Connecting the data landscape of long-term ecological studies: The SPI-Birds data hub

The integration and synthesis of the data in different areas of science is drastically slowed and hindered by a lack of standards and networking programmes. Long-term studies of individually marked animals are not an exception. These studies are especially important as instrumental for understanding evolutionary and ecological processes in the wild. Furthermore, their number and global distribution provides a unique opportunity to assess the generality of patterns and to address broad-scale global issues (e.g. climate change). To solve data integration issues and enable a new scale of ecological and evolutionary research based on long-term studies of birds, we have created the SPI-Birds Network and Database (www.spibirds.org)\u2014a large-scale initiative that connects data from, and researchers working on, studies of wild populations of individually recognizable (usually ringed) birds. Within year and a half since the establishment, SPI-Birds has recruited over 120 members, and currently hosts data on almost 1.5 million individual birds collected in 80 populations over 2,000 cumulative years, and counting. SPI-Birds acts as a data hub and a catalogue of studied populations. It prevents data loss, secures easy data finding, use and integration and thus facilitates collaboration and synthesis. We provide community-derived data and meta-data standards and improve data integrity guided by the principles of Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR), and aligned with the existing metadata languages (e.g. ecological meta-data language). The encouraging community involvement stems from SPI-Bird's decentralized approach: research groups retain full control over data use and their way of data management, while SPI-Birds creates tailored pipelines to convert each unique data format into a standard format. We outline the lessons learned, so that other communities (e.g. those working on other taxa) can adapt our successful model. Creating community-specific hubs (such as ours, COMADRE for animal demography, etc.) will aid much-needed large-scale ecological data integration

Modification of shell formation in the giant clam Tridacna gigas at elevated nutrient levels in sea water

The effect on shell formation of Tridacna gigas by sea water supplemented for 3 mo with ammonium (5, 10 μM, N) and phosphate (2, 5, 10 μM, P), separately or in combination, was examined. Exposure to N and N+P significantly enhanced shell-extension rates, but significantly reduced shell weights at equivalent size. Scanning-electron microscopy further revealed structural alterations in the outer shell layer, such as misshapen aragonite crystals, irregular crossed-lamellar orientation, and relatively porous shell microstructure. These observations are consistent with results of X-ray diffractometry on the shells which show distinct shifts in the positions of reflections from the (012) and (200) crystal planes relative to the control, indicating changes in crystal lattice parameters following addition of nutrient

Nutrient limitation in the giant clam-zooxanthellae symbiosis: effects of nutrient supplements on growth of the symbiotic partners

The effect of ammonium (5, 10 μM N) and phosphate (2, 5, 10 μM P) on the growth of the giant clam Tridacna gigas and its symbiotic dinoflagellate Symbiodinium sp. was examined. A 3 mo exposure to these nutrients significantly increased the N or P composition of the soft tissues, as reflected in a corresponding change in C:N:P ratio. Furthermore, exposure to N or N + P markedly increased the amount of soft tissue, but P alone did not, demonstrating that increased availability of inorganic nitrogen enhances tissue growth of the clam host. With addition of N, or N + P, there was a significant increase in the total number of zooxanthellae per clam, with a corresponding decrease in chlorophyll a (chl a) content per zooxanthella. However, only with N + P was there an increase in the zooxanthellae mitotic index. The inverse relationship between zooxanthellae number and chl a per zooxanthella is consistent with phytoplankton studies indicating conditions of nutrient-limitation. Furthermore, the unaffected C:N:P composition of the zooxanthellae and their relatively low specific-growth rates (4 to 10%) also suggest that they are nutrient-limited in vivo. In particular, their high mean C:N:P ratio of 303:52:1 indicates that, relative to C, they are much more depleted in P and less in N than are free-living phytoplankton. Furthermore, polyphosphates (phosphate reserves) were undetectable, and the activity levels of acid phosphatase in the zooxanthellae were relatively high and not influenced by the host's exposure to increased P concentrations in the sea water, implicating the clam host in active regulation of P availability to its symbiotic algae. This is strong evidence that N-limitation of clam zooxanthellae is a function of the availability of ammonium to the symbiosis while, irrespective of nutrient levels in sea water, clam zooxanthellae still show characteristics of P-limitation

IPCA: Adaptive interfaces based upon biofeedback sensors

This paper presents some preliminary results of the IPCA project, targeted to the development adaptive interfaces for people with severe motor and speech impairments based upon biofeedback sensors. We will introduce the results of the user requirements capture and their influence in the project prototype being developed at the moment

Data from: Low but contrasting neutral genetic differentiation shaped by winter temperature in European great tits

This file contains the combined dataset collected on great tits (Parus major) from 30 sites in Europe. Provided are individual data for microsatellites (GenData) and environmental data by site (EnvData