Cetacean skin microbiome samples are traditionally collected by swabbing the skin of captured animals or using skin tissue from remote biopsies. The effects of different sampling methods are not well understood, and factors such as swab type and storage methods may affect the microbiome. The objective of this study was to determine if samples collected by swabbing biopsied skin from bottlenose dolphins yield sufficient microbi...

Interpretation of groundwater nitrate trends in the agricultural, karstic landscape of southeastern Minnesota, USA, has been confounded by an inadequate understanding of residence time. Temporal monitoring of alachlor ethane sulfonic acid (ESA) concentrations, a transformation product of the discontinued but commonly used agricultural herbicide alachlor from the 1970s and 1980s, was used to approximate post-1953 groundwater re...

Killer whales occur in the Gulf of Mexico (GoMex) and the North Atlantic, including off the southeastern United States (SEUS). Data from cetacean surveys during 1990 – 2021 and other sources were combined to assess killer whale biology, including spatial and temporal distribution, social structure, genetics, morphology, acoustics, and predatory behavior. GoMex records occurred predominantly in oceanic waters (>200 m) during sp...

An imported case of monkeypox was diagnosed in December 2019 in a traveller returning from Nigeria to the UK. Subsequently, environmental sampling was performed at two adjoining single‐room residences occupied by the patient and their sibling. Monkeypox virus DNA was identified in multiple locations throughout both properties, and monkeypox virus was isolated from several samples 3 days after the patient was last in these loca...

To support ongoing marine spatial planning in New Zealand, a numerical environmental classification using Gradient Forest models was developed using a broad suite of biotic and high-resolution environmental predictor variables. Gradient Forest modeling uses species distribution data to control the selection, weighting and transformation of environmental predictors to maximise their correlation with species compositional turnov...

Pathways to extinction start long before the death of the last individual. However, causes of early stage population declines and the susceptibility of small residual populations to extirpation are typically studied in isolation. Using validated process‐explicit models, we disentangle the ecological mechanisms and threats that were integral in the initial decline and later extinction of the woolly mammoth. We show that reconci...

The crowns of juvenile Prumnopitys taxifolia (D. Don) de Laub. are comprised of thin, interlaced, wiry stems branching at wide angles and bearing sparse, scale‐like, clasping leaves (‘divaricating’ shoots) that generally surround stems bearing oblong, compressed leaves (‘leafy’ shoots). As development proceeds, non‐divaricating branches of the mature tree form exclusively; thus, P. taxifolia is profoundly heteroblastic. Divari...