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Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Reports and Datasets

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This is a collection of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology reports and datasets. Submission is limited to authorized individuals only.

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    Data and code from: Deeper habitats and cooler temperatures moderate a climate-driven disease in an essential marine habitat
    Graham, Olivia J.; Stephens, Tiffany; Rappazzo, Brendan; Klohmann, Corinne; Dayal, Sukanya; Adamczyk, Emily M.; Olson, Angeleen; Hessing-Lewis, Margot; Eisenlord, Morgan; Yang, Bo; Burge, Colleen; Gomes, Carla P.; Harvell, Drew (2022-11-11)
    These files contain data and R code supporting all results reported in Graham et al. "Deeper habitats and cooler temperatures moderate a climate-driven disease in an essential marine habitat." In Graham et al., we found: Eelgrass creates critical coastal habitats worldwide and fulfills essential ecosystem functions as a foundation seagrass. Warming and disease threaten eelgrass meadows with mass mortalities and cascading ecological impacts, even in pristine locations. Although deeper, subtidal meadows are valuable fish nursery grounds and may also provide refuge from the climate-fueled seagrass wasting disease, nothing is known about differences in disease levels across remote locations in northern latitudes and between tidal zones (intertidal and subtidal meadows). From cross-boundary surveys on 5,761 eelgrass leaves from Alaska to Washington assisted with a machine-language algorithm, we measured outbreak conditions with average disease prevalence over 66% in intertidal and 50% in subtidal. In field surveys, disease was consistently lower in subtidal compared to adjacent intertidal meadows; remotely-sensed temperatures revealed significant associations between spring temperature anomalies and disease. While new studies show links between warm temperature anomalies and increased disease, our work detects beneficial effects of cooling in colder water anomalies. Disease was reduced in all regions except Puget Sound in the cooler summer of 2017. Pooled across both years, predicted disease prevalence was nearly 40% lower for subtidal than intertidal leaves, but in both tidal zones, disease risk was lower for plants in cooler conditions. Even in the ecologically most valuable subtidal meadows, we observed high disease levels, with half of the sites exceeding 50% prevalence. Disease models predicted reduced disease prevalence and severity under cooler conditions, confirming a strong interaction between disease and temperature. Finally, at both tidal zones, prevalence was reduced in more dense eelgrass meadows, suggesting disease is suppressed in healthy, higher density meadows. These results highlight the value of subtidal eelgrass meadows and meadows in cooler locations as refugia from the highest disease levels, indicate cooling can suppress disease, and have implications for eelgrass conservation and management under future climate change scenarios.
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    Data and code from: Does the seagrass microbiome mediate risk of disease?
    Graham, Olivia J.; Adamczyk, Emily M.; Schenk, Siobhan; Dawkins, Phoebe; Burke​, Samantha; Chei​, Emily; Cisz, Kaitlyn; Dayal​, Sukanya; Elstner, ​Jack; Hausner, Arjun Lev Pillai; Hughes, Taylor; Manglani, Omisha; McDonald, Miles; Mikles, Chloe; Poslednik, Anna; Vinton, Audrey; Parfrey, Laura Wegener; Harvell, C. Drew (2021-03-17)
    These files contain data and scripts supporting all results reported in Graham et al. paper, "Does the seagrass microbiome mediate risk of disease?". In Graham et al., we found: Microbial communities strongly influence the health and functions of their hosts and can be a first line of defense against infections. While research increasingly shows a role of the microbiome in terrestrial plant disease resistance, this has yet to be demonstrated with the diversity of pathogens infecting marine plants. Here, we test the hypothesis that the host-associated microbiome increases host resistance to seagrass wasting disease. We experimentally manipulated the eelgrass (Zostera marina) microbiome with antibiotics, mechanical removal by vortexing, and dilute bleach, then inoculated plants with Labyrinthula zosterae (Lz), the causative agent of seagrass wasting disease. Our experiments using different microbiome disruption methods consistently showed significantly higher disease severity in eelgrass with an unmanipulated microbiome. Indeed, our results did not support a protective role of the eelgrass microbiome against Lz. We paired these experiments with 16S rRNA gene sequencing of field-collected eelgrass to determine how microbial communities may change in different disease states. Microbial composition and richness between diseased and healthy (completely asymptomatic) tissue varied markedly in one of three sampling years, suggesting diseased eelgrass could have a degradation community under certain conditions. This work enhances our understanding of plant-microbe-pathogen interactions in a valuable marine foundation species.
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    Data from: A private channel of nitrogen alleviates interspecific competition for an annual legume
    Elias, Jacob D.; Agrawal, Anurag A. (2021-05-24)
    The way resource availability predictably alters interspecific interactions and may favor one resource-acquisition strategy over another is critical for understanding context dependency. The ubiquity of nitrogen (N) limitation across terrestrial environments is a driver of plant competition and the association of some plants with N-fixing bacteria (rhizobia) may alleviate competition with non-fixing plants. Conversely, when available soil N is elevated, competitive advantages imparted by rhizobia are hypothesized to decline because non-fixing species are able to readily acquire those nutrients. We manipulated competition, soil N, and soil microbial inoculation, employing the ground bean Amphicarpaea bracteata​​, a native annual N-fixing legume, and jewelweed Impatiens capensis, a native co-occurring non-fixing annual. We found that legume performance was negatively impacted by interspecific competition, but less so under lower soil N in both the greenhouse and field. The legume ​​invested a greater proportion of resources in rhizobia when competing, but only under low N. Also consistent with predictions, a competition-by-microbial inoculation interaction demonstrated that negative effects of competition were likely alleviated by rhizobia. Finally, we detected an interaction between inoculation and fertilization, whereby N-addition resulted in increased performance for uninoculated legumes, but a small decline in performance for inoculated plants, the latter likely representing a cost of mutualism. Thus, several lines of evidence point to the legume-rhizobia mutualism being more beneficial under competition and limited soil N. Competing I. capensis​​, in contrast, benefitted from N addition regardless of the addition of soil microbes. In a survey of natural populations, legume and rhizobia growth were positively correlated at population edges (where interspecific competition is expected to be higher, the mutualism is stronger), while at population centers we found no association. Isotopic evidence confirmed a higher degree of rhizobial N-fixation at population edges compared to centers. Taken together, our results demonstrate an important role for the largely private channel of nitrogen in legume competitive performance, but with the benefits imparted by rhizobia being predictably weaker at higher soil fertility. We speculate that alleviation of competitive impacts through resource partitioning is an important and yet largely overlooked aspect of the evolutionary ecology of legume-rhizobia interactions.
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    Data from: Developmental temperature predicts the adult response to stressors in a free-living passerine
    Uehling, Jennifer J; Taff, Conor C; Winkler, David W; Vitousek, Maren N (2019)
    Early life conditions can have substantial effects on the ways animals respond to stressors as adults. In particular, thermal conditions during development affect juveniles’ responses to stressors, and there is evidence that these effects may extend into adulthood. However, these effects remain poorly understood, especially in free-living organisms. We test the prediction that ambient temperatures during laying, embryonic development, and nestling development affect the hormonal mediators of the response to stressors in adults. To do so, we use a long-term dataset of tree swallows (Tachycineta bicolor) with records from both natal development and adult breeding. We found a strong, negative relationship between ambient temperature during early development (incubation) and an individual’s corticosterone (CORT) response to stress later in life (while incubating her own young). Thermal conditions during other stages of natal development also showed weak relationships with CORT phenotype in other adult life history stages (baseline CORT during incubation; baseline CORT and the CORT response to stress during provisioning). In a post-hoc analysis, we found no evidence that ambient temperature during development differentially influenced the survival and recruitment of juveniles with different CORT phenotypes. Our results show that thermal conditions during development can have long-term effects on how individuals respond to stressors. This dataset supports the above conclusions.
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    Vascular Plant Species of the Cayuga Region of New York State
    Wesley, F. Robert; Gardescu, Sana; Marks, P. L. (2008-01-01T14:35:54Z)
    This dataset lists the vascular plants found in a region of central New York State extending from 42 N to 43 N, and 76 W to 77 W (the USGS "Cayuga Quadrangle"), plus a small area north of 43 degrees in the "Cayuga Lake Basin" of early published floras. This multi-county area extends from the Pennsylvania border to north of the Finger Lakes, and from Seneca Lake eastward to just west of Binghamton. Native plant species and species not native to the region are differentiated. Based on comparison of 4 floras from the region, the year by which each non-native species had first established in the Cayuga Region is given (1886, 1926, 1949, or 2005). For species no longer found in the region, the date of the flora by which they had disappeared is given. Also listed for each species are habitat (forest, wet, and open), frequency (rare to common), and for non-natives, their region of origin, and whether they escaped from cultivation.
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    Organic and Conventional Farming Systems: Environmental and Economic Issues.
    Pimentel, David; Hepperly, Paul; Hanson, James; Seidel, Rita; Douds, David (2005-07)
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    Water resources, agriculture and the environment.
    Pimentel, David; Berger, Bonnie; David, Filiberto; Newton, Michelle; Wolfe, Benjamin; Karabinakis, Elizabeth; Clark, Steven; Poon, Elaine; Abbett, Elizabeth; Nandagopal, Sudha (2004-07)
    In this article, water utilization by individuals and especially agricultural systems is analyzed. Interrelationships exist among population growth, water use and distribution, the status of biodiversity, the natural environment, plus the impacts of water borne human diseases are reported.