Thresholds for adding degraded tropical forest to the conservation estate.

Logged and disturbed forests are often viewed as degraded and depauperate environments compared with primary forest. However, they are dynamic ecosystems1 that provide refugia for large amounts of biodiversity2,3, so we cannot afford to underestimate their conservation value4. Here we present empirically defined thresholds for categorizing the conservation value of logged forests, using one of the most comprehensive assessments of taxon responses to habitat degradation in any tropical forest environment. We analysed the impact of logging intensity on the individual occurrence patterns of 1,681 taxa belonging to 86 taxonomic orders and 126 functional groups in Sabah, Malaysia. Our results demonstrate the existence of two conservation-relevant thresholds. First, lightly logged forests (<29% biomass removal) retain high conservation value and a largely intact functional composition, and are therefore likely to recover their pre-logging values if allowed to undergo natural regeneration. Second, the most extreme impacts occur in heavily degraded forests with more than two-thirds (>68%) of their biomass removed, and these are likely to require more expensive measures to recover their biodiversity value. Overall, our data confirm that primary forests are irreplaceable5, but they also reinforce the message that logged forests retain considerable conservation value that should not be overlooked.

Two centuries of biodiversity discovery and loss in Singapore.

There is an urgent need for reliable data on the impacts of deforestation on tropical biodiversity. The city-state of Singapore has one of the most detailed biodiversity records in the tropics, dating back to the turn of the 19th century. In 1819, Singapore was almost entirely covered in primary forest, but this has since been largely cleared. We compiled more than 200 y of records for 10 major taxonomic groups in Singapore (>50,000 individual records; >3,000 species), and we estimated extinction rates using recently developed and novel statistical models that account for "dark extinctions," i.e., extinctions of undiscovered species. The estimated overall extinction rate was 37% (95% CI [31 to 42%]). Extrapolating our Singapore observations to a future business-as-usual deforestation scenario for Southeast Asia suggests that 18% (95% CI [16 to 22%]) of species will be lost regionally by 2100. Our extinction estimates for Singapore and Southeast Asia are a factor of two lower than previous estimates that also attempted to account for dark extinctions. However, we caution that particular groups such as large mammals, forest-dependent birds, orchids, and butterflies are disproportionately vulnerable.

Diversification of freshwater crabs on the sky islands in the Hengduan Mountains Region, China.

The numerous naturally-fragmented sky islands (SIs) in the Hengduan Mountains Region (HMR) of southwestern China constitute discontinuous landscapes where montane habitats are isolated by dry-hot valleys which have fostered exceptional species diversification and endemicity. However, studies documenting the crucial role of SI on the speciation dynamics of native freshwater organisms are scarce. Here we used a novel set of comprehensive genetic markers (24 nuclear DNA sequences and complete mitogenomes), morphological characters, and biogeographical information to reveal the evolutionary history and speciation mechanisms of a group of small-bodied montane potamids in the genus Tenuipotamon. Our results provide a robustly supported phylogeny, and suggest that the vicariance events of these montane crabs correlate well with the emergence of SIs due to the uplift of the HMR during the Late Oligocene. Furthermore, ancestrally, mountain ridges provided corridors for the dispersal of these montane crabs that led to the colonization of moist montane-specific habitats, aided by past climatic conditions that were the crucial determinants of their evolutionary history. The present results illustrated that the mechanisms isolating SIs are reinforced by the harsh-dry isolating climatic features of dry-hot valleys separating SIs and continue to affect local diversification. This offers insights into the causes of the high biodiversity and endemism shown by the freshwater crabs of the HMR-SIs in southwestern China.

Uncovering the magnitude of African pangolin poaching with extensive nanopore DNA genotyping of seized scales.

Trade in pangolins is illegal, and yet tons of their scales and products are seized at various ports. These large seizures are challenging to process and comprehensively genotype for upstream provenance tracing and species identification for prosecution. We implemented a scalable DNA barcoding pipeline in which rapid DNA extraction and MinION sequencing were used to genotype a substantial proportion of pangolin scales subsampled from 2 record shipments seized in Singapore in 2019 (37.5 t). We used reference sequences to match the scales to phylogeographical regions of origin. In total, we identified 2346 cytochrome b (cytb) barcodes of white-bellied (Phataginus tricuspis) (from 1091 scales), black-bellied (Phataginus tetradactyla) (227 scales), and giant (Smutsia gigantea) (1028 scales) pangolins. Haplotype diversity was higher for P. tricuspis scales (121 haplotypes, 66 novel) than that for P. tetradactyla (22 haplotypes, 15 novel) and S. gigantea (25 haplotypes, 21 novel) scales. Of the novel haplotypes, 74.2% were likely from western and west-central Africa, suggesting potential resurgence of poaching and newly exploited populations in these regions. Our results illustrate the utility of extensively subsampling large seizures and outline an efficient molecular approach for rapid genetic screening that should be accessible to most forensic laboratories and enforcement agencies.

Revelación de la magnitud de la caza furtiva del pangolín africano mediante el genotipo extenso de nanoporos de ADN de escamas incautadas Resumen Aunque el mercado de pangolines es ilegal, se incautan toneladas de sus escamas y productos derivados en varios puertos comerciales. Es un reto procesar estas magnas incautaciones y obtener el genotipo completo para usarlo en la trazabilidad logística ascendente e identificación de la especie y así imponer sanciones. Implementamos una canalización escalable del código de barras de ADN en el cual usamos la extracción rápida de ADN y la secuenciación MinION para obtener el genotipo de una proporción sustancial de las escamas de pangolín submuestreadas en dos cargamentos incautados en 2019 en Singapur (37.5 t). Usamos secuencias referenciales para emparejar las escamas con las regiones filogeográficas de origen. Identificamos en total 2,346 códigos de citocromo b (cytb) del pangolín de vientre blanco (Phataginus tricuspis) (de 1,091 escamas), de vientre negro (P. tetradactyla) (227 escamas) y del pangolín gigante (Smutsia gigantea) (1,028 escamas). La diversidad de haplotipos fue mayor en las escamas de P. tricuspis (121 haplotipos, 66 nuevos) que en las de P. tetradactyla (22 haplotipos, 15 nuevos) y S. gigantea (25 haplotipos, 21 nuevos). De los haplotipos nuevos, el 74.2% probablemente provenía del occidente y centro­occidente de África, lo que sugiere un resurgimiento potencial de la caza furtiva y poblaciones recién explotadas en estas regiones. Nuestros resultados demuestran la utilidad de submuestrear extensivamente las grandes incautaciones y esboza una estrategia molecular eficiente para un análisis genético rápido que debería ser accesible para la mayoría de los laboratorios forenses y las autoridades de aplicación.

Structural and functional connectivity of the inferior temporal numeral area.

A growing body of evidence suggests that in adults, there is a spatially consistent "inferior temporal numeral area" (ITNA) in the occipitotemporal cortex that appears to preferentially process Arabic digits relative to non-numerical symbols and objects. However, very little is known about why the ITNA is spatially segregated from regions that process other orthographic stimuli such as letters, and why it is spatially consistent across individuals. In the present study, we used diffusion-weighted imaging and functional magnetic resonance imaging to contrast structural and functional connectivity between left and right hemisphere ITNAs and a left hemisphere letter-preferring region. We found that the left ITNA had stronger structural and functional connectivity than the letter region to inferior parietal regions involved in numerical magnitude representation and arithmetic. Between hemispheres, the left ITNA showed stronger structural connectivity with the left inferior frontal gyrus (Broca's area), while the right ITNA showed stronger structural connectivity to the ipsilateral inferior parietal cortex and stronger functional coupling with the bilateral IPS. Based on their relative connectivity, our results suggest that the left ITNA may be more readily involved in mapping digits to verbal number representations, while the right ITNA may support the mapping of digits to quantity representations.

Detection of African Swine Fever Virus from Wild Boar, Singapore, 2023.

We detected African swine fever virus (ASFV) from a wild boar in Singapore. In <72 hours, we confirmed and reported ASFV p72 genotype II, CD2v serogroup 8, and IGR-II variant by using a combination of real-time PCR and whole-genome sequencing. Continued biosurveillance will be needed to monitor ASFV in Singapore.

Environment and shipping drive environmental DNA beta-diversity among commercial ports.

The spread of nonindigenous species by shipping is a large and growing global problem that harms coastal ecosystems and economies and may blur coastal biogeographical patterns. This study coupled eukaryotic environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding with dissimilarity regression to test the hypothesis that ship-borne species spread homogenizes port communities. We first collected and metabarcoded water samples from ports in Europe, Asia, Australia and the Americas. We then calculated community dissimilarities between port pairs and tested for effects of environmental dissimilarity, biogeographical region and four alternative measures of ship-borne species transport risk. We predicted that higher shipping between ports would decrease community dissimilarity, that the effect of shipping would be small compared to that of environment dissimilarity and shared biogeography, and that more complex shipping risk metrics (which account for ballast water and stepping-stone spread) would perform better. Consistent with our hypotheses, community dissimilarities increased significantly with environmental dissimilarity and, to a lesser extent, decreased with ship-borne species transport risks, particularly if the ports had similar environments and stepping-stone risks were considered. Unexpectedly, we found no clear effect of shared biogeography, and that risk metrics incorporating estimates of ballast discharge did not offer more explanatory power than simpler traffic-based risks. Overall, we found that shipping homogenizes eukaryotic communities between ports in predictable ways, which could inform improvements in invasive species policy and management. We demonstrated the usefulness of eDNA metabarcoding and dissimilarity regression for disentangling the drivers of large-scale biodiversity patterns. We conclude by outlining logistical considerations and recommendations for future studies using this approach.

A re-analysis of the data in Sharkey et al.'s (2021) minimalist revision reveals that BINs do not deserve names, but BOLD Systems needs a stronger commitment to open science.

Halting biodiversity decline is one of the most critical challenges for humanity, but monitoring biodiversity is hampered by taxonomic impediments. One impediment is the large number of undescribed species (here called "dark taxon impediment") whereas another is caused by the large number of superficial species descriptions, that can only be resolved by consulting type specimens ("superficial description impediment"). Recently, Sharkey et al. (2021) proposed to address the dark taxon impediment for Costa Rican braconid wasps by describing 403 species based on COI barcode clusters ("BINs") computed by BOLD Systems. More than 99% of the BINs (387 of 390) were converted into species by assigning binominal names (e.g. BIN "BOLD:ACM9419" becomes Bracon federicomatarritai) and adding a minimal diagnosis (consisting only of a consensus barcode for most species). We here show that many of Sharkey et al.'s species are unstable when the underlying data are analyzed using different species delimitation algorithms. Add the insufficiently informative diagnoses, and many of these species will become the next "superficial description impediment" for braconid taxonomy because they will have to be tested and redescribed after obtaining sufficient evidence for confidently delimiting species. We furthermore show that Sharkey et al.'s approach of using consensus barcodes as diagnoses is not functional because it cannot be applied consistently. Lastly, we reiterate that COI alone is not suitable for delimiting and describing species, and voice concerns over Sharkey et al.'s uncritical use of BINs because they are calculated by a proprietary algorithm (RESL) that uses a mixture of public and private data. We urge authors, reviewers and editors to maintain high standards in taxonomy by only publishing new species that are rigorously delimited with open-access tools and supported by publicly available evidence.

ONTbarcoder and MinION barcodes aid biodiversity discovery and identification by everyone, for everyone.

BACKGROUND: DNA barcodes are a useful tool for discovering, understanding, and monitoring biodiversity which are critical tasks at a time of rapid biodiversity loss. However, widespread adoption of barcodes requires cost-effective and simple barcoding methods. We here present a workflow that satisfies these conditions. It was developed via "innovation through subtraction" and thus requires minimal lab equipment, can be learned within days, reduces the barcode sequencing cost to < 10 cents, and allows fast turnaround from specimen to sequence by using the portable MinION sequencer. RESULTS: We describe how tagged amplicons can be obtained and sequenced with the real-time MinION sequencer in many settings (field stations, biodiversity labs, citizen science labs, schools). We also provide amplicon coverage recommendations that are based on several runs of the latest generation of MinION flow cells ("R10.3") which suggest that each run can generate barcodes for > 10,000 specimens. Next, we present a novel software, ONTbarcoder, which overcomes the bioinformatics challenges posed by MinION reads. The software is compatible with Windows 10, Macintosh, and Linux, has a graphical user interface (GUI), and can generate thousands of barcodes on a standard laptop within hours based on only two input files (FASTQ, demultiplexing file). We document that MinION barcodes are virtually identical to Sanger and Illumina barcodes for the same specimens (> 99.99%) and provide evidence that MinION flow cells and reads have improved rapidly since 2018. CONCLUSIONS: We propose that barcoding with MinION is the way forward for government agencies, universities, museums, and schools because it combines low consumable and capital cost with scalability. Small projects can use the flow cell dongle ("Flongle") while large projects can rely on MinION flow cells that can be stopped and re-used after collecting sufficient data for a given project.

Mangroves are an overlooked hotspot of insect diversity despite low plant diversity.

BACKGROUND: The world's fast disappearing mangrove forests have low plant diversity and are often assumed to also have a species-poor insect fauna. We here compare the tropical arthropod fauna across a freshwater swamp and six different forest types (rain-, swamp, dry-coastal, urban, freshwater swamp, mangroves) based on 140,000 barcoded specimens belonging to ca. 8500 species. RESULTS: We find that the globally imperiled habitat "mangroves" is an overlooked hotspot for insect diversity. Our study reveals a species-rich mangrove insect fauna (>3000 species in Singapore alone) that is distinct (>50% of species are mangrove-specific) and has high species turnover across Southeast and East Asia. For most habitats, plant diversity is a good predictor of insect diversity, but mangroves are an exception and compensate for a comparatively low number of phytophagous and fungivorous insect species by supporting an unusually rich community of predators whose larvae feed in the productive mudflats. For the remaining tropical habitats, the insect communities have diversity patterns that are largely congruent across guilds. CONCLUSIONS: The discovery of such a sizeable and distinct insect fauna in a globally threatened habitat underlines how little is known about global insect biodiversity. We here show how such knowledge gaps can be closed quickly with new cost-effective NGS barcoding techniques.

Longer is Not Always Better: Optimizing Barcode Length for Large-Scale Species Discovery and Identification.

New techniques for the species-level sorting of millions of specimens are needed in order to accelerate species discovery, determine how many species live on earth, and develop efficient biomonitoring techniques. These sorting methods should be reliable, scalable, and cost-effective, as well as being largely insensitive to low-quality genomic DNA, given that this is usually all that can be obtained from museum specimens. Mini-barcodes seem to satisfy these criteria, but it is unclear how well they perform for species-level sorting when compared with full-length barcodes. This is here tested based on 20 empirical data sets covering ca. 30,000 specimens (5500 species) and six clade-specific data sets from GenBank covering ca. 98,000 specimens ($>$20,000 species). All specimens in these data sets had full-length barcodes and had been sorted to species-level based on morphology. Mini-barcodes of different lengths and positions were obtained in silico from full-length barcodes using a sliding window approach (three windows: 100 bp, 200 bp, and 300 bp) and by excising nine mini-barcodes with established primers (length: 94-407 bp). We then tested whether barcode length and/or position reduces species-level congruence between morphospecies and molecular operational taxonomic units (mOTUs) that were obtained using three different species delimitation techniques (Poisson Tree Process, Automatic Barcode Gap Discovery, and Objective Clustering). Surprisingly, we find no significant differences in performance for both species- or specimen-level identification between full-length and mini-barcodes as long as they are of moderate length ($>$200 bp). Only very short mini-barcodes (<200 bp) perform poorly, especially when they are located near the 5$^\prime$ end of the Folmer region. The mean congruence between morphospecies and mOTUs was ca. 75% for barcodes $>$200 bp and the congruent mOTUs contain ca. 75% of all specimens. Most conflict is caused by ca. 10% of the specimens that can be identified and should be targeted for re-examination in order to efficiently resolve conflict. Our study suggests that large-scale species discovery, identification, and metabarcoding can utilize mini-barcodes without any demonstrable loss of information compared to full-length barcodes. [DNA barcoding; metabarcoding; mini-barcodes; species discovery.].

Land-use change erodes trophic redundancy in tropical forest streams: Evidence from amino acid stable isotope analysis.

Studies have shown that food chain length is governed by interactions between species richness, ecosystem size and resource availability. While redundant trophic links may buffer impacts of species loss on food chain length, higher extinction risks associated with predators may result in bottom-heavy food webs with shorter food chains. The lack of consensus in earlier empirical studies relating species richness and food chain length reflects the need to account robustly for the factors described above. In response to this, we conducted an empirical study to elucidate impacts of land-use change on food chain length in tropical forest streams of Southeast Asia. Despite species losses associated with forest loss at our study areas, results from amino acid isotope analyses showed that food chain length was not linked to land use, ecosystem size or resource availability. Correspondingly, species losses did not have a significant effect on occurrence likelihoods of all trophic guilds except herbivores. Impacts of species losses were likely buffered by initial high levels of trophic redundancy, which declined with canopy cover. Declines in trophic redundancy were most drastic amongst invertivorous fishes. Declines in redundancy across trophic guilds were also more pronounced in wider and more resource-rich streams. While our study found limited evidence for immediate land-use impacts on stream food chains, the potential loss of trophic redundancy in the longer term implies increasing vulnerability of streams to future perturbations, as long as land conversion continues unabated.

Enhancing Antigen Cross-Presentation in Human Monocyte-Derived Dendritic Cells by Recruiting the Intracellular Fc Receptor TRIM21.

Suboptimal immune responses to pathogens contribute to chronic infections. One way to improve immune responses is to boost Ag presentation. In this study, we investigate the potential of the tripartite motif-containing 21 (TRIM21) pathway. TRIM21 is a ubiquitously expressed cytosolic protein that recognizes the Fc region of Abs. When Abs that are bound to pathogens enter the cell as immune complexes, binding of TRIM21 to Fc initiates downstream inflammatory signaling and targets the immune complexes for proteasomal degradation. In APCs, peptides generated by proteasomes are loaded onto MHC class I molecules to stimulate CD8 T cell responses, which are crucial for effective immunity to pathogens. We hypothesized that increasing the affinity between immune complexes and TRIM21 might markedly improve CD8 T cell responses to Ags processed by the TRIM21 pathway. Using phage display technology, we engineered the human IgG1 Fc to increase its affinity for TRIM21 by 100-fold. Adenovirus immune complexes with the engineered Fc induced greater maturation of human dendritic cells (DC) than immune complexes with unmodified Fc and stimulated increased Ag-specific CD8 T cell proliferation and IFN-γ release in cocultures of DC-PBMC. Thus, by increasing the affinity between Fc and TRIM21, Ags from immune complexes undergo enhanced cross-presentation on DC, leading to greater CD8 T cell responses. Our study reveals an approach that could potentially be used in vaccines to increase cytotoxic T cell responses against Ags that are targeted or delivered by Fc-modified Abs.

Probing the mechanisms underlying numerosity-to-numeral mappings and their relation to math competence.

Numerosity estimation performance (e.g., how accurate, consistent, or proportionally spaced (linear) numerosity-numeral mappings are) has previously been associated with math competence. However, the specific mechanisms that underlie such a relation is unknown. One possible mechanism is the mapping process between numerical sets and symbolic numbers (e.g., Arabic numerals). The current study examined two hypothesized mechanisms of numerosity-numeral mappings (item-based "associative" and holistic "structural" mapping) and their roles in the estimation-and-math relation. Specifically, mappings for small numbers (e.g., 1-10) are thought to be associative and resistant to calibration (e.g., feedback on accuracy of estimates), whereas holistic "structural" mapping for larger numbers (e.g., beyond 10) may be supported by flexibly aligning a numeral "response grid" (akin to a ruler) to an analog "mental number line" upon calibration. In 57 adults, we used pre- and post-calibration estimates to measure the range of continuous associative mappings among small numbers (e.g., a base range of associative mappings from 1 to 10), and obtained measures of math competence and delayed multiple-choice strategy reports. Consistent with previous research, uncalibrated estimation performance correlated with calculation competence, controlling for reading fluency and working memory. However, having a higher base range of associative mappings was not related to estimation performance or any math competence measures. Critically, discontinuity in calibration effects was typical at the individual level, which calls into question the nature of "holistic structural mapping". A parsimonious explanation to integrate previous and current findings is that estimation performance is likely optimized by dynamically constructing numerosity-numeral mappings through the use of multiple strategies from trial to trial.

The "Inferior Temporal Numeral Area" distinguishes numerals from other character categories during passive viewing: A representational similarity analysis.

A region in the posterior inferior temporal gyrus (pITG) is thought to be specialized for processing Arabic numerals, but fMRI studies that compared passive viewing of numerals to other character types (e.g., letters and novel characters) have not found evidence of numeral preference in the pITG. However, recent studies showed that the engagement of the pITG is modulated by attention and task contexts, suggesting that passive viewing paradigms may be ill-suited for examining numeral specialization in the pITG. It is possible, however, that even if the strengths of responses to different category types are similar, the distributed response patterns (i.e., neural representations) in a candidate numeral-preferring pITG region ("pITG-numerals") may reveal categorical distinctions, even during passive viewing. Using representational similarity analyses with three datasets that share the same task paradigm and stimulus sets (total N â€‹= â€‹88), we tested whether the neural representations of digits, letters, and novel characters in pITG-numerals were organized according to visual form and/or conceptual categories (e.g., familiar versus novel, numbers versus others). Small-scale frequentist and Bayesian meta-analyses of our dataset-specific findings revealed that the organization of neural representations in pITG-numerals is unlikely to be described by differences in abstract shape, but can be described by a categorical "digits versus letters" distinction, or even a "digits versus others" distinction (suggesting greater numeral sensitivity). Evidence of greater numeral sensitivity during passive viewing suggest that pITG-numerals is likely part of a neural pathway that has been developed for automatic processing of objects with potential numerical relevance. Given that numerals and letters do not differ categorically in terms of shape, categorical distinction in pITG-numerals during passive viewing must reflect ontogenetic differentiation of symbol set representations based on repeated usage of numbers and letters in differing task contexts.

The relation between 1st grade grey matter volume and 2nd grade math competence.

Mathematical and numerical competence is a critical foundation for individual success in modern society yet the neurobiological sources of individual differences in math competence are poorly understood. Neuroimaging research over the last decade suggests that neural mechanisms in the parietal lobe, particularly the intraparietal sulcus (IPS) are structurally aberrant in individuals with mathematical learning disabilities. However, whether those same brain regions underlie individual differences in math performance across the full range of math abilities is unknown. Furthermore, previous studies have been exclusively cross-sectional, making it unclear whether variations in the structure of the IPS are caused by or consequences of the development of math skills. The present study investigates the relation between grey matter volume across the whole brain and math competence longitudinally in a representative sample of 50 elementary school children. Results show that grey matter volume in the left IPS at the end of 1st grade relates to math competence a year later at the end of 2nd grade. Grey matter volume in this region did not change over that year, and was still correlated with math competence at the end of 2nd grade. These findings support the hypothesis that the IPS and its associated functions represent a critical foundation for the acquisition of mathematical competence.

Mitigating the impact of oil-palm monoculture on freshwater fishes in Southeast Asia.

Anthropogenic land-cover change is driving biodiversity loss worldwide. At the epicenter of this crisis lies Southeast Asia, where biodiversity-rich forests are being converted to oil-palm monocultures. As demand for palm oil increases, there is an urgent need to find strategies that maintain biodiversity in plantations. Previous studies found that retaining forest patches within plantations benefited some terrestrial taxa but not others. However, no study has focused on aquatic taxa such as fishes, despite their importance to human well-being. We assessed the efficacy of forested riparian reserves in conserving freshwater fish biodiversity in oil-palm monoculture by sampling stream fish communities in an oil-palm plantation in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. Forested riparian reserves maintained preconversion local fish species richness and functional diversity. In contrast, local and total species richness, biomass, and functional diversity declined markedly in streams without riparian reserves. Mechanistically, riparian reserves appeared to increase local species richness by increasing leaf litter cover and maintaining coarse substrate. The loss of fishes specializing in leaf litter and coarse substrate decreased functional diversity and altered community composition in oil-palm plantation streams that lacked riparian reserves. Thus, a land-sharing strategy that incorporates the retention of forested riparian reserves may maintain the ecological integrity of fish communities in oil-palm plantations. We urge policy makers and growers to make retention of riparian reserves in oil-palm plantations standard practice, and we encourage palm-oil purchasers to source only palm oil from plantations that employ this practice.

Functional and representational differences between bilateral inferior temporal numeral areas.

The processing of numerals as visual objects is supported by an "Inferior Temporal Numeral Area" (ITNA) in the bilateral inferior temporal gyri (ITG). Extant findings suggest some degree of hemispheric asymmetry in how the bilateral ITNAs process numerals. Pollack and Price (2019) reported such a hemispheric asymmetry by which a region in the left ITG was sensitive to digits during a visual search for a digit among letters, and a homologous region in the right ITG that showed greater digit sensitivity in individuals with higher calculation skills. However, the ITG regions were localized with separate analyses without directly contrasting their digit sensitivities and relation to calculation skills. So, the extent of and reasons for these functional asymmetries remain unclear. Here we probe whether the functional and representational properties of the ITNAs are asymmetric by applying both univariate and multivariate region-of-interest analyses to Pollack and Price's (2019) data. Contrary to the implications of the original findings, digit sensitivity did not differ between ITNAs, and digit sensitivity in both left and right ITNAs was associated with calculation skills. Representational similarity analyses revealed that the overall representational geometries of digits in the ITNAs were also correlated, albeit weakly, but the representational contents of the ITNAs were largely inconclusive. Nonetheless, we found a right lateralization in engagement in alphanumeric categorization, and that the right ITNA showed greater discriminability between digits and letters. Greater right lateralization of digit sensitivity and digit discriminability in the left ITNA were also related to higher calculation skills. Our findings thus suggest that the ITNAs may not be functionally identical and should be directly contrasted in future work. Our study also highlights the importance of within-individual comparisons for understanding hemispheric asymmetries, and analyses of individual differences and multivariate features to uncover effects that would otherwise be obscured by averages.

Forensic parasitology: a new frontier in criminalistics.

Parasites are ubiquitous, diverse, and have close interactions with humans and other animals. Despite this, they have not garnered significant interest from forensic scientists, and their utility as indicators in criminal investigations has been largely overlooked. To foster the development of forensic parasitology we explore the utility of parasites as forensic indicators in five broad areas: (i) wildlife trafficking and exploitation, (ii) biological attacks, (iii) sex crimes, (iv) criminal neglect of humans and other animals, and (v) indicators of movement and travel. To encourage the development and growth of forensic parasitology as a field, we lay out a four-step roadmap to increase the use and utility of parasites in criminal investigations.

Rapid evolution of troglomorphic characters suggests selection rather than neutral mutation as a driver of eye reduction in cave crabs.

This study asked whether reductive traits in cave organisms evolve at a slower pace (suggesting neutral evolution under relaxed selection) than constructive changes, which are likely to evolve under directional selection. We investigated 11 subterranean and seven surface populations of Sundathelphusa freshwater crabs on Bohol Island, Philippines, and examined constructive traits associated with improved food finding in darkness (increased leg and setae length) and reductive traits (reduced cornea size and eyestalk length). All changes occurred rapidly, given that the age of the most recent common ancestor was estimated to be 722-271 ka based on three mitochondrial markers. In order to quantify the speed of character change, we correlated the degree of morphological change with genetic distances between surface and subterranean individuals. The temporal pattern of character change following the transition to subterranean life was indistinguishable for constructive and reductive traits, characterized by an immediate onset and rapid evolutionary change. We propose that the evolution of these reductive traits-just like constructive traits-is most likely driven by strong directional selection.