Fabrication of Polymeric Visual Decoys for the Male Emerald Ash Borer (Agrilus planipennis)

Through a bioreplication approach, we have fabricated artificial visual decoys for the invasive species Agrilus planipennis—commonly known as the Emerald Ash Borer (EAB). The mating behavior of this species involves an overflying EAB male pouncing on an EAB female at rest on an ash leaflet before copulating. The male spots the female on the leaflet by visually detecting the iridescent green color of the female's elytra. As rearing EAB and then deploying dead females as decoys for trapping is both arduous and inconvenient, we decided to fabricate artificial decoys. We used a dead female to make a negative die of nickel and a positive die of epoxy. Decoys were then made by first depositing a quarter-wave-stack Bragg reflector on a polymer sheet and then stamping it with a pair of matched negative and positive dies to take the shape of the upper surface of an EAB female. As nearly 100 artificial decoys were fabricated from just one EAB female, this bioreplication process is industrially scalable. Preliminary results from a field trapping test are indicative of success.     

Pulmonary hypertension complicating pulmonary sarcoidosis

Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is a severe complication of sarcoidosis, with an unknown prevalence. The aetiology is multifactorial, and the exact mechanism of PH in the individual patient is often difficult to establish. The diagnostic work-up and treatment of PH in sarcoidosis is complex, and should therefore be determined by a multidisciplinary expert team in a specialised centre. It is still a major challenge to identify sarcoidosis patients at risk for developing PH. There is no validated algorithm when to refer a patient suspected for PH, and PH analysis itself is difficult. Until present, there is no established therapy for PH in sarcoidosis. Besides optimal treatment for sarcoidosis, case series evaluating new therapeutic options involving PH-targeted therapy are arising for a subgroup of patients. This review summarises the current knowledge regarding the aetiology, diagnosis and possible treatment options for PH in sarcoidosis.     

Does intraspecific competition promote variation? A test via synthesis

Competitive diversification, that is, when increasing intraspecific competition promotes population niche expansion, is commonly invoked in evolutionary studies and currently plays a central role in how we conceptualize the process of adaptive diversification. Despite the frequency with which this idea is cited, the empirical evidence for the process is somewhat limited, and the findings of these studies have yet to be weighed objectively through synthesis. Here, we sought to fill this gap by reviewing the existing literature and collecting the data necessary to assess the evidence for competition as a diversifying force. Additionally, we sought to test a more recent hypothesis, which suggests that competition can act to both promote and inhibit dietary diversification depending on the degree to which a consumer depletes its resources. The surprising result of this synthesis was that increasing competition did not have a mean positive effect on population‐level diet breadth or the degree of individual specialization. Instead, we found that increasing intraspecific competition had a restricting effect on population‐level diet breadth in as many cases as it had a diversifying effect. This wide disparity in the effect of competition on consumer diet variation was negatively related to a metric for consumer resource depletion. Altogether, these findings call into question a long‐standing assumption of basic evolutionary models and lend some support to recent theoretical predictions. Specifically, these findings support the idea that competition is primarily diversifying for species with a small effect (per unit biomass) on their resources and that resource depletion limits the diversifying effect of competition for consumers with larger ecological effects.     

The biomechanics of concussion for ice hockey head impact events

The purpose of this research was to conduct reconstructions of concussive and non-concussive impacts in ice hockey to determine the biomechanics and thresholds of concussive injury in ice hockey. Videos of concussive and non-concussive impacts in an elite professional ice hockey league in North America were reconstructed using physical and finite element model methods. Eighty concussive and 45 non-concussive events were studied. Logistic regressions indicate significant thresholds for concussion for linear/rotational acceleration and CSDM_10%. Impacts in ice hockey were mostly long duration events, longer than 15?ms. These results have significant implications for helmet standards and development to prevent concussion.     

The evolution of eye size in response to increased fish predation in Daphnia

Variation in eye size is ubiquitous across taxa. Increased eye size is correlated with improved vision and increased fitness via shifts in behavior. Tests of the drivers of eye size evolution have focused on macroevolutionary studies evaluating the importance of light availability. Predator‐induced mortality has recently been identified as a potential driver of eye size variation. Here, we tested the influence of increased predation by the fish predator, the alewife (Alosa pseudoharengus) on eye size evolution in waterfleas (Daphnia ambigua) from lakes in Connecticut. We quantified the relative eye size of Daphnia from lakes with and without alewife using wild‐caught and third‐generation laboratory reared specimens. This includes comparisons between lakes where alewife are present seasonally (anadromous) or permanently (landlocked). Wild‐caught specimens did not differ in eye size across all lakes. However, third‐generation lab reared Daphnia from lakes with alewife, irrespective of the form of alewife predation, exhibited significantly larger eyes than Daphnia from lakes without alewife. This genetically based increase in eye size may enhance the ability of Daphnia to detect predators. Alternatively, such shifts in eye size may be an indirect response to Daphnia aggregating at the bottom of lakes. To test these mechanisms, we collected Daphnia as a function of depth and found that eye size differed in Daphnia found at the surface versus the bottom of the water column between anadromous alewife and no alewife lakes. However, we found no evidence of Daphnia aggregating at the bottom of lakes. Such results indicate that the evolution of a larger eye may be explained by a connection between eyes and enhanced survival. We discuss the cause of the lack of concordance in eye size variation between our phenotypic and genetic specimens and the ultimate drivers of eye size.