More Like this

1. Skin bacterial community differences among three species of co-occurring Ranid frogs

   https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.15556  

   Gajewski, Zachary; Johnson, Leah R.; Medina, Daniel; Crainer, William W.; Nagy, Christopher M.; Belden, Lisa K. (January 2023, PeerJ)

   Skin microbial communities are an essential part of host health and can play a role in mitigating disease. Host and environmental factors can shape and alter these microbial communities and, therefore, we need to understand to what extent these factors influence microbial communities and how this can impact disease dynamics. Microbial communities have been studied in amphibian systems due to skin microbial communities providing some resistance to the amphibian chytrid fungus, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis . However, we are only starting to understand how host and environmental factors shape these communities for amphibians. In this study, we examined whether amphibian skin bacterial communities differ among host species, host infection status, host developmental stage, and host habitat. We collected skin swabs from tadpoles and adults of three Ranid frog species ( Lithobates spp.) at the Mianus River Gorge Preserve in Bedford, New York, USA, and used 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing to determine bacterial community composition. Our analysis suggests amphibian skin bacterial communities change across host developmental stages, as has been documented previously. Additionally, we found that skin bacterial communities differed among Ranid species, with skin communities on the host species captured in streams or bogs differing from the communities of the species captured on land. Thus, habitat use of different species may drive differences in host-associated microbial communities for closely-related host species. 

   more » « less
2. US lakes are monitored disproportionately less in communities of color

   https://doi.org/10.1002/fee.2803  

   Díaz_Vázquez, Jessica; McCullough, Ian M; Haite, Maggie; Soranno, Patricia A; Cheruvelil, Kendra Spence (September 2024, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment)

   Local‐scale environmental justice studies of freshwaters have found that marginalized populations are more likely than others to be burdened with poor‐quality waters. However, studies have yet to examine whether monitoring data are sufficient to determine the generality of such results at the national scale. We analyzed racial and ethnic community composition surrounding lakes and the presence of one‐time and long‐term (≥15 years) water‐quality data across the conterminous US. Relative to lakes in White and non‐Hispanic communities, lakes in communities of color and Hispanic communities were three times less likely to be monitored at least once. Moreover, as compared to lakes in White communities, lakes in communities of color were seven times less likely to have long‐term monitoring data; similarly, as compared to lakes in non‐Hispanic communities, lakes in Hispanic communities were nineteen times less likely to have long‐term monitoring data. Given this evidence, assessing the current water quality of and temporal changes in lakes in communities of color and Hispanic communities is extremely difficult. To achieve equitable management outcomes for people of all racial and ethnic backgrounds, freshwater monitoring programs must expand their sampling and revise their designs. 

   more » « less
3. EquityWare: Co-Designing Wearables With And For Low Income Communities In The U.S.

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3544548.3580980  

   Cruz, Stefany; Redding, Alexander; Chau, Connie W.; Lu, Claire; Persche, Julia; Hester, Josiah; Jacobs, Maia (April 2023, Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '23))

   Wearables are a potentially vital mechanism for individuals to monitor their health, track behaviors, and stay connected. Unfortunately, both price and a lack of consideration of the needs of low-SES communities have made these devices inaccessible and unusable for communities that would most substantially benefit from their affordances. To address this gap and better understand how members of low-SES communities perceive the potential benefits and barriers to using wearable devices, we conducted 19 semi-structured interviews with people from minority, high crime rate, low-SES communities. Participants emphasized a critical need for safety-related wearable devices in their communities. Still, existing tools do not yet address the specific needs of this community and are out of reach due to several barriers. We distill themes on perceived useful features and ongoing obstacles to guide a much-needed research agenda we term ’Equityware’: building wearable devices based on low-SES communities’ needs, comfortability, and limitations. 

   more » « less
4. Non-polar Opposites: Analyzing the Relationship between Echo Chambers and Hostile Intergroup Interactions on Reddit

   https://doi.org/10.1609/icwsm.v17i1.22138  

   Efstratiou, Alexandros; Blackburn, Jeremy; Caulfield, Tristan; Stringhini, Gianluca; Zannettou, Savvas; De Cristofaro, Emiliano (June 2023, Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media)

   Previous research has documented the existence of both online echo chambers and hostile intergroup interactions. In this paper, we explore the relationship between these two phenomena by studying the activity of 5.97M Reddit users and 421M comments posted over 13 years. We examine whether users who are more engaged in echo chambers are more hostile when they comment on other communities. We then create a typology of relationships between political communities based on whether their users are toxic to each other, whether echo chamber-like engagement with these communities has a polarizing effect, and on the communities' political leanings. We observe both the echo chamber and hostile intergroup interaction phenomena, but neither holds universally across communities. Contrary to popular belief, we find that polarizing and toxic speech is more dominant between communities on the same, rather than opposing, sides of the political spectrum, especially on the left; however, this mostly points to the collective targeting of political outgroups. 

   more » « less
5. Inter-annual facilitation via pollinator support arises with species-specific germination rates in a model of plant–pollinator communities

   https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2022.1485  

   James, Aubrie R. (January 2023, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences)

   Facilitation is likely important for understanding community diversity dynamics, but its myriad potential mechanisms are under-investigated. Studies of pollinator-mediated facilitation in plants, for example, are typically focused on how co-flowering species facilitate each other's pollination within a season. However, pollinator-mediated facilitation could also arise in the form of inter-annual pollination support, where co-occurring plant populations mutually facilitate each other by providing dynamic stability to support a pollinator population through time. In this work, I test this hypothesis with simulation models of annual flowering plant and bee pollinator populations to determine if and how inter-annual pollination support affects the persistence and/or stability of simulated communities. Two-species plant communities persisted at higher rates than single-species communities, and facilitation was strongest in communities with low mean germination rates and highly species-specific responses to environmental variation. Single-species communities were often more stable than their counterparts, likely because of survivorship—persistent single-species communities were necessarily more stable through time to support pollinators. This work shows that competition and facilitation can simultaneously affect plant population dynamics. It also importantly identifies key features of annual plant communities that might exhibit inter-annual pollination support- those with low germination rates and species-specific responses to variation. 

   more » « less