气候变暖对我国棉铃虫适生分布区的模拟预测

利用DYMEX软件构建生物气候模型并通过ArcGIS进行图形处理,对棉铃虫在我国当前和气温升高后的潜在适生分布区进行了模拟预测.模拟结果表明,棉铃虫的高度适生区分布在河南中南部、安徽和湖北北部、江西和福建南部、湖南、广西、广东等华北、华南部分地区,以及陕甘交界处天水地区、川藏交界处巴塘地区等;中度适生区在黄河和长江流域的大部分省份;低度适生区主要分布在东北三省、新疆、西藏、青海地区.模拟21世纪末气温升高3℃预测,棉铃虫中度适生区北界由营口、北京、石家庄、太原、延安、兰州、巴塘一线北移至沈阳、呼和浩特、酒泉、格尔木、拉萨一线,纬度北移约3.,海拔升高300～500 m;新疆大面积地区由低度适生区成为中度适生区.气候变暖使棉铃虫当前的少部分高度适生区(天水、巴塘等)面积扩大,但也使部分分布区(华北地区、华南地区、中国台湾、香港和海南地区等)收缩.最后,结合棉铃虫生物学特性对预测结果进行了讨论.     

Colonization of ephemeral detrital patches by vagile macroinvertebrates in a brackish lake: a body size-related process?

The mechanisms regulating the build-up of invertebrate assemblages on ephemeral detritus patches are still poorly understood. Here, the daily colonization of decaying reed leaves by vagile macroinvertebrates was monitored in an brackish lake in Italy. The highly variable abundance patterns of dominant taxa were analysed by spectral and geostatistical techniques to test for nonrandomness and to further determine whether they were related to body size. Comparisons between two contrasting sites allowed an assessment of the generality of our observations. At both sites, the macroinvertebrate assemblage was dominated by three detritivorous taxa, i.e. the isopod Lekanesphaera monodi, the amphipod Microdeutopus gryllotalpa and the polychaete Neanthes caudata. Overall, their abundance patterns were characterised by short-term fluctuations of a nonrandom, autocorrelated nature. In addition, a significant covariation was observed between the average body mass of each taxon and the complexity of the respective abundance pattern, expressed by the fractal dimension D. The covariation was observed at both study sites, notwithstanding the diverging outcomes of bivariate pattern comparisons for similar-sized taxa. Our findings indicate that the size of macroinvertebrates is strongly related to the short-term dynamics of their abundance patterns on reed detritus, suggesting that the interaction between vagile consumers and ephemeral resource patches might be influenced by individual energetics. The implications of size-related constraints for the coexistence of species on decaying detrital patches are discussed.     

Structure and stability of aerobic granules cultivated under different shear force in sequencing batch reactors

The cultivation of stable aerobic granules as well as granular structure and stability in sequencing batch reactors under different shear force were investigated in this study. Four column sequencing batch reactors (R1–R4) were operated under various shear force, in terms of superficial upflow air velocity of 0.8, 1.6, 2.4, and 3.2 cm s⁻¹, respectively. Aerobic granules were formed in all reactors in the experiment. It was found that the magnitude of shear force has an important impact on the granule stability. At shear force of 2.4 and 3.2 cm s⁻¹, granules can maintain a robust structure and have the potential of long-term operation. Granules developed in low shear force (R1, 0.8 cm s⁻¹ and R2, 1.6 cm s⁻¹) deteriorated to large-sized filamentous granules with irregular shape, loose structure and resulted in poor performance and operation instability. Granules cultivated under high shear force (R3, 2.4 cm s⁻¹ and R4, 3.2 cm s⁻¹) stabilized to clear outer morphology, dense and compact structure, and with good performance in 120 days operation. Fractal dimension (D_f) represents the internal structure of granules and can be used as an important indicator to describe the structure and stability of granules. Due to the combined effects of shear force and growth force, the mature granules developed in R3 and R4 also displayed certain differences in granular structure and characteristics.     

Physico-chemical characterization and the in vitro genotoxicity of medical implants metal alloy (TiAlV and CoCrMo) and polyethylene particles in human lymphocytes

Background

The main objective of the present study was to investigate chemical composition and possible cyto/genotoxic potential of several medical implant materials commonly used in total hip joint replacement.

Methods

Medical implant metal alloy (Ti₆Al₄V and CoCrMo) and high density polyethylene particles were analyzed by energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry while toxicological characterization was done on human lymphocytes using multi-biomarker approach.

Results

Energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry showed that none of the elements identified deviate from the chemical composition defined by appropriate ISO standard. Toxicological characterization showed that the tested materials were non-cyto/genotoxic as determined by the comet and cytokinesis-block micronucleus (CBMN) assay. Particle morphology was found (by using scanning electron and optical microscope) as flat, sharp-edged, irregularly shaped fiber-like grains with the mean particle size less than 10 µm; this corresponds to the so-called "submicron wear". The very large surface area per wear volume enables high reactivity with surrounding media and cellular elements.

Conclusions

Although orthopedic implants proved to be non-cyto/genotoxic, in tested concentration (10 μg/ml) there is a constant need for monitoring of patients that have implanted artificial hips or other joints, to minimize the risks of any unwanted health effects.

General significance

The fractal and multifractal analyses, performed in order to evaluate the degree of particle shape effect, showed that the fractal and multifractal terms are related to the "remnant" level of the particles' toxicity especially with the cell viability (trypan blue method) and total number of nucleoplasmic bridges and nuclear buds as CBMN assay parameters.     

桂花叶片的分形特征

提供了一种叶片分形维数的测定方法,并用其测定了桂花(Osmanthus fragrans Lour)的叶片分形维数。通过分析发现:(1)桂花叶片具有典型的分形特征并且这种分形特征可以用分形理论的一般方法加以研究;(2)同一株桂花树的成熟叶片在统计意义上具有相同的分形维数;(3)对于桂花这个物种的成熟叶片在统计意义上具有相同的分形维数。由此推测同一种植物的成熟叶片(或者其他构件)具有相同分形维数。最后提出创建植物分形分类学的设想。     

Spatial scaling laws do not structure strongyloid nematode communities in macropodid hosts

The characteristics of species within a community can influence the number of species that can coexist within that community. In particular, body size can constrain how many individuals can 'fit' into a community, and overlap in resource use between species depends on differences in their body sizes. Here, using data from 18 communities of strongyloid nematodes living in the stomachs of macropodid marsupials, we test key predictions derived from spatial scaling laws regarding the minimum similarity in body size between coexisting species believed to control how many species can coexist in a community. These communities are ideal systems for such a test: they consist of huge numbers of individuals from numerous species, all belonging to the same family (Chabertiidae) and living in the same host organ. Within these communities, we found that mean abundance correlated negatively with body size across all nematode species, whether body size was measured as length or volume. However, we found no support for the predictions of spatial scaling laws. First, the size ratios of pairs of adjacent-sized species did not decrease as a function of the size of the largest species in a pair. The few significant relationships observed were all positive, suggesting that the relative difference in size between adjacent species in the size hierarchy may in fact increase toward the upper end of the size spectrum. Second, the frequency distributions of body sizes were predominantly right-skewed amongst the communities investigated: within the size spectrum observed in a nematode community, small-bodied species greatly outnumber large-bodied ones, in sharp contrast to the predictions of spatial scaling laws. Nematode body size may thus determine the abundance achieved by a species but not how many species can coexist; the limiting similarity between coexisting species must depend on other biological traits.     

Multifractality in intracellular enzymatic reactions

Enzymatic kinetics adjust well to the Michaelis-Menten paradigm in homogeneous media with dilute, perfectly mixed reactants. These conditions are quite different from the highly structured cell plasm, so applications of the classic kinetics theory to this environment are rather limited. Cytoplasmic structure produces molecular crowding and anomalous diffusion of substances, modifying the mass action kinetic laws. The reaction coefficients are no longer constant but time-variant, as stated in the fractal kinetics theory. Fractal kinetics assumes that enzymatic reactions on such heterogeneous media occur within a non-Euclidian space characterized by a certain fractal dimension, this fractal dimension gives the dependence on time of the kinetic coefficients. In this work, stochastic simulations of enzymatic reactions under molecular crowding have been completed, and kinetic coefficients for the reactions, including the Michaelis-Menten parameter KM, were calculated. The simulations results led us to confirm the time dependence of michaelian kinetic parameter for the enzymatic catalysis. Besides, other chaos related phenomena were pointed out from the obtained KM time series, such as the emergence of strange attractors and multifractality.     

The dynamic evolution of the power exponent in a universal growth model of tumors

We have previously reported that a universal growth law, as proposed by West and collaborators for all living organisms, appears to be able to describe also the growth of tumors in vivo after an initial exponential growth phase. In contrast to the assumption of a fixed power exponent p (assumed by West et al. to be equal to 3/4), we propose in this paper a dynamic evolution of p, using experimental data from the cancer literature. In analogy with results obtained by applying scaling laws to the study of fragmentation of solids, the dynamic behaviour of p is related to the evolution of the fractal topology of neoplastic vascular systems. Our model might be applied for diagnostic purposes to mark the emergence of an efficient neo-angiogenetic structure if the results of our in silico experiments are confirmed by clinical observations.     

A crumpled surface having transverse attractive interactions as a simplified model with biological significance

Using extensive analogical simulations with square sheets of paper we investigate the influence of short-range transverse attractive interactions on the packing properties of a crumpled surface. These interactions are due to transverse connections or local bridges associated with a given number of binding sites localized on the two-dimensional surface and distributed in several patterns in the three-dimensional physical space. Geometrical relations and critical exponents describing the statistical properties of the crumpled surface are obtained as a function of the strength of the attractive interactions. Our model suggests how the presence of short-range interactions as, e.g. van der Waals forces can be important for the geometric plasticity of biological molecules, which in turn is important for biological function. The relevance of our results to the study of molecular conformation of proteins and membranes is discussed, and a comparison is also made between the behavior of the crumpled surface studied here and other important non-equilibrium fractal structures.     

分形模式下神经轴突增长的搜索模型

根据相杨（2002）[1]和袁小兵（2003）^[2]等发现G-蛋白偶受体（GPCRs）和小鸟苷三磷酸酶（RhoGTP）中的Cdc42及RhoA对大脑神经轴突生长的导向作用,以及Arneodo等^[8-10]在有限扩散凝聚（DIA）分形上的最新发现证明了笔者^[3]2004年的一个猜测,即：在分形模式下神经轴突是按照《搜索论》里的“稳定靶模型”进行着增生的。