“Click-fluors”: triazole-linked saccharide sensors

A series of boronic acid-containing saccharide receptors was synthesised via copper catalysed azide–alkyne cycloaddition (CuAAC) reactions.</p

Evidence that an APOE ε4 'double whammy' increases risk for Alzheimer's disease

Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) is associated with some of the same neuropathological features as those reported for early stages of typical Alzheimer's disease (AD). The APOE ε4 allele is associated with a gene-dose-dependent increase in AD risk and in the severity of amyloid-β (Aβ) pathology. In a study published in the current BMC Medicine, Sue Griffin and colleagues studied markers of brain resilience in the amputated temporal lobes of TLE patients. They discovered compelling evidence that the APOE ε3 isoform in TLE patients is apparently more neuroprotective from Aβ toxicity than is the APOE ε4 isoform, as shown by the reduced levels of neuronal damage, glial activation, and expression of IL-1α in the APOE ε3/ε3 brains. This result points to a new property of APOE isoforms: not only are APOE ε4 alleles associated with increased brain amyloid plaque burden, but these alleles are also apparently inferior to APOE ε3 alleles in conveying resistance to Aβ neurotoxicity. This 'double whammy' result opens up a new direction for studies aimed at elucidating the relevant neurobiological activities of APOE isoforms in the pathogenesis of AD

Emergent global patterns of ecosystem structure and function from a mechanistic general ecosystem model

Anthropogenic activities are causing widespread degradation of ecosystems worldwide, threatening the ecosystem services upon which all human life depends. Improved understanding of this degradation is urgently needed to improve avoidance and mitigation measures. One tool to assist these efforts is predictive models of ecosystem structure and function that are mechanistic: based on fundamental ecological principles. Here we present the first mechanistic General Ecosystem Model (GEM) of ecosystem structure and function that is both global and applies in all terrestrial and marine environments. Functional forms and parameter values were derived from the theoretical and empirical literature where possible. Simulations of the fate of all organisms with body masses between 10 µg and 150,000 kg (a range of 14 orders of magnitude) across the globe led to emergent properties at individual (e.g., growth rate), community (e.g., biomass turnover rates), ecosystem (e.g., trophic pyramids), and macroecological scales (e.g., global patterns of trophic structure) that are in general agreement with current data and theory. These properties emerged from our encoding of the biology of, and interactions among, individual organisms without any direct constraints on the properties themselves. Our results indicate that ecologists have gathered sufficient information to begin to build realistic, global, and mechanistic models of ecosystems, capable of predicting a diverse range of ecosystem properties and their response to human pressures

Climate change and outdoor regional living plant collections: an example from mainland Portugal

Original PaperClimate change threatens not only plant species occurring naturally, but also impacts on regional living plant collections, which play an important role in ex situ conservation strategies. In the last few years, several global circulation models have been used to predict different global climate change scenarios. Due to their coarse resolutions, and while more detailed regional approaches are not available, downscaling techniques have been proposed, as a very simple first approach to increase detail. We analysed seven sites on mainland Portugal with potential for species conservation (four botanic gardens and three universities), in the light of downscaled climate change scenarios, using an environmental envelope approach and a predefined bioclimatic neighbourhood for each site. Thresholds for the bioclimatic neighbourhood were based on Rivas-Martı´nez’s Bioclimatic Classification of the Earth. For each site, the expected geographical shift of its original bioclimatic neighbourhood (1950–2000) was mapped for 2020, 2050 and 2080. Analysing those shifts enabled us to delineate knowledge-transfer paths between sites, according to the analysed scenarios. We concluded that, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change A2 scenario, all considered sites will be outside the predefined bioclimatic neighbourhood by 2080, while according to the B2 scenario all of them will be inside that neighbourhood, although sometimes marginally so. Therefore, the implementation of global sustainability measures as considered in the B2 scenario family can be of great importance in order to delay significantly the impacts of climate change, giving extra time for the adaptation of the outdoor regional living plant collectionsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

TRY plant trait database - enhanced coverage and open access

Plant traits-the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants-determine how plants respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, and influence ecosystem properties and their benefits and detriments to people. Plant trait data thus represent the basis for a vast area of research spanning from evolutionary biology, community and functional ecology, to biodiversity conservation, ecosystem and landscape management, restoration, biogeography and earth system modelling. Since its foundation in 2007, the TRY database of plant traits has grown continuously. It now provides unprecedented data coverage under an open access data policy and is the main plant trait database used by the research community worldwide. Increasingly, the TRY database also supports new frontiers of trait-based plant research, including the identification of data gaps and the subsequent mobilization or measurement of new data. To support this development, in this article we evaluate the extent of the trait data compiled in TRY and analyse emerging patterns of data coverage and representativeness. Best species coverage is achieved for categorical traits-almost complete coverage for 'plant growth form'. However, most traits relevant for ecology and vegetation modelling are characterized by continuous intraspecific variation and trait-environmental relationships. These traits have to be measured on individual plants in their respective environment. Despite unprecedented data coverage, we observe a humbling lack of completeness and representativeness of these continuous traits in many aspects. We, therefore, conclude that reducing data gaps and biases in the TRY database remains a key challenge and requires a coordinated approach to data mobilization and trait measurements. This can only be achieved in collaboration with other initiatives

Soil warming accelerates decomposition of fine woody debris

© The Author(s), 2012. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Plant and Soil 356 (2012): 405-417, doi:10.1007/s11104-012-1130-x.Soil warming from global climate change could increase decomposition of fine woody debris (FWD), but debris size and quality may mitigate this effect. The goal of this study was to investigate the effect of soil warming on decomposition of fine woody debris of differing size and quality. We placed FWD of two size classes (2 × 20 cm and 4 × 40 cm) and four species (Acer saccharum, Betula lenta, Quercus rubra and Tsuga canadensis) in a soil warming and ambient area at Harvard Forest in central Massachusetts. We collected the debris from each area over two years and measured mass loss and lignin concentration. Warming increased mass loss for all species and size classes (by as much as 30%), but larger debris and debris with higher initial lignin content decomposed slower than smaller debris and debris with lower initial lignin content. Lignin degradation did not follow the same trends as mass loss. Lignin loss from the most lignin-rich species, T. canadensis, was the highest despite the fact that it lost mass the slowest. Our results suggest that soil warming will increase decomposition of FWD in temperate forests. It is imperative that future models and policy efforts account for this potential shift in the carbon storage pool

Shifting Global Invasive Potential of European Plants with Climate Change

Global climate change and invasions by nonnative species rank among the top concerns for agents of biological loss in coming decades. Although each of these themes has seen considerable attention in the modeling and forecasting communities, their joint effects remain little explored and poorly understood. We developed ecological niche models for 1804 species from the European flora, which we projected globally to identify areas of potential distribution, both at present and across 4 scenarios of future (2055) climates. As expected from previous studies, projections based on the CGCM1 climate model were more extreme than those based on the HadCM3 model, and projections based on the a2 emissions scenario were more extreme than those based on the b2 emissions scenario. However, less expected were the highly nonlinear and contrasting projected changes in distributional areas among continents: increases in distributional potential in Europe often corresponded with decreases on other continents, and species seeing expanding potential on one continent often saw contracting potential on others. In conclusion, global climate change will have complex effects on invasive potential of plant species. The shifts and changes identified in this study suggest strongly that biological communities will see dramatic reorganizations in coming decades owing to shifting invasive potential by nonnative species