Sterols sense swelling in lipid bilayers

In the mimetic membrane system of phosphatidylcholine bilayers, thickening (pre-critical behavior, anomalous swelling) of the bilayers is observed, in the vicinity of the main transition, which is non-linear with temperature. The sterols cholesterol and androsten are used as sensors in a time-resolved simultaneous small- and wide angle x-ray diffraction study to investigate the cause of the thickening. We observe precritical behavior in the pure lipid system, as well as with sterol concentrations less than 15%. To describe the precritical behavior we introduce a theory of precritical phenomena.The good temperature resolution of the data shows that a theory of the influence of fluctuations needs modification. The main cause of the critical behavior appears to be a changing hydration of the bilayer.Comment: 11 pages, 7 ps figures included, to appear in Phys.Rev.

Beyond Kinetic Relations

We introduce the concept of kinetic equations representing a natural extension of the more conventional notion of a kinetic relation. Algebraic kinetic relations, widely used to model dynamics of dislocations, cracks and phase boundaries, link the instantaneous value of the velocity of a defect with an instantaneous value of the driving force. The new approach generalizes kinetic relations by implying a relation between the velocity and the driving force which is nonlocal in time. To make this relations explicit one needs to integrate the system of kinetic equations. We illustrate the difference between kinetic relation and kinetic equations by working out in full detail a prototypical model of an overdamped defect in a one-dimensional discrete lattice. We show that the minimal nonlocal kinetic description containing now an internal time scale is furnished by a system of two ordinary differential equations coupling the spatial location of defect with another internal parameter that describes configuration of the core region.Comment: Revised version, 33 pages, 9 figure

Evolutionary history of grazing and resources determine herbivore exclusion effects on plant diversity

Ecological models predict that the effects of mammalian herbivore exclusion on plant diversity depend on resource availability and plant exposure to ungulate grazing over evolutionary time. Using an experiment replicated in 57 grasslands on six continents, with contrasting evolutionary history of grazing, we tested how resources (mean annual precipitation and soil nutrients) determine herbivore exclusion effects on plant diversity, richness and evenness. Here we show that at sites with a long history of ungulate grazing, herbivore exclusion reduced plant diversity by reducing both richness and evenness and the responses of richness and diversity to herbivore exclusion decreased with mean annual precipitation. At sites with a short history of grazing, the effects of herbivore exclusion were not related to precipitation but differed for native and exotic plant richness. Thus, plant species’ evolutionary history of grazing continues to shape the response of the world’s grasslands to changing mammalian herbivory