Musician Ben Rector to Open for NEEDTOBREATHE on April 28

Ben Rector will open the much-anticipated NEEDTOBREATHE concert on April 28 at 8 p.m. in Gardner-Webb University’s Paul Porter Arena. Rector, a pop musician from Nashville, Tenn., won the grand prize in the pop category of the 2006 John Lennon Songwriting Contest for his song “Conversation.” He is the youngest person ever to win the award. In 2011, “Something Like This,” his fourth and most critically acclaimed album, landed at #41 on the Billboard 200, his highest-charting project.https://digitalcommons.gardner-webb.edu/gardner-webb-newscenter-archive/2876/thumbnail.jp

Ribbed mussel Geukensia demissa population response to living shoreline design and ecosystem development

Coastal communities increasingly invest in natural and nature-based features (e.g., living shorelines) as a strategy to protect shorelines and enhance coastal resilience. Tidal marshes are a common component of these strategies because of their capacity to reduce wave energy and storm surge impacts. Performance metrics of restoration success for living shorelines tend to focus on how the physical structure of the created marsh enhances shoreline protection via proper elevation and marsh plant presence. These metrics do not fully evaluate the level of marsh ecosystem development. In particular, the presence of key marsh bivalve species can indicate the capability of the marsh to provide non-protective services of value, such as water quality improvement and habitat provision. We observed an unexpected low to no abundance of the filter-feeding ribbed mussel, Geukensia demissa, in living shoreline marshes throughout Chesapeake Bay. In salt marsh ecosystems along the Atlantic Coast of the United States, ribbed mussels improve water quality, enhance nutrient removal, stabilize the marsh, and facilitate long-term sustainability of the habitat. Through comparative field surveys and experiments within a chronosequence of 13 living shorelines spanning 2–16 years since construction, we examined three factors we hypothesized may influence recruitment of ribbed mussels to living shoreline marshes: (1) larval access to suitable marsh habitat, (2) sediment quality of low marsh (i.e., potential mussel habitat), and (3) availability of high-quality refuge habitat. Our findings suggest that at most sites larval mussels are able to access and settle on living shoreline created marshes behind rock sill structures, but that most recruits are likely not surviving. Sediment organic matter (OM) and plant density were correlated with mussel abundance, and sediment OM increased with marsh age, suggesting that living shoreline design (e.g., sand fill, planting grids) and lags in ecosystem development (sediment properties) are reducing the survival of the young recruits. We offer potential modifications to living shoreline design and implementation practices that may facilitate self-sustaining ribbed mussel populations in these restored habitats

Ecological equivalency of living shorelines and natural marshes for fish and crustacean communities

Salt marshes provide valued services to coastal communities including nutrient cycling, erosion control, habitat provision for crustaceans and fish (including juvenile and forage fish), and energy transfer from the detrital based food web to the greater estuarine system. Living shorelines are erosion control structures that recreate natural shorelines, such as fringing marshes, while providing other beneficial ecosystem services. Living shorelines are expected to provide fish and crustacean (nekton) habitat, but few comprehensive studies have evaluated nekton habitat use across a range of living shoreline settings and ages. We sampled the intertidal marsh and subtidal shallow water nekton community at 13 paired living shoreline and reference marsh sites, with living shorelines ranging in age from 2 to 16 years from construction. We compared nekton diversity, nekton community abundance, nekton community biomass, forage abundance, and juvenile abundance at reference marshes and living shorelines. Our results indicate that living shorelines are providing suitable marsh habitat for nekton communities, including juveniles and forage base species. The difference in living shoreline construction (rock sill, soil composition) did not appear to diminish habitat quality in the marsh or in nearshore waters, and rock sills may provide enhanced structural shoreline habitat. Living shorelines have the potential to combat marsh habitat loss and provide resilient nekton nursery habitat

Living shorelines achieve functional equivalence to natural fringe marshes across multiple ecological metrics

Nature-based shoreline protection provides a welcome class of adaptations to promote ecological resilience in the face of climate change. Along coastlines, living shorelines are among the preferred adaptation strategies to both reduce erosion and provide ecological functions. As an alternative to shoreline armoring, living shorelines are viewed favorably among coastal managers and some private property owners, but they have yet to undergo a thorough examination of how their levels of ecosystem functions compare to their closest natural counterpart: fringing marshes. Here, we provide a synthesis of results from a multi-year, large-spatial-scale study in which we compared numerous ecological metrics (including habitat provision for fish, invertebrates, diamondback terrapin, and birds, nutrient and carbon storage, and plant productivity) measured in thirteen pairs of living shorelines and natural fringing marshes throughout coastal Virginia, USA. Living shorelines were composed of marshes created by bank grading, placement of sand fill for proper elevations, and planting of S. alterniflora and S. patens, as well as placement of a stone sill seaward and parallel to the marsh to serve as a wave break. Overall, we found that living shorelines were functionally equivalent to natural marshes in nearly all measured aspects, except for a lag in soil composition due to construction of living shoreline marshes with clean, low-organic sands. These data support the prioritization of living shorelines as a coastal adaptation strategy

Living Shorelines Achieve Functional Equivalence to Natural Fringe Marshes across Multiple Ecological Metrics

This is the data, script, and figure repository for the manuscript titled, "Living Shorelines Achieve Functional Equivalence to Natural Fringe Marshes across Multiple Ecological Metrics" published in PeerJ

Live-Cell Imaging Shows Uneven Segregation of Extrachromosomal DNA Elements and Transcriptionally Active Extrachromosomal DNA Hubs in Cancer.

Oncogenic extrachromosomal DNA elements (ecDNA) play an important role in tumor evolution, but our understanding of ecDNA biology is limited. We determined the distribution of single-cell ecDNA copy number across patient tissues and cell line models and observed how cell-to-cell ecDNA frequency varies greatly. The exceptional intratumoral heterogeneity of ecDNA suggested ecDNA-specific replication and propagation mechanisms. To evaluate the transfer of ecDNA genetic material from parental to offspring cells during mitosis, we established the CRISPR-based ecTag method. ecTag leverages ecDNA-specific breakpoint sequences to tag ecDNA with fluorescent markers in living cells. Applying ecTag during mitosis revealed disjointed ecDNA inheritance patterns, enabling rapid ecDNA accumulation in individual cells. After mitosis, ecDNAs clustered into ecDNA hubs, and ecDNA hubs colocalized with RNA polymerase II, promoting transcription of cargo oncogenes. Our observations provide direct evidence for uneven segregation of ecDNA and shed new light on mechanisms through which ecDNAs contribute to oncogenesis. SIGNIFICANCE: ecDNAs are vehicles for oncogene amplification. The circular nature of ecDNA affords unique properties, such as mobility and ecDNA-specific replication and segregation behavior. We uncovered fundamental ecDNA properties by tracking ecDNAs in live cells, highlighting uneven and random segregation and ecDNA hubs that drive cargo gene transcription