Kárpáti, erdélyi, dácikus és pannon endemikus fajok a Szilágyság flórájában = Carpathian, Transylvanian, Dacian and Pannonian elements in the flora of Sălaj region (NW Romania)

Abstract – This paper gives an account of biogeographically interesting plant species of the traditional ethnographic region Sălaj (in Hungarian: “Szilágyság”, NW Romania). The flora of the region, which is situated between the Transylvanian Basin and the eastern part of the Great Hungarian Plain, contains, besides the prevailing European species, a significant percentage of plant species from different biogeographic regions. Among these we noticed the continental species of eastern origin, as well as southern Sub-Mediterranean species broadly distributed in this area. A significant number of other interesting species is further represented by the endemic and sub-endemic Carpathian (Aconitum moldavicum Hacq., Symphytum cordatum Waldst. & Kit.), Transylvanian (Cephalaria radiata Griseb. & Schenk, Onosma pseudoarenaria Schur subsp. pseudoarenaria), Dacian (Helleborus purpurascens Waldst. & Kit., Phyteuma tetramerum Schur) and Pannonian (Centaurea sadleriana Janka), species, which occur in very different habitats. Keywords: biogeography, chorology, endemics, flora of Romania, Sălaj (Szilágy) region | Összefoglalás – Az Erdélyi-medence és az alföldi pannon flóratartomány között elterülő romániai Szilágyság növénytakarójában az európai fajok mellett, a különböző földrajzi eredetű flóraelemek százalékos aránya igen magas. Ezek közül kiemeljük a keleti eredetű kontinentális, valamint a déli szubmediterrán jellegűek itteni széleskörű elterjedését. Jelentős számmal vannak képviselve az alább elemzett kárpáti (Aconitum moldavicum Hacq., Symphytum cordatum Waldst. & Kit.), erdélyi (Cephalaria radiata Griseb. & Schenk, Onosma pseudoarenaria Schur subsp. pseudoarenaria), dácikus (Helleborus purpurascens Waldst. & Kit., Phyteuma tetramerum Schur) és pannon (Centaurea sadleriana Janka), endemikus valamint szubendemikus fajok is, amelyek igen különböző jellegű termőhelyeken jelentkeznek. Kulcsszavak: biogeográfia, endemizmusok, korológia, Románia flórája, Szilágyság | Rezumat – Elemente carpatice, transilvane, dacice şi pannonice în flora Sălajului (România). În covorul vegetal al Sălajului din România, cuprins între Bazinul Transilvaniei şi regiunea floristică pannonică Alföld, în afară de speciile europene, procentul altor elemente de origini diferite, este destul de ridicat. Dintre acestea remarcăm răspândirea largă a elementelor de origine estică continentale, ca şi a celor sudice submediteraneene. Sunt reprezentate în număr mare elementele endemice şi subendemice carpatice (Aconitum moldavicum Hacq., Symphytum cordatum Waldst. & Kit.), transilvane (Cephalaria radiata Griseb. & Schenk, Onosma pseudoarenaria Schur subsp. pseudoarenaria), dacice (Helleborus purpurascens Waldst. & Kit., Phyteuma tetramerum Schur) şi pannonice (Centaurea sadleriana Janka), prezente în habitate foarte diverse. Cuvinte-cheie: biogeografie, corologie, endemite, flora României, Săla

Distribution and characteristic habitat of Convolvulus persicus L. in South-East Romania: threats and protection solutions

Convolvulus persicus is a critically endangered species, endemic to the embryonic shifting dunes of Caspian Sea and Black Sea. The distribution of this species in Romania includes also the sand dunes on the seashores of Sfântu Gheorghe and Sulina. This paper presents new data about the endangered species Convolvulus persicus regarding the distribution and the effective population size in Romania. The conservation status of the embryonic shifting dunes, found in the mentioned sites in 2019, was reviewed, along with the threats for both the habitat and the species. Several protection methods were proposed. Kiss et Szatmari (PDF

High resolution ancient sedimentary DNA shows that alpine plant diversity is associated with human land use and climate change

International audienceThe European Alps are highly rich in species, but their future may be threatened by ongoing changes in human land use and climate. Here, we reconstructed vegetation, temperature, human impact and livestock over the past ~12,000 years from Lake Sulsseewli, based on sedimentary ancient plant and mammal DNA, pollen, spores, chironomids, and microcharcoal. We assembled a highly-complete local DNA reference library (PhyloAlps, 3923 plant taxa), and used this to obtain an exceptionally rich sed aDNA record of 366 plant taxa. Vegetation mainly responded to climate during the early Holocene, while human activity had an additional influence on vegetation from 6 ka onwards. Land-use shifted from episodic grazing during the Neolithic and Bronze Age to agropastoralism in the Middle Ages. Associated human deforestation allowed the coexistence of plant species typically found at different elevational belts, leading to levels of plant richness that characterise the current high diversity of this region. Our findings indicate a positive association between low intensity agropastoral activities and precipitation with the maintenance of the unique subalpine and alpine plant diversity of the European Alps

Challenges in Evaluating Psychosocial Interventions for autistic spectrum disorders

In 2002, the National Institutes of Health sponsored a meeting concerning methodological challenges of research in psychosocial interventions in Autism Spectrum Disorders. This paper provides a summary of the presentations and the discussions that occurred during this meeting. Recommendations to federal and private agencies included the need for randomized clinical trials of comprehensive interventions for autism as the highest, but not the sole priority. Ongoing working groups were proposed to address psychosocial interventions with a focus on relevant statistics, standardized documentation and methods of diagnosis, development of outcome measures, establishment of standards in research; and the need for innovative treatment designs, including application of designs from other research areas to the study of interventions in ASD. © 2005 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc

Genetic relationship between five psychiatric disorders estimated from genome-wide SNPs

<p>Most psychiatric disorders are moderately to highly heritable. The degree to which genetic variation is unique to individual disorders or shared across disorders is unclear. To examine shared genetic etiology, we use genome-wide genotype data from the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC) for cases and controls in schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). We apply univariate and bivariate methods for the estimation of genetic variation within and covariation between disorders. SNPs explained 17-29% of the variance in liability. The genetic correlation calculated using common SNPs was high between schizophrenia and bipolar disorder (0.68 +/- 0.04 s.e.), moderate between schizophrenia and major depressive disorder (0.43 +/- 0.06 s.e.), bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder (0.47 +/- 0.06 s.e.), and ADHD and major depressive disorder (0.32 +/- 0.07 s.e.), low between schizophrenia and ASD (0.16 +/- 0.06 s.e.) and non-significant for other pairs of disorders as well as between psychiatric disorders and the negative control of Crohn's disease. This empirical evidence of shared genetic etiology for psychiatric disorders can inform nosology and encourages the investigation of common pathophysiologies for related disorders.</p>

Genetic relationship between five psychiatric disorders estimated from genome-wide SNPs

Most psychiatric disorders are moderately to highly heritable. The degree to which genetic variation is unique to individual disorders or shared across disorders is unclear. To examine shared genetic etiology, we use genome-wide genotype data from the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC) for cases and controls in schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). We apply univariate and bivariate methods for the estimation of genetic variation within and covariation between disorders. SNPs explained 17-29% of the variance in liability. The genetic correlation calculated using common SNPs was high between schizophrenia and bipolar disorder (0.68 ± 0.04 s.c.), moderate between schizophrenia and major depressive disorder (0.43 ± 0.06 s.e.), bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder (0.47 ± 0.06 s.e.), and ADHD and major depressive disorder (0.32 ± 0.07 s.e.), low between schizophrenia and ASD (0.16 ± 0.06 s.e.) and non-significant for other pairs of disorders as well as between psychiatric disorders and the negative control of Crohn's disease. This empirical evidence of shared genetic etiology for psychiatric disorders can inform nosology and encourages the investigation of common pathophysiologies for related disorders

Joint Analysis of Psychiatric Disorders Increases Accuracy of Risk Prediction for Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder, and Major Depressive Disorder

Genetic risk prediction has several potential applications in medical research and clinical practice and could be used, for example, to stratify a heterogeneous population of patients by their predicted genetic risk. However, for polygenic traits, such as psychiatric disorders, the accuracy of risk prediction is low. Here we use a multivariate linear mixed model and apply multi-trait genomic best linear unbiased prediction for genetic risk prediction. This method exploits correlations between disorders and simultaneously evaluates individual risk for each disorder. We show that the multivariate approach significantly increases the prediction accuracy for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depressive disorder in the discovery as well as in independent validation datasets. By grouping SNPs based on genome annotation and fitting multiple random effects, we show that the prediction accuracy could be further improved. The gain in prediction accuracy of the multivariate approach is equivalent to an increase in sample size of 34% for schizophrenia, 68% for bipolar disorder, and 76% for major depressive disorders using single trait models. Because our approach can be readily applied to any number of GWAS datasets of correlated traits, it is a flexible and powerful tool to maximize prediction accuracy. With current sample size, risk predictors are not useful in a clinical setting but already are a valuable research tool, for example in experimental designs comparing cases with high and low polygenic risk

Psychiatric genome-wide association study analyses implicate neuronal, immune and histone pathways

The final version of this article is available from Nature Publishing Group at https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.3922.Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of psychiatric disorders have identified multiple genetic associations with such disorders, but better methods are needed to derive the underlying biological mechanisms that these signals indicate. We sought to identify biological pathways in GWAS data from over 60,000 participants from the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium. We developed an analysis framework to rank pathways that requires only summary statistics. We combined this score across disorders to find common pathways across three adult psychiatric disorders: schizophrenia, major depression and bipolar disorder. Histone methylation processes showed the strongest association, and we also found statistically significant evidence for associations with multiple immune and neuronal signaling pathways and with the postsynaptic density. Our study indicates that risk variants for psychiatric disorders aggregate in particular biological pathways and that these pathways are frequently shared between disorders. Our results confirm known mechanisms and suggest several novel insights into the etiology of psychiatric disorders