Effects of Nutrient Availability and Other Elevational Changes on Bromeliad Populations and Their Invertebrate Communities in a Humid Tropical Forest in Puerto Rico

Nutrient inputs into tank bromeliads were studied in relation to growth and productivity, and the abundance, diversity and biomass of their animal inhabitants, in three forest types along an elevational gradient. Concentrations of phosphorus, potassium and calcium in canopy-derived debris, and nitrogen and phosphorus in phytotelm water, declined with increasing elevation. Dwarf forest bromeliads contained the smallest amounts of debris/plant and lowest concentrations of nutrients in plant tissue. Their leaf turnover rate and productivity were highest and, because of high plant density, they comprised 12.8and contained 3.3 t ha -1 of water. Annual nutrient budgets indicated that these microcosms were nutrient-abundant and accumulated \u3c 5dwarf forest, where accumulation was c. 25biomass/plant peaked in the intermediate elevation forest, and were positively correlated with the debris content/bromeliad across all forest types. Animal species richness showed a significant mid-elevational peak, whereas abundance was independent of species richness and debris quantities, and declined with elevation as forest net primary productivity declined. The unimodal pattern of species richness was not correlated with nutrient concentrations, and relationships among faunal abundance, species richness, nutrient inputs and environment are too complex to warrant simple generalizations about nutrient resources and diversity, even in apparently simple microhabitats

Heating the outer heliosphere by pickup protons

There is a growing body of literature that demonstrates the ability of a turbulent cascade within the solar wind to heat the thermal protons. Several sources of energy are required to accomplish the observed heating. Wind shear and shocks originating with the multiple source of wind plasma heat the wind inside ∽AU. However, beyond this distance little is left of these sources and all that remains is the energy injected into the plasma by the pickup of newborn protons originating from interstellar neutrals. Recent advances in the theory of wave excitation by the newborn protons allows us to return to the published heating theory and remove a previously unexplained parameterization of the heating due to pickup protons. Furthermore, recent observational evidence suggests that large-scale correlations between the wind speed and the proton temperature exist into the distant outer heliosphere that motivate an attempt to connect the two within the structure of the heating theory

Management Data System for Small Business

Industrial Engineering and Managemen

Highly Collimated Jets and Wide-Angle Outflows in HH46/47: New Evidence from Spitzer IR Images

We present new details of the structure and morphology of the jets and outflows in HH46/47 as seen in Spitzer infrared images from IRAC and MIPS, reprocessed using the ``HiRes'' deconvolution technique. HiRes improves the visualization of spatial morphology by enhancing resolution (to sub-arcsec levels in IRAC bands) and removing the contaminating side lobes from bright sources. In addition to sharper views of previously reported bow shocks, we have detected: (i) the sharply-delineated cavity walls of the wide-angle biconical outflow, seen in scattered light on both sides of the protostar, (ii) several very narrow jet features at distances 400 AU to 0.1 pc from the star, and, (iii) compact emissions at MIPS 24 micron coincident with the jet heads, tracing the hottest atomic/ionic gas in the bow shocks.Comment: 11 pages, 4 Figures, Accepted for publication in ApJ(Letters

Developmental Origin of Oligodendrocyte Lineage Cells Determines Response to Demyelination and Susceptibility to Age-Associated Functional Decline.

Oligodendrocyte progenitors (OPs) arise from distinct ventral and dorsal domains within the ventricular germinal zones of the embryonic CNS. The functional significance, if any, of these different populations is not known. Using dual-color reporter mice to distinguish ventrally and dorsally derived OPs, we show that, in response to focal demyelination of the young adult spinal cord or corpus callosum, dorsally derived OPs undergo enhanced proliferation, recruitment, and differentiation as compared with their ventral counterparts, making a proportionally larger contribution to remyelination. However, with increasing age (up to 13 months), the dorsally derived OPs become less able to differentiate into mature oligodendrocytes. Comparison of dorsally and ventrally derived OPs in culture revealed inherent differences in their migration and differentiation capacities. Therefore, the responsiveness of OPs to demyelination, their contribution to remyelination, and their susceptibility to age-associated functional decline are markedly dependent on their developmental site of origin in the developing neural tube.A.H.C. was funded by a Wellcome Trust Integrated Training Fellowship (096384/Z/11/Z). Work in R.J.M.F.’s laboratory was funded by The UK Multiple Sclerosis Society (941) and by a core support grant from the Wellcome Trust and MRC to the Wellcome Trust – Medical Research Council Cambridge Stem Cell Institute. Work in W.D.R.’s laboratory was funded by the Medical Research Council (G0800575), the Wellcome Trust (WT100269AIA), and the European Research Council (293544).This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Cell Press via http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2016.03.06

Massive Quiescent Cores in Orion. -- II. Core Mass Function

We have surveyed submillimeter continuum emission from relatively quiescent regions in the Orion molecular cloud to determine how the core mass function in a high mass star forming region compares to the stellar initial mass function. Such studies are important for understanding the evolution of cores to stars, and for comparison to formation processes in high and low mass star forming regions. We used the SHARC II camera on the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory telescope to obtain 350 \micron data having angular resolution of about 9 arcsec, which corresponds to 0.02 pc at the distance of Orion. Our analysis combining dust continuum and spectral line data defines a sample of 51 Orion molecular cores with masses ranging from 0.1 \Ms to 46 \Ms and a mean mass of 9.8 \Ms, which is one order of magnitude higher than the value found in typical low mass star forming regions, such as Taurus. The majority of these cores cannot be supported by thermal pressure or turbulence, and are probably supercritical.They are thus likely precursors of protostars. The core mass function for the Orion quiescent cores can be fitted by a power law with an index equal to -0.85$\pm$0.21. This is significantly flatter than the Salpeter initial mass function and is also flatter than the core mass function found in low and intermediate star forming regions. Thus, it is likely that environmental processes play a role in shaping the stellar IMF later in the evolution of dense cores and the formation of stars in such regions.Comment: 30 pages, 10 figures, accepted by Ap