Metabarcoding reveals selective dietary responses to environmental availability in the diet of a nocturnal, aerial insectivore, the European Nightjar.

Ibis ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucy J. Mitchell ◽  
Gavin J. Horsburgh ◽  
Deborah A. Dawson ◽  
Kathryn H. Maher ◽  
Kathryn E. Arnold
Keyword(s):  
Aerial Insectivore ◽  
Environmental Availability

scholarly journals Impact of ancient iron smelting wastes on current soils: Legacy contamination, environmental availability and fractionation of metals

2021 ◽  
Vol 776 ◽  
pp. 145929
Author(s):  
Adnane Amnai ◽  
Diane Radola ◽  
Flavien Choulet ◽  
Martine Buatier ◽  
Frédéric Gimbert
Keyword(s):  
Iron Smelting ◽  
Ancient Iron ◽  
Environmental Availability

Comprehensive evaluation of environmental availability, pollution level and leaching heavy metals behavior in non-ferrous metal tailings

2021 ◽  
Vol 290 ◽  
pp. 112639
Author(s):  
Lei Jiang ◽  
Hongjuan Sun ◽  
Tongjiang Peng ◽  
Wenjin Ding ◽  
Bo Liu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Heavy Metals ◽  
Comprehensive Evaluation ◽  
Ferrous Metal ◽  
Pollution Level ◽  
Environmental Availability

Phenotypic differences among wild passerine nestlings in relation to early-life rearing environment

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jesús Gómez ◽  
Christy Morrissey ◽  
Sonia Cabezas ◽  
Tracy Marchant ◽  
Robert Clark
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Body Condition ◽  
Early Life ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Developmental Stages ◽  
Tree Swallow ◽  
Phenotypic Differences ◽  
Aerial Insectivore ◽  
Fledgling Survival ◽  
Insect Populations

Subtle changes in stress physiology during critical developmental stages have been linked to long-term fitness; however, the biological processes and phenotypic responses to early-life rearing environments such as anthropogenic land use conditions, have not been fully evaluated in insectivorous birds. We manipulated Tree Swallow, Tachycineta bicolor (Vieillot, 1808), brood sizes at sites with contrasting agricultural land use to assess phenotypic changes in body condition and genetic and physiological biomarkers of stress during the sensitive nestling growth phase. We predicted that nestling swallows raised on cropland-dominated sites, especially those in enlarged broods, would have lower body condition, shorter telomeres, and higher feather corticosterone than nestlings raised in smaller broods at grassland sites. Body condition was highest among nestlings raised in reduced broods but was unrelated to land use. Telomere lengths tended to be shorter in nestlings from enlarged broods and at cropland sites. Corticosterone was not related to any factor. Locally-abundant insect populations associated with wetlands may have dampened the effects and/or parent swallows assumed higher costs of reproduction rather than passing these costs to nestlings. Results suggest that food stress could reduce fledgling survival via telomere shortening; a hypothesis that requires further investigation due to its potential importance to population viability in multiple declining aerial insectivore species.

scholarly journals Useful woody species and its environmental availability: the case of artisanal fishermen in Itaúnas, Brazil

2017 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 227
Author(s):  
Lucas Costa Monteiro Lopes ◽  
Maria Otávia Silva Crepaldi ◽  
Adriana Quintella Lobão
Keyword(s):  
Woody Species ◽  
Environmental Availability

scholarly journals Omega-3 long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids support aerial insectivore performance more than food quantity

2016 ◽  
Vol 113 (39) ◽  
pp. 10920-10925 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cornelia W. Twining ◽  
J. Thomas Brenna ◽  
Peter Lawrence ◽  
J. Ryan Shipley ◽  
Troy N. Tollefson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Fatty Acid Composition ◽  
Fatty Acid ◽  
Acid Composition ◽  
Tree Swallow ◽  
Omega 3 ◽  
Food Quantity ◽  
Aerial Insectivore ◽  
Aerial Insectivores ◽  
Terrestrial Insects ◽  
Long Chain

Once-abundant aerial insectivores, such as the Tree Swallow (Tachycineta bicolor), have declined steadily in the past several decades, making it imperative to understand all aspects of their ecology. Aerial insectivores forage on a mixture of aquatic and terrestrial insects that differ in fatty acid composition, specifically long-chain omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid (LCPUFA) content. Aquatic insects contain high levels of both LCPUFA and their precursor omega-3 PUFA, alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), whereas terrestrial insects contain much lower levels of both. We manipulated both the quantity and quality of food for Tree Swallow chicks in a full factorial design. Diets were either high-LCPUFA or low in LCPUFA but high in ALA, allowing us to separate the effects of direct LCPUFA in diet from the ability of Tree Swallows to convert their precursor, ALA, into LCPUFA. We found that fatty acid composition was more important for Tree Swallow chick performance than food quantity. On high-LCPUFA diets, chicks grew faster, were in better condition, and had greater immunocompetence and lower basal metabolic rates compared with chicks on both low LCPUFA diets. Increasing the quantity of high-LCPUFA diets resulted in improvements to all metrics of performance while increasing the quantity of low-LCPUFA diets only resulted in greater immunocompetence and lower metabolic rates. Chicks preferentially retained LCPUFA in brain and muscle when both food quantity and LCPUFA were limited. Our work suggests that fatty acid composition is an important dimension of aerial insectivore nutritional ecology and reinforces the importance of high-quality aquatic habitat for these declining birds.

scholarly journals Interacting effects of cold snaps, rain, and agriculture on the fledging success of a declining aerial insectivore

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Roy Garrett ◽  
Fanie Pelletier ◽  
Dany Garant ◽  
Marc Bélisle
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Agricultural Intensification ◽  
Prey Availability ◽  
Tree Swallow ◽  
Landscape Changes ◽  
Population Declines ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Fledging Success ◽  
Inclement Weather ◽  
Aerial Insectivore

Climate change predicts the increased frequency, duration, and intensity of inclement weather periods, such as unseasonably low temperatures and prolonged precipitation. Many migratory species have advanced the phenology of important life history stages, and as a result are likely exposed to these periods of inclement spring weather more often, thus risking reduced fitness and population growth. For declining avian species, including aerial insectivores, anthropogenic landscape changes such as agricultural intensification are another driver of population declines. These landscape changes may affect the foraging ability of food provisioning parents, as well as reduce the probability a nestling will survive periods of inclement weather, through for example pesticide exposure impairing thermoregulation and punctual anorexia. Breeding in agro-intensive landscapes may thus exacerbate the negative effects of inclement weather under climate change. We used daily temperatures related to significant reductions of insect prey availability (cold snaps), combined with measures of precipitation, and assessed their impact on Tree Swallow (Tachycineta bicolor) fledging success, a declining aerial insectivore breeding across a gradient of agricultural intensification. Fledging success decreased with the number of cold snap days experienced by a brood, and this relationship was worsened during periods of prolonged precipitation. We further found the overall negative effects of experiencing periods of inclement weather are exacerbated in more agro-intensive landscapes. Our results indicate that two of the primary hypothesized drivers of many avian population declines may interact to further increase the rate of declines in certain landscape contexts.

Environmental availability of sulfamethoxazole and its acetylated metabolite added to soils via sludge compost or bovine manure

2019 ◽  
Vol 651 ◽  
pp. 506-515 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anaïs Goulas ◽  
Nicolas Sertillanges ◽  
Khaled Brimo ◽  
Patricia Garnier ◽  
Valérie Bergheaud ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sludge Compost ◽  
Environmental Availability

scholarly journals An Improved HRPE-Based Transcriptional Output Reporter to Detect Hypoxia and Anoxia in Plant Tissue

Biosensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 197
Author(s):  
Gabriele Panicucci ◽  
Sergio Iacopino ◽  
Elisa De Meo ◽  
Pierdomenico Perata ◽  
Daan A. Weits
Keyword(s):  
Fluorescent Protein ◽  
Narrow Range ◽  
Oxygen Deficiency ◽  
Plant Cells ◽  
Untranslated Regions ◽  
Plant Tissues ◽  
Reporter Activity ◽  
Hypoxic Conditions ◽  
Environmental Availability ◽  
Transcriptional Output

Oxygen levels in plant tissues may vary, depending on metabolism, diffusion barriers, and environmental availability. Current techniques to assess the oxic status of plant cells rely primarily on invasive microoptodes or Clark-type electrodes, which are not optimally suited for experiments that require high spatial and temporal resolution. In this case, a genetically encoded oxygen biosensor is required instead. This article reports the design, test, and optimization of a hypoxia-signaling reporter, based on five-time repeated hypoxia-responsive promoter elements (HRPE) driving the expression of different reporter proteins. Specifically, this study aimed to improve its performance as a reporter of hypoxic conditions by testing the effect of different untranslated regions (UTRs) at the 5′ end of the reporter coding sequence. Next, we characterized an optimized version of the HRPE promoter (HRPE-Ω) in terms of hypoxia sensitivity and time responsiveness. We also observed that severe oxygen deficiency counteracted the reporter activity due to inhibition of GFP maturation, which requires molecular oxygen. To overcome this limitation, we therefore employed an oxygen-independent UnaG fluorescent protein-coupled to an O2-dependent mCherry fluorophore under the control of the optimized HRPE-Ω promoter. Remarkably, this sensor, provided a different mCherry/UnaG ratiometric output depending on the externally imposed oxygen concentration, providing a solution to distinguish between different degrees of tissue hypoxia. Moreover, a ubiquitously expressed UnaG-mCherry fusion could be used to image oxygen concentrations directly, albeit at a narrow range. The luminescent and fluorescent hypoxia-reporters described here can readily be used to conduct studies that involve anaerobiosis in plants.

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