Agricultural extensification enhances functional diversity but not phylogenetic diversity in Mediterranean olive groves: A case study with ant and bird communities

Agroforests are of well-known importance for biodiversity conservation, especially in the tropics, because they are structurally stable and may resemble natural forests. Previous studies have characterized jointly taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic diversity in these agro-ecosystems to comprehensively examine the mechanisms by which agriculture impacts on biodiversity. However, this approach has been barely applied to other woody crops of economic importance, such as olive grove, which is a remarkable overwintering habitat for frugivorous/insectivorous birds from central and northern Europe, and whose original distribution overlaps with the Mediterranean biodiversity hotspot. We examined the effects of landscape complexity and intensive management practices at a local scale (recurrent plowing and pesticides use) on the functional and phylogenetic diversity of animal communities inhabiting olive groves. Since the response of functional traits or clades may vary across different taxonomic groups, we conducted our study at two levels: ants, which are considered semi-sessile organisms, and birds, which exhibit a high dispersal capacity. In birds, neither management type nor landscape complexity had an effect on phylogenetic diversity (PD) indices. Extensively managed farms harbored bird communities with higher values of functional diversity (FD), but this effect only was evident when considering cultivated (productive) zones within the farm (i.e., infield diversity). Ant assemblages on intensively managed farms exhibited a lower level of phylogenetic clustering than those located in extensive farms, but this effect vanished when excluding non-cultivated zones. Ant functional diversity increased with landscape complexity. Our results indicate that PD and FD exhibit different responses to farming intensification in olive groves. Although intensive management does not erode PD due to the existence of phylogenetic redundancy, the loss of species associated to modern farming leads to a reduction in FD being this indicative of functional complementarity. This study provides evidence that land-use extensification (extensive farming and landscape diversification) promotes more functionally rich assemblages than modern intensive practices in olive groves. Our findings also show the need to set apart the effect of non-cultivated zones (e.g., hedgerows, margins) when evaluating the effectiveness of agri-environment schemes as the joint consideration of non-cultivated and cultivated areas may obscure the benefits of local extensification on infield biodiversity.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Beta-cell mass adaptation to ileum nutrient flow. An experimental model

The population with obesity has increased at an alarming rate during this century. Bariatric surgery has been demonstrated to be a good method to control weight and, most importantly, associated comorbidities, such as type 2 diabetes mellitus or high blood pressure. The reason why this happens even before losing significant weight remains unclear. Many authors believe that incretins play a main role, triggering special functions of the digestive tract. In reports, these hypotheses are known as foregut and hindgut theories. Initially, the theories were mutually exclusive; additionally, many other propositions have been analysed, according to different surgical techniques (e.g., bile acids and specific enterohormonal components). To elucidate the participation of the ileum, we developed a surgical technique to study the rapid response to nutrients in the ileum. Our goal was to study the stress functional test and histological changes in the pancreas that may explain the variations in glycaemic homeostasis in our rat model. After the oral glucose tolerance test, the experimental group presented an increased insulin release response with conserved glycaemia. We report an increasing beta-cell mass in the experimental group (+11.87 mg vs. +9.65 mg, respectively), while alpha-cell mass was not different. Based on transcription factors, the pathways that were increased were the proliferation process (as the number of PCNA-positive cells in the experimental group versus sham (+12.06 vs. +6.2 PCNA+ cells/mm2)) and transdifferentiation (ARX; +2.67 ARX+ cells/mm2 in the experimental group vs. +2.04 ARX+ cells/mm2 in the controls). We report the consequences of the rapid arrival of nonprocessed nutrients to the ileum on the endocrine cellular pancreas. The ileum could be a principal effector in the enterohormonal axis, which conditions endocrine pancreas cellularit

Highly accurate whole-genome imputation of SARS-CoV-2 from partial or low-quality sequences

[Background] The current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has emphasized the utility of viral whole-genome sequencing in the surveillance and control of the pathogen. An unprecedented ongoing global initiative is producing hundreds of thousands of sequences worldwide. However, the complex circumstances in which viruses are sequenced, along with the demand of urgent results, causes a high rate of incomplete and, therefore, useless sequences. Viral sequences evolve in the context of a complex phylogeny and different positions along the genome are in linkage disequilibrium. Therefore, an imputation method would be able to predict missing positions from the available sequencing data.[Results] We have developed the impuSARS application, which takes advantage of the enormous number of SARS-CoV-2 genomes available, using a reference panel containing 239,301 sequences, to produce missing data imputation in viral genomes. ImpuSARS was tested in a wide range of conditions (continuous fragments, amplicons or sparse individual positions missing), showing great fidelity when reconstructing the original sequences, recovering the lineage with a 100% precision for almost all the lineages, even in very poorly covered genomes (<20%).[Conclusions] Imputation can improve the pace of SARS-CoV-2 sequencing production by recovering many incomplete or low-quality sequences that would be otherwise discarded. ImpuSARS can be incorporated in any primary data processing pipeline for SARS-CoV-2 whole-genome sequencing.This work is supported by grant PT17/0009/0006 from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, COVID-0012–2020 from Consejería de Salud y Familias, Junta de Andalucía, and postdoctoral contract PAIDI2020- DOC_00350 for C.L., from Junta de Andalucía, co-funded by the European Social Fund (FSE) 2014–2020.Peer reviewe

In vivo cholinergic basal forebrain degeneration and cognition in Parkinson's disease: Imaging results from the COPPADIS study

COPPADIS Study Group.[Introduction] We aimed to assess associations between multimodal neuroimaging measures of cholinergic basal forebrain (CBF) integrity and cognition in Parkinson's disease (PD) without dementia.[Methods] The study included a total of 180 non-demented PD patients and 45 healthy controls, who underwent structural MRI acquisitions and standardized neurocognitive assessment through the PD-Cognitive Rating Scale (PD-CRS) within the multicentric COPPADIS-2015 study. A subset of 73 patients also had Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) acquisitions. Volumetric and microstructural (mean diffusivity, MD) indices of CBF degeneration were automatically extracted using a stereotactic CBF atlas. For comparison, we also assessed multimodal indices of hippocampal degeneration. Associations between imaging measures and cognitive performance were assessed using linear models.[Results] Compared to controls, CBF volume was not significantly reduced in PD patients as a group. However, across PD patients lower CBF volume was significantly associated with lower global cognition (PD-CRStotal: r = 0.37, p < 0.001), and this association remained significant after controlling for several potential confounding variables (p = 0.004). Analysis of individual item scores showed that this association spanned executive and memory domains. No analogue cognition associations were observed for CBF MD. In covariate-controlled models, hippocampal volume was not associated with cognition in PD, but there was a significant association for hippocampal MD (p = 0.02).[Conclusions] Early cognitive deficits in PD without dementia are more closely related to structural MRI measures of CBF degeneration than hippocampal degeneration. In our multicentric imaging acquisitions, DTI-based diffusion measures in the CBF were inferior to standard volumetric assessments for capturing cognition-relevant changes in non-demented PD.This work was supported by the Alzheimer Forschung Initiative e.V. (AFI International Training Grant to MJG), the Instituto de Salud Carlos III-Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (ISCIII-FEDER) [PI14/01823, PI16/01575, PI18/01898, PI19/01576, PI20/00613], the Consejería de Economía, Innovación, Ciencia y Empleo de la Junta de Andalucía [CVI-02526, CTS-7685], the Consejería de Salud y Bienestar Social de la Junta de Andalucía [PI-0471-2013, PE-0210-2018, PI-0459-2018, PE-0186-2019], the Fundación Alicia Koplowitz and the Fundación “Curemos el Parkinson” (https://www.curemoselparkinson.org). MJG is supported by the “Miguel Servet” program [CP19/00031], MALE by the University of Seville [USE-20046-J], JFM by the “Sara Borrell” program [CD13/00229] and VI-PPIT-US from the University of Seville [USE-18817-A], SJ by the “Acción B-Clínicos-Investigadores” program [B-0007-2019], and DMG by the “Río Hortega” program [CM18/00142].Peer reviewe

Evaluación de la resistencia a Phytophthora capsici y Phytophthora nicotianae var. parasitica de tres portainjertos comerciales de pimiento

Los problemas que se plantean con Phytophthora capsici y Phytophthora nicotianae var. parasitica (Phytophthora parasitica) para su control, utilizando distintos procedimientos de desinfección del suelo, han motivado la evaluación de vías alternativas utilizando plantas injertadas sobre porta-injertos resistentes. Esta técnica goza de un éxito importante para el control de otros patógenos del suelo y es una técnica compatible con la producción ecológica. Por ejemplo, en el control del virus del cribado (MNSV) en melón y sandía o en el control de P. parasitica en tomate. Siguiendo esas orientaciones existen en el mercado, actualmente, patrones que se preconizan con resistencias a patógenos que, a veces, no están suficientemente evaluados. Este hecho ha motivado el trabajo que se resume en esta comunicación

Buenas prácticas de innovación docente en la Universidad de Córdoba

La iniciativa presenta el Centro de Atención Infantil Temprana de la Universidad de Córdoba, en el que la investigación y la formación son básicos para sus integrantes y desde el que se hace un importante ejercicio de transferencia del conocimiento a la comunidad universitaria y a la socieda

Assessing the Impact of SARS-CoV-2 Lineages and Mutations on Patient Survival

Objectives: More than two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, SARS-CoV-2 still remains a global public health problem. Successive waves of infection have produced new SARS-CoV-2 variants with new mutations for which the impact on COVID-19 severity and patient survival is uncertain. Methods: A total of 764 SARS-CoV-2 genomes, sequenced from COVID-19 patients, hospitalized from 19th February 2020 to 30 April 2021, along with their clinical data, were used for survival analysis. Results: A significant association of B.1.1.7, the alpha lineage, with patient mortality (log hazard ratio (LHR) = 0.51, C.I. = [0.14,0.88]) was found upon adjustment by all the covariates known to affect COVID-19 prognosis. Moreover, survival analysis of mutations in the SARS-CoV-2 genome revealed 27 of them were significantly associated with higher mortality of patients. Most of these mutations were located in the genes coding for the S, ORF8, and N proteins. Conclusions: This study illustrates how a combination of genomic and clinical data can provide solid evidence for the impact of viral lineage on patient survival.This work was supported by Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (grant PID2020- 117979RB-I00), the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII), co-funded with European Regional Development Funds (ERDF) (grant IMP/00019), and has also been funded by Consejería de Salud y Familias, Junta de Andalucía (grants COVID-0012-2020 and PS-2020-342) and the postdoctoral contract of Carlos Loucera (PAIDI2020- DOC_00350), co-funded by the European Social Fund (FSE) 2014-2020. ELIXIR-CONVERGE—H2020 (871075).Peer reviewe