Despite extensive research on the western Pacific crown-of-thorns starfish (CoTS; Acanthaster cf. solaris ), especially from Australia’s Great Barrier Reef (GBR), there are persistent knowledge gaps that constrain understanding and management. Given renewed population irruptions of CoTS on the GBR, alongside escalating climate impacts and direct anthropogenic pressures, a quantitative assessment of knowledge gaps was undertake...

Identifying brain phenotypes influencing social participation may help understand social deficits in psychiatric disorders. Previous research shows methodological inconsistencies, lacking consensus on which brain regions are crucial. Data-driven variable selection may overcome this, facilitating unbiased replication and discovery of social brain regions. We compare data-driven selection to literature-identification of brain re...

Sorghum is a versatile crop with many uses, ranging from human consumption to biofuel production. In the U.S., sorghum experiences heat stress during flowering in the summer. Several strategies have been developed to reduce yield loss caused by heat stress. One of the most reliable strategies is ‘heat escape’, in which early-season planting shifts the crop’s reproductive phase to occur before heat stress exposure. However, thi...

Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs) are chronic inflammatory disorders influenced by environmental factors and characterised by a dysregulated immune response. DNA methylation (DNAm) a key epigenetic mechanism plays a role in the etiology of complex diseases like IBD. Epigenetic clocks which estimate biological aging through DNAm patterns have also been linked to various health states, including IBD. Previously, we profiled DNA...

Understanding fish life history is essential for effective management of fisheries, but continuous tracking over lifetime temporal scales can be difficult. Fish otoliths contain a natural biogeochemical record of ambient environmental conditions and habitat use over such scales. However, ecological interpretations of these elemental compositions can be influenced by the structural composition of calcium carbonate otoliths, whi...

This paper presents the first systematic numerical study employing a realistic elasto-plastic non-linear soil model to examine factors affecting the measurement of soil stiffness at low to intermediate strains in the triaxial apparatus. The study is motivated by the development of new image-based measurement techniques for triaxial testing. The results from numerical simulations are presented that quantify the influence on sam...

Ecological disturbances are discrete events that alter or transform the physical, chemical, or biological characteristics of ecosystems. Disturbance can cause animal populations to decline and, according to the risk‐disturbance hypothesis and population collapse framework, these declines can be predicted by declines in animal body condition. However, no research has empirically examined the general relationship between body co...

Aim To compare field‐based evidence of plant and animal responses to fire with remotely sensed signals of fire heterogeneity and post‐fire biomass recovery. Location South‐eastern Australia; New South Wales. Time Period 2019–2022. Major Taxa Studied A total of 982 species of plants and animals, in eight taxonomic groups: amphibians, birds, fish, insects, mammals, molluscs, plants and reptiles. Methods We collated 545,223 plant...

Aim The term ‘megafire’ is increasingly used to describe large fires worldwide. We proposed a size‐based definition of megafire—fires exceeding 10,000 ha arising from single or multiple related ignition events. A recent perspective in Global Ecology and Biogeography argues against a size‐based definition of megafire and suggest that the term is too emotive for scientific use. We highlight that many scientific terms originate f...