Can Climate Models Simulate the Observed Strong Summer Surface Cooling in the Equatorial Atlantic?

Variability in the tropical Atlantic Ocean is dominated by the seasonal cycle. A defining feature is the migration of the inter-tropical convergence zone into the northern hemisphere and the formation of a so-called cold tongue in sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in late boreal spring. Between April and August, cooling leads to a drop in SSTs of approximately 5°. The pronounced seasonal cycle in the equatorial Atlantic affects surrounding continents, and even minor deviations from it can have striking consequences for local agricultures. Here, we report how state-of-the-art coupled global climate models (CGCMs) still struggle to simulate the observed seasonal cycle in the equatorial Atlantic, focusing on the formation of the cold tongue. We review the basic processes that establish the observed seasonal cycle in the tropical Atlantic, highlight common biases and their potential origins, and discuss how they relate to the dynamics of the real world. We also briefly discuss the implications of the equatorial Atlantic warm bias for CGCM-based reliable, socio-economically relevant seasonal predictions in the region

Pathogen-induced biosynthetic pathways encode defense-related molecules in bread wheat

Wheat is a widely grown food crop that suffers major yield losses due to attack by pests and pathogens. A better understanding of biotic stress responses in wheat is thus of major importance. The recently assembled bread wheat genome coupled with extensive transcriptomic resources provides unprecedented new opportunities to investigate responses to pathogen challenge. Here, we analyze gene coexpression networks to identify modules showing consistent induction in response to pathogen exposure. Within the top pathogen-induced modules, we identify multiple clusters of physically adjacent genes that correspond to six pathogen-induced biosynthetic pathways that share a common regulatory network. Functional analysis reveals that these pathways, all of which are encoded by biosynthetic gene clusters, produce various different classes of compounds—namely, flavonoids, diterpenes, and triterpenes, including the defense-related compound ellarinacin. Through comparative genomics, we also identify associations with the known rice phytoalexins momilactones, as well as with a defense-related gene cluster in the grass model plant Brachypodium distachyon. Our results significantly advance the understanding of chemical defenses in wheat and open up avenues for enhancing disease resistance in this agriculturally important crop. They also exemplify the power of transcriptional networks to discover the biosynthesis of chemical defenses in plants with large, complex genomes

The tropical Atlantic observing system

The tropical Atlantic is home to multiple coupled climate variations covering a wide range of timescales and impacting societally relevant phenomena such as continental rainfall, Atlantic hurricane activity, oceanic biological productivity, and atmospheric circulation in the equatorial Pacific. The tropical Atlantic also connects the southern and northern branches of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation and receives freshwater input from some of the world’s largest rivers. To address these diverse, unique, and interconnected research challenges, a rich network of ocean observations has developed, building on the backbone of the Prediction and Research Moored Array in the Tropical Atlantic (PIRATA). This network has evolved naturally over time and out of necessity in order to address the most important outstanding scientific questions and to improve predictions of tropical Atlantic severe weather and global climate variability and change. The tropical Atlantic observing system is motivated by goals to understand and better predict phenomena such as tropical Atlantic interannual to decadal variability and climate change; multidecadal variability and its links to the meridional overturning circulation; air-sea fluxes of CO2 and their implications for the fate of anthropogenic CO2; the Amazon River plume and its interactions with biogeochemistry, vertical mixing, and hurricanes; the highly productive eastern boundary and equatorial upwelling systems; and oceanic oxygen minimum zones, their impacts on biogeochemical cycles and marine ecosystems, and their feedbacks to climate. Past success of the tropical Atlantic observing system is the result of an international commitment to sustained observations and scientific cooperation, a willingness to evolve with changing research and monitoring needs, and a desire to share data openly with the scientific community and operational centers. The observing system must continue to evolve in order to meet an expanding set of research priorities and operational challenges. This paper discusses the tropical Atlantic observing system, including emerging scientific questions that demand sustained ocean observations, the potential for further integration of the observing system, and the requirements for sustaining and enhancing the tropical Atlantic observing system

Die staendige Qualifizierung der operativen Informationstaetigkeit dient der allseitigen Erfuellung der volkspolizeilichen Aufgaben

PBAF-S 114/22 / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekSIGLEDEGerman

Multi-<em>Omics</em> Data Mining: A Novel Tool for BioBrick Design

Currently, billions of nucleotide and amino acid sequences accumulate in free-access databases as a result of the omics revolution, the improvement in sequencing technologies, and the systematic storage of shotgun sequencing data from a large and diverse number of organisms. In this chapter, multi-omics data mining approaches will be discussed as a novel tool for the identification and characterization of novel DNA sequences encoding elementary parts of complex biological systems (BioBricks) using omics libraries. Multi-omics data mining opens up the possibility to identify novel unknown sequences from free-access databases. It also provides an excellent platform for the identification and design of novel BioBricks by using previously well-characterized biological bricks as scaffolds for homology searching and BioBrick design. In this chapter, the most recent mining approaches will be discussed, and several examples will be presented to highlight its relevance as a novel tool for synthetic biology

Direct and Continuous Measurement of Phospholipase D Activities Using the Chelation-Enhanced Fluorescence Property of 8-Hydroxyquinoline

International audienc

Novel glyceryl ethers phospholipids produced by solid to solid transphosphatidylation in the presence of a food grade phospholipase D

Enzymatic transphosphatidylation between batyl alcohol and phospatidylcholine has been investigated. In situ product removal methodology and the utilization of a green biphasic medium consisting of a buffer and an organic phase comprised of generally recognized as safe flavoring additives, have been established as milestones to increase the applicability of the process. Different organic phases (limonene, pinene, ethyl isovalerate, ethyl lactate, ethyl butyrate, hexanal, and cyclopentanone) and one aqueous phase (0.1 M acetate buffer at pH = 5.5) were studied. The relative proportion of organic and aqueous phases was also investigated. Different molar ratios alkylglycerol/phosphatidylcholine (10:1, 5:1, 2:1, 1:1, and 1:2) were also evaluated. Addition of calcium chloride and the reaction temperature have been adjusted in the enzymatic transphosphatidylation. Finally, the percentage of phospholipase D and the molar concentration of the reactants were also optimized. The ratio transphosphatidylation to hydrolysis was evaluated for the different biphasic reaction mixtures tested. The best results (ca. 70% w/w of glyceryl ether phospholipid) were achieved utilizing 5% (w/w) of phospholipase D, equimolar ratio of reactants and limonene/acetate buffer at a volumetric ratio 1:3. The volumetric productivity of the process was then optimized up to 126 mM and scaled‐up to 50 g of reaction mixture with similar results in terms of composition and yield. This study reports a procedure for the production of tailor‐made phospholipids from commercial sources with high volumetric yield. These highly valuable ingredients are intended to be used as both delivery systems and bioactive lipids.This study has been funded by Comunidad Autónoma de Madrid (ALIBIRD, project number S2013/ABI‐2728) and by Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (project number AGL2013‐ 48943‐C2‐1‐R). The contract of Pablo Arranz‐Martínez was supported by Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad and the European Social Fund: BES‐2014‐070395. Víctor Casado also acknowledge CONICYT FONDECYT Postdoc 2015 project number 3150376.Peer reviewe