1366 research outputs found
Sort by
Trabecular bone structure of the proximal capitate in extant hominids and fossil hominins with implications for midcarpal joint loading and the dart‐thrower's motion
Get PDFObjectives
This research examines whether the distribution of trabecular bone in the proximal capitates of extant hominids, as well as several fossil hominin taxa, is associated with the oblique path of the midcarpal joint known as the dart‐thrower's motion (DTM).
Materials and Methods
We analyzed proximal capitates from extant (Pongo n = 12; Gorilla n = 11; Pan n = 10; fossil and recent Homo sapiens n = 29) and extinct (Australopithecus sediba n = 2; Homo naledi n = 1; Homo floresiensis n = 2; Neandertals n = 3) hominids using a new canonical holistic morphometric analysis, which quantifies and visualizes the distribution of trabecular bone using relative bone volume as a fraction of total volume (rBV/TV).
Results
Homo sapiens and Neandertals had a continuous band of high rBV/TV that extended across the scaphoid, lunate, and hamate subarticular regions, but other fossil hominins and extant great apes did not. A. sediba expressed a distinct combination of human‐like and Pan‐like rBV/TV distribution. Both H. floresiensis and H. naledi had high rBV/TV on the ulnar‐side of the capitate but low rBV/TV on the radial‐side.
Conclusion
The proximal capitates of H. sapiens and Neandertals share a distinctive distribution of trabecular bone that suggests that these two species of Homo regularly load(ed) their midcarpal joints along the full extent of the oblique path of the DTM. The observed pattern in A. sediba suggests that human‐like stress at the capito‐scaphoid articular surface was combined with Pan‐like wrist postures, whereas the patterns in H. floresiensis and H. naledi suggest their midcarpal joints were loaded differently from that of H. sapiens and Neandertals.Copyright © 2023 The Authors. American Journal of Biological Anthropology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The attached file is the published version of the article.NHM Repositor
Coastal seawater turbidity and thermal stress control growth of reef-building Porites spp. corals in Fiji
No full textNearshore reefs, at the interface of land-sea interactions, provide essential ecosystem services, but are susceptible to multiple global and local stressors. These stressors can detrimentally impact coral growth and the continuity of the reef framework. Here, we analyse coral growth records (1998 – 2016) of massive Porites spp. colonies from nearshore reefs in Fiji. Our aim is to assess the role of thermal stress and turbidity on coral growth across a range of environments. Our findings reveal a negative linear relationship between linear extension and seawater turbidity across locations (GLM, R2 = 0.42, p < 0.001), indicating that average coral growth is significantly influenced by local environmental conditions. On interannual timescales, all locations experienced a 14% to 30% decrease in linear extension in response to acute thermal stress during the 2013 – 2016 period. This finding highlights the existence of compounding effects between water quality and thermal stress. We suggest that inshore, long-lived massive hard corals in areas of high turbidity are more vulnerable to increasing SSTs due to an already reduced mean growth. Integrated management strategies in these regions that considers managing for multiple, interacting local stressors are warranted to enhance resilience.Copyright © The Author(s) 2025. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which
permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give
appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and
indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s
Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included
in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or
exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy
of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The linked file is the published version of the article.NHM Repositor
PERILAMPUS AENEUS (ROSSIUS, 1790) (HYMENOPTERA: PERILAMPIDAE) CONFIRMED IN LATVIA AND THE BALTIC STATES FOR THE FIRST TIME IN A CENTURY
Get PDFWe present the first contemporary Latvian observation of Perilampus aeneus (Rossius, 1790), a hyperparasitoid chalcidoid wasp. The discussed observation is the first record of the species in the whole Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania since 1917. A short discussion on the habitats and occurrence of P. aeneus in northern Europe is provided.The attached file is the published version of the article.NHM Repositor
Male and female contributions to diversity among birdwing butterfly images
Get PDFAbstract - Machine learning (ML) newly enables tests for higher inter-species diversity in visible phenotype (disparity) among males versus females, predictions made from Darwinian sexual selection versus Wallacean natural selection, respectively. Here, we use ML to quantify variation across a sample of > 16,000 dorsal and ventral photographs of the sexually dimorphic birdwing butterflies (Lepidoptera: Papilionidae). Validation of image embedding distances, learnt by a triplet-trained, deep convolutional neural network, shows ML can be used for automated reconstruction of phenotypic evolution achieving measures of phylogenetic congruence to genetic species trees within a range sampled among genetic trees themselves. Quantification of sexual disparity difference (male versus female embedding distance), shows sexually and phylogenetically variable inter-species disparity. Ornithoptera exemplify high embedded male image disparity, diversification of selective optima in fitted multi-peak OU models and accelerated divergence, with cases of extreme divergence in allopatry and sympatry. However, genus Troides shows inverted patterns, including comparatively static male embedded phenotype, and higher female than male disparity – though within an inferred selective regime common to these females. Birdwing shapes and colour patterns that are most phenotypically distinctive in ML similarity are generally those of males. However, either sex can contribute majoritively to observed phenotypic diversity among species.Copyright © The Author(s) 2024. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The attached file is the published version of the article.NHM Repositor
The genome sequence of the Marbled Minor moth, Oligia strigilis (Linnaeus, 1758)
Get PDFWe present a genome assembly from an individual male Oligia strigilis (Marbled Minor; Arthropoda; Insecta; Lepidoptera; Noctuidae). The genome sequence is 626.1 megabases in span. Most of the assembly is scaffolded into 31 chromosomal pseudomolecules, including the Z sex chromosome. The mitochondrial genome has also been assembled and is 15.35 kilobases in length.Copyright: © 2024 Broad GR et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution
License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The attached file is the published version of the article.NHM Repositor
The Use of Vibrational Spectroscopy and Supervised Machine Learning for Chemical Identification of Ingested Plastic Pollution
No full textSource info: HAZMAT-D-24-02599Plastic pollution is now ubiquitous in the environment and represents a growing threat to wildlife, who can mistake plastic for food and ingest it. Tackling this problem requires reliable, consistent methods for monitoring plastic pollution ingested by seabirds and other marine fauna, including methods for identifying different types of plastic. This study presents a robust method for the rapid, reliable chemical characterisation of ingested plastics in the 1–50 mm size range using infrared and Raman spectroscopy. We analysed 246 objects ingested by Flesh-footed Shearwaters (Ardenna carneipes) from Lord Howe Island, Australia, and compared the data yielded by each technique: 92 % of ingested objects visually identified as plastic were confirmed by spectroscopy, 98 % of those were low density polymers such as polyethylene, polypropylene, or their copolymers. Ingested plastics exhibit significant spectral evidence of biological contamination compared to other reports, which hinders identification by conventional library searching. Machine learning can be used to identify ingested plastics by their vibrational spectra with up to 93 % accuracy. Overall, we find that infrared is the more effective technique for identifying ingested plastics in this size range, and that appropriately trained machine learning models can be superior to conventional library searching methods for identifying plastics.Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The attached file is the published version of the article.NHM Repositor
The genome sequence of the false flower beetle, Anaspis regimbarti Schilsky, 1895
Get PDFWe present a genome assembly from a specimen of Anaspis regimbarti (the false flower beetle; Arthropoda; Insecta; Coleoptera; Scraptiidae). The genome sequence has a total length of 457.61 megabases. Most of the assembly (99.89%) is scaffolded into 8 chromosomal pseudomolecules, including the X sex chromosome. The mitochondrial genome has also been assembled and is 16.39 kilobases in length.Copyright: © 2025 Barclay MVL et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution
License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The attached file is the published version of the article.NHM Repositor
New Chilopoda from the Chagos Archipelago
Get PDFThe single published record of centipedes from the Chagos Archipelago, British Indian Ocean Territory, is for the scolopendrid Rhysida longipes Newport, 1845, from Eagle Island. Recent collections from Diego Garcia atoll include new records of R. longipes as well as four other centipede species, including the first records of the orders Lithobiomorpha and Geophilomorpha. A new species of the lithobiid Australobius Chamberlin, 1920, A. chagosensis sp. n., is closely allied to species described from southern India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives. The henicopid Lamyctes is represented by two geographically widespread species, L. mauriesi Demange, 1981 and L. tristani (Pocock, 1893), from which sequence data for the COI barcode marker are presented and analysed phylogenetically. The types of Lamyctes albipes (Pocock, 1894), and L. tristani, from Java and Tristan da Cunha, respectively, are illustrated for the first time to facilitate taxonomic comparisons with Chagos material. Specimens of Mecistocephalus are identified as Mecistocephalus lohmanderi Verhoeff, 1939, closely resembling specimens from the Seychelles. Collections from the archipelago in 1971–1972 also included Mecistocephalus angusticeps (Ribaut, 1914), and Nycternyssa dekania dekania (Verhoeff, 1938). The Chagos centipede fauna reveals affinities to those of the southern Indian Subcontinent, East Africa, Madagascar, the Maldives, the Seychelles, and Java.
http://www.zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:52337A1E-95DF-46C5-9D9A-8F294968A89DCopyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent. The attached file is the published version of the article.NHM Repositor
Palaeoscolecids from the Ludlow Series of Leintwardine, Herefordshire (<scp>UK</scp>): the latest occurrence of palaeoscolecids in the fossil record
Get PDFAbstract - The documentation of cuticular micro‐ornament is vital for the taxonomic assignment of palaeoscolecids: vermiform lower Palaeozoic ecdysozoans interpreted as stem‐group priapulans or early diverging panarthropods. This is due to the absence of the character‐rich proboscis and tail hooks in palaeoscolecid material not from Burgess Shale‐type Konservat‐Lagerstätten. Here, the cuticular micro‐ornamentation of palaeoscolecids from the upper Silurian (Ludlow) fauna of Leintwardine (Herefordshire, England), is described using scanning electron microscopy and reflectance transformation imaging. This material is taxonomically unstable because it was included in an effective wastebasket genus (Protoscolex) long before these imaging techniques were developed. The Leintwardine material is shown to be most closely comparable to a palaeoscolecid from the Darriwilian (Middle Ordovician) of the Builth–Llandrindod inlier, Powys, Wales, and is transferred accordingly to Radnorscolex Botting et al. as Radnorscolex latus (Bather). The Leintwardine fauna represents the uppermost stratigraphic occurrence of palaeoscolecids, constrained to the Saetograptus leintwardinensis Zone (lower Ludfordian), and the comparatively sparse Silurian palaeoscolecid record is subsequently discussed. It is hypothesized that palaeoscolecids may have become extinct during the mid‐Ludfordian Lau Event, the onset of which is recorded in the biozone immediately above the Leintwardine fauna (Bohemograptus Zone). Finally, the British palaeoscolecid fauna is summarized, including a new record from the Dapingian (Middle Ordovician) of Carmarthenshire, South Wales.Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Papers in Palaeontology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of The Palaeontological Association. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License,
which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The attached file is the published version of the article.NHM Repositor
Abundance and importance of petrological type 1 chondritic material
Get PDFAbstract We review the mineralogy, petrology, and abundance of petrological type 1 extraterrestrial material. Such material has been completely altered by aqueous processing on its parent bodies. As well as the four meteorite groups that contain type 1 members (CI, CM, CR, and CY), we summarize data from the 2019 fall Flensburg and a recent reanalysis of the “meteorite” Bench Crater found on the Moon, along with fine‐grained micrometeorites, interplanetary dust particles, and xenoliths in meteorites. Type 1 materials exhibit a remarkably high diversity of alteration conditions (temperature, water‐to‐rock [W/R] ratios, and fluid composition) and starting mineralogy. Type 1 material comprises a significant component of the modern extraterrestrial flux to the Earth and was likely common throughout the solar system during the whole course of its history, pointing to both widespread accretion with ices and heating of parent bodies. Type 1 materials are composed predominantly of various phyllosilicates, carbonates, sulfides, and magnetite. Some type 1 materials appear to be part of a “CM clan” typified by serpentine‐rich phyllosilicate compositions and an oxygen isotope composition that falls in the 16O‐rich part of the CM field. Others span a wide range in δ18O (>30‰) and fall on or above the terrestrial fractionation line (+ve Δ17O). Positive Δ17O values are unusual for carbonaceous meteorites but are relatively common in type 1 materials. The wide variation in oxygen isotopes, as well as in textures, mineralogy, and bulk chemistry, points to multiple parent bodies that may originate in the inner and/or outer solar system. Cometary materials, or transition objects such as Main Belt comets or type D asteroids, are likely the source of much of the type 1 materials on Earth but relating them to specific parents requires more study.Copyright © 2021 The Authors. Meteoritics & Planetary Science published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of The Meteoritical Society. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The attached file is the published version of the article.NHM Repositor