(Acido)bacterial diversity in space and time

Recent technological achievements enabled microbiologists to fully grasp the vast diversity of microbial life that is resident in soils, highly complex matrices of alternating micro-habitats on very small scales. Since then, microbial community composition has been catalogued for many different terrestrial habitats. This triggered the investigation and definition of processes which shape these communities. In most cases, the environment determines community composition, and similar habitats may feature similar microbial communities despite being far apart. However, some habitats have been described as subjected to pronounced neutral processes, which are dispersal, ecological drift or speciation. The balance between these process types is now the subject of many studies looking at microbial communities. It is also clear that these processes need to be monitored on both temporal and spatial scales, as the two dimensions are inseparably interlinked. However, most microbial studies deal with only one aspect, but do not control for the other. In this work, the outcome of a highly sophisticated plot scale experiment is presented encompassing 358 sampling locations distributed between six intra-annual sampling points on a 10 m x 10 m unfertilized grassland site in the Swabian Alb. RNA was extracted from the A-horizon of each soil and the hypervariable region 3 of the ribosomal small subunit was amplified and sequenced with barcoded Illumina sequencing. Roughly 400 million eubacterial reads were obtained. The dataset was used to assess the population dynamics of Acidobacteria, as well as the spatio-temporal co-occurenze of functionally depending microorganism. Additionally, preliminary results motivated the assessment of common methods for the examination of rhizospheric communities. In combination, the diversity of bacterial communities in space and time was tested from different angles, reflecting different research question, and they all revealed a far more complex reality than previously thought

Remote Sensing of Plant Biodiversity

This Open Access volume aims to methodologically improve our understanding of biodiversity by linking disciplines that incorporate remote sensing, and uniting data and perspectives in the fields of biology, landscape ecology, and geography. The book provides a framework for how biodiversity can be detected and evaluated—focusing particularly on plants—using proximal and remotely sensed hyperspectral data and other tools such as LiDAR. The volume, whose chapters bring together a large cross-section of the biodiversity community engaged in these methods, attempts to establish a common language across disciplines for understanding and implementing remote sensing of biodiversity across scales. The first part of the book offers a potential basis for remote detection of biodiversity. An overview of the nature of biodiversity is described, along with ways for determining traits of plant biodiversity through spectral analyses across spatial scales and linking spectral data to the tree of life. The second part details what can be detected spectrally and remotely. Specific instrumentation and technologies are described, as well as the technical challenges of detection and data synthesis, collection and processing. The third part discusses spatial resolution and integration across scales and ends with a vision for developing a global biodiversity monitoring system. Topics include spectral and functional variation across habitats and biomes, biodiversity variables for global scale assessment, and the prospects and pitfalls in remote sensing of biodiversity at the global scale

Remote Sensing of Plant Biodiversity

At last, here it is. For some time now, the world has needed a text providing both a new theoretical foundation and practical guidance on how to approach the challenge of biodiversity decline in the Anthropocene. This is a global challenge demanding global approaches to understand its scope and implications. Until recently, we have simply lacked the tools to do so. We are now entering an era in which we can realistically begin to understand and monitor the multidimensional phenomenon of biodiversity at a planetary scale. This era builds upon three centuries of scientific research on biodiversity at site to landscape levels, augmented over the past two decades by airborne research platforms carrying spectrometers, lidars, and radars for larger-scale observations. Emerging international networks of fine-grain in-situ biodiversity observations complemented by space-based sensors offering coarser-grain imagery—but global coverage—of ecosystem composition, function, and structure together provide the information necessary to monitor and track change in biodiversity globally. This book is a road map on how to observe and interpret terrestrial biodiversity across scales through plants—primary producers and the foundation of the trophic pyramid. It honors the fact that biodiversity exists across different dimensions, including both phylogenetic and functional. Then, it relates these aspects of biodiversity to another dimension, the spectral diversity captured by remote sensing instruments operating at scales from leaf to canopy to biome. The biodiversity community has needed a Rosetta Stone to translate between the language of satellite remote sensing and its resulting spectral diversity and the languages of those exploring the phylogenetic diversity and functional trait diversity of life on Earth. By assembling the vital translation, this volume has globalized our ability to track biodiversity state and change. Thus, a global problem meets a key component of the global solution. The editors have cleverly built the book in three parts. Part 1 addresses the theory behind the remote sensing of terrestrial plant biodiversity: why spectral diversity relates to plant functional traits and phylogenetic diversity. Starting with first principles, it connects plant biochemistry, physiology, and macroecology to remotely sensed spectra and explores the processes behind the patterns we observe. Examples from the field demonstrate the rising synthesis of multiple disciplines to create a new cross-spatial and spectral science of biodiversity. Part 2 discusses how to implement this evolving science. It focuses on the plethora of novel in-situ, airborne, and spaceborne Earth observation tools currently and soon to be available while also incorporating the ways of actually making biodiversity measurements with these tools. It includes instructions for organizing and conducting a field campaign. Throughout, there is a focus on the burgeoning field of imaging spectroscopy, which is revolutionizing our ability to characterize life remotely. Part 3 takes on an overarching issue for any effort to globalize biodiversity observations, the issue of scale. It addresses scale from two perspectives. The first is that of combining observations across varying spatial, temporal, and spectral resolutions for better understanding—that is, what scales and how. This is an area of ongoing research driven by a confluence of innovations in observation systems and rising computational capacity. The second is the organizational side of the scaling challenge. It explores existing frameworks for integrating multi-scale observations within global networks. The focus here is on what practical steps can be taken to organize multi-scale data and what is already happening in this regard. These frameworks include essential biodiversity variables and the Group on Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO BON). This book constitutes an end-to-end guide uniting the latest in research and techniques to cover the theory and practice of the remote sensing of plant biodiversity. In putting it together, the editors and their coauthors, all preeminent in their fields, have done a great service for those seeking to understand and conserve life on Earth—just when we need it most. For if the world is ever to construct a coordinated response to the planetwide crisis of biodiversity loss, it must first assemble adequate—and global—measures of what we are losing

The role of visual adaptation in cichlid fish speciation

D. Shane Wright (1) , Ole Seehausen (2), Ton G.G. Groothuis (1), Martine E. Maan (1) (1) University of Groningen; GELIFES; EGDB(2) Department of Fish Ecology & Evolution, EAWAG Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Biogeochemistry, Kastanienbaum AND Institute of Ecology and Evolution, Aquatic Ecology, University of Bern.In less than 15,000 years, Lake Victoria cichlid fishes have radiated into as many as 500 different species. Ecological and sexual sel ection are thought to contribute to this ongoing speciation process, but genetic differentiation remains low. However, recent work in visual pigment genes, opsins, has shown more diversity. Unlike neighboring Lakes Malawi and Tanganyika, Lake Victoria is highly turbid, resulting in a long wavelength shift in the light spectrum with increasing depth, providing an environmental gradient for exploring divergent coevolution in sensory systems and colour signals via sensory drive. Pundamilia pundamila and Pundamilia nyererei are two sympatric species found at rocky islands across southern portions of Lake Victoria, differing in male colouration and the depth they reside. Previous work has shown species differentiation in colour discrimination, corresponding to divergent female preferences for conspecific male colouration. A mechanistic link between colour vision and preference would provide a rapid route to reproductive isolation between divergently adapting populations. This link is tested by experimental manip ulation of colour vision - raising both species and their hybrids under light conditions mimicking shallow and deep habitats. We quantify the expression of retinal opsins and test behaviours important for speciation: mate choice, habitat preference, and fo raging performance

Theme Issue Honoring Professor Robert Verpoorte's 75th Birthday: Past, Current and Future of Natural Products Research

This theme issue is to celebrate Professor Robert Verpoorte’s 75th birthday. Prof. Verpoorte has been working in Leiden University over 40 years. There is no need to dwell upon the contributions of Dr. Verpoorte to plant-derived natural products research during his whole life. Dr. Verpoorte was a highly productive scientist throughout his academic career, with over 800 scientific publications in the form of research papers, books, and book chapters. His research interests are very diverse, cover- ing numerous topics related to plant-based natural products such as plant cell biotech- nology, biosynthesis, metabolomics, genetic engineering, and green technology, as well as the isolation of new biologically active compounds. He has left indelible footprints in all these fields, and he is widely recognised as a pioneer in the work of the biosynthesis of indole alkaloids, NMR-based metabolomics, and green technology in natural products production. As close friends and colleagues who have been in nearly daily contact with him over the last 20 years viewing all of these remarkable scientific contributions, we felt compelled to recognize this by the publication of a Special Issue of this journal dedicated to him.Thus, this Special Issue has now finally been released with the help of many of his colleagues and former students as a token of our gratitude to his impressive work.The Special Issue covers five main natural products topics: (1) chemical profiling and metabolomics, (2) separation/isolation and identification of plant specialized metabolites, (3) pharmacognosy of natural products to identify bioactive molecules from natural prod- ucts, (4) novel formulation of natural products, and (5) overview of natural products as a source of bioactive molecules

Abstracts of manuscripts submitted in 1990 for publication

This volume contans the abstracts of manuscripts submitted for publication during calendar year 1990 by the staff and students of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. We identify the journal of those manuscripts which are in press or have been published. The volume is intended to be informative, but not a bibliography. The abstracts are listed by title in the Table of Contents and are grouped into one of our five deparments, Marine Policy Center, Coastal Research Center, or the student category. An author index is presented in the back to facilitate locating specific papers