Can Emotional Support Be Paid Forward with Charitable Donations?

Paying it forward refers to the tendency for people who receive help from one person to help others in general later. Past research shows that instrumental support, which provides tangible benefits, can lead to paying it forward because of gratitude. However, there are different types of support. We tested whether receiving emotional support, which communicates caring towards a person, increases the likelihood of paying it forward. We also tested whether receiving support in certain contexts could affect paying it forward. Because previous research has linked high compassionate goals with providing social support, we also hypothesized that compassionate goals might moderate this effect. Participants completed measures of compassionate goals. Afterwards, participants completed a stressful or non-stressful task, and either received or did not receive emotional support. Finally, we provided participants with the opportunity to donate as a measure of paying it forward. Analyses revealed that regardless of the stressfulness of the task, participants felt more gratitude when they received support. However, there was no effect of support or stress on donations. Furthermore, compassionate goals did not moderate this relationship. We discuss possible reasons for null findings and their implications.Research Scholars AwardNo embargoAcademic Major: Psycholog

A Multiwell Platform for Studying Stiffness-Dependent Cell Biology

Adherent cells are typically cultured on rigid substrates that are orders of magnitude stiffer than their tissue of origin. Here, we describe a method to rapidly fabricate 96 and 384 well platforms for routine screening of cells in tissue-relevant stiffness contexts. Briefly, polyacrylamide (PA) hydrogels are cast in glass-bottom plates, functionalized with collagen, and sterilized for cell culture. The Young's modulus of each substrate can be specified from 0.3 to 55 kPa, with collagen surface density held constant over the stiffness range. Using automated fluorescence microscopy, we captured the morphological variations of 7 cell types cultured across a physiological range of stiffness within a 384 well plate. We performed assays of cell number, proliferation, and apoptosis in 96 wells and resolved distinct profiles of cell growth as a function of stiffness among primary and immortalized cell lines. We found that the stiffness-dependent growth of normal human lung fibroblasts is largely invariant with collagen density, and that differences in their accumulation are amplified by increasing serum concentration. Further, we performed a screen of 18 bioactive small molecules and identified compounds with enhanced or reduced effects on soft versus rigid substrates, including blebbistatin, which abolished the suppression of lung fibroblast growth at 1 kPa. The ability to deploy PA gels in multiwell plates for high throughput analysis of cells in tissue-relevant environments opens new opportunities for the discovery of cellular responses that operate in specific stiffness regimes

Tallo database

The Tallo database (v1.0.0) is a collection of 498,838 georeferenced and taxonomically standardized records of individual trees for which stem diameter, height and/or crown radius have been measured. Data were compiled from 61,856 globally distributed sites and include measurements for 5,163 tree species. For a full description of the database, see: Jucker et al. (2022) Tallo – a global tree allometry and crown architecture database. Global Change Biology, https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.16302. If using the Tallo database in your work please cite the original publication listed above, as well as this repository using the corresponding DOI (10.5281/zenodo.6637599)

Plant size, latitude, and phylogeny explain within-population variability in herbivory

Interactions between plants and herbivores are central in most ecosystems, but their strength is highly variable. The amount of variability within a system is thought to influence most aspects of plant-herbivore biology, from ecological stability to plant defense evolution. Our understanding of what influences variability, however, is limited by sparse data. We collected standardized surveys of herbivory for 503 plant species at 790 sites across 116° of latitude. With these data, we show that within-population variability in herbivory increases with latitude, decreases with plant size, and is phylogenetically structured. Differences in the magnitude of variability are thus central to how plant-herbivore biology varies across macroscale gradients. We argue that increased focus on interaction variability will advance understanding of patterns of life on Earth