Is the Soft Song of the Brownish‐Flanked Bush Warbler an Aggressive Signal?

Soft songs have been detected in many songbirds, but in most species, research on soft songs has lagged behind studies of broadcast songs. In this study, we describe the acoustic features of a soft song in the brownish‐flanked bush warbler Cettia fortipes. Compared with the broadcast song, the warbler's soft song was characterized by a lower minimum frequency and longer duration, and it had a higher proportion of rapid frequency modulation notes. Using playback experiments, some in combination with mounted specimens, we found different responses to soft and broadcast songs, and we found that soft song can predict aggressive escalation (attack). We conclude that the soft song is an aggressive signal in this species.     

Modelling the spatial distribution of White Stork Ciconia ciconia breeding populations in Southeast Europe

Capsule Spatial environmental modelling well predicted nesting distribution of the White stork in Southeast Europe and can be used in conservation planning with respect to climate change.

Aims To create spatial models for predicting White Stork presence and densities in the Southeast Europe to identify areas of suitable habitat for White Storks.

Methods We quantified the habitat used by nesting White storks in Southeast Europe. Using spatial modelling, we defined a set of free and available online environmental variables that predict the breeding localities of the species. We employed pseudo-absences and the kriging of the residuals in order to create predictive models of nest presence and density.

Results The presence–absence model was found to be precise in predicting the presence of nests. Both density and presence of breeding pairs were best explained negatively by elevation, slope, minimum temperature during May, and distance to the nearest human settlement and positively by topographic wetness index, total area of human settlement and spring precipitation.

Conclusion Our robust and easily repeatable models offer a conservation tool to reveal suitable but unoccupied localities for breeding White Storks pairs which may inform our understanding of how climate change might affect the species' distribution in the future. For example, protecting White Storks on the Dalmatian coast may become even more significant in the future, because the Dalmatian coast is predicted as the only suitable breeding area in Croatia later this century.     

Edaphic Factors are a More Important Control on Surface Fine Roots than Stand Age in Secondary Tropical Dry Forests

Although there are generalized conceptual models that predict how above and belowground biomass increase during secondary succession after abandonment from agriculture, there are few data to test these models for fine roots (defined as ≤2 mm diameter) in tropical forests. We measured live and dead fine roots (0–10 cm depth) in 18 plots of regenerating tropical dry forest in Costa Rica that varied in age from 5 to 60 yrs, as well as in soil properties. We predicted that both stand age and soil fertility would affect fine roots, with greater values in older forests on low fertility soils. Across two sampling dates and locations, live fine roots varied from 0.35 to 3.53 Mg/ha and dead roots varied from 0.15 to 0.93 Mg/ha. Surprisingly, there was little evidence that surface fine roots varied between sampling dates or in relation to stand age. By contrast, total, live, and dead fine roots averaged across sampling dates within plots were negatively correlated with a multivariate index of soil fertility (Pearson correlations coefficients were ?0.64, ?0.58, and ?0.68, respectively; P < 0.01) and other individual edaphic variables including pH, silt, calcium, magnesium, nitrogen, and phosphorus. These results suggest that soil fertility is a more important determinant of fine roots than forest age in tropical dry forests in Costa Rica, and that one‐way these plant communities respond to low soil fertility is by increasing fine roots. Thus, simple conceptual models of forest responses to abandonment from agriculture may not be appropriate for surface fine roots.     

Activation of Bacillus spores at moderately elevated temperatures (30–33 °C)

The time/temperature profiles experienced by spores on the track from their natural sporulation environment to consumable food products may be highly diverse. Temperature has been documented as an important factor that may activate spores, i.e. potentiates spores to germinate. There is, however, limited knowledge about the relationship between the expected temperature history and the subsequent germination characteristics of bacterial spores. We show here that the germination rate of five different Bacillus spore populations, represented by strains of Bacillus cereus, Bacillus weihenstephanensis, Bacillus pumilus, Bacillus licheniformis and Bacillus subtilis could be increased following 1 week storage at moderately elevated temperatures, 30–33 °C, compared to spores stored at 3–8 °C. The results imply that spores contamination routes to foods, specifically the temperature history, could be highly relevant data in predictive modeling of food spoilage and safety. Activation at these moderately elevated temperatures may be a native form of spore activation in their natural habitats, knowledge that also could be useful in development of decontamination strategies for mildly heated foods.     

Semicontinuous Registration of Airborne Bacteria at an Inland and a Coastal Station in Sweden

Semicontinuous registration of the normal airborne bacteria flora during a one-year period was carried out at an inland and a coastal station near Stockholm. The sampling apparatus were FOA-slitsamplers that work on the impaction principle with a moving solid agar medium as collecting surface. At both localities meteorological variables were also recorded. The concentration of airborne bacteria ranged for the inland station from 0-500 bacteria/m³ with an average of 51 bacteria/m³ and for the coastal station from 0-250 bacteria/m³ with an average of 16 bacteria/m³. The diurnal pattern of variation varies with the time of year but there is a statistical difference between the day-average and night-average for the inland station but not for the coastal station. In the material studied the relative humidity followed by the wind velocity were factors of importance for the variation in the number of viable airborne bacteria.     

Using forest history and spatial patterns to identify potential high conservation value forests in Romania

Naturally dynamic forests have a high proportion of biotopes with old large trees, diverse vertical and horizontal structure at multiple scales, and much dead wood. As such, they provide habitat to species and ecosystem processes that forests managed for wood production cannot provide to the same degree. Whether termed old-growth, ancient, virgin, intact, primeval or continuity forests, a major challenge and need is to map such potential high conservation value forest for subsequent inclusion in functional habitat networks for biodiversity conservation in forest landscapes. Given that the delivery time of natural forest properties is much longer than of industry wood, we explore the usefulness of using historical maps to identify forests that have been continuously present for 220 years (potential old-growth) versus 140 years (potential aging forest) in a case study in the Romanian Carpathian Mountains (see Online Resource 1). While the total forest cover increased by 35 % over the past two centuries, the area of potential aging and potential old-growth forest declined by 56 and 34 %, respectively. Spatial modelling of edge effects and patch size for virtual species with different requirements indicated an even greater decrease in the area of functional habitat networks of old-growth and ageing forest. Our analyses show that compared to simple mapping of potential high conservation forests, the area of functional habitat patches is severely overestimated, and caution is needed when estimating the area of potential high conservation value forests that form functional habitat networks, i.e. a green infrastructure. In addition, the landscape and regional scale connectivity of patches needs to be considered. We argue that the use of historical maps combined with assessment of spatial patterns is an effective tool for identifying and analyzing potential high conservation value forests in a landscape context.     

Syntheses,biological evaluation and SAR of ingenol mebutate analogues for treatment of actinic keratosis and non-melanoma skin cancer

Ingenol mebutate is the active ingredient in Picato® a new drug for the treatment of actinic keratosis. A number of derivatives related to ingenol mebutate were prepared by chemical synthesis from ingenol with the purpose of investigating the SAR and potency in assays relating to pro-inflammatory effects (induction of PMN oxidative burst and keratinocyte cytokine release), the potential of cell death induction, as well as the chemical stability. By modifications of the ingenol scaffold several prerequisites for activity were identified. The chemical stability of the compounds could be linked to an acyl migration mechanism. We were able to find analogues of ingenol mebutate with comparable in vitro properties. Some key features for potent and more stable ingenol derivatives have been identified.     

Integrating multiple lines of evidence to better understand the evolutionary divergence of humpback dolphins along their entire distribution range: a new dolphin species in Australian waters?

The conservation of humpback dolphins, distributed in coastal waters of the Indo‐West Pacific and eastern Atlantic Oceans, has been hindered by a lack of understanding about the number of species in the genus (Sousa) and their population structure. To address this issue, we present a combined analysis of genetic and morphologic data collected from beach‐cast, remote‐biopsied and museum specimens from throughout the known Sousa range. We extracted genetic sequence data from 235 samples from extant populations and explored the mitochondrial control region and four nuclear introns through phylogenetic, population‐level and population aggregation frameworks. In addition, 180 cranial specimens from the same geographical regions allowed comparisons of 24 morphological characters through multivariate analyses. The genetic and morphological data showed significant and concordant patterns of geographical segregation, which are typical for the kind of demographic isolation displayed by species units, across the Sousa genus distribution range. Based on our combined genetic and morphological analyses, there is convincing evidence for at least four species within the genus (S. teuszii in the Atlantic off West Africa, S. plumbea in the central and western Indian Ocean, S. chinensis in the eastern Indian and West Pacific Oceans, and a new as‐yet‐unnamed species off northern Australia).     

Energetic Pathway Sampling in a Protein Interaction Domain

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Structure and content of pollutants in temporal surface sediments in small watersheds

ABSTRACT

Formation of gel-like surface sediments has been observed during spring and autumn in small watersheds in boreal areas with pH <5.7 and concentrations of humic substances above 3 mg L^?1. This structure efficiently accumulates dissolved, colloidal and particulate constituents. The gel consists of ferric (hydr)oxides and fulvic acid and has high viable counts of bacteria (notably Gallionella spp.) as well as fungal hyphae. The solid/solution distribution (log K_d; l kg^?1) for trace metals (Cd, Cu, Pb, V, Zn) ranges from 4 to 6.5 which indicate an efficient accumulation during periods with gel. The concentrations of adsorbable organic halogens in the gel were not different from forest soils in general.