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While both daytime and nighttime temperatures are increasing with climate change, few studies have experimentally investigated their differential effects under field conditions. We conducted a factorial field experiment examining how day‐ and night‐warming impact the growth, survivorship, and behavior of cabbage white caterpillars (Pieris rapae). In this experiment, the night‐warming only treatment showed the highest rates of caterpillar growth, but also showed the highest mortality, the shortest maximum caterpillar lengths, the least accumulated herbivory, and reduced pupation. Caterpillars in the treatments that were not warmed during the day showed daytime‐shifted growth, and caterpillars in the combined day‐ and night‐warming treatment showed strongly night‐shifted herbivory. Both biotic (e.g., predation risk) and abiotic (e.g., thermal) factors could have contributed to these results. Broadly, these results show the importance of temperature‐mediated behavioral changes in diel activity for caterpillar development and survival. These results also support the emerging hypotheses that periods of reduced activity may be important for successful development, that warmer nighttime conditions could limit a temporal thermal refuge for caterpillars, and that increasing temperatures could increase the likelihood of metabolic meltdown. This experiment also illustrates the value of field studies to provide insights into how ectotherms might respond to ongoing climate change. 

Abstract The Institutional Grammar (IG) is a rigorous tool for analyzing the laws and policies governing nonprofit organizations; however, its use was limited due to the time-consuming nature of hand-coding. We introduce an advance in Natural Language Processing using a semantic role labeling (SRL) classifier that reliably codes rules governing and guiding nonprofit organizations. This paper provides guidance for how to hand-code using the IG, preprocess text for machine learning, and demonstrates the SRL classifier for automated IG coding. We then compare the hand-coding to the SRL coding to demonstrate its accuracy. The advances in machine learning now make it feasible to utilize the IG for nonprofit research questions focused on inter-organizational collaborations, government contracts, federated nonprofit organizational compliance, and nonprofit governance, among others. An added benefit is that the IG is adaptable for different languages, thus enabling cross-national comparative research. By providing examples throughout the paper, we demonstrate how to use the IG and the SRL classifier to address research questions of interest to nonprofit scholars. 

ABSTRACT We examine the role of physical structure versus biotic interactions in structuring host‐associated microbial communities on a marine angiosperm,Zostera marina, eelgrass. Across several months and sites, we compared microbiomes on physical mimics of eelgrass roots and leaves to those on intact plants. We find large, consistent differences in the microbiome of mimics and plants, especially on roots, but also on leaves. Key taxa that are more abundant on leaves have been associated with microalgal and macroalgal disease and merit further investigation to determine their role in mediating plant–microalgal–pathogen interactions. Root associated taxa were associated with sulphur and nitrogen cycling, potentially ameliorating environmental stresses for the plant. Our work identifies targets for future work on the functional role of the seagrass microbiome in promoting the success of these angiosperms in the sea through identifying components of microbial communities that are specific to seagrasses. 

Abstract Fibro‐adipogenic progenitor cells (FAPs) are mesenchymal stem cells that produce extracellular matrix (ECM) and intramuscular adipocytes in skeletal muscle. While FAPs have demonstrated responsiveness to their physical environment, there is limited knowledge of how the ECM substrate of FAPs impacts their differentiation, particularly in livestock animals. We hypothesized that the ECM substrate FAPs are cultured on will differentially impact their adherence, proliferation, and differentiation. Through an initial screen of 9 ECM proteins and their combinations, significant variation of bovine FAP attachment and differentiation across coatings was observed. The ECM substrates fibronectin, collagen 6, vitronectin, and a combination of fibronectin and collagen 6 were selected for further testing. Notably, fibronectin increased cell proliferation and attachment rates, without impairing FAP adipogenic or fibrogenic differentiation compared to the other coatings. Benefits of fibronectin were maintained at lower concentrations and when combined with less favorable coatings such as collagen 6. When assessed for their adipogenic potential on each coating at different substrate stiffnesses, lipid accumulation decreased with increasing substrate stiffness, while cell attachment increased on stiffer substrates. Overall, these results demonstrate the high responsiveness of FAPs to their ECM substrate, along with highlighting fibronectin as a preferred substrate for in vitro experiments with bovine FAPs. 

SUMMARY Daily rhythms in physiology are obvious and widespread. While for millennia it was thought that these cycles represent passive responses to environmental cycles, we now recognize that many of them are governed by circadian oscillators. In plants, these cell‐autonomous oscillators regulate daily processes such as photosynthesis, organ growth, and hormone production, as well as seasonal transitions like flowering. Furthermore, the circadian system gates plant responses to biotic and abiotic stresses, modulating susceptibility to pathogens and environmental extremes in a time‐of‐day‐dependent manner. Variants of circadian clock genes have been repeatedly selected during crop domestication and improvement, highlighting the importance of the circadian system to plants and its relevance for agriculture. Here, I review the history of circadian studies in plants and summarize our current understanding of the molecular nature of the circadian oscillator. I also discuss how this complex network both responds to and is buffered against changes in the environment. Next, I examine how circadian oscillators differ between various tissues and how their activities are coordinated throughout the plant body. Finally, I discuss emerging directions, such as ways in which this understanding can be applied to crop improvement in the face of climate change. 

Abstract Synthetic ensemble forecasts are an important tool for testing the robustness of forecast‐informed reservoir operations (FIRO). These forecasts are statistically generated to mimic the skill of hindcasts derived from operational ensemble forecasting systems, but they can be created for time periods when hindcast data are unavailable, allowing for a more comprehensive evaluation of FIRO policies. Nevertheless, it remains unclear how to determine whether a candidate synthetic ensemble forecasting approach is sufficiently representative of its real‐world counterpart to support FIRO policy evaluation. This highlights a need for formalfit‐for‐purposevalidation frameworks to advance synthetic forecasting as a generalizable risk analysis strategy. We address this research gap by first introducing a novel operations‐based validation framework, where reservoir storage and release simulations under a FIRO policy are compared when forced with a single ensemble hindcast and many different synthetic ensembles. We evaluate the suitability of synthetic forecasts based on formal probabilistic verification of the operational outcomes. Second, we develop a new synthetic ensemble forecasting algorithm and compare it to a previous algorithm using this validation framework across a set of stylized, hydrologically diverse reservoir systems in California. Results reveal clear differences in operational suitability, with the new method consistently outperforming the previous one. These findings demonstrate the promise of the newer synthetic forecasting approach as a generalizable tool for FIRO policy evaluation and robustness testing. They also underscore the value of the proposed validation framework in benchmarking and guiding future improvements in synthetic forecast development. 

Abstract Deep earthquakes require the cold temperatures found in sinking lithosphere to store elastic strain. It has also been proposed that sufficiently high rates of deformation are also required, regardless of the failure mechanism. However, this strain‐rate hypothesis is based on generic time‐dependent and visco‐plastic subduction models, positing a challenge for direct comparisons to present‐day earthquake observations. Here, we present a new numerical modeling approach incorporating location‐specific visco‐elasto‐plastic models to facilitate direct comparison with deep earthquake observations. We present a Proof‐of‐Concept Model using a 2D synthetic slab to demonstrate that this novel approach can reproduce stress and strain‐rate patterns and the stress orientations from a fully time‐dependent model. Applying this method to a 2D profile through the Tonga‐Kermadec subduction zone we find that variations in strain‐rate correlate with seismicity rate and regions of stress in the slab exceeding 500 MPa. Elasticity in the slab leads to formation of a clearly defined neutral plane extending into the transition zone and creating a narrow region of down‐dip compression along the top portion of the slab which broadens across the full width of the slab only within the deep transition zone. In addition, assuming that the strain‐rate hypothesis is correct, we show that peaks in strain‐rate, which are associated with bends in the slab, could be used to constrain the slab shape beyond the envelope of seismicity. 

ABSTRACT Plant cytokinesis results in the formation of the cell plate by the phragmoplast which contains dynamic microtubules serving as the track for the delivery of cell wall builders included in Golgi vesicles. During the centrifugal process of cell plate assembly, new microtubules are assembled and bundled at the leading edge to prepare for vesicle transport while older microtubules are disassembled at the lagging edge upon the completion of vesicle delivery. The turnover of phragmoplast microtubules in this process is thought to be regulated by phosphorylation of the key microtubule bundling factor MAP65. A recent study revealed a surprising role of theα‐Aurora kinase, which is typically known for its role in governing the formation of the bipolar spindle apparatus, in phosphorylating the primary microtubule bundler MAP65‐3 in Arabidopsis. This phosphorylation positively contributes to the expansion of the phragmoplast. The phragmoplast midzone is also the hub for other cytokinesis‐important kinases. It is intriguing how these kinases are targeted and how they may crosstalk with each other to orchestrate the expansion of the phragmoplast.