Incorporating ecological functions in conservation decision making

Systematic conservation planning has become a standard approach globally, but prioritization of conservation efforts hardly considers species traits in decision making. This can be important for species persistence and thus adequacy of the conservation plan. Here, we developed and validated a novel approach of incorporating trophic information into a systematic conservation planning framework. We demonstrate the benefits of this approach using fish data from Europe's second largest river, the Danube. Our results show that adding trophic information leads to a different spatial configuration of priority areas at no additional cost. This can enhance identification of priority refugia for species in the lower position of the trophic web while simultaneously identifying areas that represent a more diverse species pool. Our methodological approach to incorporating species traits into systematic conservation planning is generally applicable, irrespective of realm, geographical area, and species composition and can potentially lead to more adequate conservation plans.SL was supported by ARC DECRA fellowship, project number DE130100565. VH was supported by a Ramon y Cajal contract (RYC‐2013‐13979) funded by the Spanish Government

Direct deposit of catalyst on the membrane of direct feed fuel cells

An improved direct liquid-feed fuel cell having a solid membrane electrolyte for electrochemical reactions of an organic fuel. Catalyst utilization and catalyst/membrane interface improvements are disclosed. Specifically, the catalyst layer is applied directly onto the membrane electrolyte

Mitral Valve Transcatheter Edge-to-Edge Repair:1-Year Outcomes From the MiCLASP Study

Background: Mitral transcatheter edge-to-edge repair (M-TEER) is a guideline-recommended treatment option for patients with severe symptomatic mitral regurgitation (MR). Outcomes with the PASCAL system in a post-market setting have not been established. Objectives: The authors report 30-day and 1-year outcomes from the MiCLASP (Transcatheter Repair of Mitral Regurgitation with Edwards PASCAL Transcatheter Valve Repair System) European post-market clinical follow-up study. Methods: Patients with symptomatic, clinically significant MR were prospectively enrolled. The primary safety endpoint was clinical events committee–adjudicated 30-day composite major adverse event rate and the primary effectiveness endpoint was echocardiographic core laboratory–assessed MR severity at discharge compared with baseline. Clinical, echocardiographic, functional, and quality-of-life outcomes were assessed at 1 year. Results: A total of 544 patients were enrolled (59% functional MR, 30% degenerative MR). The 30-day composite major adverse event rate was 6.8%. MR reduction was significant from baseline to discharge and sustained at 1 year with 98% of patients achieving MR ≤2+ and 82.6% MR ≤1+ (all P &lt; 0.001 vs baseline). One-year Kaplan-Meier estimate for survival was 87.3%, and freedom from heart failure hospitalization was 84.3%. Significant functional and quality-of-life improvements were observed at 1 year, including 71.6% in NYHA functional class I/II, 14.4-point increase in Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire score, and 24.2-m improvement in 6-minute walk distance (all P &lt; 0.001 vs baseline). Conclusions: One-year outcomes of this large cohort from the MiCLASP study demonstrate continued safety and effectiveness of M-TEER with the PASCAL system in a post-market setting. Results demonstrate high survival and freedom from heart failure hospitalization, significant and sustained MR reduction, and improvements in symptoms, functional capacity, and quality of life.</p

Data from: Incorporating ecological functions in conservation decision making

Systematic conservation planning has become a standard approach globally, but prioritization of conservation efforts hardly considers species traits in decision-making. This can be important for species persistence and thus adequacy of the conservation plan. Here, we developed and validated a novel approach of incorporating trophic information into a systematic conservation planning framework. We demonstrate the benefits of this approach by using fish data from Europe´s second largest river, the Danube. Our results show that adding trophic information leads to a different spatial configuration of priority areas at no additional cost. This can enhance identification of priority refugia for species in the lower position of the trophic web while simultaneously identifying areas that represent a more diverse species pool. Our methodological approach to incorporating species traits into systematic conservation planning is generally applicable, irrespective of realm, geographical area and species composition and can potentially lead to more adequate conservation plans

MDBenchmark: A Toolkit to Optimize the Performance of Molecular Dynamics Simulations

Molecular dynamics simulations resolve biomolecular processes and material properties with incomparable detail. As a result, they consume a significant fraction of worldwide supercomputing resources. With our open source benchmarking software MDBenchmark, expert and novice users alike can easily determine the optimal settings for their specific simulation system, MD engine, software environment, and hardware configuration. Ultimately, saving computation time, energy, and money at essentially no additional cost will produce better science.<br /

Quantifying Protein-Protein Interactions in Molecular Simulations

We present simple, accurate, and efficient methods to estimate the dissociation constant Kd and the second osmotic virial coefficient B2 from molecular simulations. We show that for simulations of two proteins in a box, Kd is determined by B2 and the fraction of bound protein. We present two different methods to calculate B2 from Monte Carlo and molecular dynamics simulations using implicit or explicit solvent. We derive a surprisingly simple expression for B2, adding significantly to the understanding of this important quantity. Non-binding interactions of proteins and other macromolecules shape the physicochemical properties of the crowded environments inside cells and of biomolecular condensates. We show how to extract the contributions of non-binding conformations to B2 and discuss how these can be determined in analytical ultracentrifugation and SAXS experiments. We expect that our methods will prove to be instrumental in force parameterization efforts and high-throughput studies of large interactomes. </p

Appendix S2_ Number of species and their occurrence rate in planning units that could not achieve the target

Number of species and their occurrence rate in planning units that could not achieve the targe

figure3

Effect of incorporating trophic level information and different weightings on average proportion of predator species per planning unit in unique chosen area. Average proportion of predator species for all planning units is indicated by orange line; Average proportion of predator species in chosen area unique to either runs without or with trophic information is shown for each target and each weighting. Proportion of predator species for runs without trophic information are drawn with thicker solid lines. Proportion of predator species for runs with trophic information are drawn with thinner dashed lines. Trophic weighting is ratio highest to lowest with 3 being a scaling of 0.3-1, 4 being 0.25-1, 5 being 0.2-1, 6 being 0.15-1, 10 being 0.1-1, 20 being 0.05-1 and 100 being 0.01-1. a and b indicate significant difference (p < 0.001 and p < 0.05 respectively) between scenarios with the same target

figure1

Best solution of planning units with a target of 10 without and with trophic weighting (= scaling 0.01-1). (a) red coloured areas show planning units (pu) selected in scenarios without trophic weighting (b) green coloured areas show planning units selected in scenarios with trophic weighting (c) difference in selected planning units with (green area) and without (red area) trophic weighting, grey coloured areas show planning units selected in both scenarios. Broad blue line indicates main stem; thin blue lines indicate tributaries of the Danube River

Figure2

Effect of incorporating trophic level information and different weightings on average proportion of predator species per planning unit in chosen area. Average proportion of predator species for all planning units is indicated by orange line; Average proportion of predator species in chosen areas is shown for each target in runs without trophic information and for each target and weighting in runs with trophic information. Proportion of predator species for each target of runs without trophic information are drawn with thicker, solid lines and over all weightings, although no weighting was performed, to illustrate the difference between runs with trophic information, which are drawn with thinner, dashed lines. Trophic weighting is ratio highest to lowest with 3 being a weighting of 0.3-1, 4 being 0.25-1, 5 being 0.2-1, 6 being 0.15-1, 10 being 0.1-1, 20 being 0.05-1 and 100 being 0.01-1. a indicates significant difference (p <0.001) between scenarios with the same target