Seeing Through the Eyes of Maximilian and Bodmer: Review of \u3ci\u3eThe North American Journals of Prince Maximilian of Wied, Volume I: May 1832-April 1833.\u3c/i\u3e Edited by Stephen S. Witte and Marsha V. Gallagher.

The German prince Maximilian of WiedNeuwied (1782-1867) traveled up the Missouri River in 1832-33 to study American Indian culture before it was fatally compromised by the encroachment of Euro-American civilization. Aware of the expansionist and industrial dynamics of the Jacksonian Era in the United States, Maximilian wanted to study what he regarded as the vanishing Indian while there was still time. The idea had come to him during his 1815-17 journey through Brazil. For the publication that followed, Reise nach Brasilien in den Jahren 1815 his 1817 (1820), Maximilian had provided his own illustrations. These were criticized, including by his artistically talented siblings. When he ventured to North America in 1832, Maximilian wisely brought with him a professional illustrator, the Swiss-born Karl Bodmer (1809-93). What Maximilian wanted was a body of illustrations of such precision that they would exhibit what we would call photographic fidelity and detail. He got that. What he could not have anticipated is that Bodmer would produce some of the finest art of the Missouri River bioregion and its inhabitants. Heretical though it may seem in some quarters, the Maximilian-Bodmer expedition is in important respects more satisfying than the journals of Lewis and Clark. Thanks to the painstaking editorial work of Witte and Gallagher, we now, finally, 175 years after the fact, have the opportunity to explore Maximilian\u27s journals comprehensively. What we discover there is a man of deep human sympathies, a brilliant observer of landscapes and peoples, an Enlightenment exemplar whose encyclopedic field notes were undistorted by America\u27s imperial mission

Invasive Vegetation Affects Amphibian Skin Microbiota and Body Condition

Invasive plants are major drivers of habitat modification and the scale of their impact is increasing globally as anthropogenic activities facilitate their spread. In California, an invasive plant genus of great concern is Eucalyptus. Eucalyptus leaves can alter soil chemistry and negatively affect underground macro- and microbial communities. Amphibians serve as excellent models to evaluate the effect of Eucalyptus invasion on ground-dwelling species as they predate on soil arthropods and incorporate soil microbes into their microbiotas. The skin microbiota is particularly important to amphibian health, suggesting that invasive plant species could ultimately affect amphibian populations. To investigate the potential for invasive vegetation to induce changes in microbial communities, we sampled microbial communities in the soil and on the skin of local amphibians. Specifically, we compared Batrachoseps attenuatus skin microbiomes in both Eucalyptus globulus (Myrtaceae) and native Quercus agriflolia (Fagaceae) dominated forests in the San Francisco Bay Area. We determined whether changes in microbial diversity and composition in both soil and Batrachoseps attenuatus skin were associated with dominant vegetation type. To evaluate animal health across vegetation types, we compared Batrachoseps attenuatus body condition and the presence/absence of the amphibian skin pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis. We found that Eucalyptus invasion had no measurable effect on soil microbial community diversity and a relatively small effect (compared to the effect of site identity) on community structure in the microhabitats sampled. In contrast, our results show that Batrachoseps attenuatus skin microbiota diversity was greater in Quercus dominated habitats. One amplicon sequence variant identified in the family Chlamydiaceae was observed in higher relative abundance among salamanders sampled in Eucalyptus dominated habitats. We also observed that Batrachoseps attenuatus body condition was higher in Quercus dominated habitats. Incidence of Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis across all individuals was very low (only one Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis positive individual). The effect on body condition demonstrates that although Eucalyptus may not always decrease amphibian abundance or diversity, it can potentially have cryptic negative effects. Our findings prompt further work to determine the mechanisms that lead to changes in the health and microbiome of native species post-plant invasion

Stable Isotope Biogeochemistry of Seabird Guano Fertilization: Results from Growth Chamber Studies with Maize (Zea Mays)

Stable isotope analysis is being utilized with increasing regularity to examine a wide range of issues (diet, habitat use, migration) in ecology, geology, archaeology, and related disciplines. A crucial component to these studies is a thorough understanding of the range and causes of baseline isotopic variation, which is relatively poorly understood for nitrogen (δ(15)N). Animal excrement is known to impact plant δ(15)N values, but the effects of seabird guano have not been systematically studied from an agricultural or horticultural standpoint.This paper presents isotopic (δ(13)C and δ(15)N) and vital data for maize (Zea mays) fertilized with Peruvian seabird guano under controlled conditions. The level of (15)N enrichment in fertilized plants is very large, with δ(15)N values ranging between 25.5 and 44.7‰ depending on the tissue and amount of fertilizer applied; comparatively, control plant δ(15)N values ranged between -0.3 and 5.7‰. Intraplant and temporal variability in δ(15)N values were large, particularly for the guano-fertilized plants, which can be attributed to changes in the availability of guano-derived N over time, and the reliance of stored vs. absorbed N. Plant δ(13)C values were not significantly impacted by guano fertilization. High concentrations of seabird guano inhibited maize germination and maize growth. Moreover, high levels of seabird guano greatly impacted the N metabolism of the plants, resulting in significantly higher tissue N content, particularly in the stalk.The results presented in this study demonstrate the very large impact of seabird guano on maize δ(15)N values. The use of seabird guano as a fertilizer can thus be traced using stable isotope analysis in food chemistry applications (certification of organic inputs). Furthermore, the fertilization of maize with seabird guano creates an isotopic signature very similar to a high-trophic level marine resource, which must be considered when interpreting isotopic data from archaeological material

Organic matter properties of Fennoscandian ecosystems: Potential oxidation of northern environments under future change?

The oxidative ratio (OR) of an ecosystem, which reflects the ratio of O2:CO2 associated with ecosystem gas exchanges, is an important parameter in understanding the sink of CO2 represented by the terrestrial biosphere. There is a growing body of ecosystem-based approaches to understand OR; however, there are still a number of unknowns. This study addressed two gaps in our understanding of the oxidation of the terrestrial biosphere: (1) What is the oxidation state of Arctic ecosystems, and in particular permafrost soils? (2) Will coupled climate and land use change cause the terrestrial organic matter oxidation state to change? The study considered eight locations along a transect from southern Sweden to northern Norway and sampled different organic matter types (soil, litter, trees, and herbaceous vegetation) as well as different soil orders (Inceptisols, Spodosols, Histosols, and Gelisols). The study showed that although there was no difference between soil orders, there was a significant effect due to location with OR increasing from 1.03 at the southernmost location to 1.09 in the northernmost location; this increase is independent of soil order or type of organic matter. The pattern of post hoc differences in the OR with latitude suggests that the increase in OR is correlated with the northern limit of arable agriculture. The study suggests that the combined effects of climate and land use change could lead to a decrease in terrestrial organic matter OR and an increase in its oxidation state

Bayesian adaptive design: improving the effectiveness of monitoring of the Great Barrier Reef

Ann McNeil