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1. The dual nature of metacommunity variability

   https://doi.org/10.1111/oik.08517  

   Lamy, Thomas; Wisnoski, Nathan I.; Andrade, Riley; Castorani, Max C.; Compagnoni, Aldo; Lany, Nina; Marazzi, Luca; Record, Sydne; Swan, Christopher M.; Tonkin, Jonathan D.; et al (August 2021, Oikos)

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2. Sex and the Riddle of Variability

   https://doi.org/10.3998/ptpbio.5492  

   Richardson, Sarah S (June 2025, Philosophy, Theory, and Practice in Biology)

   Scientific research associations, funders, and publishers have recently introduced sex inclusion mandates requiring the use of male and female specimens in preclinical research designs and the analysis and reporting of data disaggregated by sex. However, it is not necessarily a simple matter to incorporate males and females in the same study design with the aim of detecting differences between them while following best practices for rigorous inference in laboratory science using model organisms. For example, if there are ways in which male and female variability might differ for the trait or procedure of interest, principles of sound experimental design may require larger numbers of organisms and observations to make valid inferences about the presence of a sex difference. This paper analyzes a current scientific debate over differences in variability between male and female laboratory rodents, and specifically over whether potential sources of sex-specific variability such as the estrous cycle, group housing, and body size constitute components of sex that should be measured. The variability debate surfaces the trade-offs between constructs of sex difference and similarity that face scientific researchers attempting to meet mandates to include both males and females in research design and report sex-specific results. This riddle of variability illuminates how laboratory researchers using model organisms must make contextual choices (Richardson 2022) at multiple decision points in order to stabilize sex as a biological variable in a particular research design. These judgments are informed by social and epistemic values and carry consequences for the validity, precision, and generalizability of claims of biological sex differences derived from preclinical research models. 

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3. Hypolimnetic Hypoxia Increases the Biomass Variability and Compositional Variability of Crustacean Zooplankton Communities

   https://doi.org/10.3390/w11102179  

   Doubek, Jonathan P.; Campbell, Kylie L.; Lofton, Mary E.; McClure, Ryan P.; Carey, Cayelan C. (October 2019, Water)

   In freshwater lakes and reservoirs, climate change and eutrophication are increasing the occurrence of low-dissolved oxygen concentrations (hypoxia), which has the potential to alter the variability of zooplankton seasonal dynamics. We sampled zooplankton and physical, chemical and biological variables (e.g., temperature, dissolved oxygen, and chlorophyll a) in four reservoirs during the summer stratified period for three consecutive years. The hypolimnion (bottom waters) of two reservoirs remained oxic throughout the entire stratified period, whereas the hypolimnion of the other two reservoirs became hypoxic during the stratified period. Biomass variability (measured as the coefficient of the variation of zooplankton biomass) and compositional variability (measured as the community composition of zooplankton) of crustacean zooplankton communities were similar throughout the summer in the oxic reservoirs; however, biomass variability and compositional variability significantly increased after the onset of hypoxia in the two seasonally-hypoxic reservoirs. The increase in biomass variability in the seasonally-hypoxic reservoirs was driven largely by an increase in the variability of copepod biomass, while the increase in compositional variability was driven by increased variability in the dominance (proportion of total crustacean zooplankton biomass) of copepod taxa. Our results suggest that hypoxia may increase the seasonal variability of crustacean zooplankton communities. 

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4. Atlantic Multidecadal Variability as a Modulator of Precipitation Variability in the Southwest United States

   https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-17-0372.1  

   Lee, Dong Eun; Ting, Mingfang; Vigaud, Nicolas; Kushnir, Yochanan; Barnston, Anthony G. (July 2018, Journal of Climate)
5. The V-band Variability of NGC 4151

   https://doi.org/10.3847/2515-5172/adbbf0  

   Lahue, Veronica; Bentz, Misty C; Padrick, Nolan (March 2025, Research Notes of the AAS)

   Abstract We presentV-band continuum light curves of the active galactic nucleus (AGN) in NGC 4151 created from a new photometric monitoring campaign with the Las Cumbres Observatory network. A total of 336 images were collected from 2023 December to 2024 June, with an average cadence of ∼2 images per day. Using aperture photometry and image subtraction, we constructed continuum light curves. Though both techniques generated similar light curves and demonstrated AGN variability on the scale of ΔV ≈ 0.4 mag, the galactic starlight contribution to the aperture photometry light curve produced a flux offset of ∼19% within a circular aperture of radius 31. The final light curves from this work will be compared against the variability of the broad emission lines to constrain the mass of the supermassive black hole and to model the broad-line region kinematics and geometry in NGC 4151. 

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