Status, trends and future dynamics of biodiversity and ecosystems underpinning nature's contributions to people

Biodiversity at the species and ecosystem levels is currently under multiple threats almost everywhere in the Asia-Pacific region, and in many areas the situation is now critical (well established). Of the various ecosystems, lowland evergreen forests, alpine ecosystems, limestone karsts, inland wetlands, and estuarine and coastal habitats are most threatened (well established). Genetic diversity within species, both wild and domestic, is also decreasing in many cases as a result of decreasing ranges (established but incomplete). In several countries there has been a small increase in the forest cover which is mostly attributed to monoculture forestry plantations and enabling policies of the governments. Forest fires associated with rapid loss of forest cover is leading to enormous environmental and socio-economic loss (well established) {3.2.1; 3.2.2; 3.2.3; 3.2.4; 3.2.5; 3.3.1}. There has been a steady decline in the populations of large vertebrates due to poaching and illegal trade in wildlife parts and products in the Asia-Pacific region (well established). As a result, most of these species now survive only in the best-managed protected areas (well established). Widespread loss of large vertebrates has had a measureable impact on several forest functions and services, including seed dispersal (established but incomplete). Australia has the highest rate of mammal extinction (>10 per cent) of any continent globally. Bird extinctions on individual Pacific islands range from 15.4 per cent to 87.5 per cent for those with good fossil records, and these extinctions have resulted in the loss of many ecological functions previously performed by birds (well established). Besides wildlife, there is a massive regional trade in timber, traditional medicines and other products (well established). Without adequate protection, remediation and proper policies, the current decline in biodiversity and nature's contributions to people on land, in freshwaters, and in the sea will threaten the quality of life of future generations in the Asia-Pacific region {3.2.1.1; 3.2.1.2; 3.2.1.4; 3.2.1.7; 3.2.2.1; 3.3.1} With the current rate of human population growth, expansion of urban industrial environments, transformation of agriculture in favour of high yielding varieties, transforming forests to uniform plantations of oil palm, rubber or timber trees, the biodiversity and nature's contributions to people in the Asia-Pacific region are likely to be adversely affected in the coming decades (well established). It is predicted that most of the biodiversity in the next few decades may be confined to protected areas or in places where the local communities have taken the lead in local level conservation in lieu of economic incentives and equitable compensation by the stake-holders. Unprecedented increase in human population of the Asia-Pacific region has stressed the fragile ecosystems to their limits; while arable cropping has been extended to sites which were not entirely suitable for it, resulting in soil degradation and erosion (well established) {3.2.1.1; 3.2.1.2; 3.2.1.5; 3.2.2.2; 3.2.2.4; 3.3; 3.3.1; 3.3.6; 3.4}. Freshwater ecosystems in the Asia-Pacific region support more than 28 per cent of aquatic and semi-aquatic species but nearly 37 per cent of these species are threatened due to anthropogenic and climatic drivers (well established). Cumulative impacts of global warming and damming of rivers in some of the river basins will have significant negative impacts on fish production and environmental flows (well established). Likewise, degradation of wetlands has had severe negative impacts on migratory waterfowl, fish production and local livelihoods (well established). However, there are scientific data gaps on the current status of biodiversity and nature's contributions to people in most of the river basins, inland wetlands and peatlands of the region {3.2.2.1; 3.2.2.2; 3.2.2.3; 3.2.2.4}. Coastal and marine habitats are likewise threatened due to commercial aquaculture, overfishing, and pollution affecting biodiversity and nature's contributions to people (well established). Detailed analyses of fisheries production in the region have shown severe decline in recent decades. It is projected that if unsustainable fishing practices continue, there could be no exploitable stocks of fish by as early as 2048. This could lead to trophic cascades and collapse of marine ecosystems (established but incomplete). Loss of seagrass beds which forms main diet of several threatened species such as dugong is a major concern (well established). There is a need to conduct systematic and region-wide assessment of fisheries stocks and coastal habitat in the region to aid conservation, management and restoration. {3.1.3.1; 3.2.3.3; 3.2.3.6; 3.2.4.6; 3.4}. Mangrove ecosystems in the Asia-Pacific region are most diverse in the world. They support a rich biodiversity and provide a range of provisioning, regulating and supporting services, which are crucial for the livelihood of local communities (well established). Both mangrove and intertidal habitats form a buffer from siltation for offshore coral reefs protection hence affecting productivity of reefs including seagrass. However, up to 75 per cent of the mangroves have been degraded or converted in recent decades (well established). The conversion of mangroves to aquaculture, rice, oil palm, and other land-use changes is leading to the loss of the buffer between sea and land which can reduce the impact of natural disasters such as cyclones and tsunamis. It is projected that rise in sea level due to global warming would pose the biggest threat to mangroves, thereby affecting nature's contributions to people especially in Bangladesh, Philippines, New Zealand, Viet Nam and China (well established) {3.2.3.1; 3.2.3.2; 3.3.4}. There has been a steady increase in the number, abundance and impacts of invasive alien species in the Asia-Pacific region, negatively affecting native biodiversity, ecosystem functioning and socio-cultural environments (well established). The total annual loss caused by invasive alien species has been estimated at US$35.5 billion in SE Asia and US$9B in Australia. Costs to agriculture due to invasive alien species are likewise immense in the region {3.2.1.1; 3.2.1.2; 3.2.1.4; 3.2.1.5; 3.2.1.6; 3.2.1.7; 3.2.2.1; 3.2.2.2; 3.2.2.3; 3.2.3.6; 3.3.5}. There has been a nearly 30 per cent decline in biocultural diversity in the Asia-Pacific region since the 1970s (well established). Decline of linguistic diversity has been catastrophic in the indigenous Australian and Trans-New Guinean families, as a result of a shifting away from small indigenous languages towards larger, national or regional languages (well established). Linguistic and biological diversity often coincide in the Asia-Pacific region and parallel strategies need to be developed for their conservation. National conservation priorities should take into consideration the bioculturally rich areas that are facing great threats {3.2.5; 3.2.5.2; 3.2.5.4; 3.4}. Protected Area coverage in the Asia-Pacific region has increased substantially since last three decades. Despite this progress, however, at least 75 per cent of Key Biodiversity Areas remain unprotected, suggesting that the region is not on track to conserve areas of particular importance for biodiversity, as called for under Aichi Target 11 (well established). Oceania has the highest overall Protected Area coverage in the region. North-East Asia has the highest proportion of Key Biodiversity Areas covered by Protected Areas, but only 1 per cent of its marine area is protected (well established) {3.2.5.6; 3.2.6; 3.2.6.1}. The Asia-Pacific region has high levels of endemism, and some 25 per cent of the region’s endemic species are facing high extinction risks as per the IUCN Red List. Endemic species in some subregions face an extinction risk as high as 46 per cent of endemic species threatened in South Asia (well established). South-East Asia has the greatest number of threatened species and the fastest increases in extinction risk (Red List Index) in the Asia-Pacific region. North Asian endemic species extinction risk is also higher than the regional average; the high percentage of Data Deficient species (36 per cent) indicates that more research and conservation action are needed for endemic species in this subregion (well established) {3.2.1; 3.2.2; 3.2.6.2; 3.3.4}. Some aspects of biodiversity have recently started to recover in several countries in the Asia-Pacific region (established but incomplete). This recovery has resulted from various changes, including population concentration in cities, increased agricultural production per unit area, increasing conservation awareness among citizens, and the enabling policies of the governments. Future trends of biodiversity in the Asia-Pacific region will largely depend on whether other countries will follow this recovering trajectory by stabilizing land/sea use change, manage their natural resources sustainably, and cooperating with each other in meeting the Aichi Targets and the Sustainable Development Goals {3.2.1.5; 3.2.3.5; 3.3.1; 3.3.3; 3.3.6}. Given that the scientific information on the status and trends of biodiversity and nature's contributions to people is not available uniformly across all ecosystems and habitats in the region, the national governments are encouraged to initiate systematic documentation and monitoring of health of ecosystems and ecosystem flows (established but incomplete). Saving terrestrial fauna especially big mammals and other fauna that require large roaming areas such as Orangutans, proboscis monkey, hornbills, tigers, Sumatran rhinoceros, gaurs and Asian elephants can be done by connecting large tracts of forests with wildlife corridors or through rehabilitation projects; the same goes for coastal and marine, freshwater and other ecosystems in the region {3.2.1.1; 3.2.2.4; 3.3.4; 3.4}

Condensed Matter Theory of Dipolar Quantum Gases

Recent experimental breakthroughs in trapping, cooling and controlling ultracold gases of polar molecules, magnetic and Rydberg atoms have paved the way toward the investigation of highly tunable quantum systems, where anisotropic, long-range dipolar interactions play a prominent role at the many-body level. In this article we review recent theoretical studies concerning the physics of such systems. Starting from a general discussion on interaction design techniques and microscopic Hamiltonians, we provide a summary of recent work focused on many-body properties of dipolar systems, including: weakly interacting Bose gases, weakly interacting Fermi gases, multilayer systems, strongly interacting dipolar gases and dipolar gases in 1D and quasi-1D geometries. Within each of these topics, purely dipolar effects and connections with experimental realizations are emphasized.Comment: Review article; submitted 09/06/2011. 158 pages, 52 figures. This document is the unedited author's version of a Submitted Work that was subsequently accepted for publication in Chemical Reviews, copyright American Chemical Society after peer review. To access the final edited and published work, a link will be provided soo

Independent prognostic value of fascin immunoreactivity in stage I nonsmall cell lung cancer

Fascin-1, the most expressed form of fascin in vertebrate tissues, is an actin-bundling protein that induces cell membrane protrusions and increases motility of normal and transformed epithelial cells. Very few data are available on the role of this protein in nonsmall cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Two hundred and twenty patients with stage I NSCLC and long-term follow-up were evaluated immunocytochemically for fascin expression. Overall, variable fascin immunoreactivity was detected in 98% of 116 squamous cell carcinomas, in 78% of 96 adenocarcinomas, in 83% of six large cell carcinomas, and in the two adenosquamous carcinomas under study. Neoplastic emboli were commonly decorated by the antifascin antibody (P<0.001), also when the surrounding invasive carcinoma was unreactive. Fascin immunoreactivity correlated with high tumour grade (P=0.017) and, in adenocarcinomas, with high Ki-67 labelling index (P=0.021). Adenocarcinomas with a prevalent bronchiolo-alveolar in situ component were less commonly immunoreactive for fascin than invasive tumours (P=0.005). Contralateral thoracic or distant metastases were associated significantly with diffuse (>60% immunoreactive tumour cells) fascin expression in adenocarcinomas (P=0.043), and marginally with strong fascin immunostaining in squamous cell carcinomas (P=0.13). No associations were noted with any other clinicopathological variables tested. Patients with tumours showing diffuse (>60% immunoreactive neoplastic cells) and/or strong immunoreactivity for fascin had a shorter survival (P=0.006 for adenocarcinomas and P=0.026 for squamous cell carcinomas), even after multivariate analysis (P=0.014 and 0.050, respectively). The current study documents for the first time that fascin is upregulated in invasive and more aggressive NSCLC, being an independent prognostic predictor of unfavourable clinical course of the disease. Targetting the fascin pathway could be a novel therapeutic strategy of NSCLC

Intrinsic dynamic behavior of fascin in filopodia

Author Posting. © American Society for Cell Biology, 2007. This article is posted here by permission of American Society for Cell Biology for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Molecular Biology of the Cell 18 (2007): 3928-3940, doi:10.1091/mbc.E07-04-0346.Recent studies showed that the actin cross-linking protein, fascin, undergoes rapid cycling between filopodial filaments. Here, we used an experimental and computational approach to dissect features of fascin exchange and incorporation in filopodia. Using expression of phosphomimetic fascin mutants, we determined that fascin in the phosphorylated state is primarily freely diffusing, whereas actin bundling in filopodia is accomplished by fascin dephosphorylated at serine 39. Fluorescence recovery after photobleaching analysis revealed that fascin rapidly dissociates from filopodial filaments with a kinetic off-rate of 0.12 s–1 and that it undergoes diffusion at moderate rates with a coefficient of 6 µm2s–1. This kinetic off-rate was recapitulated in vitro, indicating that dynamic behavior is intrinsic to the fascin cross-linker. A computational reaction–diffusion model showed that reversible cross-linking is required for the delivery of fascin to growing filopodial tips at sufficient rates. Analysis of fascin bundling indicated that filopodia are semiordered bundles with one bound fascin per 25–60 actin monomers.This work was supported by a National Institutes of Health F31National Research Service Award NS055565-01 (to Y.S.A.), Northwestern University Pulmonary and Critical Care Division T32 (to T.E.S.), and National Institutes of Health grant GM-70898 (to G.G.B.)

A reference high-pressure CH₄ adsorption isotherm for zeolite Y: results of an interlaboratory study

This paper reports the results of an international interlaboratory study led by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) on the measurement of high-pressure surface excess methane adsorption isotherms on NIST Reference Material RM 8850 (Zeolite Y), at 25 °C up to 7.5 MPa. Twenty laboratories participated in the study and contributed over one-hundred adsorption isotherms of methane on Zeolite Y. From these data, an empirical reference equation was determined, along with a 95% uncertainty interval (Uk=2). By requiring participants to replicate a high-pressure reference isotherm for carbon dioxide adsorption on NIST Reference Material RM 8852 (ZSM-5), this interlaboratory study also demonstrated the usefulness of reference isotherms in evaluating the performance of high-pressure adsorption experiments

L-Plastin nanobodies perturb matrix degradation, podosome formation, stability and lifetime in THP-1 macrophages

Podosomes are cellular structures acting as degradation ‘hot-spots’ in monocytic cells. They appear as dot-like structures at the ventral cell surface, enriched in F-actin and actin regulators, including gelsolin and L-plastin. Gelsolin is an ubiquitous severing and capping protein, whereas L-plastin is a leukocyte-specific actin bundling protein. The presence of the capping protein CapG in podosomes has not yet been investigated. We used an innovative approach to investigate the role of these proteins in macrophage podosomes by means of nanobodies or Camelid single domain antibodies. Nanobodies directed against distinct domains of gelsolin, L-plastin or CapG were stably expressed in macrophage-like THP-1 cells. CapG was not enriched in podosomes. Gelsolin nanobodies had no effect on podosome formation or function but proved very effective in tracing distinct gelsolin populations. One gelsolin nanobody specifically targets actin-bound gelsolin and was effectively enriched in podosomes. A gelsolin nanobody that blocks gelsolin-G-actin interaction was not enriched in podosomes demonstrating that the calcium-activated and actin-bound conformation of gelsolin is a constituent of podosomes. THP-1 cells expressing inhibitory L-plastin nanobodies were hampered in their ability to form stable podosomes. Nanobodies did not perturb Ser5 phosphorylation of L-plastin although phosphorylated L-plastin was highly enriched in podosomes. Furthermore, nanobody-induced inhibition of L-plastin function gave rise to an irregular and unstable actin turnover of podosomes, resulting in diminished degradation of the underlying matrix. Altogether these results indicate that L-plastin is indispensable for podosome formation and function in macrophages

The Association of Dietary Intake of Purine-Rich Vegetables, Sugar-Sweetened Beverages and Dairy with Plasma Urate, in a Cross-Sectional Study

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Coupling changes in cell shape to chromosome segregation

Animal cells undergo dramatic changes in shape, mechanics and polarity as they progress through the different stages of cell division. These changes begin at mitotic entry, with cell–substrate adhesion remodelling, assembly of a cortical actomyosin network and osmotic swelling, which together enable cells to adopt a near spherical form even when growing in a crowded tissue environment. These shape changes, which probably aid spindle assembly and positioning, are then reversed at mitotic exit to restore the interphase cell morphology. Here, we discuss the dynamics, regulation and function of these processes, and how cell shape changes and sister chromatid segregation are coupled to ensure that the daughter cells generated through division receive their fair inheritance