Review of past and recent literature on dermestid larvae has revealed that despite these structures indicated as one of the distinctive characters in species identification, very little is known about their ultrastructure, evolution and mechanism of action. In the present work, we will provide the state of knowledge on hastisetae in Dermestidae and we will present and discuss future research perspectives intended to bridge the existing knowledge gaps. ©2020 Ruzzier et al.Domestic cats preying on wildlife is a frequent conservation concern but typical approaches for assessing impacts rely on owner reports of prey returned home, which can be biased by inaccurate reporting or by cats consuming prey instead of bringing it home. Isotopes offer an alternative way to quantify broad differences in animal diets. By obtaining samples of pet food from cat owners we predicted that we would have high power to identify cats feeding on wild birds or mammals, given that pet food is thought to have higher C isotope values, due to the pervasive use of corn and/or corn by-products as food ingredients, than native prey. We worked with citizen scientists to quantify the isotopes of 202 cat hair samples and 239 pet food samples from the US and UK. We also characterized the isotopes of 11 likely native prey species from the southeastern US and used mixing models to assess the diet of 47 cats from the same region. Variation in C and N isotope values for cat food was very high, even within the same brand/flavor, suggesting that pet food manufacturers use a wide range of ingredients, and that these may change over time. Cat food and cat hair from the UK had lower C values than the US, presumably reflecting differences in the amount of corn used in the food chains of the two countries. This high variation in pet food reduced our ability to classify cats as hunters of native prey, such that only 43% of the animals could be confidently assigned. If feral or free ranging cats were considered, this uncertainty would be even higher as pet food types would be unknown. Our results question the general assumption that anthropogenic foods always have high C isotope values, because of the high variability we documented within one product type (cat food) and between countries (US vs. UK), and emphasize the need to test a variety of standards before making conclusions from isotope ecology studies. ©2020 McDonald et al.Meat, long hypothesized as an important food source in human evolution, is still a substantial component of the modern human diet, with some humans relying entirely on meat during certain times of the year. Understanding the socio-ecological context leading to the successful acquisition and consumption of meat by chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), our closest living relative, can provide insight into the emergence of this trait because humans and chimpanzees are unusual among primates in that they both (i) hunt mammalian prey, (ii) share meat with community members, and (iii) form long-term relationships and complex social hierarchies within their communities. However, females in both human hunter-gatherer societies as well as chimpanzee groups rarely hunt, instead typically accessing meat via males that share meat with group members. In general, female chimpanzee dominance rank affects feeding competition, but so far, the effect of female dominance rank on meat access found different results within and across stn other chimpanzee populations, our results suggest that females reliably acquire meat over their lifetime despite rarely being active hunters. The implication of this study supports the hypothesis that dominance rank is an important female chimpanzee property conferring benefits for the high-ranking females. ©2020 Riedel et al.Background Vegetation dynamics is defined as a significant indictor in regulating terrestrial carbon balance and climate change, and this issue is important for the evaluation of climate change. Though much work has been done concerning the correlations among vegetation dynamics, precipitation and temperature, the related questions about relationships between vegetation dynamics and other climatic factors (e.g., specific humidity, net radiation, soil moisture) have not been thoroughly considered. Understanding these questions is of primary importance in developing policies to address climate change. Methods In this study, the least squares regression analysis method was used to simulate the trend of vegetation dynamics based on the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) from 1981 to 2018. A partial correlation analysis method was used to explore the relationship between vegetation dynamics and climate change; and further,the revised greyscale model was applied to predict the future growth trend of natu 2030 is 0.0196 higher than that in 2018, with an increase of 6.18%. Conclusions Our results indicate that (i) the variations of climatic factors have caused a huge change in the hydrothermal conditions in Xinjiang; (ii) the vegetation dynamics in Xinjiang showed obvious volatility, and then in the end stage of the study were higher than the initial stage the vegetation dynamics in Xinjiang showed a staged increasing trend; (iii) the vegetation dynamics were affected by many factors,of which precipitation was the main reason; (iv) in the next decade, the vegetation dynamics in Xinjiang will show an increasing trend. ©2020 Zhuang et al.Background Despite availability of valuable ecological data in published thematic maps, manual methods to transfer published maps to a more accessible digital format are time-intensive. Application of object-based image analysis makes digitization faster. Methods Using object-based image analysis followed by random forests classification, we rapidly digitized choropleth maps of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) densities in the conterminous US during 1982 and 2001 to 2005 (hereafter, 2003), allowing access to deer density information stored in images. selleck inhibitor Results The digitization process took about one day each per deer density map, of which about two hours was computer processing time, which will differ due to factors such as resolution and number of objects. Deer were present in 4.75 million km2 (60% of the area) and 5.56 million km2 (70%) during 1982 and 2003, respectively. Population and density in areas with deer presence were 17.15 million and 3.6 deer/km2 during 1982 and 29.93 million and 5.4 deer/km2 during 2003.