Data management plan for the grant, "NSFDEB-NERC: Collaborative Research: Wildlife corridors: do they work and who benefits?" Research on the impact of wildlife corridors using genetics as the measure of effectiveness. The study will use 20 independent landscapes to quantify how corridor traits affect gene flow, and will use non-flying mammals as focal species because they are strongly affected by fragmentation. The research team hypothesizes (1) a strong non-linear decline in success (gene flow) with corridor length, reflecting the skewed distribution of dispersal distances within species; (2) success will drop steeply as corridor width falls below a threshold, with the threshold determined by species traits; and (3) species that are bigger, are habitat specialists, or have greater dispersal abilities (relative to brain size or reproductive rate) will benefit more from corridors. Testing these hypotheses will allow generalization to a wide range of mammal species not included in this project. It will use highly flexible Random Forest models to answer the overarching question: What landscape traits (e.g., corridor width, degree of human disturbance) and species traits (mobility, affinity to particular land cover types) are associated with effective corridors?

Article discusses the determination of the spectrum of two interesting stochastic matrices appearing in an engineering paper.

Article describes the development of a physics-based molecular force field (PMFF) by integrating a set of potential energy functions in which each term in an intermolecular potential energy function is derived based on experimental values, such as the dipole moments, lattice energy, proton transfer energy, and X-ray crystal structures.

Article theoretically demonstrates a single low frequency gas detector that can be used for sensing of gas mixtures with high selectivity, accuracy, and sensitivity.

Article describes study which assesses the relative accuracy of volunteer water quality data collected by the Texas Stream Team (TST) citizen science program from 1992–2016 across the State of Texas by comparing it to professional data from corresponding stations during the same time period.

Article describes the devastating effects of nuclear radiation and its long-lasting consequences on Earth’s ecosystems. The authors call upon all scientists to communicate the importance of the environmental impacts of such an event to all life forms on Earth, including humankind.

Authors of the article describe a post-imprinting modification of the imprinted molecular cavities for electrochemical sensing of a target protein. These mesoporous cavities were modified with a ferrocene ‘electrochemical’ tracer for electrochemical transduction of the target protein recognition.

Article describes how two new tetradentate N4 ligands (LN4), LN4 = Me2,Me2PyzTACN (1-(2-(3,5-dimethyl-1H-pyrazol-1-yl)ethyl)-4,7-dimethyl-1,4,7-triazacyclononane) and Me2,MeImTACN (1-((1-methyl-1H-imidazol-1-yl)methyl)-4,7-dimethyl-1,4,7-triazacyclononane) have been synthesized and their corresponding Fe(II) complexes [FeII(Me2,Me2PyzTACN)(CF3SO3)2], 1Pz, and [FeII(Me2,MeImTACN)(CF3SO3)2], 1Im, have been prepared and characterized. Based on these labelling studies, the steric influence exerted by each of the ligands towards the relative reactivity of the oxo ligands of the corresponding pair of Fe(V)(O)(OH) tautomers can be derived.

Article presents a COF (covalent organic framework)-based adsorption-photocatalysis strategy for selective removal of uranyl from seawater in the absence of sacrificial reagents. This work shows that multivariate COF adsorption-photocatalysts can be rationally engineered to work efficiently and stably without sacrificial electron donors, thus opening the pathway for the economic and efficient extraction of uranium from the earth’s oceans.

Article describes how environmental air pollution remains a major contributor to negative health outcomes and mortality, but the relationship between socially vulnerable populations and air pollution is not well understood. This paper seeks to understand how air pollution monitor placement strategies and policy may neglect social vulnerabilities and therefore potentially underestimate exposure burdens in vulnerable populations.

Article describes how products of plant secondary metabolism, such as phenolic compounds, flavonoids, alkaloids, and hormones, play an important role in plant growth, development, stress resistance. The authors state that the overall goal of this study was to develop a high-throughput workflow to identify and quantify plant polyphenols.

Article discusses the Mexican cavefish Astyanax mexicanus, has lost moderate-to-vigorous activity following cave colonization, reaching basal swim speeds ~3.7-fold slower than their river-dwelling counterpart. Collectively, the authors reveal broad skeletal muscle changes following cave colonization, displaying an adaptive skeletal muscle phenotype reminiscent to mammalian disuse and high-fat models while simultaneously maintaining a unique capacity for sustained muscle contraction via enhanced glycogen metabolism.

Article asserts that green agriculture is the future of agricultural development. The policy implication of this paper is that developing countries should actively promote the market-oriented reform of agricultural subsidies to promote green agricultural development.

This article generates transgenic cotton lines expressing the barley (Hordeum vulgare) homogentisate geranylgeranyl transferase coding sequence under the control of the Brassica napus seed-specific promoter, napin. Findings may provide new opportunities for cottonseed co-products with enhanced vitamin E profile for improved shelf life and nutrition.

This article develops a theory of electromagnetic transmission through dielectric-metal superlattices with ultra-thin metal films, in which electron motion in the direction perpendicular to the metal surfaces is quantized.

This article is an editorial feature highlighting editor of Plant & Cell Physiology Dr. Ana Paula Alonso. She is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences and serves as the Director of the BioAnalytical Facility at the University of North Texas.

Article asserts that the world’s population is projected to increase by two billion by 2050, resulting in food and energy insecurity. This review provides a summary of the current knowledge of oil metabolism and discusses how photochemical activity and unconventional pathways can contribute to high carbon conversion efficiency in seeds.

Article highlights the importance of pectin in cell wall integrity and the value of lignin modification as a tool to interrogate the informational content of plant cell walls.

Article describes how authors use state-of-the-art electron microscopy techniques to show that the magnetization reversal process in an Al0.3CoFeNi magnetic complex concentrated alloy (CCA), which is responsible for its coercivity, changes dramatically from a nucleation-type mechanism in the FCC+L12 state of the CCA. Their work reveals that heterophase FCC/BCC interfaces have a much stronger effect on coercivity than isostructural chemically ordered/disordered interfaces and provides a powerful guide to the rational design of microstructure to tune magnetic properties in both complex concentrated alloys and conventional magnetic alloys.

Article studying seedlings of wild-type and different mutants of Arabidopsis thaliana plants subjected to a multifactorial stress combination of six different stresses, each applied at a low level, and their survival, physiological and molecular responses. Findings reveal that further polluting our environment could result in higher complexities of multifactorial stress combinations that in turn could drive a critical decline in plant growth and survival.

This article explores the upper lethal temperature for Bobwhite eggs. Results find that thermal tolerances of Northern Bobwhite embryos are high, indicating an adaptation to the naturally occurring temperature extremes in the Bobwhite's environment. However, the results also indicate that high temperatures could have plausibly contributed to the population decline observed in the Bobwhite's semi-arid range.

Article describes how gene-based association tests provide a useful alternative and complement to the usual single marker association tests, especially in genome-wide association studies (GWAS). The authors propose a test named OWC based on summary statistics from GWAS data.

This article presents research where various kudzu accessions were analyzed through barcoding and comparative transcriptomics, generating tools for identification and molecular pathway analysis.

The article evaluates the impacts of physical, chemical and genetic interventions to improve biomass processing singly and in combination. Based on their results and literature studies, some form of non-biological augmentation will likely be necessary for the foreseeable future to achieve high total carbohydrate solubilization (TCS) for most cellulosic feedstocks. The results show that this need not necessarily involve thermochemical processing, and need not necessarily occur prior to biological conversion.