Recent Submissions

Article

The community background alters the evolution of thermal performance

(Oxford University Press (OUP), 2024-03-16) Westley, Joseph; García, Francisca C; Warfield, Ruth; Yvon-Durocher, Gabriel; Biological and Environmental Science and Engineering (BESE) Division; Red Sea Research Center (RSRC); Environment and Sustainability Institute, The Centre for Ecology and Conservation, University of Exeter , Penryn, Cornwall , United Kingdom

Microbes are key drivers of global biogeochemical cycles, and their functional roles arey dependent on temperature. Large population sizes and rapid turnover rates mean that the predominant response of microbes to environmental warming is likely to be evolutionary, yet our understanding of evolutionary responses to temperature change in microbial systems is rudimentary. Natural microbial communities are diverse assemblages of interacting taxa. However, most studies investigating the evolutionary response of bacteria to temperature change are focused on monocultures. Here, we utilize high-throughput experimental evolution of bacteria in both monoculture and community contexts along a thermal gradient to determine how interspecific interactions influence the thermal adaptation of community members. We found that community-evolved isolates tended toward higher maximum growth rates across the temperature gradient compared to their monoculture-evolved counterparts. We also saw little evidence of systematic evolutionary change in the shapes of bacterial thermal tolerance curves along the thermal gradient. However, the effect of community background and selection temperature on the evolution of thermal tolerance curves was variable and highly taxon-specific,with some taxa exhibiting pronounced changes in thermal tolerance while others were less impacted. We also found that temperature acted as a strong environmental filter, resulting in the local extinction of taxa along the thermal gradient, implying that temperature-driven ecological change was a key factor shaping the community background upon which evolutionary selection can operate. These findings offer novel insight into how community background impacts thermal adaptation.

Article

Length-Weight Relationships for 32 Species of Cryptobenthic Reef Fishes from the Red Sea

(Hindawi Limited, 2024-03-16) Pombo Ayora, Lucia; Viktor, Nunes Peinemann; Coker, Darren James; Berumen, Michael L.; Red Sea Research Center, Division of Biological and Environmental Science and Engineering, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Thuwal 23955, Saudi Arabia; Marine Science Program; Biological and Environmental Science and Engineering (BESE) Division; Red Sea Research Center (RSRC); Environmental Science and Engineering Program

Cryptobenthic reef fishes (CRFs) are often neglected in reef biodiversity assessments, trophodynamic studies, and biomass models. This oversight is due to the challenges associated with recording them in traditional underwater visual surveys and the scarcity of literature detailing their life history, ecology, and body growth parameters. Given their pivotal role in the functioning and maintenance of coral reef ecosystems, addressing these information gaps for CRF species is of great importance. In this study, we have computed the length-weight relationships (LWRs) for 32 CRF species spanning seven families in the Red Sea. This marks the first comprehensive report of LWR parameters for CRFs from this region, and for 31 of these species, it serves as their first LWR data report. The coefficient of determination (r2) ranged from 0.82 to 0.99, indicating a good fit for the LWRs. Half of the presented species belong to the Gobiidae family, including three undescribed species. In addition, we present LWRs for species from the families Blenniidae (5 spp.), Tripterygiidae (2 spp.), Apogonidae (4 spp.), Pseudochromidae (3 spp.), Plesiopidae (1 spp.), and Scorpaenidae (1 spp.). This research contributes invaluable insights into the growth patterns of CRFs not only in a global context but also beyond, as 50% of the recorded species are endemic to the region. The data generated holds great significance for conducting functional diversity analyses, ecosystem assessments, and coral reef health monitoring. By capturing this critical information, this work provides foundational metrics to take significant strides toward the conservation of these essential coral reef fishes.

Article

PINNslope: seismic data interpolation and local slope estimation with physics#xD;informed neural networks

(Society of Exploration Geophysicists, 2024-03-15) Brandolin, Francesco; Ravasi, Matteo; Alkhalifah, Tariq Ali; Earth Science and Engineering Program; Physical Science and Engineering (PSE) Division

Interpolation of aliased seismic data constitutes a key step in a seismic processing workflow to obtain high-quality velocity models and seismic images. Building on the idea of describing seismic wavefields as a superposition of local plane waves, we propose to interpolate seismic data by using a physics informed neural network (PINN). In the proposed framework, two feed-forward neural networks are jointly trained using the local plane wave differential equation as well as the available data as two terms in the objective function: a primary network assisted by positional encoding is tasked with reconstructing the seismic data, while an auxiliary, smaller network estimates the associated local slopes. Results on synthetic and field data validate the effectiveness of the proposed method in handling aliased (coarsely sampled) data and data with large gaps. Our method compares favorably against a classic least-squares inversion approach regularized by the local plane-wave equation as well as a PINN-based approach with a single network and precomputed local slopes. We find that introducing a second network to estimate the local slopes while at the same time interpolating the aliased data enhances the overall reconstruction capabilities and convergence behavior of the primary network. Moreover, an additional positional encoding layer embedded as the first layer of the wavefield network confers to the network the ability to converge faster, improving the accuracy of the data term.

Article

Resolving the slip-rate inconsistency of the northern Dead Sea fault

(American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), 2024-03-15) Xing, Li; Jonsson, Sigurjon; Liu, Shaozhuo; Ma, Zhangfeng; Castro-Perdomo, Nicolás; Cesca, Simone; Masson, Frédéric; Klinger, Yann; Earth Science and Engineering Program; Physical Science and Engineering (PSE) Division; Earth Observatory of Singapore, Singapore 639798, Singapore.; Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA.; GeoForschungZentrum (GFZ), 14473 Potsdam, Germany.; ITES, EOST Université de Strasbourg, CNRS, 67084 Strasbourg, France.; Université Paris Cité, Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, CNRS, F-75005 Paris, France.

Reported fault slip rates, a key quantity for earthquake hazard and risk analyses, have been inconsistent for the northern Dead Sea fault (DSF). Studies of offset geological and archeological structures suggest a slip rate of 4 to 6 millimeters per year, consistent with the southern DSF, whereas geodetic slip-rate estimates are only 2 to 3 millimeters per year. To resolve this inconsistency and overcome limited access to the northern DSF in Syria, we here use burst-overlap interferometric time-series analysis of satellite radar images to provide an independent slip-rate estimate of ~2.8 millimeters per year. We also show that the high geologic slip rate could, by chance, be inflated by earthquake clustering and suggest that the slip-rate decrease from the southern to northern DSF can be explained by splay faults and diffuse offshore deformation. These results suggest a microplate west of the northern DSF and a lower earthquake hazard for that part of the fault.

Article

Catalyst-Free α-Acetyl Cinnamate/Acetoacetate Exchange to Enable High Creep-Resistant Vitrimers

(Wiley, 2024-03-15) Feng, Hongzhi; Wang, Sheng; Lim, Jason Y.C.; Li, Bofan; Rusli, Wendy; Liu, Feng; Hadjichristidis, Nikos; Li, Zibiao; Zhu, Jin; King Abdullah University of Science and Technology Physical Sciences and Engineering Division Physical Sciences and Engineering Division Bldg Ibn Sina (#3) West, Level 4 Room 4219 23955-6900 Thuwal SAUDI ARABIA; Chemical Science Program; KAUST Catalysis Center (KCC); Physical Science and Engineering (PSE) Division; Chinese Academy of Sciences Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering CHINA; Institute of Sustainability for Chemicals Energy and Environment SGM SINGAPORE; A*STAR Research Entities IMRE SINGAPORE; A*STAR Research Entities ISCE2 SINGAPORE; Chinese Academy of Sciences Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences CHINA

Vitrimers represent an emerging class of polymeric materials that combine the desirable characteristics of both thermoplastics and thermosets achieved through the design of dynamic covalent bonds within the polymer networks. However, these materials are prone to creep due to the inherent instability of dynamic covalent bonds. Consequently, there are pressing demands for the development of robust and stable dynamic covalent chemistries. Here, we report a catalyst-free α-acetyl cinnamate/acetoacetate (α-AC/A) exchange reaction to develop vitrimers with remarkable creep resistance. Small-molecule model studies revealed that the α-AC/A exchange occurred at temperatures above 140 °C in bulk, whereas at 120 °C, this reaction was absent. For demonstration in the case of polymers, copolymers derived from common vinyl monomers were crosslinked with terephthalaldehyde to produce α-AC/A vitrimers with tunable thermal and mechanical performance. All resulting α-AC/A vitrimers exhibited high stability, especially in terms of creep resistance at 120 °C, while retaining commendable reprocessability when subjected to high temperatures. This work showcases the α-AC/A exchange reaction as a novel and robust dynamic covalent chemistry capable of imparting both reprocessability and high stability to cross-linked networks.