Analysis of Food Pairing in Regional Cuisines of India

Any national cuisine is a sum total of its variety of regional cuisines, which are the cultural and historical identifiers of their respective regions. India is home to a number of regional cuisines that showcase its culinary diversity. Here, we study recipes from eight different regional cuisines of India spanning various geographies and climates. We investigate the phenomenon of food pairing which examines compatibility of two ingredients in a recipe in terms of their shared flavor compounds. Food pairing was enumerated at the level of cuisine, recipes as well as ingredient pairs by quantifying flavor sharing between pairs of ingredients. Our results indicate that each regional cuisine follows negative food pairing pattern; more the extent of flavor sharing between two ingredients, lesser their co-occurrence in that cuisine. We find that frequency of ingredient usage is central in rendering the characteristic food pairing in each of these cuisines. Spice and dairy emerged as the most significant ingredient classes responsible for the biased pattern of food pairing. Interestingly while individual spices contribute to negative food pairing, dairy products on the other hand tend to deviate food pairing towards positive side. Our data analytical study highlighting statistical properties of the regional cuisines, brings out their culinary fingerprints that could be used to design algorithms for generating novel recipes and recipe recommender systems. It forms a basis for exploring possible causal connection between diet and health as well as prospection of therapeutic molecules from food ingredients. Our study also provides insights as to how big data can change the way we look at food.     

Ltr retrotransposons and the evolution of eukaryotic enhancers

Since LTR retrotransposons and retroviruses are especially prone to regional duplications and recombination events, these viral-like systems may be especially conducive to the evolution of closely spaced combinatorial regulatory motifs. Using the Drosophila copia LTR retrotransposon as a model, we show that a regulatory region contained within the element's untranslated leader region (ULR) consists of multiple copies of an 8 bp motif (TTGTGAAA) with similarity to the core sequence of the SV40 enhancer. Naturally occurring variation in the number of these motifs is correlated with the enhancer strength of the ULR. Our results indicate that inter-element selection may favor the evolution of more active enhancers within permissive genetic backgrounds. We propose that LTR retroelements and perhaps other retrotransposons constitute drive mechanisms for the evolution of eukaryotic enhancers which can be subsequently distributed throughout host genomes to play a role in regulatory evolution. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

云南不同地区和生境代表性热带植物区系的物种组成比较

云南热带植物区系地理成分复杂,生物多样性极其丰富。为了解不同地区和生境热带植物区系的物种组成差异,本文选取云南南部和东南部3个有代表性的热带植物区系——西双版纳龙脑香林植物区系(DFX)、西双版纳石灰岩山植物区系(LFX)和文山古林箐石灰岩山植物区系(LFG)为研究对象,比较不同植物区系的科属数量结构、科内多样性、科属分布区类型及植物区系相似性。研究结果显示:(1)3个热带植物区系均具有较高的物种多样性,但种类组成、科属数量结构及科内多样性差异较大;(2)热带分布的科、属在3个热带植物区系中均占绝对优势;(3)3个热带植物区系的共有物种极少,而专有物种(即在3个植物区系之间相对专有)相对较多,植物区系之间的种级相似性极低。云南不同地区和生境热带植物区系强烈的热带亲缘、物种组成的多样性和复杂性以及较低的植物区系相似性,揭示了地理和生境差异会影响各地热带植物区系的演化与发展。     

Climate change–contaminant interactions in marine food webs: Toward a conceptual framework

Climate change is reshaping the way in which contaminants move through the global environment, in large part by changing the chemistry of the oceans and affecting the physiology, health, and feeding ecology of marine biota. Climate change‐associated impacts on structure and function of marine food webs, with consequent changes in contaminant transport, fate, and effects, are likely to have significant repercussions to those human populations that rely on fisheries resources for food, recreation, or culture. Published studies on climate change–contaminant interactions with a focus on food web bioaccumulation were systematically reviewed to explore how climate change and ocean acidification may impact contaminant levels in marine food webs. We propose here a conceptual framework to illustrate the impacts of climate change on contaminant accumulation in marine food webs, as well as the downstream consequences for ecosystem goods and services. The potential impacts on social and economic security for coastal communities that depend on fisheries for food are discussed. Climate change–contaminant interactions may alter the bioaccumulation of two priority contaminant classes: the fat‐soluble persistent organic pollutants (POPs), such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), as well as the protein‐binding methylmercury (MeHg). These interactions include phenomena deemed to be either climate change dominant (i.e., climate change leads to an increase in contaminant exposure) or contaminant dominant (i.e., contamination leads to an increase in climate change susceptibility). We illustrate the pathways of climate change–contaminant interactions using case studies in the Northeastern Pacific Ocean. The important role of ecological and food web modeling to inform decision‐making in managing ecological and human health risks of chemical pollutants contamination under climate change is also highlighted. Finally, we identify the need to develop integrated policies that manage the ecological and socioeconomic risk of greenhouse gases and marine pollutants.     

Barossa Dreaming: Imagining Place and Constituting Cuisine in Contemporary Australia

Regional cuisines have become a prominent feature in the consumer landscape of modernised societies. This article describes how a regional cuisine is being socially constituted in the Barossa Valley, one of the most important wine-growing areas in Australia. Initially, I detail how small farmers, winegrowers and other entrepreneurs idealise the Barossa landscape and fabricate the heritage that is integral to the idea of a distinctive cuisine. This is followed by examination of how the notion of Barossa food as having distinctive qualities because of the artisanal ways it is produced is constantly being elaborated by the valley's small-scale enterprises. Lastly, I explore the contribution of wider influences to this cultural process, from the role played by an internationally recognised celebrity chef through to the recent arrival of the Slow Food movement. Local factors and global influences contribute to the social manufacture of the Barossa's regional cuisine, the overall appeal of which to middle class consumers is as much cultural as it is culinary.     

Climate change and the optimal arrival of migratory birds

Recent climate change has sparked an interest in the timing of biological events, which is a general problem in life-history evolution. Reproduction in many organisms breeding in seasonal environments, e.g. migratory birds, is dependent on the exploitation of a short but rich food supply. If the seasonal timing of the food peak advances owing to climate change, then one would expect the bird to track those changes, hence, initiate migration and breeding earlier. However, when there is competition for territories and a risk of pre-breeding mortality, the optimal response to a shifting food distribution is no longer obvious. We develop a theoretical model to study how the optimal arrival time depends on the mean and variance of the food distribution, the degree of competition for territories and the risk of mortality. In general, the optimal shift in arrival date should never be as extreme as the shift in food peak date. Our results also show that we should expect the high variation of trends in arrival date observed among migratory birds, even if migration and information about climate change were unconstrained.     

Soil fertility shapes belowground food webs across a regional climate gradient

Changes in soil fertility during pedogenesis affect the quantity and quality of resources entering the belowground subsystem. Climate governs pedogenesis, yet how climate modulates responses of soil food webs to soil ageing remains unexplored because of the paucity of appropriate model systems. We characterised soil food webs along each of four retrogressive soil chronosequences situated across a strong regional climate gradient to show that belowground communities are predominantly shaped by changes in fertility rather than climate. Basal consumers showed hump‐shaped responses to soil ageing, which were propagated to higher‐order consumers. There was a shift in dominance from bacterial to fungal energy channels with increasing soil age, while the root energy channel was most important in intermediate‐aged soils. Our study highlights the overarching importance of soil fertility in regulating soil food webs, and indicates that belowground food webs will respond more strongly to shifts in soil resources than climate change.     

Simple models combining competition,defence and resource availability have broad implications in pelagic microbial food webs

In food webs, interactions between competition and defence control the partitioning of limiting resources. As a result, simple models of these interactions contain links between biogeochemistry, diversity, food web structure and ecosystem function. Working at hierarchical levels, these mechanisms also produce self‐similarity and therefore suggest how complexity can be generated from repeated application of simple underlying principles. Reviewing theoretical and experimental literature relevant to the marine photic zone, we argue that there is a wide spectrum of phenomena, including single cell activity of prokaryotes, microbial biodiversity at different levels of resolution, ecosystem functioning, regional biogeochemical features and evolution at different timescales; that all can be understood as variations over a common principle, summarised in what has been termed the ‘Killing‐the‐Winner’ (KtW) motif. Considering food webs as assemblages of such motifs may thus allow for a more integrated approach to aquatic microbial ecology.     

生物多样性的熵值结构

多样性一般定义为生物进化过程中物种表现型的丰富程度。从广义上讲,生物进化与环境归类作用的结构复杂性对生物为多样性的解释是很有益处的。我们认为区域水平与样地水平上的气候归类型与植被归类型是最基本的划分因子,本文以中国东北部黑龙江省的山地植被为例,采用多等级熵值分配的方法来证明所使用的方法。我们得出气候归类型与植被归类型所占有的熵值成分要弱于物种表现型丰富度所占有的熵值成份。值得注意的是其相对的熵值贡献率对每一个因子的最大熵值的变化规律。分析结果表明气候归类型占有较低的熵值而植被归类型占有较高的熵值。因此仅仅以在区域气候型为主要指标所划分的物种生态位是不够的,而以小区域内的植被型为指标所产生的物种生态位具有较高利用价值。     

Homogenization of freshwater lakes: Recent compositional shifts in fish communities are explained by gamefish movement and not climate change

Globally, lake fish communities are being subjected to a range of scale‐dependent anthropogenic pressures, from climate change to eutrophication, and from overexploitation to species introductions. As a consequence, the composition of these communities is being reshuffled, in most cases leading to a surge in taxonomic similarity at the regional scale termed homogenization. The drivers of homogenization remain unclear, which may be a reflection of interactions between various environmental changes. In this study, we investigate two potential drivers of the recent changes in the composition of freshwater fish communities: recreational fishing and climate change. Our results, derived from 524 lakes of Ontario, Canada sampled in two periods (1965–1982 and 2008–2012), demonstrate that the main contributors to homogenization are the dispersal of gamefish species, most of which are large predators. Alternative explanations relating to lake habitat (e.g., area, phosphorus) or variations in climate have limited explanatory power. Our analysis suggests that human‐assisted migration is the primary driver of the observed compositional shifts, homogenizing freshwater fish community among Ontario lakes and generating food webs dominated by gamefish species.     

Scale dependence of temperature as an abiotic driver of species' distributions

Aim Scale dependence of patterns and processes remains one of the major unresolved problems in ecology. The responses of ecosystems to environmental stressors are reported to be strongly scale dependent, but projections of the effects of climate change on species' distributions are still restricted to particular scales and knowledge about scale dependence is lacking. Here we propose that the scale dependence of those species' niche dimensions related to climate change is strongly related to the strength of climatic cross‐scale links. More specifically, we hypothesize that the strong cross‐scale links between micro‐ and macroclimatic conditions are related to high cross‐scale similarity (low scale dependence) of species' realized temperature niches and, thus, species' spatial distributions. Location This study covers seven orders of magnitude of spatial scale, ranging from local‐scale (below a metre) and regional‐scale (kilometre) investigations in central European wetland ecosystems to continental‐scale (thousands of kilometres) studies of species' distributions. Methods We combined data on the spatial occurrence of species (vegetation records at local and regional scales, digitized distribution maps at the continental scale) with information about the corresponding temperature regime of vascular plant species occurring in environmentally stable wetland ecosystems characterized by strong cross‐scale links between micro‐ and macroclimatic conditions. Results We observed high cross‐scale similarity of the characteristics of species temperature niches across seven orders of magnitude of spatial scale. However, the importance of temperature as an abiotic driver decreased nonlinearly with decreasing scale, suggesting greater importance of additional (biotic) drivers of species' occurrence at small spatial scales. Main conclusions We report high cross‐scale similarity of realized temperature niches for species inhabiting ecosystems where small‐scale environmental noise is low and cross‐scale links between micro‐ and macroclimatic conditions are strong. By highlighting a strong relationship between abiotic and biotic cross‐scale similarity, our results will help to improve niche‐based species distribution modelling, one of the major assessment tools for determining the ecological effects of climate change.     

Gray wolves as climate change buffers in Yellowstone

Understanding the mechanisms by which climate and predation patterns by top predators co-vary to affect community structure accrues added importance as humans exert growing influence over both climate and regional predator assemblages. In Yellowstone National Park, winter conditions and reintroduced gray wolves (Canis lupus) together determine the availability of winter carrion on which numerous scavenger species depend for survival and reproduction. As climate changes in Yellowstone, therefore, scavenger species may experience a dramatic reshuffling of food resources. As such, we analyzed 55 y of weather data from Yellowstone in order to determine trends in winter conditions. We found that winters are getting shorter, as measured by the number of days with snow on the ground, due to decreased snowfall and increased number of days with temperatures above freezing. To investigate synergistic effects of human and climatic alterations of species interactions, we used an empirically derived model to show that in the absence of wolves, early snow thaw leads to a substantial reduction in late-winter carrion, causing potential food bottlenecks for scavengers. In addition, by narrowing the window of time over which carrion is available and thereby creating a resource pulse, climate change likely favors scavengers that can quickly track food sources over great distances. Wolves, however, largely mitigate late-winter reduction in carrion due to earlier snow thaws. By buffering the effects of climate change on carrion availability, wolves allow scavengers to adapt to a changing environment over a longer time scale more commensurate with natural processes. This study illustrates the importance of restoring and maintaining intact food chains in the face of large-scale environmental perturbations such as climate change.     

Forecasting fine‐scale changes in the food‐web structure of coastal marine communities under climate change

Climate change is inducing deep modifications in local communities worldwide as a consequence of individualistic species range shifts. Understanding how complex interaction networks will be reorganized under climate change represents a major challenge in the fields of ecology and biogeography. However, forecasting the potential effects of climate change on local communities, and more particularly on food‐web structure, requires the consideration of highly structuring processes, such as trophic interactions. A major breakthrough is therefore expected by combining predictive models integrating habitat selection processes, the physiological limits of marine species and their trophic interactions. In this study, we forecasted the potential impacts of climate change on the local food‐web structure of the highly threatened Gulf of Gabes ecosystem located in the south of the Mediterranean Sea. We coupled the climatic envelope and habitat models to an allometric niche food web model, hence taking into account the different processes acting at regional (climate) and local scales (habitat selection and trophic interactions). Our projections under the A2 climate change scenario showed that future food webs would be composed of smaller species with fewer links, resulting in a decrease of connectance, generality, vulnerability and mean trophic level of communities and an increase of the average path length, which may have large consequences on ecosystem functioning. The unified framework presented here, by connecting food‐web ecology, biogeography and seascape ecology, allows the exploration of spatial aspects of interspecific interactions under climate change and improves our current understanding of climate change impacts on local marine food webs.     

Decades of dietary data demonstrate regional food web structures in the Southern Ocean

Understanding regional‐scale food web structure in the Southern Ocean is critical to informing fisheries management and assessments of climate change impacts on Southern Ocean ecosystems and ecosystem services. Historically, a large component of Southern Ocean ecosystem research has focused on Antarctic krill, which provide a short, highly efficient food chain, linking primary producers to higher trophic levels. Over the last 15 years, the presence of alternative energy pathways has been identified and hypotheses on their relative importance in different regions raised. Using the largest circumpolar dietary database ever compiled, we tested these hypotheses using an empirical circumpolar comparison of food webs across the four major regions/sectors of the Southern Ocean (defined as south of 40°S) within the austral summer period. We used network analyses and generalizations of taxonomic food web structure to confirm that while Antarctic krill are dominant as the mid‐trophic level for the Atlantic and East Pacific food webs (including the Scotia Arc and Western Antarctic Peninsula), mesopelagic fish and other krill species are dominant contributors to predator diets in the Indian and West Pacific regions (East Antarctica and the Ross Sea). We also highlight how tracking data and habitat modeling for mobile top predators in the Southern Ocean show that these species integrate food webs over large regional scales. Our study provides a quantitative assessment, based on field observations, of the degree of regional differentiation in Southern Ocean food webs and the relative importance of alternative energy pathways between regions.     

Proteomics in Argentina ‐ limitations and future perspectives: A special emphasis on meat proteomics

Argentina is one of the most relevant countries in Latin America, playing a major role in regional economics, culture and science. Over the last 80 years, Argentinean history has been characterized by several upward and downward phases that had major consequences on the development of science in the country and most recently on proteomics. In this article, we characterize the evolution of Proteomics sciences in Argentina over the last decade and a half. We describe the proteomics publication output of the country in the framework of the regional and international contexts, demonstrating that Argentina is solidly anchored in a regional context, showing results similar to other emergent and Latin American countries, albeit still far from the European, American or Australian realities. We also provide a case‐study on the importance of Proteomics to a specific sector in the area of food science: the use of bacteria of technological interest, highlighting major achievements obtained by Argentinean proteomics scientists. Finally, we provide a general picture of the endeavors being undertaken by Argentinean Proteomics scientists and their international collaborators to promote the Proteomics‐based research with the new generation of scientists and PhD students in both Argentina and other countries in the Southern cone.     

Local and regional ecological morphology of dung beetle assemblages across four biogeographic regions

Aim Niche partitioning within species assemblages is thought to influence species packing and/or total niche space occupied. The evolution of dung beetles (Scarabaeinae) is likely to have been strongly influenced by inter‐specific competition, leading to niche partitioning. We consider whether local‐scale processes leave a signature in regional patterns of functional diversity in dung beetle assemblages, and investigate the correlation between total exploited ecomorphological space and density of species packing with increased species richness. We test whether ecomorphological space occupied by local assemblages reflects that of their regional species pool, and the extent to which ecomorphological space is convergent or divergent within functional groups across regional pools. Location Neotropics, Africa, Australia and Madagascar. Methods Dung beetle assemblages were collected in a standardized manner from four biogeographic regions. Ecomorphological similarity among the assemblages was assessed by multivariate analysis of 19 linear measurements for 300 species and three functional nesting types (roller, tunneller or dweller), firstly on a local level within the Neotropics and Afrotropics, and then between the regional species pools. Results Key body measurements, in particular the hind tibia, separated rollers and tunnellers into largely non‐overlapping entities along the first three axes of the shape analysis. Three Neotropical assemblages, which vary widely in species numbers, each harboured a similar amount of morphometric variation, resulting in increasingly dense species packing with greater species richness. Similar findings were obtained in two South African assemblages. Assemblages in the four biogeographic regions showed largely similar distributions of ecomorphological variation, including the separation of rollers and tunnellers, despite their distant phylogenetic relationships. Ecomorphological similarity among regions was particularly high in tunnellers, whilst the rollers exhibited greater regional differentiation. Main conclusions Local assemblages evidently represent the full diversity of functional groups available in the regional pool, even in species‐poor assemblages. There is a strong trend towards convergence in morphology separating tunnellers and rollers in phylogenetically independent lineages. The ecomorphological similarity of regional assemblages suggests that morphological convergence is the result of common selective forces active within the assemblages themselves. This lends support to the widely hypothesized effect of inter‐specific interactions and niche partitioning in determining assemblage composition and lineage evolution in the Scarabaeinae.     

Climatic constraints on wintering bird distributions are modified by urbanization and weather

1.?Ecologists have long been interested in the role of climate in shaping species' ranges, and in recent years, this relationship has taken on greater significance because of the need for accurate predictions of the effects of climate change on wildlife populations. Bioclimatic relationships, however, are potentially complicated by various environmental factors operating at multiple spatial and temporal scales. Here, we test the hypothesis that climatic constraints on bird distributions are modified by species-specific responses to weather, urbanization and use of supplemental food. 2.?Our analyses focused on 18 bird species with data from over 3000 sites across the north-eastern United States and adjacent Canadian provinces. We use hierarchal occupancy modelling to quantify the effects of short-term weather variation and surrounding urbanization on food stress and probabilities of detection, and how these fine-scale changes modify the role that climate has on the distributions of wintering bird populations at regional scales. 3.?Examining site occupancy and supplemental food use across the study region, we found that average minimum temperature was an important factor limiting bird distributions, supporting the hypothesis that the occupancy of wintering birds is limited by climatic constraints. We found that 15 of 18 species (83%) were more energetically stressed (had a higher likelihood of visiting a feeder station) as minimum temperature declined from the seasonal average. Because we found these patterns in populations that regularly visit supplemental food sites and were likely not food-limited, we suggest that resource availability is less important than climate in constraining wintering bird distributions. Across a winter season, local within-winter extinction probabilities were lower and colonization probabilities higher at warmer sites supporting the role of climate-mediated range shifts. Importantly, however, these relationships were modified by the degree of urbanization and species' abilities to persist in human-modified landscapes. 4.?Our results suggest that urbanization and behavioural adaptation can modify the role of climate on bird ranges and should be included in future analyses of range shifts because of climate change.     

Basal metabolic rate and risk‐taking behaviour in birds

Basal metabolic rate (BMR) constitutes the minimal metabolic rate in the zone of thermo‐neutrality, where heat production is not elevated for temperature regulation. BMR thus constitutes the minimum metabolic rate that is required for maintenance. Interspecific variation in BMR in birds is correlated with food habits, climate, habitat, flight activity, torpor, altitude, and migration, although the selective forces involved in the evolution of these presumed adaptations are not always obvious. I suggest that BMR constitutes the minimum level required for maintenance, and that variation in this minimum level reflects the fitness costs and benefits in terms of ability to respond to selective agents like predators, implying that an elevated level of BMR is a cost of wariness towards predators. This hypothesis predicts a positive relationship between BMR and measures of risk taking such as flight initiation distance (FID) of individuals approached by a potential predator. Consistent with this suggestion, I show in a comparative analysis of 76 bird species that species with higher BMR for their body mass have longer FID when approached by a potential predator. This effect was independent of potentially confounding variables and similarity among species due to common phylogenetic descent. These results imply that BMR is positively related to risk‐taking behaviour, and that predation constitutes a neglected factor in the evolution of BMR.     

Socio-economic and climate change impacts on agriculture: an integrated assessment, 1990-2080

A comprehensive assessment of the impacts of climate change on agro-ecosystems over this century is developed, up to 2080 and at a global level, albeit with significant regional detail. To this end an integrated ecological-economic modelling framework is employed, encompassing climate scenarios, agro-ecological zoning information, socio-economic drivers, as well as world food trade dynamics. Specifically, global simulations are performed using the FAO/IIASA agro-ecological zone model, in conjunction with IIASAs global food system model, using climate variables from five different general circulation models, under four different socio-economic scenarios from the intergovernmental panel on climate change. First, impacts of different scenarios of climate change on bio-physical soil and crop growth determinants of yield are evaluated on a 5' X 5' latitude/longitude global grid; second, the extent of potential agricultural land and related potential crop production is computed. The detailed bio-physical results are then fed into an economic analysis, to assess how climate impacts may interact with alternative development pathways, and key trends expected over this century for food demand and production, and trade, as well as key composite indices such as risk of hunger and malnutrition, are computed. This modelling approach connects the relevant bio-physical and socio-economic variables within a unified and coherent framework to produce a global assessment of food production and security under climate change. The results from the study suggest that critical impact asymmetries due to both climate and socio-economic structures may deepen current production and consumption gaps between developed and developing world; it is suggested that adaptation of agricultural techniques will be central to limit potential damages under climate change.     

Modeling climate change impacts on overwintering bald eagles

Bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) are recovering from severe population declines, and are exerting pressure on food resources in some areas. Thousands of bald eagles overwinter near Puget Sound, primarily to feed on chum salmon (Oncorhynchus keta) carcasses. We used modeling techniques to examine how anticipated climate changes will affect energetic demands of overwintering bald eagles. We applied a regional downscaling method to two global climate change models to obtain hourly temperature, precipitation, wind, and longwave radiation estimates at the mouths of three Puget Sound tributaries (the Skagit, Hamma Hamma, and Nisqually rivers) in two decades, the 1970s and the 2050s. Climate data were used to drive bald eagle bioenergetics models from December to February for each river, year, and decade. Bald eagle bioenergetics were insensitive to climate change: despite warmer winters in the 2050s, particularly near the Nisqually River, bald eagle food requirements declined only slightly (<1%). However, the warming climate caused salmon carcasses to decompose more rapidly, resulting in 11% to 14% less annual carcass biomass available to eagles in the 2050s. That estimate is likely conservative, as it does not account for decreased availability of carcasses due to anticipated increases in winter stream flow. Future climate-driven declines in winter food availability, coupled with a growing bald eagle population, may force eagles to seek alternate prey in the Puget Sound area or in more remote ecosystems.