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1. Gut microbiome insights from 16S rRNA analysis of 17-year periodical cicadas (Hemiptera: Magicicada spp.) Broods II, VI, and X

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-20527-7  

   Brumfield, Kyle D. ; Raupp, Michael J. ; Haji, Diler ; Simon, Chris ; Graf, Joerg ; Cooley, John R. ; Janton, Susan T. ; Meister, Russell C. ; Huq, Anwar ; Colwell, Rita R. ; et al ( October 2022 , Scientific Reports)

   Periodical cicadas (Hemiptera:Magicicada) have coevolved with obligate bacteriome-inhabiting microbial symbionts, yet little is known about gut microbial symbiont composition or differences in composition among allochronicMagicicadabroods (year classes) which emerge parapatrically or allopatrically in the eastern United States. Here, 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing was performed to determine gut bacterial community profiles of three periodical broods, including II (Connecticut and Virginia, 2013), VI (North Carolina, 2017), and X (Maryland, 2021, and an early emerging nymph collected in Ohio, 2017). Results showed similarities among all nymphal gut microbiomes and between morphologically distinct 17-yearMagicicada, namelyMagicicada septendecim(Broods II and VI) and 17-yearMagicicada cassini(Brood X) providing evidence of a core microbiome, distinct from the microbiome of burrow soil inhabited by the nymphs. Generally, phylaBacteroidetes[Bacteroidota] (> 50% relative abundance),Actinobacteria[Actinomycetota], orProteobacteria[Pseudomonadota] represented the core.Acidobacteriaand generaCupriavidus,Mesorhizobium, andDelftiawere prevalent in nymphs but less frequent in adults. The primary obligate endosymbiont,Sulcia(Bacteroidetes), was dominant amongst core genera detected.Chryseobacteriumwere common in Broods VI and X.Chitinophaga, Arthrobacter, andRenibacteriumwere common in Brood X, andPedobacterwere common to nymphs of Broods II and VI. Further taxonomic assignment of unclassifiedAlphaproteobacteriasequencing reads allowed for detection of multiple copies of theHodgkinia16S rRNA gene, distinguishable as separate operational taxonomic units present simultaneously. As major emergences of the broods examined here occur at 17-year intervals, this study will provide a valuable comparative baseline in this era of a changing climate.

    

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2. Chromosome-Level Genome Assembly and Annotation of a Periodical Cicada Species: Magicicada septendecula

   https://doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evae001  

   Bush, Jonas ; Webster, Cynthia ; Wegrzyn, Jill ; Simon, Chris ; Wilcox, Edward ; Khan, Ruqayya ; Weisz, David ; Dudchenko, Olga ; Aiden, Erez Lieberman ; Frandsen, Paul ; et al ( January 2024 , Genome Biology and Evolution)

   We present a high-quality assembly and annotation of the periodical cicada species, Magicicada septendecula (Hemiptera: Auchenorrhyncha: Cicadidae). Periodical cicadas have a significant ecological impact, serving as a food source for many mammals, reptiles, and birds. Magicicada are well known for their massive emergences of 1 to 3 species that appear in different locations in the eastern United States nearly every year. These year classes (“broods”) emerge dependably every 13 or 17 yr in a given location. Recently, it has become clear that 4-yr early or late emergences of a sizeable portion of a population are an important part of the history of brood formation; however, the biological mechanisms by which they track the passage of time remain a mystery. Using PacBio HiFi reads in conjunction with Hi-C proximity ligation data, we have assembled and annotated the first whole genome for a periodical cicada, an important resource for future phylogenetic and comparative genomic analysis. This also represents the first quality genome assembly and annotation for the Hemipteran superfamily Cicadoidea. With a scaffold N50 of 518.9 Mb and a complete BUSCO score of 96.7%, we are confident that this assembly will serve as a vital resource toward uncovering the genomic basis of periodical cicadas’ long, synchronized life cycles and will provide a robust framework for further investigations into these insects.

    

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3. Analyzing Changing Thermal Features at Puyehue-Cordon Caulle, Chile Using Satellite, Field, and Drone Observations

   Andrea Gomez-Patron, Diego Aron ( January 2022 , AGU Fall Meeting, Chicago, IL & Online Everywhere, 12-16 December 2022)

   The Puyehue-Cordon Caulle (PCC) volcanic complex, Chile, hosts numerous thermal features, including a ~0.8 km3 laccolith formed during the 2011-2012 eruption. Laccoliths are large intrusions that form between country rock layers that have been rarely observed during the process of formation. We use medium-spatial resolution (90 m/pixel) satellite data from the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER), to identify changes at the laccolith and other thermal features within PCC between 2000 and 2022. Previous studies have analyzed thermal behavior using MODIS images, which have low spatial resolution but high temporal resolution, and Landsat images, which have medium spatial resolution, but were only examined during the eruption (2011-2012). Prior research using ASTER data have only recorded the maximum temperature at PCC, while this study analyzes all of the individual thermal features and records both temperature and area for each feature identified in all 41 cloud-free, nighttime ASTER images available over the last 22 years. We focus on changes to seven features observed by satellite with temperatures at least 2 K above background (Trahuilco, Las Sopas, Los Venados, Los Baños/El Azufral, Puyehue, Laccolith, and a new unnamned feature). We create time series for each feature in order to: (1) evaluate temporal changes in area and temperature, (2) detect significant deviations from standard seasonality in non-eruptive periods, and (3) test for statistically significant precursors to the 2011 eruption. We identify both seasonal temperature variation and a general subtle increase in temperature over time at the laccolith. Furthermore, we find growth in the area of the laccolith with temperatures above background since 2016 including two periods of sudden increase in area between 11/2017 - 9/2018 and in mid 2020. We compare the ASTER observations with higher spatial resolution observations of fissures, craters, and fumaroles identified from field observations, drone thermal and optical imagery and high spatial resolution (~1 m/pixel) satellite SAR and optical data. We interpret the thermal changes at the laccolith to be related to fractures and craters in the laccolith exposing hot regions. 

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4. Linking Biodiversity Data Using Evolutionary History

   https://doi.org/10.3897/biss.3.36207  

   McTavish, Emily Jane ( June 2019 , Biodiversity Information Science and Standards)

   All life on earth is linked by a shared evolutionary history. Even before Darwin developed the theory of evolution, Linnaeus categorized types of organisms based on their shared traits. We now know these traits derived from these species’ shared ancestry. This evolutionary history provides a natural framework to harness the enormous quantities of biological data being generated today. The Open Tree of Life project is a collaboration developing tools to curate and share evolutionary estimates (phylogenies) covering the entire tree of life (Hinchliff et al. 2015, McTavish et al. 2017). The tree is viewable at https://tree.opentreeoflife.org, and the data is all freely available online. The taxon identifiers used in the Open Tree unified taxonomy (Rees and Cranston 2017) are mapped to identifiers across biological informatics databases, including the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), NCBI, and others. Linking these identifiers allows researchers to easily unify data from across these different resources (Fig. 1). Leveraging a unified evolutionary framework across the diversity of life provides new avenues for integrative wide scale research. Downstream tools, such as R packages developed by the R OpenSci foundation (rotl, rgbif) (Michonneau et al. 2016, Chamberlain 2017) and others tools (Revell 2012), make accessing and combining this information straightforward for students as well as researchers (e.g. https://mctavishlab.github.io/BIO144/labs/rotl-rgbif.html). Figure 1. Example linking phylogenetic relationships accessed from the Open Tree of Life with specimen location data from Global Biodiversity Information Facility. For example, a recent publication by Santorelli et al. 2018 linked evolutionary information from Open Tree with species locality data gathered from a local field study as well as GBIF species location records to test a river-barrier hypothesis in the Amazon. By combining these data, the authors were able test a widely held biogeographic hypothesis across 1952 species in 14 taxonomic groups, and found that a river that had been postulated to drive endemism, was in fact not a barrier to gene flow. However, data provenance and taxonomic name reconciliation remain key hurdles to applying data from these large digital biodiversity and evolution community resources to answering biological questions. In the Amazonian river analysis, while they leveraged use of GBIF records as a secondary check on their species records, they relied on their an intensive local field study for their major conclusions, and preferred taxon specific phylogenetic resources over Open Tree where they were available (Santorelli et al. 2018). When Li et al. 2018 assessed large scale phylogenetic approaches, including Open Tree, for measuring community diversity, they found that synthesis phylogenies were less resolved than purpose-built phylogenies, but also found that these synthetic phylogenies were sufficient for community level phylogenetic diversity analyses. Nonetheless, data quality concerns have limited adoption of analyses data from centralized resources (McTavish et al. 2017). Taxonomic name recognition and reconciliation across databases also remains a hurdle for large scale analyses, despite several ongoing efforts to improve taxonomic interoperability and unify taxonomies, such at Catalogue of Life + (Bánki et al. 2018). In order to support innovative science, large scale digital data resources need to facilitate data linkage between resources, and address researchers' data quality and provenance concerns. I will present the model that the Open Tree of Life is using to provide evolutionary data at the scale of the entire tree of life, while maintaining traceable provenance to the publications and taxonomies these evolutionary relationships are inferred from. I will discuss the hurdles to adoption of these large scale resources by researchers, as well as the opportunities for new research avenues provided by the connections between evolutionary inferences and biodiversity digital databases. 

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5. Advances in the Evolution and Ecology of 13- and 17-Year Periodical Cicadas

   https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-ento-072121-061108  

   Simon, Chris ; Cooley, John R. ; Karban, Richard ; Sota, Teiji ( January 2022 , Annual Review of Entomology)

   Apart from model organisms, 13- and 17-year periodical cicadas (Hemiptera: Cicadidae: Magicicada) are among the most studied insects in evolution and ecology. They are attractive subjects because they predictably emerge in large numbers; have a complex biogeography shaped by both spatial and temporal isolation; and include three largely sympatric, parallel species groups that are, in a sense, evolutionary replicates. Magicicada are also relatively easy to capture and manipulate, and their spectacular, synchronized mass emergences facilitate outreach and citizen science opportunities. Since the last major review, studies of Magicicada have revealed insights into reproductive character displacement and the nature of species boundaries, provided additional examples of allochronic speciation, found evidence for repeated and parallel (but noncontemporaneous) evolution of 13- and 17-year life cycles, quantified the amount and direction of gene flow through time, revealed phylogeographic patterning resulting from paleoclimate change, examined the timing of juvenile development, and created hypotheses for the evolution of life-cycle control and the future effects of climate changeon Magicicada life cycles. New ecological studies have supported and questioned the role of prime numbers in Magicicada ecology and evolution, found bidirectional shifts in population size over generations, quantified the contribution of Magicicada to nutrient flow in forest ecosystems, and examined behavioral and biochemical interactions between Magicicada and their fungal parasites and bacterial endosymbionts. 

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