Identifying Hot Moments in Road-Mortality Risk for Freshwater Turtles

ABSTRACT Risk assessments can be used to identify threats, which vary both in space and time, to declining species. Just as hot spots describe locations where threat processes operate at a higher rate than in surrounding areas, hot moments refer to periods when threat rates are highest. However, the identification of hot moments can be challenging because the temporal complexity of some threat processes makes their effects on population viability difficult to predict. Declining throughout much of their range, Blanding's turtle (Emydoidea blandingii) populations are potentially most vulnerable to road mortality where road densities and traffic volumes are high. The temporal variations in road-mortality risk faced by these and other semiaquatic turtles at the population level are a consequence of several factors, including sex-specific movement characteristics and seasonal changes in traffic volume. We examined these risk factors for Blanding's turtle populations in Maine, USA, by integrating temporally explicit roadkill probabilities with demographic parameters informed by local and range-wide studies. Specifically, we used population simulations to estimate the relative risk for 14 2-week periods during the turtles’ active season. Our analysis clearly identified early summer as a period of elevated risk, with June through mid-July signaling a road-mortality hot moment for Blanding's turtles (for both M and F). These findings provide guidance for the implementation of temporally explicit conservation measures such as cautionary road signage, traffic management, and public outreach that, if timed strategically, could help to mitigate population impacts from road mortality.     

Transgenerational memory effect of ageing in Drosophila

Children born to older parents tend to have lower intelligence and are at higher risk for disorders such as schizophrenia and autism. Such observations of ageing damage being passed on from parents to offspring are not often considered within the evolutionary theory of ageing. Here, we show the 25% memory impairment in Drosophila melanogaster offspring solely dependent on the age of the parents and also passed on to the F2 generation. Furthermore, this parental age effect was not attributed to a generalized reduction in condition of the offspring but was specific to short‐term memory. We also provide evidence implicating oxidative stress as a causal factor by showing that lines selected for resistance to oxidative stress did not display a memory impairment in offspring of old parents. The identification of the parental age‐related memory impairment in a model system should stimulate integration between mechanistic studies of age‐related mortality risk and functional studies of parental age effects on the fitness of future generations.     

Identification and Localization of Frankia Strains in Alnus Nodules by In Situ Hybridization of nif H mRNA with Strain-Specific Oligonucleotide Probes

In situ hybridization of Frankia mRNA with specific probes wasused to localize the strains Arl3 and AcoN24d in Alnus nodulesobtained after inoculation with one or both strains. The probesconsisted of 18-mer oligonucleotides, complementary to strain-specificsequences located within the nif H gene. Sections of nodulesinoculated with only one strain revealed a specific hybridizationbetween the probe and the corresponding Frankia strain mRNA.In sections of dually-inoculated nodules the presence of thestrain AcoN24d in the nodule was clearly shown whereas thoseof the strain Arl3 could not be detected. This suggests thatthe strain Arl3 is less infective than the strain AcoN24d andis not present within the nodule. Key words: Nitrogen fixation, actinorhizae, autoradiography, histochemistry