Nitrogen and phosphorus additions negatively affect tree species diversity tropical forest regrowth trajectories.

Nutrient enrichment is increasingly affecting many tropical ecosystems, but there is no information on how this affects tree biodiversity. To examine dynamics in vegetation structure and tree species biomass and diversity, we annually remeasured tree species before and for six years after repeated additions of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) in permanent plots of abandoned pasture in Amazonia. Nitrogen and, to a lesser extent, phosphorus addition shifted growth among woody species. Nitrogen stimulated growth of two common pioneer tree species and one common tree species adaptable to both high- and lowlight environments, while P stimulated growth only of the dominant pioneer tree Rollinia exsucca (Annonaceae). Overall, N or P addition reduced tree assemblage evenness and delayed tree species accrual over time, likely due to competitive monopolization of other resources by the few tree species responding to nutrient enrichment with enhanced establishment and/or growth rates. Absolute tree growth rates were elevated for two years after nutrient addition. However, nutrient-induced shifts in relative tree species growth and reduced assemblage evenness persisted for more than three years after nutrient addition, favoring two nutrientresponsive pioneers and one early-secondary tree species. Surprisingly, N þ P effects on tree biomass and species diversity were consistently weaker than N-only and P-only effects, because grass biomass increased dramatically in response to N þ P addition. The resulting intensi?ed competition probably prevented an expected positive N þ P synergy in the tree assemblage. Thus, N or P enrichment may favor unknown tree functional response types, reduce the diversity of coexisting species, and delay species accrual during structurally and functionally complex tropical rainforest secondary succession

Caring for the patient, caring for the record: an ethnographic study of 'back office' work in upholding quality of care in general practice

© 2015 Swinglehurst and Greenhalgh; licensee BioMed Central. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.Additional file 1: Box 1. Field notes on summarising (Clover Surgery). Box 2. Extract of document prepared for GPs by summarisers at Clover Surgery. Box 3. Fieldnotes on coding incoming post, Clover (original notes edited for brevity).This work was funded by a research grant from the UK Medical Research Council (Healthcare Electronic Records in Organisations 07/133) and a National Institute of Health Research doctoral fellowship award for DS (RDA/03/07/076). The funders were not involved in the selection or analysis of data nor did they make any contribution to the content of the final manuscript

Convergence and divergence in the evolution of cat skulls: temporal and spatial patterns of morphological diversity

Background: Studies of biological shape evolution are greatly enhanced when framed in a phylogenetic perspective. Inclusion of fossils amplifies the scope of macroevolutionary research, offers a deep-time perspective on tempo and mode of radiations, and elucidates life-trait changes. We explore the evolution of skull shape in felids (cats) through morphometric analyses of linear variables, phylogenetic comparative methods, and a new cladistic study of saber-toothed cats. Methodology/Principal Findings: A new phylogenetic analysis supports the monophyly of saber-toothed cats (Machairodontinae) exclusive of Felinae and some basal felids, but does not support the monophyly of various sabertoothed tribes and genera. We quantified skull shape variation in 34 extant and 18 extinct species using size-adjusted linear variables. These distinguish taxonomic group membership with high accuracy. Patterns of morphospace occupation are consistent with previous analyses, for example, in showing a size gradient along the primary axis of shape variation and a separation between large and small-medium cats. By combining the new phylogeny with a molecular tree of extant Felinae, we built a chronophylomorphospace (a phylogeny superimposed onto a two-dimensional morphospace through time). The evolutionary history of cats was characterized by two major episodes of morphological divergence, one marking the separation between saber-toothed and modern cats, the other marking the split between large and small-medium cats. Conclusions/Significance: Ancestors of large cats in the ‘Panthera’ lineage tend to occupy, at a much later stage, morphospace regions previously occupied by saber-toothed cats. The latter radiated out into new morphospace regions peripheral to those of extant large cats. The separation between large and small-medium cats was marked by considerable morphologically divergent trajectories early in feline evolution. A chronophylomorphospace has wider applications in reconstructing temporal transitions across two-dimensional trait spaces, can be used in ecophenotypical and functional diversity studies, and may reveal novel patterns of morphospace occupation

Electroexcitation of the Δ+(1232)\Delta^{+}(1232) at low momentum transfer

We report on new p$(e,e^\prime p)\pi^\circ$ measurements at the $\Delta^{+}(1232)$ resonance at the low momentum transfer region. The mesonic cloud dynamics is predicted to be dominant and rapidly changing in this kinematic region offering a test bed for chiral effective field theory calculations. The new data explore the low $Q^2$ dependence of the resonant quadrupole amplitudes while extending the measurements of the Coulomb quadrupole amplitude to the lowest momentum transfer ever reached. The results disagree with predictions of constituent quark models and are in reasonable agreement with dynamical calculations that include pion cloud effects, chiral effective field theory and lattice calculations. The reported measurements suggest that improvement is required to the theoretical calculations and provide valuable input that will allow their refinements

A comparative analysis of the Libyan national essential medicines list and the WHO model list of essential medicines

Aim and Objectives: To examine the concordance of the Libyan Pharmaceutical List of Essential Medicines (LPLEM) with the World Health Organization Model List of Essential Medicines 2009 (WMLEM 2009). Methods: The concordance between generic medicines listed in the WMLEM 2009 (standard reference list) and the LPLEM 2006 (comparator list) was evaluated. Results: The total number of Basic Essential Medicines (BEMs) listed on the WMLEM 2009 was 347. The total number of generic medicines listed on the LPLEM was 584. Although the LPLEM has more listed medicines, only 270 (77.6%) of BEMs from the WMLEM were listed as available. However, 25 of the 77 missing medicines were deemed to have appropriate alternatives. A total of 52 medicines from the WMLEM 2009 were therefore missing from the LPLEM. Discrepancies compared to the WMLEM 2009 were identified in 15 out of 29 therapeutic sections. The highest discrepancy rate from the WMLEM 2009 was in the anti-infective section (35 missing medicines). Missing BEMs were noted in many subclassifications of the anti-infective medicines section, but omissions were particularly prevalent in the antibacterial medicines subsection (11 missing medicines). Antituberculosis medications had the highest discrepancy rate for antibacterial BEMs with one-third of the single medicines recommended by the WHO in the WMLEM 2009 not listed on the LPLEM. Of the 314 additional medicines on the LPLEM, 18 were deemed to be irrational non-essential medicines. Conclusion: The LPLEM does not include several essential medicines recommended by the WHO in the WMLEM 2009. These discrepancies may have serious public health implications for management of some infectious diseases, particularly, tuberculosis and HIV

Macroevolutionary diversification of glands for chemical communication in squamate reptiles

Chemical communication plays a central role in social, sexual and ecological interactions among animals. However, the macroevolutionary diversification of traits responsible for chemical signaling remains fundamentally unknown. Most research investigating evolutionary diversification of glands responsible for the production of chemical signals has focused on arthropods, while its study among vertebrates remains neglected. Using a global-scale dataset covering > 80% (7,904 species) of the living diversity of lizards and snakes (squamates), we investigate rates, trajectories and phylogenetic patterns of diversification of their follicular glands for chemical communication. We observed these glands in 13.66% of species, that their expression has varying phylogenetic signal among lineages, and that the crown squamate ancestor lacked follicular glands, which therefore originated and diversified subsequently during their evolutionary history. Additionally, our findings challenge the longstanding view that within squamates the Iguania are visually oriented while Scleroglossa are chemically-oriented, given that Iguania doubles Scleroglossa in the frequency of glands. Our phylogenetic analyses identified stabilizing selection as the best model describing follicular gland diversification, and revealed high rates of disparity. We provide the first global-scale analysis investigating the diversification of one of the main forms of communication among reptiles, presenting a macroevolutionary angle to questions traditionally explored at microevolutionary scale

Murine Gammaretrovirus Group G3 Was Not Found in Swedish Patients with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia

BACKGROUND: The recent report of gammaretroviruses of probable murine origin in humans, called xenotropic murine retrovirus related virus (XMRV) and human murine leukemia virus related virus (HMRV), necessitated a bioinformatic search for this virus in genomes of the mouse and other vertebrates, and by PCR in humans. RESULTS: Three major groups of murine endogenous gammaretroviruses were identified. The third group encompassed both exogenous and endogenous Murine Leukemia Viruses (MLVs), and most XMRV/HMRV sequences reported from patients suffering from myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). Two sensitive real-time PCRs for this group were developed. The predicted and observed amplification range for these and three published XMRV/HMRV PCRs demonstrated conspicuous differences between some of them, partly explainable by a recombinatorial origin of XMRV. Three reverse transcription real-time PCRs (RTQPCRs), directed against conserved and not overlapping stretches of env, gag and integrase (INT) sequences of XMRV/HMRV were used on human samples. White blood cells from 78 patients suffering from ME/CFS, of which 30 patients also fulfilled the diagnostic criteria for fibromyalgia (ME/CFS/FM) and in 7 patients with fibromyalgia (FM) only, all from the Gothenburg area of Sweden. As controls we analyzed 168 sera from Uppsala blood donors. We controlled for presence and amplifiability of nucleic acid and for mouse DNA contamination. To score as positive, a sample had to react with several of the XMRV/HMRV PCRs. None of the samples gave PCR reactions which fulfilled the positivity criteria. CONCLUSIONS: XMRV/HMRV like proviruses occur in the third murine gammaretrovirus group, characterized here. PCRs developed by us, and others, approximately cover this group, except for the INT RTQPCR, which is rather strictly XMRV specific. Using such PCRs, XMRV/HMRV could not be detected in PBMC and plasma samples from Swedish patients suffering from ME/CFS/FM, and in sera from Swedish blood donors