Gps tracking data of western marsh harriers breeding in belgium and the Netherlands

In this data paper three datasets are described containing GPS tracking and acceleration data of Western marsh harriers (Circus aeruginosus) breeding in Belgium and the Netherlands. The Western marsh harrier is included as a threatened bird species in Annex I of the European Bird Directive due to the steep decline in population densities. In order to collect data of habitat use and migration behaviour, Western marsh harriers were equipped with light-weight solar powered GPS trackers developed by the Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED) at the University of Amsterdam (University of Amsterdam Bird Tracking System, UvA-BiTS). These trackers automatically collect and store data on the bird’s activity and 3D position in time and transmit these data to ground stations. The datasets were collected by the Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO) and the Dutch Montagu’s Harrier Foundation. Tracked Western marsh harriers were breeding in the northeast of the Dutch province of Groningen and on the opposite side of the river Ems in Germany (H_GRONINGEN), in the region of Waterland-Oudeman near the Belgian-Dutch border (MH_WATERLAND), and at the left bank of the Scheldt estuary, close to the Belgian-Dutch border and north of the city of Antwerp (MH_ANTWERPEN). Most individuals remained within 10 km from their nesting sites during the breeding season and wintered in West Africa. H_GRONINGEN contains 987,493 GPS fixes and 3,853,859 acceleration records of four individuals since 2012. MH_WATERLAND contains 377,910 GPS fixes of seven individuals. Sampling in this region began in 2013. Three more Western marsh harriers were tagged in the Scheldt estuary near Antwerp more recently in 2018 (one individual) and 2019 (two individuals) for the MH_ANTWERPEN study, which contains 47,917 GPS fixes and 227,746 acceleration records. The three Western marsh harrier datasets were published as separate studies in Movebank (https://www. movebank.org) and archived as data packages in Zenodo (https://www.zenodo.org) to ensure long-term preservation and versioning of the data

GPS tracking data of Eurasian oystercatchers (Haematopus ostralegus) from the Netherlands and Belgium

We describe six datasets that contain GPS and accelerometer data of 202 Eurasian oystercatchers (Haematopus ostralegus) spanning the period 2008–2021. Birds were equipped with GPS trackers in breeding and wintering areas in the Netherlands and Belgium. We used GPS trackers from the University of Amsterdam Bird Tracking System (UvA-BiTS) for several study purposes, including the study of space use during the breeding season, habitat use and foraging behaviour in the winter season, and impacts of human disturbance. To enable broader usage, all data have now been made open access. Combined, the datasets contain 6.0 million GPS positions, 164 million acceleration measurements and 7.0 million classified behaviour events (i.e., flying, walking, foraging, preening, and inactive). The datasets are deposited on the research repository Zenodo, but are also accessible on Movebank and as down-sampled occurrence datasets on the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and Ocean Biodiversity Information System (OBIS)

Within season short-term hatching delays suggest risk-spreading behaviour in populations of the freshwater cladoceran Daphnia

Many organisms produce dormant stages, building up large germ banks in the sediments. Timing of emergence from these germ banks is a key feature in the recurrent cycle of dormant and active life stages. We exposed dormant egg bank samples of Daphnia magna from (semi-)permanent ponds to seasonal cues mimicking temperature and photoperiod during early spring, late spring, and summer in the region of sampling and investigated hatching success and response time after incubation. Whereas no differences in hatching success were observed between seasonal treatments, within each seasonal treatment a variable fraction of eggs postponed the hatching response for several days. We link immediate versus short-term delayed hatching to a trade-off between the advantages of quick niche filling and the unpredictability of reproductive success under unstable environmental conditions. A scenario where hatching investment is spread over immediate and delayed hatchers as a bet-hedging strategy is corroborated by environmental data on the risk of abortive hatching in early spring and by modeling results that show that immediate versus short-term delayed hatching is a valid alternative to bet-hedging over years in the investigated habitats to cope with variability in the onset of favourable conditions.status: publishe

Inbreeding and adaptive plasticity: an experimental analysis on predator-induced responses in the water flea Daphnia

Several studies have emphasized that inbreeding depression (ID) is enhanced under stressful conditions. Additionally, one might imagine a loss of adaptively plastic responses which may further contribute to a reduction in fitness under environmental stress. Here, we quantified ID in inbred families of the cyclical parthenogen Daphnia magna in the absence and presence of fish predation risk. We test whether predator stress affects the degree of ID and if inbred families have a reduced capacity to respond to predator stress by adaptive phenotypic plasticity. We obtained two inbred families through clonal selfing within clones isolated from a fish pond. After mild purging under standardized conditions, we compared life history traits and adaptive plasticity between inbred and outbred lineages (directly hatched from the natural dormant egg bank of the same pond). Initial purging of lineages under standardized conditions differed among inbred families and exceeded that in outbreds. The least purged inbred family exhibited strong ID for most life history traits. Predator-induced stress hardly affected the severity of ID, but the degree to which the capacity for adaptive phenotypic plasticity was retained varied strongly among the inbred families. The least purged family overall lacked the capacity for adaptive phenotypic plasticity, whereas the family that suffered only mild purging exhibited a potential for adaptive plasticity that was comparable to the outbred population. We thus found that inbred offspring may retain the capacity to respond to the presence of fish by adaptive phenotypic plasticity, but this strongly depends on the parental clone engaging in selfing.status: publishe

The role of selection in driving landscape genomic structure of the waterflea Daphnia magna

The combined analysis of neutral and adaptive genetic variation is crucial to reconstruct the processes driving population genetic structure in the wild. However, such combined analysis is challenging because of the complex interaction among neutral and selective processes in the landscape. Overcoming this level of complexity requires an unbiased search for the evidence of selection in the genomes of populations sampled from their natural habitats and the identification of demographic processes that lead to present-day populations' genetic structure. Ecological model species with a suite of genomic tools and well-understood ecologies are best suited to resolve this complexity and elucidate the role of selective and demographic processes in the landscape genomic structure of natural populations. Here we investigate the water flea Daphnia magna, an emerging model system in genomics and a renowned ecological model system. We infer past and recent demographic processes by contrasting patterns of local and regional neutral genetic diversity at markers with different mutation rates. We assess the role of the environment in driving genetic variation in our study system by identifying correlates between biotic and abiotic variables naturally occurring in the landscape and patterns of neutral and adaptive genetic variation. Our results indicate that selection plays a major role in determining the population genomic structure of D. magna. First, environmental selection directly impacts genetic variation at loci hitchhiking with genes under selection. Second, priority effects enhanced by local genetic adaptation (cf. monopolization) affect neutral genetic variation by reducing gene flow among populations and genetic diversity within populations.status: publishe

Evolving perspectives on monopolization and priority effects

Biologists are often confronted with high levels of unexplained variation when studying the processes that determine genetic and species diversity. Here, we argue that eco-evolutionary interactions might often play an important role during colonization and have longstanding effects on populations and communities. Adaptation following colonization can produce a strong positive feedback loop that promotes priority effects and context-dependent trajectories of population or species assembly. We establish how monopolization, and more generally evolution-mediated priority effects, influence ecological patterns at multiple scales of space, time, and biological organization. We then highlight the underappreciated implications for our understanding of population and landscape genetics, adaptive evolution, community diversity, biogeography, and conservation biology. We indicate multiple future directions for research, including extending theory beyond competition.publisher: Elsevier articletitle: Evolving Perspectives on Monopolization and Priority Effects journaltitle: Trends in Ecology & Evolution articlelink: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2015.12.009 content_type: article copyright: Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.status: publishe

Data from: The role of selection in driving landscape genomic structure of the waterflea Daphnia magna

The combined analysis of neutral and adaptive genetic variation is crucial to reconstruct the processes driving population genetic structure of natural populations. However, such combined analysis is challenging because of the complex interaction among neutral and selective processes in the landscape. Overcoming this level of complexity requires an unbiased search for the evidence of selection in the genomes of populations sampled from their natural habitats and the identification of demographic processes that lead to present-day populations genetic structure. Ecological model species with a suite of genomic tools and well-understood ecologies are best suited to resolve this complexity and elucidate the role of selective and demographic processes in the landscape genomic structure of natural populations. Here we investigate the water flea Daphnia magna, an emerging model system in genomics and a renowned ecological model system. We infer past and recent demographic processes by contrasting patterns of local and regional neutral genetic diversity at markers with different mutation rates. We assess the role of the environment in driving genetic variation in our study system by identifying correlates between biotic and abiotic variables naturally occurring in the landscape and patterns of neutral and adaptive genetic variation. Our results indicate that selection plays a major role in determining the population genomic structure of D. magna. First, environmental selection directly impacts genetic variation at loci hitchhiking with genes under selection. Secondly, priority effects enhanced by local genetic adaptation (cf. monopolization) affect neutral genetic variation by reducing gene flow among populations and genetic diversity within populations

Extinction, recolonisation and dispersal through time in a planktonic crustacean

Dormant propagule banks are important reservoirs of biological and genetic diversity of local communities and populations and provide buffering mechanisms against extinction. Although dormant stages of various plant and animal species are known to remain viable for decades and even centuries, little is known about the effective influence of recolonization from such old sources on the genetic continuity of intermittent populations under natural conditions. Using recent and old dormant eggs recovered from a dated lake sediment core in Kenya, we traced the genetic composition of a local population of the planktonic crustacean Daphnia barbata through a sequence of extinction and recolonization events. This was combined with a phylogeographic and population-genetic survey of regional populations. Four successive populations, fully separated in time, inhabited Lake Naivasha from ca. 1330 to 1570 AD, from ca. 1610 to 1720 AD, from ca. 1840 to 1940 AD, and from 1995 to the present (2001 AD). Our results strongly indicate genetic continuity between the 1840–1940 and 1995–2001 populations, which are separated in time by at least 50 years, and close genetic relatedness of them both to the 1330–1580 population. A software tool (Colonize) was developed to find the most likely source population of the refounded 1995–2001 population and to test the number of colonists involved in the recolonization event. The results confirmed that the 1995–2001 population most probably developed out of a limited number of surviving local dormant eggs from the previous population, rather than out of individuals from regional (central and southern Kenya) or more distant (Ethiopia, Zimbabwe) populations that may have immigrated to Lake Naivasha through passive dispersal. These results emphasize the importance of prolonged dormancy for the natural long-term dynamics of crustacean zooplankton in fluctuating environments and suggest an important role of old local dormant egg banks in aquatic habitat restoration.status: publishe