A phytosociological survey of the boreal forest (Vaccinio-Piceetea) in North America

A survey of syntaxa of vegetation of North American boreal forests (class Vaccinio-Piceetea) is presented. This phytosociological survey, carried out combining the Braun-Blanquet method with numerical syntaxonomical analyses (cluster and correspondence analysis), describes the associations of the North American boreal forests, which have several species, varieties or vicariant species in common with their Eurasian counterparts, and can be placed in the class Vaccinio-Piceetea. By means of tabular and multivariate analyses, 2084 North American relevés were compared with 3273 relevés from European, Japanese and Korean boreal forest, to describe and typify 4 orders, 10 alliances and 37 associations. Diagnostic tables, ordination, clustering, and climatic, edaphic and biogeographical data were used to show floristic affinities among these syntaxa and interpret their distribution areas. Syntaxa were briefly characterized by their floristic composition, physiognomy, succession, zonation, and biogeographical distribution

Package ecespa

Documentation for the R-package "ecespa

How to create R-packages

En el lenguaje de programación R (R Core Team 2019), los paquetes son la mejor manera de organizar, mantener y distribuir código y documentación. La motivación más directa para crear un paquete es la facilidad con que permiten compartir código con otros usuarios, pero de igual manera resulta extremadamente útil crear paquetes “de consumo propio”, por ejemplo en cuanto tengamos funciones propias que utilizamos en diferentes proyectos (véase De la Cruz (2019) para la creación de funciones en R). Incluir un paquete de R, bien documentado, en el material suplementario de un artículo o de un informe científico garantiza la reproducibilidad de los resultados y promueve la difusión de los mismos

Immune regulation by atypical chemokine receptors

Chemokines have fundamental roles in regulating immune and inflammatory responses, primarily through their control of leukocyte migration and localization. The biological functions of chemokines are typically mediated by signalling through G protein-coupled chemokine receptors, but chemokines are also bound by a small family of atypical chemokine receptors (ACKRs), the members of which are unified by their inability to initiate classical signalling pathways after ligand binding. These ACKRs are emerging as crucial regulatory components of chemokine networks in a wide range of developmental, physiological and pathological contexts. In this Review, we discuss the biochemical and immunological properties of ACKRs and the potential unifying themes in this family, and we highlight recent studies that identify novel roles for these molecules in development, homeostasis, inflammatory disease, infection and cancer