Asia-Pacific Trade and Investment Review

This book reviews latest trends in trade and investment policy issues facing Asia-Pacific region.Trade, Foreign Direct Investment, Financial Crisis, Environment, Agricultural Trade Liberalization, WTO

Multimodal Communication in a Noisy Environment: A Case Study of the Bornean Rock Frog Staurois parvus

High background noise is an impediment to signal detection and perception. We report the use of multiple solutions to improve signal perception in the acoustic and visual modality by the Bornean rock frog, Staurois parvus. We discovered that vocal communication was not impaired by continuous abiotic background noise characterised by fast-flowing water. Males modified amplitude, pitch, repetition rate and duration of notes within their advertisement call. The difference in sound pressure between advertisement calls and background noise at the call dominant frequency of 5578 Hz was 8 dB, a difference sufficient for receiver detection. In addition, males used several visual signals to communicate with conspecifics with foot flagging and foot flashing being the most common and conspicuous visual displays, followed by arm waving, upright posture, crouching, and an open-mouth display. We used acoustic playback experiments to test the efficacy-based alerting signal hypothesis of multimodal communication. In support of the alerting hypothesis, we found that acoustic signals and foot flagging are functionally linked with advertisement calling preceding foot flagging. We conclude that S. parvus has solved the problem of continuous broadband low-frequency noise by both modifying its advertisement call in multiple ways and by using numerous visual signals. This is the first example of a frog using multiple acoustic and visual solutions to communicate in an environment characterised by continuous noise

NF kappa B inhibitors and antitrypanosomal metabolites from endophytic fungus Penicillium sp. isolated from Limonium tubiflorum

Chemical investigation of the endophytic fungus Penicillium sp. isolated from Limonium tubiflorum growing in Egypt afforded four new compounds of polyketide origin, including two macrolides, penilactone (1) and 10,11-epoxycurvularin (2), a dianthrone, neobulgarone G (7), and a sulfinylcoumarin, sulfimarin (14), along with twelve known metabolites (3-6, 8-13, 15 and 16). The structures of all compounds were assigned by comprehensive spectral analysis (1D and 2D NMR) and mass spectrometry. Compounds 3, 4, 13 and 16 showed pronounced antitrypanosomal activity with mean MIC values ranging from 4.96 to 9.75μM. Moreover, when tested against a panel of three human tumor cell lines compounds 3, 4, 6 and 12 showed selective growth inhibition against Jurkat and U937 cell lines with IC(50) values ranging from 1.8 to 13.3μM. The latter compounds also inhibited TNFα-induced NF-κB activity in K562 cells with IC(50) values ranging from 1.6 to 10.1μM, respectively

A new method for extracting skin microbes allows metagenomic analysis of whole-deep skin

In the last decade, an extensive effort has been made to characterize the human microbiota, due to its clinical and economic interests. However, a metagenomic approach to the skin microbiota is hampered by the high proportion of host DNA that is recovered. In contrast with the burgeoning field of gut metagenomics, skin metagenomics has been hindered by the absence of an efficient method to avoid sequencing the host DNA. We present here a method for recovering microbial DNA from skin samples, based on a combination of molecular techniques. We have applied this method to mouse skin, and have validated it by standard, quantitative PCR and amplicon sequencing of 16S rRNA. The taxonomic diversity recovered was not altered by this new method, as proved by comparing the phylogenetic structure revealed by 16S rRNA sequencing in untreated vs. treated samples. As proof of concept, we also present the first two mouse skin metagenomes, which allowed discovering new taxa (not only prokaryotes but also viruses and eukaryots) not reachable by 16S rRNA sequencing, as well as to characterize the skin microbiome functional landscape. Our method paves the way for the development of skin metagenomics, which will allow a much deeper knowledge of the skin microbiome and its relationship with the host, both in a healthy state and in relation to disease

Scatterplots of the first 35 notes of the advertisement call of <i>Staurois parvus</i> of (A) mean note duration (n = 14), (B) mean frequency (n = 14) and (C) maximum sound pressure (n = 11).

<p>Plots show means of the original data (not estimates of the LMMs) for illustration that do not correspond directly with the statistical results.</p

Male <i>Staurois parvus</i> foot-flagging in close proximity to a rival male.

<p>Male <i>Staurois parvus</i> foot-flagging in close proximity to a rival male.</p

Characteristics of the advertisement call of <i>Staurois parvus</i> and its acoustic environment.

<p>(A) Oscillogram and spectrogram of a representative advertisement call with 34 notes. (B) Power spectrum of the same recording showing the energy contained in the ambient noise produced by the fast-flowing stream at which males called. The peak at 5500 Hz represents the advertisement call of <i>S. parvus</i>.</p

Responses of seven male <i>Staurois parvus</i> to silent control (pre-playback) and playback of synthetic advertisement calls.

<p>Box plots show the median response with interquartile range and 10^th and 90^th percentile. *<i>P</i><0.05, n.s. = non-significant.</p

Maximum sound pressure (square-root transformed values + S.E.) of noise, advertisement call, and noise within a frequency filter in the range of the calls of 11 <i>Staurois parvus</i> males (Student's t-test: ***<i>P</i><0.001).

<p>Maximum sound pressure (square-root transformed values + S.E.) of noise, advertisement call, and noise within a frequency filter in the range of the calls of 11 <i>Staurois parvus</i> males (Student's t-test: ***<i>P</i><0.001).</p