Integrative and Comparative Biology最新文献

{"title":"Developmental and Functional Interactions Structure Patterns of Variational Modularity in the Lunar Wrasse Skull.","authors":"April L Hugi, Howan Chan, Andrea Rummel, Hiroyuki Motomura, Yuna Dewa, Midori Matsuoka, Masayuki C Sato, Olivier Larouche, Kory M Evans","doi":"10.1093/icb/icaf099","DOIUrl":"10.1093/icb/icaf099","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Trait modularity is a defining feature of complex life. However, the drivers of modularity across different scales of biological organization remain opaque. Studies have shown that a combination of developmental and functional interactions can structure patterns of trait covariation at the developmental, population, and even macroevolutionary level. However, it remains unclear how developmental and functional interactions may translate or influence macroevolutionary patterns of trait covariance and diversification. Pharyngognathy is a striking evolutionary innovation that has evolved multiple times in acanthomorph fishes and has resulted in the evolution of robust pharyngeal jaws that are used to process hard prey. Recent studies have found strong patterns of evolutionary integration among the jaw systems in pharyngognathous fishes suggesting that this innovation was brought about by the evolutionary coupling of two otherwise distinct trait complexes. Furthermore, the pharyngeal jaws have been hypothesized to act as a constraining force on the evolution of the oral jaws potentially due to their developmental origins in the more conserved hox-positive region of the skull. While multiple studies have recovered strong evolutionary integration between the jaw systems, patterns of modularity at the population (variational) level appear to differ, where a high degree of modularity has been found between the oral and pharyngeal jaws suggesting a disconnect between patterns of evolutionary modularity and patterns of variational modularity. Here, we are using three-dimensional geometric morphometrics to test for modularity between the oral and pharyngeal jaws at the variational level in a population of Lunar wrasse collected from Kagoshima, Japan and additionally test for differences in morphological disparity between the oral and pharyngeal jaws. We find strong support for a developmental hypothesis of modularity that separates the jaw systems into distinct modules. We additionally find mixed support for the constraint hypothesis of the pharyngeal jaws, where some elements of the pharyngeal jaws were found to exhibit less morphological disparity than the oral jaws while others exhibited more morphological disparity. Our findings suggest that developmental and functional interactions at the variational level may impart patterns of covariation that are distinct from evolutionary patterns of modularity that are found between species.</p>","PeriodicalId":54971,"journal":{"name":"Integrative and Comparative Biology","volume":" ","pages":"560-571"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12464816/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144512832","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Amphibian Bacterial Communities Assemble Variably Among Host Species, Across Development, and Between Similar Habitats.","authors":"Korin R Jones, Tiffany Duong, Olivia Sacci, Casey Gregory, Lisa K Belden","doi":"10.1093/icb/icaf014","DOIUrl":"10.1093/icb/icaf014","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Symbiotic host-associated microbial communities are nearly ubiquitous and are often essential to host growth and development. The assembly of these communities on hosts is the result of a combination of the processes of selection, dispersal, and drift. For some species, essential symbionts are quickly acquired from the environment during embryonic development, while others may vertically acquire symbionts from parents. For amphibians with complex life cycles that undergo metamorphosis, an additional physiological transition from larval to adult forms may represent another distinct developmental window for bacterial colonization. Prior research has demonstrated that metamorphosis impacts the composition of amphibian-associated bacterial communities; however, we do not know whether similar shifts occur during metamorphosis across different amphibian species. To more clearly understand patterns in microbiome development across host species within a given area, we assessed the bacterial communities associated with eggs from five locally occurring amphibian species and tadpoles and juveniles from four of the species. Additionally, to determine if stochasticity result in varied microbiome composition among conspecifics, we raised one species, spring peepers (Pseudacris crucifer), in outdoor 1000 L mesocosms. Through 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing, we detected distinct bacterial communities across amphibian species and development. Additionally, we found that tadpoles harbored different communities of bacteria in the different mesocosms, suggesting that stochasticity may play a large role in bacterial assembly on tadpoles. Our results serve to deepen our understanding of natural shifts in amphibian-associated bacterial communities and how these shifts are host-species dependent. Additionally, this study provides support for the idea that stochasticity in the form of drift or priority effects can drive individual variation in microbiome composition among hosts.</p>","PeriodicalId":54971,"journal":{"name":"Integrative and Comparative Biology","volume":" ","pages":"760-771"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144027662","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Shedding Light on Patterns of Unconventional Expression of Opsin Genes in Hydra vulgaris.","authors":"Marina I Stoilova, Natasha Picciani, Aide Macias-Muñoz, Todd H Oakley","doi":"10.1093/icb/icaf100","DOIUrl":"10.1093/icb/icaf100","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Opsins are G-protein-coupled receptors often expressed in neuronal photoreceptor cells and used for light detection in most animals, including cnidarians like corals, jellyfish, and anemones. Opsins may also be expressed in non-neuronal cell types, where they may confer light sensitivity. For example, opsins might be involved in pre-neural phototaxis of larval box jellyfish. However, the overall extent of non-neuronal expression of opsins is not well understood, despite the potential for identifying additional light or opsin-mediated organismal functions. To investigate the prevalence of non-neuronal opsin expression in a cnidarian, we analyzed published data from Hydra vulgaris, a freshwater hydroid that responds to light despite lacking distinct photosensory structures such as eyes. We quantified opsin expression across Hydra cell types and states of cell differentiation using published single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) data and assay for transposase-accessible chromatin sequencing data. We identified 45 opsin transcripts in Hydra expressed in neuronal and non-neuronal cell types, as well as across inferred states of cell differentiation. We found a wider diversity of opsin gene transcripts in neuronal cell types, predominantly in fully differentiated cells. In contrast, we detected fewer opsin transcripts in non-neuronal cell types, and they were expressed from stem cell to progenitor cell to fully differentiated cell state-all within the same inferred cell type. These opsin transcripts appear to be expressed at higher levels in ectodermal epithelial cells near the head organizer of Hydra (a key developmental patterning region) and share transcription factor binding motifs with development genes such as Six, Otx, Ptx, Rfx4, and Hxa. Overall, we outline an array of opsin gene transcripts, their expression, and open chromatin patterns across cell type diversity in Hydra, and highlight potential co-regulatory relationships that may pave the way for future work on unconventional roles for opsin genes in Hydra.</p>","PeriodicalId":54971,"journal":{"name":"Integrative and Comparative Biology","volume":" ","pages":"648-660"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12464818/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144531210","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Scientists no Longer Find Twitter Professionally Useful, and have Switched to Bluesky.","authors":"D S Shiffman, J Wester","doi":"10.1093/icb/icaf127","DOIUrl":"10.1093/icb/icaf127","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Social media has become widely used by the scientific community for a variety of professional uses, including networking and public outreach. For the past decade, Twitter has been a primary home of scientists on social media. In recent years, new leadership at Twitter has made substantive changes that have resulted in increases in the prevalence of pseudoscience, conspiracy theory, and harassment on the platform, causing many scientists to seek alternatives. Bluesky has been suggested as a good alternative to Twitter, but the phenomenon of academics switching social media platforms has not previously been studied. Here we report on the results of a survey distributed to scientists on Twitter and Bluesky (n = 813). Results overwhelmingly confirm that changes to Twitter have made the social media platform no longer professionally useful or pleasant, and that many scientists have abandoned it in favor of Bluesky. Results show that for every reported professional benefit that scientists once gained from Twitter, scientists can now gain that benefit more effectively on Bluesky than on Twitter.</p>","PeriodicalId":54971,"journal":{"name":"Integrative and Comparative Biology","volume":" ","pages":"538-545"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144602290","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Aquatic Microbial Environment Shapes the Tadpole Microbiome and Antipredator Behavior.","authors":"Kyle J Emerson, Safoorah S Shaikh, Damiana P Bradley-Slagle, Sarah K Woodley","doi":"10.1093/icb/icaf009","DOIUrl":"10.1093/icb/icaf009","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Host-associated microbial communities impact the brain and behavior through the microbiota-gut-brain (MGB) axis. Most studies of the gut microbiota use mammals in biomedical contexts; much less is known regarding wildlife species. We used larval amphibians to study the impact of the aquatic microbial environment on the gut and skin microbiota, brain, and antipredator behavior. We raised Northern Leopard Frog (Lithobates pipiens) tadpoles in pond water that was autoclaved or not autoclaved (natural); other studies show that these treatments produce variation in the tadpole gut microbiota. Tadpoles were also raised in the presence of stressors: predation-derived chemical cues and corticosterone. Compared to tadpoles raised in natural pond water, tadpoles raised in autoclaved pond water had altered gut and skin microbial communities, body size, brain size, brain shape, and behavioral responses to alarm pheromones. There was no effect of microbial environment or stressors on differential gene expression of the whole brain. The gut microbiota, but not the skin microbiota, was a significant predictor of behavioral endpoints. We found surprisingly few impacts of stressors on the tadpoles, although stressor treatments interacted with pond water treatments to influence the composition of the gut microbiota. Our findings demonstrate that tadpole behavior is modulated by the aquatic microbial community experienced during development in ways that are likely to affect survival.</p>","PeriodicalId":54971,"journal":{"name":"Integrative and Comparative Biology","volume":" ","pages":"783-795"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143665400","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Similar Biomolecular Constraints Drive Convergent Adaptation to Extreme Cold and High Pressure.","authors":"Mark E Corkins, Thomas R Shaw, Jiehao Chen, Stephen A Sarles, Yuhang Hu, Lance A Davidson","doi":"10.1093/icb/icaf052","DOIUrl":"10.1093/icb/icaf052","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Environmental pressures and temperatures around the planet are not constant, both geographically and temporally. On land, changing climates push temperatures to new highs, and in the Arctic and deepest parts of the ocean, temperatures can be below 0°C without freezing. Additionally, these temperatures can fluctuate seasonally. Pressures also have a similar extreme from land to the depth of the sea. Organisms have found ways to adapt to these extreme conditions, and sometimes, two seemingly different pressures that derive from the environment share similar physiological and biochemical problems and therefore have evolved similar adaptations to those problems. Animals that live in cold conditions, like those seen in the Arctic, face the same problems as those in the deep ocean, such as denaturing proteins, changes in membrane structure, and disruption of biological matrices such as the extracellular matrix. Given the similar problems that impact both deep-sea-adapted animals and cold-adapted animals, they have evolved similar processes to adapt to these environmental conditions. This review proposes that cold and hydrostatic pressure exert similar biological challenges. Therefore, animals have evolved related mechanisms to adapt to these conditions. Thus, the information we have learned from studying cold-adapted species could be used to understand the poorly understood mechanisms responsible for adaptation to pressure.</p>","PeriodicalId":54971,"journal":{"name":"Integrative and Comparative Biology","volume":" ","pages":"585-595"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144133160","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Microbiomes in Animal Ecology: Advances, Assumptions, and Opportunities.","authors":"Robin W Warne, Lucas J Kirschman","doi":"10.1093/icb/icaf112","DOIUrl":"10.1093/icb/icaf112","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The study of animal microbiomes has revolutionized our understanding of host physiology, behavior, and ecology. However, many studies focus on correlations rather than causal functional interaction, and critical caps persist in linking microbial dynamics to ecological and fitness-relevant outcomes. Advances in multi-omics approaches, combined with stable isotope microbiomics, offer promising tools for linking microbial community dynamics to host function in ecologically relevant conditions. Here, we highlight the importance of longitudinal studies, controlled physiological comparisons, and integrative methodological approaches for microbe-host interactions beyond laboratory models. We emphasize the integration of multi-omics approaches and stable isotope probing to track microbial metabolites and their effects on hosts. Examples from African herbivores, geladas, and amphibians illustrate how longitudinal sampling and isotopic labeling can reveal microbiome plasticity in response to environmental variability. Furthermore, experimental systems such as larval amphibians, fish models, and dietary specialists like koalas demonstrate the potential of combining microbiome manipulations with multi-omics to disentangle host-microbe interactions in ecologically relevant contexts. We argue that advancing this field requires moving beyond disease-focused study of model organisms to explore microbiome contributions to life-history traits, nutrient provisioning, and resilience in wild populations. Coupling stable isotope probing with multi-omics in field experiments that compare dichotomous physiological and/or ecological states can be a powerful approach for providing insight into microbiome functional effects on hosts in fitness-relevant contexts.</p>","PeriodicalId":54971,"journal":{"name":"Integrative and Comparative Biology","volume":" ","pages":"772-782"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144531200","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Ethical Implications of Being a Holobiont.","authors":"Scott F Gilbert","doi":"10.1093/icb/icaf124","DOIUrl":"10.1093/icb/icaf124","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Developmental plasticity and holobiont theory have undermined the normative concepts of biological individuality. However, such traditional ideas of biological individuality have helped define and support Western ethical views into the 21st century. Guided by some of the ethical formulae of Simone Weil, Hans Jonas, and Alastair MacIntyre, this essay attempts to outline some possible trajectories for an ethics that is bounded by these new biological paradigms of environmental agency. Specifically, the ecological developmental biology concepts of plasticity and holobiont theory permit the \"ethics of attention\" to focus on the partnerships of living beings. Highlighting environmentally integrated life cycles and their sympoietic comings-into being provides new perspectives on life and on the roles of science in larger cultural contexts.</p>","PeriodicalId":54971,"journal":{"name":"Integrative and Comparative Biology","volume":" ","pages":"525-537"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144676635","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Cnidarian Circadian Clocks Model How Animals Find Predictability in a Complex World.","authors":"Ann M Tarrant, Cory A Berger","doi":"10.1093/icb/icaf038","DOIUrl":"10.1093/icb/icaf038","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Circadian clocks are a fundamental mechanism through which organisms anticipate and respond to daily cycles in light, temperature, and other environmental features. Clocks regulate daily rhythms in behavior and metabolism, and in some animals, this includes strong causal relationships between daily activity cycles and metabolic demands. Several components of animal circadian clocks are uniquely shared between cnidarians and bilaterian animals, and the complexity of sensory systems and circadian regulation have increased in parallel within these groups. However, the specific drivers of this innovation, and potential evolutionary correlations between sensory and circadian systems, are poorly known. This review examines the diversity of circadian regulation in cnidarians in a comparative context with a specific emphasis on environmental entrainment. We discuss mechanisms of circadian photoentrainment across domains of life and within Metazoa, molecular components of circadian clocks that are shared between bilatarians and non-bilaterian animals, and the robustness of cnidarian clocks in comparison with other animals. We also suggest how emerging methods and creative approaches can be applied to improve our understanding of how environmental signals are perceived by cnidarians and integrated into the circadian regulatory machinery.</p>","PeriodicalId":54971,"journal":{"name":"Integrative and Comparative Biology","volume":" ","pages":"688-700"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144060281","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Skin Defenses and Host-Environment Microbiome Interactions in Spotted Salamanders.","authors":"Julian Urrutia-Carter, Joseph D Madison, John Adam Frederick, Carly R Muletz Wolz","doi":"10.1093/icb/icaf098","DOIUrl":"10.1093/icb/icaf098","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Emerging infectious diseases have been of particular interest as a major threat to global biodiversity. In amphibians, two fungal sister taxa, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) and Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans (Bsal), along with the viral pathogen ranavirus, have affected global populations. Factors such as host traits, abiotic and biotic environmental conditions, and pathogen prevalence contribute to species-specific disease susceptibility. The eastern United States is home to the Appalachian Mountain system, known as a \"hotspot\" for salamander biodiversity. Bd and ranavirus are present throughout the Appalachians, and a Bsal emergence could be imminent. Throughout the Appalachians are the spotted salamanders, Ambystoma maculatum, a mostly terrestrial salamander that participates in mass breeding migration to ponds and vernal pools in the late spring. Previous experimental studies have shown that spotted salamanders appear to be resistant to Bd and Bsal infection, but the mechanisms behind Bd defense remain unknown. Spotted salamanders emerging from their overwintering habitats were hypothesized to have potent anti-Bd function expressed in their mucus and in their skin microbiomes, as a countermeasure to annual Bd re-emergence. We used non-invasive sampling at two pools during the spotted salamander annual breeding event to (I) determine pathogen prevalence, (II) quantify the antifungal potential of salamander skin mucus, and (III) characterize the diversity and composition of the salamander skin microbiome and contrast it to that of the corresponding environmental microbiome. We did not detect any Bd, Bsal, or ranavirus in the salamanders. The salamander mucus did not inhibit Bd growth in vitro, and anti-Bd bacteria were at low relative abundance in the microbiome. The salamander microbiome sourced a proportion of bacteria from the environment and appeared to select rare taxa from their respective pools; however, their functional relevance in pathogen defense is unclear. Our results suggest that the spotted salamander mucosal secretions and skin microbiome are not the mechanisms of defense against Bd. Rather, elements not captured by the mucosome (e.g., immune cell gene expression) may confer resistance. This study contributes to the understanding of salamander intraspecies variation in disease susceptibility.</p>","PeriodicalId":54971,"journal":{"name":"Integrative and Comparative Biology","volume":" ","pages":"736-746"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144303658","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}