Not just a pretty picture: Mapping Leaf Area Index at 10 m resolution using Sentinel-2 (2024)
Journal Article
Fernandes, R., Hong, G., Brown, L., Dash, J., Harvey, K., Kalimipalli, S., …Sun, L. (2024). Not just a pretty picture: Mapping Leaf Area Index at 10 m resolution using Sentinel-2. Remote Sensing of Environment, 311(2024), Article 114269. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2024.114269

Achieving the Global Climate Observing System goal of 10 m resolution leaf area index (LAI) maps is critical for applications related to climate adaptation, sustainable agriculture, and ecosystem monitoring. Five strategies for producing 10 m LAI map... Read More about Not just a pretty picture: Mapping Leaf Area Index at 10 m resolution using Sentinel-2.

Hyperspectral Leaf Area Index and Chlorophyll Retrieval over Forest and Row-Structured Vineyard Canopies (2024)
Journal Article
Brown, L. A., Morris, H., MacLachlan, A., D’Adamo, F., Adams, J., Lopez-Baeza, E., …Dash, J. (2024). Hyperspectral Leaf Area Index and Chlorophyll Retrieval over Forest and Row-Structured Vineyard Canopies. Remote Sensing, 16(12), 2066. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs16122066

As an unprecedented stream of decametric hyperspectral observations becomes available from recent and upcoming spaceborne missions, effective algorithms are required to retrieve vegetation biophysical and biochemical variables such as leaf area index... Read More about Hyperspectral Leaf Area Index and Chlorophyll Retrieval over Forest and Row-Structured Vineyard Canopies.

CoverPy: Automated estimates of plant area index, vegetation cover, crown cover, crown porosity, and uncertainties from digital cover photography in Python (2024)
Journal Article
Brown, L. A., & Leblanc, S. (2024). CoverPy: Automated estimates of plant area index, vegetation cover, crown cover, crown porosity, and uncertainties from digital cover photography in Python. SoftwareX, 27, 101767. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.softx.2024.101767

Implemented in Python, CoverPy enables automated estimation of plant area index (PAI), the fraction of vegetation cover (FCOVER), crown cover (CC), and crown porosity (CP) from digital cover photography (DCP). When compared to avail... Read More about CoverPy: Automated estimates of plant area index, vegetation cover, crown cover, crown porosity, and uncertainties from digital cover photography in Python.

First outbreak of trypanosomiasis in farmed blood parrot cichlids (Vieja melanura♀ × Amphilophus citrinellus♂) from southern China (2024)
Journal Article
Zhou (周), J. (., Xu (徐), L. (., Bi (毕), Y. (., Zhang (章), J. (., Hide, G., Lai (赖), D. (., & Lun (伦), Z. (. (2024). First outbreak of trypanosomiasis in farmed blood parrot cichlids (Vieja melanura♀ × Amphilophus citrinellus♂) from southern China. Aquaculture, 588, 740944. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aquaculture.2024.740944

Outbreaks of fish trypanosomiasis are regularly reported in cultured groupers (Epinephelus spp.), largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides), and many other species of Cyprinidae, but only rarely reported in ornamental fish. This study reports a trypano... Read More about First outbreak of trypanosomiasis in farmed blood parrot cichlids (Vieja melanura♀ × Amphilophus citrinellus♂) from southern China.

Comparison of dental topography of marmosets and tamarins (Callitrichidae) to other platyrrhine primates using a novel freeware pipeline (2024)
Journal Article
de Vries, D., Janiak, M. C., Batista, R., Boubli, J. P., Goodhead, I. B., Ridgway, E., …Beck, R. M. (2024). Comparison of dental topography of marmosets and tamarins (Callitrichidae) to other platyrrhine primates using a novel freeware pipeline. Journal of Mammalian Evolution, https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.08.31.555703

Dental topographic metrics (DTMs), which quantify different aspects of the shape of teeth, are powerful tools for studying dietary adaptation and evolution in mammals. However, comparative samples of scanned mammal teeth suitable for analysis with D... Read More about Comparison of dental topography of marmosets and tamarins (Callitrichidae) to other platyrrhine primates using a novel freeware pipeline.

The Toxoplasma monocarboxylate transporters are involved in the metabolism within the apicoplast and are linked to parasite survival (2024)
Journal Article
Dong, H., He, K., Yang, J., Zheng, W., Lai, D., Liu, J., …Long, S. (2024). The Toxoplasma monocarboxylate transporters are involved in the metabolism within the apicoplast and are linked to parasite survival. eLife, 12, RP88866. https://doi.org/10.7554/elife.88866.3

The apicoplast is a four-membrane plastid found in the apicomplexans, which harbors biosynthesis and organelle housekeeping activities in the matrix. However, the mechanism driving the flux of metabolites, in and out, remains unknown. Here, we used T... Read More about The Toxoplasma monocarboxylate transporters are involved in the metabolism within the apicoplast and are linked to parasite survival.

Comparison of dental topography of marmosets and tamarins (Callitrichidae) to other platyrrhine primates using a novel freeware pipeline (2024)
Journal Article
de Vries, D., Janiak, M. C., Batista, R., Boubli, J. P., Goodhead, I. B., Ridgway, E., …Beck, R. M. D. (2024). Comparison of dental topography of marmosets and tamarins (Callitrichidae) to other platyrrhine primates using a novel freeware pipeline. Journal of Mammalian Evolution, 31(1), 12. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10914-024-09704-9

Dental topographic metrics (DTMs), which quantify different aspects of the shape of teeth, are powerful tools for studying dietary adaptation and evolution in mammals. Current DTM protocols usually rely on proprietary software, which may be unavailab... Read More about Comparison of dental topography of marmosets and tamarins (Callitrichidae) to other platyrrhine primates using a novel freeware pipeline.

Identification of constrained sequence elements across 239 primate genomes. (2023)
Journal Article
Kuderna, L. F., Ulirsch, J. C., Rashid, S., Ameen, M., Sundaram, L., Hickey, G., …Farh, K. K.-H. (2023). Identification of constrained sequence elements across 239 primate genomes. Nature, 36, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06798-8

Noncoding DNA is central to our understanding of human gene regulation and complex diseases , and measuring the evolutionary sequence constraint can establish the functional relevance of putative regulatory elements in the human genome . Identifying... Read More about Identification of constrained sequence elements across 239 primate genomes..

Complex evolutionary history with extensive ancestral gene flow in an African primate radiation (2023)
Journal Article
Jensen, A., Swift, F., de Vries, D., Beck, R., Kuderna, L. F. K., Knauf, S., …Guschanski, K. (in press). Complex evolutionary history with extensive ancestral gene flow in an African primate radiation. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 40(12), https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msad247

Understanding the drivers of speciation is fundamental in evolutionary biology, and recent studies highlight hybridization as an important evolutionary force. Using whole-genome sequencing data from 22 species of guenons (tribe Cercopithecini), one o... Read More about Complex evolutionary history with extensive ancestral gene flow in an African primate radiation.

Complex Evolutionary History With Extensive Ancestral Gene Flow in an African Primate Radiation (2023)
Journal Article
Jensen, A., Swift, F., de Vries, D., Beck, R. M. D., Kuderna, L. F. K., Knauf, S., …Guschanski, K. (2023). Complex Evolutionary History With Extensive Ancestral Gene Flow in an African Primate Radiation. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 40(12), https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msad247

Understanding the drivers of speciation is fundamental in evolutionary biology, and recent studies highlight hybridization as an important evolutionary force. Using whole-genome sequencing data from 22 species of guenons (tribe Cercopithecini), one o... Read More about Complex Evolutionary History With Extensive Ancestral Gene Flow in an African Primate Radiation.

A 50-million-year-old, three-dimensionally preserved bat skull supports an early origin for modern echolocation (2023)
Journal Article
Hand, S. J., Maugoust, J., Beck, R. M., & Orliac, M. J. (2023). A 50-million-year-old, three-dimensionally preserved bat skull supports an early origin for modern echolocation. Current Biology, 33(21), 4624-4640. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2023.09.043

Bats are among the most recognizable, numerous, and widespread of all mammals. But much of their fossil record is missing, and bat origins remain poorly understood, as do the relationships of early to modern bats. Here, we describe a new early Eocene... Read More about A 50-million-year-old, three-dimensionally preserved bat skull supports an early origin for modern echolocation.

A probable koala from the Oligocene of central Australia provides insights into early diprotodontian evolution (2023)
Journal Article
Crichton, A. I., Beck, R. M. D., Couzens, A. M. C., Worthy, T. H., Camens, A. B., & Prideaux, G. J. (2023). A probable koala from the Oligocene of central Australia provides insights into early diprotodontian evolution. Scientific Reports, 13(1), 14521. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-41471-0

Diprotodontians are the morphologically and ecologically most diverse order of marsupials. However, an approximately 30-million-year gap in the Australian terrestrial vertebrate fossil record means that the first half of diprotodontian evolution is u... Read More about A probable koala from the Oligocene of central Australia provides insights into early diprotodontian evolution.

First known extinct feathertail possums (Acrobatidae, Marsupialia): palaeobiodiversity, phylogenetics, palaeoecology and palaeogeography (2023)
Journal Article
Fabian, P. R., Archer, M., Hand, S. J., & Beck, R. M. (in press). First known extinct feathertail possums (Acrobatidae, Marsupialia): palaeobiodiversity, phylogenetics, palaeoecology and palaeogeography. Alcheringa, 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1080/03115518.2023.2242439

Four new fossil feathertail possum species (Marsupialia, Diprotodontia, Phalangerida, Petauroidea, Acrobatidae) are described from late Oligocene to middle Miocene fossil deposits in the Riversleigh World Heritage Area, northwestern Queensland. They... Read More about First known extinct feathertail possums (Acrobatidae, Marsupialia): palaeobiodiversity, phylogenetics, palaeoecology and palaeogeography.

A global catalog of whole-genome diversity from 233 primate species. (2023)
Journal Article
Kuderna, L. F. K., Gao, H., Janiak, M. C., Kuhlwilm, M., Orkin, J. D., Bataillon, T., …Jolly, C. J. (2023). A global catalog of whole-genome diversity from 233 primate species. Science, 380(6648), 906-913. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abn7829

The rich diversity of morphology and behavior displayed across primate species provides an informative context in which to study the impact of genomic diversity on fundamental biological processes. Analysis of that diversity provides insight into lon... Read More about A global catalog of whole-genome diversity from 233 primate species..