Microbial and nutrient dynamics in mangrove, reef, and seagrass waters over tidal and diurnal time scales

© The Author(s), 2020. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Becker, C. C., Weber, L., Suca, J. J., Llopiz, J. K., Mooney, T. A., & Apprill, A. Microbial and nutrient dynamics in mangrove, reef, and seagrass waters over tidal and diurnal time scales. Aquatic Microbial Ecology, 85, (2020): 101-119, https://doi.org/10.3354/ame01944.In coral reefs and adjacent seagrass meadow and mangrove environments, short temporal scales (i.e. tidal, diurnal) may have important influences on ecosystem processes and community structure, but these scales are rarely investigated. This study examines how tidal and diurnal forcings influence pelagic microorganisms and nutrient dynamics in 3 important and adjacent coastal biomes: mangroves, coral reefs, and seagrass meadows. We sampled for microbial (Bacteria and Archaea) community composition, cell abundances and environmental parameters at 9 coastal sites on St. John, US Virgin Islands that spanned 4 km in distance (4 coral reefs, 2 seagrass meadows and 3 mangrove locations within 2 larger bays). Eight samplings occurred over a 48 h period, capturing day and night microbial dynamics over 2 tidal cycles. The seagrass and reef biomes exhibited relatively consistent environmental conditions and microbial community structure but were dominated by shifts in picocyanobacterial abundances that were most likely attributed to diel dynamics. In contrast, mangrove ecosystems exhibited substantial daily shifts in environmental parameters, heterotrophic cell abundances and microbial community structure that were consistent with the tidal cycle. Differential abundance analysis of mangrove-associated microorganisms revealed enrichment of pelagic oligotrophic taxa during high tide and enrichment of putative sediment-associated microbes during low tide. Our study underpins the importance of tidal and diurnal time scales in structuring coastal microbial and nutrient dynamics, with diel and tidal cycles contributing to a highly dynamic microbial environment in mangroves, and time of day likely contributing to microbial dynamics in seagrass and reef biomes.This research was supported by NSF awards OCE-1536782 to T.A.M., J.K.L., and A.A. and OCE-1736288 to A.A., NOAA Cooperative Institutes award NA19O AR 4320074 to A.A. and E. Kujawinski and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Endowed Fund for Innovative Research to A.A

Rapid response to pandemic threats: immunogenic epitope detection of pandemic pathogens for diagnostics and vaccine development using peptide microarrays

Emergence and re-emergence of pathogens bearing the risk of becoming a pandemic threat are on the rise. Increased travel and trade, growing population density, changes in urbanization, and climate have a critical impact on infectious disease spread. Currently, the world is confronted with the emergence of a novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-$_{2}$, responsible for yet more than 800 000 deaths globally. Outbreaks caused by viruses, such as SARS-CoV-$_{2}$, HIV, Ebola, influenza, and Zika, have increased over the past decade, underlining the need for a rapid development of diagnostics and vaccines. Hence, the rational identification of biomarkers for diagnostic measures on the one hand, and antigenic targets for vaccine development on the other, are of utmost importance. Peptide microarrays can display large numbers of putative target proteins translated into overlapping linear (and cyclic) peptides for a multiplexed, high-throughput antibody analysis. This enabled for example the identification of discriminant/diagnostic epitopes in Zika or influenza and mapping epitope evolution in natural infections versus vaccinations. In this review, we highlight synthesis platforms that facilitate fast and flexible generation of high-density peptide microarrays. We further outline the multifaceted applications of these peptide array platforms for the development of serological tests and vaccines to quickly encounter pandemic threats

Black hole masses and enrichment of z ~ 6 SDSS quasars

We present sensitive near-infrared spectroscopic observations for a sample of five z ~ 6 quasars. These are amongst the most distant, currently known quasars in the universe. The spectra have been obtained using ISAAC at the VLT and include the CIV, MgII and FeII lines. We measure the FeII/MgII line ratio, as an observational proxy for the Fe/alpha element ratio. We derive a ratio of 2.7+/-0.8 for our sample, which is similar to that found for lower redshift quasars, i.e., we provide additional evidence for the lack of evolution in the FeII/MgII line ratio of quasars up to the highest redshifts. This result demonstrates that the sample quasars must have undergone a major episode of iron enrichment in less than one Gyr and star formation must have commenced at z > 8. The linewidths of the MgII and CIV lines give two estimates for the black hole masses. A third estimate is given by assuming that the quasars emit at their Eddington luminosity. The derived masses using these three methods agree well, implying that the quasars are not likely to be strongly lensed. We derive central black hole masses of 0.3-5.2 10^9 solar masses. We use the difference between the redshift of MgII (a proxy for the systemic redshift of the quasar) and the onset of the Gunn Peterson trough to derive the extent of the ionized Stromgren spheres around our target quasars. The derived physical radii are about five Mpc. Using a simple ionization model, the emission of the central quasars would need of order 10^6-10^8 year to create these cavities in a surrounding intergalactic medium with a neutral fraction between 0.1 and 1.0. As the e-folding time scale for the central accreting black hole is on the order of a few times 10^7 year, it can grow by one e-folding or less within this time span.Comment: Accepted by ApJ, 15 pages, 8 figure

A paradox of syntactic priming: why response tendencies show priming for passives, and response latencies show priming for actives

Speakers tend to repeat syntactic structures across sentences, a phenomenon called syntactic priming. Although it has been suggested that repeating syntactic structures should result in speeded responses, previous research has focused on effects in response tendencies. We investigated syntactic priming effects simultaneously in response tendencies and response latencies for active and passive transitive sentences in a picture description task. In Experiment 1, there were priming effects in response tendencies for passives and in response latencies for actives. However, when participants' pre-existing preference for actives was altered in Experiment 2, syntactic priming occurred for both actives and passives in response tendencies as well as in response latencies. This is the first investigation of the effects of structure frequency on both response tendencies and latencies in syntactic priming. We discuss the implications of these data for current theories of syntactic processing

Movement Interventions for Children with Autism and Developmental Disabilities: An Evidence-Based Practice Project

This review explored the following question: Are the comprehensive treatment models Makoto Therapy, Brain Gym, and Interactive Metronome effective interventions for improving occupational performance including improving executive function, academic performance, and physical coordination in children and adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)? Because current research on Interactive Metronome, Brain Gym®, and Makoto Therapy fails to address children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder, presents multiple flaws in research design, and does not measure occupational outcomes such as occupational performance, we recommend that these interventions should not be used as comprehensive treatment models in occupational therapy. We recommend that more occupational-based, methodologically-sound research involving youth with ASD be conducted before implementing these interventions in occupational therapy practice

ADAM10 and ADAM17 promote SARS‐CoV‐2 cell entry and spike protein‐mediated lung cell fusion

The severe‐acute‐respiratory‐syndrome‐coronavirus‐2 (SARS‐CoV‐2) is the causative agent of COVID‐19, but host cell factors contributing to COVID‐19 pathogenesis remain only partly understood. We identify the host metalloprotease ADAM17 as a facilitator of SARS‐CoV‐2 cell entry and the metalloprotease ADAM10 as a host factor required for lung cell syncytia formation, a hallmark of COVID‐19 pathology. ADAM10 and ADAM17, which are broadly expressed in the human lung, cleave the SARS‐CoV‐2 spike protein (S) in vitro, indicating that ADAM10 and ADAM17 contribute to the priming of S, an essential step for viral entry and cell fusion. ADAM protease‐targeted inhibitors severely impair lung cell infection by the SARS‐CoV‐2 variants of concern alpha, beta, delta, and omicron and also reduce SARS‐CoV‐2 infection of primary human lung cells in a TMPRSS2 protease‐independent manner. Our study establishes ADAM10 and ADAM17 as host cell factors for viral entry and syncytia formation and defines both proteases as potential targets for antiviral drug development

Standalone vertex finding in the ATLAS muon spectrometer

A dedicated reconstruction algorithm to find decay vertices in the ATLAS muon spectrometer is presented. The algorithm searches the region just upstream of or inside the muon spectrometer volume for multi-particle vertices that originate from the decay of particles with long decay paths. The performance of the algorithm is evaluated using both a sample of simulated Higgs boson events, in which the Higgs boson decays to long-lived neutral particles that in turn decay to bbar b final states, and pp collision data at √s = 7 TeV collected with the ATLAS detector at the LHC during 2011

Measurements of Higgs boson production and couplings in diboson final states with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

Measurements are presented of production properties and couplings of the recently discovered Higgs boson using the decays into boson pairs, H →γ γ, H → Z Z∗ →4l and H →W W∗ →lνlν. The results are based on the complete pp collision data sample recorded by the ATLAS experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider at centre-of-mass energies of √s = 7 TeV and √s = 8 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of about 25 fb−1. Evidence for Higgs boson production through vector-boson fusion is reported. Results of combined fits probing Higgs boson couplings to fermions and bosons, as well as anomalous contributions to loop-induced production and decay modes, are presented. All measurements are consistent with expectations for the Standard Model Higgs boson

Measurement of the top quark pair cross section with ATLAS in pp collisions at √s=7 TeV using final states with an electron or a muon and a hadronically decaying τ lepton

A measurement of the cross section of top quark pair production in proton-proton collisions recorded with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV is reported. The data sample used corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 2.05 fb -1. Events with an isolated electron or muon and a τ lepton decaying hadronically are used. In addition, a large missing transverse momentum and two or more energetic jets are required. At least one of the jets must be identified as originating from a b quark. The measured cross section, σtt-=186±13(stat.)±20(syst.)±7(lumi.) pb, is in good agreement with the Standard Model prediction

Measurement of the top quark-pair production cross section with ATLAS in pp collisions at \sqrt{s}=7\TeV

A measurement of the production cross-section for top quark pairs(\ttbar) in $pp$ collisions at \sqrt{s}=7 \TeV is presented using data recorded with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. Events are selected in two different topologies: single lepton (electron $e$ or muon $\mu$) with large missing transverse energy and at least four jets, and dilepton ($ee$, $\mu\mu$ or $e\mu$) with large missing transverse energy and at least two jets. In a data sample of 2.9 pb-1, 37 candidate events are observed in the single-lepton topology and 9 events in the dilepton topology. The corresponding expected backgrounds from non-\ttbar Standard Model processes are estimated using data-driven methods and determined to be $12.2 \pm 3.9$ events and $2.5 \pm 0.6$ events, respectively. The kinematic properties of the selected events are consistent with SM \ttbar production. The inclusive top quark pair production cross-section is measured to be \sigmattbar=145 \pm 31 ^{+42}_{-27} pb where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second systematic. The measurement agrees with perturbative QCD calculations.Comment: 30 pages plus author list (50 pages total), 9 figures, 11 tables, CERN-PH number and final journal adde