福建省生态保护重要性评价

生态保护重要性是表征区域生态系统结构和功能重要性程度的综合指标,确定生态保护空间范围是协调保护与发展、保障生态服务持续供给的基础。在明确福建省生态本底和关键生态问题的基础上,综合分析生态服务功能重要性和生态敏感性,构建福建省生态保护重要性评价指标体系,识别具有重要保护意义的生态极重要地区,能够为优化生态保护策略、划定生态红线和主体功能区划提供技术支持。研究结果表明,福建省生态保护极重要区占福建省陆地总面积的38.94%,生态重要性空间格局基本沿福建省闽西大山带、闽中大山带与海岸带分布,其中生态服务功能极重要区面积为3.96万km~2,以生物多样性维护功能和水源涵养功能为主;生态极敏感性区面积占福建省陆地总面积的9.71%,水土流失是主要的生态问题,占福建省陆地总面积的8.93%,土地沙化极敏感区集中在海岸带附近,与海岸侵蚀极敏感区空间范围基本一致。研究建议,生态保护极重要区作为划定生态红线和重点生态功能区的依据,支撑福建省开展有针对性的生态保护,保障和维护生态安全。     

Evidence that vulture restaurants increase the local abundance of mammalian carnivores in South Africa

Vulture restaurants are used worldwide as a conservation tool to provide threatened vultures with a source of supplementary carrion free from anthropogenic contaminants such as poisons and veterinary drugs. While the impacts of supplementary feeding sites on ecosystem and scavenging community dynamics have been investigated in Europe, no information is currently available for southern Africa. This study presents evidence that providing supplementary carrion for vultures stimulated an increase in local abundance of two species of mammalian carnivores, the brown hyaena (Hyaena brunnea) and the black‐backed jackal (Canis mesomelas). These findings require that the wider impacts of providing supplementary carrion for conserving threatened species are fully investigated.     

大水面放养水葫芦对富营养化湖泊水体可培养细菌群落结构的影响

【目的】了解大水面放养水葫芦对富营养化湖泊水体可培养细菌群落结构和多样性的影响。【方法】采用稀释平板法,分别对云南滇池紫根水葫芦放养区(ZW)、野生型普通水葫芦放养区(PW)、未放养水葫芦对照区(CK)水体中细菌进行分离,并对其16S r RNA序列进行分析。【结果】分别从ZW、PW、CK 3种水体分离得到54、49、40株菌落形态差异的细菌,Shannon-Wiener多样性指数分别为3.17、3.07、2.73,细菌数量分别为1.35×107、8.35×106、2.70×106 CFU/L。16S r RNA序列分析表明,ZW、PW、CK 3种水体可培养细菌主要包括变形菌门α亚群(Alphaproteobacteria,35.1%、32.4%和40%)、放线菌门(Actinobacteria,18.9%、32.4%和20%)、变形菌门β亚群(Betaproteobacteria,13.5%、5.9%和16.0%)、变形菌门γ亚群(Gammaproteobacteria,13.5%、14.6%和12.0%)、拟杆菌门(Bacteroidetes,13.5%、8.8%和8.0%)和厚壁菌门(Firmicutes,2.7%、5.9%和4.0%)。在属的水平上,3种水体仅有鞘氨醇盒菌属(Sphingopyxis)、红细菌属(Rhodobacter)、黄色杆菌属(Xanthobacter)、新鞘脂菌属(Novosphingobium)、鞘氨醇单胞菌属(Sphingomonas)、假单胞菌属(Pseudomonas)、微杆菌属(Microbacterium)、链霉菌属(Steptomyces)、黄杆菌属(Flavobacterium)、芽孢杆菌属(Bacillus)等10个属的细菌为共有菌属。【结论】大水面放养水葫芦提高了富营养化湖泊水体中可培养细菌的多样性,改变了细菌的群落结构。     

Conformational dynamics of nonsynonymous variants at protein interfaces reveals disease association

Recent studies have shown that the protein interface sites between individual monomeric units in biological assemblies are enriched in disease‐associated non‐synonymous single nucleotide variants (nsSNVs). To elucidate the mechanistic underpinning of this observation, we investigated the conformational dynamic properties of protein interface sites through a site‐specific structural dynamic flexibility metric (dfi) for 333 multimeric protein assemblies. dfi measures the dynamic resilience of a single residue to perturbations that occurred in the rest of the protein structure and identifies sites contributing the most to functionally critical dynamics. Analysis of dfi profiles of over a thousand positions harboring variation revealed that amino acid residues at interfaces have lower average dfi (31%) than those present at non‐interfaces (50%), which means that protein interfaces have less dynamic flexibility. Interestingly, interface sites with disease‐associated nsSNVs have significantly lower average dfi (23%) as compared to those of neutral nsSNVs (42%), which directly relates structural dynamics to functional importance. We found that less conserved interface positions show much lower dfi for disease nsSNVs as compared to neutral nsSNVs. In this case, dfi is better as compared to the accessible surface area metric, which is based on the static protein structure. Overall, our proteome‐wide conformational dynamic analysis indicates that certain interface sites play a critical role in functionally related dynamics (i.e., those with low dfi values), therefore mutations at those sites are more likely to be associated with disease. Proteins 2015; 83:428–435. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

An analysis approach to identify specific functional sites in orthologous proteins using sequence and structural information: Application to neuroserpin reveals regions that differentially regulate inhibitory activity

The analysis of sequence conservation is commonly used to predict functionally important sites in proteins. We have developed an approach that first identifies highly conserved sites in a set of orthologous sequences using a weighted substitution‐matrix‐based conservation score and then filters these conserved sites based on the pattern of conservation present in a wider alignment of sequences from the same family and structural information to identify surface‐exposed sites. This allows us to detect specific functional sites in the target protein and exclude regions that are likely to be generally important for the structure or function of the wider protein family. We applied our method to two members of the serpin family of serine protease inhibitors. We first confirmed that our method successfully detected the known heparin binding site in antithrombin while excluding residues known to be generally important in the serpin family. We next applied our sequence analysis approach to neuroserpin and used our results to guide site‐directed polyalanine mutagenesis experiments. The majority of the mutant neuroserpin proteins were found to fold correctly and could still form inhibitory complexes with tissue plasminogen activator (tPA). Kinetic analysis of tPA inhibition, however, revealed altered inhibitory kinetics in several of the mutant proteins, with some mutants showing decreased association with tPA and others showing more rapid dissociation of the covalent complex. Altogether, these results confirm that our sequence analysis approach is a useful tool that can be used to guide mutagenesis experiments for the detection of specific functional sites in proteins. Proteins 2015; 83:135–152. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Crocodylus niloticus (Crocodilia) is highly sensitive to water surface waves

Crocodiles show oriented responses to water surface wave stimuli but up to now behavioral thresholds are missing. This study determines the behavioral thresholds of crocodilians to water surface waves. Nile crocodiles (Crocodylus niloticus) were conditioned to respond to single-frequency water surface wave stimuli (duration 1150 ms, frequency 15, 30, 40, 60 and 80 Hz), produced by blowing air onto the water surface. Our study shows that C. niloticus is highly sensitive to capillary water surface waves. Threshold values decreased with increasing frequency and ranged between 10.3 μm (15 Hz) and 0.5 μm (80 Hz) peak-to-peak wave amplitude. For the frequencies 15 Hz and 30 Hz the sensitivity of one spectacled caiman (Caiman crocodilus) to water surface waves was also tested. Threshold values were 12.8 μm (15 Hz) down to 1.76 μm (30 Hz), i.e. close to the threshold values of C. niloticus. The surface wave sensitivity of crocodiles is similar to the surface wave sensitivity of semi-aquatic insects and fishing spiders but does not match the sensitivity of surface-feeding fishes which is higher by one to two orders of magnitude.     

New evidence for hybrid zones of forest and savanna elephants in Central and West Africa

The African elephant consists of forest and savanna subspecies. Both subspecies are highly endangered due to severe poaching and habitat loss, and knowledge of their population structure is vital to their conservation. Previous studies have demonstrated marked genetic and morphological differences between forest and savanna elephants, and despite extensive sampling, genetic evidence of hybridization between them has been restricted largely to a few hybrids in the Garamba region of northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Here, we present new genetic data on hybridization from previously unsampled areas of Africa. Novel statistical methods applied to these data identify 46 hybrid samples – many more than have been previously identified – only two of which are from the Garamba region. The remaining 44 are from three other geographically distinct locations: a major hybrid zone along the border of the DRC and Uganda, a second potential hybrid zone in Central African Republic and a smaller fraction of hybrids in the Pendjari–Arli complex of West Africa. Most of the hybrids show evidence of interbreeding over more than one generation, demonstrating that hybrids are fertile. Mitochondrial and Y chromosome data demonstrate that the hybridization is bidirectional, involving males and females from both subspecies. We hypothesize that the hybrid zones may have been facilitated by poaching and habitat modification. The localized geography and rarity of hybrid zones, their possible facilitation from human pressures, and the high divergence and genetic distinctness of forest and savanna elephants throughout their ranges, are consistent with calls for separate species classification.     

A synthetic phylogeny of freshwater crayfish: insights for conservation

Phylogenetic systematics is heading for a renaissance where we shift from considering our phylogenetic estimates as a static image in a published paper and taxonomies as a hardcopy checklist to treating both the phylogenetic estimate and dynamic taxonomies as metadata for further analyses. The Open Tree of Life project (opentreeoflife.org) is developing synthesis tools for harnessing the power of phylogenetic inference and robust taxonomy to develop a synthetic tree of life. We capitalize on this approach to estimate a synthesis tree for the freshwater crayfish. The crayfish make an exceptional group to demonstrate the utility of the synthesis approach, as there recently have been a number of phylogenetic studies on the crayfishes along with a robust underlying taxonomic framework. Importantly, the crayfish have also been extensively assessed by an IUCN Red List team and therefore have accurate and up-to-date area and conservation status data available for analysis within a phylogenetic context. Here, we develop a synthesis phylogeny for the world''s freshwater crayfish and examine the phylogenetic distribution of threat. We also estimate a molecular phylogeny based on all available GenBank crayfish sequences and use this tree to estimate divergence times and test for divergence rate variation. Finally, we conduct EDGE and HEDGE analyses and identify a number of species of freshwater crayfish of highest priority in conservation efforts.