The extant seed plants include more than 260,000 species that belong to five main lineages: angiosperms, conifers, cycads, Ginkgo, and gnetophytes. Despite tremendous effort using molecular data, ...phylogenetic relationships among these five lineages remain uncertain. Here, we provide the first broad coalescent-based species tree estimation of seed plants using genome-scale nuclear and plastid data By incorporating 305 nuclear genes and 47 plastid genes from 14 species, we identify that i) extant gymnosperms (i.e., conifers, cycads, Ginkgo, and gnetophytes) are monophyletic, ii) gnetophytes exhibit discordant placements within conifers between their nuclear and plastid genomes, and iii) cycads plus Ginkgo form a clade that is sister to all remaining extant gymnosperms. We additionally observe that the placement of Ginkgo inferred from coalescent analyses is congruent across different nucleotide rate partitions. In contrast, the standard concatenation method produces strongly supported, but incongruent placements of Ginkgo between slow- and fast-evolving sites. Specifically, fast-evolving sites yield relationships in conflict with coalescent analyses. We hypothesize that this incongruence may be related to the way in which concatenation methods treat sites with elevated nucleotide substitution rates. More empirical and simulation investigations are needed to understand this potential weakness of concatenation methods.
The eudicot order Malpighiales contains ~16000 species and is the most poorly resolved large rosid clade. To clarify phylogenetic relationships in the order, we used maximum likelihood, Bayesian, and ...parsimony analyses of DNA sequence data from 13 gene regions, totaling 15604 bp, and representing all three genomic compartments (i.e., plastid: atpB, matK, ndhF, and rbcL; mitochondrial: ccmB, cob, matR, nad1B-C, nad6, and rps3; and nuclear: 18S rDNA, PHYC, and newly developed low-copy EMB2765). Our sampling of 190 taxa includes representatives from all families of Malpighiales. These data provide greatly increased support for the recent additions of Aneulophus, Bhesa, Centroplacus, Ploiarium, and Rafflesiaceae to Malpighiales; sister relations of Phyllanthaceae + Picrodendraceae, monophyly of Hypericaceae, and polyphyly of Clusiaceae. Oxalidales + Huaceae, followed by Celastrales are successive sisters to Malpighiales. Parasitic Rafflesiaceae, which produce the world's largest flowers, are confirmed as embedded within a paraphyletic Euphorbiaceae. Novel findings show a well-supported placement of Ctenolophonaceae with Erythroxylaceae + Rhizophoraceae, sister-group relationships of Bhesa + Centroplacus, and the exclusion of Medusandra from Malpighiales. New taxonomic circumscriptions include the addition of Bhesa to Centroplacaceae, Medusandra to Peridiscaceae (Saxifragales), Calophyllaceae applied to Clusiaceae subfamily Kielmeyeroideae, Peraceae applied to Euphorbiaceae subfamily Peroideae, and Huaceae included in Oxalidales.
The origin of the criminalization of African Americans is often considered to be the period after the Civil War with the passage of a series of repressive laws called the Black Codes. However, I ...argue that the progenitor of this criminalization originated over 80 years earlier during the Founding Era, particularly following the British royal governor of Virginia’s proclamation in 1775 that promised to free all enslaved people who fought on the side of the British. The Founders feared any actions from the Black population to obtain their freedom and equal rights. Therefore, the Founders criminalized all aspects of their lives which was discussed at federal and state constitutional conventions, codified in the United States Constitution and confirmed at the First Congress of the United States. This was the catalyst for the laws and policies that negatively influence the present-day criminal justice system that disproportionately impacts African Americans.
Natural history collections (NHCs) are the foundation of historical baselines for assessing anthropogenic impacts on biodiversity. Along these lines, the online mobilization of specimens via ...digitization—the conversion of specimen data into accessible digital content—has greatly expanded the use of NHC collections across a diversity of disciplines. We broaden the current vision of digitization (Digitization 1.0)—whereby specimens are digitized within NHCs—to include new approaches that rely on digitized products rather than the physical specimen (Digitization 2.0). Digitization 2.0 builds on the data, workflows, and infrastructure produced by Digitization 1.0 to create digital-only workflows that facilitate digitization, curation, and data links, thus returning value to physical specimens by creating new layers of annotation, empowering a global community, and developing automated approaches to advance biodiversity discovery and conservation. These efforts will transform large-scale biodiversity assessments to address fundamental questions including those pertaining to critical issues of global change.
The timing of phenological events, such as leaf-out and flowering, strongly influence plant success and their study is vital to understanding how plants will respond to climate change. Phenological ...research, however, is often limited by the temporal, geographic, or phylogenetic scope of available data. Hundreds of millions of plant specimens in herbaria worldwide offer a potential solution to this problem, especially as digitization efforts drastically improve access to collections. Herbarium specimens represent snapshots of phenological events and have been reliably used to characterize phenological responses to climate. We review the current state of herbarium-based phenological research, identify potential biases and limitations in the collection, digitization, and interpretation of specimen data, and discuss future opportunities for phenological investigations using herbarium specimens.
Phenology (i.e., the timing of flowering, leaf-out, and other recurring biological events) is an essential component in measuring how species have responded and will continue to respond to climate change.
Herbarium specimens are increasingly being recognized and valued as a reliable source for estimating phenological behavior for a diversity of plant species.
As millions of herbarium specimens become available online through massive digitization efforts, developing efficient methods and standards for the collection of large amounts of specimen-based phenological data is vital to leveraging these data for research purposes.
Through integration with existing phenological datasets such as remote sensing and citizen science observations, herbarium specimens offer the potential to provide novel insights into plant diversity and ecosystem processes under future climate change.
Climate change has resulted in major changes in the phenology—i.e. the timing of seasonal activities, such as flowering and bird migration—of some species but not others. These differential responses ...have been shown to result in ecological mismatches that can have negative fitness consequences. However, the ways in which climate change has shaped changes in biodiversity within and across communities are not well understood. Here, we build on our previous results that established a link between plant species' phenological response to climate change and a phylogenetic bias in species' decline in the eastern United States. We extend a similar approach to plant and bird communities in the United States and the UK that further demonstrates that climate change has differentially impacted species based on their phylogenetic relatedness and shared phenological responses. In plants, phenological responses to climate change are often shared among closely related species (i.e. clades), even between geographically disjunct communities. And in some cases, this has resulted in a phylogenetically biased pattern of non-native species success. In birds, the pattern of decline is phylogenetically biased but is not solely explained by phenological response, which suggests that other traits may better explain this pattern. These results illustrate the ways in which phylogenetic thinking can aid in making generalizations of practical importance and enhance efforts to predict species' responses to future climate change.
The rosid clade (70,000 species) contains more than one-fourth of all angiosperm species and includes most lineages of extant temperate and tropical forest trees. Despite progress in elucidating ...relationships within the angiosperms, rosids remain the largest poorly resolved major clade; deep relationships within the rosids are particularly enigmatic. Based on parsimony and maximum likelihood (ML) analyses of separate and combined 12-gene (10 plastid genes, 2 nuclear; >18,000 bp) and plastid inverted repeat (IR; 24 genes and intervening spacers; >25,000 bp) datasets for >100 rosid species, we provide a greatly improved understanding of rosid phylogeny. Vitaceae are sister to all other rosids, which in turn form 2 large clades, each with a ML bootstrap value of 100%: (i) eurosids I (Fabidae) include the nitrogen-fixing clade, Celastrales, Huaceae, Zygophyllales, Malpighiales, and Oxalidales; and (ii) eurosids II (Malvidae) include Tapisciaceae, Brassicales, Malvales, Sapindales, Geraniales, Myrtales, Crossosomatales, and Picramniaceae. The rosid clade diversified rapidly into these major lineages, possibly over a period of <15 million years, and perhaps in as little as 4 to 5 million years. The timing of the inferred rapid radiation of rosids 108 to 91 million years ago (Mya) and 107-83 Mya for Fabidae and Malvidae, respectively corresponds with the rapid rise of angiosperm-dominated forests and the concomitant diversification of other clades that inhabit these forests, including amphibians, ants, placental mammals, and ferns.
Over the last 60 years, campus police departments have been established as the main form of security and safety in colleges and universities. In recent years, higher education leaders have been ...forced to confront the negative impact of police presence on Black and racially minoritized campus populations. Following the insights of student activists and abolitionist movements, we argue that the nature of campus policing has been misunderstood and misrepresented, consequently obscuring the inherent racist violence that policing generates. We propose that higher education leaders and policymakers take seriously contemporary calls to defund and abolish campus police in order to craft safer and more empowering campus environments for minoritized populations on campus and in surrounding communities. We synthesize the demands of social movement organizations and work by scholar–activists to outline eight steps to campus police abolition, which provide concrete humanizing, transformative alternatives to the current system of punishment, surveillance, and control. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: journal abstract)
For more than two decades there has been a continuous rise in opioid overdose related deaths. The majority of the deaths include the age range when, traditionally, individuals are likely to attend ...college or university. As a result, Vassar College has taken the important initiative and created and implemented a new opioid overdose intervention strategy and action plan called
AED+. AED+
expands on
the Model of Greater Awareness, Training and Increased Availability of and Accessibility to Life Saving Intervention Devices
; a model that was created based on AED devices improving outcomes of
out-of-hospital cardiac arrest emergencies
. Similar to AED’s improving
out-of-hospital cardiac arrest
outcomes, the + component of the
AED+
initiative increases awareness and provides basic, targeted education about
naloxone
and its use. Furthermore, the education includes information about
naloxone’s
greater availability and its more immediate access across the campus by students, staff, faculty, administrators, and visitors in the event of a suspected opioid overdose. Starting in May 2023, members of the school’s Health Service and senior administrative leaders identified it necessary to be proactive and not reactive to managing an opioid overdose in the campus community. Although Vassar College has not recently experienced an opioid overdose, it is confidently projected that these targeted actions will proactively and positively reduce the likelihood of opioid-related fatalities on campus. Furthermore, it is the purpose of this article to share the
AED+
model so other colleges and universities can modify it to best fit their unique setting in order to improve opioid overdose outcomes.
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