Book Reviews

Book Reviews by Brendan F. Brown, Laurance M. Hyde, Francis W. Johnston, W. T. Lovins, and Robert B. Vining

Panel Discussion On Lipid Metabolism In Cardiovascular Disease†

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/111126/1/jgs00741.pd

Road expansion and persistence in forests of the Congo Basin

ISSN:2398-962

An Amazonian rainforest and its fragments as a laboratory of global change

We synthesize findings from one of the world’s largest and longest-running experimental investigations, the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project (BDFFP). Spanning an area of ~1,000 km2 in central Amazonia, the BDFFP was initially designed to evaluate the effects of fragment area on rainforest biodiversity and ecological processes. However, over its 38-year history to date the project has far transcended its original mission, and now focuses more broadly on landscape dynamics, forest regeneration, regional- and global-change phenomena, and their potential interactions and implications for Amazonian forest conservation. The project has yielded a wealth of insights into the ecological and environmental changes in fragmented forests. For instance, many rainforest species are naturally rare and hence are either missing entirely from many fragments or so sparsely represented as to have little chance of long-term survival. Additionally, edge effects are a prominent driver of fragment dynamics, strongly affecting forest microclimate, tree mortality, carbon storage and a diversity of fauna. Even within our controlled study area, the landscape has been highly dynamic: for example, the matrix of vegetation surrounding fragments has changed markedly over time, succeeding from large cattle pastures or forest clearcuts to secondary regrowth forest. This, in turn, has influenced the dynamics of plant and animal communities and their trajectories of change over time. In general, fauna and flora have responded differently to fragmentation: the most locally extinction-prone animal species are those that have both large area requirements and low tolerance of the modified habitats surrounding fragments, whereas the most vulnerable plants are those that respond poorly to edge effects or chronic forest disturbances, and that rely on vulnerable animals for seed dispersal or pollination. Relative to intact forests, most fragments are hyperdynamic, with unstable or fluctuating populations of species in response to a variety of external vicissitudes. Rare weather events such as droughts, windstorms and floods have had strong impacts on fragments and left lasting legacies of change. Both forest fragments and the intact forests in our study area appear to be influenced by larger-scale environmental drivers operating at regional or global scales. These drivers are apparently increasing forest productivity and have led to concerted, widespread increases in forest dynamics and plant growth, shifts in tree-community composition, and increases in liana (woody vine) abundance. Such large-scale drivers are likely to interact synergistically with habitat fragmentation, exacerbating its effects for some species and ecological phenomena. Hence, the impacts of fragmentation on Amazonian biodiversity and ecosystem processes appear to be a consequence not only of local site features but also of broader changes occurring at landscape, regional and even global scales

Ecosystem decay of Amazonian forest fragments: a 22-year investigation

P E R M A N E N T G E N E T I C R E S O U R C E S N O T E 1265 Cell/Tissue Genomic DNA extraction kit (TianGen) and digested with MboI (Takara). Fragments of 400-1000bp were collected by TianGen Gel DNA Extraction Kit. Doublestranded MboI adapters, Linker A (5′-GATCGTCGACGG-TACCGAATTCT-3′) and Linker B (3′-CAGCTGCCAT-GGCTTAAGAACTG-5′) (250 pmol, excess) were ligated to DNA fragments with T4 DNA ligase (Takara) at 16°C overnight. Excess adapters were removed by washing on an Ultrafree column (Pall). DNA fragments were amplified 10 cycles with linker B and purified. The products were denatured and hybridized to biotin-labelled (CA) 12 , (GA) 12 , (ACA) 8 , (AGA) 8 , (GACA) 6 and (GATA) 6 oligo-nucleotides (mixed in advance at the ratio of 3:1:1:1:2:2) in 0.5X SSC at 68°C for 1 h. DNA fragments bound to these probes were captured with Promega Streptavidin MagneSphere® Paramagnetic Particles and eluted by DNase-free water after being washed four times in 0.1× SSC at room temperature, and then amplified for 10 cycles with Linker B. The enriched fragments were ligated to pGEM-T-easy vector (Promega) at 4°C overnight, and then transformed into Promega high-efficiency competent Escherichia coli cells (Dh5α), which were cultured on Luria-Bertani solid medium containing 100mg/mL ampicillin. One-hundred and ninety-nine white positive clones were picked and sequenced with the T7 primer on ABI 3730xl DNA analysers at the Shanghai Sangon Biological Engineering Technology & Services Co., Ltd. Sequences were screened for microsatellites containing at least six di-, five tri-, five tetra-, four penta-, three hexa-and three octa-nucleotide repeats using the software misa (http:/ /pgrc.ipk-gatersleben.de/misa/). One-hundred and twenty-six (excluding five duplicates) microsatellite-containing sequences were identified and consisted of 28.1% di-, 7.8% tri-, 22.7% tetra-, 6.3% penta-, 1.6% hexa-, 4.7% octa-nucleotide and 35.2% compound microsatellite repeats. Fifty-seven good sequences with sufficient flanking regions were selected for primer design with Primer 3 (http:/ /biotools.umassmed.edu/bioapps/ primer3_www.cgi). An M13 (-21) universal leading sequence (18bp) 5′-TGTAAAACGACGGCCAGT was added to the 5′ end of each forward primer listed in Observed (H O ) and expected (H E ) heterozygosities were calculated with arlequin 3.0 Three primer pairs RUSS33, RUSS47 and RUSS57 amplified more than two fragments per individual, suggesting that they belong to duplicated loci. RUSS33 amplified three to six fragments per individual with well-defined patterns. It can be explained by the amplification of a tandem mini-satellite repeat in a model of Fprimer-25bp-Fprimer75bp-Fprimer-(18bp)n-Rprimer. RUSS47 (and RUSS45, not presented here) had clusters of fragments that differed by 8bp, with a cluster-to-cluster distance of 145bp: Fprimer-[(8bp)n]N-Rprimer-145bp-Rprimer-145-Rprimer. RUSS57 amplified one monomorphic locus at 152 bp and another polymorphic locus. This is the first time that microsatellite markers have been developed for S. solidissima. Most of the markers developed here are highly polymorphic and in HWE. They should be useful in genetic studies on this important model and fishery species. Acknowledgemen

STEP: Satellite Test of the Equivalence Principle. Report on the phase A study

During Phase A, the STEP Study Team identified three types of experiments that can be accommodated on the STEP satellite within the mission constraints and whose performance is orders of magnitude better than any present or planned future experiment of the same kind on the ground. The scientific objectives of the STEP mission are to: test the Equivalence Principle to one part in 10(exp 17), six orders of magnitude better than has been achieved on the ground; search for a new interaction between quantum-mechanical spin and ordinary matter with a sensitivity of the mass-spin coupling constant g(sub p)g(sub s) = 6 x 10(exp -34) at a range of 1 mm, which represents a seven order-of-magnitude improvement over comparable ground-based measurements; and determine the constant of gravity G with a precision of one part in 10(exp 6) and to test the validity of the inverse square law with the same precision, both two orders of magnitude better than has been achieved on the ground

Pattern and process in Amazon tree turnover, 1976-2001

Previous work has shown that tree turnover, tree biomass and large liana densities have increased in mature tropical forest plots in the late twentieth century. These results point to a concerted shift in forest ecological processes that may already be having significant impacts on terrestrial carbon stocks, fluxes and biodiversity. However, the findings have proved controversial, partly because a rather limited number of permanent plots have been monitored for rather short periods. The aim of this paper is to characterize regional-scale patterns of 'tree turnover' (the rate with which trees die and recruit into a population) by using improved datasets now available for Amazonia that span the past 25 years. Specifically, we assess whether concerted changes in turnover are occurring, and if so whether they are general throughout the Amazon or restricted to one region or environmental zone. In addition, we ask whether they are driven by changes in recruitment, mortality or both. We find that: (i) trees 10 cm or more in diameter recruit and die twice as fast on the richer soils of southern and western Amazonia than on the poorer soils of eastern and central Amazonia; (ii) turnover rates have increased throughout Amazonia over the past two decades; (iii) mortality and recruitment rates have both increased significantly in every region and environmental zone, with the exception of mortality in eastern Amazonia; (iv) recruitment rates have consistently exceeded mortality rates; (v) absolute increases in recruitment and mortality rates are greatest in western Amazonian sites; and (vi) mortality appears to be lagging recruitment at regional scales. These spatial patterns and temporal trends are not caused by obvious artefacts in the data or the analyses. The trends cannot be directly driven by a mortality driver (such as increased drought or fragmentation-related death) because the biomass in these forests has simultaneously increased. Our findings therefore indicate that long-acting and widespread environmental changes are stimulating the growth and productivity of Amazon forests

Concerted changes in tropical forest structure and dynamics: evidence from 50 South American long-term plots

Several widespread changes in the ecology of old-growth tropical forests have recently been documented for the late twentieth century, in particular an increase in stem turnover (pan-tropical), and an increase in above-ground biomass (neotropical). Whether these changes are synchronous and whether changes in growth are also occurring is not known. We analysed stand-level changes within 50 long-term. monitoring plots from across South America spanning 1971-2002. We show that: (i) basal area (BA: sum of the cross-sectional areas of all trees in a plot) increased significantly over time (by 0.10 +/- 0.04 m(2) ha(-1) yr(-1), mean +/- 95% CI); as did both (ii) stand-level BA growth rates (sum of the increments of BA of surviving trees and BA of new trees that recruited into a plot); and (iii) stand-level BA mortality rates (sum of the cross-sectional areas of all trees that died in a plot). Similar patterns were observed on a per-stem basis: (i) stem density (number of stems per hectare; 1 hectare is 10(4) m(2)) increased significantly over time (0.94 +/- 0.63 stems ha(-1) yr(-1)); as did both (ii) stem recruitment rates; and (iii) stem mortality rates. In relative terms, the pools of BA and stem density increased by 0.38 +/- 0.15% and 0.18 +/- 0.12% yr(-1), respectively. The fluxes into and out of these pools-stand-level BA growth, stand-level BA mortality, stem recruitment and stem mortality rates-increased, in relative terms, by an order of magnitude more. The gain terms (BA growth, stem recruitment) consistently exceeded the loss terms (BA loss, stem mortality) throughout the period, suggesting that whatever process is driving these changes was already acting before the plot network was established. Large long-term increases in stand-level BA growth and simultaneous increases in stand BA and stem density imply a continent-wide increase in resource availability which is increasing net primary productivity and altering forest dynamics. Continent-wide changes in incoming solar radiation, and increases in atmospheric concentrations of CO2 and air temperatures may have increased resource supply over recent decades, thus causing accelerated growth and increased dynamism across the world's largest tract of tropical forest