The evolutionary history of new zealand deschampsia is marked by long-distance dispersal, endemism, and hybridization

The contrasting evolutionary histories of endemic versus related cosmopolitan species provide avenues to understand the spatial drivers and limitations of biodiversity. Here, we investigated the evolutionary history of three New Zealand endemic Deschampsia species, and how they are related to cosmopolitan D. cespitosa. We used RADseq to test species delimitations, infer a dated species tree, and investigate gene flow patterns between the New Zealand endemics and the D. cespitosa populations of New Zealand, Australia and Korea. Whole plastid DNA analysis was performed on a larger worldwide sampling. Morphometrics of selected characters were applied to New Zealand sampling. Our RADseq review of over 55 Mbp showed the endemics as genetically well-defined from each other. Their last common ancestor with D. cespitosa lived during the last ten MY. The New Zealand D. cespitosa appears in a clade with Australian and Korean samples. Whole plastid DNA analysis revealed the endemics as members of a southern hemisphere clade, excluding the extant D. cespitosa of New Zealand. Both data provided strong evidence for hybridization between D. cespitosa and D. chapmanii. Our findings provide evidence for at least two migration events of the genus Deschampsia to New Zealand and hybridization between D. cespitosa and endemic taxa.Fil: Xue, Yali. Universidad de Viena; AustriaFil: Greimler, Josef. Universidad de Viena; AustriaFil: Paun, Ovidiu. Universidad de Viena; AustriaFil: Ford, Kerry A.. Allan Herbarium; Nueva ZelandaFil: Barfuss, Michael H. J.. Universidad de Viena; AustriaFil: Chiapella, Jorge Oscar. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Patagonia Norte. Instituto de Investigaciones en Biodiversidad y Medioambiente. Universidad Nacional del Comahue. Centro Regional Universidad Bariloche. Instituto de Investigaciones en Biodiversidad y Medioambiente; Argentin

The evolutionary history of new zealand deschampsia is marked by long-distance dispersal, endemism, and hybridization

The contrasting evolutionary histories of endemic versus related cosmopolitan species provide avenues to understand the spatial drivers and limitations of biodiversity. Here, we investigated the evolutionary history of three New Zealand endemic Deschampsia species, and how they are related to cosmopolitan D. cespitosa. We used RADseq to test species delimitations, infer a dated species tree, and investigate gene flow patterns between the New Zealand endemics and the D. cespitosa populations of New Zealand, Australia and Korea. Whole plastid DNA analysis was performed on a larger worldwide sampling. Morphometrics of selected characters were applied to New Zealand sampling. Our RADseq review of over 55 Mbp showed the endemics as genetically well-defined from each other. Their last common ancestor with D. cespitosa lived during the last ten MY. The New Zealand D. cespitosa appears in a clade with Australian and Korean samples. Whole plastid DNA analysis revealed the endemics as members of a southern hemisphere clade, excluding the extant D. cespitosa of New Zealand. Both data provided strong evidence for hybridization between D. cespitosa and D. chapmanii. Our findings provide evidence for at least two migration events of the genus Deschampsia to New Zealand and hybridization between D. cespitosa and endemic taxa.Fil: Xue, Yali. Universidad de Viena; AustriaFil: Greimler, Josef. Universidad de Viena; AustriaFil: Paun, Ovidiu. Universidad de Viena; AustriaFil: Ford, Kerry A.. Allan Herbarium; Nueva ZelandaFil: Barfuss, Michael H. J.. Universidad de Viena; AustriaFil: Chiapella, Jorge Oscar. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Patagonia Norte. Instituto de Investigaciones en Biodiversidad y Medioambiente. Universidad Nacional del Comahue. Centro Regional Universidad Bariloche. Instituto de Investigaciones en Biodiversidad y Medioambiente; Argentin

An analysis of the possible protective effect of antipsychotics for SARS-CoV-2 in patients under treatment for severe mental illnesses

Since the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus type 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic has sparked, it was supposed that inpatients with severe mental illnesses (SMI) could be at higher risk of developing the infection, as a consequence of their long stay in closed institutions, adding to the difficulty that SMI entails for compliance with prevention measures, like social distancing or mask wearing. Moreover, people with SMI usually tend to have unhealthy habits, including the use of high amounts of tobacco, a sedentary lifestyle, and an inappropriate diet. These factors, added to the metabolic adverse effects associated with the use of atypical antipsychotics, predispose to respiratory, cardiovascular, and metabolic diseases (Rossler, Salize et al. 2005). It is well known that all these conditions are associated with a severe course of SARS-CoV-2 disease (Chen, Wu et al. 2020, Grasselli, Greco et al. 2020, Zheng, Peng et al. 2020). Since the pandemic started in Argentina, we expected a growing number of infected inpatients among mental health hospitals. To prevent the SARS-CoV-2 spread among patients in closed institutions, a SARS-CoV-2 unit was created to receive all inpatients with a positive test and the absence of symptoms, or the presence of mild symptoms. To our surprise, these units received few patients, and even fewer patients required to be transferred to more complex general hospitals because of the disease severity. These events led us to ask if antipsychotics could have a protective effect on the disease.Fil: Prokopez, Cintia R.. Hospital Neuropsiquiátrico Braulio Aurelio Moyano; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Medicina. Instituto de Farmacología; ArgentinaFil: Vallejos, Miguel. Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. Hospital Municipal "José Tiburcio Borda"; ArgentinaFil: Lopredo, Lorena S.. Hospital Neuropsiquiátrico Braulio Aurelio Moyano; ArgentinaFil: Sfriso, Luciano E.. Hospital Neuropsiquiátrico Braulio Aurelio Moyano; ArgentinaFil: Chiapella, Luciana Carla. Universidad Nacional de Rosario; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Arce, Claudio. Hospital Neuropsiquiátrico Braulio Aurelio Moyano; ArgentinaFil: Corral, Ricardo M.. Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. Hospital Municipal "José Tiburcio Borda"; ArgentinaFil: Cuesta, Manuel J.. Hospital de Navarra; España. Universidad Pública de Navarra; EspañaFil: Farinola, Romina. Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. Hospital Municipal "José Tiburcio Borda"; ArgentinaFil: Alomo, Martín. Hospital Neuropsiquiátrico Braulio Aurelio Moyano; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires; Argentin

Can space-for-time-substitution surveys represent zooplankton biodiversity patterns and their relationship to environmental drivers?

Space-for-Time-Substitution surveys (SFTS) are commonly used to describe zooplankton community dynamics and to determine lake ecosystem health. SFTS surveys typically combine single point observations from many lakes to evaluate the response of zooplankton community structure and dynamics (e.g., species abundance and biomass, diversity, demographics and modeled rate processes) to spatial gradients in hypothesized environmental drivers (e.g., temperature, nutrients, predation), in lieu of tracking such responses over long time scales. However, the reliability and reproducibility of SFTS zooplankton surveys have not yet been comprehensively tested against empirically-based community dynamics from longterm monitoring efforts distributed worldwide. We use a recently compiled global data set of more than 100 lake zooplankton time series to test whether SFTS surveys can accurately capture zooplankton diversity, and the hypothesized relationship with temperature, using simulated SFTS surveys of the time series data. Specifically, we asked: (1) to what degree can SFTS surveys capture observed biodiversity dynamics; (2) how does timing and duration of sampling affect detected biodiversity patterns; (3) does biodiversity ubiquitously increase with temperature across lakes, or vary by climate zone or lake type; and (4) do results from SFTS surveys produce comparable biodiversity-temperature relationship(s) to empirical data within and among lakes? Testing biodiversity-ecosystem function (BEF) relationships, and the drivers of such relationships, requires a solid data basis. Our work provides a global perspective on the design and usefulness of (long-term) zooplankton monitoring programs and how much confidence we can place in the zooplankton biodiversity patterns observed from SFTS surveys

Correlations among biodiversity, biomass and other plant community parameters using the phytosociological approach: A case study from the south-eastern Alps

The present study deals with the grassland complex of communities which may be found on the limestones in the southeastern Alps; these communities show in fact a particular interest for their high biodiversity degree and for their importance for the traditional land-use economy of the south-European mountain regions. Phytosociological releve´s corresponding to well-defined plant associations have been used in order to get information on the relationships among plant species diversity, biomass, chorotypes, pollination types, functional strategies and soil characteristics. The analysis was carried out both along an altitudinal and a soil evolution gradient. The analysis of the correlations among the variables and the application of the principal component analysis shows a positive correlation between soil parameters and biomass, eurichory, anemogamy and C- and R-strategies; on the contrary, a negative correlation among stenochory, entomogamy and S-strategy with the soil evolution seems to be present. This article shows how the phytosociological approach can be used to get information and knowledge on the correlations between several variables useful to understand the complex nature of the plant communities in order to support management plans

Testing the veracity of space-for-time-substitution surveys in modeling long-term zooplankton community dynamics

Climate change is rapidly altering the magnitude and phenology of ecological processes and communities. Single observation “snapshots” from multi-lake surveys over a geographic range are typically used to evaluate plankton dynamics and their responses to spatial gradients in environmental forcing (e.g. temperature). These surveys, called Space-for-Time-substitution (SFTS) surveys, make the critical assumption that environmental gradients are reliable proxies for time and are therefore useful for overcoming the tradeoff between geographic representation and detailed temporal datasets. SFTS surveys, however, have been critiqued for their assumption that spatial and temporal scales can be coupled, and the ability of large-scale snapshots to represent time-integrated patterns in zooplankton community structure and function remains untested at global scales. We compiled existing global lake time series to test whether SFTS surveys can capture zooplankton biodiversity and its relationship with lake temperature. We broadly hypothesized that single “snapshot” surveys would be unable to capture zooplankton diversity within lakes and that SFTS surveys wouldn’t be able to reproduce zooplankton diversity as a function of temperature between multiple permutations. Therefore, SFTS surveys cannot be used to infer zooplankton community dynamics over time. Results suggest that single “snapshot” surveys are unlikely to represent mean zooplankton diversity at a given moment in time, that SFTS surveys cannot reliably reproduce relationships between lake temperature and zooplankton diversity, and that the relationship between lake temperature and zooplankton diversity varies at local temporal scales

Fatty Acid Stable Isotopes Add Clarity, but Also Complexity, to Tracing Energy Pathways in Aquatic Food Webs

Tracing the flow of dietary energy sources, especially in systems with a high degree of omnivory, is an ongoing challenge in ecology. In aquatic systems, one of the persistent challenges is in differentiating between autochthonous and allochthonous energy sources to top consumers. Bulk carbon stable isotope values of aquatic and terrestrial prey often overlap, making it difficult to delineate dietary energy pathways in food webs with high allochthonous prey subsidies, such as in many northern temperate waterbodies. We conducted a feeding experiment to explore how fatty acid stable isotopes may overcome the challenge of partitioning autochthonous and allochthonous energy pathways in aquatic consumers. We fed hatchery‐reared Arctic Char (Salvelinus alpinus) diets of either benthic invertebrates, terrestrial earthworms, or a mixture of both. We then compared how the stable carbon isotopes of fatty acids (δ13CFA) distinguished between diet items and respective treatments in S. alpinus liver and muscle tissues, relative to bulk stable isotopes and fatty acid profiles. Although a high degree of variability of fatty acid stable carbon isotope values was present in all three measures, our results suggest that the ability of this method to overcome the challenges of bulk stable isotopes may be overstated. Finally, our study highlights the importance of further experimental investigation, and consideration of physiological and biochemical processes when employing this emerging method