Reading tea leaves worldwide: decoupled drivers of initial litter decomposition mass-loss rate and stabilisation

The breakdown of plant material fuels soil functioning and biodiversity. Currently, process understanding of global decomposition patterns and the drivers of such patterns are hampered by the lack of coherent large-scale datasets. We buried 36,000 individual litterbags (tea bags) worldwide and found an overall negative correlation between initial mass-loss rates and stabilization factors of plant-derived carbon, using the Tea Bag Index (TBI). The stabilization factor quantifies the degree to which easy-to-degrade components accumulate during early-stage decomposition (e.g. by environmental limitations). However, agriculture and an interaction between moisture and temperature led to a decoupling between initial mass-loss rates and stabilization, notably in colder locations. Using TBI improved mass-loss estimates of natural litter compared to models that ignored stabilization. Ignoring the transformation of dead plant material to more recalcitrant substances during early-stage decomposition, and the environmental control of this transformation, could overestimate carbon losses during early decomposition in carbon cycle models

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time, and attempts to address it require a clear understanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space. While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes, vast areas of the tropics remain understudied. In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world's most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity, but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepresented in biodiversity databases. To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications may eliminate pieces of the Amazon's biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological communities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge, it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple organism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region's vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most neglected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lost

Subpopulações de linfócitos t no sangue de cordão umbilical de cães

Determinaram-se os valores hematológicos da contagem de hemácias, contagem total de leucócitos, hematócrito, concentração de hemoglobina e os índices hematimétricos (volume corpuscular médio e concentração de hemoglobina corpuscular média) e quantificaram-se os linfócitos T CD5+ e as subpopulações CD4+ e CD8+ do sangue do cordão umbilical (SCU) de cães por meio da técnica de citometria de fluxo. Nove cães adultos, da raça Beagle, foram utilizados como controle. O SCU foi colhido de 20 cães neonatos, a termo. O método de colheita de SCU utilizado proporcionou quantidade suficiente de sangue para realização das análises hematológicas e quantificação de linfócitos. As preparações citoscópicas do SCU sugeriram elevada atividade eritropoética. Não houve diferença nas contagens globais de leucócitos e linfócitos entre os grupos. A contagem de linfócitos T no SCU foi mais baixa que a obtida em animais adultos. A proporção CD4:CD8 obtida demonstrou a grande dominância das células T CD4+ sobre os linfócitos T CD8+ no SCU canino.The hematological parameters red blood cells (RBC) and total white blood cells (WBC) counts, hematocrit, hemoglobin concentration, and RBC indexes (median corpuscular volume and median corpuscular hemoglobin concentration) were determined and T CD5+ lymphocytes and CD4+ and CD8+ subpopulations of the umbilical cord blood (UCB) of dogs were quantified by the cytofluorimetric technique. Nine adult Beagles, from two do five-year old, were used as control. The umbilical cord blood (UCB) was collected from 20 neonate dogs. The method for the UCB collection was adequate to obtain sufficient quantity of blood for the accomplishment of the hematological analyses and lymphocyte quantification. Cytoscopic preparations of the UCB suggested high erythropoietic activity. There was no difference for the global leukocyte and lymphocyte counts between the groups. UCB T lymphocyte counts were lower than those obtained for adult dogs. The proportion of CD4:CD8 showed a great dominance of T CD4+ cells over T CD8+ lymphocytes in UCB

Continuum Terahertz Radiation Detection Using Membrane Filters

Technology of remote sensing in the terahertz range (frequency interval arbitrarily set between 0.1-30 THz) is the object of considerable development efforts addressed to a number of new civilian and military applications. Technical challenges appear in the THz sensing of temperature differences above an existing hot surface target, such as radiation patterns produced by high energy electrons in laboratory accelerators, and thermal differentiated structures in the solar disk in space. The efficient suppression of radiation in the visible and near infrared (set arbitrarily for wavelengths < 10 μm) is an essential requirement. An experimental setup has been prepared for testing at room temperature THz materials and detectors, aiming the detection of solar radiation. A custom-made detector consisted in a room-temperature micro-bolometer INO camera with HRFZ-Si window. The THz transmission of two "low-pass" membranes were tested for black body temperatures ranging 300-1000 K: Zitex G110G and TydexBlack. It has been demonstrated that both are effective suppressors of radiation at wavelengths < 15 μm, with the first one exhibiting a small radiation excess, that may be attributed to small visible and NIR allowance. We describe optical setups prepared to detect solar radiation, consisting in a microbolometer camera preceded by a photon pipe, low-pass membrane and band-pass resonant metal mesh, placed at the focus of the 1.5 m reflector for submillimeter waves (SST) at El Leoncito, Argentina Andes. ©2009IEEE.262266Harris, D.C., (1999) Materials for Infrared Windows and Domes, , SPIE Optical Engineering Press, Washington, USA, CSiegel, P.H., THz Technology: An Overview (2003) International Journal of High Speed Electronics and Systems, 13 (2), pp. 1-44Mlynczak, M., Johnson, D., Bingham, G., Far-Infrared Spectroscopy of the Troposphere (FIRST) project (2003) Proceedings of Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, 1, p. 512Sherwin, M.S., Schmuttenmaer, C.A., Bucksbaum, P.H., Proceedings of DOE-NSF-NIH Workshop on Opportunities in THz Science, Arlington, VA, 2004Kinch, M.A., Infrared detector materials (2007) SPIE Optical Engineering Press, TT76. , Washington, USA, DCStrabala, K.I., Ackerman, S.A., Menzel, W.P., Cloud Properties inferred from 8-12-μm Data (1994) Journal of Applied Meteorology, 33 (2), p. 212Williams, G.P., FAR-IR/THz radiation from the Jefferson Laboratory, energy recovered linac, free electron laser (2002) Rev. Sci. Instrum., 73, pp. 1461-1463Kaufmann, P., Raulin, J.-P., Can microbunch instability on solar flare accelerated electron beams account for bright broadband coherent synchrotronmicrowaves? (2006) Phys. Plasmas, 13. , 070701-070701-70704Klopf, J.M., 1st SMESE Workshop, 10-12 March, Paris, France, 2008Benford, D.J., Gaidis, M.C., Kooi, J.W., Optical properties of Zitex in the infrared to submillimeter (2003) Applied Optics, 42, pp. 5118-5122(2008) Technical Note on THz Materials and Components, , www.tydex.ruBlackbody Radiance, , http://spectralcalc.com/blackbody_calculator/blackbody.php, GATS, IncKaufmann, P., New telescopes for ground-based solar observations at submillimeter and mid-infrared (2008) Proc. SPIE, 7012, pp. 70120L-1-8Kornberg, M., Rough Mirrors for the THz frequency range (2008) Proc. MOMAG 2008 - 13th SBMO and 8th CBMAG, Florianópolis, SC, Brazil, pp. 365-367(2008), ESSCO, West Concord, MA, USA, private communicationMelo, A.M., Submillimeter-wave Atmospheric Transmission at El Leoncito, Argentina Andes (2005) IEEE Trans Ant. Propagat., 53, p. 1528Gezari, D.Y., Joyce, R.R., Simon, M., Measurement of the Solar Brightness Temperature at 345, 450 and 1000 micrometers (1973) Astron.Astrophys., 26, pp. 409-411Melo, A.M., Metal mesh resonant filters for terahertz frequencies (2008) Applied Optics, 47, pp. 6064-6069Ruze, J., The effect of aperture errors on the antenna radiation pattern (1953) Nuovo Cimento Suppl., 9, pp. 364-38