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While flexibility in the location of work hours has shown positive organizational effects on productivity and retention, less is known about the earnings effects of telecommuting. We analyze weekly hours spent working from home using the 1989–2008 panels of the National Longitudinal Study of Youth. We describe the demographic and occupational characteristics of the employees engaged in telecommuting, then track their earnings growth with fixed-effects models, focusing on gender and parental status. Results show substantial variation in the earnings effects of telecommuting based on the point in the hours distribution worked from home. Working from home rather than the office produces equal earnings growth in the first 40 hours worked, but \"taking work home\" or overtime telecommuting yields significantly smaller increases than overtime worked on-site. Yet, most observed telecommuting occurs precisely during this low-yield overtime portion of the hours distribution. Few gender or parental status differences emerged in these processes. These trends reflect potentially widespread negative consequences of the growing capacity of workers to perform their work from any location. Rather than enhancing true flexibility in when and where employees work, the capacity to work from home mostly extends the workday and encroaches into what was formerly home and family time.

The recent proliferation of studies examining cross-national variation in the association between parenthood and happiness reveal accumulating evidence of lower levels of happiness among parents than nonparents in most advanced industrialized societies. Conceptualizing parenting as a stressor buffered by institutional support, the authors hypothesize that parental status differences in happiness are smaller in countries providing more resources and support to families. Analyses of the European Social Surveys and International Social Survey Programme reveal considerable variation in the parenthood gap in happiness across countries, with the United States showing the largest disadvantage of parenthood. The authors found that more generous family policies, particularly paid time off and child-care subsidies, are associated with smaller disparities in happiness between parents and nonparents. Moreover, the policies that augment parental happiness do not reduce the happiness of nonparents. These results shed light on macrolevel causes of emotional processes, with important implications for public policy.

We examine how the shift to remote work altered responsibilities for domestic labor among partnered couples and single parents. The study draws on data from a nationally representative survey of 2,200 US adults, including 478 partnered parents and 151 single parents, in April 2020. The closing of schools and child care centers significantly increased demands on working parents in the United States, and in many circumstances reinforced an unequal domestic division of labor.

Water, the most abundant compound on the surface of the Earth and probably in the universe, is the medium of biology, but is much more than that. Water is the most frequent actor in the chemistry of metabolism. Our quantitation here reveals that water accounts for 99.4% of metabolites in Escherichia coli by molar concentration. Between a third and a half of known biochemical reactions involve consumption or production of water. We calculated the chemical flux of water and observed that in the life of a cell, a given water molecule frequently and repeatedly serves as a reaction substrate, intermediate, cofactor, and product. Our results show that as an E. coli cell replicates in the presence of molecular oxygen, an average in vivo water molecule is chemically transformed or is mechanistically involved in catalysis ~ 3.7 times. We conclude that, for biological water, there is no distinction between medium and chemical participant. Chemical transformations of water provide a basis for understanding not only extant biochemistry, but the origins of life. Because the chemistry of water dominates metabolism and also drives biological synthesis and degradation, it seems likely that metabolism co-evolved with biopolymers, which helps to reconcile polymer-first versus metabolism-first theories for the origins of life.

The continuous rise of atmospheric nitrous oxide (N₂O) is an environmental issue of global concern. In biogeochemical studies, N₂O production is commonly assumed to arise solely from enzymatic reactions in microbes and fungi. However, iron, manganese and organic compounds readily undergo redox reactions with intermediates in the nitrogen cycle that produce N₂O abiotically under relevant environmental conditions at circumneutral pH. Although these abiotic N₂O production pathways have been known to occur for close to a century, they are often neglected in modern ecological studies. In this Synthesis and Emerging Ideas paper, we highlight the defining characteristics, environmental controls, and isotopic signatures of abiotic reactions between nitrogen cycle intermediates (hydroxylamine, nitric oxide, and nitrite), redox-active metals (iron and manganese) and organic matter (humic and fulvic acids) that can lead to N₂O production. We also discuss the emerging idea that abiotic reactions coupled to biotic processes have widespread ecological relevance and encourage consideration of abiotic production mechanisms in future biogeochemical investigations of N₂O cycling.

Peat mosses of the genus Sphagnum play a major role in global carbon storage and dominate many northern peatland ecosystems, which are currently being subjected to some of the most rapid climate changes on Earth.Arapidly expanding database indicates that a diverse community of microorganisms is intimately associated with Sphagnum, inhabiting the tissues and surface of the plant. Here we summarize the current state of knowledge regarding the Sphagnum microbiome and provide a perspective for future research directions. Although the majority of the microbiome remains uncultivated and its metabolic capabilities uncharacterized, prokaryotes and fungi have the potential to act as mutualists, symbionts, or antagonists of Sphagnum. For example, methanotrophic and nitrogen-fixing bacteria may benefit the plant host by providing up to 20–30% of Sphagnum carbon and nitrogen, respectively. Next-generation sequencing approaches have enabled the detailed characterization of microbiome community composition in peat mosses. However, as with other ecologically or economically important plants, our knowledge of Sphagnum–microbiome associations is in its infancy. In order to attain a predictive understanding of the role of the microbiome in Sphagnum productivity and ecosystem function, the mechanisms of plant–microbiome interactions and the metabolic potential of constituent microbial populations must be revealed.

The economic circumstances in which children grow up have garnered much scholarly attention due to their close associations with well-being over the life course. While it has been well-documented that children are increasingly growing up in households where their primary financial support comes from their mother, regardless of whether she is partnered or single, the consequences for household economic well-being are unclear. We use the 2014 Survey of Income and Program Participation to quantify how a mother’s transition into primary earner status affects the economic well-being of her household and if the effects differ based on her relationship status. On average, household income declines and more households are unable to meet their economic needs once the mother becomes the primary earner. However, these declines in income are concentrated among partnered-mother households and mothers who transition from partnered to single during the year. At the same time, although many single mothers see an increase in household income, the majority of these households are still unable to meet their economic needs. These findings suggest that the shift to a welfare system that requires employment coupled with structural changes in the labor market have created financial hardship for most families.

Nitrogen availability frequently limits photosynthetic production in Sphagnum moss-dominated high-latitude peatlands, which are crucial carbon-sequestering ecosystems at risk to climate change effects. It has been previously suggested that microbial methane-fueled fixation of atmospheric nitrogen (N 2 ) may occur in these ecosystems, but this process and the organisms involved are largely uncharacterized. Peat mosses of the genus Sphagnum are ecosystem engineers that frequently predominate over photosynthetic production in boreal peatlands. Sphagnum spp. host diverse microbial communities capable of nitrogen fixation (diazotrophy) and methane oxidation (methanotrophy), thereby potentially supporting plant growth under severely nutrient-limited conditions. Moreover, diazotrophic methanotrophs represent a possible “missing link” between the carbon and nitrogen cycles, but the functional contributions of the Sphagnum -associated microbiome remain in question. A combination of metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, and dual-isotope incorporation assays was applied to investigate Sphagnum microbiome community composition across the North American continent and provide empirical evidence for diazotrophic methanotrophy in Sphagnum -dominated ecosystems. Remarkably consistent prokaryotic communities were detected in over 250 Sphagnum SSU rRNA libraries from peatlands across the United States (5 states, 17 bog/fen sites, 18 Sphagnum species), with 12 genera of the core microbiome comprising 60% of the relative microbial abundance. Additionally, nitrogenase ( nifH ) and SSU rRNA gene amplicon analysis revealed that nitrogen-fixing populations made up nearly 15% of the prokaryotic communities, predominated by Nostocales cyanobacteria and Rhizobiales methanotrophs. While cyanobacteria comprised the vast majority (>95%) of diazotrophs detected in amplicon and metagenome analyses, obligate methanotrophs of the genus Methyloferula (order Rhizobiales ) accounted for one-quarter of transcribed nifH genes. Furthermore, in dual-isotope tracer experiments, members of the Rhizobiales showed substantial incorporation of 13 CH 4 and 15 N 2 isotopes into their rRNA. Our study characterizes the core Sphagnum microbiome across large spatial scales and indicates that diazotrophic methanotrophs, here defined as obligate methanotrophs of the rare biosphere ( Methyloferula spp. of the Rhizobiales ) that also carry out diazotrophy, play a keystone role in coupling of the carbon and nitrogen cycles in nutrient-poor peatlands. IMPORTANCE Nitrogen availability frequently limits photosynthetic production in Sphagnum moss-dominated high-latitude peatlands, which are crucial carbon-sequestering ecosystems at risk to climate change effects. It has been previously suggested that microbial methane-fueled fixation of atmospheric nitrogen (N 2 ) may occur in these ecosystems, but this process and the organisms involved are largely uncharacterized. A combination of omics (DNA and RNA characterization) and dual-isotope incorporation approaches illuminated the functional diversity of Sphagnum -associated microbiomes and defined 12 bacterial genera in its core microbiome at the continental scale. Moreover, obligate diazotrophic methanotrophs showed high nitrogen fixation gene expression levels and incorporated a substantial amount of atmospheric nitrogen and methane-driven carbon into their biomass. Thus, these results point to a central role for members of the rare biosphere in Sphagnum microbiomes as keystone species that couple nitrogen fixation to methane oxidation in nutrient-poor peatlands.

We follow female college graduates in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 and compare the trajectories of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)-related occupations to other professional occupations. Results show that women in STEM occupations are significantly more likely to leave their occupational field than professional women, especially early in their career, while few women in either group leave jobs to exit the labor force. Family factors cannot account for the differential loss of STEM workers compared to other professional workers. Few differences in job characteristics emerge either, so these cannot account for the disproportionate loss of STEM workers. What does emerge is that investments and job rewards that generally stimulate field commitment, such as advanced training and high job satisfaction, fail to build commitment among women in STEM.

Bacteria of the SAR11 clade constitute up to one half of all microbial cells in the oxygen-rich surface ocean. SAR11 bacteria are also abundant in oxygen minimum zones (OMZs), where oxygen falls below detection and anaerobic microbes have vital roles in converting bioavailable nitrogen to N 2 gas. Anaerobic metabolism has not yet been observed in SAR11, and it remains unknown how these bacteria contribute to OMZ biogeochemical cycling. Here, genomic analysis of single cells from the world’s largest OMZ revealed previously uncharacterized SAR11 lineages with adaptations for life without oxygen, including genes for respiratory nitrate reductases (Nar). SAR11 nar genes were experimentally verified to encode proteins catalysing the nitrite-producing first step of denitrification and constituted ~40% of OMZ nar transcripts, with transcription peaking in the anoxic zone of maximum nitrate reduction activity. These results link SAR11 to pathways of ocean nitrogen loss, redefining the ecological niche of Earth’s most abundant organismal group. Bacteria of the SAR11 clade constitute up to one half of all marine microbes and are thought to require oxygen for growth; here, a subgroup of SAR11 bacteria are shown to thrive in ocean oxygen minimum zones and to encode abundant respiratory nitrate reductases. An anoxic niche for SAR11 bacteria SAR11 bacteria, the most abundant type of microbe in the world's oceans, are thought to require oxygen for growth, yet they are also abundant in waters where oxygen levels are low. Frank Stewart and colleagues show here that a subgroup of SAR11 bacteria that thrives in ocean oxygen minimum zones have adapted to the microaerobic/anaerobic conditions there, and they encode abundant respiratory nitrate reductases that perform the first step in denitrification. These results redefine the ecological niche of Earth's most abundant organismal group and suggest that they are substantial contributors to nitrogen loss in oxygen minimum zones.