ALBERT

Description: The search for predictions of species diversity across environmental gradients has challenged ecologists for decades. The humped-back model (HBM) suggests that plant diversity peaks at intermediate productivity; at low productivity few species can tolerate the environmental stresses, and at high productivity a few highly competitive species dominate. Over time the HBM has become increasingly controversial, and recent studies claim to have refuted it. Here, by using data from coordinated surveys conducted throughout grasslands worldwide and comprising a wide range of site productivities, we provide evidence in support of the HBM pattern at both global and regional extents. The relationships described here provide a foundation for further research into the local, landscape, and historical factors that maintain biodiversity.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Fraser, Lauchlan H -- Pither, Jason -- Jentsch, Anke -- Sternberg, Marcelo -- Zobel, Martin -- Askarizadeh, Diana -- Bartha, Sandor -- Beierkuhnlein, Carl -- Bennett, Jonathan A -- Bittel, Alex -- Boldgiv, Bazartseren -- Boldrini, Ilsi I -- Bork, Edward -- Brown, Leslie -- Cabido, Marcelo -- Cahill, James -- Carlyle, Cameron N -- Campetella, Giandiego -- Chelli, Stefano -- Cohen, Ofer -- Csergo, Anna-Maria -- Diaz, Sandra -- Enrico, Lucas -- Ensing, David -- Fidelis, Alessandra -- Fridley, Jason D -- Foster, Bryan -- Garris, Heath -- Goheen, Jacob R -- Henry, Hugh A L -- Hohn, Maria -- Jouri, Mohammad Hassan -- Klironomos, John -- Koorem, Kadri -- Lawrence-Lodge, Rachael -- Long, Ruijun -- Manning, Pete -- Mitchell, Randall -- Moora, Mari -- Muller, Sandra C -- Nabinger, Carlos -- Naseri, Kamal -- Overbeck, Gerhard E -- Palmer, Todd M -- Parsons, Sheena -- Pesek, Mari -- Pillar, Valerio D -- Pringle, Robert M -- Roccaforte, Kathy -- Schmidt, Amanda -- Shang, Zhanhuan -- Stahlmann, Reinhold -- Stotz, Gisela C -- Sugiyama, Shu-ichi -- Szentes, Szilard -- Thompson, Don -- Tungalag, Radnaakhand -- Undrakhbold, Sainbileg -- van Rooyen, Margaretha -- Wellstein, Camilla -- Wilson, J Bastow -- Zupo, Talita -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2015 Jul 17;349(6245):302-5. doi: 10.1126/science.aab3916.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Natural Resource Sciences, Thompson Rivers University, Kamloops, BC, Canada. lfraser@tru.ca. ; Department of Biology, University of British Columbia, Okanagan campus, Kelowna, BC, Canada. ; Department of Disturbance Ecology, BayCEER, Uni- versity of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany. ; Department of Molecular Biology and Ecology of Plants, Tel Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel. ; Department of Botany, Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia. ; Faculty of Natural Resources College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Tehran, Iran. ; MTA Centre for Ecological Research, Institute of Ecology and Botany, Vacratot, Hungary, and School of Plant Biology, University of Western Australia, Crawley, Australia. ; Department of Biogeography, BayCEER, University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany. ; Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada. ; Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Kansas, Manhattan, KS 66047, USA. ; Department of Biology, National University of Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. ; Department of Botany, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil. ; Department of Agricultural, Food and Nutritional Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada. ; Applied Behavioural Ecology and Ecosystem Research Unit, University of South Africa, Johannesberg, South Africa. ; Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biologia Vegetal (IMBIV-CONICET) and Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Fisicas y Naturales, Universidad Nacional de Cordoba, Cordoba, Espana. ; School of Biosciences and Veterinary Medicine, University of Camerino, Camerino, Italy. ; School of Natural Sciences, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland. ; Departamento de Botanica, UNESP - Univ. Estadual Paulista, Rio Claro, Brazil. ; Department of Biology, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13210, USA. ; Department of Biology, University of Akron, Akron, OH 44325, USA. ; Department of Zoology and Physiology, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071, USA. ; Department of Biology, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada. ; Department of Botany, Corvinus University of Budapest, Budapest, Hungary. ; Department of Natural Resources, Islamic Azad University, Nour Branch, Iran. ; Department of Botany, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. ; International Centre for Tibetan Plateau Ecosystem Management, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China. ; Institute of Plant Sciences, University of Bern, Altenbergrain 21, CH-3013, Bern, Switzerland. ; Department of Ecology, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil. ; Faculty of Agronomy, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil. ; Department of Range and Watershed Management, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran. ; Department of Biology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA. ; Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA. ; Department of Natural Resource Sciences, Thompson Rivers University, Kamloops, BC, Canada. ; Laboratory of Plant Ecology, Hirosaki University, Hirosaki, Japan. ; Institute of Plant Production, Szent Istvan University, Godollo, Hungary. ; Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Lethbridge Research Centre, Lethbridge, AB, Canada. ; Department of Plant Science, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa. ; Faculty of Science and Technology, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Bolzano, Italy. ; Department of Botany, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. Landcare Research, Dunedin, New Zealand.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26185249" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: Tredennick et al. criticize one of our statistical analyses and emphasize the low explanatory power of models relating productivity to diversity. These criticisms do not detract from our key findings, including evidence consistent with the unimodal constraint relationship predicted by the humped-back model and evidence of scale sensitivities in the form and strength of the relationship.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Pither, Jason -- Fraser, Lauchlan H -- Jentsch, Anke -- Sternberg, Marcelo -- Zobel, Martin -- Cahill, James -- Beierkuhnlein, Carl -- Bartha, Sandor -- Bennett, Jonathan A -- Boldgiv, Bazartseren -- Brown, Leslie R -- Cabido, Marcelo -- Campetella, Giandiego -- Carlyle, Cameron N -- Chelli, Stefano -- Csergo, Anna Maria -- Diaz, Sandra -- Enrico, Lucas -- Ensing, David -- Fidelis, Alessandra -- Garris, Heath W -- Henry, Hugh A L -- Hohn, Maria -- Klironomos, John -- Koorem, Kadri -- Lawrence-Lodge, Rachael -- Manning, Peter -- Mitchell, Randall J -- Moora, Mari -- Pillar, Valerio D -- Stotz, Gisela C -- Sugiyama, Shu-ichi -- Szentes, Szilard -- Tungalag, Radnaakhand -- Undrakhbold, Sainbileg -- Wellstein, Camilla -- Zupo, Talita -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2016 Jan 29;351(6272):457. doi: 10.1126/science.aad8019.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Biology, University of British Columbia, Okanagan Campus, Kelowna, BC, Canada. jason.pither@ubc.ca. ; Department of Natural Resource Sciences, Thompson Rivers University, Kamloops, BC, Canada. ; Department of Disturbance Ecology, BayCEER, University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany. ; Department of Molecular Biology and Ecology of Plants, Tel Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel. ; Department of Botany, Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia. ; Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. ; Department of Biogeography, Bayreuth Center of Ecology and Environmental Research (BayCEER), University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany. ; Hungarian Academy of Sciences Centre for Ecological Research, Institute of Ecology and Botany, Vacratot, Hungary. School of Plant Biology, University of Western Australia, Crawley, Australia. ; Department of Botany, Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia. Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. ; Ecology Group, Department of Biology, National University of Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. ; Department of Environmental Sciences, University of South Africa, Florida, South Africa. ; Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Fisicas y Naturales, Universidad Nacional de Cordoba, Cordoba, Argentina. ; School of Biosciences and Veterinary Medicine, Plant Diversity and Ecosystems Management Unit, University of Camerino, Camerino, Italy. ; Department of Agricultural, Food and Nutritional Science, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. ; School of Natural Sciences, Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin, Dublin, Ireland. ; Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biologia Vegetal (IMBIV), National Scientific and Technical Research Council and Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Fisicas y Naturales, Universidad Nacional de Cordoba, Cordoba, Argentina. ; Department of Biology, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. ; Departamento de Botanica, UNESP - Universidade Estadual Paulista, Rio Claro, SP, Brazil. ; Department of Biology, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada. ; Department of Botany, Faculty of Horticultural Science, Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary. ; Department of Biology, University of British Columbia, Okanagan Campus, Kelowna, BC, Canada. ; Department of Botany, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. ; Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre, Senckenberg Gesellschaft fur Naturforschung, Germany. ; Department of Biology, University of Akron, Akron, OH, USA. ; Department of Ecology, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil. ; Faculty of Agriculture and Life Science, Hirosaki University, Aomori, Japan. ; Institute of Plant Production, Szent Istvan University, Godollo, Hungary. ; Faculty of Science and Technology, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Bolzano, Italy.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26823419" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: Protection of populations comprising admixed genomes is a challenge under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), which is regarded as the most powerful species protection legislation ever passed in the United States but lacks specific provisions for hybrids. The eastern wolf is a newly recognized wolf-like species that is highly admixed and inhabits the Great Lakes and eastern United States, a region previously thought to be included in the geographic range of only the gray wolf. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has argued that the presence of the eastern wolf, rather than the gray wolf, in this area is grounds for removing ESA protection (delisting) from the gray wolf across its geographic range. In contrast, the red wolf from the southeastern United States was one of the first species protected under the ESA and was protected despite admixture with coyotes. We use whole-genome sequence data to demonstrate a lack of unique ancestry in eastern and red wolves that would not be expected if they represented long divergent North American lineages. These results suggest that arguments for delisting the gray wolf are not valid. Our findings demonstrate how a strict designation of a species under the ESA that does not consider admixture can threaten the protection of endangered entities. We argue for a more balanced approach that focuses on the ecological context of admixture and allows for evolutionary processes to potentially restore historical patterns of genetic variation.

Description: A response to Hohenlohe et al .

Description: The extinct passenger pigeon was once the most abundant bird in North America, and possibly the world. Although theory predicts that large populations will be more genetically diverse, passenger pigeon genetic diversity was surprisingly low. To investigate this disconnect, we analyzed 41 mitochondrial and 4 nuclear genomes from passenger pigeons and 2 genomes from band-tailed pigeons, which are passenger pigeons’ closest living relatives. Passenger pigeons’ large population size appears to have allowed for faster adaptive evolution and removal of harmful mutations, driving a huge loss in their neutral genetic diversity. These results demonstrate the effect that selection can have on a vertebrate genome and contradict results that suggested that population instability contributed to this species’s surprisingly rapid extinction.