What body parts reveal about the organization of the brain

In this issue of Neuron, Orlov et?al. show that the human occipitotemporal cortex contains regions responding preferentially to body part categories, such as upper limbs (hand, elbow), torsos, or lower faces (mouth, chin). This organization may reflect differences in the connectivity of these regions with other brain regions, to support the efficient processing of the different types of information different body parts provide.     

Differential protein profiling of primary versus immortalized human RPE cells identifies expression patterns associated with cytoskeletal remodeling and cell survival

Functional research of retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) most often relies on utilization of RPE-derived cell lines in vitro. However, no studies about similarities and differences of the respective cell lines exist so far. Thus, we here analyze the proteome of the most popular RPE cell lines: ARPE-19 and hTERT and compare their constitutive and de novo synthesized protein expression profiles to human early passage retinal pigment epithelial cells (epRPE) by 2-D electrophoresis and MALDI-TOF peptide mass fingerprinting. In all three cell lines the baseline protein expression pattern corresponded well to the de novo synthesized cellular proteome. However, comparison of the protein profile of epRPE cells with that of hTERT-RPE cells revealed a higher abundance of proteins related to cell migration, adhesion, and extracellular matrix formation, paralleled by a down-regulation of proteins attributed to cell polarization, and showed an altered expression of detoxification enzymes in hTERT-RPE. ARPE-19 cells, however, exhibited a higher abundance of components of the microtubule cytoskeleton and differences in expression of proteins related to proliferation and cell death. epRPE cells, hTERT-RPE, and ARPE-19 therefore may respond differently with respect to certain functional properties, a finding that should prove valuable for future in vitro studies.     

Mapping Global Diversity Patterns for Migratory Birds

Nearly one in five bird species has separate breeding and overwintering distributions, and the regular migrations of these species cause a substantial seasonal redistribution of avian diversity across the world. However, despite its ecological importance, bird migration has been largely ignored in studies of global avian biodiversity, with few studies having addressed it from a macroecological perspective. Here, we analyse a dataset on the global distribution of the world’s birds in order to examine global spatial patterns in the diversity of migratory species, including: the seasonal variation in overall species diversity due to migration; the contribution of migratory birds to local bird diversity; and the distribution of narrow-range and threatened migratory birds. Our analyses reveal a striking asymmetry between the Northern and Southern hemispheres, evident in all of the patterns investigated. The highest migratory bird diversity was found in the Northern Hemisphere, with high inter-continental turnover in species composition between breeding and non-breeding seasons, and extensive regions (at high latitudes) where migratory birds constitute the majority of the local avifauna. Threatened migratory birds are concentrated mainly in Central and Southern Asia, whereas narrow-range migratory species are mainly found in Central America, the Himalayas and Patagonia. Overall, global patterns in the diversity of migratory birds indicate that bird migration is mainly a Northern Hemisphere phenomenon. The asymmetry between the Northern and Southern hemispheres could not have easily been predicted from the combined results of regional scale studies, highlighting the importance of a global perspective.     

Risk‐sensitive reproductive allocation: fitness consequences of body mass losses in two contrasting environments

For long‐lived organisms, the fitness value of survival is greater than that of current reproduction. Asymmetric fitness rewards suggest that organisms inhabiting unpredictable environments should adopt a risk‐sensitive life history, predicting that it is adaptive to allocate resources to increase their own body reserves at the expense of reproduction. We tested this using data from reindeer populations inhabiting contrasting environments and using winter body mass development as a proxy for the combined effect of winter severity and density dependence. Individuals in good and harsh environments responded similarly: Females who lost large amounts of winter body mass gained more body mass the coming summer compared with females losing less mass during winter. Additionally, females experienced a cost of reproduction: On average, barren females gained more body mass than lactating females. Winter body mass development positively affected both the females' reproductive success and offspring body mass. Finally, we discuss the relevance of our findings with respect to scenarios for future climate change.     

Active heterotrophic biomass and sludge retention time (SRT) as determining factors for biodegradation kinetics of pharmaceuticals in activated sludge

The present study investigates the biodegradation of pharmaceutically active compounds (PhACs) by active biomass in activated sludge. Active heterotrophs (X_bh) which are known to govern COD removal are suggested as a determining factor for biological PhAC removal as well. Biodegradation kinetics of five polar PhACs were determined in activated sludge of two wastewater treatment plants which differed in size, layout and sludge retention time (SRT).Results showed that active fractions of the total suspended solids (TSS) differed significantly between the two sludges, indicating that TSS does not reveal information about heterotrophic activity. Furthermore, PhAC removal was significantly faster in the presence of high numbers of heterotrophs and a low SRT. Pseudo first-order kinetics were modified to include X_bh and used to describe decreasing PhAC elimination with increasing SRT.     

Using Random Forest to Improve the Downscaling of Global Livestock Census Data

Large scale, high-resolution global data on farm animal distributions are essential for spatially explicit assessments of the epidemiological, environmental and socio-economic impacts of the livestock sector. This has been the major motivation behind the development of the Gridded Livestock of the World (GLW) database, which has been extensively used since its first publication in 2007. The database relies on a downscaling methodology whereby census counts of animals in sub-national administrative units are redistributed at the level of grid cells as a function of a series of spatial covariates. The recent upgrade of GLW1 to GLW2 involved automating the processing, improvement of input data, and downscaling at a spatial resolution of 1 km per cell (5 km per cell in the earlier version). The underlying statistical methodology, however, remained unchanged. In this paper, we evaluate new methods to downscale census data with a higher accuracy and increased processing efficiency. Two main factors were evaluated, based on sample census datasets of cattle in Africa and chickens in Asia. First, we implemented and evaluated Random Forest models (RF) instead of stratified regressions. Second, we investigated whether models that predicted the number of animals per rural person (per capita) could provide better downscaled estimates than the previous approach that predicted absolute densities (animals per km²). RF models consistently provided better predictions than the stratified regressions for both continents and species. The benefit of per capita over absolute density models varied according to the species and continent. In addition, different technical options were evaluated to reduce the processing time while maintaining their predictive power. Future GLW runs (GLW 3.0) will apply the new RF methodology with optimized modelling options. The potential benefit of per capita models will need to be further investigated with a better distinction between rural and agricultural populations.     

Non-monotonic Temporal-Weighting Indicates a Dynamically Modulated Evidence-Integration Mechanism

Perceptual decisions are thought to be mediated by a mechanism of sequential sampling and integration of noisy evidence whose temporal weighting profile affects the decision quality. To examine temporal weighting, participants were presented with two brightness-fluctuating disks for 1, 2 or 3 seconds and were requested to choose the overall brighter disk at the end of each trial. By employing a signal-perturbation method, which deploys across trials a set of systematically controlled temporal dispersions of the same overall signal, we were able to quantify the participants’ temporal weighting profile. Results indicate that, for intervals of 1 or 2 sec, participants exhibit a primacy-bias. However, for longer stimuli (3-sec) the temporal weighting profile is non-monotonic, with concurrent primacy and recency, which is inconsistent with the predictions of previously suggested computational models of perceptual decision-making (drift-diffusion and Ornstein-Uhlenbeck processes). We propose a novel, dynamic variant of the leaky-competing accumulator model as a potential account for this finding, and we discuss potential neural mechanisms.     

Optic nerve regeneration screen identifies multiple genes restricting adult neural repair

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