Curiosity, Recruitment, and Chaos: A Tribute to Bill Ricker’s Inquiring Mind

Synopsis Through three versions of a handbook on computations for biological statistics of fish populations, W.E. “Bill” Ricker played a pivotal role in founding the field of quantitative fishery science. His interests, however, extended far beyond the confines of quantifiable events to a deep appreciation for the natural world. In this article, I trace his development of fishery models from the 1940s to the 1970s, using examples that illustrate his approach to statistics and biological systems analysis. I describe changes in technology and statistics that have made it possible to extend his research in new directions, although his approach still lies at the core of all modern fishery models. His gentle, inquiring spirit persisted long after his retirement in 1973, as I illustrate from personal experiences with him during the 1990s.     

Bill Ricker’s Entomological Contributions

Synopsis Bill Ricker was an internationally recognized expert on the stoneflies (Plecoptera). These insects have aquatic larvae that live mostly in cool and clear running water. They are of ecological significance in the breakdown of leaf-litter and the cycling of detritus in aquatic lotic habitats. Since they can account for a significant portion of the diet of some fishes in cold northern waters, they are linked with Ricker’s other work in fisheries. Within 1 year of taking up the study of stoneflies, Ricker was describing species new to science. He continued such activity through most of his life, describing or co-describing some 108 species and 46 genera. Ricker made other outstanding contributions, publishing in 1952 what is regarded as the most important publication dealing with stonefly systematics in the 20th century. Many names he coined in his studies clearly demonstrated his linguistic flair and humour. He made significant contributions to an understanding of the biogeography of stoneflies, and received many honours and citations for his research.     

Flora was His Interest and Prime Course of Study: A Botanical Career for W.E. Ricker Disappears

Synopsis Bill Ricker’s career went through many twists in his academic years. He had taken botany in his senior matriculation year at high school and he had collected over 100 species of flora before commencement of university life. At the conclusion of his first university year, he set out over the summer to collect a much larger sample of species, primarily from the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence ecoregion, to fulfil a requirement for a second year botany course (spermatophytes). He identified about 390 species, and some 254 were collected and pooled with those from previous years to make a final submission of 354 spermatophyte species. Field plant identification continued in each academic year thereafter, in concert with collections and identifications of aquatic invertebrates in his summer projects while under the employment of the Ontario Fisheries Research Laboratory. At the conclusion of his undergraduate years, Bill had taken more courses in botany than in zoology, and it was the summer employment that had really prepared him for postgraduate work in fisheries biology, which was ecologically oriented. When Bill left Ontario in the autumn of 1931 he had identified over 600 species of plants, excluding lower cryptogams, but including many aquatic species of higher plants. In western North America Bill’s botanical career began at Cultus Lake in 1931. He again studied all aspects of the basin while employed with the federal government, and from the work he assembled a Ph.D. thesis. At the time of thesis completion he had identified over 300 species of flora, including alpine plants at timberline, 1500 – 1800 m above lake level, and planktonic algae in its water column. In 1939, after more field fisheries work in the Fraser River basin of British Columbia, Bill accepted a position with the biological staff at Indiana University. In this period which concluded in 1950 he identified another 50 – 110 species of flora, all in the Carolinian ecoregion, and hitherto not seen by him. Considering all floral classes, Bill’s eastern North American repertoire had by then added up to 791 species, representative of more than 112 families of plants. Returning west for the remainder of his life, new identifications elsewhere added to his Cultus Lake list which slowly added up to about 1000 species for the west coastal region of North America. Flora was also identified elsewhere in the mid-continental region of North America, in Eurasia where the Abisko region of Lappland was a highlight, and in South America and New Zealand. Records of his botanical prowess, were kept primarily in his diaries, which began in 1923 and were maintained consistently to the end of 1934, and thereafter intermittently to 1949. The diaries reveal that his career as a budding botanist was subtly hijacked by a wily Professor W.H.K. Harkness in the rival Biology Department who out-manoeuvred Drs. R.B. Thompson and R.A. Sifton in the Botany Department. The former always managed to employ Bill in summer and keep him occupied in the department’s labs during the autumn and winter and spring, tying up any free time when the botanist had approached him on lab work. Certainly, the botany courses taken and which he excelled at were more appropriate for his aquatic ecological pursuits. Salesmanship won the day for the zoologists, but Bill was a life-long botanist regardless of whatever else he studied or managed throughout his professional career. The last days of his life had a botanical conclusion.     

Pathogenesis and associated diseases of Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus

Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) is the primary etiological agent of Kaposi’s sarcoma, primary effusion lymphoma and muticentric Castleman’s disease. In common with the other herpesviruses, KSHV exhibits both latent and lytic life cycles, both of which are characterized by distinct gene expression profiles and programs. KSHV encodes proteins which play essential roles in the inhibition of host adaptive and innate immunity, the inhibition of apoptosis, and the regulation of the cell cycle. KSHV also encodes several proteins which have transforming and intrcellular signalling activity. Foundation item: DAAD (Germany Academic Exchange Service) scholar.     

The Role of Neurotrophins in Brain Aging: A Perspective in Honor of Regino Perez-Polo

During brain aging and progression of Alzheimer’s disease, the levels of Aβ and proinflammatory cytokines accumulate very early in the pathogenic process prior to any major degenerative changes. Accumulation of these molecules may impair with signal transduction pathways critical for neuronal health. Neurotrophin signaling is a critical mechanism involved in synaptic plasticity, learning and memory and neuronal health. We have recently shown that exposure to low levels of Aβ impairs BDNF trkB signal transduction, suppressing the Ras/ERK, and the PI3-K/Akt pathways but not the PLCγ pathway. As a result, downstream regulation of gene expression and neuronal viability are impaired. Recently, we have found that at least three agents – Aβ, TNFα, Il-1β – suppress TrkB signaling and act via a common and novel mechanism. These factors all regulate the docking proteins (e.g., IRS and Shc) that link the activated Trk receptor to downstream effectors. While this is a novel mechanism underlying regulation of Trk signaling, such a mechanism has been identified for the insulin/IGF-1 receptor in the presence of proinflammatory cytokines and is one of the mechanisms for insulin/IGF-resistance, which is a key risk factor for type II diabetes (1). We suggest that accumulation of AB and proinflammatory cytokines during aging generates in the brain a “neurotrophin resistance” state that places the brain at risk for cognitive decline and dementia.     

Tribute to Tinbergen: Public Engagement in Ethology

Public engagement in research, called citizen science, has led to advances in a range of fields like astronomy, ornithology, and public health. While volunteers have been making and sharing observations according to protocols set by researchers in numerous disciplines, citizen science practices are less common in the field of animal behavior. We consider how citizen science might be used to address animal behavior questions at Tinbergen's four levels of analysis. We briefly review resources and methods for addressing technical issues surrounding volunteer participation—such as data quality—so that citizen science can make long‐standing contributions to the field of animal behavior.     

Guidelines for Community-based Ethics Review of Children’s Science Fair Projects

Low-level community based ethics committees staffed by teachers, parents and community representatives can readily review children’s science fair projects subject to the revision of two core assumptions currently governing children’s Science Fairs. The first part of the paper recasts the New Zealand Royal Society guidelines from its primary emphasis on risk to a new assumption, without benefit there can be no risk. Equally, this revision gives more prominence to the participant information sheet, allowing it to act as a quasi application form which provides ethical transparency between student researchers, participants and a community based ethics committee. A second core assumption, more accurately labeled a cult of originality, produces a random, open-ended array of student topics taking ethics review beyond the confidence level of most community based ethics review committees. This paper reins in Science Fair coordinators recommending they make community level ethics review more manageable by providing a list of preapproved topics for those students wanting to conduct research involving human participants. These revised assumptions create a workable division of labour. Teachers’ preapproved topics involving human participants are more likely to be low risk, permitting community level ethics review to focus primarily on two aspects of the minimization of harm: first, for all participants, especially those with diminished autonomy, and second, for the child researchers themselves, as some participants may be unknown to the student. These revised assumptions make science and ethics more accessible to public education thus demonstrating how Science Fairs can lead students and the community into better understanding the role and function that ethics has in all scientific research human participants. Martin Tolich chaired New Zealand’s National Health Ethics committee, the multi-region ethics committee.     

Body size changes among otters, Lutra lutra, in Norway: the possible effects of food availability and global warming

Using museum data of adult specimens whose sex, age, and locality are known, we studied temporal and geographical body size trends among the otter, Lutra lutra, in Norway. We found that body size of the otters increased during the last quarter of the twentieth century, and suggest that this trend is related to increased food availability from fish farming and possibly also to energy saving due to elevated sea temperatures. Birth year and death year explained 38.8 and 43.5%, respectively, of the variation in body size. Body size of otters was positively related to latitude, thus conforming to Bergmann’s rule.     

Atypical Micromorphology and Uncommon Location of Cryptococcosis: A Histopathologic Study Using Special Histochemical Techniques (One Case Report)

Here we report an unusual case of disseminated cryptococcosis in a patient with AIDS. Although typical Cryptococcus neoformans micromorphology was observed in tongue biopsy, cervical lymph node examination revealed atypical histopathologic findings. These included pseudohyphae, chains of budding yeasts and structures resembling germ tubes. Cryptococcus neoformans infection in supraclavicular lymph nodes was also confirmed by culture. The importance of using special histochemical techniques—Mayer’s mucicarmine stain for mucicarminophilic capsule and Grocott’s silver stain—in the diagnosis of cryptococcosis is reinforced.     

Joseph Hooker: a philosophical botanist

The nineteenth-century British botanist, Joseph Dalton Hooker,was one of the people whose career became a model for that of the modern,professional scientist.However,he preferred to refer to himself as a philosophical botanist, rather than a professional. This paper explores the reasons for this choice,and analyses Hooker's imperial approach to plant classification, the consequences of which are still with us.     

Dopaminergic Agonists: Possible Neurorescue Drugs Endowed with Independent and Synergistic Multisites of Action

Dopaminergic agonists have been usually used as adjunctive therapy for the cure of Parkinson’s disease (PD). It is generally believed that treatment with these drugs is symptomatic rather then curative and does not stop or delay the progression of neuronal degeneration. However, several DA agonists of the DA D2–receptor family (including D2, D3 and D4-subtypes) have recently been shown to possess neuroprotective properties in different in vitro and in vivo experimental PD models. Here we summarize some recent data from our and other groups underlining the wide pharmacological spectrum of DA agonists currently used for treating PD patients. In particular, the mechanism of action of different DA agonists does not appear to be restricted to the stimulation of selective DA receptor subtypes being these drugs endowed with intrinsic, independent, and peculiar antioxidant effects. This activity may represent an additional pharmacological property contributing to their clinical efficacy in PD. Special issue dedicated to Dr. Moussa Youdim.     

Mitochondria and Neurodegeneration

Many lines of evidence suggest that mitochondria have a central role in ageing-related neurodegenerative diseases. However, despite the evidence of morphological, biochemical and molecular abnormalities in mitochondria in various tissues of patients with neurodegenerative disorders, the question “is mitochondrial dysfunction a necessary step in neurodegeneration?” is still unanswered. In this review, we highlight some of the major neurodegenerative disorders (Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and Huntington’s disease) and discuss the role of the mitochondria in the pathogenetic cascade leading to neurodegeneration.     

Testing predictions from flight mechanical theory: a case study of Cory’s shearwater and Audouin’s gull

Predictions from flight mechanical theory concerning optimal flight speeds were tested in the field in two Mediterranean seabirds, the Cory’s shearwater Calonectris diomedea and the Audouin’s gull Larus audouinii. Both species were commuting off the coast of Isola di San Pietro, 6 km south-west of the coast of Sardinia. Heading and airspeed were obtained by vector calculation of flight tracks and measured wind. The Cory’s shearwater used a mixture of gliding and active flight. At low wind speeds the proportion of active flight was large but it decreased with increasing wind speed. The mean airspeed was 12.0 m s^–1, which is not significantly different from minimum power speed (V _mp) in active flight or the speed for best glide (V _bg) used in gliding flight. However, the shearwaters showed a significant response to wind increment/decrement, indicating that they were not flying at V _mp, which should be unaffected by head and tailwind. Furthermore, shearwaters can potentially reduce induced drag by the ground effect while flying close to the sea surface at weak winds, which leads to a reduction in characteristic flight speed. We suspect that the predictions for gliding flight are most valid for shearwaters at moderate to high wind speeds, when they should be maximising distance by using V _bg. Audouin’s gulls used active flight exclusively, with a mean airspeed of 11.3 m s^–1 that was significantly different from the predicted V _mp. Interestingly, though, the gulls did not show any significant wind response, indicating that they were flying close to their true V _mp when foraging along the coast. Received: 17 May 2000 / Received in revised form: 21 November 2000 / Accepted: 8 January 2001     

Non-cholinergic Effects of Huperzine A: Beyond Inhibition of Acetylcholinesterase

The use of acetylcholinesterase inhibitors to decrease the breakdown of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine has been the main symptomatic therapy for mild to moderate Alzheimer’s patients, though the etiology of Alzheimer’s disease remains unclear and seems to involve multiple factors. Further evidence has indicated that some of these acetylcholinesterase inhibitors also have non-cholinergic functions on the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease including the formation and deposition of β-amyloid. Huperzine A, a potent and reversible inhibitor of acetylcholinesterase that was initially isolated from a Chinese herb, has been found to improve cognitive deficits in a broad range of animal models and has been used for Alzheimer’s disease treatment in China. The novel neuroprotective effects of huperzine A might yield beneficial effects in Alzheimer’s disease therapy and provide a potential template for the design of new selective and powerful anti-Alzheimer’s drugs. The present paper gives an overview on the neuroprotective effects of huperzine A beyond its acetylcholinesterase inhibition. These effects include regulating β-amyloid precursor protein metabolism, protecting against β-amyloid-mediated oxidative stress and apoptosis. The structure–function relationship of huperzine A is also discussed.     

Free Copper,Ferroxidase and SOD1 Activities,Lipid Peroxidation and NO<Subscript><Emphasis Type="Italic">x</Emphasis></Subscript> Content in the CSF. A Different Marker Profile in Four Neurodegenerative Diseases

The understanding of oxidative damage in different neurodegenerative diseases could enhance therapeutic strategies. Our objective was to quantify lipoperoxidation and other oxidative products as well as the activity of antioxidant enzymes and cofactors in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples. We recorded data from all new patients with a diagnosis of either one of the four most frequent neurodegenerative diseases: Parkinson’s disease (PD), Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Huntington’s disease (HD) and lateral amyotrophic sclerosis (ALS). The sum of nitrites and nitrates as end products of nitric oxide (NO) were increased in the four degenerative diseases and fluorescent lipoperoxidation products in three (excepting ALS). A decreased Cu/Zn-dependent superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity characterized the four diseases. A significantly decreased ferroxidase activity was found in PD, HD and AD, agreeing with findings of iron deposition in these entities, while free copper was found to be increased in CSF and appeared to be a good biomarker of PD.     

A gene encoding alanine racemase is involved in spore germination in <Emphasis Type="Italic">Bacillus thuringiensis</Emphasis>

Alanine racemase is a major component of the exosporium of Bacillus cereus spores. A gene homologous to that of alanine racemase (alrA) was cloned from Bacillus thuringiensis subsp. kurstaki, and RT-PCR showed that alrA was transcribed only in the sporulating cells. Disruption of alrA did not affect the growth and sporulation of B. thuringiensis, but promoted l-alanine-induced spore germination. When the spore germination rate was measured by monitoring DPA release, complementation of the alrA disruptant reduced the rate of l-alanine-induced spore germination below that of even wild-type spores. As previously reported for spores of other Bacillus species, d-alanine was an effective and competitive inhibitor of l-alanine-induced germination of B. thuringiensis spores. d-cycloserine alone stimulated inosine-induced germination of B. thuringiensis spores in addition to increasing l-alanine-induced germination by inhibiting alanine racemase. d-Alanine also increased the rate of inosine-induced germination of wild-type spores. However, d-alanine inhibited inosine-induced germination of the alrA disruptant spores. It is possible that AlrA converted d-alanine to l-alanine, and this in turn, stimulated spore germination in B. thuringiensis. These results suggest that alrA plays a crucial role in moderating the germination rate of B. thuringiensis spores.     

Adsorption and Polymerization of Amino Acids on Mineral Surfaces: A Review

The present paper offers a review of recent (post-1980) work on amino acid adsorption and thermal reactivity on oxide and sulfide minerals. This review is performed in the general frame of evaluating Bernal's hypothesis of prebiotic polymerization in the adsorbed state, but written from a surface scientist's point of view. After a general discussion of the thermodynamics of the problem and exactly what effects surfaces should have to make adsorbed-state polymerization a viable scenario, we examine some practical difficulties in experimental design and their bearing on the conclusions that can be drawn from extant works, including the relevance of the various available characterization techniques. We then present the state of the art concerning the mechanisms of the interactions of amino acids with mineral surfaces, including results from prebiotic chemistry-oriented studies, but also from several different fields of application, and discuss the likely consequences for adsorption selectivities. Finally, we briefly summarize the data concerning thermally activated amide bond formation of adsorbed amino acids without activating agents. The reality of the phenomenon is established beyond any doubt, but our understanding of its mechanism and therefore of its prebiotic potential is very fragmentary. The review concludes with a discussion of future work needed to fill the most conspicuous gaps in our knowledge of amino acids/mineral surfaces systems and their reactivity.