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Distance From Nest and Climate Explain Geographical Trends of Harvester Ant's Food Resource Use: A Multi‐Species ApproachNARA Subscribed
Main Animals not only forage for abundant and nearby resources, but their diets can also be influenced by abiotic and geographic factors. This often results in non‐random interactions among species. We investigate how seed density, distance from nest, abiotic (e.g., climate stability, temperature, precipitation) and geographic factors (e.g., latitude, elevation and continental hemisphere) influence the removal of food items (i...
Small, island-associated populations of cetaceans have evolved around numerous oceanic islands, likely due to habitat discontinuities between nearshore and offshore waters. However, little is known about the ecology and structure of cetacean populations around the Mariana Islands, a remote archipelago in the western Pacific Ocean. We present sighting, photo-identification, and genetic data collected during twelve years of surv...
Adults of many free‐ranging delphinid species cannot be reliably sexed at sea. Sexually mature, known‐sex adult short‐finned pilot, pygmy killer, melon‐headed, and false killer whales were profiled from at‐sea photos to assess proportional fin and body dimorphism. Males of all four species had larger dorsal fins proportional to anterior body length. False killer whales showed no further dimorphism, while melon‐headed whales sh...
Comprehensive analysis of epigenetic clocks reveals associations between disproportionate biological ageing and hippocampal volumeNARA Subscribed
The concept of age acceleration, the difference between biological age and chronological age, is of growing interest, particularly with respect to age-related disorders, such as Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). Whilst studies have reported associations with AD risk and related phenotypes, there remains a lack of consensus on these associations. Here we aimed to comprehensively investigate the relationship between five recognised meas...
Runs of homozygosity in killer whale genomes provide a global record of demographic historiesNARA Subscribed
Runs of homozygosity (ROH) occur when offspring inherit haplotypes that are identical by descent from each parent. Length distributions of ROH are informative about population history; specifically, the probability of inbreeding mediated by mating system and/or population demography. Here, we investigated whether variation in killer whale ( Orcinus orca ) demographic history is reflected in genome‐wide heterozygosity and ROH l...
Harbor porpoise in the North Pacific are found in coastal waters from southern California to Japan, but population structure is poorly known outside of a few local areas. We used multiplexed amplicon sequencing of 292 loci and genotyped clusters of single nucleotide polymoirphisms as microhaplotypes ( N = 271 samples) in addition to mitochondrial (mtDNA) sequence data ( N = 413 samples) to examine the genetic structure from sa...
Reconstruction of the demographic and evolutionary history of populations assuming a consensus tree‐like relationship can mask more complex scenarios, which are prevalent in nature. An emerging genomic toolset, which has been most comprehensively harnessed in the reconstruction of human evolutionary history, enables molecular ecologists to elucidate complex population histories. Killer whales have limited extrinsic barriers to...
Host‐derived population genomics data provides insights into bacterial and diatom composition of the killer whale skinNARA Subscribed
Recent exploration into the interactions and relationship between hosts and their microbiota has revealed a connection between many aspects of the host's biology, health and associated micro‐organisms. Whereas amplicon sequencing has traditionally been used to characterize the microbiome, the increasing number of published population genomics data sets offers an underexploited opportunity to study microbial profiles from the h...
Redrawing the map: mt DNA provides new insight into the distribution and diversity of short‐finned pilot whales in the Pacific OceanNARA Subscribed
Correlations between morphological and genetic data provide evidence to delineate species or evolutionarily significant units, which then become the units to conserve in management plans. Here, we examine the distribution and genetic differentiation of two morphotypes of short‐finned pilot whale ( Globicephala macrorhynchus ) in the Pacific Ocean. Mitochondrial control region sequences from 333 samples were combined with 152 p...
We used mitochondrial and nuclear genetic markers to investigate population structure of common bottlenose dolphins, Tursiops truncatus , around the main Hawaiian Islands. Though broadly distributed throughout the world's oceans, bottlenose dolphins are known to form small populations in coastal waters. Recent photo‐identification data suggest the same is true in Hawaiian waters. We found genetic differentiation among (mtDNA Φ...
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