Demography, home range, and habitat selection of northern spotted owls in the Ashland Watershed

Northern Spotted Owls (Strix occidentalis caurina) inhabit productive forests that historically supported frequent, large, variable-severity fires in the Klamath province of southwestern Oregon occur in complex. The potential for high-severity wildfire remains high throughout this region, so remaining spotted owl habitat is at risk. An adaptive management approach to fire management and owl recovery in these forests is being advocated under the Final Recovery Plan for the Northern Spotted Owl. However, it is currently unclear what short- or long-term effects these fuels reduction treatments will have on spotted owl populations. Proposed forest thinning treatments planned for the Ashland Watershed in southwestern Oregon provide an unprecedented opportunity to study the effects of thinning on spotted owl ecology. My objectives were to determine 1) monthly survival rates and 2) home range size of spotted owls in relation to habitat characteristics, and 3) owl habitat selection. Data were collected prior to forest manipulations and will serve as a baseline for comparison with post-thinning data. Survival, home range size and habitat selection for 15 Northern spotted owls were monitored using radio telemetry in the Ashland Watershed and surrounding area from September 2006 to October 2008. A remote-sensed vegetation map of the study area was used to characterize habitat classes and configuration. Estimates of monthly survival were generated in relation to habitat characteristics using program MARK. Monthly survival was positively correlated with the number of late forest patches within the individual home range and negatively correlated with the mean nearest neighbor of late forest patches. Annual home range size varied from 189 to 894 ha. Annual home range size increased with increased amounts of edge and decreased with increased amounts of intermediate aged-forest. The mean breeding season home range size was 491 ha and was larger than mean non-breeding season home ranges. Home range size increased with the addition of hard edge, and amount of old and mature forest combined. The mean size for annual core areas was 77 ha. The best predictor of both non-breeding home range size and core area size was hard edge. While home range size was positively related to the amount of hard edge within non-breeding home range in a linear fashion, core area size increased with increasing amounts of hard edge, but only up to a threshold point, where further increases in edge did not increase core area size. Logistic regression was used to model habitat selection of owls in relation to forest characteristics. Individual owls exhibited different preferences in selecting habitat for foraging and roosting. Overall, owls selected for habitat that was closer to streams and further away from edge. Old forest did not significantly influence selection, but mature forest was positively associated with annual and winter habitat selection for several individual owls. Intermediate forests and non-habitat were only weakly associated with spotted owl habitat selection

Fully Enclosed Microfluidic Paper-Based Analytical Devices

This article introduces fully enclosed microfluidic paper-based analytical devices (microPADs) fabricated by printing toner on the top and bottom of the devices using a laser printer. Enclosing paper-based microfluidic channels protects the channels from contamination, contains and protects reagents stored on the device, contains fluids within the channels so that microPADs can be handled and operated more easily, and reduces evaporation of solutions from the channels. These benefits extend the capabilities of microPADs for applications as low-cost point-of-care diagnostic devices

Correction to Fully Enclosed Microfluidic Paper-Based Analytical Devices

There is an error in the units of the concentrations of potassium iodide and trehalose described in the experimental details on page 1581. The correct concentrations are 0.6 M potassium iodide and 0.3 M trehalose

Survival and Home-range Size of Northern Spotted Owls in Southwestern Oregon

In the Klamath province of southwestern Oregon, Northern Spotted Owls (Strix occidentalis caurina) occur in complex, productive forests that historically supported frequent fires of variable severity. However, little is known about the relationships between Spotted Owl survival and home-range size and the characteristics of fire-prone, mixed-conifer forests of the Klamath province. Thus, the objectives of this study were to estimate monthly survival rates and home-range size in relation to habitat characteristics for Northern Spotted Owls in southwestern Oregon. Home-range size and survival of 15 Northern Spotted Owls was monitored using radiotelemetry in the Ashland Ranger District of the Rogue River–Siskiyou National Forest from September 2006 to October 2008. Habitat classes within Spotted Owl home ranges were characterized using a remote-sensed vegetation map of the study area. Estimates of monthly survival ranged from 0.89 to 1.0 and were positively correlated with the number of late-seral habitat patches and the amount of edge, and negatively correlated with the mean nearest neighbor distance between late-seral habitats. Annual home-range size varied from to 189 to 894 ha (x̄ =  576; SE  =  75), with little difference between breeding and nonbreeding home ranges. Breeding-season home-range size increased with the amount of hard edge, and the amount of old and mature forest combined. Core area, annual and nonbreeding season home-range sizes all increased with increased amounts of hard edge, suggesting that increased fragmentation is associated with larger core and home-range sizes. Although no effect of the amount of late-seral stage forest on either survival or home-range size was detected, these results are the first to concurrently demonstrate increased forest fragmentation with decreased survival and increased home-range size of Northern Spotted Owls.Keywords: Klamath Province, Northern Spotted Owl, habitat characteristics, Oregon, survival, home-range size, Strix occidentalis caurin

RPL24: a potential therapeutic target whose depletion or acetylation inhibits polysome assembly and cancer cell growth.

Partial loss of large ribosomal subunit protein 24 (RPL24) function is known to protect mice against Akt or Myc-driven cancers, in part via translational inhibition of a subset of cap(eIF4E)-dependently translated mRNAs. The role of RPL24 in human malignancies is unknown. By analyzing a public dataset of matched human breast cancers and normal mammary tissue, we found that breast cancers express significantly more RPL24 than matched normal breast samples. Depletion of RPL24 in breast cancer cells by \u3e70% reduced cell viability by 80% and decreased protein expression of the eIF4E-dependently translated proteins cyclin D1 (75%), survivin (46%) and NBS1 (30%) without altering GAPDH or beta-tubulin levels. RPL24 knockdown also reduced 80S subunit levels relative to 40S and 60S levels. These effects on expression of eIF4E-dependent proteins and ribosome assembly were mimicked by 2-24 h treatment with the pan-HDACi, trichostatin A (TSA), which induced acetylation of 15 different polysome-associated proteins including RPL24. Furthermore, HDAC6-selective inhibition or HDAC6 knockdown induced ribosomal protein acetylation. Via mass spectrometry, we found that 60S-associated, but not, polysome-associated, RPL24 undergoes HDACi-induced acetylation on K27. Thus, RPL24 K27 acetylation may play a role in ribosome assembly. These findings point toward a novel acetylation-dependent polysome assembly mechanism regulating tumorigenesis

Dynamic spatial dispersion of repolarization is present in regions critical for ischemic ventricular tachycardia ablation

Background- The presence of dynamic substrate changes may facilitate functional block and reentry in ventricular tachycardia (VT). Objective- We aimed to study dynamic ventricular repolarization changes in critical regions of the VT circuit during sensed single extrastimulus pacing known as the Sense Protocol (SP). Methods- Twenty patients (aged 67 ± 9 years, 17 male) underwent VT ablation. A bipolar voltage map was obtained during sinus rhythm (SR) and right ventricular SP pacing at 20 ms above ventricular effective refractory period. Ventricular repolarization maps were constructed. Ventricular repolarization time (RT) was calculated from unipolar electrogram T waves, using the Wyatt method, as the dV/dtmax of the unipolar T wave. Entrainment or pace mapping confirmed critical sites for ablation. Results- The median global repolarization range (max-min RT per patient) was 166 ms (interquartile range [IQR] 143–181 ms) during SR mapping vs 208 ms (IQR 182–234) during SP mapping (P = .0003 vs intrinsic rhythm). Regions of late potentials (LP) had a longer RT during SP mapping compared to regions without LP (mean 394 ± 40 ms vs 342 ± 25 ms, P < .001). In paired regions of normal myocardium there was no significant spatial dispersion of repolarization (SDR)/10 mm2 during SP mapping vs SR mapping (SDR 11 ± 6 ms vs 10 ± 6 ms, P = .54). SDR/10 mm2 was greater in critical areas of the VT circuit during SP mapping 63 ± 29 ms vs SR mapping 16 ± 9 ms (P < .001). Conclusion- Ventricular repolarization is prolonged in regions of LP and increases dynamically, resulting in dynamic SDR in critical areas of the VT circuit. These dynamic substrate changes may be an important factor that facilitates VT circuits

On the uniqueness of promotion operators on tensor products of type A crystals

The affine Dynkin diagram of type $A_n^{(1)}$ has a cyclic symmetry. The analogue of this Dynkin diagram automorphism on the level of crystals is called a promotion operator. In this paper we show that the only irreducible type $A_n$ crystals which admit a promotion operator are the highest weight crystals indexed by rectangles. In addition we prove that on the tensor product of two type $A_n$ crystals labeled by rectangles, there is a single connected promotion operator. We conjecture this to be true for an arbitrary number of tensor factors. Our results are in agreement with Kashiwara's conjecture that all `good' affine crystals are tensor products of Kirillov-Reshetikhin crystals.Comment: 31 pages; 8 figure

SUCLA2 mutations cause global protein succinylation contributing to the pathomechanism of a hereditary mitochondrial disease

Mitochondrial acyl-coenzyme A species are emerging as important sources of protein modification and damage. Succinyl-CoA ligase (SCL) deficiency causes a mitochondrial encephalomyopathy of unknown pathomechanism. Here, we show that succinyl-CoA accumulates in cells derived from patients with recessive mutations in the tricarboxylic acid cycle (TCA) gene succinyl-CoA ligase subunit-beta (SUCLA2), causing global protein hyper-succinylation. Using mass spectrometry, we quantify nearly 1,000 protein succinylation sites on 366 proteins from patient-derived fibroblasts and myotubes. Interestingly, hyper-succinylated proteins are distributed across cellular compartments, and many are known targets of the (NAD(+))-dependent desuccinylase SIRT5. To test the contribution of hyper-succinylation to disease progression, we develop a zebrafish model of the SCL deficiency and find that SIRT5 gain-of-function reduces global protein succinylation and improves survival. Thus, increased succinyl-CoA levels contribute to the pathology of SCL deficiency through post-translational modifications. The pathomechanism of succinyl-CoA ligase (SCL) deficiency, a hereditary mitochondrial disease, is not fully understood. Here, the authors show that increased succinyl-CoA levels contribute to SCL pathology by causing global protein hyper-succinylation.Peer reviewe