中国叉茎管蚜蝇属及一新种记述(双翅目:食蚜蝇科)(英语)

叉茎管蚜蝇属Tigridemyia与墨管蚜蝇属 Mesembrius和美管蚜蝇属 Mallota形态相似,过去曾被作为后二属的亚属.但此属的雄性外生殖器阳茎的射精管端部4分叉与墨管蚜蝇属和美管蚜蝇属区别明显,因此,其属地位应予肯定.作者在整理中国的食蚜蝇标本时,发现该属1新种,刺腿叉茎管蚜蝇Tigridemyia acanthogemurilis sp.nov,加之过去已记录的1种,我国已知叉茎管蚜蝇属2种.本文描述了新种,并给出了中国已知2种的检索表和形态特征图及其分布.模式标本保存于华南农业大学植保系昆虫标本室.     

Using Psychophysiological Measures to Examine the Temporal Profile of Verbal Humor Elicitation

Despite its pervasiveness in popular culture, there remains much to be learned about the psychological and physiological processes that underlie our experience of humor. In the present study, we examined the temporal profile of verbal humor elicitation using psychophysiological measures of heart rate (HR) and facial electromyography (EMG). Consistent with recent prior research on cardiovascular changes to perceived humor, we found that HR acceleration was greater for jokes relative to non-jokes, and was positively related to the level of perceived humor elicited by these jokes. In addition, activity recorded from the zygomaticus major muscle that controls smiling was found to be greater for jokes relative to non-jokes. To link these physiological changes to the psychological processes that govern humor comprehension, we took the initial inflection point of the zygomatic EMG response as a marker for the onset of humor comprehension, and used this marker to probe the pattern of cardiovascular activity at this time-point. We estimated the onset of the humor response to occur during the initial HR deceleration phase, and found that jokes relative to non-jokes elicited a decreased HR response at this time-point. This result questions the previously forwarded notion that the psychological “moment of insight” that signals the start of the humor response is always associated with heightened cardiovascular activity. This discrepancy is discussed in relation to possible differences in the cognitive processes required to comprehend different forms of humor. At a broader level, our results also demonstrate the advantages of combining different psychophysiological measures to examine psychological phenomena, and illustrate how one such measure can constrain the interpretation of others.     

Vegetation control effects on untreated wood,crude cellulose and holocellulose δ<Superscript>13</Superscript>C of early and latewood in 3- to 5-year-old rings of Douglas-fir

The stable carbon (C) composition of tree rings expressed as δ¹³C, is a measure of intrinsic water-use efficiency and can indicate the occurrence of past water shortages for tree growth. We examined δ¹³C in 3- to 5-year-old rings of Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii (Mirb) Franco) trees to elucidate if decreased water supply or uptake was a critical factor in the observed growth reduction of trees competing with understory herb and shrub vegetation compared to those growing without competition. We hypothesized that there would be no differences in δ¹³C of earlywood in trees growing in plots with competing vegetation and those in plots receiving complete vegetation control during 5 years because earlywood formed early in the growing season when soil water was ample. We also hypothesized that δ¹³C in latewood which was formed during the later half of the growing season when precipitation was low, would be greater (less negative) in trees in plots without vegetation control. We then separated early and latewood from rings for three consecutive years and analyzed their δ¹³C composition. No significant differences in earlywood δ¹³C in years 3–5 were observed for trees in the two vegetation control treatments. δ¹³C of untreated latewood separated from wood cores was greater in 4- and 5-year-old rings of trees growing with competing vegetation compared to trees growing without vegetation competition (i.e., −25.5 vs. −26.3‰ for year 4, and −26.1 vs. −26.8‰ for year 5). Results suggest that water shortages occurred in Douglas-fir trees on this coastal Washington site in the latewood-forming portion of the growing season of years 4 and 5 in the no-vegetation control treatment. We also compared δ¹³C from untreated wood, crude cellulose extracted with the Diglyme–HCl method, and holocellulose extracted with toluene–ethanol to see if the extraction method would increase the sensitivity of the analysis. δ¹³C values from the two extraction methods were highly correlated with those from untreated samples (r ² = 0.97, 0.98, respectively). Therefore, using untreated wood would be as effective as using crude cellulose or holocellulose to investigate δ¹³C patterns in young Douglas-fir.     

Recovery of methanotrophs from disturbance: population dynamics,evenness and functioning

Biodiversity is claimed to be essential for ecosystem functioning, but is threatened by anthropogenic disturbances. Prokaryotes have been assumed to be functionally redundant and virtually inextinguishable. However, recent work indicates that microbes may well be sensitive to environmental disturbance. Focusing on methane-oxidizing bacteria as model organisms, we simulated disturbance-induced mortality by mixing native with sterilized paddy soil in two ratios, 1:4 and 1:40, representing moderate and severe die-offs. Disturbed microcosms were compared with an untreated control. Recovery of activity and populations was followed over 4 months by methane uptake measurements, pmoA-qPCR, pmoA-based terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism and a pmoA-based diagnostic microarray. Diversity and evenness of methanotrophs decreased in disturbed microcosms, but functioning was not compromised. We consistently observed distinctive temporal shifts between type I and type II methanotrophs, and a rapid population growth leading to even higher cell numbers comparing disturbed microcosms with the control. Overcompensating mortality suggested that population size in the control was limited by competition with other bacteria. Overall, methanotrophs showed a remarkable ability to compensate for die-offs.     

What Can We Learn from the Evolution of Protein-Ligand Interactions to Aid the Design of New Therapeutics?

Efforts to increase affinity in the design of new therapeutic molecules have tended to lead to greater lipophilicity, a factor that is generally agreed to be contributing to the low success rate of new drug candidates. Our aim is to provide a structural perspective to the study of lipophilic efficiency and to compare molecular interactions created over evolutionary time with those designed by humans. We show that natural complexes typically engage in more polar contacts than synthetic molecules bound to proteins. The synthetic molecules also have a higher proportion of unmatched heteroatoms at the interface than the natural sets. These observations suggest that there are lessons to be learnt from Nature, which could help us to improve the characteristics of man-made molecules. In particular, it is possible to increase the density of polar contacts without increasing lipophilicity and this is best achieved early in discovery while molecules remain relatively small.