Decomposition of Cattle Dung on Mixed Grass-Legume Pastures

Animal excreta contribute positively to nutrient cycling and can improve the quality of soil (Dubeux et al. 2009, Carvalho et al. 2010). Cattle excrement, when evenly distributed over a pasture, can help to maintain plant nutrition without the application of fertilizers. The introduction of legumes intercropped with grasses benefits the soil by means of nitrogen fixation. Also, when ruminant animals eat legumes, the excrement produced may have lower C:N, C:P, lignin:N and lignin:P ratios promoting better nutrient return to the soil compared to when cattle eat only grass. Given the importance of nutrient return and decomposition time of cattle excreta on pastures, the objective of this study was to evaluate the decomposition of excrement of heifers managed in mixed grass-shrubby legume pastures and grass-only pastures

Marriage, social integration and loneliness in the second half of life: A comparison of Dutch and german men and women

Contains fulltext : 55589.pdf (publisher's version ) (Closed access)Although marriage is usually considered to be socially integrative, some studies indicate that it can be privatizing, enclosing couples in isolated dyads. This study compared the availability of support, companionship, and negative relational experiences in various types of relationships for married men and women aged 40 to 85 years in the Netherlands and Germany. The Dutch demonstrated a more varied pattern of relationships beyond the nuclear family than the Germans but also reported worrying about a greater variety of people. In both countries, men relied more strongly on their partners, whereas women had more varied networks and experienced more worries. A continuum of social involvement can be drawn with German men, for whom marriage is privatizing, at one end and Dutch women, for whom marriage is highly socially integrating, at the other. Loneliness was related to the provisions of social relations, but no national and gender differences in predictors of loneliness were found.17 p

SNAPSHOT USA 2019 : a coordinated national camera trap survey of the United States

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.With the accelerating pace of global change, it is imperative that we obtain rapid inventories of the status and distribution of wildlife for ecological inferences and conservation planning. To address this challenge, we launched the SNAPSHOT USA project, a collaborative survey of terrestrial wildlife populations using camera traps across the United States. For our first annual survey, we compiled data across all 50 states during a 14-week period (17 August - 24 November of 2019). We sampled wildlife at 1509 camera trap sites from 110 camera trap arrays covering 12 different ecoregions across four development zones. This effort resulted in 166,036 unique detections of 83 species of mammals and 17 species of birds. All images were processed through the Smithsonian's eMammal camera trap data repository and included an expert review phase to ensure taxonomic accuracy of data, resulting in each picture being reviewed at least twice. The results represent a timely and standardized camera trap survey of the USA. All of the 2019 survey data are made available herein. We are currently repeating surveys in fall 2020, opening up the opportunity to other institutions and cooperators to expand coverage of all the urban-wild gradients and ecophysiographic regions of the country. Future data will be available as the database is updated at eMammal.si.edu/snapshot-usa, as well as future data paper submissions. These data will be useful for local and macroecological research including the examination of community assembly, effects of environmental and anthropogenic landscape variables, effects of fragmentation and extinction debt dynamics, as well as species-specific population dynamics and conservation action plans. There are no copyright restrictions; please cite this paper when using the data for publication.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Alterations in the Salivary Proteome and N‑Glycome of Sjögren’s Syndrome Patients

We used isobaric mass tagging (iTRAQ) and lectin affinity capture mass spectrometry (MS)-based workflows for global analyses of parotid saliva (PS) and whole saliva (WS) samples obtained from patients diagnosed with primary Sjögren's Syndrome (pSS) who were enrolled in the Sjögren's International Collaborative Clinical Alliance (SICCA) as compared with two control groups. The iTRAQ analyses revealed up- and down-regulation of numerous proteins that could be involved in the disease process (e.g., histones) or attempts to mitigate the ensuing damage (e.g., bactericidal/permeability increasing fold containing family (BPIF) members). An immunoblot approach applied to independent sample sets confirmed the pSS associated up-regulation of β2-microglobulin (in PS) and down-regulation of carbonic anhydrase VI (in WS) and BPIFB2 (in PS). Beyond the proteome, we profiled the N-glycosites of pSS and control samples. They were enriched for glycopeptides using lectins Aleuria aurantia and wheat germ agglutinin, which recognize fucose and sialic acid/N-acetyl glucosamine, respectively. MS analyses showed that pSS is associated with increased N-glycosylation of numerous salivary glycoproteins in PS and WS. The observed alterations of the salivary proteome and N-glycome could be used as pSS biomarkers enabling easier and earlier detection of this syndrome while lending potential new insights into the disease process

Alterations in the Salivary Proteome and <i>N</i>‑Glycome of Sjögren’s Syndrome Patients

We used isobaric mass tagging (iTRAQ) and lectin affinity capture mass spectrometry (MS)-based workflows for global analyses of parotid saliva (PS) and whole saliva (WS) samples obtained from patients diagnosed with primary Sjögren’s Syndrome (pSS) who were enrolled in the Sjögren’s International Collaborative Clinical Alliance (SICCA) as compared with two control groups. The iTRAQ analyses revealed up- and down-regulation of numerous proteins that could be involved in the disease process (e.g., histones) or attempts to mitigate the ensuing damage (e.g., bactericidal/permeability increasing fold containing family (BPIF) members). An immunoblot approach applied to independent sample sets confirmed the pSS associated up-regulation of β2-microglobulin (in PS) and down-regulation of carbonic anhydrase VI (in WS) and BPIFB2 (in PS). Beyond the proteome, we profiled the <i>N</i>-glycosites of pSS and control samples. They were enriched for glycopeptides using lectins <i>Aleuria aurantia</i> and wheat germ agglutinin, which recognize fucose and sialic acid/<i>N</i>-acetyl glucosamine, respectively. MS analyses showed that pSS is associated with increased <i>N</i>-glycosylation of numerous salivary glycoproteins in PS and WS. The observed alterations of the salivary proteome and <i>N</i>-glycome could be used as pSS biomarkers enabling easier and earlier detection of this syndrome while lending potential new insights into the disease process