When Ecology Needs Economics and Economics Needs Ecology: Interdisciplinary Exchange in the Age of Humans

Evidence that humans play a dominant role in most ecosystems forces scientists to confront systems that contain factors transgressing traditional disciplinary boundaries. However, it is an open question whether this state of affairs should encourage interdisciplinary exchange or integration. With two case studies, we show that exchange between ecologists and economists is preferable, for epistemological and policy-oriented reasons, to their acting independently. We call this “exchange gain.” Our case studies show that theoretical exchanges can be less disruptive to current theory than commonly thought—valuable exchange does not necessarily require disciplinary integration

Considering Intra-individual Genetic Heterogeneity to Understand Biodiversity

In this chapter, I am concerned with the concept of Intra-individual Genetic Hetereogeneity (IGH) and its potential influence on biodiversity estimates. Definitions of biological individuality are often indirectly dependent on genetic sampling -and vice versa. Genetic sampling typically focuses on a particular locus or set of loci, found in the the mitochondrial, chloroplast or nuclear genome. If ecological function or evolutionary individuality can be defined on the level of multiple divergent genomes, as I shall argue is the case in IGH, our current genetic sampling strategies and analytic approaches may miss out on relevant biodiversity. Now that more and more examples of IGH are available, it is becoming possible to investigate the positive and negative effects of IGH on the functioning and evolution of multicellular individuals more systematically. I consider some examples and argue that studying diversity through the lens of IGH facilitates thinking not in terms of units, but in terms of interactions between biological entities. This, in turn, enables a fresh take on the ecological and evolutionary significance of biological diversity

Modelling human choices: MADeM and decision‑making

Research supported by FAPESP 2015/50122-0 and DFG-GRTK 1740/2. RP and AR are also part of the Research, Innovation and Dissemination Center for Neuromathematics FAPESP grant (2013/07699-0). RP is supported by a FAPESP scholarship (2013/25667-8). ACR is partially supported by a CNPq fellowship (grant 306251/2014-0)

Can microbial communities regenerate?: uniting ecology and evolutionary biology Convening science./ S. Andrew Inkpen and W. Ford Doolittle.

Includes bibliographical references and index."You take antibiotics to fight an infection. Unfortunately, the treatment also kills the community of bacteria in your gut microbiome; you now have digestion issues. You might start eating yogurt to reintroduce good bacteria. Or, if the bacterial community is more significantly disordered, you might need a "fecal microbiota transplant" - a doctor transfers stool from a healthy donor into your gut. The new bacteria community thrives, and you can again digest your food. If all the same types of bacteria are present in this new community, has your microbiome "regenerated"? What if the bacteria are completely different, but they perform the same function? How do the answers to these questions change if we look at the cells in a regrown salamander limb or the flora in a replanted forest? In this second book in the Regeneration Series, a philosopher of science and molecular biologist, S. Andrew Inkpen and W. Ford Dolittle, investigate these questions and their consequences. As the examples above show, asking about whether microbial communities can regenerate, what that might mean, and why it matters is not just an academic question. Offering provocations and an understanding that go beyond the descriptive work that has been published to date, this book offers an accessible conceptual and theoretical understanding of regeneration and evolution in microbial communities that will be useful across disciplines including in philosophy of biology, conservation biology, microbiomics, evolutionary biology, and community ecology"--Intro -- Contents -- 1. Regeneration -- 2. Ecology -- 3. Evolution -- 4. Interactors -- 5. Engineering -- Epilogue -- Acknowledgments -- Further Reading -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index1 online resource (1 volume )

The Unusual Redox Properties of Fluoroferrocenes Revealed through a Comprehensive Study of the Haloferrocenes

We report the synthesis and full characterization of the entire haloferrocene (FcX) and 1,1′-dihaloferrocene (fcX₂) series (X = I, Br, Cl, F; Fc = ferrocenyl, fc = ferrocene-1,1′-diyl). Finalization of this simple, yet intriguing set of compounds has been delayed by synthetic challenges associated with the incorporation of fluorine substituents. Successful preparation of fluoroferrocene (<b>FcF</b>) and 1,1′-difluoroferrocene (<b>fcF</b>_<b>2</b>) were ultimately achieved using reactions between the appropriate lithiated ferrocene species and <i>N-</i>fluorobenzenesulfonimide (NFSI). The crude reaction products, in addition to those resulting from analogous preparations of chloroferrocene (<b>FcCl</b>) and 1,1′-dichloroferrocene (<b>fcCl</b>_<b>2</b>), were utilized as model systems to probe the limits of a previously reported “oxidative purification” methodology. From this investigation and careful solution voltammetry studies, we find that the fluorinated derivatives exhibit the <i>lowest</i> redox potentials of each of the FcX and fcX₂ series. This counterintuitive result is discussed with reference to the spectroscopic, structural, and first-principles calculations of these and related materials