American Naturalist最新文献

Transgenerational and Intergenerational Maternal Age Effects Exhibit Complex, Genotype-Specific Patterns of Inheritance. 跨代和代际母亲年龄效应表现出复杂的、基因型特异性的遗传模式。

IF 2.7 2区环境科学与生态学

American Naturalist Pub Date : 2026-10-01 Epub Date: 2026-05-05 DOI: 10.1086/742104

Alyssa Liguori, Sovannarith Korm, Alex Profetto, Emily Richters, Kristin E Gribble

{"title":"Transgenerational and Intergenerational Maternal Age Effects Exhibit Complex, Genotype-Specific Patterns of Inheritance.","authors":"Alyssa Liguori, Sovannarith Korm, Alex Profetto, Emily Richters, Kristin E Gribble","doi":"10.1086/742104","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/742104","url":null,"abstract":"AbstractMaternal age effects, in which offspring phenotype is determined by a mother's age at the time of birth, are common and variable among diverse taxa, but relatively little is known about their dynamics across multiple generations. Characterizing patterns of inter- and transgenerational inheritance of maternal age can provide insight into potential molecular and evolutionary mechanisms. In two strains of the rotifer Brachionus manjavacas, we maintained young and old maternal age lineages and tested whether maternal age effects on lifespan and reproduction changed in magnitude or direction across three generations. In the third generation, we initiated switched maternal age cohorts to achieve factorial combinations of maternal and grandmaternal ages to test for the reversibility of maternal age effects. For both strains, maternal age effects on lifetime reproductive output were consistent across generations, with no evidence for the accumulation of either positive or negative effects across old and young lineages. In one strain, offspring with older mothers had reduced lifespan, but the magnitude of this maternal age effect declined across generations. Switched maternal age cohorts revealed that effects were reversible within one generation, but only for certain response metrics and in a strain-dependent manner. Given the noncumulative and often reversible nature of the maternal age effects observed here, we hypothesize that dynamic epigenetic and/or mitochondrial mechanisms are more likely to be involved than are changes to maternal provisioning or mutation accumulation.","PeriodicalId":50800,"journal":{"name":"American Naturalist","volume":"208 4","pages":"432-447"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149118051","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Sex Allocation in Nonstandard Haplodiploids. 非标准单倍体的性别分配。

IF 2.7 2区环境科学与生态学

American Naturalist Pub Date : 2026-10-01 Epub Date: 2026-08-06 DOI: 10.1086/742255

Chedhawat Chokechaipaisarn, Thomas J Hitchcock

{"title":"Sex Allocation in Nonstandard Haplodiploids.","authors":"Chedhawat Chokechaipaisarn, Thomas J Hitchcock","doi":"10.1086/742255","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/742255","url":null,"abstract":"AbstractThe value that a mother places on the production of a son or daughter depends critically on how genes are transmitted between parents and offspring. The inheritance system shapes both the reproductive value of males and females and the relatedness between parents, offspring, and other interacting individuals. Recently, a new form of haplodiploidy was discovered in Varroa mites, where although sons are produced asexually, they are diploid rather than haploid. A similar system, albeit with a different mechanism of diploid male production, is also known in Lecanoid scales. This diploid arrhenotoky may be expected to have consequences for the evolutionary dynamics of social traits, such as sex allocation. To investigate this, we extend current sex allocation theory to consider this genetic system, exploring classic models of local mate and local resource competition. We find that diploid males lead to reduced relatedness between sisters and thus results in less biased sex ratios. This difference is most exaggerated when interacting females descend from the same father (e.g., polygyny) and is reduced either when females are unlikely to share the same father or when males are highly homozygous.","PeriodicalId":50800,"journal":{"name":"American Naturalist","volume":"208 4","pages":"455-463"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149118104","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Untangling the Complex Relationships Governing Trait-Mediated Litter Decomposition by Detritivores and Cascading Effects on Soil Properties. 解理性状介导凋落物分解的复杂关系及其对土壤性质的级联效应。

IF 2.7 2区环境科学与生态学

American Naturalist Pub Date : 2026-10-01 Epub Date: 2026-04-24 DOI: 10.1086/741913

Simone Fontana, Sergio Rasmann, Yumi Bieri, Beat Frey, Marco Moretti

{"title":"Untangling the Complex Relationships Governing Trait-Mediated Litter Decomposition by Detritivores and Cascading Effects on Soil Properties.","authors":"Simone Fontana, Sergio Rasmann, Yumi Bieri, Beat Frey, Marco Moretti","doi":"10.1086/741913","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/741913","url":null,"abstract":"AbstractSoil organisms play a crucial role in essential ecosystem functions, such as leaf litter decomposition. Our study builds on the positive biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationship to understand how different soil fauna species affect litter decomposition via variation in their consumption rate, leaf litter selectivity, and cascading effects on soil abiotic and biotic properties. This mechanistic approach requires focusing on identity effects, which are pivotal in understanding biodiversity effects. Results were obtained from monocultures of seven detritivore species from three functional groups (isopods, snails, and earthworms) feeding on two leaf litter species. We found that decomposability is not solely a litter-specific trait. Instead, decomposition is better understood in the context of trait-mediated detritivore-litter interactions. Accordingly, we demonstrate that detritivore species (in part even within functional groups) have distinct litter selectivity and varying impacts on soil physicochemical parameters and belowground microbial communities. Our experimental approach allows us to quantify the relevant traits at multiple trophic levels, thus making a significant step toward understanding the complexity of soil ecosystems and better predicting their functioning in a changing world.","PeriodicalId":50800,"journal":{"name":"American Naturalist","volume":"208 4","pages":"396-413"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149117659","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Comparative Biogeography of Marine and Terrestrial Microbes and Macrobiota Using Environmental DNA. 利用环境DNA研究海洋和陆地微生物和大型生物群的比较生物地理学。

IF 2.7 2区环境科学与生态学

American Naturalist Pub Date : 2026-10-01 Epub Date: 2026-05-05 DOI: 10.1086/742113

Dannise V Ruiz-Ramos, Sean Anderson, Emily E Curd, Zackary Gold, Patrick J Krug, Meixi Lin, Rachel S Meyer, N Dean Pentcheff, Lauren M Schiebelhut, Teia M Schweizer, Adam R Wall, Regina Wetzer, Michael N Dawson

{"title":"Comparative Biogeography of Marine and Terrestrial Microbes and Macrobiota Using Environmental DNA.","authors":"Dannise V Ruiz-Ramos, Sean Anderson, Emily E Curd, Zackary Gold, Patrick J Krug, Meixi Lin, Rachel S Meyer, N Dean Pentcheff, Lauren M Schiebelhut, Teia M Schweizer, Adam R Wall, Regina Wetzer, Michael N Dawson","doi":"10.1086/742113","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/742113","url":null,"abstract":"AbstractQuantifying how patterns of biodiversity and underlying processes vary across diverse environments and ecological communities is a long-standing challenge in biogeography. The logistics of sampling entire communities over different geographic scales has been a barrier to developing biogeographic theory and conceptual integration at large scales. Here, we use environmental DNA (eDNA) to overcome these challenges and examine biogeography hypotheses contrasting diversity in marine versus terrestrial realms and unicellular versus multicellular organisms. We found that eDNA revealed both novel and familiar alpha diversity patterns. Marine diversity was lower than terrestrial diversity in multicellular biota although statistically indistinguishable in unicellular biota. Richness was modestly correlated within habitats and was routinely higher in unicellular than multicellular biota. Beta diversity was, unexpectedly, less similar within marine than terrestrial assemblages. Unicellular assemblages were consistently more similar than multicellular assemblages, and their beta diversity correlated with latitude. These patterns are consistent with predictions based on body size and nuanced effects of environmental heterogeneity. However, there was considerable heterogeneity in both datasets. Overall, eDNA provides a common currency for studying biodiversity patterns and underlying processes (e.g., drift, migration, selection) across diverse environments and complex communities and may be the foundation of a unifying macroecological framework.","PeriodicalId":50800,"journal":{"name":"American Naturalist","volume":"208 4","pages":"414-431"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149118090","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Herbivory Weakens the Stability of a Floral Polymorphism. 草食性削弱了花型多态性的稳定性。

IF 2.7 2区环境科学与生态学

American Naturalist Pub Date : 2026-10-01 Epub Date: 2026-08-07 DOI: 10.1086/742256

Mia K Gaughan, Vincent S Pan, Sylvie Martin-Eberhardt, William C Wetzel, Kadeem J Gilbert

{"title":"Herbivory Weakens the Stability of a Floral Polymorphism.","authors":"Mia K Gaughan, Vincent S Pan, Sylvie Martin-Eberhardt, William C Wetzel, Kadeem J Gilbert","doi":"10.1086/742256","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/742256","url":null,"abstract":"AbstractHerbivores have profound impacts on the maintenance of plant diversity. While simple optimal foraging models predict that herbivores should selectively attack common plant phenotypes, models that allow for differential plant resource acquisition can predict a preference for rarer phenotypes, leading to the destabilization of intraspecific polymorphism. We show that herbivores may play such a destabilizing role in the dimorphic Hesperis matronalis system by weakening negative frequency dependence. Across 40 patches of varying morph ratios, locally rarer H. matronalis morphs grew larger in the early season but received disproportionately more herbivory in the mid- and late season, leading to lower female fitness and survival. We rescued the advantage of being rare by experimentally reducing later herbivory through a plant immunity induction treatment. Feeding assays with a mustard-feeding caterpillar Trichoplusia ni confirmed that herbivores had higher survival on locally rare morphs and preferred to feed on rarer morphs. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that herbivores may have evolved to use rarity as a cue to track resources, potentially weakening the advantage of being rare, a critical component of stable coexistence. We argue that this phenomenon of insect herbivores weakening the maintenance of plant diversity may be common in stable polymorphic systems.","PeriodicalId":50800,"journal":{"name":"American Naturalist","volume":"208 4","pages":"385-395"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149118092","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Alternative Reproductive Tactic Frequencies Vary with Stream Size for an Appalachian Salamander. 阿巴拉契亚蝾螈的繁殖策略频率随种群大小而变化。

IF 2.7 2区环境科学与生态学

American Naturalist Pub Date : 2026-10-01 Epub Date: 2026-04-27 DOI: 10.1086/741914

Cooper A Kework, Todd W Pierson

引用次数: 0

Janzen-Connell Effects and Habitat-Induced Aggregation Synergistically Promote Species Coexistence. Janzen-Connell效应和生境诱导聚集协同促进物种共存。

IF 2.7 2区环境科学与生态学

American Naturalist Pub Date : 2026-10-01 Epub Date: 2026-04-24 DOI: 10.1086/741911

Daniel J B Smith

{"title":"Janzen-Connell Effects and Habitat-Induced Aggregation Synergistically Promote Species Coexistence.","authors":"Daniel J B Smith","doi":"10.1086/741911","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/741911","url":null,"abstract":"AbstractJanzen-Connell (JC) effects, habitat partitioning (HP), and dispersal limitation are three processes thought to shape tropical forest diversity and patterns of species aggregation, yet how they jointly influence species coexistence remains poorly understood. I analyze a spatially explicit model that incorporates all three processes, tracking propagules subject to habitat filtering and conspecific density dependence. The model shows that dispersal limitation and habitat filtering interact with JC effects in qualitatively different ways. Aggregation driven by dispersal limitation weakens the ability of JC effects to maintain coexistence, whereas when JC effects and HP operate together in spatially autocorrelated habitats, richness increases with conspecific aggregation. JC-HP interactions strongly depend on habitat spatial structure. If habitats are not spatially autocorrelated, JC effects and HP minimally interact (or act antagonistically when coupled with dispersal limitation) and do not maintain high species richness. However, when habitats are positively autocorrelated, the two mechanisms act synergistically. To explain these patterns, I introduce a novel metric-the spatial JC-HP covariance-which quantifies how strongly JC effects are concentrated in favorable versus unfavorable environments, providing a direct measure of the extent to which JC effects and HP synergistically promote coexistence.","PeriodicalId":50800,"journal":{"name":"American Naturalist","volume":"208 4","pages":"365-384"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149118112","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Front and Back Matter. 正面和背面物质。

IF 2.7 2区环境科学与生态学

American Naturalist Pub Date : 2026-10-01 DOI: 10.1086/744237

引用次数: 0

Intransitive Eco-Evolutionary Feedback Loops Maintain Coexistence. 不可传递的生态进化反馈循环维持共存。

IF 2.7 2区环境科学与生态学

American Naturalist Pub Date : 2026-10-01 Epub Date: 2026-05-05 DOI: 10.1086/742112

Giacomo L Delgado, Daniel S Maynard, Jukka Jokela, Thomas W Crowther

{"title":"Intransitive Eco-Evolutionary Feedback Loops Maintain Coexistence.","authors":"Giacomo L Delgado, Daniel S Maynard, Jukka Jokela, Thomas W Crowther","doi":"10.1086/742112","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/742112","url":null,"abstract":"AbstractThe maintenance of diversity has long been understood through the lens of the pairwise competitive interaction. However, work on the simplest multi- (three-)species systems have helped both evolutionary biologists and ecologists uncover mechanisms that maintain complex communities across both ecology and evolution. Rock-paper-scissors (RPS) dynamics illustrate how negative frequency dependence can affect evolutionary relationships and promote genetic diversity within populations. These same effects underlie the diversity of intransitive systems, which allow for the coexistence of even highly dissimilar competitor species. While these foundational diversifying mechanisms are common to both ecology and evolution, few studies have explicitly explored the potential role of simultaneous ecological and evolutionary intransitive loops as a powerful stabilizing and diversifying mechanism. In this synthesis, we examine the parallels between RPS dynamics and intransitive competition and how these common theoretical underpinnings point to the existence of intransitive eco-evolutionary feedback loops. Based on our synthesis of recent work, we propose that both intra- and interspecific intransitivity are working simultaneously to diversify natural communities, which in turn increases the probability of intransitive loops that further amplify and stabilize biodiversity across ecological scales. We provide conceptual support for the link between ecological and evolutionary intransitivity with a model simulation, which suggests that intraspecific intransitivity within a population can lead to greater levels of intransitivity at the community level, with direct implications for community diversity and stability.","PeriodicalId":50800,"journal":{"name":"American Naturalist","volume":"208 4","pages":"349-364"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149118096","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Cooperation Maximizes Biodiversity. 合作使生物多样性最大化。

IF 2.7 2区环境科学与生态学

American Naturalist Pub Date : 2026-09-01 Epub Date: 2026-03-26 DOI: 10.1086/741536

Oscar Godoy, Violeta Calleja-Solanas, Fernando Soler-Toscano, José R Portillo, Antonio Suárez, José A Langa

{"title":"Cooperation Maximizes Biodiversity.","authors":"Oscar Godoy, Violeta Calleja-Solanas, Fernando Soler-Toscano, José R Portillo, Antonio Suárez, José A Langa","doi":"10.1086/741536","DOIUrl":"10.1086/741536","url":null,"abstract":"AbstractCooperation, the mutual benefit that individuals of different species obtain when interacting, is ubiquitous in nature. Despite their prevalence, we know little about the mechanisms particular to cooperation that maintain biodiversity. To address this gap, we introduce cooperation into structural stability, a general framework for understanding how species interactions determine the long-term persistence of species within communities. This approach allows the identification of three distinct processes. First, cooperation increases the opportunities for species to coexist more than interspecific competition does, improving species persistence across a wider range of environmental conditions. Second, cooperation creates intertwined biodiversity, where the existence of some species begets the presence of others. Third, cooperation promotes alternative structures of community assembly due to variations in species' performance. These structures diversify the pathways to species coexistence. In conclusion, our work suggests that cooperation, relative to interspecific competition, maximizes the maintenance of biodiversity.","PeriodicalId":50800,"journal":{"name":"American Naturalist","volume":"208 3","pages":"250-260"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2026-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148801088","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0