Lead (Pb) is a toxic heavy metal that has detrimental effects on wildlife. The toxicant is particularly relevant for species that use a muscular gizzard to digest food and that forage in areas with accumulated sediment at the bottom of lakes and streams. Poisoning from ingested spent lead ammunition or fishing tackle has been a major source of mortality of Trumpeter Swans ( Cygnus buccinator ) across North America. However, vi...

Climate change and biodiversity losses have necessitated innovative approaches to peatland management. This study examines pivotal historical landmarks and the recent forces of change that have affected peatlands in Finland, Ireland and Scotland, highlighting how national contexts, such as land ownership, forestry, agriculture and the need for domestic energy sources, have shaped the peatland use in those countries. We further...

Although aging is a universal event, some individuals are able to achieve extreme longevity. The Long-Life Family Study (LLFS) enrolls participants from families enriched with long-lived individuals, serves as a valuable dataset for studying ageing phenotypes and identify potential intervention targets. We analyzed the association between age at blood draw and 16,284 RNAseq-based blood transcriptomic data from 2,167 LLFS parti...

Dispersal is one of the most important aspects of animal behavior and can have far‐reaching consequences for organismal ecology and evolution. Despite recent theoretical advances in understanding why individuals within the same population vary in dispersal behavior, relatively few studies have empirically evaluated the long‐term causes and consequences of variable dispersal within natural populations. In this study, we used li...

Plastics are deeply embedded in modern life, but their degradation releases micro- and nanoplastics (MNPs) into ecosystems. These persistent particles are found everywhere, from oceans to the human body, and raise growing concerns about environmental and human health, biodiversity, and sustainability implications. Despite increasing awareness, effective responses to MNP pollution remain limited by unresolved challenges in scie...

The Mid-Atlantic waters of North America are warming faster than > 90% of other global oceans, leading to significant increases in bottom water temperatures and influencing shifts in marine community structure. Given this modern-day scenario of significant community shifts over space and time, baseline surveys of species diversity are increasingly valuable. Therefore, we performed the first-ever marine bioinvasions Rapid Asses...

The Florisian Land Mammal Age (FLMA; 773‐12 ka) is characterised by specialist, often extinct, grazing as well as wetland species, many of which are no longer present in the southern African interior. Middle Pleistocene FLMA faunal assemblages are rare, particularly those associated with artefacts, limiting reconstruction of environmental conditions and hominin subsistence strategies. One exception is the faunal assemblages of...