Royal Society Open Science

The Jurassic period was a time of major diversification for Mesozoic marine reptiles, including Ichthyosauria, Plesiosauria and thalattosuchian Crocodylomorpha. The latter originated in the Early Jurassic and thrived during the Late Jurassic. Unfortunately, the Middle Jurassic, a crucial time in their evolution, has a poor fossil record. Here, we document the first evidence of macrophagous/durophagous Machimosaurini-tribe teleosauroid thalattosuchians from the late Bajocian ( ca 169 Ma) in the form of three robust tooth crowns with conical blunt shapes and anastomosed pattern of thick enamel ridges towards the apex, associated with the skeleton of a large ichthyosaur lacking preserved tooth crowns...

In species where females compete for mates, the male often provides the female with resources in addition to gametes. A recently suggested definition of sexual selection proposed that if females only benefit from additional resources that come with each mating and not additional gametes, female intrasexual competition for mating opportunities would result in natural selection rather than sexual selection. The nuptial gift-giving bushcricket Kawanaphila nartee has dynamic sex roles and has been a textbook example of sexual selection acting on females via mating competition...

We report herein the gelation behaviour of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB), a cationic surfactant, in a variety of solvent compositions. A turbid gel of CTAB in a binary solvent mixture at a critical composition was observed to be 1 : 3 v/v toluene : water. The molecular structure of the as-formed gel was investigated by X-ray diffraction and microscopic techniques, namely, optical and polarizing microscopy, scanning electron microscopy and small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS)...

Invertebrate-derived DNA (iDNA) metabarcoding from carrion flies is a powerful, non-invasive tool that has value for assessing vertebrate diversity. However, unknowns exist around the factors that influence vertebrate detections, such as spatial limits to iDNA signals or if detections are influenced by taxonomic class or estimated biomass of the vertebrates of interest. Using a bulk-collection method, we captured flies from within a zoo and along transects extending 4 km away from this location. From 920 flies, we detected 28 vertebrate species...

Sexual dimorphism, the divergence in morphological traits between males and females of the same species, is often accompanied by sex-biased gene expression. However, the majority of research has focused on species with conventional sex roles, where females have the highest energy burden with both egg production and parental care, neglecting the diversity of reproductive roles found in nature. We investigated sex-biased gene expression in Syngnathus typhle , a sex-role reversed species with male pregnancy, allowing us to separate two female traits: egg production and parental care...

Sagittal craniosynostosis (SC) is a congenital condition whereby the newborn skull develops abnormally owing to the premature ossification of the sagittal suture. Spring-assisted cranioplasty (SAC) is a minimally invasive surgical technique to treat SC, where metallic distractors are used to reshape the newborn's head. Although safe and effective, SAC outcomes remain uncertain owing to the limited understanding of skull-distractor interaction and the limited information provided by the analysis of single surgical cases...

For a profound understanding of antagonistic coevolution, it is necessary to identify the coevolving genes. The bacterium Pasteuria and its host, the microcrustacean Daphnia , are a well-characterized paradigm for co-evolution, but the underlying genes remain largely unknown. A genome-wide association study suggested a Pasteuria collagen-like protein 7 (Pcl7) as a candidate mediating parasite attachment and driving its coevolution with the host. Since Pasteuria ramosa cannot currently be genetically manipulated, we used Bacillus thuringiensis to express a fusion protein of a Pcl7 carboxy-terminus from P...

The larvae of the European fire salamander ( Salamandra salamandra ) can inhabit two different habitats: streams and ponds. Streams are characterized by lower predation risks and higher food availability. Thus, ponds are considered a less suitable habitat. To investigate the differential impacts of these two habitats on larval physiology, we measured the stress response of larvae. After successfully validating the measure of water-borne corticosterone release rates in fire salamander larvae, we measured the baseline and stress-induced corticosterone of 64 larvae from ponds and streams in the field...

We present a non-iterative algorithm, FloatStepper, for coupling the motion of a rigid body and an incompressible fluid in computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. The purpose of the algorithm is to remove the so-called added mass instability problem, which may arise when a light, floating body interacts with a heavy fluid. The idea underlying the presented coupling method is to precede every computational time step by a series of prescribed probe body motions in which the fluid response is determined, thus revealing the decomposition of the net force and torque into two components: (i) an added mass contribution proportional to the instantaneous body acceleration and (ii) all other forces and torques...

The manuscript combines rational density functional theory simulations and experimental data to investigate the electrical properties of eight polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). The optimized geometries reveal a preference for one-row, two-row and three-row ring distributions. Band structure plots demonstrate an inverse correlation between the number of aromatic rings and band gap size, with a specific order observed across the PAHs. Gas phase simulations support these findings, though differences in values are noted compared to the literature...

Individual differences in aggressiveness, if consistent across time and contexts, may contribute to the long-term maintenance of social hierarchies in complex animal societies. Although agonistic interactions have previously been used to calculate individuals' positions within a dominance hierarchy, to date the repeatability of agonistic behaviour has not been tested when calculating social rank. Here, we examined the consistency and social relevance of aggressiveness as a personality trait in a free-flying population of greylag geese ( Anser anser )...

Human sensorimotor decision making has a tendency to get 'stuck in a rut', being biased towards selecting a previously implemented action structure (hysteresis). Existing explanations propose this is the consequence of an agent efficiently modifying an existing plan, rather than creating a new plan from scratch. Instead, we propose that hysteresis is an emergent property of a system learning from the consequences of its actions. To examine this, 152 participants moved a cursor to a target on a tablet device while avoiding an obstacle...

There is increasing recognition of the potential pleiotropic effects of melanin pigmentation, particularly on immunity, with reports of variation in haemoparasite infection intensity and immune responses between the morphs of colour-polymorphic bird species. In a population of the black sparrowhawk ( Accipiter melanoleucus ) in western South Africa, light morphs have a higher haemoparasite infection intensity, but no physiological effects of this are apparent. Here, we investigate the possible effects of haemoparasite infection on telomere length in this species and explore whether relative telomere length is associated with either plumage morph or sex...

Criollo cattle, the descendants of animals brought by Iberian colonists to the Americas, have been the subject of natural and human-mediated selection in novel tropical agroecological zones for centuries. Consequently, these breeds have evolved distinct characteristics such as resistance to diseases and exceptional heat tolerance. In addition to European taurine ( Bos taurus ) ancestry, it has been proposed that gene flow from African taurine and Asian indicine ( Bos indicus ) cattle has shaped the ancestry of Criollo cattle...

Social competence-defined as the ability to optimize social behaviour according to available social information-can be influenced by the social environment experienced in early life. In cooperatively breeding vertebrates, the current group size influences behavioural phenotypes, but it is not known whether the group size experienced in early life influences behavioural phenotypes generally or social competence specifically. We tested whether being reared in large versus small groups for the first two months of life affects social behaviours, and associated life-history traits, in the cooperatively breeding cichlid Neolamprologus pulcher between the ages of four and twelve months...

Inarguably, humans perform the richest plethora of prosocial behaviours in the animal kingdom, and these are important for understanding how humans navigate their social environment. The success and failure of strategies human players devise also have implications for determining long-term socio-economic/evolutionary fitness. Following the footsteps of Press and Dyson (2012), I implemented their evolutionary game-theoretic modelling from Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma (a behavioural economic probe of interpersonal cooperation) and re-analysed already published data on human proposer behaviour in the Ultimatum Game (a behavioural economic probe of altruistic punishment) involving 50 human participants versus stochastic computerized opponents with prosocial and individualistic social value orientations...

We develop a contextual measurement model (CMM) that is used for the clarification of the quantum foundations. This model matches Bohr's views on the role of experimental contexts. CMM is based on a contextual probability theory that is connected with generalized probability theory. CMM covers measurements in classical, quantum and semi-classical physics. The CMM formalism is illustrated by a few examples. We consider the CMM framing of classical probability, the von Neumann measurement theory and the quantum instrument theory...

One prediction derived from the disease avoidance account of disgust is that proximal disgust cues (smells, tastes and touches) should elicit this emotion more intensely than distal disgust cues (sights and sounds). If correct, then memories of disgusting experiences should involve smelling, tasting or touching to a greater degree than seeing or hearing. Two surveys were conducted on university students to test this idea, drawing upon their naturalistic experiences. Survey 1 ( N = 127) asked participants to detail their most memorable disgusting, fear-provoking, morally repulsive and yucky/gross experience, with each recollection self-rated for sensory involvement...

This study aimed to compare the ground reaction forces (GRFs) and spatio-temporal parameters as well as their asymmetry ratios in gait between individuals wearing a transfemoral prosthetic simulator (TFSim) and individuals with unilateral transfemoral amputation (TFAmp) across a range of walking speeds (2.0-5.5 km h-1 ). The study recruited 10 non-disabled individuals using TFSim and 10 individuals with unilateral TFAmp using a transfemoral prosthesis. Data were collected using an instrumented treadmill with built-in force plates, and subsequently, the GRFs and spatio-temporal parameters, as well as their asymmetry ratios, were analysed...

Bone cement is one of the materials used in orthopaedics that serves various functions, such as binding bone implants, replacing damaged bones and filling spaces within bones. Various materials have been used to synthesize bone cement, and one promising material for further research is fish bone waste-based bone cement. This study investigates the potential of fish bone waste-based bone cement by incorporating nano fish bone (NFB) and L-arginine (L-Arg) protein into polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) to examine apatite growth...