Chronicles of Oklahoma

Necrology section for Volume 6, Number 2, June 1928. Included are memorials honoring Peter P. Pitchlynn, chief of the Choctaws; Albert G. Cochran, a teacher; Ambers Lafayette Bennett, a service man and politician; Joel B. Mayes, a teacher; Emory David Brownlee, a county judge and state senator; George McQuaid, a newspaper man; Robert M. Harris, governor of the Chickasaw Nation; Samuel Houston Mayes, former principal chief of the Cherokee Nation; Calvin Luther (Lute) Herbert, a lawyer; Theodore F. Brewer, a preacher and president of a university; and, James Joseph McGraw, a banker and politician

Genome-wide methylation is modified by caloric restriction in<i> Daphnia magna</i>

Background The degradation of epigenetic control with age is associated with progressive diseases of ageing, including cancers, immunodeficiency and diabetes. Reduced caloric intake slows the effects of ageing and age-related disease in vertebrates and invertebrates, a process potentially mediated by the impact of caloric restriction on epigenetic factors such as DNA methylation. We used whole genome bisulphite sequencing to study how DNA methylation patterns change with diet in a small invertebrate, the crustacean Daphnia magna. Daphnia show the classic response of longer life under caloric restriction (CR), and they reproduce clonally, which permits the study of epigenetic changes in the absence of genetic variation. Results Global cytosine followed by guanine (CpG) methylation was 0.7–0.9%, and there was no difference in overall methylation levels between normal and calorie restricted replicates. However, 333 differentially methylated regions (DMRs) were evident between the normally fed and CR replicates post-filtering. Of these 65% were hypomethylated in the CR group, and 35% were hypermethylated in the CR group. Conclusions Our results demonstrate an effect of CR on the genome-wide methylation profile. This adds to a growing body of research in Daphnia magna that demonstrate an epigenomic response to environmental stimuli. Specifically, gene Ontology (GO) term enrichment of genes associated with hyper and hypo-methylated DMRs showed significant enrichment for methylation and acyl-CoA dehydrogenase activity, which are linked to current understanding of their roles in CR in invertebrate model organisms

The database of the PREDICTS (Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems) project

The PREDICTS project—Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems (www.predicts.org.uk)—has collated from published studies a large, reasonably representative database of comparable samples of biodiversity from multiple sites that differ in the nature or intensity of human impacts relating to land use. We have used this evidence base to develop global and regional statistical models of how local biodiversity responds to these measures. We describe and make freely available this 2016 release of the database, containing more than 3.2 million records sampled at over 26,000 locations and representing over 47,000 species. We outline how the database can help in answering a range of questions in ecology and conservation biology. To our knowledge, this is the largest and most geographically and taxonomically representative database of spatial comparisons of biodiversity that has been collated to date; it will be useful to researchers and international efforts wishing to model and understand the global status of biodiversity