Bilateral Diffuse Uveal Melanocytic Proliferation Presenting as Small Choroidal Melanoma

Purpose. To describe a patient with Bilateral Diffuse Uveal Proliferation who presented initially with a clinical picture consistent with choroidal melanoma. Methods. Presentation of a clinical case with fundus photos, fluorescein angiography, and optical coherence tomography. Results. A 70-year-old Caucasian male with history of esophageal cancer presented with an asymptomatic pigmented choroidal lesion in his left eye initially diagnosed as choroidal nevus. This lesion enlarged over the course of a year and developed orange pigment and increased thickness. A metastatic workup was negative, and a radioactive iodine plaque was placed on the left eye. Over the next six months, the visual acuity in his left eye decreased. His clinical picture was consistent with unilateral Diffuse Uveal Proliferation. A recurrence of his esophageal carcinoma with metastasis was discovered and palliative chemotherapy was initiated. Although his visual acuity improved in the left eye, similar pigmentary changes developed in the right fundus. His visual acuity in both eyes gradually decreased to 20/200 until his death a year later. Conclusion. BDUMP should always be considered in the differential diagnosis of patients with pigmented fundus lesions and a history of nonocular tumors

Pollination and dispersal trait spectra recover faster than the growth form spectrum during spontaneous succession in sandy old‐fields

Question: Spontaneous succession is the most natural and cost‐effective solution for grassland restoration. However, little is known about the time required for the recovery of grassland functionality, i.e., for the recovery of reproductive and vegetative processes typical of pristine grasslands. Since these processes operate at different scales, we addressed the question: do reproductive and vegetative processes require different recovery times during spontaneous succession? Location: Kiskunság sand region (Central Hungary). Methods: As combinations of plant traits can be used to highlight general patterns in ecological processes, we compared reproductive (pollination‐ and dispersal‐related) and vegetative (growth form) traits between recovered grasslands of different age (<10 years old; 10–20 years old; 20–40 years old) and pristine grasslands. Results: During spontaneous succession, the reproductive trait spectra became similar to those of pristine grasslands earlier than the vegetative ones. In arable land abandoned for 10 years, pollination‐ and dispersal‐related trait spectra did not show significant difference to those of pristine grasslands; anemophily and anemochory were the prevailing strategies. Contrarily, significant differences in the growth form spectrum could be observed even after 40 years of abandonment; in recovered grasslands erect leafy species prevailed, while the fraction of dwarf shrubs and tussock‐forming species was significantly lower than in pristine grasslands. Conclusions: The recovery of the ecological processes of pristine grasslands might require different amounts of time, depending on the spatial scale at which they operate. The reproductive trait spectra recovered earlier than the vegetative one, since reproductive attributes first determine plant species sorting at the regional level towards their respective habitats. The recovery of the vegetative trait spectrum needs more time as vegetative‐based interactions operate on a smaller spatial scale. Thus, vegetative traits might be more effective in the long‐term assessment of restoration success than the reproductive ones

Genotypic structure in clonal Rhododendron ferrugineum L-(Ericaceae) populations: origin and maintenance

International audienceGenotypic structure of a closed population of the clonal ericaceous shrub Rhododendron ferrugineum is examined in the light of two independent studies previously conducted on this species. In the first study, spatial distribution of genotypes in the closed population was inferred from the amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) procedure. Age of clones was estimated using their spatial extent and the annual growth rate of shoots. In the second study, ramet demography was studied in the three most representative stages of shrub invasion on two different sites, including the site where the population investigated by AFLP grew. The demographic data recorded were the area occupied by ramets and ramet age, and from this information the developmental pattern of Rhododendron populations was determined. Additional data such as genet density and distance between genets were calculated. These two sources of information allow us to propose that all or most of the clones detected in the closed population established at the early successional stage, and that the present genotypic structure was established several hundred years ago, long before the population reached total closure. Hypotheses concerning the future development of this genotypic structure are discussed

Nestling sex ratios in a population of Bluethroats Luscinia svecica inferred from AFLP (TM) analysis

Times Cited: 13International audienceWe studied the sex ratio of Bluethroat Luscinia svecica broods using AFLPs. Our aim was to test whether there is a bias towards males that could be explained by sexual selection thee-tries, or conversely, a bias towards females that could help explain the female-biased sex ratio among juveniles observed at a wintering site. The AFLP technique was reliable in sexing the nestlings from even small initial DNA quantities. Given the large number of polymorphic markers that can be obtained for each primer combination, the probability of detecting a W-chromosome-linked fragment is reasonably high. As a consequence, this method could be used in other species far sex-ratio studies and for other genetic purposes. Among 246 nestlings. we found an overall proportion of males of 50.8% at hatching and the sex-ratio variation using broods as independent units was not significantly different from expectation under a binomial distribution. None of the parental and environmental variables tested changed significantly the deviance to the model. Thus, sex determination in the Bluethroat seems to match the classical Mendelian model of a 1:1 sex ratio and cannot explain the biased sex ratio towards juvenile females found at the wintering site

Variation of reproductive traits in Rhododendron ferrugineum L (Ericacene) populations along a successional gradient

International audienceSexual and vegetative reproduction in the alpine species Rhododendron ferrugineum was studied along a successional sequence (meadow --> open heathland --> closed heathland) at two sites and in a wet heathland. This study aims to determine (1) the characteristics of sexual reproduction in R. ferrugineum populations (2) when and how these populations develop layering (adventitious rooting) and (3) whether reproductive traits and reproductive strategies develop relative to the degree of population closure and maturity. The variables used to describe sexual reproduction were inflorescence density (per m(2) of Rhododendron cover), number of flowers per inflorescence and per m(2) of Rhododendron cover, and seeds production (per fruit and m(2) of Rhododendron cover). Flowering and fruiting phenologies were also recorded. For describing clonal development, we investigated layering variables such as length and annual growth rate of prostrate stems, rooting occurence and ramet density. The results show that the direction toward which the clones extend is mainly determinated by the topography, and that layering steadily increases with increasing population closure and maturity. Reproductive potential of R. ferrugineum is enormous (0.4-2.4 million seeds m(-2)) but reproductive effort remains low with respect to total biomass of seeds (3-21 g m(-2)). Reproductive effort of R. ferrugineum populations could be reduced as a counterpart of layering development only when the shrub draws more matter and energy in layering stems than aerial stems. The variations reproductive traits observed on our sites could be due to primarily to phenotypic response to variable microhabitat features, rather than to genetically deterministic processes