Dataset Search

Data collected at 71 study sites from 2023 to 2024 for Reves, Olivia P. (2025): Using Environmental DNA Metabarcoding to Inform Biodiversity Conservation in Agricultural Landscapes. Master's thesis, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Files include study site information, taxa by site matrices for vertebrates from environmental DNA metabarcoding using multiple mitochondrial DNA primers (COI, 12S), and bird species audibly detected by a phone app at study sites.

This dataset contains the raw skin temperature data recorded from female Indiana bats (Myotis sodalis) recorded in Indiana and Kentucky from April through August of 2021. This dataset also contains the raw daily heterothermic response variable data that were used in this analysis. This dataset also includes the raw ambient temperature weather data recorded at our Indiana and Kentucky field sites. Lastly, this dataset contains the R script needed to analyze the above dataset.

The diel activity of study animals while feeding at their kills in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California

Vector competence and survival data for Aedes albopictus mosquitoes exposed to Ross River virus

Information to characterize the solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF)-gross primary production (GPP) relationship in C4 cropping systems remains limited. The annual C4 crop corn and perennial C4 crop miscanthus differ in phenology, canopy structure and leaf physiology. Investigating the SIF-GPP relationships in these species could deepen our understanding of SIF-GPP relationships within C4 crops. Using in situ canopy SIF and GPP measurements for both species along with leaf-level measurements, we found considerable differences in the SIF-GPP relationships between corn and miscanthus, with a stronger SIF-GPP relationship and higher slope of SIF-GPP observed in corn compared to miscanthus. These differences were mainly caused by leaf physiology. For miscanthus, high non-photochemical quenching (NPQ) under high light, temperature and water vapor deficit (VPD) conditions caused a large decline of fluorescence yield (ΦF), which further led to a SIF midday depression and weakened the SIF-GPP relationship. The larger slope in corn than miscanthus was mainly due to its higher GPP in mid-summer, largely attributed to the higher leaf photosynthesis and less NPQ. Our results demonstrated variation of the SIF-GPP relationship within C4 crops and highlighted the importance of leaf physiology in determining canopy SIF behaviors and SIF-GPP relationships.

This dataset includes data from a study conducted in southern Illinois, USA, which was published in the Journal of Applied Ecology. The study investigated the interactive effects of fire history and invasion by the non-native grass Microstegium vimineum on fire intensity and oak regeneration in central hardwood forests. The dataset includes data on environmental conditions, historical fire occurrence, experimental fire intensity and fuel load, seedling and juvenile oak characteristics, Microstegium cover, and plot descriptions.

Sulfolobus islandicus, an emerging archaeal model organism, offers unique advantages for metabolic engineering and synthetic biology applications owing to its ability to thrive in extreme environments. Although several genetic tools have been established for this organism, the lack of well-characterized chromosomal integration sites has limited its potential as a cellular factory. Here, we systematically identified and characterized 13 artificial CRISPR RNAs targeting eight integration sites in S. islandicus using the CRISPR-COPIES pipeline and a multi-omics-informed computational workflow. We leveraged the endogenous CRISPR-Cas system to integrate the reporter gene lacS and validated heterologous expression through a β-galactosidase assay, revealing significant positional effects. As a proof of concept, we utilized these sites to genetically manipulate lipid ether composition by overexpressing glycerol dibiphytanyl glycerol tetraether (GDGT) ring synthase B (GrsB). This study expands the genetic toolbox for S. islandicus and advances its potential as a robust platform for archaeal synthetic biology and industrial biotechnology.

This dataset contains information about absorptive roots from 170 plots along a latitudinal and temperature gradient in northern Alaska, including tussock sedges and deciduous alder, birch, and willow shrubs. This dataset accompanies the paper "Impacts of Arctic Shrubs on Root Traits and Belowground Nutrient Cycles Across a Northern Alaskan Climate Gradient," which was published in Frontiers in Plant Sciences. <b>*Note:</b> in the "patch coordinates" tab, the same coordinates/elevation ("Long", "Lat", and "Elev (m)") apply to all patches that share a number. For ex: "Patch" W1, B1, and G1 share the same "Long", "Lat", and "Elev (m)" values as "Patch" A1.

Ethanol and lactate are typical waste products of glucose fermentation. In mammals, glucose is catabolized by glycolysis into circulating lactate, which is broadly used throughout the body as a carbohydrate fuel. Individual cells can both uptake and excrete lactate, uncoupling glycolysis from glucose oxidation. Here we show that similar uncoupling occurs in budding yeast batch cultures of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Issatchenkia orientalis. Even in fermenting S. cerevisiae that is net releasing ethanol, media 13C-ethanol rapidly enters and is oxidized to acetaldehyde and acetyl-CoA. This is evident in exogenous ethanol being a major source of both cytosolic and mitochondrial acetyl units. 2H-tracing reveals that ethanol is also a major source of both NADH and NADPH high-energy electrons, and this role is augmented under oxidative stress conditions. Thus, uncoupling of glycolysis from the oxidation of glucose-derived carbon via rapidly reversible reactions is a conserved feature of eukaryotic metabolism.

This page contains the data for the publication "Myc and Tor drive growth and cell competition in the regeneration blastema of Drosophila wing imaginal discs" published in Development, 2025.

The dataset includes bee community data from a study conducted down in southern Illinois across three forested public land sites. Bee diversity and abundance data, as well as environmental variables, are included for each plot. Each plot was visited a total of four times.

Dataset includes bee trait information and species abundance information for bees collected at 29 forests plots in southern Illinois, USA. Plots are located within three public land sites. Environmental data were also collected for each of the 29 plots.

Data are from a long-term fire manipulation experiment in the Missouri Ozarks, USA. Data include the raw, annual ring-width increment (rwl), basal area increment (BAI), population-level annual growth resistance (Drs) and resilience (Drl) to drought, intrinsic water use efficiency values (WUEi) and oxygen isotopic composition of individual radial growth rings (δ18O) from southern red oak (Quercus falcata) and post oak (Q. stellata) trees. ---------------------- TITLE: Data for "Sixty-five years of fire manipulation reveals climate and fire interact to determine growth rates of Quercus spp." ---------------------- FILE OVERVIEW: This dataset contains four (4) CSV files as described below: Refsland_et_al_ECS20-0465_BAI.csv: annual basal area increment between 1948-2015 for trees across the fire manipulation experiment Refsland_et_al_ECS20-0465_DroughtIndices.csv: population-level drought resistance and resilience of trees during each target drought period Refsland_et_al_ECS20-0465_WUEi.csv: carbon isotope indicators of drought stress for trees across the fire manipulation experiment Refsland_et_al_ECS20-0465_d18Or.csv: oxygen isotope indicators of drought stress for trees across the fire manipulation experiment ---------------------- VARIABLE EXPLANATION: All the variables in those four files are explained as below: treeID: unique character string that identifies subject tree block: integer (1, 2) that identifies the study block plot: integer (1-12) that identifies the plot nested within each study block trt: character string (Annual, Control, Periodic) that identifies the fire treatment of a given plot species: character string (Quercus falcata, Quercus stellata) that identifies species of subject tree year: integer (1948-2015) that identifies the dated year of each tree ring rwl_mm: numerical value representing the annual tree ring-width, in mm bai_cm2: numerical value representing the annual basal area increment, in cm2 timeperiod: integer value (1953, 1964, 2007, 2012) representing the periods encompassing target dry and wet years Drs_2yr: numerical value representing the drought resistance, defined as the population-level annual growth of trees during drought years relative to pre-drought years for a given time period Drl_2yr: numerical value representing the drought resilience, defined as the population-level annual growth of trees following drought years relative to pre-drought years for a given time period stand_ba_m2ha: numerical value representing the total basal area of a given plot, in m2 per ha stand_density_stems_ha: numerical value representing the total stem density of a given plot, in stems per ha pool: numerical value (1-40) identifying the set of tree ring samples pooled for analysis. Samples were pooled by block, plot, year and species period: integer value (1953, 1964, 1980, 2007, 2012) representing the periods encompassing target dry and wet years type: character string (Dry, Wet) indicating the water availability of a given year d13C: numerical value representing the carbon isotopic composition of radial growth rings within a given sample pool, in per mil WUEi: numerical value representing the annual intrinsic water use efficiency of radial growth rings within a given sample pool d18O: numerical value representing the oxygen isotopic composition of radial growth rings within a given sample pool, in per mil

Information on the location, dimensions, time of treefall or death, decay state, wood nutrient, wood pH and wood density data, and soil moisture, slope, distance from forest edge and soil nutrient data associated with the publication "Interspecific wood trait variation predicts decreased carbon residence time in changing forests" authored by Sierra Perez, Jennifer Fraterrigo, and James Dalling. ** <b>Note:</b> Blank cells indicate that no data were collected.

Historical census data collected at Trelease Woods from 1986 to 2004 with information on tree species, diameter at breast height (DBH), and plot location.

Soil data for ten soil cores collected at Trelease Woods in 2022. Soil samples were analyzed with an elemental analyzer via combustion to obtain total carbon (C) and nitrogen. A subset of these samples were analyzed using the Walkley-Black method to obtain organic C. A calibration curve relating organic C and total C was created using these data.

Dataset of the standing dead trees at Trelease Woods in 2022. Dataset contains volume, biomass, decay class, and GPS coordinates for each standing dead tree.

We measured the effects of fire or drought treatment on plant, microbial and biogeochemical responses in temperate deciduous forests invaded by the annual grass Microstegium vimineum with a history of either frequent fire or fire exclusion. Please note, on Documentation tab / Experimental or Sampling Design, “15 (XVI)” should be “16 (XVI)”.

The leaf economics spectrum (LES) describes multivariate correlations in leaf structural, physiological and chemical traits, originally based on diverse C3 species grown under natural ecosystems. However, the specific contribution of C4 species to the global LES is studied less widely. C4 species have a CO2 concentrating mechanism which drives high rates of photosynthesis and improves resource use efficiency, thus potentially pushing them towards the edge of the LES. Here, we measured foliage morphology, structure, photosynthesis, and nutrient content for hundreds of genotypes of the C4 grass Miscanthus × giganteus grown in two common gardens over two seasons. We show substantial trait variations across M. × giganteus genotypes and robust genotypic trait relationships. Compared to the global LES, M. × giganteus genotypes had higher photosynthetic rates, lower stomatal conductance, and less nitrogen content, indicating greater water and photosynthetic nitrogen use efficiency in the C4 species. Additionally, tetraploid genotypes produced thicker leaves with greater leaf mass per area and lower leaf density than triploid genotypes. By expanding the LES relationships across C3 species to include C4 crops, these findings highlight that M. × giganteus occupies the boundary of the global LES and suggest the potential for ploidy to alter LES traits.

Plant oils are increasingly in demand as renewable feedstocks for biodiesel and biochemicals. Currently, oilseeds are the primary source of plant oils. Although the vegetative tissues of plants express lipid metabolism pathways, they do not hyper-accumulate lipids. Elevated synthesis, storage, and accumulation of lipids in vegetative tissues have been achieved by metabolic engineering of sugarcane to produce “oilcane.” This study evaluates the potential of oilcane as a renewable feedstock for the co-production of lipids and fermentable sugars. Oilcane was grown under favorable climatic and field conditions in Florida (FLOC) as well as during an abbreviated growing season, outside its typical growing region, in Illinois (ILOC). The potential lipid yield of 0.35 tons/ha was projected from the hyperaccumulation of fatty acids in the stored vegetative biomass of FLOC, which is approaching the lipid yield of soybean (0.44 tons/ha). Processing of the vegetative tissues of oilcane recovered 0.20 tons/ha, which represents the recovery of 55% of the total lipids from FLOC. Chemical-free hydrothermal bioprocessing of ILOC and FLOC bagasse and leaves at 180 °C for 10 min prevented the degeneration of in situ plant lipids. This allowed the recovery of lipids at the end of the bioprocess with a major fraction of lipids remaining in the biomass residues after pretreatment and saccharification. Improvements through refined biomass processing, crop management, and metabolic engineering are expected to boost lipid yields and make oilcane a prime feedstock for the production of biodiesel.

Living organisms rely on simultaneous reactions catalysed by mutually compatible and selective enzymes to synthesize complex natural products and other metabolites. To combine the advantages of these biological systems with the reactivity of artificial chemical catalysts, chemists have devised sequential, concurrent, and cooperative chemoenzymatic reactions that combine enzymatic and artificial catalysts. Cooperative chemoenzymatic reactions consist of interconnected processes that generate products in yields and selectivities that cannot be obtained when the two reactions are carried out sequentially with their respective substrates. However, such reactions are difficult to develop because chemical and enzymatic catalysts generally operate in different media at different temperatures and can deactivate each other. Owing to these constraints, the vast majority of cooperative chemoenzymatic processes that have been reported over the past 30 years can be divided into just two categories: chemoenzymatic dynamic kinetic resolutions of racemic alcohols and amines, and enzymatic reactions requiring the simultaneous regeneration of a cofactor. New approaches to the development of chemoenzymatic reactions are needed to enable valuable chemical transformations beyond this scope. Here we report a class of cooperative chemoenzymatic reaction that combines photocatalysts that isomerize alkenes with ene-reductases that reduce carbon–carbon double bonds to generate valuable enantioenriched products. This method enables the stereoconvergent reduction of E/Z mixtures of alkenes or reduction of the unreactive stereoisomers of alkenes in yields and enantiomeric excesses that match those obtained from the reduction of the pure, more reactive isomers. The system affords a range of enantioenriched precursors to biologically active compounds. More generally, these results show that the compatibility between photocatalysts and enzymes enables chemoenzymatic processes beyond cofactor regeneration and provides a general strategy for converting stereoselective enzymatic reactions into stereoconvergent ones.

This dataset contains ecological and demographic data for William’s bright‑eyed frog (Boophis williamsi), a critically endangered amphibian restricted to the Ankaratra Massif in Madagascar’s central highlands. Field surveys were conducted between September 2018 – March 2019 and July 2021 across ten 100‑m stream transects to estimate abundance and identify habitat associations for both tadpoles and adult frogs. Data include repeated counts of individuals and associated habitat variables (e.g., canopy cover, substrate type, stream depth, discharge, and temperature). Abundance was estimated using N‑mixture models implemented in R (version 4.3.1) with the ubms package, with separate models for tadpoles and frogs to account for differences in detection probability. The dataset consists of multiple CSV files capturing microhabitat, environmental variables, and raw survey count data (y_frogs.csv and y_tadpoles.csv) and an R script (boophis_abundance.R) used for model fitting. The dataset was compiled for an article accepted in the Herpetological Journal by the British Herpetological Society and is intended to support long‑term monitoring and conservation planning for B. williamsi and other threatened amphibians in Madagascar.

BEPAM, Biofuel and Environmental Policy Analysis Model, models the agricultural sector and determines economically optimal land-use and feedstock mix at the US scale by maximizing the sum of agricultural sector consumers’ and producers’ surplus subject to various resource balances, land availability, and technological constraints under a range of biomass prices, from zero to $140 Mg-1 over the 2016-2030 period. Here BEPAM is used to model SAF production using energy crops and crop residues. BEPAM uses the GAMS format and uses yield and GHG balance projections from the biogeochemical model, DayCent.

Engineering enzymes with novel reactivity and applying them in metabolic pathways to produce valuable products are quite challenging due to the intrinsic complexity of metabolic networks and the need for high in vivo catalytic efficiency. Triacetic acid lactone (TAL), naturally generated by 2-pyrone synthase (2PS), is a platform molecule that can be produced via microbial fermentation and further converted into value-added products. However, these conversions require extra synthetic steps under harsh conditions. We herein report a biocatalytic system for direct generation of TAL derivatives under mild conditions with controlled chemoselectivity by rationally engineering the 2PS active site and then rewiring the biocatalytic pathway in the metabolic network of E. coli to produce high-value products, such as kavalactone precursors, with yields up to 17 mg/L culture. Computer modeling indicates sterics and hydrogen-bond interactions play key roles in tuning the selectivity, efficiency, and yield.

The recalcitrance of lignocellulosic biomass necessitates an efficient pretreatment protocol for operating a successful cellulosic biorefinery. It is critical to improve cellulose accessibility for hydrolysis and fermentation by altering the plant cell wall’s physical structure and chemical composition. Sequential hydrothermal-mechanical refining pretreatment (HMR) allows efficient recovery of cellulosic sugars without utilizing any hazardous chemicals. HMR has been successfully applied to Liberty switchgrass, a bioenergy cultivar released by the USDA, and now it is being applied to oilcane, a recently developed transgenic sugarcane variety engineered to accumulate lipids in its vegetative tissues. Sugar yields of oilcane bagasse (OCB) and switchgrass (SG) treated with HMR are 96.4% and 75.4%, respectively. This study sought to correlate cellulosic sugar yields with structural changes within the cell wall caused by HMR on two distinct bioenergy crops. Simon’s staining technique for the specific surface area analysis showed that HMR increased the specific surface area of pretreated biomass residues by 80-112%. In addition, ATR-FTIR was performed to determine the effects of HMR on physical structures based on the total crystallinity index (TCI) and hydrogen bonding intensity (HBI). Irrespective of biomass type, HMR decreased the initial crystalline cellulose contents of untreated biomass residues by 3.5% and reduced TCI and HBI by 7-13%. The study found that sugar yields were negatively correlated to reducing values of hydrogen bonding intensity, crystalline cellulose content, and total crystallinity index.