Landscape fragmentation influences winter body mass of roe deer

Body size of large herbivores is a crucial life history variable influencing individual fitness‐related traits. While the importance of this parameter in determining temporal trends in population dynamics is well established, much less information is available on spatial variation in body size at a local infra‐population scale. The relatively recent increase in landscape fragmentation over the last century has lead to substantial spatial heterogeneity in habitat quality across much of the modern agricultural landscape. In this paper, we analyse variation in body mass and size of roe deer inhabiting a heterogeneous agricultural landscape characterised by a variable degree of woodland fragmentation. We predicted that body mass should vary in relation to the degree of access to cultivated meadows and crops providing high quality diet supplements. In support of our prediction, roe deer body mass increased along a gradient of habitat fragmentation, with the heaviest deer occurring in the most open sectors and the lightest in the strict forest environment. These spatial differences were particularly pronounced for juveniles, reaching >3 kg (ca 20% of total body mass) between the two extremes of this gradient, and likely have a marked impact on individual fates. We also found that levels of both nitrogen and phosphorous were higher in deer faecal samples in the more open sectors compared to the forest environment, suggesting that the spatial patterns in body mass could be linked to the availability of high quality feeding habitat provided by the cultivated agricultural plain. Finally, we found that adults in the forest sector were ca 1 kg lighter for a given body size than their counterparts in the more open sectors, suggesting that access to nutrient rich foods allowed deer to accumulate substantial fat reserves, which is unusual for roe deer, with likely knock‐on effects for demographic traits and, hence, population dynamics.     

Morphologic and enzymatic characteristics of healthy human kidney epithelial tubular cells in culture

The present study defines morphological and enzymatic characteristics of human healthy renal tubular cells in primary culture, and during three passages. The results confirm the ability to culture human renal tubular cells and to quantitatively evaluate the activity of specific tubular enzymes in the cells and in the culture medium. Such determinations can be compared to similar enzyme activity research in renal biopsies or in urines, to investigate human renal cell functions, in clinical, pharmacological or toxicological approaches.     

Isolation of tubular proximal cells of the human kidney by affinity chromatography using Lotus tetragonolobus lectin

An affinity chromatography technique, using a lectin issued from Lotus tetragonolobus as ligand, and coupled to Sepharose 6MB support, has been chosen to enrich a cellular population in tubular proximal cells. Cell desorption was obtained with a competitive sugar, L Fucose. Intensive enzymatic brush border activity, shown in selected cells compared with initial cellular mixture, evidenced an enrichment in proximal tubular cells. These results prove that lectin use as ligand in affinity chromatography permits the separation of renal cell populations and presents the advantage that the bound cells can be recovered by a gentle competitive elution for further cultures.