Prevalence and extent of coral diseases in shallow and mesophotic reefs of the Southwestern Atlantic

Coral reef ecology has advanced in many fields, but disease patterns across depth gradients remain unclear. By comparing the prevalence and extent of bleaching and diseases in 160 colonies of Siderastrea stellata between shallow and mesophotic reefs, we observed that prevalence was high (75%) regardless of depth, but the extent was about two times greater in mesophotic than shallow reefs (14.4% vs. 6.6% of colony area, respectively). Across the shallow reefs, where S. stellata co-occurred with Montastraea cavernosa, M. cavernosa showed lower prevalence (27% of 30 colonies) and extent (1.8% of colony area) compared to S. stellata. Besides bleaching, five coral diseases afflicted S. stellata and two affected M. cavernosa. Because diseases are spread over the entire gradient of depth, any attempt of managing the diseases should consider both shallow and deep reefs to be effective

Genome visualization in space

Phylogeny is an important field to understand evolution and the organization of life. However, most methods depend highly on manual study and analysis, making the construction of phylogeny error prone. Linear Algebra methods are known to be efficient to deal with the semantic relationships between a large number of elements in spaces of high dimensionality. Therefore, they can be useful to help the construction of phylogenetic trees. The ability to visualize the relationships between genomes is crucial in this process. In this paper, a linear algebra method, followed by optimization, is used to generate a visualization of a set of complete genomes. Using the proposed method we were able to visualize the relationships of 64 complete mitochondrial genomes, organized as six different groups, and of 31 complete mitochondrial genomes of mammals, organized as nine different groups. The prespecified groups could be seen clustered together in the visualization, and similar species were represented close together. Besides, there seems to be an evolutionary influence in the organization of the graph

Deep reefs are not refugium for shallow-water fish communities in the southwestern Atlantic

Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu CEX2019-000940-M1. The deep reef refugia hypothesis (DRRH) predicts that deep reef ecosystems may act as refugium for the biota of disturbed shallow waters. Because deep reefs are among the most understudied habitats on Earth, formal tests of the DRRH remain scarce. If the DRRH is valid at the community level, the diversity of species, functions, and lineages of fish communities of shallow reefs should be encapsulated in deep reefs. 2. We tested the DRRH by assessing the taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity of 22 Brazilian fish communities between 2 and 62 m depth. We partitioned the gamma diversity of shallow (30 m) into independent alpha and beta components, accounted for species' abundance, and assessed whether beta patterns were mostly driven by spatial turnover or nestedness. 3. We recorded 3,821 fishes belonging to 85 species and 36 families. Contrary to DRRH expectations, only 48% of the species occurred in both shallow and deep reefs. Alpha diversity of rare species was higher in deep reefs as expected, but alpha diversity of typical and dominant species did not vary with depth. Alpha functional diversity was higher in deep reefs only for rare and typical species, but not for dominant species. Alpha phylogenetic diversity was consistently higher in deep reefs, supporting DRRH expectations. 4. Profiles of taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic beta diversity indicated that deep reefs were not more heterogeneous than shallow reefs, contradicting expectations of biotic homogenization near sea surface. Furthermore, pairwise beta-diversity analyses revealed that the patterns were mostly driven by spatial turnover rather than nestedness at any depth. 5. Conclusions. Although some results support the DRRH, most indicate that the shallow-water reef fish diversity is not fully encapsulated in deep reefs. Every reef contributes significantly to the regional diversity and must be managed and protected accordingly

Prediction of drug targets in human pathogens

The identification of new and druggable targets in bacteria is a critical endeavour in pharmaceutical research of novel antibiotics to fight infectious agents. The rapid emergence of resistant bacteria makes today's antibiotics more and more ineffective, consequently increasing the need for new pharmacological targets and novel classes of antibacterial drugs. A new model that combines the singular value decomposition technique with biological filters comprised of a set of protein properties associated with bacterial drug targets and similarity to protein-coding essential genes of E. coli has been developed to predict potential drug targets in the Enterobacteriaceae family [1]. This model identified 99 potential target proteins amongst the studied bacterial family, exhibiting eight different functions that suggest that the disruption of the activities of these proteins is critical for cells. Out of these candidates, one was selected for target confirmation. To find target modulators, receptor-based pharmacophore hypotheses were built and used in the screening of a virtual library of compounds. Postscreening filters were based on physicochemical and topological similarity to known Gram-negative antibiotics and applied to the retrieved compounds. Screening hits passing all filters were docked into the proteins catalytic groove and 15 of the most promising compounds were purchased from their chemical vendors to be experimentally tested in vitro. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to rationalize the search of compounds to probe the relevance of this candidate as a new pharmacological target

Irreplaceable socioeconomic value of wild meat extraction to local food security in rural Amazonia

Wild vertebrates play a decisive role in the subsistence economy of human populations worldwide. The food security value of wild-meat extracted from natural ecosystems remains poorly quantified. Here, we provide an economic valuation of the nutritional and monetary benefits of year-round wild-meat hunting across a large trinational region of southwestern Amazonia using data from indigenous and non-indigenous settlements from 30 sites. We then build scenarios to explore whether three ubiquitous sources of regional-scale household income (i.e. wage labour, horticultural revenues from manioc flour production and the harvest of Brazil-nuts) could match the purchase costs of alternative meat demand to meet domestic consumption of animal protein should game stocks collapse for any reason. We also considered a fourth valuation scenario in terms of game meat substitution with bovine beef. We conservatively estimate a total annual consumption of ~1431.8 tons of undressed animal carcasses, equivalent to a mean per-capita meat consumption of 54.75 kg person−1 yr−1, or ~10.9 kg of animal protein person−1 yr−1. This overall consumption of terrestrial wildlife meat provides US$7.875 million yr−1 across the study region. However, household income levels were too low to enable transitions into domestic livestock consumption indicating low adaptation capacity to alternative animal protein; replacement purchases of domestic meat would amount to 90$2.658 million yr−1 and the conversion of 4310 ha of Amazonian forests into pasture. Our results emphasize the extraordinarily valuable and irreplaceable role of wild meat in the food security of tropical forest dwellers. Proposing consumption of alternative sources of animal protein for monetarily deprived forest dwellers is clearly an unrealistic, if not environmentally-damaging, strategy. Conservation scientists, wildlife biologists and policy makers should therefore prioritize adding value to standing forests by managing sustainable wild-meat offtake from natural ecosystems

Edge-Related Loss of Tree Phylogenetic Diversity in the Severely Fragmented Brazilian Atlantic Forest

Deforestation and forest fragmentation are known major causes of nonrandom extinction, but there is no information about their impact on the phylogenetic diversity of the remaining species assemblages. Using a large vegetation dataset from an old hyper-fragmented landscape in the Brazilian Atlantic rainforest we assess whether the local extirpation of tree species and functional impoverishment of tree assemblages reduce the phylogenetic diversity of the remaining tree assemblages. We detected a significant loss of tree phylogenetic diversity in forest edges, but not in core areas of small (<80 ha) forest fragments. This was attributed to a reduction of 11% in the average phylogenetic distance between any two randomly chosen individuals from forest edges; an increase of 17% in the average phylogenetic distance to closest non-conspecific relative for each individual in forest edges; and to the potential manifestation of late edge effects in the core areas of small forest remnants. We found no evidence supporting fragmentation-induced phylogenetic clustering or evenness. This could be explained by the low phylogenetic conservatism of key life-history traits corresponding to vulnerable species. Edge effects must be reduced to effectively protect tree phylogenetic diversity in the severely fragmented Brazilian Atlantic forest

Diagnóstico de Taquicardia Ventricular do Tipo Fascicular Através da Cardioexploraçao Eletrofisiológica Transesofágica (Cete)

Um paciente do sexo masculino, de 14 anos de idade, portador de taquicardia paroxística supraventricular (TPSV), diagnosticada 4 anos antes, refratária à terapêutica medicamentosa e associada a tonturas e síncope, foi encaminhado para avaliaçao. A cardioestimulaçao transesofágica (Cete) exerceu um importante papel na elucidaçao diagnóstica, ao induzir de forma peculiar, através de estimulaçao atrial, uma taquicardia idiopática do ventrículo esquerdo (VE). O achado da Cete foi confirmado no laboratório de eletrofisiologia, sendo realizada ablaçao percutânea por corrente de radiofreqüência na regiao médio-septal do VE, com resoluçao do circuito da taquicardia. Quatro meses do procedimento, o paciente encontrava-se assintomático e sem o uso de drogas antiarrítmicas

Diagnóstico de Taquicardia Ventricular do Tipo Fascicular Através da Cardioexploraçao Eletrofisiológica Transesofágica (Cete)

Um paciente do sexo masculino, de 14 anos de idade, portador de taquicardia paroxística supraventricular (TPSV), diagnosticada 4 anos antes, refratária à terapêutica medicamentosa e associada a tonturas e síncope, foi encaminhado para avaliaçao. A cardioestimulaçao transesofágica (Cete) exerceu um importante papel na elucidaçao diagnóstica, ao induzir de forma peculiar, através de estimulaçao atrial, uma taquicardia idiopática do ventrículo esquerdo (VE). O achado da Cete foi confirmado no laboratório de eletrofisiologia, sendo realizada ablaçao percutânea por corrente de radiofreqüência na regiao médio-septal do VE, com resoluçao do circuito da taquicardia. Quatro meses do procedimento, o paciente encontrava-se assintomático e sem o uso de drogas antiarrítmicas