Biodiversity mediates productivity through different mechanisms at adjacent trophic levels

Biodiversity may enhance productivity either because diverse communities more often contain productive species (selection effects) or because they show greater complementarity in resource use. Our understanding of how these effects influence community production comes almost entirely from studies of plants. To test whether previous results apply to higher trophic levels, we first used simulations to derive expected contributions of selection and complementarity to production in competitive assemblages defined by either neutral interactions, dominance, or a trade-off between growth and competitive ability. The three types of simulated assemblages exhibited distinct interaction signatures when diversity effects were partitioned into selection and complementarity components. We then compared these signatures to those of experimental marine communities. Diversity influenced production in fundamentally different ways in assemblages of macroalgae, characterized by growth competition trade-offs, vs. in herbivores, characterized by dominance. Forecasting the effects of changing biodiversity in multitrophic ecosystems will require recognizing that the mechanism by which diversity in. fluences functioning can vary among trophic levels in the same food web

Relative and interactive effects of plant and grazer richness in a benthic marine community

The interactive effects of changing biodiversity of consumers and their prey are poorly understood but are likely to be important under realistic scenarios of biodiversity loss and gain. We performed two factorial manipulations of macroalgal group (greens, reds, and browns) and herbivore species (amphipods, sea urchin, and fish) composition and richness in outdoor mesocosms simulating a subtidal, hard-substratum estuarine community in North Carolina, USA. In the experiment where grazer richness treatments were substitutive, there were no significant effects of algal or herbivore richness on final algal biomass. However, in the experiment in which grazer treatments were additive (i.e., species-specific densities were held constant across richness treatments), we found strong independent and interactive effects of algal and herbivore richness. Herbivore polycultures reduced algal biomass to a greater degree than the sum of the three herbivore monocultures, indicating that the measured grazer richness effects were not due solely to increased herbivore density in the polycultures. Taking grazer density into account also revealed that increasing algal richness dampened grazer richness effects. Additionally, the effect of algal richness on algal biomass accumulation was far stronger when herbivores were absent, suggesting that grazers can utilize the increased productivity and mask the positive effects of plant biodiversity on primary production. Our results highlight the complex independent and interactive effects of biodiversity between adjacent trophic levels and emphasize the importance of performing biodiversity-ecosystem functioning experiments in a realistic multi-trophic context

Analysis Method and Experimental Conditions Affect Computed Circadian Phase from Melatonin Data

Accurate determination of circadian phase is necessary for research and clinical purposes because of the influence of the master circadian pacemaker on multiple physiologic functions. Melatonin is presently the most accurate marker of the activity of the human circadian pacemaker. Current methods of analyzing the plasma melatonin rhythm can be grouped into three categories: curve-fitting, threshold-based and physiologically-based linear differential equations. To determine which method provides the most accurate assessment of circadian phase, we compared the ability to fit the data and the variability of phase estimates for seventeen different markers of melatonin phase derived from these methodological categories. We used data from three experimental conditions under which circadian rhythms - and therefore calculated melatonin phase - were expected to remain constant or progress uniformly. Melatonin profiles from older subjects and subjects with lower melatonin amplitude were less likely to be fit by all analysis methods. When circadian drift over multiple study days was algebraically removed, there were no significant differences between analysis methods of melatonin onsets (P = 0.57), but there were significant differences between those of melatonin offsets (P<0.0001). For a subset of phase assessment methods, we also examined the effects of data loss on variability of phase estimates by systematically removing data in 2-hour segments. Data loss near onset of melatonin secretion differentially affected phase estimates from the methods, with some methods incorrectly assigning phases too early while other methods assigning phases too late; missing data at other times did not affect analyses of the melatonin profile. We conclude that melatonin data set characteristics, including amplitude and completeness of data collection, differentially affect the results depending on the melatonin analysis method used

Response of the Human Circadian System to Millisecond Flashes of Light

Ocular light sensitivity is the primary mechanism by which the central circadian clock, located in the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), remains synchronized with the external geophysical day. This process is dependent on both the intensity and timing of the light exposure. Little is known about the impact of the duration of light exposure on the synchronization process in humans. In vitro and behavioral data, however, indicate the circadian clock in rodents can respond to sequences of millisecond light flashes. In a cross-over design, we tested the capacity of humans (n = 7) to respond to a sequence of 60 2-msec pulses of moderately bright light (473 lux) given over an hour during the night. Compared to a control dark exposure, after which there was a 3.5±7.3 min circadian phase delay, the millisecond light flashes delayed the circadian clock by 45±13 min (p<0.01). These light flashes also concomitantly increased subjective and objective alertness while suppressing delta and sigma activity (p<0.05) in the electroencephalogram (EEG). Our data indicate that phase shifting of the human circadian clock and immediate alerting effects can be observed in response to brief flashes of light. These data are consistent with the hypothesis that the circadian system can temporally integrate extraordinarily brief light exposures

Confirmation of low genetic diversity and multiple breeding females in a social group of Eurasian badgers from microsatellite and field data

The Eurasian badger ( Meles meles ) is a facultatively social carnivore that shows only rudimentary co-operative behaviour and a poorly defined social hierarchy. Behavioural evidence and limited genetic data have suggested that more than one female may breed in a social group. We combine pregnancy detection by ultrasound and microsatellite locus scores from a well-studied badger population from Wytham Woods, Oxfordshire, UK, to demonstrate that multiple females reproduce within a social group. We found that at least three of seven potential mothers reproduced in a group that contained 11 reproductive age females and nine offspring. Twelve primers showed variability across the species range and only five of these were variable in Wytham. The microsatellites showed a reduced repeat number, a significantly higher number of nonperfect repeats, and moderate heterozygosity levels in Wytham. The high frequency of imperfect repeats and demographic phenomena might be responsible for the reduced levels of variability observed in the badger

Nutrient Enrichment and Food Web Composition Affect Ecosystem Metabolism in an Experimental Seagrass Habitat

Food web composition and resource levels can influence ecosystem properties such as productivity and elemental cycles. In particular, herbivores occupy a central place in food webs as the species richness and composition of this trophic level may simultaneously influence the transmission of resource and predator effects to higher and lower trophic levels, respectively. Yet, these interactions are poorly understood.Using an experimental seagrass mesocosm system, we factorially manipulated water column nutrient concentrations, food chain length, and diversity of crustacean grazers to address two questions: (1) Does food web composition modulate the effects of nutrient enrichment on plant and grazer biomasses and stoichiometry? (2) Do ecosystem fluxes of dissolved oxygen and nutrients more closely reflect above-ground biomass and community structure or sediment processes? Nutrient enrichment and grazer presence generally had strong effects on biomass accumulation, stoichiometry, and ecosystem fluxes, whereas predator effects were weaker or absent. Nutrient enrichment had little effect on producer biomass or net ecosystem production but strongly increased seagrass nutrient content, ecosystem flux rates, and grazer secondary production, suggesting that enhanced production was efficiently transferred from producers to herbivores. Gross ecosystem production (oxygen evolution) correlated positively with above-ground plant biomass, whereas inorganic nutrient fluxes were unrelated to plant or grazer biomasses, suggesting dominance by sediment microbial processes. Finally, grazer richness significantly stabilized ecosystem processes, as predators decreased ecosystem production and respiration only in the zero- and one- species grazer treatments.Overall, our results indicate that consumer presence and species composition strongly influence ecosystem responses to nutrient enrichment, and that increasing herbivore diversity can stabilize ecosystem flux rates in the face of perturbations

Effects of Trophic Skewing of Species Richness on Ecosystem Functioning in a Diverse Marine Community

Widespread overharvesting of top consumers of the world’s ecosystems has “skewed” food webs, in terms of biomass and species richness, towards a generally greater domination at lower trophic levels. This skewing is exacerbated in locations where exotic species are predominantly low-trophic level consumers such as benthic macrophytes, detritivores, and filter feeders. However, in some systems where numerous exotic predators have been added, sometimes purposefully as in many freshwater systems, food webs are skewed in the opposite direction toward consumer dominance. Little is known about how such modifications to food web topology, e.g., changes in the ratio of predator to prey species richness, affect ecosystem functioning. We experimentally measured the effects of trophic skew on production in an estuarine food web by manipulating ratios of species richness across three trophic levels in experimental mesocosms. After 24 days, increasing macroalgal richness promoted both plant biomass and grazer abundance, although the positive effect on plant biomass disappeared in the presence of grazers. The strongest trophic cascade on the experimentally stocked macroalgae emerged in communities with a greater ratio of prey to predator richness (bottom-rich food webs), while stronger cascades on the accumulation of naturally colonizing algae (primarily microalgae with some early successional macroalgae that recruited and grew in the mesocosms) generally emerged in communities with greater predator to prey richness (the more top-rich food webs). These results suggest that trophic skewing of species richness and overall changes in food web topology can influence marine community structure and food web dynamics in complex ways, emphasizing the need for multitrophic approaches to understand the consequences of marine extinctions and invasions

A systematic variation of the stellar initial mass function in early-type galaxies

Much of our knowledge of galaxies comes from analysing the radiation emitted by their stars. It depends on the stellar initial mass function (IMF) describing the distribution of stellar masses when the population formed. Consequently knowledge of the IMF is critical to virtually every aspect of galaxy evolution. More than half a century after the first IMF determination, no consensus has emerged on whether it is universal in different galaxies. Previous studies indicated that the IMF and the dark matter fraction in galaxy centres cannot be both universal, but they could not break the degeneracy between the two effects. Only recently indications were found that massive elliptical galaxies may not have the same IMF as our Milky Way. Here we report unambiguous evidence for a strong systematic variation of the IMF in early-type galaxies as a function of their stellar mass-to-light ratio, producing differences up to a factor of three in mass. This was inferred from detailed dynamical models of the two-dimensional stellar kinematics for the large Atlas3D representative sample of nearby early-type galaxies spanning two orders of magnitude in stellar mass. Our finding indicates that the IMF depends intimately on a galaxy's formation history.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, LaTeX. Accepted for publication as a Nature Letter. More information about our Atlas3D project is available at http://purl.org/atlas3

Consequences of the Timing of Menarche on Female Adolescent Sleep Phase Preference

Most parents experience their children's puberty as a dramatic change in family life. This is not surprising considering the dynamics of physical and psychosocial maturation which occur during adolescence. A reasonable question, particularly from the parents' perspective, is: when does this vibrant episode end and adulthood finally start? The aim of the present study was to assess the relationship between puberty and the changes in sleep phase preferences during female maturation and adulthood by a cross-sectional survey. The results from 1'187 females aged 5 to 51 years based on self-report measures of sleep preferences on weekdays and on free days as well as the occurrence of menarche, show that in contrast to prepubertal children, adolescent females exhibit a striking progression in delaying their sleep phase preference until 5 years after menarche. Thereafter, the sleep phase preference switches to advancing. The current study provides evidence that a clear shift in sleep-wake cycles temporally linked to menarche heralds the beginning of “adult-like” sleep-wake behaviour in women and can be used as a (chrono)biological marker for the onset of adulthood

Refining associations between TAS2R38 diplotypes and the 6-n-propylthiouracil (PROP) taste test: findings from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Previous investigations have highlighted the importance of genetic variation in the determination of bitter tasting ability, however have left unaddressed questions as to within group variation in tasting ability or the possibility of genetic prescription of intermediate tasting ability. Our aim was to examine the relationships between bitter tasting ability and variation at the <it>TAS2R38 </it>locus and to assess the role of psychosocial factors in explaining residual, within group, variation in tasting ability.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In a large sample of children from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, we confirmed an association between bitter compound tasting ability and <it>TAS2R38 </it>variation and found evidence of a genetic association with intermediate tasting ability. Antisocial behaviour, social class and depression showed no consistent relationship with the distribution of taste test scores.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Factors which could influence a child's chosen taste score, extra to taste receptor variation, appeared not to show relationships with test score. Observed spread in the distribution of the taste test scores <it>within </it>hypothesised taster groups, is likely to be, or at least in part, due to physiological differentiation regulated by other genetic contributors. Results confirm relationships between genetic variation and bitter compound tasting ability in a large sample, and suggest that <it>TAS2R38 </it>variation may also be associated with intermediate tasting ability.</p