Do plant communities exist? Evidence from scaling‐up local species‐area relations to the regional level

Abstract. One long tradition in ecology is that discrete communities exist, at least in the sense that there are areas of relatively uniform vegetation, with more rapid change in species composition between them. The alternative extreme view is the Self‐similarity concept – that similar community variation occurs at all spatial scales. We test between these two by calculating species‐area curves within areas of vegetation that are as uniform as can be found, and then extrapolating the within‐community variation to much larger areas, that will contain many ‘communities’. Using the Arrhenius species‐area model, the extrapolations are remarkably close to the observed number of species at the regional/country level. We conclude that the type of heterogeneity that occurs within ‘homogeneous’ communities is sufficient to explain species richness at much larger scales. Therefore, whilst we can speak of ‘communities’ for convenience, the variation that certainly exists at the ‘community’ level can be seen as only a larger‐scale manifestation of micro‐habitat variation.     

利用RAPD技术检测香菇双—单杂交后代

利用ＲＡＰＤ技术对香菇６个双单杂交菌株及其两个双核体基因组ＤＮＡ进行了检测,结果显示：１－３号杂交菌株之间的相似系数为０．８９３－０．９６２,它们与其亲本Ｓ之间的相似系数为０．８４２－０．８５９;４－６号杂交菌株之间的相似系数０．８５７－０．９２５,与其亲本ＳＳＯ１之间相似系数为０．７０８－０．９０２;表明杂交菌株与其双核体亲本基因组具有较大差异,杂交菌株之间存在着不同程度差异,６个杂交菌株是真正     

城市河流改造工程对河流生态系统野生维管植物的影响

随着城市化的发展,许多城市对流经市区的河流进行了大规模工程改造,在获得了多种效益的同时,也引起了诸如生物多样性破坏和物种组成改变等一系列生态问题,因此对城市河流改造工程的生态影响进行研究非常重要,将有助于在未来城市河流改造中更有效地保护河流生态系统。该文以汾河太原段的河道改造工程为研究对象,用Shannon-Weiner 多样性指数、Sørensen群落相似性指数和单因素方差分析方法,研究了河流改造工程对河流生态系统中的野生维管植物物种多样性、频度和群落物种组成相似性的影响。结果表明:太原汾河段改造后比改造前的野生维管植物物种数和Shannon-Weiner 多样性指数显著降低;低频度的物种数明显增加而高频度的物种数明显减少;河流改造前后的群落相似性明显降低。由此可见,城市河流改造工程对河流生态系统中的野生维管植物物种多样性、频度和群落相似性有明显影响。     

七种犁头尖属(Typhonium Schott)植物和两个近缘属等位酶的研究

用凝胶电泳法分析了七种犁头尖属植物和两个近缘属三个种的6种酶系统,检测了7个等位酶位点,利用软件BIOSIS-2进行遗传相似性的聚类分析,绘出树状分支图,将七种犁头尖属植物分为三个组,同时澄清了犁头尖属、斑龙芋属和半夏属之间的近缘性,即犁头尖属与斑龙芋属比与半夏属有较近的亲缘关系。     

Role of the bilayer in the shape of the isolated erythrocyte membrane

Summary The determinants of cell shape were explored in a study of the crenation (spiculation) of the isolated erythrocyte membrane. Standard ghosts prepared in 5mm NaP_i (pH 8) were plump, dimpled disks even when prepared from echinocytic (spiculated) red cells. These ghosts became crenated in the presence of isotonic saline, millimolar levels of divalent cations, 1mm 2,4-dinitrophenol or 0.1mm lysolecithin. Crenation was suppressed in ghosts generated under conditions of minimal osmotic stress, in ghosts from red cells partially depleted of cholesterol, and, paradoxically, in ghosts from red cells crenated by lysolecithin. The susceptibility of ghosts to crenation was lost with time; this process was potentiated by elevated temperature, low ionic strength, and traces of detergents or chlorpromazine.In that ghost shape was influenced by a variety of amphipaths, our results favor the premise that the bilayer and not the subjacent protein reticulum drives ghost crenation. The data also suggest that vigorous osmotic hemolysis induces a redistribution of lipids between the two leaflets of the bilayer which affects membrane contour through a bilayer couple mechanism. Subsequent relaxation of that metastable distribution could account for the observed loss of crenatability.     

京津冀太行山片区不同生境昆虫种类和群落多样性调查与分析

通过对京津冀太行山片区不同生境昆虫群落多样性调查,为京津冀太行山片区生物多样性的保育和决策提供科学依据。在2019年7月-2020年10月,在京津冀太行山片区的9个县（区）（包括北京市的昌平区和房山区,以及河北省的涿鹿县、蔚县、涞水县、涞源县、易县、唐县和阜平县）的6种生境（即森林、人造林、湿地、灌丛、草地和农田）共设置106个样点,具体采用“样线踏查法”和“马来氏网法”相结合共进行了6次昆虫调查。共采集昆虫62 450头,隶属于14目153科608种。不同生境间昆虫的 Margalef 丰富度指数(P<0.01）、多样性指数 H (P<0.01）和均匀度指数 E (P<0.05）存在显著或极显著差异。 Margalef 丰富度指数依次为森林＞人造林＞湿地＞灌丛＞农田＞草地,且森林的 Margalef 丰富度指数最高为5.64、草地最低为2.70;多样性指数 H 依次为草地＞灌丛＞湿地＞农田＞森林=人造林;均匀度指数 E 依次为草地＞森林＞灌丛＞湿地＞农田＞人造林。不同生境之间昆虫种群相似度分析表明,森林和人造林的相似度系数最高为0.51,表现为为中等相似;其余生境间的相似度指数均低于0.5,表现为不相似或极不相似。森林、人工林和湿地等生境昆虫物种丰富度较高,是主要的昆虫物种储存库,但对应的昆虫群落多样性指数 H 较低,突显了这些生境环境保护的重要性。     

Identification of small molecule inhibitors of botulinum neurotoxin serotype E via footprint similarity

Botulinum neurotoxins (BoNT) are among the most poisonous substances known, and of the 7 serotypes (A–G) identified thus far at least 4 can cause death in humans. The goal of this work was identification of inhibitors that specifically target the light chain catalytic site of the highly pathogenic but lesser-studied E serotype (BoNT/E). Large-scale computational screening, employing the program DOCK, was used to perform atomic-level docking of 1.4 million small molecules to prioritize those making favorable interactions with the BoNT/E site. In particular, ‘footprint similarity’ (FPS) scoring was used to identify compounds that could potentially mimic features on the known substrate tetrapeptide RIME. Among 92 compounds purchased and experimentally tested, compound C562-1101 emerged as the most promising hit with an apparent IC₅₀ value three-fold more potent than that of the first reported BoNT/E small molecule inhibitor NSC-77053. Additional analysis showed the predicted binding pose of C562-1101 was geometrically and energetically stable over an ensemble of structures generated by molecular dynamic simulations and that many of the intended interactions seen with RIME were maintained. Several analogs were also computationally designed and predicted to have further molecular mimicry thereby demonstrating the potential utility of footprint-based scoring protocols to help guide hit refinement.     

How to choose templates for modeling of protein complexes: Insights from benchmarking template-based docking

Comparative docking is based on experimentally determined structures of protein-protein complexes (templates), following the paradigm that proteins with similar sequences and/or structures form similar complexes. Modeling utilizing structure similarity of target monomers to template complexes significantly expands structural coverage of the interactome. Template-based docking by structure alignment can be performed for the entire structures or by aligning targets to the bound interfaces of the experimentally determined complexes. Systematic benchmarking of docking protocols based on full and interface structure alignment showed that both protocols perform similarly, with top 1 docking success rate 26%. However, in terms of the models' quality, the interface-based docking performed marginally better. The interface-based docking is preferable when one would suspect a significant conformational change in the full protein structure upon binding, for example, a rearrangement of the domains in multidomain proteins. Importantly, if the same structure is selected as the top template by both full and interface alignment, the docking success rate increases 2-fold for both top 1 and top 10 predictions. Matching structural annotations of the target and template proteins for template detection, as a computationally less expensive alternative to structural alignment, did not improve the docking performance. Sophisticated remote sequence homology detection added templates to the pool of those identified by structure-based alignment, suggesting that for practical docking, the combination of the structure alignment protocols and the remote sequence homology detection may be useful in order to avoid potential flaws in generation of the structural templates library.     

A validation framework to assess performance of commercial deformable image registration in lung radiotherapy

IntroductionDeformable image registration (DIR) can play an important role in the context of adaptive radiotherapy. The AAPM Task Group 132 (TG-132) has described several quantitative measures for DIR error assessment but they can only be accurately defined when there is a ground-truth present in high-contrast regions. This work aims to set out a framework to obtain optimal results for CT-CT lung DIR in clinical setting for a commercially available system by quantifying the DIR performance in both low- and high-contrast regions.MethodsFive publicly available thorax datasets were used to assess the DIR quality. A “Ghost fiducial” method was implemented by windowing the contrast in a new feature provided by Varian Velocity v4.1. Target registration error (TRE) of the landmarks and Dice-similarity coefficient of the tumour were calculated at three different contrast settings to assess the algorithm in high- and low-contrast scenarios.ResultsFor the original unedited dataset, higher resolution DIR methods showed best performance acceptable within the recommended limit according to TG-132, when actual displacements were less than 10 mm. The relation of the actual displacement of the landmarks and TRE shows the limited capacity of the algorithm to deal with movements larger than 10 mm.ConclusionThis work found the performance of DIR methods and settings available in Varian Velocity v4.1 to be a function of contrast level as well as extent of motion. This highlights the need for multiple metrics to assess different aspects of DIR performance for various applications related to low-contrast and/or high-contrast regions.