Balancing Act: an Interdisciplinary Exploration of Trade-offs in Reproducing Females.

Trade-offs resulting from the high demand of offspring production are a central focus of many subdisciplines within the field of biology. Yet, despite the historical and current interest on this topic, large gaps in our understanding of whole-organism trade-offs that occur in reproducing individuals remain, particularly as it relates to the nuances associated with female reproduction. This volume of Integrative and Comparative Biology (ICB) contains a series of papers that focus on reviewing trade-offs from the female-centered perspective of biology (i.e., a perspective that places female reproductive biology at the center of the topic being investigated or discussed). These papers represent some of the work showcased during our symposium held at the 2024 meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB) in Seattle, Washington. In this roundtable discussion, we use a question-and-answer format to capture the diverse perspectives and voices involved in our symposium. We hope that the dialogue featured in this discussion will be used to motivate researchers interested in understanding trade-offs in reproducing females and provide guidance on future research endeavors.

Individual variation in life-history timing: synchronous presence, asynchronous events and phenological compensation in a wild mammal.

Many animals and plants have species-typical annual cycles, but individuals vary in their timing of life-history events. Individual variation in fur replacement (moult) timing is poorly understood in mammals due to the challenge of repeated observations and longitudinal sampling. We examined factors that influence variation in moult duration and timing among elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostris). We quantified the onset and progression of fur loss in 1178 individuals. We found that an exceptionally rapid visible moult (7 days, the shortest of any mammals or birds), and a wide range of moult start dates (spanning 6-10× the event duration) facilitated high asynchrony across individuals (only 20% of individuals in the population moulting at the same time). Some of the variation was due to reproductive state, as reproductively mature females that skipped a breeding season moulted a week earlier than reproductive females. Moreover, individual variation in timing and duration within age-sex categories far outweighed (76-80%) variation among age-sex categories. Individuals arriving at the end of the moult season spent 50% less time on the beach, which allowed them to catch up in their annual cycles and reduce population-level variance during breeding. These findings underscore the importance of individual variation in annual cycles.

Diverse papillomaviruses identified from Antarctic fur seals, leopard seals and Weddell seals from the Antarctic.

Papillomaviruses (family Papillomaviridae) are non-enveloped, circular, double-stranded DNA viruses known to infect squamous and mucosal epithelial cells. In the family Papillomaviridae there are 53 genera and 133 viral species whose members infect a variety of mammalian, avian, reptilian, and fish species. Within the Antarctic context, papillomaviruses (PVs) have been identified in Adélie penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae, 2 PVs), Weddell seals (Leptonychotes weddellii, 7 PVs), and emerald notothen (Trematomus bernacchii, 1 PV) in McMurdo Sound and Ross Island in eastern Antarctica. Here we identified 13 diverse PVs from buccal swabs of Antarctic fur seals (Arctocephalus gazella, 2 PVs) and leopard seal (Hydrurga leptonyx, 3 PVs) in western Antarctica (Antarctic Peninsula), and vaginal and nasal swabs of Weddell seals (8 PVs) in McMurdo Sound. These PV genomes group into four genera representing 11 new papillomavirus types, of which five are from two Antarctic fur seals and a leopard seal and six from Weddell seals.

Beyond reporting: proactive strategies for safer scientific fieldwork.

Fieldwork is crucial for science but poses heightened risks of gender-based harassment and assault. Current practices prioritize post-incident reporting, despite the demonstrated potential of preventive approaches. We recommend proactive practices, training strategies, and systemic policy changes to build safe and inclusive fieldwork settings from the outset.

Genomics of post-bottleneck recovery in the northern elephant seal.

Populations and species are threatened by human pressure, but their fate is variable. Some depleted populations, such as that of the northern elephant seal (Mirounga angustirostris), recover rapidly even when the surviving population was small. The northern elephant seal was hunted extensively and taken by collectors between the early 1800s and 1892, suffering an extreme population bottleneck as a consequence. Recovery was rapid and now there are over 200,000 individuals. We sequenced 260 modern and 8 historical northern elephant seal nuclear genomes to assess the impact of the population bottleneck on individual northern elephant seals and to better understand their recovery. Here we show that inbreeding, an increase in the frequency of alleles compromised by lost function, and allele frequency distortion, reduced the fitness of breeding males and females, as well as the performance of adult females on foraging migrations. We provide a detailed investigation of the impact of a severe bottleneck on fitness at the genomic level and report on the role of specific gene systems.

Contrasting offspring dependence periods and diving development rates in two closely related marine mammal species.

Understanding the ontogeny of diving behaviour in marine megafauna is crucial owing to its influence on foraging success, energy budgets, and mortality. We compared the ontogeny of diving behaviour in two closely related species-northern elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostris, n = 4) and southern elephant seals (Mirounga leonina, n = 9)-to shed light on the ecological processes underlying migration. Although both species have similar sizes and behaviours as adults, we discovered that juvenile northern elephant seals have superior diving development, reaching 260 m diving depth in just 30 days, while southern elephant seals require 160 days. Similarly, northern elephant seals achieve dive durations of approximately 11 min on their first day of migration, while southern elephant seals take 125 days. The faster physiological maturation of northern elephant seals could be related to longer offspring dependency and post-weaning fast durations, allowing them to develop their endogenous oxygen stores. Comparison across both species suggests that weaned seal pups face a trade-off between leaving early with higher energy stores but poorer physiological abilities or leaving later with improved physiology but reduced fat stores. This trade-off might be influenced by their evolutionary history, which shapes their migration behaviours in changing environments over time.

Testing the effectiveness of interactive training on sexual harassment and assault in field science.

Fieldwork is a critical tool for scientific research, particularly in applied disciplines. Yet fieldwork is often unsafe, especially for members of historically marginalized groups and people whose presence in scientific spaces threatens traditional hierarchies of power, authority, and legitimacy. Research is needed to identify interventions that prevent sexual harassment and assault from occurring in the first place. We conducted a quasi-experiment assessing the impacts of a 90-min interactive training on field-based staff in a United States state government agency. We hypothesized that the knowledge-based interventions, social modeling, and mastery experiences included in the training would increase participants' sexual harassment and assault prevention knowledge, self-efficacy, behavioural intention, and behaviour after the training compared to a control group of their peers. Treatment-control and pre-post training survey data indicate that the training increased participants' sexual harassment and assault prevention knowledge and prevention self-efficacy, and, to a lesser extent, behavioural intention. These increases persisted several months after the training for knowledge and self-efficacy. While we did not detect differences in the effect of the training for different groups, interestingly, post-hoc tests indicated that women and members of underrepresented racial groups generally scored lower compared to male and white respondents, suggesting that these groups self-assess their own capabilities differently. Finally, participants' likelihood to report incidents increased after the training but institutional reports remained low, emphasizing the importance of efforts to transform reporting systems and develop better methods to measure bystander actions. These results support the utility of a peer-led interactive intervention for improving workplace culture and safety in scientific fieldwork settings. PROTOCOL REGISTRATION: "The stage 1 protocol for this Registered Report was accepted in principle on August 24, 2022. The protocol, as accepted by the journal, can be found at: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.21770165 .

Evolution of anelloviruses from a circovirus-like ancestor through gradual augmentation of the jelly-roll capsid protein.

Anelloviruses are highly prevalent in diverse mammals, including humans, but so far have not been linked to any disease and are considered to be part of the 'healthy virome'. These viruses have small circular single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) genomes and encode several proteins with no detectable sequence similarity to proteins of other known viruses. Thus, anelloviruses are the only family of eukaryotic ssDNA viruses currently not included in the realm Monodnaviria. To gain insights into the provenance of these enigmatic viruses, we sequenced more than 250 complete genomes of anelloviruses from nasal and vaginal swab samples of Weddell seal (Leptonychotes weddellii) from Antarctica and a fecal sample of grizzly bear (Ursus arctos horribilis) from the USA and performed a comprehensive family-wide analysis of the signature anellovirus protein ORF1. Using state-of-the-art remote sequence similarity detection approaches and structural modeling with AlphaFold2, we show that ORF1 orthologs from all Anelloviridae genera adopt a jelly-roll fold typical of viral capsid proteins (CPs), establishing an evolutionary link to other eukaryotic ssDNA viruses, specifically, circoviruses. However, unlike CPs of other ssDNA viruses, ORF1 encoded by anelloviruses from different genera display remarkable variation in size, due to insertions into the jelly-roll domain. In particular, the insertion between ß-strands H and I forms a projection domain predicted to face away from the capsid surface and function at the interface of virus-host interactions. Consistent with this prediction and supported by recent experimental evidence, the outermost region of the projection domain is a mutational hotspot, where rapid evolution was likely precipitated by the host immune system. Collectively, our findings further expand the known diversity of anelloviruses and explain how anellovirus ORF1 proteins likely diverged from canonical jelly-roll CPs through gradual augmentation of the projection domain. We suggest assigning Anelloviridae to a new phylum, 'Commensaviricota', and including it into the kingdom Shotokuvirae (realm Monodnaviria), alongside Cressdnaviricota and Cossaviricota.

Brain activity of diving seals reveals short sleep cycles at depth.

Sleep is a crucial part of the daily activity patterns of mammals. However, in marine species that spend months or entire lifetimes at sea, the location, timing, and duration of sleep may be constrained. To understand how marine mammals satisfy their daily sleep requirements while at sea, we monitored electroencephalographic activity in wild northern elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostris) diving in Monterey Bay, California. Brain-wave patterns showed that seals took short (less than 20 minutes) naps while diving (maximum depth 377 meters; 104 sleeping dives). Linking these patterns to accelerometry and the time-depth profiles of 334 free-ranging seals (514,406 sleeping dives) revealed a North Pacific sleepscape in which seals averaged only 2 hours of sleep per day for 7 months, rivaling the record for the least sleep among all mammals, which is currently held by the African elephant (about 2 hours per day).

Physiological tipping points in the relationship between foraging success and lifetime fitness of a long-lived mammal.

Although anthropogenic change is often gradual, the impacts on animal populations may be precipitous if physiological processes create tipping points between energy gain, reproduction or survival. We use 25 years of behavioural, diet and demographic data from elephant seals to characterise their relationships with lifetime fitness. Survival and reproduction increased with mass gain during long foraging trips preceding the pupping seasons, and there was a threshold where individuals that gained an additional 4.8% of their body mass (26 kg, from 206 to 232 kg) increased lifetime reproductive success three-fold (from 1.8 to 4.9 pups). This was due to a two-fold increase in pupping probability (30% to 76%) and a 7% increase in reproductive lifespan (6.0 to 6.4 years). The sharp threshold between mass gain and reproduction may explain reproductive failure observed in many species and demonstrates how small, gradual reductions in prey from anthropogenic disturbance could have profound implications for animal populations.

How Reproducibility Will Accelerate Discovery Through Collaboration in Physio-Logging.

What new questions could ecophysiologists answer if physio-logging research was fully reproducible? We argue that technical debt (computational hurdles resulting from prioritizing short-term goals over long-term sustainability) stemming from insufficient cyberinfrastructure (field-wide tools, standards, and norms for analyzing and sharing data) trapped physio-logging in a scientific silo. This debt stifles comparative biological analyses and impedes interdisciplinary research. Although physio-loggers (e.g., heart rate monitors and accelerometers) opened new avenues of research, the explosion of complex datasets exceeded ecophysiology's informatics capacity. Like many other scientific fields facing a deluge of complex data, ecophysiologists now struggle to share their data and tools. Adapting to this new era requires a change in mindset, from "data as a noun" (e.g., traits, counts) to "data as a sentence", where measurements (nouns) are associate with transformations (verbs), parameters (adverbs), and metadata (adjectives). Computational reproducibility provides a framework for capturing the entire sentence. Though usually framed in terms of scientific integrity, reproducibility offers immediate benefits by promoting collaboration between individuals, groups, and entire fields. Rather than a tax on our productivity that benefits some nebulous greater good, reproducibility can accelerate the pace of discovery by removing obstacles and inviting a greater diversity of perspectives to advance science and society. In this article, we 1) describe the computational challenges facing physio-logging scientists and connect them to the concepts of technical debt and cyberinfrastructure, 2) demonstrate how other scientific fields overcame similar challenges by embracing computational reproducibility, and 3) present a framework to promote computational reproducibility in physio-logging, and bio-logging more generally.

Elephant seals time their long-distance migrations using a map sense.

Many marine animals migrate between foraging areas and reproductive sites, often timing the return migration with extreme precision. In theory, the decision to return should reflect energy acquisition at foraging areas, energetic costs associated with transit, and timing arrival for successful reproduction. For long-distance migrations to be successful, animals must integrate 'map' information to assess where they are relative to their reproductive site as well as 'calendar' information to know when to initiate the return migration given their distance from home1. Elephant seals, Mirounga angustirostris, migrate thousands of kilometers from reproductive sites to open ocean foraging areas (Figure 1A), yet return within a narrow window of time to specific beaches2. Each year, pregnant female elephant seals undertake a ∼240-day, 10,000 km foraging migration across the Northeast Pacific Ocean before returning to their breeding beaches, where they give birth 5 days after arriving2. We found that the seals' abilities to adjust the timing of their return migration is based on the perception of space and time, which further elucidates the mechanisms behind their astonishing navigational feats3.

Variation in resting strategies across trophic levels and habitats in mammals.

Mammals must carefully balance rest with other behaviors that influence fitness (e.g., foraging, finding a mate) while minimizing predation risk. However, factors influencing resting strategies and the degree to which resting strategies are driven by the activities of predators and/or prey remain largely unknown. Our goal was to examine how mammalian resting strategies varied with trophic level, body mass, and habitat. We reviewed findings from 127 publications and classified the resting strategies of terrestrial and aquatic mammalian species into three categories: social (e.g., resting in groups), temporal (e.g., resting during the day), or spatial (e.g., resting in burrows). Temporal strategies were most common (54% of cases), but the prevalence of strategies varied with body mass and among trophic levels. Specifically, lower trophic levels and smaller species such as rodents and lagomorphs used more spatial and social resting strategies, whereas top predators and larger species used mostly temporal resting strategies. Resting strategies also varied among habitat types (e.g., rainforest vs. grassland), but this was primarily because closely related species shared both habitats and resting strategies. Human presence also affected resting strategies at all trophic levels but most strongly influenced top predators through shifts in rest timing. Human-induced behavioral changes in rest patterns cascade to modify behaviors across multiple trophic levels. These findings advance our fundamental understanding of natural history and ecology in wild animals and provide a roadmap for future comparative studies.

Circoviruses and cycloviruses identified in Weddell seal fecal samples from McMurdo Sound, Antarctica.

Circoviridae is a family of circular single-stranded DNA viruses whose members infect a wide variety of hosts. While well characterized in avian and mammalian hosts, little is known about circoviruses associated with Antarctic animals. From 48 Weddell seal (Leptonychotes weddellii) fecal samples collected on the sea ice in McMurdo between Nov 2014 and Dec 2014, we identified and determined the genomes of novel viruses that fall within two genera of the family Circoviridae, i.e. Circovirus (n = 7) and Cyclovirus (n = 45). We named these viruses as werosea circovirus (WerCV) and werosea cyclovirus (WerCyV). The genomes of WerCV and WerCyV share ~63-64% genome-wide pairwise identity with classified circoviruses and cycloviruses, respectively. Based on the species demarcation threshold of 80% for members of the Circoviridae, the genomes of WerCV and WerCyV represent new species in their respective genera. Evidence indicated recombination in five of the 45 WerCyV genomes identified in this study. These are the first circoviruses found associated with Antarctic pinnipeds, adding to those recently identified associated with Adélie (Pygoscelis adeliae) and chinstrap penguins (P. antarcticus).

Anti-racist interventions to transform ecology, evolution and conservation biology departments.

Racial and ethnic discrimination persist in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields, including ecology, evolution and conservation biology (EECB) and related disciplines. Marginalization and oppression as a result of institutional and structural racism continue to create barriers to inclusion for Black people, Indigenous people and people of colour (BIPOC), and remnants of historic racist policies and pseudoscientific theories continue to plague these fields. Many academic EECB departments seek concrete ways to improve the climate and implement anti-racist policies in their teaching, training and research activities. We present a toolkit of evidence-based interventions for academic EECB departments to foster anti-racism in three areas: in the classroom; within research laboratories; and department wide. To spark restorative discussion and action in these areas, we summarize EECB's racist and ethnocentric histories, as well as current systemic problems that marginalize non-white groups. Finally, we present ways that EECB departments can collectively address shortcomings in equity and inclusion by implementing anti-racism, and provide a positive model for other departments and disciplines.

Emerging themes in Population Consequences of Disturbance models.

Assessing the non-lethal effects of disturbance from human activities is necessary for wildlife conservation and management. However, linking short-term responses to long-term impacts on individuals and populations is a significant hurdle for evaluating the risks of a proposed activity. The Population Consequences of Disturbance (PCoD) framework conceptually describes how disturbance can lead to changes in population dynamics, and its real-world application has led to a suite of quantitative models that can inform risk assessments. Here, we review PCoD models that forecast the possible consequences of a range of disturbance scenarios for marine mammals. In so doing, we identify common themes and highlight general principles to consider when assessing risk. We find that, when considered holistically, these models provide valuable insights into which contextual factors influence a population's degree of exposure and sensitivity to disturbance. We also discuss model assumptions and limitations, identify data gaps and suggest future research directions to enable PCoD models to better inform risk assessments and conservation and management decisions. The general principles explored can help wildlife managers and practitioners identify and prioritize the populations most vulnerable to disturbance and guide industry in planning activities that avoid or mitigate population-level effects.

Determinants of moult haulout phenology and duration in southern elephant seals.

Phenological shifts are among the most obvious biological responses to environmental change, yet documented responses for Southern Ocean marine mammals are extremely rare. Marine mammals can respond to environmental changes through phenological flexibility of their life-history events such as breeding and moulting. Southern elephant seals (Mirounga leonina) undergo an obligatory annual moult which involves the rapid shedding of epidermal skin and hair while seals fast ashore. We quantified the timing (phenology) and duration (the time from arrival ashore to departure) of the moult haulout of 4612 female elephant seals at Marion Island over 32 years. Using linear mixed-effects models, we investigated age, breeding state and environmental drivers of moult timing and haulout duration. We found no clear evidence for a temporal shift in moult phenology or its duration. Annual variation in moult arrival date and haulout duration was small relative to age and breeding effects, which explained more than 90% of the variance in moult arrival date and 25% in moult haulout duration. All environmental covariates we tested explained minimal variation in the data. Female elephant seals moulted progressively later as juveniles, but adults age 4 and older had similar moult start dates that depended on the breeding state of the female. In contrast, moult haulout duration was not constant with age among adults, but instead became shorter with increasing age. Moulting is energetically expensive and differences in the moult haulout duration are possibly due to individual variation in body mass and associated metabolizable energy reserves, although other drivers (e.g. hormones) may also be present. Individual-based data on moult arrival dates and haulout duration can be used as auxiliary data in demographic modelling and may be useful proxies of other important biological parameters such as body condition and breeding history.

How an Early, Inclusive Field Course can Build Persistence in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.

Field courses have been identified as powerful tools for student success in science, but the potential for field courses to address demographic disparities and the mechanisms behind these benefits are not well understood. To address these knowledge gaps, we studied students in a nonmajors Ecology and Evolutionary Biology course, Introduction to Field Research and Conservation, at the University of California Santa Cruz, a large Hispanic-Serving Institution. We examined (a) the effects of participation on students' perception of their scientific competencies and (b) how the field course shaped student experiences and built their sense of community, confidence and belonging in science. Our mixed-methods approach included the Persistence in the Sciences (PITS) survey with field course students and a control group; interviews, focus groups, and prompted student journal entries with a subset of field course students; and participant-observation. We found that field course participants scored higher on all science identity items of the PITS instrument than students in the control (lecture course) group. Field course students from underrepresented minority groups also scored similarly to or higher than their well-represented peers on each of the six PITS survey components. From our qualitative data, themes of growth in peer community, relationships with mentors, confidence living and working outdoors, team-based science experiences, and a sense of contributing to knowledge and discovery interacted throughout the course-especially from the initial overnight field trip to the final one-to assist these gains and strengthen interest in science and support persistence. These findings highlight the importance of holistic support and community building as necessary driving factors in inclusive course design, especially as a way to begin to dismantle structures of exclusion in the sciences.

Forced into an ecological corner: Round-the-clock deep foraging on small prey by elephant seals.

Small mesopelagic fishes dominate the world's total fish biomass, yet their ecological importance as prey for large marine animals is poorly understood. To reveal the little-known ecosystem dynamics, we identified prey, measured feeding events, and quantified the daily energy balance of 48 deep-diving elephant seals throughout their oceanic migrations by leveraging innovative technologies: animal-borne smart accelerometers and video cameras. Seals only attained positive energy balance after feeding 1000 to 2000 times per day on small fishes, which required continuous deep diving (80 to 100% of each day). Interspecies allometry suggests that female elephant seals have exceptional diving abilities relative to their body size, enabling them to exploit a unique foraging niche on small but abundant mesopelagic fish. This unique foraging niche requires extreme round-the-clock deep diving, limiting the behavioral plasticity of elephant seals to a changing mesopelagic ecosystem.