Climate change is expected to modify plant assemblages in ways that will have major consequences ... more Climate change is expected to modify plant assemblages in ways that will have major consequences for ecosystem functions. How climate change will affect community composition will depend on how individual species respond, which is likely related to interspecific differences in functional traits. The extraordinary plasticity of some plant traits is typically neglected in assessing how climate change will affect different species. In the Mongolian steppe, we examined if leaf functional traits under ambient conditions and if plasticity in these traits under altered climate could explain climate-induced biomass responses in 12 co-occurring plant species. We experimentally created three probable climate change scenarios and used a model selection procedure to determine the set of baseline traits or plasticity values that best explained biomass response. Under all climate change scenarios, plasticity for at least one leaf trait correlated with change in species performance while functiona...
Background/Question/Methods Some of the most diverse bacterial communities are found in soils.Ver... more Background/Question/Methods Some of the most diverse bacterial communities are found in soils.Very little is known about temporal and spatial variation in the composition of soil bacterial communities and the drivers of these differences. We undertook a multi-year experiment to test effects of climate change and grazing on soil bacterial communities in northern Mongolia, a region where air temperatures have increased by 1.6 °C since 1960 and grazing patterns are changing due to more sedentary pastoralism. We examined soil bacterial communities under climate and grazing manipulation regimes. Open-top chambers (OTCs) created warmer and drier conditions and year-round fencing manipulated grazers (i.e. grazed versus ungrazed plots). A total of 68 soil samples were collected in 2010 and 2011 at two elevations (upper and lower slope locations). DNA was extracted and 16S rRNA V4 PCR amplicons were sequenced using the Illumina platform. PRS probes measured root availablenitrogen (Western Ag...
Geometrids are a species-rich group of moths that serve as reliable indicators for environmental ... more Geometrids are a species-rich group of moths that serve as reliable indicators for environmental changes. Little is known about the Mongolian moth fauna, and there is no comprehensive review of species richness, diversity, and distribution patterns of geometrid moths in the country. Our study aims to review the existing knowledge on geometrid moths in Mongolia. We compiled geometrid moth records from published scientific papers, our own research, and from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) to produce a checklist of geometrid moths of Mongolia. Additionally, we analyzed spatial patterns, species richness, and diversity of geometrid moths within 14 ecoregions of Mongolia and evaluated environmental variables for their distribution. In total, we compiled 1973-point records of 388 geometrid species. The most species-rich ecoregion in Mongolia was Daurian Forest Steppe with 142 species. Annual precipitation and maximum temperature of the warmest month were the most impor...
Mongolia in 2010 and 2011. A total of 76 voles belonging to the genera Myodes and Microtus were c... more Mongolia in 2010 and 2011. A total of 76 voles belonging to the genera Myodes and Microtus were captured. Most of the voles that were seropositive to Tula virus antigen were Middendorf's voles (Microtus middendorffii (6/31)). Two of the 18 Myodes voles were also seropositive to Tula virus antigen. On the other hand, only one vole was seropositive to Puumala virus antigen. The results suggest that Tula virus was maintained in Middendorf's vole. This is the first report of detection of anti-Tula virus antibody in the central part of the Eurasia continent.
Author(s): Savage, Melissa; Shar, Setev; Samiya, Ravchig; Boldgiv, Bazartseren | Abstract: A surv... more Author(s): Savage, Melissa; Shar, Setev; Samiya, Ravchig; Boldgiv, Bazartseren | Abstract: A survey for otters across Mongolia was conducted in 2012 to document the status and distribution range of the Eurasian otter (Lutra lutra Linnaeus, 1758), and to propose the scientific basis for government policies to protect the species. We report results from the first survey of otter since the late 1980s (Stubbe et al., 1989), with new records emerged after 2012. The species is very rarely reported in the country, but in addition to an actual sighting of this species, the survey team observed a limited number of otter sign, including tracks, scat, ice diving holes, snow diving marks, snow wallows, territorial marks, and prey remains at widely distributed sites. We recommend a set of strategies to expand conservation for the Eurasian otter in Mongolia.
Abstract Global climate change is affecting and will continue to affect ecosystems worldwide. Spe... more Abstract Global climate change is affecting and will continue to affect ecosystems worldwide. Specifically, temperature and precipitation are both expected to shift globally, and their separate and interactive effects will likely affect ecosystems differentially depending on current temperature, precipitation regimes, and other biotic and environmental factors. It is not currently understood how the effects of increasing temperature on plant communities may depend on either precipitation or where communities lie on soil moisture gradients. Such knowledge would play a crucial role in increasing our predictive ability for future effects of climate change in different systems. To this end, we conducted a multi‐factor global change experiment at two locations, differing in temperature, moisture, aspect, and plant community composition, on the same slope in the northern Mongolian steppe. The natural differences in temperature and moisture between locations served as a point of comparison for the experimental manipulations of temperature and precipitation. We conducted two separate experiments, one examining the effect of climate manipulation via open‐top chambers (OTCs) across the two different slope locations, the other a factorial OTC by watering experiment at one of the two locations. By combining these experiments, we were able to assess how OTCs impact plant productivity and diversity across a natural and manipulated range of soil moisture. We found that warming effects were context dependent, with the greatest negative impacts of warming on diversity in the warmer, drier upper slope location and in the unwatered plots. Our study is an important step in understanding how global change will affect ecosystems across multiple scales and locations.
Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is a major cause of human hepatitis. There is considerable uncertainty ab... more Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is a major cause of human hepatitis. There is considerable uncertainty about the timescale of its evolution and its association with humans. Here we present 12 full or partial ancient HBV genomes that are between approximately 0.8 and 4.5 thousand years old. The ancient sequences group either within or in a sister relationship with extant human or other ape HBV clades. Generally, the genome properties follow those of modern HBV. The root of the HBV tree is projected to between 8.6 and 20.9 thousand years ago, and we estimate a substitution rate of 8.04 × 10−6– 1.51 × 10−5 nucleotide substitutions per site per year. In several cases, the geographical locations of the ancient genotypes do not match present-day distributions. Genotypes that today are typical of Africa and Asia, and a subgenotype from India, are shown to have an early Eurasian presence. The geographical and temporal patterns that we observe in ancient and modern HBV genotypes are compatible with ...
The Eneolithic Botai culture of the Central Asian steppes provides the earliest archaeological ev... more The Eneolithic Botai culture of the Central Asian steppes provides the earliest archaeological evidence for horse husbandry, ~5,500 ya, but the exact nature of early horse domestication remains controversial. We generated 42 ancient horse genomes, including 20 from Botai. Compared to 46 published ancient and modern horse genomes, our data indicate that Przewalski's horses are the feral descendants of horses herded at Botai and not truly wild horses. All domestic horses dated from ~4,000 ya to present only show ~2.7% of Botai-related ancestry. This indicates that a massive genomic turnover underpins the expansion of the horse stock that gave rise to modern domesticates, which coincides with large-scale human population expansions during the Early Bronze Age.
... P., Nightingale P., Cooper D., Cochlan WP, Kudela R. A massive phytoplankton bloom induced by... more ... P., Nightingale P., Cooper D., Cochlan WP, Kudela R. A massive phytoplankton bloom induced by an ecosystem-scale iron fertilization experi-ment in the equatorial Pacific Ocean//Nature, 1996. ... Geist HJ, Lambin EF Dynamic causal patterns for desertification//BioScience, 2004 ...
with In this Article, Angela M. Taravella and Melissa A. Wilson Sayres have been added to the aut... more with In this Article, Angela M. Taravella and Melissa A. Wilson Sayres have been added to the author list (associated with: School of Life Sciences, Center for Evolution and Medicine, The Biodesign Institute, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA). The author list and Author Information section have been corrected online.
In Fig. 2 of this Letter, the 'E' and 'G' clade labels were inadvertently reverse... more In Fig. 2 of this Letter, the 'E' and 'G' clade labels were inadvertently reversed, and in Table 2 the genotype of DA27 was 'D1' instead of 'D5'. These have been corrected online.
Climate change is expected to modify plant assemblages in ways that will have major consequences ... more Climate change is expected to modify plant assemblages in ways that will have major consequences for ecosystem functions. How climate change will affect community composition will depend on how individual species respond, which is likely related to interspecific differences in functional traits. The extraordinary plasticity of some plant traits is typically neglected in assessing how climate change will affect different species. In the Mongolian steppe, we examined if leaf functional traits under ambient conditions and if plasticity in these traits under altered climate could explain climate-induced biomass responses in 12 co-occurring plant species. We experimentally created three probable climate change scenarios and used a model selection procedure to determine the set of baseline traits or plasticity values that best explained biomass response. Under all climate change scenarios, plasticity for at least one leaf trait correlated with change in species performance while functiona...
Background/Question/Methods Some of the most diverse bacterial communities are found in soils.Ver... more Background/Question/Methods Some of the most diverse bacterial communities are found in soils.Very little is known about temporal and spatial variation in the composition of soil bacterial communities and the drivers of these differences. We undertook a multi-year experiment to test effects of climate change and grazing on soil bacterial communities in northern Mongolia, a region where air temperatures have increased by 1.6 °C since 1960 and grazing patterns are changing due to more sedentary pastoralism. We examined soil bacterial communities under climate and grazing manipulation regimes. Open-top chambers (OTCs) created warmer and drier conditions and year-round fencing manipulated grazers (i.e. grazed versus ungrazed plots). A total of 68 soil samples were collected in 2010 and 2011 at two elevations (upper and lower slope locations). DNA was extracted and 16S rRNA V4 PCR amplicons were sequenced using the Illumina platform. PRS probes measured root availablenitrogen (Western Ag...
Geometrids are a species-rich group of moths that serve as reliable indicators for environmental ... more Geometrids are a species-rich group of moths that serve as reliable indicators for environmental changes. Little is known about the Mongolian moth fauna, and there is no comprehensive review of species richness, diversity, and distribution patterns of geometrid moths in the country. Our study aims to review the existing knowledge on geometrid moths in Mongolia. We compiled geometrid moth records from published scientific papers, our own research, and from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) to produce a checklist of geometrid moths of Mongolia. Additionally, we analyzed spatial patterns, species richness, and diversity of geometrid moths within 14 ecoregions of Mongolia and evaluated environmental variables for their distribution. In total, we compiled 1973-point records of 388 geometrid species. The most species-rich ecoregion in Mongolia was Daurian Forest Steppe with 142 species. Annual precipitation and maximum temperature of the warmest month were the most impor...
Mongolia in 2010 and 2011. A total of 76 voles belonging to the genera Myodes and Microtus were c... more Mongolia in 2010 and 2011. A total of 76 voles belonging to the genera Myodes and Microtus were captured. Most of the voles that were seropositive to Tula virus antigen were Middendorf's voles (Microtus middendorffii (6/31)). Two of the 18 Myodes voles were also seropositive to Tula virus antigen. On the other hand, only one vole was seropositive to Puumala virus antigen. The results suggest that Tula virus was maintained in Middendorf's vole. This is the first report of detection of anti-Tula virus antibody in the central part of the Eurasia continent.
Author(s): Savage, Melissa; Shar, Setev; Samiya, Ravchig; Boldgiv, Bazartseren | Abstract: A surv... more Author(s): Savage, Melissa; Shar, Setev; Samiya, Ravchig; Boldgiv, Bazartseren | Abstract: A survey for otters across Mongolia was conducted in 2012 to document the status and distribution range of the Eurasian otter (Lutra lutra Linnaeus, 1758), and to propose the scientific basis for government policies to protect the species. We report results from the first survey of otter since the late 1980s (Stubbe et al., 1989), with new records emerged after 2012. The species is very rarely reported in the country, but in addition to an actual sighting of this species, the survey team observed a limited number of otter sign, including tracks, scat, ice diving holes, snow diving marks, snow wallows, territorial marks, and prey remains at widely distributed sites. We recommend a set of strategies to expand conservation for the Eurasian otter in Mongolia.
Abstract Global climate change is affecting and will continue to affect ecosystems worldwide. Spe... more Abstract Global climate change is affecting and will continue to affect ecosystems worldwide. Specifically, temperature and precipitation are both expected to shift globally, and their separate and interactive effects will likely affect ecosystems differentially depending on current temperature, precipitation regimes, and other biotic and environmental factors. It is not currently understood how the effects of increasing temperature on plant communities may depend on either precipitation or where communities lie on soil moisture gradients. Such knowledge would play a crucial role in increasing our predictive ability for future effects of climate change in different systems. To this end, we conducted a multi‐factor global change experiment at two locations, differing in temperature, moisture, aspect, and plant community composition, on the same slope in the northern Mongolian steppe. The natural differences in temperature and moisture between locations served as a point of comparison for the experimental manipulations of temperature and precipitation. We conducted two separate experiments, one examining the effect of climate manipulation via open‐top chambers (OTCs) across the two different slope locations, the other a factorial OTC by watering experiment at one of the two locations. By combining these experiments, we were able to assess how OTCs impact plant productivity and diversity across a natural and manipulated range of soil moisture. We found that warming effects were context dependent, with the greatest negative impacts of warming on diversity in the warmer, drier upper slope location and in the unwatered plots. Our study is an important step in understanding how global change will affect ecosystems across multiple scales and locations.
Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is a major cause of human hepatitis. There is considerable uncertainty ab... more Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is a major cause of human hepatitis. There is considerable uncertainty about the timescale of its evolution and its association with humans. Here we present 12 full or partial ancient HBV genomes that are between approximately 0.8 and 4.5 thousand years old. The ancient sequences group either within or in a sister relationship with extant human or other ape HBV clades. Generally, the genome properties follow those of modern HBV. The root of the HBV tree is projected to between 8.6 and 20.9 thousand years ago, and we estimate a substitution rate of 8.04 × 10−6– 1.51 × 10−5 nucleotide substitutions per site per year. In several cases, the geographical locations of the ancient genotypes do not match present-day distributions. Genotypes that today are typical of Africa and Asia, and a subgenotype from India, are shown to have an early Eurasian presence. The geographical and temporal patterns that we observe in ancient and modern HBV genotypes are compatible with ...
The Eneolithic Botai culture of the Central Asian steppes provides the earliest archaeological ev... more The Eneolithic Botai culture of the Central Asian steppes provides the earliest archaeological evidence for horse husbandry, ~5,500 ya, but the exact nature of early horse domestication remains controversial. We generated 42 ancient horse genomes, including 20 from Botai. Compared to 46 published ancient and modern horse genomes, our data indicate that Przewalski's horses are the feral descendants of horses herded at Botai and not truly wild horses. All domestic horses dated from ~4,000 ya to present only show ~2.7% of Botai-related ancestry. This indicates that a massive genomic turnover underpins the expansion of the horse stock that gave rise to modern domesticates, which coincides with large-scale human population expansions during the Early Bronze Age.
... P., Nightingale P., Cooper D., Cochlan WP, Kudela R. A massive phytoplankton bloom induced by... more ... P., Nightingale P., Cooper D., Cochlan WP, Kudela R. A massive phytoplankton bloom induced by an ecosystem-scale iron fertilization experi-ment in the equatorial Pacific Ocean//Nature, 1996. ... Geist HJ, Lambin EF Dynamic causal patterns for desertification//BioScience, 2004 ...
with In this Article, Angela M. Taravella and Melissa A. Wilson Sayres have been added to the aut... more with In this Article, Angela M. Taravella and Melissa A. Wilson Sayres have been added to the author list (associated with: School of Life Sciences, Center for Evolution and Medicine, The Biodesign Institute, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA). The author list and Author Information section have been corrected online.
In Fig. 2 of this Letter, the 'E' and 'G' clade labels were inadvertently reverse... more In Fig. 2 of this Letter, the 'E' and 'G' clade labels were inadvertently reversed, and in Table 2 the genotype of DA27 was 'D1' instead of 'D5'. These have been corrected online.
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