How effective are plant macrofossils as a proxy for macrophyte presence? The case of Najas flexilis in Scotland

© 2017 The Author(s) Preventing biodiversity loss is a key aim of modern conservation, and paleolimnology can inform conservation strategies for target species and habitats where other data are unavailable. Care must be taken to fully understand the possibilities and limits of such techniques, particularly where they concern single species. This study uses plant and seed distribution data to inform macrofossil reconstructions of the rare macrophyte Najas flexilis (Slender Naiad) in Scotland, UK. It answers three questions: (a) How does the location of N. flexilis seeds in the surface sediments relate to the distribution of N. flexilis plants? (b) How do the numbers of seeds in surface sediments correlate with % cover of N. flexilis plants across lakes with differing N. flexilis abundances? (c) What are the implications of these findings for paleolimnology? Percentage N. flexilis cover and number of N. flexilis seeds in surface sediments were recorded at ~100 sample points at each of three sites; one where the species was abundant, one where it was occasional and one where it was extinct. At all sites, N. flexilis seeds were present in surface sediments across the entire lake. No correlation between % cover N. flexilis and the number of seeds in surface sediments was found within individual sites. The distribution of seeds in these lakes appeared to be related to multiple environmental and ecological variables including latitude and longitude (proxies for water currents). This is attributed to the ability of seed-bearing N. flexilis plants to fragment and float large distances on water. Between sites, there was a significant difference in the mean seed counts, with higher mean seed counts corresponding to higher abundances of N. flexilis plants. It is concluded that N. flexilis is likely to be well represented in sediment cores taken from any location within a basin, but that care should be taken when inferring changes in N. flexilis abundance from changes in the numbers of seeds in sediment samples. This work demonstrates that the reproductive ecology (number of seeds produced and dispersal mechanisms) is an important factor to consider when attempting reconstructions of single aquatic plant populations from macrofossil records

General relativistic null-cone evolutions with a high-order scheme

We present a high-order scheme for solving the full non-linear Einstein equations on characteristic null hypersurfaces using the framework established by Bondi and Sachs. This formalism allows asymptotically flat spaces to be represented on a finite, compactified grid, and is thus ideal for far-field studies of gravitational radiation. We have designed an algorithm based on 4th-order radial integration and finite differencing, and a spectral representation of angular components. The scheme can offer significantly more accuracy with relatively low computational cost compared to previous methods as a result of the higher-order discretization. Based on a newly implemented code, we show that the new numerical scheme remains stable and is convergent at the expected order of accuracy.Comment: 24 pages, 3 figure

Filling the “data gap”: Using paleoecology to investigate the decline of Najas flexilis (a rare aquatic plant)

In the absence of long‐term monitoring records, paleoecology can be used to extend knowledge of species and community ecology into the past. The rare and declining aquatic plant Najas flexilis is a priority species for conservation across Europe, and is an ideal candidate for paleoecological study; not only are historical records of the plant sparse, but its seeds are commonly found and well preserved in lake sediment cores. In this study, we investigate the timing and causes of decline at two UK sites at which N. flexilis has recently become extinct: Esthwaite Water (England) and Loch of Craiglush (Scotland). For both sites, multiple paleoecological indicators and available historical biological records and monitoring data are compared to numbers of N. flexilis seeds enumerated in dated sediment cores representing the last 150 years. At Esthwaite Water, N. flexilis seeds were found in abundance in association with indicators of a clear, oligo‐mesotrophic, mildly alkaline lake. Eutrophication led to the disappearance of N. flexilis in the 1980s. By contrast, far fewer N. flexilis seeds were found in a core from Loch of Craiglush, and the current period of N. flexilis absence was found to be one of several over the last 100 years. Species represented in cores taken from Loch of Craiglush were indicative of slightly more acidic conditions than Esthwaite Water. Given that N. flexilis favours circumneutral to alkaline conditions, it is possible that Loch of Craiglush has not always been favourable for the plant. These findings have important implications for future conservation efforts, particularly at Esthwaite Water where they suggest that recent failed attempts to reintroduce the species may have been premature. More generally, this study demonstrates the value of paleoecological techniques as a means to provide the long‐term context that is often missing from conservation planning and management

The protective effects of social bonding on behavioral and pituitary-adrenal axis reactivity to chronic mild stress in prairie voles.

Positive social interactions may protect against stress. This study investigated the beneficial effects of pairing with a social partner on behaviors and neuroendocrine function in response to chronic mild stress (CMS) in 13 prairie vole pairs. Following 5 days of social bonding, male and female prairie voles were exposed to 10 days of CMS (mild, unpredictable stressors of varying durations, for instance, strobe light, white noise, and damp bedding), housed with either the social partner (paired group) or individually (isolated group). Active and passive behavioral responses to the forced swim test (FST) and tail-suspension test (TST), and plasma concentrations of adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) and corticosterone, were measured in all prairie voles following the CMS period. Both female and male prairie voles housed with a social partner displayed lower durations of passive behavioral responses (immobility, a maladaptive behavioral response) in the FST (mean ± SEM; females: 17.3 ± 5.4 s; males: 9.3 ± 4.6 s) and TST (females: 56.8 ± 16.4 s; males: 40.2 ± 11.3 s), versus both sexes housed individually (females, FST: 98.6 ± 12.9 s; females, TST: 155.1 ± 19.3 s; males, FST: 92.4 ± 14.1 s; males, TST: 158.9 ± 22.0 s). Female (but not male) prairie voles displayed attenuated plasma stress hormones when housed with a male partner (ACTH: 945 ± 24.7 pg/ml; corticosterone: 624 ± 139.5 ng/ml), versus females housed individually (ACTH: 1100 ± 23.2 pg/ml; corticosterone: 1064 ± 121.7 ng/ml). These results may inform understanding of the benefits of social interactions on stress resilience. Lay Summary: Social stress can lead to depression. The study of social bonding and stress using an animal model will inform understanding of the protective effects of social bonds. This study showed that social bonding in a rodent model can protect against behavioral responses to stress, and may also be protective against the elevation of stress hormones. This study provides evidence that bonding and social support are valuable for protecting against stress in humans

Inspiratory muscle warm-up does not improve cycling time-trial performance

Purpose: This study examined the effects of an active cycling warm-up, with and without the addition of an inspiratory muscle warm-up (IMW), on 10-km cycling time-trial performance

Defining language impairments in a subgroup of children with autism spectrum disorder

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is diagnosed on the basis of core impairments in pragmatic language skills, which are found across all ages and subtypes. In contrast, there is significant heterogeneity in language phenotypes, ranging from nonverbal to superior linguistic abilities, as defined on standardized tests of vocabulary and grammatical knowledge. The majority of children are verbal but impaired in language, relative to age-matched peers. One hypothesis is that this subgroup has ASD and co-morbid specific language impairment (SLI). An experiment was conducted comparing children with ASD to children with SLI and typically developing controls on aspects of language processing that have been shown to be impaired in children with SLI: repetition of nonsense words. Patterns of performance among the children with ASD and language impairment were similar to those with SLI, and contrasted with the children with ASD and no language impairment and typical controls, providing further evidence for the hypothesis that a subgroup of children with ASD has co-morbid SLI. The findings are discussed in the context of brain imaging studies that have explored the neural bases of language impairment in ASD and SLI, and overlap in the genes associated with elevated risk for these disorders.M01 RR00533 - NCRR NIH HHS; R01 DC10290 - NIDCD NIH HHS; U19 DC03610 - NIDCD NIH HH

Modularity and Intrinsic Evolvability of Hsp90-Buffered Change

Hsp90 controls dramatic phenotypic transitions in a wide array of morphological features of many organisms. The genetic-background dependence of specific abnormalities and their response to laboratory selection suggested Hsp90 could be an ‘evolutionary capacitor’, allowing developmental variation to accumulate as neutral alleles under normal conditions and manifest selectable morphological differences during environmental stress. The relevance of Hsp90-buffered variation for evolution has been most often challenged by the idea that large morphological changes controlled by Hsp90 are unconditionally deleterious. To address this issue, we tested an Hsp90-buffered abnormality in Drosophila for unselected pleiotropic effects and correlated fitness costs. Up to 120-fold differences in penetrance among six highly related selection lines, started from an initially small number of flies and rapidly selected for and against a deformed eye trait (dfe), did not translate into measurable differences in any of several tests of viability, lifespan or competitive fitness. Nor were 17 dfe Quantitative Trait Loci (QTL) associated with fitness effects in over 1,400 recombinant lines. Our ability to detect measurable effects of inbreeding, media environment and the white mutation in the selection line backgrounds independent of dfe penetrance suggests that, within the limitations of laboratory tests of fitness, this large morphological change controlled by Hsp90 was selectable independent of strong, correlated and unconditionally deleterious effects—abundant, polygenic variation hidden by Hsp90 allows potentially deleterious alleles to be readily replaced during selection by less deleterious alleles with similar phenotypic effects. Hsp90 links environmental stress with the expression of developmental variation controlling unprecedented morphological plasticity. As outlined here and in the companion paper of this issue, the complex genetic architecture of Hsp90-buffered variation supports a remarkable modularity of Hsp90 effects on quantitative and qualitative phenotypes, consistent with the ‘Hsp90 capacitor hypothesis’ and standard quantitative genetic models of threshold traits