On the Brink: Mapping the Last Strongholds of the Critically Endangered Flapper Skate ().

The flapper skate () is a Critically Endangered skate distributed throughout the NE Atlantic and requiring urgent conservation measures. Existing models of the flapper skate's distribution are not detailed enough to inform management. The aim of this study was to develop more highly resolved predictions of the skate's distribution across its range, building on existing studies to provide a comprehensive baseline for flapper skate presence.

Evidence of egg-laying grounds for critically endangered flapper skate (Dipturus intermedius) off Orkney, UK.

Essential fish habitats (EFHs) are critical for fish life-history events, including spawning, breeding, feeding or growth. This study provides evidence of EFHs for the critically endangered flapper skate (Dipturus intermedius) in the waters around the Orkney Isles, Scotland, based on citizen-science observation data. The habitats of potential egg-laying sites were parametrised as >20 m depth, with boulders or exposed bedrock, in moderate current flow (0.

Biodiversity Assessment, DNA Barcoding, and the Minority Majority.

The majority of species on Earth are in "under-studied" groups, and indeed probably the majority of species remain undiscovered and undescribed. Species are natural units of evolution, and they are formed from branching phylogenetic processes that have a mathematical structure. So it follows that we should be able to develop a set of general principles that describe global patterns of species groups, like genera.

Aging in personal and social immunity: do immune traits senesce at the same rate?

How much should an individual invest in immunity as it grows older? Immunity is costly and its value is likely to change across an organism's lifespan. A limited number of studies have focused on how personal immune investment changes with age in insects, but we do not know how social immunity, immune responses that protect kin, changes across lifespan, or how resources are divided between these two arms of the immune response. In this study, both personal and social immune functions are considered in the burying beetle, Nicrophorus vespilloides.