Divergence in behaviour between the European corn borer,Ostrinia nubilalis,and its sibling species Ostrinia scapulalis: adaptation to human harvesting?

Divergent adaptation to host plant species may be the major mechanism driving speciation and adaptive radiations in phytophagous insects. Host plants can differ intrinsically in a number of attributes, but the role of natural enemies in host plant specialization is often underappreciated. Here, we report behavioural divergence between the European corn borer (ECB, Ostrinia nubilalis) and its sibling species Ostrinia scapulalis, in relation to a major enemy: humans. Harvesting maize imposes selective mortality on Ostrinia larvae: those located above the cut-off line of the stalk face almost certain death. We show that ECB larvae diapause closer to the ground than those of O. scapulalis, which is sympatric but feeds mainly on weeds. The difference in diapause height results from genetically determined differences in geotactic behaviour. ECB larvae descend towards the ground specifically at harvest time, increasing their chances of surviving harvesting by about 50 per cent over O. scapulalis larvae. Natural enemies appear as a major driver of host-plant specialization in this example, stressing the need to consider ‘tri-trophic’ ecological niches to understand insect diversification. Our results also strongly suggest that geotaxis evolved as a singular instance of behavioural resistance in a major agricultural pest.     

环境污染下基于最优捕获策略的近海-远海捕鱼模型的动力学性质(英文)

近年来,由于人类的过度开发,使得海洋资源(尤其是近海海洋资源)急剧下降,加上日益严重的海洋污染,给海洋资源管理带来很大的困难.为了更好的管理和利用海洋资源,本文考虑到环境污染中脉冲扩散对种群的影响,建立了一个近海-远海渔业模型,给出了正周期解存在性及平凡周期解和正周期解全局渐近稳定性的充分条件.进一步,在环境污染的情况下,给出了最优捕获策略,得到了最大持续产量和相应的捕获努力量.最后,通过数值模拟证实了我们所得的结论的正确性.     

Understory Vegetation Dynamics of North American Boreal Forests

Understory vegetation is the most diverse and least understood component of North American boreal forests. Understory communities are important as they act as drivers of overstory succession and nutrient cycling. The objective of this review was to examine how understory vegetation abundance, composition, and diversity change with stand development after a major stand replacing disturbance. Understory vegetation abundance and diversity increase rapidly after fire, in response to abundant resources and an influx of disturbance adapted species. The highest diversity occurs within the first 40 years following fire, and declines indefinitely thereafter as a result of decreasing productivity and increased dominance of a small number of late successional feather mosses and woody plant species. Vascular plant and bryophyte/lichen communities undergo very different successional changes. Vascular plant communities are dynamic and change more dramatically with time after fire, whereas bryophyte and lichen communities are much slower to establish and change over time. Considerable variations in these processes exist depending on canopy composition, site condition, regional climate, and frequently occurring non-stand-replacing disturbances. Forest management practices represent a unique disturbance process and can result in different understory vegetation communities from those observed for natural processes, with potential implications for overstory succession and long-term productivity. Because of the importance of understory vegetation on nutrient cycling and overstory composition, post-harvest treatments emulating stand-replacing fire are required to maintain understory diversity, composition, and promote stand productivity in boreal forests.     

Effects of plant harvesting and nutrient enrichment on phytoplankton community structure in a shallow urban lake

The utility of shallow water bodies in urban environments is frequently compromised either by dense beds of submerged plants or cyanobacterial blooms associated with nutrient enrichment. Although submerged plants are often harvested to facilitate recreational uses, this activity may alter the phytoplankton community, which in turn, also may restrict the use of the lake. We tested whether (i) plant harvesting reduced the abundance of flagellate algae and increased the abundance of cyanobacteria, and (ii) whether increasing levels of nutrient enrichment caused shifts in the dominance of heterocytous cyanobacteria, non-heterocytous cyanobacteria and Chlorophyta, in a shallow urban lake in Southern Australia as has been observed for shallow Danish lakes in previous studies. These predictions were tested with large (3000 l), replicated mesocosms in a warm, highly productive, shallow lake densely colonised by the submerged angiosperm, Vallisnaria americana Michaux. The heterokont algae, Chlorophyta, Cyanobacteria and Cryptophyta were the most numerous algal divisions in the lake. The Euglenophyta, although uncommon in early summer, became more abundant towards the end of summer. The Dinophyta and Charophyta were rare. The abundance of the heterokont algae and Euglenophyta was significantly reduced by plant harvesting even after plants had partially re-established 18 weeks after initial harvesting. The decline in the Euglenophyta in response to plant harvesting is consistent with earlier findings, that the relative abundance of flagellate algae tends to be greater in the presence of submerged plants. Contrary to our prediction, we found that the Cyanobacteria did not increase in response to plant harvesting, however the response may be altered under higher nutrient levels. Algal responses to nutrient enrichment in the presence of dense V. americana plants generally followed the patterns observed in shallow Danish lakes despite the large differences in climatic conditions. Both studies found that the abundance of heterocytous cyanobacteria declined at higher levels of nutrient enrichment, whereas non-heterocytous cyanobacteria and chlorophytes increased.     

PsbS enhances nonphotochemical fluorescence quenching in the absence of zeaxanthin

Leaves and chloroplasts from Arabidopsis plants with increased amounts of PsbS protein showed the same percentage increase in nonphotochemical quenching in comparison to the wild type both in the presence and absence of zeaxanthin. The absorption change at 525-535 nm was also more pronounced in both cases. It is suggested that PsbS alone can cause the quenching, supporting the model in which zeaxanthin acts as an allosteric activator and is not the primary cause of the process. It is proposed that PsbS acts as a trigger of the conformational change that leads to the establishment of nonphotochemical quenching.     

Simple rules describe bottom-up and top-down control in food webs with alternative energy pathways

Many human influences on the world's ecosystems have their largest direct impacts at either the top or the bottom of the food web. To predict their ecosystem-wide consequences we must understand how these impacts propagate. A long-standing, but so far elusive, problem in this endeavour is how to reduce food web complexity to a mathematically tractable, but empirically relevant system. Simplification to main energy channels linking primary producers to top consumers has been recently advocated. Following this approach, we propose a general framework for the analysis of bottom-up and top-down forcing of ecosystems by reducing food webs to two energy pathways originating from a limiting resource shared by competing guilds of primary producers (e.g. edible vs. defended plants). Exploring dynamical models of such webs we find that their equilibrium responses to nutrient enrichment and top consumer harvesting are determined by only two easily measurable topological properties: the lengths of the component food chains (odd-odd, odd-even, or even-even) and presence vs. absence of a generalist top consumer reconnecting the two pathways (yielding looped vs. branched webs). Many results generalise to other looped or branched web structures and the model can be easily adapted to include a detrital pathway.     

毛竹PSⅡ大量捕光天线蛋白基因克隆及其表达分析

采用RT-PCR和RACE技术,从一年生毛竹(Phyllostachys edulis)新鲜叶片中分离到3个捕光色素结合蛋白基因cab-PhE2、cab-PhE3和cab-PhE6,GenBank登记号分别为EF207230、EF405877和EF628209.序列分析表明,3个基因分别与其它植物如水稻、玉米、大麦等PSⅡ的Ihcb2、Ihcb1、Ihcb3基因有着较高的一致性,其编码的蛋白属于大量捕光天线.蛋白结构预测表明,3个基因编码的蛋白均由导肽和成熟蛋白组成,其中成熟蛋白的二级结构均包含4个α螺旋结构、3个类胡萝卜素结合位点,以及相应的叶绿素a、b结合位点.组织特异性表达检测表明,3个基因在叶片、叶鞘和幼茎中均有表达,且在叶片中最高,而在根中未检测到表达.在强光照射( 1500μmol·m-2·s-1)条件下,3个基因的表达量均呈下调趋势,不同基因间存在着一定的差异,其中cab-PhE3和cab-PhE2的表达丰度在光照4h内下降较快,至6 h cab-PhE2接近于零,而cab-PhE6经光照4h表达丰度仍为对照的70％以上,但之后2h后很快降至对照的5％以下.     

Nanostructured p‐n Junctions for Kinetic‐to‐Electrical Energy Conversion

Piezoelectric ZnO nanorods grown on a flexible substrate are combined with the p‐type semiconducting polymer PEDOT:PSS to produce a p‐n junction device that successfully demonstrates kinetic‐to‐electrical energy conversion. Both the voltage and current output of the devices are measured to be in the range of 10 mV and 10 μA cm^?2. Combining these figures for the best device gives a maximum possible power density of 0.4 mW cm^?3. Systematic testing of the devices is performed showing that the voltage output increases linearly with applied stress, and is reduced significantly by illumination with super‐band gap light. This provides strong evidence that the voltage output results from piezoelectric effects in the ZnO. The behavior of the devices is explained by considering the time‐dependent changes in band structure resulting from the straining of a piezoelectric material within a p‐n junction. It is shown that the rate of screening of the depolarisation field determines the power output of a piezoelectric energy harvesting device. This model is consistent with the behavior of a number of previous devices utilising the piezoelectric effect in ZnO.     

一类两种群均有收获率捕食系统的细焦点与极限环

研究一类具有HollingⅡ类功能反应且两种群均为非常数收获率的捕食系统,其中食饵种群具有非线性密度制约.利用微分方程定性与稳定性理论及分支理论,得到系统平衡点的性态及极限环存在与否的充分条件,利用Hopf分支理论得到存到多个极限环的充分条件.