Ocean climate connectivity and the future range shifts of marine biodiversity.

Shifting distribution to track suitable climate is a potential strategy for marine species to cope with ocean warming. Yet, the ability of species to successfully reach future climate analogs largely depends on the length of the paths that connect them, and on the exposure of these paths to extreme climates during this transition. Here, we evaluate marine climate connectivity for trajectories between climatic analogs on a global scale. We find that while movement between climatic analogs is more intense in the northern seas of the planet, they require longer trajectories to reach climatic analogs, with high climatic exposure to extreme conditions. On the contrary, the southern seas host areas that have closer climatic analogs, further subjected to a lower exposure to dissimilar climates. These patterns are mirrored in the connectivity properties of the global marine protected areas, highlighting sites which might fail to facilitate connectivity to future climates. Our results suggest that potential shifts between climatic analogs might be subjected to more limitations than those suggested by previous studies, with marine connectivity offering novel insights for the establishment of climate-wise conservation future networks.

The Lyme Borreliosis Spatial Footprint in the 21st Century: A Key Study of Slovenia

After mosquitoes, ticks are the most important vectors of infectious diseases. They play an important role in public health. In recent decades, we discovered new tick-borne diseases; additionally, those that are already known are spreading to new areas because of climate change. Slovenia is an endemic region for Lyme borreliosis and one of the countries with the highest incidence of this disease on a global scale. Thus, the spatial pattern of Slovenian Lyme borreliosis prevalence was modelled with 246 indicators and transformed into 24 uncorrelated predictor variables that were applied in geographically weighted regression and regression tree algorithms. The projected potential shifts in Lyme borreliosis foci by 2050 and 2070 were calculated according to the RCP8.5 climate scenario. These results were further applied to developing a Slovenian Lyme borreliosis infection risk map, which could be used as a preventive decision support system.

From IRL (in-real-life) to URL: Capturing the art biennial amid COVID-19

In early 2020, the unforeseen COVID-19 has brought the art world to its knees, particularly the contemporary art scene needs viewers and feedback to survive. Artists require new channels connecting them with their audiences, while artists’ work needs to be seen and appreciated by the public to sustain its value. In the face of social distancing restrictions and limited visitors, however, many international exhibitions are forced to cancel or postponed. With less to no patronage, will the global pandemic bring the end of the art world? As the global pandemic has forced most social and cultural events moving online, the art biennials are no exception. This article examines the art biennial, the Olympics of the art world, to rediscover the meaning of ‘art’ before and after COVID-19. Integrating virtual presentation and digital campaign between the Taipei Biennial and the Shanghai Biennale, the first running art biennials across the Taiwan Strait, this article analyses and presents the art world’s potential shifts in the post-pandemic future.

COVID-19 Impact on Socioeconomic in the Hospitality Industry

Objective - This paper provides an overview of the COVID-19 crisis and the impact of restriction orders on the hospitality industry in Malaysia. The authors review existing studies related to COVID-19 and the hospitality industry while focusing on challenges faced by the hospitality industry in Malaysia. Then, the authors summarize the socioeconomic impact of COVID-19 on the hospitality industry. Methodology/Technique - This paper examines previous COVID-19 related research published in top-tier hospitality journals during the pandemic period of December 2019 to September 2021. Research studies were categorized by topic area, hospitality industry segment, and research methods used. Additionally, the authors explored the socioeconomic impact of the COVID-19 on hospitality industry using content analysis. Findings - Most articles focused on administration/strategy, marketing, and human resources. The findings showed some potential shifts in the methods used by researchers who published during the pandemic. The findings revealed that the pandemic has negatively impacted the socioeconomic situation in many countries. Employment, public safety, finance, and physical and mental health are among the pressing issues highlighted by most researchers. Based on the findings, the authors provide insights and recommendations for further research. Novelty - This paper represents a pioneering attempt to identify a potentially unexplored area of research related to COVID-19, particularly in Malaysia. The novelty of this paper is that the authors provide substantial discussion on the socioeconomic impact of the COVID-19 on various countries' hospitality and tourism industries. Type of Paper - Empirical. Keywords: Foodservice; Hospitality; Hotel; Malaysia; Pandemic; Socioeconomic impact; Tourism. JEL Classification: Z30

Analysis of Harvard Medical School Countway Library’s MOOC Course, Best Practices for Biomedical Research Data Management: Focus on the effects of COVID-19

The Harvard Medical School Countway Library’s Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) Best Practices for Biomedical Research Data Management launched on Canvas in January 2018. This report analyzes student reported data and course generated analytics from January 2018, through July 8, 2020, for the course Best Practices for Biomedical Research Data Management. By comparing the findings from the enrollment period through March 8, 2020 (pre-pandemic) to the period through July 8, 2020 (during-pandemic), the main goal is to investigate potential shifts due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

No pervasive size trend in global community dynamics.

While recent meta- analyses have suggested that local taxonomic richness has on average remained invariant, potential shifts in functional traits remain underexplored at global scales. Here, by linking the largest cross-taxa community time series database to multiple trait databases, we show that within communities there is no clear trend between size traits and changes in abundance rank over time. This suggests that there is no pervasive tendency across biomes for larger species to be doing proportionally better or worse than smaller species.

Context Dependency in Bark Beetle-Fungus Mutualisms Revisited: Assessing Potential Shifts in Interaction Outcomes Against Varied Genetic, Ecological, and Evolutionary Backgrounds

Context dependency occurs when biological interactions shift in sign or magnitude depending upon genetic, abiotic, and biotic context. Most models of mutualism address systems where interaction outcomes slide along a mutualism-antagonism continuum as environmental conditions vary altering cost-benefit relationships. However, these models do not apply to the many mutualisms that involve by-product benefits and others that do not have antagonistic alternate states. The ubiquity of such mutualisms indicates a need for different approaches and models to understand how environmental variability influences their strength, stability, and ecological roles. In this paper, we apply the concept of context dependency to mutualisms among bark beetles and fungi that span a variety of life strategies and exposures to environmental variability. Bark beetles and their mutualist fungi co-construct a niche based on by-product benefits that allows them to exist in a resource that is otherwise intractable or inaccessible. For the closest of these partnerships, this has resulted in some of the most influential agents of forest mortality in conifer forests worldwide. Understanding these symbioses is key to understanding their influence on forest structure and dynamics and responses to change. We found no evidence that bark beetle mutualisms change in sign as conditions vary, only in magnitude, and that the “closest” (and most environmentally influential) of these partnerships have evolved behaviors and mechanisms to reduce context-dependency and stabilize benefit delivery. The bark beetle-fungus symbioses most likely to slide along a mutualism-antagonism continuum are those involving loosely associated facultative symbionts that may provide benefits under some circumstances and that are horizontally transmitted by the beetle host. Additionally, some symbiotic fungi are never mutualists – these “third party” fungi are exploiters and may shift from commensalism to antagonism depending on environmental context. Our assessment indicates that a careful differentiation between bark beetle-fungus partnerships is crucial to understanding how they influence forests and respond to environmental variability.

Promotion and Tuning of the Electrochemical Reduction of Hetero- and Homobimetallic Zinc Complexes

Compounds containing multiple metals attract significant interest due to the useful redox and reactivity properties of such species. Here, the electrochemical properties of a family of macrocyclic complexes that feature a zinc(II) center paired with a second redox-inactive metal cation in heterobimetallic (Na+, Ca2+, Nd3+, Y3+) motifs or a homobimetallic (Zn2+) motif have been investigated. The new complexes were prepared via a divergent strategy, isolated, and structurally characterized by single-crystal X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis. XRD results show that the structure of the complexes is modulated by the identity of the incorporated secondary metal ions. Cyclic voltammetry data reveal that ligand-centered reduction is promoted in the bimetallic complexes and that the paired metal ions synergistically influence the redox properties of the complexes. Similar to prior work from our group and others, the bimetallic complexes containing stronger Lewis acids undergo more significant reduction potential shifts; contrasting with prior work on complexes containing redox-active metals, however, the zinc(II) complexes studied here display faster electron transfer (as judged by lower reorganization energies, λ) when incorporating di- or tri-valent Lewis acids in contrast to monovalent (and more weakly acidic) sodium. The quantified trends in these data offer insights that help distinguish metal- versus ligand-centered reduction of bimetallic complexes.<br>