TRY plant trait database – enhanced coverage and open access

Plant traits - the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants - determine how plants respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, and influence ecosystem properties and their benefits and detriments to people. Plant trait data thus represent the basis for a vast area of research spanning from evolutionary biology, community and functional ecology, to biodiversity conservation, ecosystem and landscape management, restoration, biogeography and earth system modelling. Since its foundation in 2007, the TRY database of plant traits has grown continuously. It now provides unprecedented data coverage under an open access data policy and is the main plant trait database used by the research community worldwide. Increasingly, the TRY database also supports new frontiers of trait‐based plant research, including the identification of data gaps and the subsequent mobilization or measurement of new data. To support this development, in this article we evaluate the extent of the trait data compiled in TRY and analyse emerging patterns of data coverage and representativeness. Best species coverage is achieved for categorical traits - almost complete coverage for ‘plant growth form’. However, most traits relevant for ecology and vegetation modelling are characterized by continuous intraspecific variation and trait–environmental relationships. These traits have to be measured on individual plants in their respective environment. Despite unprecedented data coverage, we observe a humbling lack of completeness and representativeness of these continuous traits in many aspects. We, therefore, conclude that reducing data gaps and biases in the TRY database remains a key challenge and requires a coordinated approach to data mobilization and trait measurements. This can only be achieved in collaboration with other initiatives

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Global variability in leaf respiration in relation to climate, plant functional types and leaf traits

• Leaf dark respiration (Rdark) is an important yet poorly quantified component of the global carbon cycle. Given this, we analyzed a new global database of Rdark and associated leaf traits. • Data for 899 species were compiled from 100 sites (from the Arctic to the tropics). Several woody and nonwoody plant functional types (PFTs) were represented. Mixed-effects models were used to disentangle sources of variation in Rdark. • Area-based Rdark at the prevailing average daily growth temperature (T) of each site increased only twofold from the Arctic to the tropics, despite a 20°C increase in growing T (8–28°C). By contrast, Rdark at a standard T (25°C, Rdark25) was threefold higher in the Arctic than in the tropics, and twofold higher at arid than at mesic sites. Species and PFTs at cold sites exhibited higher Rdark25 at a given photosynthetic capacity (Vcmax25) or leaf nitrogen concentration ([N]) than species at warmer sites. Rdark25 values at any given Vcmax25 or [N] were higher in herbs than in woody plants. • The results highlight variation in Rdark among species and across global gradients in T and aridity. In addition to their ecological significance, the results provide a framework for improving representation of Rdark in terrestrial biosphere models (TBMs) and associated land-surface components of Earth system models (ESMs)

Kaon and Phi Production in Pion-Nucleus Reactions at 1.7 GeV/

The production and properties of K+, K− and ϕ in nuclear reactions π− + A (A = C,W) at a beam momentum of 1:7 GeV/c has been studied with the HADES setup at SIS18/GSI. Of particular interest is the K− absorption in nuclear matter which should be driven by strangeness exchange processes on one (K−N → Yπ) or more nucleons (K−NN → YNπ). In this context, also the ϕ has to be taken into account, since ϕ decays into K+K− pairs may substantially affect the measured K− abundance. A solid reference is needed to evaluate the K− absorption with in the nucleus and in this work we discuss the determination of this reference. A double ratio of K−=K+(W)=K−=K+(C) is measured within the acceptance and compared to the reference

Kaon and Phi Production in Pion-Nucleus Reactions at 1.7 GeV/c* *supported by the DFG cluster of excellence “Origin and Structure of the Universe” and SFB 1258

Nuclear reactions, π−+A (A = C;W), at an incident beam momentum of 1:7 GeV/c were measured with the HADES setup at SIS18/GSI. Detailed investigations of the K+, K− and ϕ production off nuclei are connected to the study of hadron in-medium properties at nuclear saturation density. A contradictory role is played by the ϕ meson since the ϕN absorption cross-section is assumed to be small due to the OZI suppression which is in contrast to experimental observations. We present the analysis method to identify the ϕ meson exploiting the large K+K− branching ratio (≈ 50%). The correction for acceptance and effciency effects of the detector system will be discussed as well

Inclusive K+ production in π− + A collisions at 1.7 GeV/c

The production and properties of K+ in nuclear reactions π− + A (A = C; W) at an incident beam momentum of 1.7 GeV/c has been studied with the HADES setup at SIS18/GSI. Phase space distributions of kaons produced off heavy and light nuclei can be studied to extract information about the KN potential. We present the analysis method, normalization procedure and first results on the ratio of inclusive (K+) cross-sections in π−-induced reactions on W and C targets in comparison to existing measurement by FOPI and ANKE

In-medium effects in strangeness production in heavy-ion collisions at (sub-)threshold energies

International audienceWe study the in-medium effects in strangeness production in heavy-ion collisions at (sub)threshold energies of (1–2)A GeV based on the microscopic Parton-Hadron-String Dynamics (PHSD) transport approach. The in-medium modifications of the antikaon (K¯=K−,K¯0) properties are described via the self-consistent coupled-channel unitarized scheme based on a SU(3) chiral Lagrangian which incorporates explicitly the s and p waves of the kaon-nucleon interaction. This scheme provides the antikaon potential, spectral functions, and reaction cross sections as well as their dependence on baryon density, temperature, and antikaon momentum in the nuclear medium, which are incorporated in the off-shell dynamics of the PHSD. The in-medium modification of kaons (K=K+,K0) are accounted via the kaon-nuclear potential, which is assumed to be proportional to the local baryon density. The manifestation of the medium effects in observables is investigated for the K and K¯ rapidity distributions, pT spectra, the polar and azimuthal angular distributions, and directed (v1) and elliptic (v2) flows in C+C, Ni+Ni, and Au+Au collisions. We find—by comparison to experimental data from the KaoS, FOPI, and HADES Collaborations—that the modifications of (anti)kaon properties in nuclear matter are necessary to explain the data in a consistent manner. Moreover, we demonstrate the sensitivity of kaon observables to the equation of state of nuclear matter

The Communication between Ocular Surface and Nasal Epithelia in 3D Cell Culture Technology for Translational Research: A Narrative Review

There is a lack of knowledge regarding the connection between the ocular and nasal epithelia. This narrative review focuses on conjunctival, corneal, ultrastructural corneal stroma, and nasal epithelia as well as an introduction into their interconnections. We describe in detail the morphology and physiology of the ocular surface, the nasolacrimal ducts, and the nasal cavity. This knowledge provides a basis for functional studies and the development of relevant cell culture models that can be used to investigate the pathogenesis of diseases related to these complex structures. Moreover, we also provide a state-of-the-art overview regarding the development of 3D culture models, which allow for addressing research questions in models resembling the in vivo situation. In particular, we give an overview of the current developments of corneal 3D and organoid models, as well as 3D cell culture models of epithelia with goblet cells (conjunctiva and nasal cavity). The benefits and shortcomings of these cell culture models are discussed. As examples for pathogens related to ocular and nasal epithelia, we discuss infections caused by adenovirus and measles virus. In addition to pathogens, also external triggers such as allergens can cause rhinoconjunctivitis. These diseases exemplify the interconnections between the ocular surface and nasal epithelia in a molecular and clinical context. With a final translational section on optical coherence tomography (OCT), we provide an overview about the applicability of this technique in basic research and clinical ophthalmology. The techniques presented herein will be instrumental in further elucidating the functional interrelations and crosstalk between ocular and nasal epithelia

Inflammatory potential of the diet and risk of gastric cancer in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) study

Background Chronic inflammation plays a critical role in the pathogenesis of the 2 major types of gastric cancer. Several foods, nutrients, and nonnutrient food components seem to be involved in the regulation of chronic inflammation. Objective We assessed the association between the inflammatory potential of the diet and the risk of gastric carcinoma, overall and for the 2 major subsites: cardia cancers and noncardia cancers. Design A total of 476,160 subjects (30% men, 70% women) from the European Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) study were followed for 14 y, during which 913 incident cases of gastric carcinoma were identified, including 236 located in the cardia, 341 in the distal part of the stomach (noncardia), and 336 with overlapping or unknown tumor site. The dietary inflammatory potential was assessed by means of an inflammatory score of the diet (ISD), calculated with the use of 28 dietary components and their corresponding inflammatory scores. The association between the ISD and gastric cancer risk was estimated by HRs and 95% CIs calculated by multivariate Cox regression models adjusted for confounders. Results The inflammatory potential of the diet was associated with an increased risk of gastric cancer. The HR (95% CI) for each increase in 1 SD of the ISD were 1.25 (1.12, 1.39) for all gastric cancers, 1.30 (1.06, 1.59) for cardia cancers, and 1.07 (0.89, 1.28) for noncardia cancers. The corresponding values for the highest compared with the lowest quartiles of the ISD were 1.66 (1.26, 2.20), 1.94 (1.14, 3.30), and 1.07 (0.70, 1.70), respectively. Conclusions Our results suggest that low-grade chronic inflammation induced by the diet may be associated with gastric cancer risk. This pattern seems to be more consistent for gastric carcinomas located in the cardia than for those located in the distal stomach