123 research outputs found
Hydrological controls on oviposition habitat are associated with egg-laying phenology of some caddisflies
1. Seasonal variation in resource availability can have strong effects on life histories and population densities. Emergent rocks (ERs) are an essential oviposition resource for multiple species of stream insects. The availability of ERs depends upon water depth and clast size, which vary with discharge and river geomorphology, respectively. Recruitment success for populations may depend on whether peak egg-laying periods occur at times when ER are also abundant. For multiple species that oviposit on ER, we tested whether seasonal fluctuations in ER abundance were concurrent with oviposition phenology. We also tested whether high discharge drowned ERs for sufficiently long periods to preclude egg laying, and whether this problem varied between rivers differing in channel morphology and particle size distribution.2. We obtained a continuous timeseries of water level (WL) measured every 30 min for two years at sites on three rivers in south-eastern Australia with similar hydrology but different geomorphology. A relationship between WL and ER numbers was determined empirically at each site and these relationships were used to predict ER availability over the two years. Egg masses of ten species of caddisflies were enumerated each month for a year in one river to establish oviposition phenology. 3. Abundance of ERs was inversely related to discharge in all three rivers. ERs were most abundant during autumn and scarce during spring. Site-specific geomorphology resulted in skewed or multimodal distributions of ER abundance each year. Between years, catchment-scale hydrometeorology mediated patterns of ER availability, despite the close proximity of sites. Temporal variance in ER availability was not consistently correlated with mean WL or WL variance. ER variance increased with WL variance, when WL was below a threshold equivalent to mean annual WL. Above this threshold, most ER were likely to be submerged.4. Oviposition phenology varied strongly among the ten species of caddisflies, with egg-laying ranging from in 1-2 months to year-round. Temporal variations in ER and egg mass abundance were not correlated for most species. Below a threshold minimum number of ER, egg masses were highly crowded onto the few available ER, which is evidence that ER were in short supply. For five species, high egg mass abundance was positively associated with periods of the year when the time above the threshold number of ERs was high. Unusually, two species laid most egg masses during winter and when the time above this threshold was short. Three species showed no association between egg mass abundance and time above this threshold; two of these species laid eggs year-round.5. Regional hydrometeorology controlled the availability of ERs, but between-river differences were sufficient to deliver different outcomes in the availability of oviposition sites between years and seasons. Caddisflies were rarely prevented from laying eggs but periods when ERs were in short supply created crowding, which may be associated with negative fitness effects on hatching larvae. Geomorphological controls on availability of oviposition resources may have strong implications for the coexistence of species that overlap temporally in egg-laying
COLD GASS, an IRAM Legacy Survey of Molecular Gas in Massive Galaxies: II. The non-universality of the Molecular Gas Depletion Timescale
We study the relation between molecular gas and star formation in a
volume-limited sample of 222 galaxies from the COLD GASS survey, with
measurements of the CO(1-0) line from the IRAM 30m telescope. The galaxies are
at redshifts 0.025<z<0.05 and have stellar masses in the range
10.0<log(M*/Msun)<11.5. The IRAM measurements are complemented by deep Arecibo
HI observations and homogeneous SDSS and GALEX photometry. A reference sample
that includes both UV and far-IR data is used to calibrate our estimates of
star formation rates from the seven optical/UV bands. The mean molecular gas
depletion timescale, tdep(H2), for all the galaxies in our sample is 1 Gyr,
however tdep(H2) increases by a factor of 6 from a value of ~0.5 Gyr for
galaxies with stellar masses of 10^10 Msun to ~3 Gyr for galaxies with masses
of a few times 10^11 Msun. In contrast, the atomic gas depletion timescale
remains contant at a value of around 3 Gyr. This implies that in high mass
galaxies, molecular and atomic gas depletion timescales are comparable, but in
low mass galaxies, molecular gas is being consumed much more quickly than
atomic gas. The strongest dependences of tdep(H2) are on the stellar mass of
the galaxy (parameterized as log tdep(H2)= (0.36+/-0.07)(log M* -
10.70)+(9.03+/-0.99)), and on the specific star formation rate. A single
tdep(H2) versus sSFR relation is able to fit both "normal" star-forming
galaxies in our COLD GASS sample, as well as more extreme starburst galaxies
(LIRGs and ULIRGs), which have tdep(H2) < 10^8 yr. Normal galaxies at z=1-2 are
displaced with respect to the local galaxy population in the tdep(H2) versus
sSFR plane and have molecular gas depletion times that are a factor of 3-5
times longer at a given value of sSFR due to their significantly larger gas
fractions.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS. 19 pages, 11 figure
The impact of interactions, bars, bulges, and AGN on star formation efficiency in local massive galaxies
Using observations from the GASS and COLD GASS surveys and complementary data
from SDSS and GALEX, we investigate the nature of variations in gas depletion
time observed across the local massive galaxy population. The large and
unbiased COLD GASS sample allows us to assess the relative importance of galaxy
interactions, bar instabilities, morphologies and the presence of AGN in
regulating star formation efficiency. Both the H2 mass fraction and depletion
time vary as a function of the distance of a galaxy from the main sequence in
the SFR-M* plane. The longest gas depletion times are found in below-main
sequence bulge-dominated galaxies that are either gas-poor, or else on average
less efficient than disk-dominated galaxy at converting into stars any cold gas
they may have. We find no link between AGN and these long depletion times. The
galaxies undergoing mergers or showing signs of morphological disruptions have
the shortest molecular gas depletion times, while those hosting strong stellar
bars have only marginally higher global star formation efficiencies as compared
to matched control samples. Our interpretation is that depletion time
variations are caused by changes in the ratio between the gas mass traced by
the CO(1-0) observations, and the gas mass in high density star-forming cores,
with interactions, mergers and bar instabilities able to locally increase
pressure and raise the ratio of efficiently star-forming gas to CO-detected
gas. Building a sample representative of the local massive galaxy population,
we derive a global Kennicutt-Schmidt relation of slope 1.18+/-0.24, and observe
structure within the scatter around this relation, with galaxies having low
(high) stellar mass surface densities lying systematically above (below) the
mean relation, suggesting that gas surface density is not the only parameter
driving the global star formation ability of a galaxy.Comment: 19 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in Ap
The Fourteenth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Spectroscopic Data from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey and from the second phase of the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment
The fourth generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV) has been in
operation since July 2014. This paper describes the second data release from
this phase, and the fourteenth from SDSS overall (making this, Data Release
Fourteen or DR14). This release makes public data taken by SDSS-IV in its first
two years of operation (July 2014-2016). Like all previous SDSS releases, DR14
is cumulative, including the most recent reductions and calibrations of all
data taken by SDSS since the first phase began operations in 2000. New in DR14
is the first public release of data from the extended Baryon Oscillation
Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS); the first data from the second phase of the
Apache Point Observatory (APO) Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE-2),
including stellar parameter estimates from an innovative data driven machine
learning algorithm known as "The Cannon"; and almost twice as many data cubes
from the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at APO (MaNGA) survey as were in the previous
release (N = 2812 in total). This paper describes the location and format of
the publicly available data from SDSS-IV surveys. We provide references to the
important technical papers describing how these data have been taken (both
targeting and observation details) and processed for scientific use. The SDSS
website (www.sdss.org) has been updated for this release, and provides links to
data downloads, as well as tutorials and examples of data use. SDSS-IV is
planning to continue to collect astronomical data until 2020, and will be
followed by SDSS-V.Comment: SDSS-IV collaboration alphabetical author data release paper. DR14
happened on 31st July 2017. 19 pages, 5 figures. Accepted by ApJS on 28th Nov
2017 (this is the "post-print" and "post-proofs" version; minor corrections
only from v1, and most of errors found in proofs corrected
Discovery That Theonellasterol a Marine Sponge Sterol Is a Highly Selective FXR Antagonist That Protects against Liver Injury in Cholestasis
Background: The farnesoid-x-receptor (FXR) is a bile acid sensor expressed in the liver and gastrointestinal tract. Despite
FXR ligands are under investigation for treatment of cholestasis, a biochemical condition occurring in a number of liver
diseases for which available therapies are poorly effective, mice harboring a disrupted FXR are protected against liver injury
caused by bile acid overload in rodent models of cholestasis. Theonellasterol is a 4-methylene-24-ethylsteroid isolated from
the marine sponge Theonella swinhoei. Here, we have characterized the activity of this theonellasterol on FXR-regulated
genes and biological functions.
Principal Findings: Interrogation of HepG2 cells, a human hepatocyte cell line, by microarray analysis and transactivation
assay shows that theonellasterol is a selective FXR antagonist, devoid of any agonistic or antagonistic activity on a number of
human nuclear receptors including the vitamin D receptor, PPARs, PXR, LXRs, progesterone, estrogen, glucorticoid and
thyroid receptors, among others. Exposure of HepG2 cells to theonellasterol antagonizes the effect of natural and synthetic
FXR agonists on FXR-regulated genes, including SHP, OSTa, BSEP and MRP4. A proof-of-concept study carried out to
investigate whether FXR antagonism rescues mice from liver injury caused by the ligation of the common bile duct, a model
of obstructive cholestasis, demonstrated that theonellasterol attenuates injury caused by bile duct ligation as measured by
assessing serum alanine aminostrasferase levels and extent of liver necrosis at histopathology. Analysis of genes involved in
bile acid uptake and excretion by hepatocytes revealed that theonellasterol increases the liver expression of MRP4, a
basolateral transporter that is negatively regulated by FXR. Administering bile duct ligated mice with an FXR agonist failed
to rescue from liver injury and downregulated the expression of MRP4.
Conclusions: FXR antagonism in vivo results in a positive modulation of MRP4 expression in the liver and is a feasible
strategy to target obstructive cholestasis
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Global chemical effects of the microbiome include new bile-acid conjugations
A mosaic of cross-phylum chemical interactions occurs between all metazoans and their microbiomes. A number of molecular families that are known to be produced by the microbiome have a marked effect on the balance between health and disease. Considering the diversity of the human microbiome (which numbers over 40,000 operational taxonomic units), the effect of the microbiome on the chemistry of an entire animal remains underexplored. Here we use mass spectrometry informatics and data visualization approaches to provide an assessment of the effects of the microbiome on the chemistry of an entire mammal by comparing metabolomics data from germ-free and specific-pathogen-free mice. We found that the microbiota affects the chemistry of all organs. This included the amino acid conjugations of host bile acids that were used to produce phenylalanocholic acid, tyrosocholic acid and leucocholic acid, which have not previously been characterized despite extensive research on bile-acid chemistry. These bile-acid conjugates were also found in humans, and were enriched in patients with inflammatory bowel disease or cystic fibrosis. These compounds agonized the farnesoid X receptor in vitro, and mice gavaged with the compounds showed reduced expression of bile-acid synthesis genes in vivo. Further studies are required to confirm whether these compounds have a physiological role in the host, and whether they contribute to gut diseases that are associated with microbiome dysbiosis
Localization of type 1 diabetes susceptibility to the MHC class I genes HLA-B and HLA-A
The major histocompatibility complex (MHC) on chromosome 6 is associated with susceptibility to more common diseases than any other region of the human genome, including almost all disorders classified as autoimmune. In type 1 diabetes the major genetic susceptibility determinants have been mapped to the MHC class II genes HLA-DQB1 and HLA-DRB1 (refs 1-3), but these genes cannot completely explain the association between type 1 diabetes and the MHC region. Owing to the region's extreme gene density, the multiplicity of disease-associated alleles, strong associations between alleles, limited genotyping capability, and inadequate statistical approaches and sample sizes, which, and how many, loci within the MHC determine susceptibility remains unclear. Here, in several large type 1 diabetes data sets, we analyse a combined total of 1,729 polymorphisms, and apply statistical methods - recursive partitioning and regression - to pinpoint disease susceptibility to the MHC class I genes HLA-B and HLA-A (risk ratios >1.5; Pcombined = 2.01 × 10-19 and 2.35 × 10-13, respectively) in addition to the established associations of the MHC class II genes. Other loci with smaller and/or rarer effects might also be involved, but to find these, future searches must take into account both the HLA class II and class I genes and use even larger samples. Taken together with previous studies, we conclude that MHC-class-I-mediated events, principally involving HLA-B*39, contribute to the aetiology of type 1 diabetes. ©2007 Nature Publishing Group
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