Methanogenesis in phytotelmata: Microbial communities and methane cycling in bromeliad tanks and leaf axils of oil palms

The global emission of methane (CH4) is estimated to be 500-600 Tg per year from diverse natural and man-made sources. Wetlands are the main source of methane and provide an ideal habitat for anaerobic methanogenic archaea which significantly contribute to the total global methane emission. Besides permanently flooded wetlands, there are distinct wetlands created by small water bodies within parts of plants, called phytotelmata. These water catchments in tropical forests comprise bamboo nodes, pitcher plants, tree holes, tank bromeliads and non-bromeliads leaf axils. Recent work indicates that phytotelmata may contribute to the global methane budget. Tank bromeliads, which effectively collect rainwater and organic substrate between their leaf axils (tank slurry), emit substantial amounts of methane into the atmosphere over neotropical forests. However, studies on the microbial communities involved in methane cycling and environmental factors which influence their activity are still rare. In the present study we established tank bromeliads as a model system in the greenhouse and collected field data to investigate the microbial communities in tank bromeliads. Investigation of Costa Rican tank bromeliads revealed that inhabiting microbial communities (Bacteria, Archaea) differed between individual plants, although the plants belong to the same species and were growing in the same habitat patch. Major determinants for the individual plants microbial community composition were carbon, nitrogen, oxygen concentrations, and the pH of tank slurries. These factors depend on the incoming rainwater, leaf litter or input by higher organisms (e.g. insects, spiders, birds). Therefore, the site where a tank bromeliad develops may play an important role for the inhabiting microbial communities. In summary, our results indicate that every bromeliad tank is a unique island with respect to its resident microbial community. The presence of methanogens and methanotrophs in all tank slurries further indicates the potential for both methane formation and methane oxidation in the bromeliad tanks. Besides tank slurry properties we have shown that the availability of water shapes the archaeal and bacterial community in tank bromeliads. Increasing drought resulted in a decrease of methane formation and in a shift from a hydrogenotrophic dominated community (Methanobacteriales) to an aceticlastic (Methanosaetaceae) dominated methanogenic community. This trend was also observed in the isotopic signature of produced methane and so hydrogenotrophically derived methane dominated under high moisture. Increasing drought resulted in increasing oxygen exposure for the microoorganisms. We found genes for oxygen detoxifying enzymes in genomes of Methanosaeta species, indicating that these methanogens are more oxygen tolerant than previously assumed. With increasing drought the relative abundance of the Burkholderiales, mainly represented by the genus Burkholderia, more than tripled in tank slurry whereas the bacterial diversity decreased. Furthermore, regardless of the water content or the incubation environment (inside or outside of bromeliad tanks) the genus Burkholderia was the most abundant group, indicating its tolerance towards changing water levels which frequently occur in tank bromeliads under natural conditions. Upon drought gene copy numbers of nifH, a marker gene for nitrogen fixation known to occur in Burkolderia spp. as well as Methanosaeta spp., increased. Therefore, this work indicates that tank bromeliads inhabiting microbes are not only involved in carbon cycling but also in nitrogen cycling. We further investigated the potential of methane formation in non-bromeliad leaf axils. The leaf axils of oil palms create catchments similar to the leaf axils of tank bromeliads where organic matter and rainwater accumulate. In incubation experiments we showed that under water-logged oxic or anoxic conditions methane is formed in this organic material, accompanied by increasing gene copy numbers of mcrA, a commonly used marker gene for methanogens. Therefore, our results indicate that leaf axils of oil palms seem to be a potential habitat for methanogenesis. The results of this work give new insights into the microbial communities and methane cycling in plant leaf axils and emphasize the need to better resolve the role of phytotelmata in the cycling of methane to better understand the global methane budget

The National Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education

Dr. Brandt describes how and why the National Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education was created, what priorities it is pursuing, and how you may engage with the Center\u27s national online community

It\u27s Time We Become a Learning Team

Barbara F. Brandt, PhD Director, National Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education Associate Vice President for Education University of Minnesota Academic Health Center Professor, Pharmaceutical Care and Health System Barbara Brandt is one of the nation’s foremost experts in interprofessional practice and education and a leading force in the creation of the National Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education housed at the University of Minnesota. As center director, Dr. Brandt is responsible for engaging leaders and experts across the country in this ground-breaking effort to improve health by realigning health professions education and care delivery. Dr. Brandt and her colleague, Dr. Frank Cerra, originated the idea of bringing practice and education together in a new Nexus for better care, added value and healthier communities. The $12 million center was launched in October 2012 through a cooperative agreement by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration. Four private foundations have signed on to invest in this innovative center: The Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and The John A. Hartford Foundation. In addition to her responsibilities as center director, Dr. Brandt serves as associate vice president for education and professor, pharmaceutical care and health systems at the University of Minnesota Academic Health Center. Dr. Brandt is also responsible for University of Minnesota 1Health initiative to build interprofessional practice skills of students in a broad range of health professions. Dr. Brandt has helped drive curricular and educational change in the health professions in other roles as well. In 2000 she was a U.S. Public Health Service Primary Care Policy Fellow. From 2000 to 2006 she served on the board of directors of the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education, pharmacy’s accrediting agency. As the founding board chair of the American Interprofessional Health Collaborative, she also has been host and co-chair for the Collaborating Across Borders (CAB) conferences held in Minneapolis, MN, in 2007 and Tucson, AZ, in 2011. Dr. Brandt holds a bachelor of arts in the teaching of history from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a master of education and doctor of philosophy degrees in continuing education (specializing in continuing professional education) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She was a James Scholar and Letitia Walsh Fellow. In 2013 she was recognized as a University of Illinois Distinguished Alumna. She completed Kellogg Foundation-sponsored post-doctoral fellowship for faculty in adult and continuing education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

Brief Announcement: Efficient Load-Balancing Through Distributed Token Dropping

We introduce a new graph problem, the token dropping game, and we show how to solve it efficiently in a distributed setting. We use the token dropping game as a tool to design an efficient distributed algorithm for the stable orientation problem, which is a special case of the more general locally optimal semi-matching problem. The prior work by Czygrinow et al. (DISC 2012) finds a locally optimal semi-matching in O(??) rounds in graphs of maximum degree ?, which directly implies an algorithm with the same runtime for stable orientations. We improve the runtime to O(??) for stable orientations and prove a lower bound of ?(?) rounds

Structured Data Storage for Data-Driven Process Optimisation in Bioprinting

Bioprinting is a method to fabricate 3D models that mimic tissue. Future fields of application might be in pharmaceutical or medical context. As the number of applicants might vary between only one patient to manufacturing tissue for high-throughput drug screening, designing a process will necessitate a high degree of flexibility, robustness, as well as comprehensive monitoring. To enable quality by design process optimisation for future application, establishing systematic data storage routines suitable for automated analytical tools is highly desirable as a first step. This manuscript introduces a workflow for process design, documentation within an electronic lab notebook and monitoring to supervise the product quality over time or at different locations. Lab notes, analytical data and corresponding metadata are stored in a systematic hierarchy within the research data infrastructure Kadi4Mat, which allows for continuous, flexible data structuring and access management. To support the experimental and analytical workflow, additional features were implemented to enhance and build upon the functionality provided by Kadi4Mat, including browser-based file previews and a Python tool for the combined filtering and extraction of data. The structured research data management with Kadi4Mat enables retrospective data grouping and usage by process analytical technology tools connecting individual analysis software to machine-readable data exchange formats

Caged Phosphoproteins

We present the chemical and biological synthesis of caged phosphoproteins using the in vitro nonsense codon suppression methodology. Specifically, phosphoamino acid analogues of serine, threonine, and tyrosine with a single photocleavable o-nitrophenylethyl caging group were synthesized as the amino acyl tRNA adducts for insertion into full-length proteins. For this purpose, a novel phosphitylating agent was developed. The successful incorporation of these bulky and charged amino acids into the α-subunit of the nicotinic acetyl choline receptor (nAChR) and the vasodilator-stimulated phosphoprotein (VASP) using an in vitro translation system is reported