Latest Articles

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  Section: Animal Science ; Topics: Agricultural sciences, Physiology

  Evolution of voluntary intake by dairy cows during the dry period

  Huang, Yayu;   Oble, Lucile; Jurquet, Julien; Delaby, Luc

  10.24072/pcjournal.695 - Peer Community Journal, Volume 6 (2026), article no. e23

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  Dairy cow’s feeding during the dry period is an essential step in ensuring that the next lactation runs smoothly. It has been demonstrated that feeding the dry cows ad libitum with low energy, high fill value diet apears to be beneficial. However, the voluntary intake of dry cows has received little attention. Existing prediction model for intake capacity may fail to capture the specific characteristics of dry cows, particularly regarding their milk yield potential. We conducted this study to evaluate the volutary intake of dairy cows receiving a TMR with high fill value, assess it’s variability depending on cow’s characteristic and adjust the INRA prediction models of intake capacity of dairy cows during the dry period. Sixty-two Holstein cows were enrolled in the experiment which carried out during 3 consecutive years. The dry-off took place 8 weeks before the expected parturition. After a 1-week transition period, cows were fed a total mixed ration (TMR) until calving (the last 6 weeks were considered for analysis). Dry matter intake (DMI) averaged 16.9 kg, it declined from 17.4 kg at week - 6 to 15.9 kg at week - 1 (p < 0.001). Parity (p < 0.001), BCS (p < 0.001), body weight (p < 0.05), week relative to parturition (p < 0.001) and peak milk yield potential of the ended lactation (p < 0.01) significantly influenced DMI. Depending on these results, the INRA model for prediction of intake capacity of pregnant dry cows has been revised and adjusted. Additional measured data on DMI in dry cows under various experimental conditions, such as different diet compositions or varying durations of the dry period, would be requied to confirm the consistency of the new IC prediction model and to refine a more representative coefficient before proposing the final adjusted equation.

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  Section: Archaeology ; Topics: Archaeology ; Conference: CAA2025

  Balancing Visual Credibility and Transparency: A FAIR Approach to 3D Digitisation for Cultural Heritage documentation and dissemination

  Bordignon, Alice;   Collina, Federica;   Fabbri, Francesca;   Fanini, Bruno;   Ferdani, Daniele;   Rega, Maria Felicia;   Sullini, Mattia  

  10.24072/pcjournal.696 - Peer Community Journal, Volume 6 (2026), article no. e22

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  The growing use of 3D technologies in the cultural heritage sector has raised important questions about striking the right balance between making information accessible for dissemination and ensuring its reliability for documentation purposes. Although digital models are now routinely produced and published across museums and research institutions, their processing often involves undocumented interventions, particularly when addressing missing or incomplete data arising from acquisition constraints. This lack of transparency could undermine the scientific value of 3D assets and limit their reusability. This paper presents a methodological pipeline, developed within the CHANGES project (Spoke 4: Virtual Technologies for Museums and Art Collections), which aims to align 3D digitisation practices with the FAIR principles of findability, accessibility, interoperability and reusability. The pipeline was tested on the large-scale digitisation of over 380 objects from the Aldrovandi exhibition and the Giovanni Capellini Geological Museum at the University of Bologna. It introduces a structured workflow that preserves and documents each version of the 3D model derived from the raw acquisition data. To address the aforementioned critical issue of transparency, the Vertex Colour Map methodology is proposed, which visualises operator interventions directly on the geometry. By embedding paradata in the geometry of the 3D model as a semantic layer, this approach enables users to distinguish between regions acquired faithfully and portions that have been reconstructed, thereby ensuring an informed interpretation of the model. Three case studies demonstrate the effectiveness of this method in documenting uncertainty and enhancing accountability in the modelling process. The results show that incorporating systematic paradata visualisation within FAIR-aligned workflows establishes a sustainable framework for the 3D digitisation of Cultural Heritage, enabling models to be used as tools for dissemination, research and long-term preservation simultaneously.

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  Section: Ecology ; Topics: Ecology, Evolution

  The biogeography of evolutionary radiations on oceanic archipelagos

  Brée, Baptiste; Matthews, Thomas J.;   Fernández-Palacios, José María;   Paroissin, Christian; Triantis, Kostas A.;   Whittaker, Robert J.;   Rigal, François  

  10.24072/pcjournal.688 - Peer Community Journal, Volume 6 (2026), article no. e21

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  Evolutionary radiations on oceanic archipelagos (ROAs) have long served as models for understanding evolutionary and ecological processes underlying species diversification. Yet, diversity patterns emerging from ROAs have received relatively little attention from biogeographers, even though characterizing the effect of key geo-environmental factors on island clade species could be important for unraveling diversification dynamics. In this study, we conducted a comparative analysis using island-specific species richness values for approximately one hundred ROAs across major oceanic archipelagos (mostly Hawaii, Canary Islands, Galápagos and Fiji) and taxa (vascular plants, invertebrates and vertebrates). Our aim was to determine whether (1) ROA species richness patterns scale as a function of key geo-environmental factors including island area, geological age, environmental heterogeneity (elevation and topographic complexity) and inter-island isolation, and (2) whether the magnitude of the effects of these factors varies across archipelagos and taxa. Our results identified elevation as a key driver of ROA species richness patterns on islands, supporting existing theoretical and empirical work that highlighted the central role of environmental heterogeneity in driving diversification on oceanic islands. As importantly, we found that the influence of geo-environmental factors varies across archipelagos and taxa, suggesting that unique archipelagic dynamics and biological traits together shape diversification differently. Our findings emphasize the value of applying biogeographical modeling at the resolution of individual radiations to improve our understanding of evolutionary processes on oceanic archipelagos.

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  Section: Ecology ; Topics: Ecology, Evolution

  The SORTEE guidelines for data and code quality control in ecology and evolutionary biology

  Pick, Joel L;   Allen, Bethany J;   Bachelot, Benedicte;   Bairos-Novak, Kevin R;   Brand, Jack A;   Class, Barbara;   Dallas, Tad;   D'Amelio, Pietro B;   Fenollosa, Erola;   Fernández-Juricic, Esteban;   Gomes, Dylan G E;   Grainger, Matthew J;   Guillemaud, Thomas;   John, Christian;   Krasnow, Ruby;   Lagisz, Malgorzata;   Lequime, Sebastian;   Maynard, Daniel S;   Nakagawa, Shinichi;   O'Dea, Rose E;   Paquet, Matthieu;   Petitjean, Quentin;   Sánchez-Tójar, Alfredo;   van Dis, Natalie E;   Wilson, Laura A B;   Ivimey-Cook, Edward R  

  10.24072/pcjournal.687 - Peer Community Journal, Volume 6 (2026), article no. e20

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  Open data and code are crucial to increasing transparency and reproducibility, and in building trust in scientific research. However, despite an increasing number of journals in ecology and evolutionary biology mandating for data and code to be archived alongside published articles, the amount and quality of archived data and code, and subsequent reproducibility of results, has remained worryingly low. As a result, a handful of journals have recruited dedicated data editors, whose role is to help authors increase the overall quality of archived data and code. There is, however, a general lack of consensus around what a data editor should check, how to do it, and to what level of detail, and the process is often vague and hidden from readers and authors alike. Here, with the input from multiple data editors across several journals in ecology and evolutionary biology, we establish and describe the first standardised guidelines for Data and Code Quality Control on behalf of the Society for Open, Reliable, and Transparent Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (SORTEE). We then introduce the SORTEE-led guidelines as a flexible six-stage framework that journals can implement incrementally and/or apply on a case-by-case basis, particularly when some checks (e.g., computational reproducibility) are not feasible (e.g., proprietary software). We conclude with practical advice for journals and authors, arguing that flexible adoption of these standardised guidelines will improve the consistency and transparency of the data editor process for readers, authors, data editors, and the wider scientific community.