Sturgeon (Acipenseridae) phylogeny, biogeography, & ontogeny.

Thought of as ancient fishes, 25 broadly recognized extant sturgeon species are classified in four genera (Acipenser, Huso, Pseudoscaphirhynchus, and Scaphirhynchus). Molecular and morphological analyses have led to broad but conflicting changes to sturgeon phylogeny. For example, the position of Scaphirhynchus among other sturgeons had been contentious, and various sets of sturgeon species have been proposed to make up the subfamily Husinae. Here, a molecular phylogeny of sturgeons, based on the full mitogenome, is presented. In this phylogeny, Scaphirhynchus is recovered with strong support as basal to the other sturgeons. Huso huso is recovered as basal within a clade containing P. kaufmanni and several species of Acipenser, and is proposed as a new, monotypic subfamily Husinae. This phylogeny is used to examine phylogenetic signal in individual genes and in gene families. The protein coding genes as a unit, and individually, along with 16s rRNA, show phylogenetic signal most similar to that of the full mitogenome. The phylogeny, along with evolutionary relationships of pinnipeds and lampreys, provides the basis for the exploration of sturgeon biogeography. Relationships among geographic areas inhabited by sturgeons are found, finding two sets of related areas- a Pacific area group and an Atlantic group. Relationships of areas within and between these groups reflect area relationships proposed by previous biogeographic and geologic studies. Phylogenetic signal is tested amongst ontogenetic characters, and is recovered in the timing at which larval sturgeon teeth are completely resorbed, indicating that the timing of ontogenetic milestones can carry signal. The phylogeny is used to remove confounding signal from, and investigate correlations among, behavioral and morphological ontogenetic characters. Correlation is found between one pair of characters

Virginia Institute of Marine Science 2011 Greenhouse Gas Inventory Report

During the spring of 2011, members of the VIMS Green Team, with support from the College of William and Mary’s Committee on Sustainability, collected data on resource use at the VIMS Gloucester Point campus in order to monitor our greenhouse gas emissions and develop methods for reducing our carbon footprint in the future. We processed these data using the Campus Carbon Calculator, a tool developed by Clean Air Cool Planet, a nonprofit organization. This program, used by over 1,200 colleges and universities, calculates the total greenhouse gas emissions of a campus using emissions factors developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Dimensions of biodiversity in Chesapeake Bay demersal fishes: patterns and drivers through space and time

Biodiversity has typically been described in terms of species richness and composition, but theory and growing empirical evidence indicate that the diversity of functional traits, the breadth of evolutionary relationships, and the equitability with which individuals or biomass are distributed among species better characterize patterns and processes within ecosystems. Yet, the advantages of including such data come at the expense of measuring traits, sequencing genes, and counting or weighing individuals, and it remains unclear whether this greater resolution yields substantial benefits in describing diversity. We summarized a decade of high-resolution trawl data from a bimonthly trawl survey to investigate spatial and seasonal patterns of demersal fish diversity in the Chesapeake Bay, USA, with the goal of identifying areas and times of mismatch between different dimensions of diversity, and their response to environmental forcing. We found moderate to strong positive relationships among all metrics of diversity, and that functional and phylogenetic differences were well-reflected in an index derived from taxonomic (Linnaean) hierarchy. Compared with species richness and species diversity, functional, phylogenetic, and taxonomic indices peaked later in the year, which was a consequence of the distribution of biomass among functionally and evolutionarily divergent species. Generalized additive models revealed that spatial, temporal, and environmental variables explained roughly similar proportions of deviance across all aspects of diversity, suggesting that these three factors do not differentially affect the functional and phylogenetic aspects of community structure. We conclude that an index of diversity derived from taxonomic hierarchy served well as a practical surrogate for functional and phylogenetic diversity of the demersal fish community in this system. We also emphasize the importance of evenness in understanding diversity patterns, especially since most ecological communities in nature are dominated by one or few species

Supplement 1. R script containing all data analyses, and functional, phylogenetic, and taxonomic trees in Newick format.

<h2>File List</h2><div> <p><a href="ChesMMAP_Analysis.R">ChesMMAP_Analysis.R</a> (MD5: 76c1bf2a66778c549c104f1f981f3344)</p> <p><a href="Functional_dendrogram.txt">Functional_dendrogram.txt</a> (MD5: 150ae02926a1d4019fbbb62a8389622f)</p> <p><a href="Phylogenetic_tree.txt">Phylogenetic_tree.txt</a> (MD5: 86896bc31f31d11d3fdf77f33b3ddb62)</p> <p><a href="Taxonomic_tree.txt">Taxonomic_tree.txt</a> (MD5: 4dcd4fa2bf8eb6db567b7a1ff7dcb236)</p> </div><h2>Description</h2><div> <p>The code included in ChesMMAP Analysis.R reports all analyses run in the paper, including building functional, phylogenetic, and taxonomic trees, kriging interpolation, and construction of generalized additive models.</p> <p>The three text files include the functional, phylogenetic, and taxonomic trees in Newick format.</p> </div