Drought mildly reduces plant dominance in a temperate prairie ecosystem across years

1. Shifts in dominance and species reordering can occur in response to global change. However, it is not clear how altered precipitation and disturbance regimes interact to affect species composition and dominance.
2. We explored community‐level diversity and compositional similarity responses, both across and within years, to a manipulated precipitation gradient and annual clipping in a mixed‐grass prairie in Oklahoma, USA. We imposed seven precipitation treatments (five water exclusion levels [?20%, ?40%, ?60%, ?80%, and ?100%], water addition [+50%], and control [0% change in precipitation]) year‐round from 2016 to 2018 using fixed interception shelters. These treatments were crossed with annual clipping to mimic hay harvest.
3. We found that community‐level responses were influenced by precipitation across time. For instance, plant evenness was enhanced by extreme drought treatments, while plant richness was marginally promoted under increased precipitation.
4. Clipping promoted species gain resulting in greater richness within each experimental year. Across years, clipping effects further reduced the precipitation effects on community‐level responses (richness and evenness) at both extreme drought and added precipitation treatments.
5. Synthesis: Our results highlight the importance of studying interactive drivers of change both within versus across time. For instance, clipping attenuated community‐level responses to a gradient in precipitation, suggesting that management could buffer community‐level responses to drought. However, precipitation effects were mild and likely to accentuate over time to produce further community change.

     

Radiation inactivation target size of rat adipocyte glucose transporters in the plasma membrane and intracellular pools

The in situ assembly states of the glucose transport carrier protein in the plasma membrane and in the intracellular (microsomal) storage pool of rat adipocytes were assessed by studying radiation-induced inactivation of the D-glucose-sensitive cytochalasin B binding activities. High energy radiation inactivated the glucose-sensitive cytochalasin B binding of each of these membrane preparations by reducing the total number of the binding sites without affecting the dissociation constant. The reduction in total number of binding sites was analyzed as a function of radiation dose based on target theory, from which a radiation-sensitive mass (target size) was calculated. When the plasma membranes of insulin-treated adipocytes were used, a target size of approximately 58,000 daltons was obtained. For adipocyte microsomal membranes, we obtained target sizes of approximately 112,000 and 109,000 daltons prior to and after insulin treatment, respectively. In the case of microsomal membranes, however, inactivation data showed anomalously low radiation sensitivities at low radiation doses, which may be interpreted as indicating the presence of a radiation-sensitive inhibitor. These results suggest that the adipocyte glucose transporter occurs as a monomer in the plasma membrane while existing in the intracellular reserve pool either as a homodimer or as a stoichiometric complex with a protein of an approximately equal size.     

Iron-sulfur centers in the photosynthetic reaction center complex fromChlorobium vibrioforme. Differences from and similarities to the iron-sulfur centers in Photosystem I

The photosynthetic reaction center complex from the green sulfur bacteriumChlorobium vibrioforme has been isolated under anaerobic conditions. Sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis reveals polypeptides with apparent molecular masses of 80, 40, 30, 18, 15, and 9 kDa. The 80- and 18-kDa polypeptides are identified as the reaction center polypeptide and the secondary donor cytochromec ₅₅₁ encoded by thepscA andpscC genes, respectively. N-terminal amino acid sequences identify the 40-kDa polypeptide as the bacteriochlorophylla-protein of the baseplate (the Fenna-Matthews-Olson protein) and the 30-kDa polypeptide as the putative 2[4Fe-4S] protein encoded bypscB. Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) analysis shows the presence of an iron-sulfur cluster which is irreversibly photoreduced at 9K. Photoaccumulation at higher temperature shows the presence of an additional photoreduced cluster. The EPR spectra of the two iron-sulfur clusters resemble those of F_A and F_B of Photosystem I, but also show significantly differentg-values, lineshapes, and temperature and power dependencies. We suggest that the two centers are designated Center I (with calculatedg-values of 2.085, 1.898, 1.841), and Center II (with calculatedg-values of 2.083, 1.941, 1.878). The data suggest that Centers I and II are bound to thepscB polypeptide.     

Frequent Users of Hospital Emergency Departments in Korea Characterized by Claims Data from the National Health Insurance: A Cross Sectional Study

The Korean National Health Insurance, which provides universal coverage for the entire Korean population, is now facing financial instability. Frequent emergency department (ED) users may represent a medically vulnerable population who could benefit from interventions that both improve care and lower costs. To understand the nature of frequent ED users in Korea, we analyzed claims data from a population-based national representative sample. We performed both bivariate and multivariable analyses to investigate the association between patient characteristics and frequent ED use (4+ ED visits in a year) using claims data of a 1% random sample of the Korean population, collected in 2009. Among 156,246 total ED users, 4,835 (3.1%) were frequent ED users. These patients accounted for 14% of 209,326 total ED visits and 17.2% of $76,253,784 total medical expenses generated from all ED visits in the 1% data sample. Frequent ED users tended to be older, male, and of lower socio-economic status compared with occasional ED users (p < 0.001 for each). Moreover, frequent ED users had longer stays in the hospital when admitted, higher probability of undergoing an operative procedure, and increased mortality. Among 8,425 primary diagnoses, alcohol-related complaints and schizophrenia showed the strongest positive correlation with the number of ED visits. Among the frequent ED users, mortality and annual outpatient department visits were significantly lower in the alcohol-related patient subgroup compared with other frequent ED users; furthermore, the rate was even lower than that for non-frequent ED users. Our findings suggest that expanding mental health and alcohol treatment programs may be a reasonable strategy to decrease the dependence of these patients on the ED.