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Abstract Animal coloration serves a variety of visually related functions in nature (e.g. mate choice, aposematism and camouflage) but the pigments in integumentary tissues such as skin, scales and feathers may also serve functions unrelated to the visual environment (e.g. temperature regulation, detoxification and pollutant protection). Our understanding of the significance of the non‐visual functions of animal integumentary pigments, as well as how they interact with the visually related functions to shape animal visual systems, remains limited.Furthermore, due to their important roles in shaping species interactions and mediating interactions in the environment, animal colour traits are likely to be impacted by global change (e.g. increased temperatures, altered habitat quality and quantity, increased environmental stochasticity, pollutants and novel species assemblages).Considering the effects of global change on both visual and non‐visual functions is important for understanding whether the selection is acting directly on the pigment or on coloration. Since changing the trait distributions can then lead to changes in visual systems, we advocate for studies to consider all potential functions of integumentary pigments, both visual and non‐visual functions and their interaction.Towards this goal, we first highlight common functions of pigments with a focus on non‐visual functions across animal systems. Then we synthesize our current understanding of how global change can impact pigmentation and discuss factors that can modify the interactions between climate change and pigment function. Lastly, we discuss how changes in colour traits can impact visual systems and provide an example using amphibians and their responses to climate change as a model. Read the freePlain Language Summaryfor this article on the Journal blog. 

Abstract The importance of interdisciplinary approaches for research and education in environmental studies and sciences is well known. Integration of the multiple disciplinary approaches taught in separate courses required within these undergraduate majors and minors, however, remains a challenge. Program faculty often come from different departments and do not have time or space to integrate their own approaches with each other, resulting in individual ways of understanding interdisciplinarity. Secondly, senior capstone, thesis, or other project-based degree requirements often come too late in an undergraduate education to design an integrative project. Students would benefit from prior training in identifying complementary or divergent approaches and insights among academic specializations—a skill built from raising interdisciplinary consciousness. We present a workshop designed to enhance undergraduates’ interdisciplinary consciousness that can be easily deployed within courses or co-curricular programs, specifically summer research programs that are focused on dedicated practice within a field of study. The central question of this project is: How do we facilitate interdisciplinary consciousness and assess its impact on our students? We propose a promising, dialogue-based intervention that can be easily replicated. This dialogue would benefit academic programs like environmental studies and sciences that require the interaction and integration of discipline-based norms. We found that our dialogue intervention opens students’ perspectives on the nature of research, who research is for, epistemological differences, and the importance of practicing the research process, a unique educational experience. These perspectives are crucial to becoming collaborative, twenty-first century professionals. 

Abstract Engaging youth in early and sustained conservation education has important implications for promoting positive attitudes and behaviors in those who will become the future of conservation and management. Toward this goal, visual narratives (comic books, graphic novels) are an increasingly popular method used by conservation scientists to educate young people due to their approachable use of art and narrative storytelling. However, no studies have directly assessed how visual narratives compare with more traditional forms of conservation education for youth. We asked, how does education about biodiversity through visual narrative affect student perceptions and knowledge of science content relative to a traditional resource, and is there a novelty effect when using visual narrative versus traditional resources? To assess our questions, we utilized a semistructured approach to develop a biodiversity education program. Specifically, we developed an original graphic novel (visual narrative treatment) and a slideshow presentation (traditional treatment) with the same content to educate children about wetland biodiversity. We recruited, trained, and randomized 26 third‐grade teachers to deliver either the visual narrative or traditional resource in their classrooms. Students completed pretest, posttest, and follow‐up surveys assessing their perceptions of science and knowledge of the lesson content. Students in the visual narrative treatment held more positive perceptions of science (by 3.79%,p = 0.001), whereas students in the traditional treatment performed better on content quizzes (by 7.97%,p = 0.002). We found evidence for a novelty bias when using the visual narrative but not the traditional resource. These findings point to the importance of understanding the target audience and clearly defining educational goals. Overall, our results contribute to broader understanding of the relative benefits and limitations of conservation education through nontraditional means and of practices for successfully delivering effective, accessible, and rewarding conservation education to educators and youth. 

Art is a common approach for communicating and educating about science, yet it remains unclear the extent to which science art can benefit varied audiences in varied contexts. To examine this gap, we developed an art exhibit based on the findings of two publications in disease ecology. In study 1, we asked visitors with varying formal science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education backgrounds to complete a survey about their interest in science research before and after viewing the exhibit. In study 2, we recruited upper-level ecology undergraduate students to receive one of three treatments: engage with the art exhibit, read the abstracts of the papers, or do neither. Students completed a comprehension quiz immediately after their learning treatment and again 2 weeks later to evaluate retention. Following the exhibit, visitors who did not report a career or major in STEM showed a greater increase in research interest than visitors who did report a career or major in STEM. For the ecology undergraduate students, comprehension quiz scores were higher for students in the abstract group than the art exhibit group, while both groups scored higher than the control group. Retention of information did not significantly differ between the three groups. Overall, these findings suggest that science art exhibits are an effective method for increasing the accessibility of science to broader audiences and that audience identifiers (e.g., level of formal education in STEM) play an important role in audience experience of science communication and science education initiatives. 

Abstract This review summarizes the role of environmental factors on amphibian microbiotas at the organismal, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere levels. At the organismal-level, tissue source, disease status, and experimental manipulations were the strongest predictors of variation in amphibian microbiotas. At the population-level, habitat quality, disease status, and ancestry were commonly documented as drivers of microbiota turnover. At the community-level, studies focused on how species’ niche influence microbiota structure and function. At the ecosystem-level, abiotic and biotic reservoirs were important contributors to microbiota structure. At the biosphere-level, databases, sample banks, and seminatural experiments were commonly used to describe microbiota assembly mechanisms among temperate and tropical amphibians. Collectively, our review demonstrates that environmental factors can influence microbiotas through diverse mechanisms at all biological scales. Importantly, while environmental mechanisms occurring at each of the different scales can interact to shape microbiotas, the past 10 years of research have mostly been characterized by targeted approaches at individual scales. Looking forward, efforts considering how environmental factors at multiple organizational levels interact to shape microbiota diversity and function are paramount. Generating opportunities for meaningful cross-disciplinary interactions and supporting infrastructure for research that spans biological scales are imperative to addressing this gap. 

Abstract Background Increases in temperature variability associated with climate change have critical implications for the phenology of wildlife across the globe. For example, warmer winter temperatures can induce forward shifts in breeding phenology across taxa (“false springs”), which can put organisms at risk of freezing conditions during reproduction or vulnerable early life stages. As human activities continue to encroach on natural ecosystems, it is also important to consider how breeding phenology interacts with other anthropogenic stressors (e.g., pollutants). Using 14 populations of a widespread amphibian (wood frog; Rana sylvatica ), we compared 1) growth; 2) tolerance to a common wetland contaminant (NaCl); and 3) the ability of tadpoles to acclimate to lethal NaCl exposure following sublethal exposure earlier in life. We evaluated these metrics across two breeding seasons (2018 and 2019) and across populations of tadpoles whose parents differed in breeding phenology (earlier- versus later-breeding cohorts). In both years, the earlier-breeding cohorts completed breeding activity prior to a winter storm and later-breeding cohorts completed breeding activities after a winter storm. The freezing conditions that later-breeding cohorts were exposed to in 2018 were more severe in both magnitude and duration than those in 2019. Results In 2018, offspring of the later-breeding cohort were larger but less tolerant of NaCl compared to offspring of the earlier-breeding cohort. The offspring of the earlier-breeding cohort additionally were able to acclimate to a lethal concentration of NaCl following sublethal exposure earlier in life, while the later-breeding cohort became less tolerant of NaCl following acclimation. Interestingly, in 2019, the warmer of the two breeding seasons, we did not detect the negative effects of later breeding phenology on responses to NaCl. Conclusions These results suggest that phenological shifts that expose breeding amphibians to freezing conditions can have cascading consequences on offspring mass and ability to tolerate future stressors but likely depends on the severity of the freeze event. 

Synopsis Global environmental changes induced by human activities are forcing organisms to respond at an unprecedented pace. At present we have only a limited understanding of why some species possess the capacity to respond to these changes while others do not. We introduce the concept of multidimensional phenospace as an organizing construct to understanding organismal evolutionary responses to environmental change. We then describe five barriers that currently challenge our ability to understand these responses: (1) Understanding the parameters of environmental change and their fitness effects, (2) Mapping and integrating phenotypic and genotypic variation, (3) Understanding whether changes in phenospace are heritable, (4) Predicting consistency of genotype to phenotype patterns across space and time, and (5) Determining which traits should be prioritized to understand organismal response to environmental change. For each we suggest one or more solutions that would help us surmount the barrier and improve our ability to predict, and eventually manipulate, organismal capacity to respond to anthropogenic change. Additionally, we provide examples of target species that could be useful to examine interactions between phenotypic plasticity and adaptive evolution in changing phenospace.