Biology Letters最新文献

Direct evidence of trophic interaction between a crocodyliform and a large terror bird in the Middle Miocene of La Venta, Colombia. 哥伦比亚拉文塔中新世中期鳄鱼形动物与大型恐鸟营养相互作用的直接证据。

IF 2.8 2区生物学

Biology Letters Pub Date : 2025-07-01 Epub Date: 2025-07-23 DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2025.0113

Andres Link, Jorge Wilson Moreno-Bernal, Federico Javier Degrange, Siobhan B Cooke, Luis Gonzalo Ortiz-Pabon, Cesar Augusto Perdomo-Rojas, Rodolfo Salas-Gismondi

{"title":"Direct evidence of trophic interaction between a crocodyliform and a large terror bird in the Middle Miocene of La Venta, Colombia.","authors":"Andres Link, Jorge Wilson Moreno-Bernal, Federico Javier Degrange, Siobhan B Cooke, Luis Gonzalo Ortiz-Pabon, Cesar Augusto Perdomo-Rojas, Rodolfo Salas-Gismondi","doi":"10.1098/rsbl.2025.0113","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2025.0113","url":null,"abstract":"Direct evidence of predation and other trophic relationships provide valuable information about trophic interactions between species in palaeo-communities. Data on ecological interactions amongst extant apex predators open a unique opportunity to better understand how sympatric apex predators coexisted or interacted with each other in the past. Here, we describe direct evidence of a predation or scavenging event in which we hypothesize that a medium-sized caiman (possibly Purussaurus neivensis) consumed (either through scavenging or through direct predation) a large terror bird. The distal part of a left tibiotarsus from a phorusrhacid had four pits inflicted on the cortical bone, and no signs of healing, suggesting it did not survive this trophic event. This record contributes to our current understanding of prey consumed by P. neivensis in the wetlands of the Pebas System of South America and indicates that large phorusrhacids might have had higher predation risk than previously expected. This study provides evidence of a trophic relation between apex predators and the complexity of trophic interactions in the diverse vertebrate palaeo-community of La Venta in the Middle Miocene of northern South America.","PeriodicalId":9005,"journal":{"name":"Biology Letters","volume":"21 7","pages":"20250113"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144688850","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Lactate as a key energy source facilitating cooperative behaviour in helper Damaraland mole-rats. 乳酸是促进帮助者大鼠合作行为的关键能量来源。

IF 2.8 2区生物学

Biology Letters Pub Date : 2025-07-01 Epub Date: 2025-07-09 DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2025.0006

Giséle S Cumming, Nigel C Bennett, David M Scantlebury, Daniel William Hart, Paul J Jacobs

{"title":"Lactate as a key energy source facilitating cooperative behaviour in helper Damaraland mole-rats.","authors":"Giséle S Cumming, Nigel C Bennett, David M Scantlebury, Daniel William Hart, Paul J Jacobs","doi":"10.1098/rsbl.2025.0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2025.0006","url":null,"abstract":"This study explores the metabolic factors that may aid in the division of labour in cooperatively breeding Damaraland mole-rat (Fukomys damarensis) colonies, particularly during digging activities. In these group-living mammals, both breeders and non-breeders participate in digging, among other cooperative tasks; however, non-breeding males and females (NBFs), often referred to as 'helpers', undertake this task at a higher frequency and engage in other energetically demanding activities more often than their breeding counterparts. We investigated how variation in glucose and lactate levels, two key energy substrates, relates to different levels of digging activity between breeders and non-breeders and how these metabolic patterns might underpin reproductive differences in activity and energy budgets. While both breeding females (BFs) and NBFs exhibited similar decreases in glucose levels after digging, lactate dynamics revealed a key distinction, NBFs experienced a significant drop in plasma lactate, suggesting lactate utilization. In contrast, BFs showed an increase in lactate, indicating its accumulation rather than utilization, potentially contributing to their reduced involvement in digging activity. These findings suggest that lactate recycling and metabolism may play a crucial role in sustaining prolonged physical exertion in NBFs, providing a potential physiological explanation for the division of labour in mole-rat colonies.","PeriodicalId":9005,"journal":{"name":"Biology Letters","volume":"21 7","pages":"20250006"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144590380","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Male sea lamprey countersignal relative to their baseline pheromone but not the intensity of rivals' signals. 雄性海七鳃鳗发出的信号与它们的基线信息素有关，但与对手发出的信号强度无关。

IF 2.8 2区生物学

Biology Letters Pub Date : 2025-07-01 Epub Date: 2025-07-09 DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2025.0108

Tyler J Buchinger, Skye D Fissette, Ugo Bussy, Belinda Huerta, Sonam Tamrakar, Weiming Li

{"title":"Male sea lamprey countersignal relative to their baseline pheromone but not the intensity of rivals' signals.","authors":"Tyler J Buchinger, Skye D Fissette, Ugo Bussy, Belinda Huerta, Sonam Tamrakar, Weiming Li","doi":"10.1098/rsbl.2025.0108","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2025.0108","url":null,"abstract":"Animals signalling to potential mates inadvertently reveal information to sexual rivals. In species that communicate with visual or acoustic signals, rivals are well documented to use this information to optimize their own signalling strategy based on the current level of competitive risk. We studied how males fine-tune their signals after exposure to varying levels of simulated competition in a species that relies on chemical signals, the sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus). Sea lamprey aggregate on spawning grounds in streams, where males each build a nest and signal to females using the sex pheromone 3-keto petromyzonol sulphate (3kPZS). We hypothesized that males use the concentration of environmental 3kPZS to infer the level of competitive risk and adjust their 3kPZS release proportionally. Males increased 3kPZS release after exposure to 3kPZS but, contrary to our hypothesis, the change in release was similar across concentrations from 5 × 10-7 M down to 5 × 10-13 M. Interestingly, the increase in 3kPZS release after exposure to 3kPZS was negatively correlated with baseline release rates. Taken together, our results indicate male sea lamprey adjust their pheromone signals based on the presence of rivals and their own baseline signal but not any graded assessment of competition risk.","PeriodicalId":9005,"journal":{"name":"Biology Letters","volume":"21 7","pages":"20250108"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144590381","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Nest founding by mixed kin groups in communally nesting orchid bees. 混合亲缘群体在共同筑巢的兰花蜂中筑巢。

IF 2.8 2区生物学

Biology Letters Pub Date : 2025-07-01 Epub Date: 2025-07-16 DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2025.0003

Jonas Henske, Mauricio Fernández Otárola, Janosch Dohrs, Thomas Eltz

引用次数: 0

Competitive cleaning: behavioural variation supports coexistence of two juvenile sympatric cleanerfishes. 竞争性清洁：行为变化支持两种同域清洁鱼幼鱼的共存。

IF 2.8 2区生物学

Biology Letters Pub Date : 2025-07-01 Epub Date: 2025-07-16 DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2025.0079

Rohan M Brooker, Zara-Louise Cowan, Jake Martin, Sylvie Evans, Bob B M Wong, David Lecchini, William E Feeney

引用次数: 0

Dinosaur science. 恐龙的科学。

IF 2.8 2区生物学

Biology Letters Pub Date : 2025-07-01 Epub Date: 2025-07-02 DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2025.0297

Paul M Barrett, Susannah C R Maidment

引用次数: 0

Foraging actively can be advantageous in heterogeneous environments. 主动觅食在异质环境中是有利的。

IF 2.8 2区生物学

Biology Letters Pub Date : 2025-07-01 Epub Date: 2025-07-02 DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2025.0153

Dylan J Padilla Perez, John M VandenBrooks, Marla B Sokolowski, Michael J Angilletta

{"title":"Foraging actively can be advantageous in heterogeneous environments.","authors":"Dylan J Padilla Perez, John M VandenBrooks, Marla B Sokolowski, Michael J Angilletta","doi":"10.1098/rsbl.2025.0153","DOIUrl":"10.1098/rsbl.2025.0153","url":null,"abstract":"A wealth of evidence indicates that behavioural polymorphism is widespread in nature. While some organisms search for food by moving almost continuously throughout their environment, other organisms forage in one place for long periods of time. Although such a dichotomy has been previously documented in Drosophila melanogaster, the question remains which foraging strategy is better suited to maximize energy intake in a particular environment. We designed an experiment to evaluate whether the configuration of food in the environment alters the foraging behaviour of two larval strains. Assuming that one of the strains acquires more food than the other in a given environment, we examined whether variation in growth occurred between them. Our results indicate that foraging behaviour is a plastic trait, shaped by the configuration of food in the environment. Regardless of the foraging strategy, we found that larvae generally increased their locomotion when food was patchy rather than clumped. Even though we observed that some individuals actively sought food while others stayed foraging at nearby sites, we found no differences in growth rate between them. However, we suggest that foraging actively may be advantageous in polymorphic populations because such behaviour facilitates local adaptation via founder effect and gene flow.","PeriodicalId":9005,"journal":{"name":"Biology Letters","volume":"21 7","pages":"20250153"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12212981/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144538151","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Metabolic-behavioural performance for overwinter survival in a wild rodent. 野生啮齿动物越冬生存的代谢行为表现。

IF 2.8 2区生物学

Biology Letters Pub Date : 2025-07-01 Epub Date: 2025-07-16 DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2025.0195

Jan S Boratyński, Karol Zub, Karolina Iwińska, Zbigniew Boratyński

{"title":"Metabolic-behavioural performance for overwinter survival in a wild rodent.","authors":"Jan S Boratyński, Karol Zub, Karolina Iwińska, Zbigniew Boratyński","doi":"10.1098/rsbl.2025.0195","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2025.0195","url":null,"abstract":"Modern evolutionary theory predicts that integrated phenotypes, including interacting fitness-related complex traits such as behaviour, physiology and morphology, jointly influence animal performance. However, studies have examined these aspects of biology independently in relation to fitness. We investigated how phenotypic characteristics collectively affect overwinter survival in a wild population of yellow-necked mice. We measured behavioural activity, basal metabolic rate and body mass in late autumn, released marked mice and recaptured survivors in spring to reassess their phenotypes. Mice grew, increased metabolic rate and decreased distance moved over the winter, but when those changes were accounted for, the phenotypes were intra-individually consistent. The simultaneous selective advantages of elevated metabolism and behavioural activity during autumn suggest that the interplay between physiology and behaviour is subject to selection. Despite the lack of significant phenotypic covariation between metabolic rate and behaviour, their additive survival benefits suggest that elevated activity facilitates the development of costly metabolism in free-ranging animals. As metabolism and body mass share 84% of the common variance, we hypothesized that selectively advantageous high metabolism supports overwinter growth. The results support postulates that the behaviour-physiological phenotype is the first line of selective responses and that plasticity is an important source of variation in individuals' performance.","PeriodicalId":9005,"journal":{"name":"Biology Letters","volume":"21 7","pages":"20250195"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144641734","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Museomics unravels cryptic diversity in an endemic group of New Guinean songbirds. 博物馆组学揭示了新几内亚特有鸣禽群的神秘多样性。

IF 2.8 2区生物学

Biology Letters Pub Date : 2025-07-01 Epub Date: 2025-07-16 DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2024.0611

Mozes Pil Kyu Blom, Saphira Bloom-Quinn, Petter Zahl Marki, Bonny Koane, Leo Joseph, Martin Irestedt, Knud Andreas Jønsson

{"title":"Museomics unravels cryptic diversity in an endemic group of New Guinean songbirds.","authors":"Mozes Pil Kyu Blom, Saphira Bloom-Quinn, Petter Zahl Marki, Bonny Koane, Leo Joseph, Martin Irestedt, Knud Andreas Jønsson","doi":"10.1098/rsbl.2024.0611","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2024.0611","url":null,"abstract":"Deciphering cryptic diversity can have substantial implications for our understanding of evolutionary processes and species conservation. Birds are arguably among the best studied organismal groups, but even in avian clades there are some genera that have not been thoroughly surveyed. This is particularly true for taxa that occur in hyperdiverse biogeographic regions. In this study, we focus on an endemic group of New Guinean birds, the jewel-babblers (genus: Ptilorrhoa), and study the diversification history of all known taxa. We assemble a de novo genome using linked-read sequencing and genomic data for 40 historical specimens. Both phylogenomic and population-genomic analyses strongly support the recovery of a cryptic species and shed new light on the diversification history of this group. The blue jewel-babbler (Ptilorrhoa caerulescens) is a paraphyletic species complex and P. c. nigricrissus is more closely related to the phenotypically distinct and sexually dimorphic P. geislerorum, than to other P. caerulescens subspecies. These findings demonstrate that even in well-studied groups such as birds, cryptic diversity can still be a prevalent reality. Moreover, by deciphering cryptic diversity, we shed new light on the processes driving speciation within Ptilorrhoa and the need to potentially revise the taxonomic status of all subspecies.","PeriodicalId":9005,"journal":{"name":"Biology Letters","volume":"21 7","pages":"20240611"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144641735","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Pigeons in a flock go cheap: a re-evaluation of the energetics of flying in cluster flocks. 鸽群中的鸽子变得便宜：对成群飞行的能量学的重新评估。

IF 2.8 2区生物学

Biology Letters Pub Date : 2025-07-01 Epub Date: 2025-07-09 DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2025.0031

Charles M Bishop, Lewis G Halsey, Graham N Askew

{"title":"Pigeons in a flock go cheap: a re-evaluation of the energetics of flying in cluster flocks.","authors":"Charles M Bishop, Lewis G Halsey, Graham N Askew","doi":"10.1098/rsbl.2025.0031","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2025.0031","url":null,"abstract":"The energy expended by animals during locomotion is often of considerable ecological importance. However, inaccurate conclusions about energy expenditure may arise if the limitations of the proxy variables being used to infer locomotion costs are not considered. The study of 'cluster' flocking behaviour in pigeons, using wingbeat frequency as a proxy for mechanical energy output, provides a useful illustration of these pitfalls. In contrast to claims in the literature, we suggest that published body kinematic values measured with accelerometers, along with our own heart rate data, show little evidence in support of the hypothesis that there is an increase in the mechanical energy costs for most pigeons to fly in a typical 'cluster' flock. Indeed, our re-analyses of acceleration-based measures of body power suggest there may be a positive energetic advantage to flying at low flock densities. We suggest that, when assessing energy expenditure using accelerometry-derived variables, the energy proxy units should be consistent with those of power, whether mass specific or absolute, and should control for differences in body mass and speed where appropriate. Accumulated total journey costs should also be assessed alongside instantaneous costs, with the former likely to be at least as ecologically significant.","PeriodicalId":9005,"journal":{"name":"Biology Letters","volume":"21 7","pages":"20250031"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144590382","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0