Colonize, radiate, decline: Unraveling the dynamics of island community assembly with Fijian trap‐jaw ants

The study of island community assembly has been fertile ground for developing and testing theoretical ideas in ecology and evolution. The ecoevolutionary trajectory of lineages after colonization has been a particular interest, as this is a key component of understanding community assembly. In this system, existing ideas, such as the taxon cycle, posit that lineages pass through a regular sequence of ecoevolutionary changes after colonization, with lineages shifting toward reduced dispersal ability, increased ecological specialization, and declines in abundance. However, these predictions have historically been difficult to test. Here, we integrate phylogenomics, population genomics, and X-ray microtomography/3D morphometrics, to test hypotheses for whether the ecomorphological diversity of trap-jaw ants (Strumigenys) in the Fijian archipelago is assembled primarily through colonization or postcolonization radiation, and whether species show ecological shifts toward niche specialization, toward upland habitats, and decline in abundance after colonization. We infer that most Fijian endemic Strumigenys evolved in situ from a single colonization and have diversified to fill a large fraction of global morphospace occupied by the genus. Within this adaptive radiation, lineages trend to different degrees toward high elevation, reduced dispersal ability, and demographic decline, and we find no evidence of repeated colonization that displaces the initial radiation. Overall these results are only partially consistent with taxon cycle and associated ideas, while highlighting the potential role of priority effects in assembling island communities

Conserved community structure and simultaneous divergence events in the fig wasps associated with Ficus benjamina in Australia and China

Localised patterns of species diversity can be influenced by many factors, including regional species pools, biogeographic features and interspecific interactions. Despite recognition of these issues, we still know surprisingly little about how invertebrate biodiversity is structured across geographic scales. In particular, there have been few studies of how insect communities vary geographically while using the same plant host. We compared the composition (species, genera) and functional structure (guilds) of the chalcid wasp communities associated with the widespread fig tree, Ficus benjamina, towards the northern (Hainan province, China) and southern (Queensland, Australia) edges of its natural range. Sequence data were generated for nuclear and mtDNA markers and used to delimit species, and Bayesian divergence analyses were used to test patterns of community cohesion through evolutionary time. Both communities host at least 14 fig wasp species, but no species are shared across continents. Community composition is similar at the genus level, with six genera shared although some differ in species diversity between China and Australia; a further three genera occur in only China or Australia. Community functional structure remains very similar in terms of numbers of species in each ecological guild despite community composition differing a little (genera) or a lot (species), depending on taxonomic level. Bayesian clustering analyses favour a single community divergence event across continents over multiple events for different ecological guilds. Molecular dating estimates of lineage splits between nearest inter-continental species pairs are broadly consistent with a scenario of synchronous community divergence from a shared "ancestral community". Fig wasp community structure and genus-level composition are largely conserved in a wide geographic comparison between China and Australia. Moreover, dating analyses suggest that the functional community structure has remained stable for long periods during historic range expansions. This suggests that ecological interactions between species may play a persistent role in shaping these communities, in contrast to findings in some comparable temperate systems

The psychological impacts of taking physiotherapy teaching online in 2020 : what did we learn?

Introduction. The rapid shift to online learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic presented challenges for physical therapy (PT) education worldwide. This article aims to explore the factors influencing the well-being of the PT faculty and department chairs involved in delivering PT programs during the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Review of Literature. The literature has focused on the pedagogical impacts of the rapid shift to online learning. Little is known about the social and psychological impacts of this rapid transition on the well-being of the faculty involved in implementing PT programs. Subjects. Physical therapy faculty and department chairs at 3 universities in metropolitan Sydney, Australia who taught into or led PT programs in 2020. Methods. Focus group methodology was used to explore the experiences of PT faculty and department chairs during the initial stages of the COVID pandemic. The focus groups were digitally recorded and transcribed verbatim and the transcripts analyzed thematically. Results: The main finding of this study was the extent of stress experienced by PT program faculty and chairs during this period. Both work-related institutional and faculty factors and non-work-related personal factors contributed to perceived high levels of stress. Overall, there was a feeling that the stressors had not improved over the duration of the pandemic and that this had left the faculty and chairs feeling more fatigued, less collegiate, and may have ongoing impacts on their mental health. Discussion: The pandemic created stresses for faculty and program chairs over and above the usual stress of faculty and college work. The reality of taking steps to reduce the stressors in the current climate is very difficult. Conclusion. Moving forward, it is vital to secure increased institutional support, including the support for creating realistic boundaries without the risk of penalty, to address the psychological health and well-being of PT faculty and chairs to enable high-quality education in the future

Teaching Physiotherapy during the Initial Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic: What Did We Learn?

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 resulted in a rapid shift to online learning for physiotherapy education in Australia and around the world. This Sydney-based qualitative study explored the reflections of physiotherapy educators and leaders involved in delivering physiotherapy programs with the aim of gaining insight into what happened to physiotherapy education during the initial stages of the pandemic and what lessons were learnt that will inform future physiotherapy education. Many pedagogical challenges were identified including the need to rapidly shift content online whilst still meeting competency requirements, how to effectively engage students, and the challenges of teaching and assessing practical psychomotor skills. The benefits of the rapid shift were the upskilling of educators, innovations in teaching and resources, and recognising that some aspects of physiotherapy education were improved by the change. Overall educators and leaders felt time was needed to effectively design physiotherapy content to fit different delivery modes and it was important some aspects of physiotherapy education should continue to be taught in-person. Future physiotherapy education is likely to be a combination of in-person and online delivery and lessons learnt from this time need to be incorporated into physiotherapy programs to achieve the best educational outcomes

Predicting distributions of Wolbachia strains through host ecological contact—Who's manipulating whom?

Reproductive isolation in response to divergent selection is often mediated via third-party interactions. Under these conditions, speciation is inextricably linked to ecological context. We present a novel framework for understanding arthropod speciation as mediated by Wolbachia, a microbial endosymbiont capable of causing host cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI). We predict that sympatric host sister-species harbor paraphyletic Wolbachia strains that provide CI, while well-defined congeners in ecological contact and recently diverged noninteracting congeners are uninfected due to Wolbachia redundancy. We argue that Wolbachia provides an adaptive advantage when coupled with reduced hybrid fitness, facilitating assortative mating between co-occurring divergent phenotypes—the contact contingency hypothesis. To test this, we applied a predictive algorithm to empirical pollinating fig wasp data, achieving up to 91.60% accuracy. We further postulate that observed temporal decay of Wolbachia incidence results from adaptive host purging—adaptive decay hypothesis—but implementation failed to predict systematic patterns. We then account for post-zygotic offspring mortality during CI mating, modeling fitness clines across developmental resources—the fecundity trade-off hypothesis. This model regularly favored CI despite fecundity losses. We demonstrate that a rules-based algorithm accurately predicts Wolbachia infection status. This has implications among other systems where closely related sympatric species encounter adaptive disadvantage through hybridization

'Suddenly There Was Nothing’: foot and mouth, communal trauma and landscape photography

This paper examines the landscape photography that emerged during the Foot and Mouth epidemic in the UK in 2001. It builds upon Convery et al.’s proposal that the epidemic constituted a communally traumatic event in the worst affected areas, specifically Cumbria in North West England. This proposal can be seen as Alexander’s “cultural construction of trauma”: an act that specifically reframes a “disastrous” event as “traumatic”. However this process was aided by the landscape imagery that appeared in the intense press coverage of the epidemic, and by photographers working in the artistic or documentary sphere, such as John Darwell, Ian Geering and Nick May. This paper examines how landscape imagery can communicate the traumatic human experience of a changed lifescape, and how the broadcast of these images has contributed to the wider acknowledgement of Foot and Mouth as communal trauma. It argues that this imagery is actually essential to understanding the traumatic experience of a crisis which happened within, and to, the landscape