Why employers should prioritize the well-being of expatriate workers?

New study from the University of Vaasa explores factors influencing expatriates' well-being and work performance

University of Vaasa

 

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Tania Biswas

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Credit: University of Vaasa / Riikka Kalmi

Well-being plays a critical role in maintaining job performance and the decision to stay abroad for expatriates. According to a doctoral dissertation by Tania Biswas from the University of Vaasa, Finland, strong organisational support and favourable working conditions improve their well-being at work, leading to improved job outcomes and reduced turnover. However, high-risk environments and conflicts between work and personal life can reduce well-being, leading to poor performance and an increased desire to quit.

Tania Biswas' doctoral dissertation identifies crucial factors that affect expatriates' well-being and work outcomes. She uses the term expatriate to refer to employees who move abroad either independently or on contract with their employer.

– Job autonomy, social support and work-family balance play an essential role in shaping the expatriate experience, says Biswas, who will defend her dissertation at the University of Vaasa on 1 November.

The dissertation shows that expatriates who find meaning in their international assignments and feel supported by their organisations are more likely to stay engaged and perform well, while those who face social isolation or challenging living conditions may struggle.

– By managing these factors effectively, companies can enhance expatriate retention, performance and satisfaction, says Biswas.

More flexibility, meaningfulness and support needed

International work is becoming more common, particularly in the business sector. As global companies increasingly depend on expatriates for international operations, this research emphasises the importance of supporting expatriate well-being for both individual and organisational success. While working abroad offers unique opportunities, it also presents challenges that can lead to burnout and disengagement if not addressed early.

– To improve mental health and job performance, organisations should strengthen support systems and foster flexibility. The key lies in identifying burnout risks at an early stage and addressing them proactively, says Biswas.

According to the dissertation, offering meaningful assignments that align with expatriates' personal values and cultivating an inclusive environment where foreign workers feel valued can significantly boost well-being. Expatriates can also benefit from assessing the meaningfulness of overseas roles before accepting them.

–  By prioritising well-being, companies can retain key talent and create a more engaged, socially responsible workforce, benefiting both the organisation and society, says Biswas.

The dissertation adopts meta-analytic literature review and quantitative research methods. Data is collected through survey questionnaires administered to members of Finnish trade unions representing high-skilled academic engineers, architects, and business school graduates.

Public defence

The public examination of MBA Tania Biswas’s doctoral dissertation “Beyond Borders: Exploring Factors Influencing Well-being and Work Outcomes in Expatriates” will be held on Friday 1 November 2024 at 12 at the University of Vaasa, Auditorium Nissi.

It is also possible to participate in the defence online (Zoom, password: 072888).

Professor Sari Mauno (Tampere University) will act as an opponent and Professor Liisa Mäkelä as a custos. 

Doctoral dissertation

Biswas, Tania (2024) Beyond Borders: Exploring Factors Influencing Well-being and Work Outcomes in Expatriates. Acta Wasaensia 539. Doctoral dissertation. Vaasan yliopisto / University of Vaasa.

Publication pdf

 

Recent advancements and perspectives of fast-charging composite anodes for lithium-ion batteries

Science China Press

 

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Composite anodes with enhanced ion diffusion kinetics present a transformative opportunity to revolutionize fast-charging design. To illuminate the path towards designing advanced LIBs, this review delves into a comprehensive summary of recent breakthroughs in fast-charging composite anodes, offering valuable insights for the development of novel designs.

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Credit: ©Science China Press

This study is led by Prof. Zheng Liang (Frontiers Science Center for Transformative Molecules, Zhang Jiang Institute for Advanced Study, Shanghai Jiao Tong University) and Dr. Xinyang Yue (Frontiers Science Center for Transformative Molecules, Zhang Jiang Institute for Advanced Study, Shanghai Jiao Tong University). This paper provides a comprehensive review of the recent advancements in fast-charging composite anodes for LIBs, with a pivotal emphasis on the design principles and material selection strategies employed in various composite anode formulations.

The escalating demand for fast-charging lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) has mirrored the rapid proliferation and widespread adoption of electric vehicles and portable electronic devices. Nonetheless, the sluggish diffusion kinetics of lithium ions and electrode degradation in conventional graphite-based anodes pose formidable hurdles in achieving optimal fast-charging capabilities for LIBs. To overcome these challenges, the innovative concept of fast-charging composite anodes, a paradigm shift from traditional single-component designs, has emerged as a promising avenue to enhance the overall performance of LIBs

under rapid charging conditions. In this review, the critical factors that affect the fast-charging performance of composite anodes were fully discussed, including electrode structure, material properties, and electrolyte composition. Additionally, the recent research work on composite anodes for upgrading fast-charging performance was analyzed in detail. Three types of representative composite anodes (graphite-based composite anodes, LTO-based composite anodes, and alloy-typed composite anodes) were assessed and compared systematically in the matter of anode structure, manufacturing process, and battery performance. At last, they have provided an outlook on the potential future developments of fast-charging composite anodes, offering insights into potential breakthroughs and directions for further exploration.

The core content of their Review is as follows.

(1) Comprehensively explored the key factors affecting the fast-charging performance of composite anodes. Ionic transport and charge transfer are two main factors dominating fast charging in anodes. A comprehensive and in-depth analysis of Li-ion diffusion and the rate-determining steps of electrochemical reactions in LIBs provides more systematic guidance for research and improvement.

(2) They systematically evaluated and compared the performance of three representative composite anodes in terms of anode structure, manufacturing process, and battery performance. This comprehensive and systematic comparison helps readers clearly understand the advantages and disadvantages of different types of composite anodes, providing a strong reference for selection in practical applications.

(3) The future research directions for the development of fast-charging composite anodes were envisioned. A deeper insight into the structures and properties of anode materials is vital to guide the design of anodes, which can also provide possibilities for meeting the future requirements of fast charging. Effective in-situ characterization techniques should be applied to gain deeper insights into the complex mechanisms of fast-charging technologies. Integrated, synergistic development of various components in fast-charging batteries should be promoted.

 

See the article:

Recent advancements and perspectives of fast-charging composite anodes for lithium-ion batteries

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-024-2265-9

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Journal

Science China Chemistry

DOI

10.1007/s11426-024-2265-9 

 

Why elephants never forget but fleas have, well, the attention span of a flea

Complexity Science Hub

 

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The framework illustrates how an agent interacts with a changing environment (E) that shifts on time scale τE. The agent senses the environment with a precision τc, here represented by four black-or-white bits. To estimate environmental trends, the agent combines current sensor readings with past memory, which fades over time τm. Coupling between the agent and environment either speeds up or slows down environmental change (τf).

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Credit: Edward D. Lee, Jessica C. Flack and David C. Krakauer

Researchers at the Complexity Science Hub and Santa Fe Institute have developed a model to calculate how quickly or slowly an organism should ideally learn in its surroundings. An organism’s ideal learning rate depends on the pace of environmental change and its life cycle, they say.

Every day, we wake to a world that is different, and we adjust to it. Businesses face new challenges and competitors and adapt or go bust. In biology, this is a question of survival: every organism, from bacteria to blue whales, faces the challenge of adapting to environments that are constantly in flux. Animals must learn where to seek nourishing food, even as those food sources change with the seasons. However, learning takes time and energy – an organism that learns too slowly will lag behind environmental changes, while one that learns too quickly will waste effort trying to track meaningless fluctuations.

The new mathematical model provides a quantitative answer to the question: What is the optimal pace of learning for an organism in a changing world? “The key insight is that the ideal learning rate increases in the same way regardless of the pace of environmental change, whether the organism changes its environment or alters its interaction with it. This suggests a generalizable phenomenon that may underlie learning in a variety of ecosystems,” states CSH PostDoc Eddie Lee.

The researchers' model imagines an environment that alternates between different states, such as wet and dry seasons, at a characteristic tempo. The organism senses this environmental state and records a memory of the past states. But older memories decay in importance over time, at a rate that defines the organism's learning timescale.

LEARNING AT THE SQUARE ROOT OF CHANGE

What is the optimal learning timescale to maximize adaptation to the environment? The model predicts a universal law: the learning timescale should scale as the square root of the environmental timescale.

For example, if the environment fluctuates twice as slowly, the organism's learning rate should decrease by a factor of 1.4 (the square root of 2). This square root scaling represents an optimal compromise between learning too quickly and too slowly. Importantly, a square root relation indicates that there are diminishing returns to longer memory.

“The model also simulates organisms that don't just passively learn, but can actively reshape their environment – an ability called niche construction,” says Lee, who is an ESPRIT Fellow of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) at CSH. If an organism has "stabilizing" powers to make its environment more constant, it gains an evolutionary edge. However, this advantage only accrues if the organism can monopolize the benefits of the stable environment. If freeloading competitors also exploit the stabilized niche, the niche construction strategy falls apart. An example: Beavers actively shape their environment by building dams in rivers, creating stable ponds that provide habitats for themselves and other species. This construction offers them a significant evolutionary advantage, as it ensures a consistent food supply and protection from predators. However, this advantage can diminish if other organisms, like muskrats or fish, exploit the resources of the created habitat.

METABOLIC OVERHEAD FOR LARGE ANIMALS

Finally, the researchers assess how learning ability interacts with the metabolic costs of being alive, meaning the energy demands of the body. They predict that for small, short-lived creatures like insects, the costs of learning and memory are paramount. In contrast, for larger, longer-lived animals like mammals, the costs of learning are dwarfed by metabolic overhead.

This predicts that small, short-lived organisms have well-tuned memory for their environments. “In contrast, larger organisms like elephants have longer memories, but exactly how long they retain information may have more to do with non-learning costs or other types of environments such as social groups which impose further cognitive demands,”, says Lee. Thus, it might not be totally appropriate to deride the well-tuned, “memory of a flea.”

The new model offers a quantitative framework for understanding how organisms balance the competing demands of learning and other survival imperatives in an ever-changing world. The results suggest an optimal pace of adaptation tuned to the speed of environmental change and the lifespan of the organism across the living world–from microbes to humans.

 

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About the study

The study “Constructing stability: optimal learning in noisy ecological niches,” by E.D. Lee, J.C. Flack and D.C. Krakauer was published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (doi: 10.1098/rspb.2024.1606).

 

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About CSH

The Complexity Science Hub (CSH) is Europe’s research center for the study of complex systems. We derive meaning from data from a range of disciplines —  economics, medicine, ecology, and the social sciences — as a basis for actionable solutions for a better world. Established in 2015, we have grown to over 70 researchers, driven by the increasing demand to gain a genuine understanding of the networks that underlie society, from healthcare to supply chains. Through our complexity science approaches linking physics, mathematics, and computational modeling with data and network science, we develop the capacity to address today’s and tomorrow’s challenges.

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Journal

Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences

DOI

10.1098/rspb.2024.1606 

Method of Research

Computational simulation/modeling

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Constructing stability: optimal learning in noisy ecological niches

 

Foreign accents protect people from being judged for bad grammar – study

University of Birmingham

Speaking with a foreign accent mitigates the impact of making grammatical errors, depending on the personality type of the listener, a new study has found.

New research from the University of Birmingham, with collaboration from Cardiff University and the University of Novi Sad (Serbia), has examined how ‘acceptable’ people find grammatical errors they hear, factoring in whether the speaker has a foreign accent or not, and the personality of the listener.

The study, published today (24th September) in the Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, found that in most cases people tend to be more tolerant towards someone with a foreign accent for making grammatical errors, unless they themselves have specific personality traits, e.g. they are highly conscientious.

Professor Dagmar Divjak, Professorial Research Fellow in Cognitive Linguistics and Language Cognition at the University of Birmingham, who led the research, said: “With English being spoken globally and diverse multicultural communities at home, we can expect to speak to people from different parts of the world for whom English is not their first language. This can lead to deviations from the perceived ‘standard’ in conversations, such as foreign accents or grammatical errors, being negatively received and leading to snap judgements about individuals. However, not a lot of research has been done on accent and grammar at the same time. Our research has found that those with foreign accents were not as harshly judged as native-accented people for making grammatical errors. And we found an interesting effect of listener personality.”

The researchers asked 60 first language British English speakers, 30 men and 30 women, recruited in Birmingham, to listen to 40 recordings of short passages in English, with or without grammatical errors in either a British or foreign accent. The poor grammar versions had different types of article errors, such as the omission or overuse of definite and indefinite articles (“the” or “a/an”) or the substitution of one for the other as in “I enjoy Edinburgh Fringe Festival” or “We celebrate the Christmas” or “We exchanged the wishes”. The 40 passages were read aloud by two British and two Polish speakers, one female and one male, at a natural speed.

The participants were then asked to rate on a scale of 1-100 how the language sounded to them, 1 being ‘this is not how I would express myself in English’, and 100 being ‘this is pretty much how I would put it myself’, and how easy it was to understand the speaker, 1 being ‘very difficult’ and 100 ‘very easy’. The participants also filled out a questionnaire to report their personality traits in terms of conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, openness, and neuroticism.

The research found that the article errors were more detrimental in the British accented speech than in the Polish accented speech.

Dr Hui Sun, at the time postdoctoral researcher on the study and now Lecturer in Language and Communication at Cardiff University said: “This could be because grammatical errors in native-accented speech are more unexpected and so more salient to the listeners. It is worth noting that most speech samples, including those with errors, were rated as easy to understand. We also found that the personality traits of the listeners had an impact on the acceptability ratings. For example, we found a clear linear effect of conscientiousness: the more conscientious you are, the less acceptable you find foreign-accented speech, regardless of the presence of grammatical errors. Other personality types showed a more complex, nonlinear pattern.”

Petar Milin, Professor of Psychology of Language and Language Learning at the University of Birmingham added: “This research has found that first-language English speakers are accepting of grammatical errors when the speaker audibly hails from another part of the world. This shows that British people make exceptions for those who may be learning the language, as long as they can understand the meaning of what is being said. Overall, our participants from Birmingham were very tolerant, which could be expected as the city contains a diverse community of people from different parts of the world. The study demonstrates a level of kindness and understanding from our participants which is a real positive to take away.”

The researchers say that these findings could have real-world applications, such as the way English is taught as a second language and understanding how we, as individuals, make judgments based on accents in situations like job interviews.

Professor Divjak concluded: “Our findings could influence how English is taught to people wanting to learn it as a second language for interactive purposes, with less focus on the fiddly specifics of grammar and more emphasis on effective expression. It also underscores the importance of self-awareness, as first-language listeners’ evaluations of foreign-accented speech could have negative consequences, especially in high-stakes situations such as academic admissions, job interviews, and immigration interviews. It is important to raise their awareness of the role personality plays in these evaluations which may help first language speakers with their communication with, and appreciation of, foreign-accented speakers.”    

ENDS
 

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Journal

Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development

DOI

10.1080/01434632.2024.2402489 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Article Title

L1 listeners’ evaluations of LX speech: the role of listener expectations and personality traits

 

A novel neural network for preserving cultural heritage via 3D image reconstruction

Researchers develop a novel neural network model that effectively reconstructs 3D digital images of relief-type cultural heritage objects from old photos

Ritsumeikan University

 

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The innovative multi-task neural network achieves simultaneous depth estimation and soft-edge detection in a single network, producing clear 3D reconstructed images of relief-type cultural heritage objects from a single old photo.

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Credit: Satoshi Tanaka from Ritsumeikan University

Relief carvings or relief sculptures are cultural heritage objects with figures that protrude from a background such as a wall or slab, creating a sense of depth. Commonly found at historical sites worldwide, these artworks are considered to be of immense historical and cultural value. Unfortunately, many such relief carvings at heritage sites across the world suffer from varying degrees of damage and deterioration over time. While modern 3D scanning and photogrammetry techniques can digitally preserve their current form, they cannot restore the original appearance of these carvings before damage. Additionally, traditional methods for restoring them are laborious, and require extensive manual intervention and specialized knowledge.

One promising method is 3D digital reconstruction of these reliefs from old photos, captured before the damage or deterioration. Unlike 3D sculptures or 2D paintings, reliefs have a shallow depth and are meant to be viewed from the front or either side. This means that a single image can effectively provide most of the information required for 3D digital reconstruction algorithms.

In a breakthrough, a multinational research team led by Professor Satoshi Tanaka from the College of Information Science and Engineering at Ritsumeikan University, Japan, along with Dr. Jiao Pan, from the University of Science and Technology Beijing, China, developed an innovative multi-task neural network for 3D reconstruction and digital preservation of reliefs using old photos. “Previously, we proposed a 3D reconstruction method for old reliefs based on monocular depth estimation from photos. Although we achieved 95% reconstruction accuracy, finer details such as human faces and decorations were still missing. This was due to the high compression of depth values in 2D relief images, making it difficult to extract depth variations along edges. Our new method tackles this by enhancing depth estimation, particularly along soft edges, using a novel edge-detection approach,” explains Prof. Tanaka.

The team also included Prof. Liang Li from Ritsumeikan University and Prof. Xiaojuan Ban from the University of Science and Technology Beijing. Their study was presented orally at the international conference ACM Multimedia 2024, held in Australia in October, and was published in MM ’24: Proceedings of the 32nd ACM International Conference on Multimedia on October 28, 2024.

The proposed multi-task neural network performs three tasks, namely semantic segmentation, depth estimation, and soft-edge detection, which work together to enhance the accuracy of 3D reconstruction. The core strength of the network lies in its depth estimation, achieved through a novel soft-edge detector and an edge matching module. Unlike the conventional binary edge classification, the soft-edge detector treats edge detection of relief data as a multi-classification task. Edges in relief images not only represent changes in brightness but also variations in curvature, known as “soft edges”. The soft-edge detector determines the degree of “softness” of these edges in relief images, enhancing depth estimation.

The edge matching module comprises two soft-edge detectors that extract multi-class soft-edge maps and a depth map, from an input relief photo. By matching and detecting differences between the two maps, the network focuses more on the soft-edge regions, resulting in more detailed depth estimation. Finally, the network optimizes a dynamic edge-enhanced loss function, which includes loss from all three tasks, and produces clear and detailed 3D images of reliefs.

The researchers applied this innovative model to reconstruct the hidden reliefs of Borobudur Temple. “The wall reliefs on the ground level of the Borobudur Temple, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Indonesia, are covered by stone walls due to reinforcement work carried out during the Dutch colonial period and cannot be viewed. Our multi-task neural network successfully reconstructed these hidden sections of Borobudur’s ground-level reliefs from surviving old photographs. Through computer visualization and virtual reality, our research now allows virtual exploration of these unseen treasures,” says Prof. Tanaka, highlighting the potential impact of their work.

Discussing the future implications of these findings, he says, “Our technology holds vast potential for preserving and sharing cultural heritage. It opens new opportunities not only for archeologists but also for immersive virtual experiences through VR and metaverse technologies, preserving global heritage for future generations.”

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Reference

Title of original paper: Reconstructing, Understanding, and Analyzing Relief-Type Cultural Heritage from a Single Old Photo

Conference: ACM Multimedia 2024

DOI: 10.1145/3664647.3681612

 

About Ritsumeikan University, Japan

Ritsumeikan University is one of the most prestigious private universities in Japan. Its main campus is in Kyoto, where inspiring settings await researchers. With an unwavering objective to generate social symbiotic values and emergent talents, it aims to emerge as a next-generation research university. It will enhance researcher potential by providing support best suited to the needs of young and leading researchers, according to their career stage. Ritsumeikan University also endeavors to build a global research network as a “knowledge node” and disseminate achievements internationally, thereby contributing to the resolution of social/humanistic issues through interdisciplinary research and social implementation.

Website: http://en.ritsumei.ac.jp/

Ritsumeikan University Research Report: https://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/research/radiant/eng/

 

About Professor Satoshi Tanaka from Ritsumeikan University, Japan

Dr. Satoshi Tanaka is currently a Professor at the College of Information Science and Engineering at Ritsumeikan University. He obtained his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Waseda University in 1982 and 1987, respectively. In addition to being a fellow of the Ritsumeikan Advanced Research Academy (RARA), he is also a member of the Kinugasa Research Organization Art Research Center and the Research Organization of Science and Technology Research Center of Advanced ICT for Medical and Healthcare. He has over 1,700 publications with over 100,000 citations. His research interests include computer graphics, scientific visualization, digital humanities, and medical visualization.

 

About Dr. Jiao Pan from the University of Science and Technology Beijing

Dr. Jiao Pan is currently a lecturer at the School of Intelligence Science and Technology at the University of Science and Technology Beijing. She received her Ph.D. degree from Professor Satoshi Tanaka’s laboratory at Ritsumeikan University in 2022. The current study is based on research conducted by Dr. Pan during her Ph.D. on 3D reconstruction of buried Borobudur Temple reliefs.

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DOI

10.1145/3664647.3681612 

Method of Research

Imaging analysis

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

ICYMI

Researchers sound the alarm: European hedgehogs are now officially in dramatic decline in Europe

What was long suspected has now been confirmed by Danish and international researchers. The European hedgehog has now been categorised as “Near Threatened” on the IUCN’s Red List of Threatened Species.

Aalborg University

 

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Danish hedgehog expert Sophie Lund Rasmussen, Aalborg University.

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Credit: Pia Burmøller Hansen

The European hedgehog – a valued and charming visitor to our gardens – is now officially in decline all over Europe. In one of today’s updates of the Red List for Europe, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) now categorises the European hedgehog as ‘Near Threatened’. According to the IUCN, there is a real risk of the hedgehog being pushed towards extinction unless something is done to reverse the downward trend.

 

Danish researcher behind assessment
The report forming the basis for the IUCN’s new Red List assessment and status change for European hedgehogs was co-authored by the internationally renowned Danish hedgehog expert Sophie Lund Rasmussen, an Adjunct Associate Professor at Aalborg University (AAU), and her colleague Abigail Gazzard, who is Programme Officer for the IUCN SSC Small Mammal Specialist Group.

 

- I find it extremely sad and deeply worrying that a species as cherished and popular as the European hedgehog is disappearing from the wild. It is a species that people really want to take care of, so what does it tell us about the state of nature in general, asks Sophie Lund Rasmussen, Adjunct Associate Professor at AAU.

 

In collaboration with co-assessor Abigail Gazzard, Sophie Lund Rasmussen has evaluated published research and reports and found evidence of a worrying decline in hedgehog populations in several European countries of more than 30 per cent over the past 10 years, for example in countries like Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Germany and the UK. 

 

- I have dedicated my entire life and my research to protecting hedgehogs and to finding out why they are in such steep decline and how we can stop it. That is why I am honoured to have been appointed the expert responsible for collating and assessing the data needed to establish exactly how serious the situation is for the European hedgehog. This is the first step towards being able to launch initiatives that can prevent the hedgehogs from becoming extinct, says Sophie Lund Rasmussen, who also goes by the nickname ‘Dr Hedgehog’.

 

Sophie Lund Rasmussen has been invited to speak in the European Parliament in November at a session dedicated to the decline of the hedgehog population and what the EU and its member states can do to stop this decline.

 

Several threats to hedgehogs
The decline in the hedgehog population is caused by a variety of factors, all of which are man-made. These include traffic, which kills an estimated one-third of the hedgehog population every year. Other reasons include intensified agricultural practices and housing developments , which are destroying the hedgehogs’ natural habitats. Also, hedgehogs suffer a lot of accidents in our gardens. For example, Sophie Lund Rasmussen’s research discovered the world’s oldest hedgehog, Thorvald, who reached the age of 16 years, and died due to wounds inflicted by a dog attack. Research also shows that some models of robotic lawn mowers can pose a danger to hedgehogs. 

 

- As their natural habitats are destroyed, hedgehogs are increasing inhabiting residential gardens. Therefore, the battle to save the hedgehogs will take place in our own backyards. By teaching garden owners how to make their gardens hedgehog-friendly, we can improve the living conditions and survival chances for these charismatic and highly beneficial animals, says Sophie Lund Rasmussen.

 

Denmark lacks data
Unfortunately, we lack data documenting the decline in Denmark, but to fill this data gap, hedgehog researcher Sophie Lund Rasmussen is running the ‘Danmarks Pindsvin’ conservation campaign with the WWF Denmark, asking Danes to help map the hedgehog population in Denmark.

 

Facts about IUCN
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), is an independent international organisation whose purpose is to promote the conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. The IUCN was established in 1948 and is headquartered in the Swiss city of Gland.

 

Seven categories on the IUCN Red List:

• Extinct
• Extinct in the Wild
• Critically Endangered
• Endangered
• Vulnerable
• Near Threatened
• Least Concerned

Danish hedgehog expert Sophie Lund Rasmussen. 

Credit

Photo: Troels Arbøll.

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Journal

Nature

DOI

10.1038/d41586-024-03516-w 

Method of Research

Commentary/editorial

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

European hedgehog’s ‘near threatened’ listing raises concerns for an iconic species

 

New research reveals delayed evolutionary origin of Asteriidae sea stars

PeerJ

 

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Artificial cast of Germanasterias amplipapularia, holotype Nr. 18869a–b in abactinal view (A), and actinal view (B). (C) Details of the disc and arm in abactinal view. (D) Detail of the arms and oral frame in actinal view.

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Credit: DOI: 10.7717/peerj.18169/fig-7

A  study published in PeerJ Life and Environment has reshaped our understanding of the evolutionary history of sea stars, particularly the family Asteriidae. The study, titled Phylogenetic and taxonomic revisions of Jurassic sea stars support a delayed evolutionary origin of the Asteriidae, introduces new findings that challenge longstanding assumptions about the evolutionary timeline of these marine invertebrates.

Sea stars of the superorder Forcipulatacea, comprising approximately 400 species, are integral to marine ecosystems. Over the past century, scientists have debated the systematics of this group, leading to varying classifications. This new research reassesses six well-preserved Jurassic sea star fossils and reveals that none of these Jurassic taxa belong to modern families like Asteriidae. Instead, they represent stem-forcipulatids, suggesting that Asteriidae likely originated later in the Late Cretaceous, rather than the Jurassic, as previously thought.

Key Findings:

• Comprehensive Phylogenetic Reassessment: The study employed cutting-edge phylogenetic methods to analyses 42 fossil and extant sea star species, creating the largest phylogenetic dataset for Forcipulatacea to date. This comprehensive matrix of 120 morphological traits provided a fresh perspective on the evolution of this group.
• Discovery of New Genera: Researchers described two new Jurassic sea star genera, Forbesasterias and Marbleaster, which contribute to our understanding of early sea star diversity and morphology.
• Delayed Origin of Asteriidae: The research concludes that Asteriidae, the largest family within Forcipulatacea, and the third largest family of sea stars, likely evolved during the Late Cretaceous, up to100 million of years after the Jurassic species analyzed in this study. This contradicts previous assumptions that placed the origin of Asteriidae in the Triassic or Early Jurassic.
• Early Diversity of Forcipulatacea: The findings also suggest that Forcipulatacea was more diverse in its early evolutionary stages than previously believed, providing new insights into the adaptive radiation of these species.

Methodology:

The research utilized a Bayesian tip-dating analysis incorporating the fossilized birth-death process to estimate evolutionary relationships and timelines. This method enabled the time calibration of the phylogenetic tree, resulting in a more accurate representation of the evolutionary history of the group.

Lead author Dr. Marine Fau noted, “Our study reshapes how we think about the evolutionary trajectory of one of the most significant clades of sea stars. The delayed origin of Asteriidae has major implications for understanding the diversification of marine species in the Mesozoic era.”

Implications for Marine Biology:

The findings from this research have wide-ranging implications for the field of marine biology, especially for paleontologists and evolutionary biologists. By identifying these Jurassic sea stars as stem-forcipulatids, the study pushes back the timeline for the evolution of modern sea star families and opens new avenues for future research into how these ancient species adapted to their environments.

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Journal

PeerJ

DOI

10.7717/peerj.18169 

Method of Research

Observational study

Article Title

Phylogenetic and taxonomic revisions of Jurassic sea stars support a delayed evolutionary origin of the Asteriidae