Effects of Terrestrial Buffer Zones on Amphibians on Golf Courses

A major cause of amphibian declines worldwide is habitat destruction or alteration. Public green spaces, such as golf courses and parks, could serve as safe havens to curb the effects of habitat loss if managed in ways to bolster local amphibian communities. We reared larval Blanchard's cricket frogs (Acris blanchardi) and green frogs (Rana clamitans) in golf course ponds with and without 1 m terrestrial buffer zones, and released marked cricket frog metamorphs at the golf course ponds they were reared in. Larval survival of both species was affected by the presence of a buffer zone, with increased survival for cricket frogs and decreased survival for green frogs when reared in ponds with buffer zones. No marked cricket frog juveniles were recovered at any golf course pond in the following year, suggesting that most animals died or migrated. In a separate study, we released cricket frogs in a terrestrial pen and allowed them to choose between mown and unmown grass. Cricket frogs had a greater probability of using unmown versus mown grass. Our results suggest that incorporating buffer zones around ponds can offer suitable habitat for some amphibian species and can improve the quality of the aquatic environment for some sensitive local amphibians

Root trenching: a useful tool to estimate autotrophic soil respiration? A case study in an Austrian mountain forest

We conducted a trenching experiment in a mountain forest in order to assess the contribution of theautotrophic respiration to total soil respiration and evaluate trenching as a technique to achieve it. We hypothesised that the trenching experiment would alter both microbial biomass and microbial community structure and that Wne roots (less than 2 mm diameter) would be decomposed within one growing season. Soil CO2 eZux was measured roughlybiweekly over two growing seasons. Root presence and morphology parameters, as well as the soil microbial community were measured prior to trenching, 5 and 15 months after trenching. The trenched plots emitted about 20 and 30% less CO2 than the control plots in the Wrst and secondgrowing season, respectively. Roots died in trenched plots, but root decay was slow. After 5 and 15 months, Wne root biomass was decreased by 9% (not statistically diferent)and 30%, (statistically diVerent) respectively. When wecorrected for the additional trenched-plot CO2 eZux due to Wne root decomposition, the autotrophic soil respiration rose to »26% of the total soil respiration for the Wrst growing season, and to »44% for the second growing season.Soil microbial biomass and community structure was not altered by the end of the second growing season. We conclude that trenching can give accurate estimates of the autotrophic and heterotrophic components of soil respiration, ifmethodological side eVects are accounted for, only

Characterization and Regulation of the Osmolyte Betaine Synthesizing Enzymes GSMT and SDMT from Halophilic Methanogen Methanohalophilus portucalensis

The halophilic methanoarchaeon Methanohalophilus portucalensis can synthesize the osmolyte betaine de novo in response to extracellular salt stress. Betaine is generated by the stepwise methylation of glycine to form sarcosine, N, N-dimethylglycine and betaine by using S-adenosyl-L-methionine (AdoMet) as the methyl donor. The complete gene cluster of Mpgsmt-sdmt was cloned from Southern hybridization and heterologous expressed in E. coli respectively. The recombinant MpGSMT and MpSDMT both retained their in vivo functional activities in E. coli BL21(DE3)RIL to synthesize and accumulate betaine and conferred elevated survival ability in betaine transport deficient mutant E. coli MKH13 under high salt stress. The dramatic activating effects of sodium and potassium ions on the in vitro methyltransferase activities of MpGSMT, but not MpSDMT or bacterial GSMT and SDMT, revealed that GSMT from halophilic methanoarchaeon possesses novel regulate mechanism in betaine biosynthesis pathway. The circular dichroism spectra showed the fluctuated peaks at 206 nm were detected in the MpGSMT under various concentrations of potassium or sodium ions. This fluctuated difference may cause by a change in the β-turn structure located at the conserved glycine- and sarcosine-binding residue Arg167 of MpGSMT. The analytical ultracentrifugation analysis indicated that the monomer MpGSMT switched to dimeric form increased from 7.6% to 70% with KCl concentration increased from 0 to 2.0 M. The level of potassium and sodium ions may modulate the substrate binding activity of MpGSMT through the conformational change. Additionally, MpGSMT showed a strong end product, betaine, inhibitory effect and was more sensitive to the inhibitor AdoHcy. The above results indicated that the first enzymatic step involved in synthesizing the osmolyte betaine in halophilic archaea, namely, GSMT, may also play a major role in coupling the salt-in and compatible solute (osmolyte) osmoadaptative strategies in halophilic methanogens for adapting to high salt environments

Cluster Lenses

Clusters of galaxies are the most recently assembled, massive, bound structures in the Universe. As predicted by General Relativity, given their masses, clusters strongly deform space-time in their vicinity. Clusters act as some of the most powerful gravitational lenses in the Universe. Light rays traversing through clusters from distant sources are hence deflected, and the resulting images of these distant objects therefore appear distorted and magnified. Lensing by clusters occurs in two regimes, each with unique observational signatures. The strong lensing regime is characterized by effects readily seen by eye, namely, the production of giant arcs, multiple-images, and arclets. The weak lensing regime is characterized by small deformations in the shapes of background galaxies only detectable statistically. Cluster lenses have been exploited successfully to address several important current questions in cosmology: (i) the study of the lens(es) - understanding cluster mass distributions and issues pertaining to cluster formation and evolution, as well as constraining the nature of dark matter; (ii) the study of the lensed objects - probing the properties of the background lensed galaxy population - which is statistically at higher redshifts and of lower intrinsic luminosity thus enabling the probing of galaxy formation at the earliest times right up to the Dark Ages; and (iii) the study of the geometry of the Universe - as the strength of lensing depends on the ratios of angular diameter distances between the lens, source and observer, lens deflections are sensitive to the value of cosmological parameters and offer a powerful geometric tool to probe Dark Energy. In this review, we present the basics of cluster lensing and provide a current status report of the field.Comment: About 120 pages - Published in Open Access at: http://www.springerlink.com/content/j183018170485723/ . arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:astro-ph/0504478 and arXiv:1003.3674 by other author

Correlates of Cooperation in a One-Shot High-Stakes Televised Prisoners' Dilemma

Explaining cooperation between non-relatives is a puzzle for both evolutionary biology and the social sciences. In humans, cooperation is often studied in a laboratory setting using economic games such as the prisoners' dilemma. However, such experiments are sometimes criticized for being played for low stakes and by misrepresentative student samples. Golden balls is a televised game show that uses the prisoners' dilemma, with a diverse range of participants, often playing for very large stakes. We use this non-experimental dataset to investigate the factors that influence cooperation when “playing” for considerably larger stakes than found in economic experiments. The game show has earlier stages that allow for an analysis of lying and voting decisions. We found that contestants were sensitive to the stakes involved, cooperating less when the stakes were larger in both absolute and relative terms. We also found that older contestants were more likely to cooperate, that liars received less cooperative behavior, but only if they told a certain type of lie, and that physical contact was associated with reduced cooperation, whereas laughter and promises were reliable signals or cues of cooperation, but were not necessarily detected

Does maternal exposure to an environmental stressor affect offspring response to predators?

There is growing recognition of the ways in which maternal effects can influence offspring size, physiological performance, and survival. Additionally, environmental contaminants increasingly act as stressors in maternal environments, possibly leading to maternal effects on subsequent offspring. Thus, it is important to determine whether contaminants and other stressors can contribute to maternal effects, particularly under varied ecological conditions that encompass the range under which offspring develop. We used aquatic mesocosms to determine whether maternal effects of mercury (Hg) exposure shape offspring phenotype in the American toad (Bufo americanus) in the presence or absence of larval predators (dragonfly naiads). We found significant maternal effects of Hg exposure and significant effects of predators on several offspring traits, but there was little evidence that maternal effects altered offspring interactions with predators. Offspring from Hg-exposed mothers were 18% smaller than those of reference mothers. Offspring reared with predators were 23% smaller at metamorphosis than those reared without predators. There was also evidence of reduced larval survival when larvae were reared with predators, but this was independent of maternal effects. Additionally, 5 times more larvae had spinal malformations when reared without predators, suggesting selective predation of malformed larvae by predators. Lastly, we found a significant negative correlation between offspring survival and algal density in mesocosms, indicating a role for top-down effects of predators on periphyton communities. Our results demonstrate that maternal exposure to an environmental stressor can induce phenotypic responses in offspring in a direction similar to that produced by direct exposure of offspring to predators

Multivariate Prediction of Total Water Storage Changes Over West Africa from Multi-Satellite Data

West African countries have been exposed to changes in rainfall patterns over the last decades, including a significant negative trend. This causes adverse effects on water resources of the region, for instance, reduced freshwater availability. Assessing and predicting large-scale total water storage (TWS) variations are necessary for West Africa, due to its environmental, social, and economical impacts. Hydrological models, however, may perform poorly over West Africa due to data scarcity. This study describes a new statistical, data-driven approach for predicting West African TWS changes from (past) gravity data obtained from the gravity recovery and climate experiment (GRACE), and (concurrent) rainfall data from the tropical rainfall measuring mission (TRMM) and sea surface temperature (SST) data over the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans. The proposed method, therefore, capitalizes on the availability of remotely sensed observations for predicting monthly TWS, a quantity which is hard to observe in the field but important for measuring regional energy balance, as well as for agricultural, and water resource management.Major teleconnections within these data sets were identified using independent component analysis and linked via low-degree autoregressive models to build a predictive framework. After a learning phase of 72 months, our approach predicted TWS from rainfall and SST data alone that fitted to the observed GRACE-TWS better than that from a global hydrological model. Our results indicated a fit of 79 % and 67 % for the first-year prediction of the two dominant annual and inter-annual modes of TWS variations. This fit reduces to 62 % and 57 % for the second year of projection. The proposed approach, therefore, represents strong potential to predict the TWS over West Africa up to 2 years. It also has the potential to bridge the present GRACE data gaps of 1 month about each 162days as well as a—hopefully—limited gap between GRACE and the GRACE follow-on mission over West Africa. The method presented could also be used to generate a near real-time GRACE forecast over the regions that exhibit strong teleconnections

High frequency of known copy number abnormalities and maternal duplication 15q11-q13 in patients with combined schizophrenia and epilepsy

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Many copy number variants (CNVs) are documented to be associated with neuropsychiatric disorders, including intellectual disability, autism, epilepsy, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder. Chromosomal deletions of 1q21.1, 3q29, 15q13.3, 22q11.2, and <it>NRXN1 </it>and duplications of 15q11-q13 (maternal), 16p11, and 16p13.3 have the strongest association with schizophrenia. We hypothesized that cases with both schizophrenia and epilepsy would have a higher frequency of disease-associated CNVs and would represent an enriched sample for detection of other mutations associated with schizophrenia.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We used array comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) to analyze 235 individuals with both schizophrenia and epilepsy, 80 with bipolar disorder and epilepsy, and 191 controls.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We detected 10 schizophrenia plus epilepsy cases in 235 (4.3%) with the above mentioned CNVs compared to 0 in 191 controls (p = 0.003). Other likely pathological findings in schizophrenia plus epilepsy cases included 1 deletion 16p13 and 1 duplication 7q11.23 for a total of 12/235 (5.1%) while a possibly pathogenic duplication of 22q11.2 was found in one control for a total of 1 in 191 (0.5%) controls (p = 0.008). The rate of abnormality in the schizophrenia plus epilepsy of 10/235 for the more definite CNVs compares to a rate of 75/7336 for these same CNVs in a series of unselected schizophrenia cases (p = 0.0004).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>We found a statistically significant increase in the frequency of CNVs known or likely to be associated with schizophrenia in individuals with both schizophrenia and epilepsy compared to controls. We found an overall 5.1% detection rate of likely pathological findings which is the highest frequency of such findings in a series of schizophrenia patients to date. This evidence suggests that the frequency of disease-associated CNVs in patients with both schizophrenia and epilepsy is significantly higher than for unselected schizophrenia.</p

Elucidating the Role of the Complement Control Protein in Monkeypox Pathogenicity

Monkeypox virus (MPXV) causes a smallpox-like disease in humans. Clinical and epidemiological studies provide evidence of pathogenicity differences between two geographically distinct monkeypox virus clades: the West African and Congo Basin. Genomic analysis of strains from both clades identified a ∼10 kbp deletion in the less virulent West African isolates sequenced to date. One absent open reading frame encodes the monkeypox virus homologue of the complement control protein (CCP). This modulatory protein prevents the initiation of both the classical and alternative pathways of complement activation. In monkeypox virus, CCP, also known as MOPICE, is a ∼24 kDa secretory protein with sequence homology to this superfamily of proteins. Here we investigate CCP expression and its role in monkeypox virulence and pathogenesis. CCP was incorporated into the West African strain and removed from the Congo Basin strain by homologous recombination. CCP expression phenotypes were confirmed for both wild type and recombinant monkeypox viruses and CCP activity was confirmed using a C4b binding assay. To characterize the disease, prairie dogs were intranasally infected and disease progression was monitored for 30 days. Removal of CCP from the Congo Basin strain reduced monkeypox disease morbidity and mortality, but did not significantly decrease viral load. The inclusion of CCP in the West African strain produced changes in disease manifestation, but had no apparent effect on disease-associated mortality. This study identifies CCP as an important immuno-modulatory protein in monkeypox pathogenesis but not solely responsible for the increased virulence seen within the Congo Basin clade of monkeypox virus

Network Evolution: Rewiring and Signatures of Conservation in Signaling

The analysis of network evolution has been hampered by limited availability of protein interaction data for different organisms. In this study, we investigate evolutionary mechanisms in Src Homology 3 (SH3) domain and kinase interaction networks using high-resolution specificity profiles. We constructed and examined networks for 23 fungal species ranging from Saccharomyces cerevisiae to Schizosaccharomyces pombe. We quantify rates of different rewiring mechanisms and show that interaction change through binding site evolution is faster than through gene gain or loss. We found that SH3 interactions evolve swiftly, at rates similar to those found in phosphoregulation evolution. Importantly, we show that interaction changes are sufficiently rapid to exhibit saturation phenomena at the observed timescales. Finally, focusing on the SH3 interaction network, we observe extensive clustering of binding sites on target proteins by SH3 domains and a strong correlation between the number of domains that bind a target protein (target in-degree) and interaction conservation. The relationship between in-degree and interaction conservation is driven by two different effects, namely the number of clusters that correspond to interaction interfaces and the number of domains that bind to each cluster leads to sequence specific conservation, which in turn results in interaction conservation. In summary, we uncover several network evolution mechanisms likely to generalize across peptide recognition modules