Multiple trade‐offs regulate the effects of woody plant removal on biodiversity and ecosystem functions in global rangelands

Woody plant encroachment is a major land management issue. Woody removal often aims to restore the original grassy ecosystem, but few studies have assessed the role of woody removal on ecosystem functions and biodiversity at global scales. We collected data from 140 global studies and evaluated how different woody plant removal methods affected biodiversity (plant and animal diversity) and ecosystem functions (plant production, hydrological function, soil carbon) across global rangelands. Our results indicate that the impact of removal is strongly context dependent, varying with the specific response variable, removal method, and traits of the target species. Over all treatments, woody plant removal increased grass biomass and total groundstorey diversity. Physical and chemical removal methods increased grass biomass and total groundstorey biomass (i.e., non‐woody plants, including grass biomass), but burning reduced animal diversity. The impact of different treatment methods declined with time since removal, particularly for total groundstorey biomass. Removing pyramid‐shaped woody plants increased total groundstorey biomass and hydrological function but reduced total groundstorey diversity. Environmental context (e.g., aridity and soil texture) indirectly controlled the effect of removal on biomass and biodiversity by influencing plant traits such as plant shape, allelopathic, or roots types. Our study demonstrates that a one‐size‐fits‐all approach to woody plant removal is not appropriate, and that consideration of woody plant identity, removal method, and environmental context is critical for optimizing removal outcomes. Applying this knowledge is fundamental for maintaining diverse and functional rangeland ecosystems as we move toward a drier and more variable climate.     

Next generation sequencing and functional pathway analysis to understand the mechanism of action of copper-tolfenamic acid against pancreatic cancer cells

Anti-cancer activity of tolfenamic acid (TA) in preclinical models for pancreatic cancer (PaCa) is well established. Since the dosage for anti-cancer actions of TA is rather high, we recently demonstrated that IC₅₀ values of Copper-TA are 30–80% less than TA in 12 cancer cell lines. This study elucidates the underlying mechanisms of Copper-TA in PaCa cells. Control and Copper-TA (IC₅₀) treated PaCa cells were processed by next-generation sequencing (NGS) to determine differentially expressed genes using HTG EdgeSeq Oncology Biomarker panel. Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA®) was used to identify functional significance of altered genes. The conformational studies for assessing the expression of key regulators and genes were conducted by Western blot and qPCR. IPA® identified several networks, regulators, as well as molecular and cellular functions associated with cancer. The top 5 molecular and cellular functions affected by Cu-TA treatment were cell death and survival, cellular development, cell growth and proliferation, cell cycle and cellular movement. The expression of top upstream regulators was confirmed by Western blot analysis while qPCR results of selected genes demonstrated that Copper-TA is efficacious at lower doses than TA. Results suggest that Copper-TA alters genes/key regulators associated with cancer and potentially serve as an effective anti-cancer agent.     

Four-dimensional imaging with virtual reality to quantitatively explore jigsaw puzzle-like morphogenesis of Arabidopsis cotyledon pavement cells

In most dicotyledonous plants, leaf pavement cells exhibit complex jigsaw puzzle-like cell morphogenesis during leaf expansion. Although detailed molecular biological information and mathematical modeling of this jigsaw puzzle-like cell morphogenesis are now available, a full understanding of this process remains elusive. Recent reports have highlighted the importance of three-dimensional (3D) structures (i.e., anticlinal and periclinal cell wall) in understanding the mechanical models that describe this morphogenetic process. We believe that it is important to acquire 3D shapes of pavement cells over time, i.e., acquire and analyze four-dimensional (4D) information when studying the relationship between mechanical modeling and simulations and the actual cell shape. In this report, we have developed a framework to capture and analyze 4D morphological information of Arabidopsis thaliana cotyledon pavement cells by using both direct water immersion observations and computational image analyses, including segmentation, surface modeling, virtual reality and morphometry. The 4D cell models allowed us to perform time-lapse 3D morphometrical analysis, providing detailed quantitative information about changes in cell growth rate and shape, with cellular complexity observed to increase during cell growth. The framework should enable analysis of various phenotypes (e.g., mutants) in greater detail, especially in the 3D deformation of the cotyledon surface, and evaluation of theoretical models that describe pavement cell morphogenesis using computational simulations. Additionally, our accurate and high-throughput acquisition of growing cell structures should be suitable for use in generating in silico model cell structures.     

Long‐term research avoids spurious and misleading trends in sustainability attributes of no‐till

Agricultural management recommendations based on short‐term studies can produce findings inconsistent with long‐term reality. Here, we test the long‐term environmental sustainability and profitability of continuous no‐till agriculture on yield, soil water availability, and N₂O fluxes. Using a moving window approach, we investigate the development and stability of several attributes of continuous no‐till as compared to conventional till agriculture over a 29‐year period at a site in the upper Midwest, US. Over a decade is needed to detect the consistent effects of no‐till. Both crop yield and soil water availability required 15 years or longer to generate patterns consistent with 29‐year trends. Only marginal trends for N₂O fluxes appeared in this period. Relative profitability analysis suggests that after initial implementation, 86% of periods between 10 and 29 years recuperated the initial expense of no‐till implementation, with the probability of higher relative profit increasing with longevity. Importantly, statistically significant but misleading short‐term trends appeared in more than 20% of the periods examined. Results underscore the importance of decadal and longer studies for revealing consistent dynamics and emergent outcomes of no‐till agriculture, shown to be beneficial in the long term.     

Influence of ethanol concentration of extraction solvent on metabolite profiling for Salviae Miltiorrhizae Radix et Rhizoma extract by 1H NMR spectroscopy and multivariate data analysis

Salviae Miltiorrhizae Radix et Rhizoma (Danshen in China) and its related preparations are widely used in clinical practice due to its high medicinal value. In recent years, ¹H NMR technology has made great progress and demonstrated its unique advantages in the field of botanical metabolomics. In this study, ¹H NMR-based metabolomics was used to investigate the dissolution of various metabolites in Danshen as a function of ethanol concentration. ¹H NMR spectroscopy of Danshen extract identified 28 metabolites including 6 sugars, 11 amino acids, 3 organic acids, 4 salvianolic acids, and 4 tanshinones. Multivariate statistical analysis was used to classify and compare various Danshen extracts. PCA and HCA were used to obtain a global overview of the similarity in the samples and two-class OPLS-DA models were established for identifying characteristic metabolites. Then, ¹H-qNMR method was used to estimate the concentration of 22 metabolites, which is helpful to further describe the changes in metabolite ratios of various Danshen extracts. The result of this study laid the foundation for further biological activity research, and also provided an important reference for subsequent process research and quality control of Danshen related preparations.     

Communicative roots of complex sociality and cognition

Mammals living in more complex social groups typically have large brains for their body size and many researchers have proposed that the primary driver of the increase in brain size through primate and hominin evolution was the selection pressures associated with sociality. Many mammals, and especially primates, use flexible signals that show a high degree of voluntary control and these signals may play an important role in forming and maintaining social relationships between group members. However, the specific role that cognitive skills play in this complex communication, and how in turn this relates to sociality, is still unclear. The hypothesis for the communicative roots of complex sociality and cognition posits that cognitive demands behind the communication needed to form and maintain bonded social relationships in complex social settings drives the link between brain size and sociality. We review the evidence in support of this hypothesis and why key features of cognitively complex communication such as intentionality and referentiality should be more effective in forming and maintaining bonded relationships as compared with less cognitively complex communication. Exploring the link between cognition, communication and sociality provides insights into how increasing flexibility in communication can facilitate the emergence of social systems characterised by bonded social relationships, such as those found in non‐human primates and humans. To move the field forward and carry out both within‐ and among‐species comparisons, we advocate the use of social network analysis, which provides a novel way to describe and compare social structure. Using this approach can lead to a new, systematic way of examining social and communicative complexity across species, something that is lacking in current comparative studies of social structure.     

A structured analysis of risk to important wildlife elements in three Australian Wildlife Conservancy sanctuaries

Where data and information are lacking, structured expert risk assessments can provide a powerful tool to progress natural resource planning. In many situations, practitioners make informal assessments of risk within small groups that typically constitute employees. In this study, we report on three small (in terms of experts) structured expert‐based risk assessment case studies conducted by expert employees of a not‐for‐profit organisation (Australian Wildlife Conservancy) to demonstrate the utility of the approach. The case studies were carried out for three wildlife sanctuaries managed by AWC: Faure Island, Karakamia and Paruna. The likelihood that a set of direct risk factors would cause management failure for sets of important wildlife elements in the three sanctuaries was elicited from the small group of ecological experts. The analysis was couched in terms of a management aim to not lose species from each wildlife element over the management period of 25 years with current management. The experts believed, in particular, that increasing temperature and decreasing water availability associated with climate change were likely to impact significantly upon the vegetation elements and water‐reliant fauna associated with the sanctuaries. Some vegetation elements were also thought likely to be at risk of over‐grazing, unsuitable fire regimes and, in some cases, disease. In addition to predation by exotic predators at one sanctuary, the experts identified additional direct risk factors for various fauna elements associated with expected changes to the vegetation elements, including reduction in food availability, nesting habitat, and generally important life media. From the risk analyses, a preliminary conceptual model was developed to underpin monitoring and to indicate areas for possible management intervention and research. The case studies demonstrate that even in a small workplace team, structured risk assessments can be efficiently accomplished and can provide expedient and transparent information that effectively captures and aggregates the views of the experts.