Purpose Patch-clamping is a foundational technique in electrophysiology that requires substantial training due to its complexity and resource-intensive nature. This study evaluates the effectiveness of an interactive patch-clamping simulation in improving accessibility, skill acquisition, and educational outcomes compared to traditional training methods. Methods A virtual simulation replicating key aspects of patch-clamping wa...

Microbial rhodopsins are widely distributed in aquatic environments and may significantly contribute to phototrophy and energy budgets in global oceans. However, the study of freshwater rhodopsins has been largely limited. Here, we explored the diversity, ecological distribution, and expression of opsin genes that encode the apoproteins of type I rhodopsins in humic and clearwater lakes with contrasting physicochemical and opt...

Global change is impacting plant community composition, but the mechanisms underlying these changes are unclear. Using a dataset of 58 global change experiments, we tested the five fundamental mechanisms of community change: changes in evenness and richness, reordering, species gains and losses. We found 71% of communities were impacted by global change treatments, and 88% of communities that were exposed to two or more global...

The responses of species to environmental changes will determine future community composition and ecosystem function. Many syntheses of global change experiments examine the magnitude of treatment effect sizes, but we lack an understanding of how plant responses to treatments compare to ongoing changes in the unmanipulated (ambient or background) system. We used a database of long‐term global change studies manipulating CO 2 ,...

Temporal stability of ecosystem functioning increases the predictability and reliability of ecosystem services, and understanding the drivers of stability across spatial scales is important for land management and policy decisions. We used species‐level abundance data from 62 plant communities across five continents to assess mechanisms of temporal stability across spatial scales. We assessed how asynchrony (i.e. different uni...

Aim Although all five of the major mediterranean‐climate ecosystems ( MCE s) of the world are recognized as loci of high plant species diversity and endemism, they show considerable variation in regional‐scale richness. Here, we assess the role of stable Pleistocene climate and Cenozoic topography in explaining variation in regional richness of the globe's MCE s. We hypothesize that older, more climatically stable MCE s would...

Although climate change is predicted to place mountain‐top and other narrowly endemic species at severe risk of extinction, the ecological processes involved in such extinctions are still poorly resolved. In addition, much of this biodiversity loss will likely go unobserved, and therefore largely unappreciated. The H aleakalā silversword is restricted to a single volcano summit in H awai‘i, but is a highly charismatic giant ro...

Summary Here we report the first metatranscriptomic analysis of gene expression and regulation of ‘ Candidatus Accumulibacter’‐enriched lab‐scale sludge during enhanced biological phosphorus removal (EBPR). Medium density oligonucleotide microarrays were generated with probes targeting most predicted genes hypothesized to be important for the EBPR phenotype. RNA samples were collected at the early stage of anaerobic and aerobi...

An understanding of alternative mating systems is a fundamental requirement for the effective management of vulnerable species. Microsatellite analysis of spiny dogfish Squalus acanthias broods from the north‐west Atlantic provides novel evidence of polyandry in this species.