Replicated Evolution in Plants.

Interspecific population synchrony, or co‐fluctuations in the population dynamics and demographic parameters of different species, is an important ecological phenomenon with major implications for the stability of communities and ecosystems. It is also central in the context of biodiversity loss, as interspecific synchrony can influence how ecological communities are affected by anthropogenic stressors. Studies of interspecific synchrony are therefore important for understanding fundamental mechanisms underlying the biodiversity changes occurring worldwide. Interspecific synchrony has received increased interest in recent years, and studies have focused on synchrony in abundances, growth rates and vital rates at species, community and metacommunity levels. However, there is little cohesiveness in the literature, as studies focused on different levels of biological organization are largely separate from each other. Still, synchrony at these levels of biological organization is likely interconnected in nature. Understanding these connections would greatly benefit our understanding of interspecific synchrony and its implications for populations and communities. Here, we provide an overview of the current status and future perspectives of interspecific synchrony research, highlighting major knowledge gaps. We show how interspecific synchrony at different levels of biological organization is conceptually linked and present an accessible overview of the terminology and methods used to study it. By providing a common understanding of the meaning and applicability of terms and an overview of commonly used methods, this overview will serve as a point of departure for integrating research on interspecific synchrony. Such integration is important to fully understand the impacts of environmental change on species and ecological communities.

Social insects are frequently used to investigate the importance of kinship (genetic relatedness) in the evolution of complex societies. These genetic studies often downplay the organizing roles of the environment in shaping the development and expression of socially-relevant traits. As noted by Hamilton (1964) in his original formulation of “genetical” approaches to understanding sociality, the social environment plays a major role in determining phenotypes of social organisms. Each level of biological organization (e.g. genome, cell, individual, social group) has its own environment. At different levels of biological organization, environmental factors (i) act as triggers for developmental processes; and (ii) define natural selective processes. An explicit focus on phenotypes, at different levels of biological organization with different levels of environments, provides a framework to use the evolution of insect sociality as a tool to integrate studies of development and evolution. Special attention is drawn to areas that need further study, especially for tropical species, to complement the wealth of genetic studies and information on temperate species.

Genotoxic, cytotoxic, developmental and survival effects of tritiated water in the early life stages of the marine mollusc, Mytilus edulis

In vivo immunomodulatory and antioxidant properties of nanoceria (nCeO2) in the marine mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis

An annotated synthesis of textbook definitions of parasitism is presented. Most definitions declare parasitism is a long-lasting relationship between individuals of different species harming the hosts. The infection-induced costs are interpreted as diseases in the medical-veterinary literature. Alternatively, evolutionary ecologists interpret it as a reduction of host's fitness (longevity, fertility or both). Authors often assume that such effects decrease host population growth and select for antiparasitic defences, which is not necessarily true because infections may simultaneously express opposite effects at different levels of biological organization. (i) At the cellular level, infection-induced cell growth, longevity and multiplication may yield tumours maladaptive at higher levels. (ii) At the individual level, reduced host longevity, fertility or both are interpreted as disease symptoms or reduced fitness. (iii) Contrary to common sense, the growth rate of infected host lineages may increase in parallel with the individuals' reduced survival and fertility. This is because selection favours not only the production of more offspring but also their faster production. (iv) Finally, infections that reduce host individuals' or lineages' fitness may still increase infected host populations' growth rate in the context of ecological competition. Therefore, differences between parasitism and mutualism may depend on which level of organization one focuses on.

Community and population indicators of ecosystem health: targeting links between levels of biological organisation

Responses to anthropogenic pollution may occur at various levels of biological organization from organelles to the ecosystem, over periods of time varying from seconds to years. Thus, it is no wonder that single explanations for the decline of forests have ranged from the biochemical to the biogeochemical, and from the microbiological to the ecological. Explaining an observed phenomenon depends on the level of organization immediately below the level of observation, but the significance of the observation lies in the level immediately above (Passioura 1979). Information about different levels of biological organization must be integrated if clearer understanding, rather than greater confusion, is to be achieved (Ashmore 1988). Thus, Ashmore (1988) has emphasized that quantitatively measuring selected tree components may fail to explain the ultimate course of a tree’s decline. Only when the whole organism’s vitality both aboveand belowground is assessed, and the significance of the results on the appropriate spatial and temporal scales evaluated, can a firm conclusion about the causes of decline be reached. These criteria also apply to assessing decline in whole forest ecosystems (Ulrich 1987).

The rapid cold hardening response of Drosophila melanogaster: Complex regulation across different levels of biological organization

Exposure to heavy metal-contaminated sediments disrupts gene expression, lipid profile, and life history traits in the midge Chironomus riparius

Research to date has suggested that both individual marine species and ecological processes are expected to exhibit diverse responses to the environmental effects of climate change. Evolutionary responses can occur on rapid (ecological) timescales, and yet studies typically do not consider the role that adaptive evolution will play in modulating biological responses to climate change. Investigations into such responses have typically been focused at particular biological levels (e.g., cellular, population, community), often lacking interactions among levels. Since all levels of biological organisation are sensitive to global climate change, there is a need to elucidate how different processes and hierarchical interactions will influence species fitness. Therefore, predicting the responses of communities and populations to global change will require multidisciplinary efforts across multiple levels of hierarchy, from the genetic and cellular to communities and ecosystems. Eventually, this may allow us to establish the role that acclimatisation and adaptation will play in determining marine community structures in future scenarios.

Freshwater ecosystems are strongly influenced by weather extremes such as heatwaves (HWs), which are predicted to increase in frequency and magnitude in the future. In addition to these climate extremes, the freshwater realm is impacted by the exposure to various classes of chemicals emitted by anthropogenic activities. Currently, there is limited knowledge on how the combined exposure to HWs and chemicals affects the structure and functioning of freshwater ecosystems. Here, we review the available literature describing the single and combined effects of HWs and chemicals on different levels of biological organization, to obtain a holistic view of their potential interactive effects. We only found a few studies (13 out of the 61 studies included in this review) that investigated the biological effects of HWs in combination with chemical pollution. The reported interactive effects of HWs and chemicals varied largely not only within the different trophic levels but also depending on the studied endpoints for populations or individuals. Hence, owing also to the little number of studies available, no consistent interactive effects could be highlighted at any level of biological organization. Moreover, we found an imbalance towards single species and population experiments, with only five studies using a multitrophic approach. This results in a knowledge gap for relevant community and ecosystem level endpoints, which prevents the exploration of important indirect effects that can compromise food web stability. Moreover, this knowledge gap impairs the validity of chemical risk assessments and our ability to protect ecosystems. Finally, we highlight the urgency of integrating extreme events into multiple stressors studies and provide specific recommendations to guide further experimental research in this regard.

The article provides information about the author’s own research. The data of numerous experiments carried out in different years indicate the revealed high biological activity of the class of original organogermanium compounds. The author presents data on studies at different levels of biological organization – from mitochondria of liver cells to the whole organism. A special place in the article is occupied by information about the possibility of correcting the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis with various organogermanium compounds. The methodological basis for interpreting the results is the theory of adaptation

Integrative assessment of sulfoxaflor effects on gene expression, reproduction, and behavior in the bumblebee Bombus impatiens.

Nowadays, the term biomarker has become widespread in environmental sciences and ecology as shown by the increasing amount of research articles published on this topic in these research areas (2,042 articles published between 2000 and 2010 over a total of 2,352 published since 1985, WOK, ISI Web of Knowledge, http://www.isiknowledge.com). Despite this increasing enthusiasm for biomarkers, they are still poorly used in regulatory monitoring or ecological risk assessment. Indeed, the interest and pertinence of using biomarkers in such approaches have been questionned. While biomarkers of various toxicants for many species can be found in the literature, the limited extrapolation of biomarker results is particularly criticized and may prevent routine application. In this chapter, we discuss how to link biomarker responses to chemical exposure but also how to correlate them to effects at higher levels of biological organization. In the first part, the word biomarker is defined in the context of risk assessment. Then, the historical and current use of biomarkers in river biofilms, macroinvertebrates, and fish is shortly presented focusing on the specificity of biomarkers’ utilization in each of these biological entities. Next, laboratory and field studies are used to exemplify relationships between stressors and biomarkers but also between biomarkers at different levels of biological organization. Finally, current limitations of biomarkers are discussed and some propositions are made to overcome these limitations and to apply a multibiomarker approach to environmental risk assessment.

AimTo examine species and trait composition in stream diatoms along environmental, climatic and spatial gradients and to ascertain if the use of different levels of biological organization is beneficial for investigating global environmental changes and the role of history in structuring communities.LocationGlobal cover with datasets from the Antilles, France, Finland, New Zealand, La Réunion and the United States.MethodsWe related diatom species composition, guild composition, total richness and richness across guilds to environmental, climatic and spatial variables. We used non‐metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) with environmental variable fitting, redundancy analysis (RDA) with variation partitioning, analysis of similarities and linear mixed models as statistical tools.ResultsSpecies composition differed significantly among the study regions, while the differences in guild composition were less pronounced. US and French streams shared a large number of species, whereas islands shared only a few species with continents. For species composition, all predictors showed significant relationships with diatoms but pH, longitude, annual temperature and precipitation had the strongest impact. Variation partitioning revealed that the local environment outperformed climatic and spatial variables. For guild composition, there was a substantial overlap across regions in NMDS. The results from RDA demonstrated, however, that guild composition was better explained than species composition, especially by environmental variables. Both species and guild richness were significantly correlated with most predictors. Notably, species richness scaled positively with latitude.Main conclusionsDiatom species and guild composition varied substantially in response to local environment and climatic and spatial variables indicating both environmental and historical effects. Species composition discriminated the geographical regions better, while guild composition detected the environmental gradients better. This emphasizes the need to examine different levels of organization to gain a deeper understanding of the roles of environment versus history in structuring communities. These findings suggest that diatom species distributions are under strong microevolutionary constraints. Conversely, guild distributions are less dependent on historic factors and are driven primarily by the environment, which makes them better suited for research on global environmental change.