Unexpected post-glacial colonisation route explains the white colour of barn owls (Tyto alba) from the British Isles.

The climate fluctuations of the Quaternary shaped the movement of species in and out of glacial refugia. In Europe, the majority of species followed one of the described traditional postglacial recolonization routes from the southern peninsulas towards the north. Like most organisms, barn owls are assumed to have colonized the British Isles by crossing over Doggerland, a land bridge that connected Britain to northern Europe. However, while they are dark rufous in northern Europe, barn owls in the British Isles are conspicuously white, a contrast that could suggest selective forces are at play on the islands. Yet, our analysis of known candidate genes involved in coloration found no signature of selection. Instead, using whole genome sequences and species distribution modelling, we found that owls colonised the British Isles soon after the last glaciation, directly from a white coloured refugium in the Iberian Peninsula, before colonising northern Europe. They would have followed a hitherto unknown post-glacial colonization route to the Isles over a westwards path of suitable habitat in now submerged land in the Bay of Biscay, thus not crossing Doggerland. As such, they inherited the white colour of their Iberian founders and maintained it through low gene flow with the mainland that prevents the import of rufous alleles. Thus, we contend that neutral processes probably explain this contrasting white colour compared to continental owls. With the barn owl being a top predator, we expect future research will show this unanticipated route was used by other species from its paleo community.

Landscape and Climatic Variations Shaped Secondary Contacts amid Barn Owls of the Western Palearctic.

The combined actions of climatic variations and landscape barriers shape the history of natural populations. When organisms follow their shifting niches, obstacles in the landscape can lead to the splitting of populations, on which evolution will then act independently. When two such populations are reunited, secondary contact occurs in a broad range of admixture patterns, from narrow hybrid zones to the complete dissolution of lineages. A previous study suggested that barn owls colonized the Western Palearctic after the last glaciation in a ring-like fashion around the Mediterranean Sea, and conjectured an admixture zone in the Balkans. Here, we take advantage of whole-genome sequences of 94 individuals across the Western Palearctic to reveal the complex history of the species in the region using observational and modeling approaches. Even though our results confirm that two distinct lineages colonized the region, one in Europe and one in the Levant, they suggest that it predates the last glaciation and identify a secondary contact zone between the two in Anatolia. We also show that barn owls recolonized Europe after the glaciation from two distinct glacial refugia: a previously identified western one in Iberia and a new eastern one in Italy. Both glacial lineages now communicate via eastern Europe, in a wide and permeable contact zone. This complex history of populations enlightens the taxonomy of Tyto alba in the region, highlights the key role played by mountain ranges and large water bodies as barriers and illustrates the power of population genomics in uncovering intricate demographic patterns.

Adolescent Perspectives About Online Hate Speech: Qualitative Analysis in the SELMA Project.

OBJECTIVE: This paper aims to study the views, perceptions and representations of online hate speech among adolescents in the Greek cohort of the SELMA Project. METHODS: Qualitative research was conducted in focus groups of 36 Greek adolescents and the data were processed through thematic analysis method. RESULTS: The majority was unfamiliar with the term "hate speech" and confused it with cyberbullying. The target characteristics of hate, ethnicity, race, gender, religion, physical weakness, disability, sexual orientation, and appearance emerged. Regarding people involved in hate speech, perpetrators in both hate speech and bullying were described to share common characteristics. The emphasis was placed on the victims' resilience, as well as their socialization, as protective behaviors. Participants stressed the value of the right to freedom of speech, although there was no agreement on its limits. Additionally, it was highlighted that awareness of what is right and wrong is mostly taught by parents, while the role of education was also important. An important finding was that the majority of teenagers were optimistic, supporting the belief that it is possible to find a realistic solution. CONCLUSION: The findings support the need for prevention strategies in the school environment, so that adolescents will be able to recognize and potentially combat hate speech in the online and offline worlds.

Invited article: Expanded and improved traceability of vibration measurements by laser interferometry.

Traceability to the International System of Units has been established for vibration and shock measurements as specified in international document standards, recommendations, and regulations to ensure product quality, health, and safety. New and upgraded laser methods and techniques developed by national metrology institutes and by leading manufacturers in the past two decades have been swiftly specified as standard methods in the ISO 16063 series of international document standards. In ISO 16063-11:1999, three interferometric methods are specified for the primary calibration of vibration transducers (reference standard accelerometers) in a frequency range from 1 Hz to 10 kHz. In order to specify the same (modified) methods for the calibration of laser vibrometers (ISO 16063-41:2011), their applicability in an expanded frequency range was investigated. Steady-state sinusoidal vibrations were generated by piezoelectric actuators at specific frequencies up to 347 kHz (acceleration amplitudes up to 376 km/s(2)). The displacement amplitude, adjusted by the special interferometric method of coincidence to 158.2 nm (quarter the wavelength of the He-Ne laser light), was measured by the standardized interferometric methods of fringe counting and sine-approximation. The deviations between the measurement results of the three interferometric methods applied simultaneously were smaller than 1%. The limits of measurement uncertainty specified in ISO 16063-11 between 1 Hz to 10 kHz were kept up to frequencies, which are orders of magnitude greater; the uncertainty limit 0.5% specified at the reference frequency 160 Hz was not exceeded at 160 kHz. The reported results were considered during the development of ISO 16063-41 by specifying the instrumentation and procedures for performing calibrations of rectilinear laser vibrometers in the frequency range typically between 0.4 Hz and 50 kHz--the interferometric methods may be applied within expanded frequency ranges using refined techniques and procedures. It is concluded that calibration frequencies up to 0.5 MHz are attainable in compliance with the first international document standard for the calibration of laser vibrometers.