Issue Information

Abstract

Cover Illustrations: (Left to Right): (image 1) A conceptual figure illustrating the structure of the iBioGen model; (image 2) High resolution image depicting a diverse beetle community from a soil litter sample of the narrow endemic Cyprus cedar (Cedrus brevifolia); (image 3) Cloud forest of the Anaga Peninsula (Island of Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain); (image 4) A beetle in subtropical forest in Asia. In this issue, Li et al. generated a dataset of 10,524 barcoded beetles from year-long, weekly samping across both elevational and latitudinal gradients in Gaoligongshan, China; (image 5) Male Xylocopa sonorina on a flower; (image 6) Kettle hole metacommunity in an agricultural landscape in northeastern Germany; (image 7) Zooplankton collected along the east coast of South Africa; (image 8) Species rich seaweed community from the Koster archipelago, Sweden; (image 9) A pristine island in the Faafu Atholl in the Maldives where many plants and pollinators interact with each other; (image 10) Illustration of various methods that can be used to monitor coral spawning, such as visual survey with SCUBA (far right), collection cups and nets placed over spawning colonies for direct sampling of coral gametes (bottom left), and sampling seawater for environmental DNA (eDNA, middle). eDNA is potentially a less invasive approach for studying coral spawning events; (image 11) Honeybees on comb. The top of the picture shows an area of capped honey stores, covered with a layer of white wax. In the middle of the comb the honeybees are laying down honey and pollen stores. At the bottom, there is an area of brood. Most of the honeybees in the picture are female workers, but there are also a small number of larger, male drones, with much larger eyes; (image 12) A queen Bombus terricola forages on common selfheal. This species has experienced population decline and range contraction in recent decades. New methods for interrogating plant pollinator interactions, such as pollen metabarcoding, show promise for improving our understanding of how the dietary niche of pollinators varies in response to global environmental change; (image 13) A juvenile female Grauer’s gorilla (Gorilla beringei graueri) feeding on Tacazzea in Kahuzi-Biega National Park, Democratic Republic of Congo; (image 14) Photo of Site 15470, a historic shipwreck located in the northern Gulf of Mexico; (image 15) Close up view of warm shimmering fluid rising from the subsurface at the Von Damm hydrothermal vent field; (image 16) Picture of a weedy Ampullaceana balthica in a temporal freshwater pond on the Estonian Baltic Sea coast; (image 17) Holometabolous insects, such as this edible mealworm beetle, have much higher gut microbiota turnover during development than their hemimetabolous cousins. The reason is the reorganization of the body during pupation; (image 18) Photo of a Hawai 'i 'Amakihi (Chlorodrepanis virens); (image 19) Web of a Hawaiian endemic spider (undescribed Tetragnatha species) in the native forest at Army Road, Pu'u Maka'ala Natural Area Reserve, Big Island of Hawaii; (image 20) Doliolid (D. gegenbauri) nurse surrounded by hyperiid amphipods and plankton. Photo taken during a black water dive off the coast of West Palm Beach, Florida, USA; (image 21) Ecological specialization increases steadily over evolutionary time. The illustration shows Eupithecia caterpillar, part of a radiation of moths endemic to the Hawaiian Islands, feeding on a native insect; (image 22) Parashorea chinensis (Dipterocarpaceae) in bloom showing Yellow-green canopy; (image 23) Macrofaunal diversity and encrustation on ARMS have a positive relationship with coral cover. High coral cover sites have high habitat complexity, hence more crevices and cavities in the reef matrix that provide microhabitats and refugia for reef associates, especially larger-sized metazoan species. ARMS mimic the three-dimensional structure of the reef, so these larger-sized reef associates may utilise ARMS in a similar manner. Microbial communities are relatively homogenous among sites of varying coral cover. Therefore, ARMS deployed at high coral cover sites have increased encrustation with higher diversity of metazoan macrofauna but lower diversity of microbes; (image 24) Predicted soil β-diversity distribution of soil bacteria across the state of New South Wales mapped at 1,000 m resolution; (image 25) DNA metabarcoding can be used for exausstive community ecology of many environments, including freshwater, terrestrial ecosystems and glacier-related environments; (image 26) Scanning electron microscope (SEM) images of Emiliania huxleyi superimposed on a satellite image of an E. huxleyi bloom in the North Atlantic Ocean (off the coast of France) from 12 June, 2003; (image 27) The parasitoid wasp, Ganaspis cf. brasilliensis, grooms itself atop a Drosphila-infested berry; (image 28) Reproductive manipulation in the triangle: Asobara japonica - Wolbachia - host microbial community; (image 29) iDNA from fly feces and regurgitates reveals fly vertebrate interactions; (image 30) Patches of grouped mortality in a high altitude stand of Nothofagus pumilio in Northern Patagonia; (image 31) Predatory wasp Passaloecus sp. bringing aphid prey into trap nest; (image 32) Detecting vertical transmission in host-microbiota systems using cophylogenetic approaches; (image 33) Fly pollinating Celmisia flower in Charlotte Pass, Kosciuszko National Park; (image 34) Green-winged Teal (Anas crecca) foraging in a lotus field around the Lake Kasumigaura, Japan.

Photo Credit: (image 1) Emmanouil Meramveliotakis; (image 2) Víctor Noguerales; (image 3) Javier Morente-López; (image 4) Wa Da; (image 5) Kathy Keatley Garvey; (image 6) Jan Pufelski; (image 7) Ashrenee Govender; (image 8) Sophie Steinhagen; (image 9) Paolo Biella; (image 10) Aden Ip; (image 11) Natasha de Vere; (image 12) Rodney Richardson; (image 13) Neetha Iyer; (image 14) Photo taken by ROV Odysessus (Pelagic Research Services); (image 15) Jeffrey S. Seewald & WHOI; (image 16) Daniel Herlemann; (image 17) Richard Naylor; (image 18) Amanda K. Navine; (image 19) Susan Kennedy; (image 20) Richard A. Collins; (image 21) Karl Magnacca; (image 22) Yun Deng; (image 23) Yin Cheong Aden Ip; (image 24) Vanessa Pino; (image 25) G.F. Ficetola; (image 26) Satellite Image courtesy of Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC; SEM photo by El Mahdi-Bendif; (image 27) Warren H. L. Wong; (image 28) Pina Brinker; (image 29) Nick Baker, Maimon Hussin, Leshon Lee; (image 30) Lucía Molina; (image 31) Dr. Felix Fornoff; (image 32) Benoît Perez-Lamarque; (image 33) Liz Milla; (image 34) Reiko Saito.