements. Since larger species can produce the same absolute bite forces as smaller species with less effort, we propose that relaxed bite force demands can permit facial gracility in response to bone optimisation and alternative selection pressures. Thus, mammalian facial scaling represents an adaptive by‐product of the shifting importance of selective pressures occurring with increased size. A reverse pattern of facial ‘shortening’ can accordingly also be found, and is retrieved in several cases here, where larger species incorporate novel feeding behaviours involving greater bite forces. We discuss multiple exceptions to a bite force‐mediated influence on facial proportions across mammals which lead us to argue that ecomorphological specialisation of the cranium is likely to be the primary driver of facial scaling patterns, with some developmental constraints as possible secondary factors. A potential for larger species to have a wider range of cranial functions when less constrained by bite force demands might also explain why selection for larger sizes seems to be prevalent in some mammalian clades. The interplay between adaptation and constraint across size ranges thus presents an interesting consideration for a mechanistically grounded investigation of mammalian cranial allometry.</jats:p>