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  • OPEN ACCESS
    Identification of leaf-mining insects via DNA recovered from empty mines
    FACETS • Vol. 1 • pp. 217 - 224
    We report the development of an improved method for the extraction and amplification of leaf miner DNA recovered from empty mines. Our method is simple, easy to use, and foregoes the time-consuming task of scraping out mines required by previous methods. We collected leaves with 1- and 2-day-old vacated mines, cut out and then ground the mined portions, and amplified the mtDNA COI barcode sequence using universal insect primers. We obtained high-quality sequences for 31% of our empty mines: 20% yielded sequences associated with a leaf miner species; and an additional 11% yielded sequences associated with whiteflies, mites, or fungi. Our improved method will facilitate ecological studies determining herbivore community dynamics and agricultural studies for pest monitoring and identification.
  • OPEN ACCESS
    Survey of mercury in boreal chorus frog (Pseudacris maculata) and wood frog (Rana sylvatica) tadpoles from wetland ponds in the Prairie Pothole Region of Canada
    FACETS • Vol. 2 • pp. 315 - 329
    Tadpoles are important prey items for many aquatic organisms and often represent the largest vertebrate biomass in many fishless wetland ecosystems. Neurotoxic mercury (Hg) can, at elevated levels, decrease growth, lower survival, and cause developmental instability in amphibians. We compared total Hg (THg) body burden and concentration in boreal chorus frog (Pseudacris maculata) and wood frog (Rana sylvatica) tadpoles. Overall, body burden and concentration were lower in boreal chorus frog tadpoles than wood frog tadpoles, as expected, because boreal chorus frog tadpoles consume at lower trophic levels. The variables species, stage, and mass explained 21% of total variation for body burden in our models but had negligible predictive ability for THg concentration. The vast majority of the remaining variation in both body burden and THg concentration was attributable to differences among ponds; tadpoles from ponds in three areas had considerably higher THg body burden and concentration. The pond-to-pond differences were not related to any water chemistry or physical parameter measured, and we assumed that differences in wetland geomorphology likely played an important role in determining Hg levels in tadpoles. This is the first report of Hg in frog tadpoles in the Prairie Pothole Region of North America.
  • OPEN ACCESS
    Microplastics in the gastrointestinal tracts of fish and the water from an urban prairie creek
    FACETS • Vol. 2 • pp. 395 - 409
    Microplastics are defined as any plastic with a diameter ≤5 mm. Problems associated with these plastics such as contamination of both marine and freshwater environments and ingestion by aquatic organisms are of increasing concern. Our study quantifies the number of microplastics in a prairie creek immediately downstream of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. Water samples and five species of fish were collected from sample sites upstream and downstream of a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) in the summers of 2015 and 2016. Samples were digested in either a Fe(II)/H2O2 or NaClO solution and observed under a microscope where plastics present were enumerated by colour and type. At least one microplastic was detected in 73.5% of fish and 95.6% of water samples, showing that the creek does, in fact, contain microplastics. Concentrations were higher in water from upstream sites, likely due to dilution of creek water by the release of treated effluent. The results of this study provide baseline conditions for the presence of plastics in the creek prior to a major upgrade of the WWTP scheduled for completion in 2016.
  • OPEN ACCESS
    DNA metabarcoding of faecal pellets reveals high consumption of yew (Taxus spp.) by caribou (Rangifer tarandus) in a lichen-poor environment
    FACETS • Vol. 7 • pp. 701 - 717
    Woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou) are threatened in Canada because of the drastic decline in population size caused primarily by human-induced landscape changes that decrease habitat and increase predation risk. Conservation efforts have largely focused on reducing predators and protecting critical habitat, whereas research on dietary niches and the role of potential food constraints in lichen-poor environments is limited. To improve our understanding of dietary niche variability, we used a next-generation sequencing approach with metabarcoding of DNA extracted from faecal pellets of woodland caribou located on Lake Superior in lichen-rich (mainland) and lichen-poor (island) environments. Amplicon sequencing of fungal ITS2 region revealed lichen-associated fungi as predominant in samples from both populations, but amplification at the chloroplast trnL region, which was only successful on island samples, revealed primary consumption of yew (Taxus spp.) based on relative read abundance (83.68%) with dogwood (Cornus spp.; 9.67%) and maple (Acer spp.; 4.10%) also prevalent. These results suggest that conservation efforts for caribou need to consider the availability of food resources beyond lichen to ensure successful outcomes. More broadly, we provide a reliable methodology for assessing ungulate diet from archived faecal pellets that could reveal important dietary shifts over time in response to climate change.
  • OPEN ACCESS
    Self-promotion and the need to be first in science
    FACETS • Vol. 6 • pp. 1881 - 1891
    Scientists, like all humans, are subject to self-deceptive valuations of their importance and profile. Vainglorious practice is annoying but mostly harmless when restricted to an individual’s perception of self-worth. Language that can be associated with self-promotion and aggrandizement is destructive when incorporated into scientific writing. So too is any practice that oversells the novelty of research or fails to provide sufficient scholarship on the uniqueness of results. We evaluated whether such tendencies have been increasing over time by assessing the frequencies of articles claiming to be “the first”, and those that placed the requirement for scholarship on readers by using phrases such as “to the best of our knowledge”. Our survey of titles and abstracts of 176 journals in ecology and environmental biology revealed that the frequencies of both practices increased linearly over the past half century. We thus warn readers, journal editors, and granting agencies to use caution when assessing the claimed novelty of research contributions. A system-wide reform toward more cooperative science that values humility, and abhors hubris, might help to rectify the problem.
  • OPEN ACCESS
    Heliocaminiform structures: plant organs that function as microgreenhouses
    FACETS • Vol. 9 • pp. 1 - 20
    Plant structures that enclose trapped air are morphologically and taxonomically diverse. They range from pubescence (trichomes) on various parts of plants to flowers, inflorescences, stems, culms (above-ground jointed stems of grasses), petioles, peduncles, scapes, fruits, bracts, leaves, galls, algal pneumatocysts, moss sporophytes, lichen podetia, and fungal fruiting bodies. Despite being familiar, such structures have not been studied systematically until recently when their complex thermodynamic functionality as microgreenhouses has been recognized. We propose the term “heliocaminiform” (Greco-Latin origin for “sun-room”) provides an umbrella term that describes form and function. Almost all the hollow structures we have examined have elevated internal temperatures of several degrees C above the surrounding air in sunshine, but those are abolished under cloud or at night. The potential importance for the additional heat is presumed to be in growth, maturation, reproduction, sexual function, and overall fitness of the plants. There seem to be no experimental studies on those effects even though they may help explain aspects of plants’ responses to climate change and to phenological mismatches with symbionts (mutualists and herbivores) as ecologically co-dependent partners. Our review and observations opens a remarkably new and hitherto surprisingly neglected avenue in botany which we hope others will explore.