Variation in Demography and Life-History Strategies Across the Range of a Declining Mountain Bird Species

Species- and population-specific responses to their environment may depend to a large extent on the spatial variation in life-history traits and in demographic processes of local population dynamics. Yet, those parameters and their variability remain largely unknown for many cold-adapted species, which are exposed to particularly rapid rates of environmental change. Here, we compared the demographic traits and dynamics for an emblematic bird species of European mountain ecosystems, the ring ouzel (Turdus torquatus). Using integrated population models fitted in a Bayesian framework, we estimated the survival probability, productivity and immigration of two populations from the Western European Alps, in France (over 11 years) and Switzerland (over 6 years). Juvenile apparent survival was lower and immigration rate higher in the Swiss compared to the French population, with the temporal variation in population growth rate driven by different demographic processes. Yet, when compared to populations in the northwestern part of the range, in Scotland, these two Alpine populations both showed a much lower productivity and higher adult survival, indicating a slower life-history strategy. Our results suggest that demographic characteristics can substantially vary across the discontinuous range of this passerine species, essentially due to contrasted, possibly locally evolved life-history strategies. This study therefore raises the question of whether flexibility in life-history traits is widespread among boreo-alpine species and if it might provide adaptive potential for coping with current environmental change

Phosphatidylinositol-4-phosphate-dependent membrane traffic is critical for fungal filamentous growth

International audienceThe phospholipid phosphatidylinositol-4-phosphate [PI(4)P], generated at the Golgi and plasma membrane, has been implicated in many processes, including membrane traffic, yet its role in cell morphology changes, such as the budding to filamentous growth transition, is unknown. We show that Golgi PI(4)P is required for such a transition in the human pathogenic fungus Candida albicans. Quantitative analyses of membrane traffic revealed that PI(4)P is required for late Golgi and secretory vesicle dynamics and targeting and, as a result, is important for the distribution of a multidrug transporter and hence sensitivity to antifungal drugs. We also observed that plasma membrane PI(4)P, which we show is functionally distinct from Golgi PI(4)P, forms a steep gradient concomitant with filamentous growth, despite uniform plasma membrane PI-4-kinase distribution. Mathematical modeling indicates that local PI(4)P generation and hydrolysis by phosphatases are crucial for this gradient. We conclude that PI(4)P-regulated membrane dynamics are critical for morphology changes. membrane traffic | filamentous growth | polarity | morphogenesis

New vineyard cultivation practices create patchy ground vegetation, favouring Woodlarks

Intensive agriculture, in which detrimental farming practices lessen food abundance and/or reduce food accessibility for many animal species, has led to a widespread collapse of farmland biodiversity. Vineyards in central and southern Europe are intensively cultivated; though they may still harbour several rare plant and animal species, they remain little studied. Over the past decades, there has been a considerable reduction in the application of insecticides in wine production, with a progressive shift to biological control (integrated production) and, to a lesser extent, organic production. Spraying of herbicides has also diminished, which has led to more vegetation cover on the ground, although most vineyards remain bare, especially in southern Europe. The effects of these potentially positive environmental trends upon biodiversity remain mostly unknown as regards vertebrates. The Woodlark (Lullula arborea) is an endangered, short-distance migratory bird that forages and breeds on the ground. In southern Switzerland (Valais), it occurs mostly in vineyards. We used radiotracking and mixed effects logistic regression models to assess Woodlark response to modern vineyard farming practices, study factors driving foraging micro-habitat selection, and determine optimal habitat profile to inform management. The presence of ground vegetation cover was the main factor dictating the selection of foraging locations, with an optimum around 55% at the foraging patch scale. These conditions are met in integrated production vineyards, but only when grass is tolerated on part of the ground surface, which is the case on ca. 5% of the total Valais vineyard area. In contrast, conventionally managed vineyards covering ≥95% of the vineyard area are too bare because of systematic application of herbicides all over the ground, whilst the rare organic vineyards usually have a too-dense sward. The optimal mosaic with ca. 50% ground vegetation cover is currently achieved in integrated production vineyards where herbicide is applied every second row. In organic production, ca. 50% ground vegetation cover should be promoted, which requires regular mechanical removal of ground vegetation. These measures are likely to benefit general biodiversity in vineyard

A 3D model with shape prior information for biological structures reconstruction using Multiple-Angle Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence Microscopy

International audienceWe propose a new model for the reconstruction of biological struc- tures using Multiple-Angle Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence Microscopy (MA-TIRFM). This recent microscopy technique allows the visualization of sub-cellular structures around the plasma mem- brane which is of fundamental importance in the comprehension of exchanges mechanisms of the cell. We present a 3D reconstruction method based on a shape prior information on the observed struc- tures and robust to shot noise and background fluorescence. A nov- elty with respect to the state of the art is to propose a method allow- ing the recovery of multiple objects aligned along the axial axis. The optimization problem can be formulated as a minimization problem where both the number of objects in the model and their parame- ters have to be estimated. This difficult combinatorial optimization problem is tackled by using a Marked Point Process approach which allows modelling interactions between the objects in order to regu- larize the inverse problem. Finally, performances of the proposed method are evaluated on synthetic data and real data

Improving 3D MA-TIRF Reconstruction with Deconvolution and Background Estimation

International audienceTotal internal reflection fluorescence microscopy (TIRF) produces 2D images of the fluorescent activity integrated over a very thin layer adjacent to the glass coverslip. By varying the illumination angle (multi-angle TIRF), a stack of 2D images is acquired from which it is possible to estimate the axial position of the observed biological structures. Due to its unique optical sectioning capability, this technique is ideal to observe and study biological processes at the vicinity of the cell membrane. In this paper, we propose an efficient reconstruction algorithm for multi-angle TIRF microscopy which accounts for both the PSF of the acquisition system (diffraction) and the background signal (e.g., autofluorescence). It jointly performs volume reconstruction, deconvolution, and background estimation. This algorithm, based on the simultaneous-direction method of mul-tipliers (SDMM), relies on a suitable splitting of the optimization problem which allows to obtain closed form solutions at each step of the algorithm. Finally, numerical experiments reveal the importance of considering the background signal into the reconstruction process, which reinforces the relevance of the proposed approach

A study on tensor and matrix models for super-resolution fluorescence microscopy

International audienceSuper-resolution techniques for fluorescence microscopy areinvaluable tools for studying phenomena that take place atsub-cellular scales, thanks to their capability of overcominglight diffraction. Yet, achieving sufficient temporal resolutionfor imaging live-cell processes remains a challenging prob-lem. Exploiting the temporal fluctuations (blinking) of fluo-rophores is a promising approach that allows employing stan-dard equipment and harmless excitation levels. In this work,we study a novel constrained tensor modeling approach thattakes this temporal diversity into account to estimate the spa-tial distribution of fluorophores and their overall intensities.We compare this approach with an also novel matrix-basedformulation which promotes structured sparsity via a continu-ous approximation of the cardinality function, as well as withother state-of-the-art methods

Migraine-Associated TRESK Mutations Increase Neuronal Excitability through Alternative Translation Initiation and Inhibition of TREK

Mutations in ion channels contribute to neurological disorders, but determining the basis of their role in pathophysiology is often unclear. In humans, 2 mutations have been found to produce a dominant negative for TRESK, a two-pore-domain K+ channel implicated in migraine: TRESK-MT, a 2 bp frameshift mutation (F139WfsX24) and TRESK-C110R, a missense mutation. Despite the fact that both mutants strongly inhibit TRESK, only TRESK-MT leads to an increase in sensory neuron excitability and is associated with a migraine phenotype. Here, we identify a new mechanism, termed frameshift mutation induced Alternative Translation Initiation (fsATI) that may explain why TRESK-MT but not TRESK-C110R is associated with migraine disorder. fsATI leads, from the same TRESK-MT mRNA, to two proteins: TRESK-MT1 and TRESK-MT2. We show that by co-assembling with and inhibiting TREK1 and TREK2, another subfamily of K2P channels, overexpression of TRESK-MT2 increases trigeminal sensory neuron excitability, a key component of migraine induction, leading to a migraine-like phenotype. This finding identifies TREK as a potential molecular target in migraine pathophysiology and resolves the contradictory lack of effect of TRESK-C110R which targets only TRESK and not TREK. Finally, taking into account the potential for fsATI allowed us to identify a new migraine-related TRESK mutant, Y121LfsX44, which also leads to the production of two TRESK fragments, indicating that this mechanism may be widespread. Together, our results suggest that genetic analysis of disease-related mutations should consider fsATI as a distinct class of mutations

Microparticles from patients with metabolic syndrome induce vascular hypo-reactivity via Fas/Fas-ligand pathway in mice

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Classification of the fibronectin variants with curvelets

International audienceThe role of the extracellular matrix (ECM) in the evolution of certain diseases (e.g. fibrosis, cancer) is generally accepted but yet to be completely understood. A numerical model that captures the physical properties of the ECM, could convey certain connections between the topology of its constituents and their associated biological features. This study addresses the analysis and modeling of fibrillar networks containing Fibronectin (FN) networks, a major ECM molecule, from 2D confocal microscopy images. We leveraged the advantages of the fast discrete curvelet transform (FDCT), in order to obtain a multiscale and multidirectional representation of the FN fibrillar networks. This step was validated by performing a classification among the different variants of FN upregulated in disease states with a multi-class classification algorithm, DAG-SVM. Subsequently, we designed a method to ensure the invariance to rotation of the curvelet features. Our results indicate that the curvelets offer an appropriate discriminative model for the FN networks, that is able to characterize the local fiber geometry

Night and day - Circadian regulation of night-time dark respiration and light-enhanced dark respiration in plant leaves and canopies

The potential of the vegetation to sequester C is determined by the balance between assimilation and respiration. Respiration is under environmental and substrate-driven control, but the circadian clock might also contribute. To assess circadian control on night-time dark respiration (RD) and on light enhanced dark respiration (LEDR) - the latter providing information on the metabolic reorganization in the leaf during light-dark transitions - we performed experiments in macrocosms hosting canopies of bean and cotton. Under constant darkness (plus constant air temperature and air humidity), we tested whether circadian regulation of RD scaled from leaf to canopy respiration. Under constant light (plus constant air temperature and air humidity), we assessed the potential for leaf-level circadian regulation of LEDR. There was a clear circadian oscillation of leaf-level RD in both species and circadian patterns scaled to the canopy. LEDR was under circadian control in cotton, but not in bean indicating species-specific controls. The circadian rhythm of LEDR in cotton might indicate variable suppression of the normal cyclic function of the tricarboxylic-acid-cycle in the light. Since circadian regulation is assumed to act as an adaptive memory to adjust plant metabolism based on environmental conditions from previous days, circadian control of RD may help to explain temporal variability of ecosystem respiration.This study benefited from the CNRS human and technical resources allocated to the ECOTRONS Research Infrastructures as well as from the state allocation ‘Investissement d'Avenir’ AnaEE-France ANR-11-INBS-0001, ExpeER Transnational Access program, Ramón y Cajal fellowships (RYC-2012-10970 to VRD and RYC-2008-02050 to JPF), the Erasmus Mundus Master Course MEDfOR, internal grants from UWS-HIE to VRD and ZALF to AG and Juan de la Cierva-fellowships (IJCI-2014-21393 to JGA). We remain indebted to E. Gerardeau, D. Dessauw, J. Jean, P. Prudent (Aïda CIRAD), J.-J. Drevon, C. Pernot (Eco&Sol INRA), B. Buatois, A. Rocheteau (CEFE CNRS), A. Pra, A. Mokhtar and the full Ecotron team, in particular C. Escape, for outstanding technical assistance