Phenological shifts of abiotic events, producers and consumers across a continent

Ongoing climate change can shift organism phenology in ways that vary depending on species, habitats and climate factors studied. To probe for large-scale patterns in associated phenological change, we use 70,709 observations from six decades of systematic monitoring across the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Among 110 phenological events related to plants, birds, insects, amphibians and fungi, we find a mosaic of change, defying simple predictions of earlier springs, later autumns and stronger changes at higher latitudes and elevations. Site mean temperature emerged as a strong predictor of local phenology, but the magnitude and direction of change varied with trophic level and the relative timing of an event. Beyond temperature-associated variation, we uncover high variation among both sites and years, with some sites being characterized by disproportionately long seasons and others by short ones. Our findings emphasize concerns regarding ecosystem integrity and highlight the difficulty of predicting climate change outcomes. The authors use systematic monitoring across the former USSR to investigate phenological changes across taxa. The long-term mean temperature of a site emerged as a strong predictor of phenological change, with further imprints of trophic level, event timing, site, year and biotic interactions.Peer reviewe

26th Annual Computational Neuroscience Meeting (CNS*2017): Part 3 - Meeting Abstracts - Antwerp, Belgium. 15–20 July 2017

This work was produced as part of the activities of FAPESP Research,\ud Disseminations and Innovation Center for Neuromathematics (grant\ud 2013/07699-0, S. Paulo Research Foundation). NLK is supported by a\ud FAPESP postdoctoral fellowship (grant 2016/03855-5). ACR is partially\ud supported by a CNPq fellowship (grant 306251/2014-0)

Acoustic Structure and Contextual Use of Calls by Captive Male and Female Cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus).

The vocal repertoire of captive cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus) and the specific role of meow vocalizations in communication of this species attract research interest about two dozen years. Here, we expand this research focus for the contextual use of call types, sex differences and individual differences at short and long terms. During 457 trials of acoustic recordings, we collected calls (n = 8120) and data on their contextual use for 13 adult cheetahs (6 males and 7 females) in four Russian zoos. The cheetah vocal repertoire comprised 7 call types produced in 8 behavioural contexts. Context-specific call types (chirr, growl, howl and hiss) were related to courting behaviour (chirr) or to aggressive behaviour (growl, howl and hiss). Other call types (chirp, purr and meow) were not context-specific. The values of acoustic variables differed between call types. The meow was the most often call type. Discriminant function analysis revealed a high potential of meows to encode individual identity and sex at short terms, however, the vocal individuality was unstable over years. We discuss the contextual use and acoustic variables of call types, the ratios of individual and sex differences in calls and the pathways of vocal ontogeny in the cheetah with relevant data on vocalization of other animals

Values (meanSD) of the cheetah meow variables and results of nested ANOVA for individual and sex differences.

<p>Values (meanSD) of the cheetah meow variables and results of nested ANOVA for individual and sex differences.</p

Values (mean±SD) of acoustic variables for the cheetah call types.

<p>Values (mean±SD) of acoustic variables for the cheetah call types.</p

Sex and individual discrimination of the cheetah meows.

<p>Green bars indicate values of discriminant function analysis and yellow bars indicate random values, calculated with the randomization procedure. Comparisons between observed and random values with permutation tests are shown above the bars.</p

Call signal-specificity: the percent of 7 call types given in each context, signal-specific calls (i.e., those for which > 65% are given in a single context) are indicated in bold.

<p>Call signal-specificity: the percent of 7 call types given in each context, signal-specific calls (i.e., those for which > 65% are given in a single context) are indicated in bold.</p

Measured variables for cheetah meows.

<p>Spectrogram (right) and mean power spectrum of the entire call (left). Designations: duration–call duration; f0 beg–the fundamental frequency at the onset of a call; f0 end–the fundamental frequency at the end of a call; f0 max–the maximum fundamental frequency; f0 min–the minimum fundamental frequency; f peak–the frequency of maximum amplitude within a call; q25, q50 q75 –the lower, the medium and the upper quartiles, covering respectively 25%, 50% and 75% energy of a call spectrum. The spectrogram was created at 11025 Hz sampling frequency, Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) 512, Hamming window, frame 50%, overlap 96.87%.</p

Values (mean±SD) of acoustic variables for the cheetah purr inspiration and expiration phases.

<p>Values (mean±SD) of acoustic variables for the cheetah purr inspiration and expiration phases.</p

Discrimination of individual cheetahs by meows in two years (2012 and 2014).

<p>Green bars indicate values of discriminant function analysis and yellow bars indicate random values, calculated with a randomization procedure. Comparisons between observed and random values with permutation tests and comparisons between 2012 and 2014 meows with <i>χ</i>^<i>2</i> tests are shown by brackets above the bars. The red bar indicates the classification value of 2014 meows with discriminant functions created for meows recorded in 2012.</p