Forests are at the frontline of both climate and biodiversity crises: forests are fundamental to the regulation of Earth's atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, and tropical forests alone harbour over half of all terrestrial species. Consequently, forests are at the centre of global efforts to both prevent extinctions of species and sequester carbon to mitigate climate change. Most carbon sequestration initiatives do not measure...

Thermophilic archaea synthesise cellular membranes composed primarily of isoprenoid glycerol dibiphytanyl glycerol tetraethers (iGDGTs). Cells can adjust the packing of their lipids by increasing cyclopentyl ring production, thereby decreasing membrane permeability and fluidity to maintain cellular function at high temperature, acidic pH, or nutrient limitation. Archaea of the class Nitrososphaeria synthesise crenarchaeol, an...

In the United States, shark meat is sold in grocery stores, seafood markets, and online. The meat is often mislabeled as another species or generically labeled as “shark”. The ambiguity of these generic labels makes it challenging to assess the conservation implications of this practice and for consumers to avoid high trophic-level species that often have high mercury concentrations in their tissues. We purchased and DNA barco...

Colorado potato beetle (CPB), Leptinotarsa decemlineata (Say) is a major insect pest of potato and development of resistant varieties is part of a strategy for management. Wild relatives of potato are resources for genetic improvement through breeding. Interspecies crosses to introgress CPB resistance will be facilitated with rapid and inexpensive selection methods. Solanum okadae is a novel source of feeding deterrence agains...

Environmentally transmitted parasites produce transmission stages that can remain viable and infective for extended periods of time in the environment where susceptible hosts may encounter them. Although many parasites have this mode of transmission, the abundance and distribution of environmental transmission stages have largely been overlooked, especially in aquatic habitats. Without empirical data to characterize spatial an...

Outbreaks of environmentally transmitted parasites require that susceptible hosts encounter transmission stages in the environment and become infected, but we also know that transmission stages can be in the environment without triggering disease outbreaks. One challenge in understanding the relationship between environmental transmission stages and disease outbreaks is that the distribution and abundance of transmission stage...

Despite the importance of virulence in epidemiological theory, the relative contributions of host and parasite to virulence outcomes remain poorly understood. Here, we use reciprocal cross experiments to disentangle the influence of host and parasite on core virulence components—infection and pathology—and understand dramatic differences in parasite‐induced malformations in California amphibians. Surveys across 319 populations...