The temporal variability of fish habitat utilization is poorly understood in tropical deltaic systems due to high water turbidity, which limits visual censuses, and to the lack of long-term data incorporating climate variability events. We aimed to assess the influence of body size and El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) variability on the cross-habitat utilization rate of 14 fish species of commercial relevance in the Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta (CGSM). We estimated the utilization of mangroves and coastal lagoons based on relative catch frequencies from encircling gillnets used within a long-term catch monitoring program, and then tested for significant changes in each species\' habitat utilization as a function of body size and climate variability. Six species showed a high dependence on mangroves and four on coastal lagoons for most body size classes (including juveniles) and ENSO conditions. One species (Elops smithi) showed a high utilization of mangroves in some ENSO phases and body size classes, while three species showed a high utilization of both mangroves and coastal lagoons. Mangrove utilization by six species (Megalops atlanticus, E. smithi, Centropomus undecimalis, Mugil incilis, Mugil liza, and Ariopsis canteri) increased in larger body sizes at low depths, which usually occurs under dry ENSO conditions, when predatory risk is higher in coastal lagoons. Another species (Caquetaia kraussi) increased its mangrove utilization from the body size at which its feeding habits change. Mangroves and coastal lagoons are important nurseries and habitats for adults of the main commercial fish species in the CGSM. Seascape habitats and fringe/riverine mangroves must be conserved in tropical deltas to promote not only nurseries but also fish lifecycles.

BACKGROUND: The association between body shape and depressive symptoms has been reported in adults. The present study aimed to investigate the association between body shape-specific abdominal obesity and depressive symptoms among multi-regional Asian adults.
METHODS: The 2011-2012 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study and 2022-2023 Hangzhou study were used as the discovery and validation datasets, respectively. Body shape was assessed by BMI categories. Abdominal obesity was defined as a body shape index (ABSI) ≥ 75th centile. Depression was measured using 10-item Centre for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale and Geriatric Depression Scale short 15-item version, respectively. General linear and multinomial logistic models were used to explore the association of ABSI, abdominal obesity with depressive scores and presence, respectively.
RESULTS: A total of 12,229 and 1210 participants were included in the discovery and validation datasets, respectively. A non-linear reverse L-shaped association was found between ABSI and depressive scores. Participants with abdominal obesity had higher depressive scores (β = 0.05, 95%CI = 0.01-0.09; and β = 0.13, 95%CI = 0.01-0.24; respectively). Stratified analyses showed that abdominal obesity was associated with higher depressive scores (β = 0.09, 95%CI = 0.00-0.17; and β = 0.25, 95%CI = 0.05-0.46; respectively) and presence (OR = 1.46, 95%CI = 1.02-2.10; and OR = 3.95, 95%CI = 1.58-9.84; respectively) in overweight adults. Furthermore, abdominal obesity was associated with depressive symptoms among overweight females, but not among males.
CONCLUSIONS: Causal links weren\'t addressed because of the observational study design.
CONCLUSIONS: Abdominal obesity exhibited a positive association with depressive symptoms among Asian overweight adults, particularly in females. Prevention and early diagnosis of depressive symptoms should focus on overweight females.

It has been widely demonstrated that air and sand temperatures influence the anatomy of sea turtle hatchlings. We examined the impact of precipitation during the nesting season on the hatchling body size of loggerhead and green turtles from 37 beaches worldwide. Longitudinal data collected between 2012 and 2018 from Florida (US) and from a sample on Bõa Vista Island (Cabo Verde) carried out in 2019 showed that loggerhead body size at hatching was negatively correlated with precipitation, while precipitation was not correlated with hatchling body size in green turtles. A meta-analysis revealed that precipitation is positively correlated with hatchling mass in loggerhead turtles, while it is positively correlated with straight carapace length and width in green turtle hatchlings. The strongest influence of precipitation was found in the middle of the incubation period of loggerhead turtles in Cabo Verde, and we posit that this is due to an increase in the uptake of water for embryonic growth. These findings highlight the great importance of understanding the correlated effects of regional environmental variables, such as precipitation, on the development of sea turtle hatchlings and will have an impact on the evaluation of ongoing conservation and climate change discussions.

Declines in body size can be an advantageous physiological response to warming temperatures, or a result of physiological and nutritional stress. Either way, studies often assume that these climate-induced trait changes have important implications for fitness and demography. We leveraged almost three decades of capture-mark-recapture data of 51 bird species in Panama to examine if body size has changed through time, how sensitive body size is to changes in weather, and if body size impacts population demography. We evaluated two metrics of body size, structural size (wing length), and body condition (residual body mass). Over the study, wing length changed in varying directions for 88% of species (23 decrease, 22 increase), but the effects were weak, and change was only significant for two species. Conversely, body condition declined for 88% of species (45), effects were stronger, and that change was significant for 22% of species (11). This suggests that nutritional stress is likely the cause of changes in body size, not an adaptive response to warming. Precipitation metrics impacted body condition across three of our four feeding guilds, while wing length was only impacted by weather metrics for two guilds. This suggests that body condition is more sensitive to change in weather metrics compared to wing length. Lastly, we found that the impact of changes in body size on survival and recruitment was variable across species, but these relationships were in the opposite direction, ultimately resulting in no change in population growth for all but one species. Thus, while different stages (adult survival and recruitment) of populations may be impacted by body size, populations appear to be buffered from changes. The lack of an effect on population growth rate suggests that populations may be more resilient to changes in body size, with implications for population persistence under expected climate change.

Ectothermic vertebrates such as reptiles were assumed to be indeterminate growers, which means that there is no terminal point in time or size for growth in their lifetime. In recent years, evidence for the determinate nature of growth in lizards has accumulated, necessitating a re-examination of models of their ontogeny and evolution of sexual size dimorphism (SSD). In the female-larger gecko Paroedura vazimba, we monitored post-embryonic growth over a period of 15 months. After hatching, females grew faster than males but also reached their final body size, that is, closed growth of their vertebrae, earlier than males. The closure of bone growth in females correlates with the onset of reproductive maturation. We compared this pattern with the previously minutely studied, male-larger species Paroedura picta, where we documented determinate growth as well. We propose a model to explain the evolutionary switches in the direction of SSD in lizards based on bipotential effects of ovarian hormones on growth. In this model, male growth is assumed to require no male-specific growth modifier, such as sex-limited hormonal regulators, while growth is feminized by ovarian hormones in females. Low levels of ovarian hormones can promote bone growth, but high levels associated with maturation of the reproductive organs promote senescence of bone growth plates and thus cessation of bone growth. We suggest that models on growth, life-history and evolution of body size in many lizards should acknowledge their determinate nature of growth.

This study evaluated the effect of fish total length (LT) and three water temperatures (10, 15 and 20 °C) on the critical swimming speed (Ucrit) of the species Percilia irwini (2.9-6.3 cm LT), Cheirodon galusdae (3.4-5.5 cm LT), and Trichomycterus areolatus (4.0-6.3 cm LT). An Ucrit estimation model was constructed for each species as a function of temperature and size. The results showed mean Ucrit for P. irwini of 44.56, 53.83 and 63.2 cm s-1 at 10, 15 and 20 °C, respectively: 55.34, 61.74 and 70.05 cm s-1 for C. galusdae and 56.18, 63.01 and 71.09 cm s-1 for T. areolatus. Critical velocity depended on the interaction between species, body length and water. The swimming performance increased significantly with rising temperature in all three species. The velocity also increased with greater fish total length. After controlling for fish total length, velocity also increased with higher temperature in the three species. This research is relevant to small fish species that require conservation measures.

Broaching issues of identity and power with clients in the context of their mental health care is affirmed as an effective multicultural and social justice counseling skill by a growing evidence base. Considerations for broaching body size, including size difference and sizeism, with clients has not yet been studied, thus clinicians lack guidelines for facilitating these conversations. In this consensual qualitative research study, we present themes involved in broaching body topics based on our interviews with nine clinicians specialized in treating clients with eating disorders and body-related counseling concerns. Themes addressed counselor development, conceptualization of broaching, clinical-decision-making, practice, and impact of broaching body topics in session. Clinicians identified professional and personal developments they pursued and would advocate for training future clinicians to better serve clients. Descriptions of unique and shared aspects of broaching clients\' intersectionality and body-size specifically depict avenues for tailoring broaching conversations. Specific examples of effective and ineffective broaching conversations, including language used and psychoeducational components, provide recommendations for practice and connect to observed impacts on the client, counselor, and counseling process.

A principal goal in ecology is to identify the determinants of species abundances in nature. Body size has emerged as a fundamental and repeatable predictor of abundance, with smaller organisms occurring in greater numbers than larger ones. A biogeographic component, known as Bergmann\'s rule, describes the preponderance, across taxonomic groups, of larger-bodied organisms in colder areas. Although undeniably important, the extent to which body size is the key trait underlying these patterns is unclear. We explored these questions in diatoms, unicellular algae of global importance for their roles in carbon fixation and energy flow through marine food webs. Using a phylogenomic dataset from a single lineage with worldwide distribution, we found that body size (cell volume) was strongly correlated with genome size, which varied by 50-fold across species and was driven by differences in the amount of repetitive DNA. However, directional models identified temperature and genome size, not cell size, as having the greatest influence on maximum population growth rate. A global metabarcoding dataset further identified genome size as a strong predictor of species abundance in the ocean, but only in colder regions at high and low latitudes where diatoms with large genomes dominated, a pattern consistent with Bergmann\'s rule. Although species abundances are shaped by myriad interacting abiotic and biotic factors, genome size alone was a remarkably strong predictor of abundance. Taken together, these results highlight the cascading cellular and ecological consequences of macroevolutionary changes in an emergent trait, genome size, one of the most fundamental and irreducible properties of an organism.

Anatomy compromises the precision and accuracy of measurements made of the body length and head size of live snakes. Body measures (snout-vent length, SVL) incorporate many synovial intervertebral joints, each allowing flexion and limited extension and compression. Radiographs of the trunk in 14 phylogenetically diverse species in resting and stretched conditions combined with dissections and histological analysis of intervertebral joints show that the synovial nature of these joints underlies the variance in SVL measures. Similarly, the ubiquity and variety of viscoelastic tissues connecting mobile snout and jaw elements of alethinophidian snakes underlie variances in length and width measures of the head. For the overall size of the head and jaw apparatus, the part that can be most easily and relatively precisely measured for many snakes is the mandible because it has only one mobile joint. As to accuracy, the anatomy of intervertebral and cranial joints supports the hypothesis that in living snakes, the head and trunk have no exact size.

OBJECTIVE: Whole-genome duplication (WGD, polyploidization) has been identified as a driver of genetic and phenotypic novelty, having pervasive consequences for the evolution of lineages. While polyploids are widespread, especially among plants, the long-term establishment of polyploids is exceedingly rare. Genome doubling commonly results in increased cell sizes and metabolic expenses, which may be sufficient to modulate polyploid establishment in environments where their diploid ancestors thrive.
METHODS: We developed a mechanistic simulation model of photosynthetic individuals to test whether changes in size and metabolic efficiency allow autopolyploids to coexist with, or even invade, ancestral diploid populations. Central to the model is metabolic efficiency, which determines how energy obtained from size-dependent photosynthetic production is allocated to basal metabolism as opposed to somatic and reproductive growth. We expected neopolyploids to establish successfully if they have equal or higher metabolic efficiency as diploids or to adapt their life history to offset metabolic inefficiency.
RESULTS: Polyploid invasion was observed across a wide range of metabolic efficiency differences between polyploids and diploids. Polyploids became established in diploid populations even when they had a lower metabolic efficiency, which was facilitated by recurrent formation. Competition for nutrients is a major driver of population dynamics in this model. Perenniality did not qualitatively affect the relative metabolic efficiency from which tetraploids tended to establish.
CONCLUSIONS: Feedback between size-dependent metabolism and energy allocation generated size and age differences between plants with different ploidies. We demonstrated that even small changes in metabolic efficiency are sufficient for the establishment of polyploids.