Key message This eight-founder MAGIC population represents a powerful resource for dissecting complex traits in maize, assessing the utility of drought proxy traits, and optimizing low-coverage whole-genome sequencing approaches. Abstract Securing sustainable crop production requires the genetic improvement of abiotic stress tolerance. Due to the broad range of environmental factors causing abiotic stress and complex genotype-...

Three of the most recent rhyolite eruptions in Europe occurred approximately 800 years ago on the island of Lipari, Aeolian Islands, Sicily. These eruptions produced ash and lava deposits that share many of the physical and chemical traits known to exist in hybrid explosive-effusive silicic systems like the Mono Craters and Medicine Lake (USA), in addition to the recently active rhyolite volcanoes Chaitén (2008) and Cordón Cau...

The impact of cats and dogs on biodiversity has been the focus of intense debate. Here, we review the scientific literature on the impacts themselves and discuss societal perception of cats and dogs from a cultural point of view. This includes varying feelings of fear and appreciation, related to differences in risks posed to people, animal size, difficulty in handling, and behavior. We then analyze existing international rule...

The forest floor (FF) plays a key role in carbon, nutrient, and water cycling. It is the biologically most active compartment of forest soils, highly responsive to environmental conditions. Yet, its response to current changes in environmental conditions and forest management is understudied. Temperate forests are among the best studied ecosystems globally, providing the necessary ecological and biogeochemical background infor...

Summary During the preparation of a revision of the Cyrtandra terrae-guilelmi complex, endemic to Papua New Guinea, several new species were identified from material that had been misidentified as belonging to this group. Here, we formally describe two of these. Cyrtandra menyamyana S.Hatt & Bramley can be distinguished from all other Cyrtandra by its densely hairy whitish-cream to orange yellow flowers with corolla lobes in 2...

Summary Cyrtandra J.R.Forst. & G.Forst. (Gesneriaceae) are widespread in New Guinea, with most of the ~92 species recognised species endemic to the island. However, New Guinea Cyrtandra have not received a taxonomic revision since Schlechter in 1923, who recognised 14 sections. A taxonomic revision of the red-flowered Cyrtandra terrae-guilelmi K.Schum. species complex (within Schlechter’s Cyrtandra sect. Loxanthe ) is presente...

Patients with sino-nasal issues often believe their symptoms are exacerbated by certain weather conditions, but these relationships are largely anecdotal. Using an extensive archive of patient surveys at the University of Virginia Rhinology Clinic from January 2010–March 2020, we examined whether sino-nasal symptoms were impacted by the weather on, or shortly before, the day of clinic visit. Clinic patients completed the Sino-...

Muscle synergy analysis has been explored as means to better understand changes in motor control, with the aim to improve treatment outcomes after Single Event Multilevel Surgery (SEMLS) for children with cerebral palsy (CP). In this single-group study, we assess changes between pre- and post-surgery muscle synergies at both patient specific, and cohort levels after surgical intervention for children with CP. We analysed the w...

Volcanic lateral collapses represent major hazards through associated eruptive activity, landslide inundation and, in island or coastal settings, the generation of tsunamis. Forecasting the timing, precursory indicators, and magnitude of lateral collapses still remains a significant gap in volcanic risk management, a challenge exemplified by the 2018 lateral collapse of Anak Krakatau, Indonesia. The volcano’s southwestern flan...

The Detection, Identification, and Adaptation (DIA)-estimator integrates parameter estimation and hypothesis testing for model misspecifications. This contribution presents a positioning safety analysis approach grounded in the DIA-estimator framework, with a particular emphasis on multidimensional model misspecifications, such as simultaneous outliers in the observations. While recent work has focused on the performance of th...

Biodiversity decline jeopardizes the foundation of natural ecosystems and human well-being, a concern that prompted major global agreements aiming to bend the curve towards a net positive biodiversity future. Still, the critical importance of safeguarding the diversity of life is far from receiving the attention it deserves, especially in marine settings. To understand (and overcome) the current limits of biodiversity mainstre...

Climate change is projected to exacerbate food insecurity in sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA) by reducing crop yields and soil fertility. Many climate change impact studies in SSA have overlooked long‐term effects of soil fertility on crop yield. We evaluated maize yields under different scenarios of soil fertility (using soil organic carbon as a proxy) and climate change (considering changes in temperature, rainfall, and CO 2 ) at fo...

Under the current global biodiversity crisis, there is a need for automated and noninvasive monitoring techniques that can gather large amounts of data cost‐effectively at various ecological scales, from local to large spatial scales. These data can then be analyzed to inform stakeholders and decision‐makers. One such technique is passive acoustic monitoring, which is commonly coupled with automatic identification of animal sp...