不同温度及盐碱环境下盐地碱蓬的萌发策略

为了研究黄河三角洲优势种盐地碱蓬在不同胁迫环境条件下的萌发策略,分别在不同温度、盐度、碱度以及海水原溶液条件下,进行了室内萌发实验,并且测量了其幼苗体内的Na+和K+含量.结果表明,盐地碱蓬种子发芽所需要的积温和最低温度分别为24.57℃·d和0.62℃,最适发芽温度为20℃～35℃,在温度5℃～40℃下均表现出较高的发芽率而且5℃～35℃下发芽速度随温度升高而显著增加.盐地碱蓬具有较高的耐盐性,当盐浓度达到500 mmol·L-1时,发芽率均高于50%,并且在100%海水溶液浓度下发芽率也能达到38%,高盐条件下未萌发的种子转移到淡水中,均表现出较高的复萌率.盐地碱蓬幼苗体内Na+含量随盐度(NaCl溶液浓度)升高而显著增加,而K+含量在该盐度下差异不显著;幼苗体内Na+、K+含量在高碱度(200和300 mmol·L-1 NaHCO3)中均显著低于其在低碱度(100mmol·L-1NaHCO3溶液)中的含量,说明碱胁迫对幼苗生长产生了显著性影响;Na+、K+含量均随着海水溶液浓度增加而显著增加.因此,盐地碱蓬种子萌发的广温性、高耐盐性、高盐环境中的种子高存活率以及幼苗的较强的耐盐能力是盐地碱蓬种群在黄河三角洲适应滨海盐碱湿地复杂环境的主要生存策略.     

Cell size and water permeability as determining factors for cell viability after freezing at different cooling rates

This work studied the viabilities of five types of cells (two yeast cells, Saccharomyces cerevisiae CBS 1171 and Candida utilis; two bacterial strains, Escherichia coli and Lactobacillus plantarum; and one human leukemia K562 cell) as a function of cooling rate during freezing. The range of investigated cooling rates extended from 5 to 30,000 degrees C/min. Cell viability was classified into three ranges: (i) high viability for low cooling rates (5 to 180 degrees C/min), which allow cell water outflow to occur completely and do not allow any intracellular crystallization; (ii) low viability for rapid cooling rates (180 to 5,000 degrees C/min), which allow the heat flow to prevail over water outflow (in this case, cell water crystallization would occur as water was flowing out of the cell); (iii) high viability for very high cooling rates (>5,000 degrees C/min), which allow the heat flow to be very rapid and induce intracellular crystallization and/or vitrification before any water outflow from the cell. Finally, an assumption relating cell death to the cell water crystallization as water is flowing out of the cell is made. In addition, this general cell behavior is different for each type of cell and seems to be moderated by the cell size, the water permeability properties, and the presence of a cell wall.     

不同经营管理条件下土壤有机碳及其组分研究进展

土壤有机碳能够反映土壤质量和土壤健康,是当前国内外学者开展研究工作的重点之一.土壤有机碳及其组分的研究已取得了一些成果.本文概述了土壤有机碳分组方面的研究结果,主要讨论了在不同利用类型和不同经营方式条件下,土壤有机碳及其不同组分分解、蓄积、含量、存量、分配比例等的动态变化,并指出了当前土壤有机碳及组分研究面临的一些问题和今后的研究方向.     

Age at puberty, fertility and litter size of ewe lambs reared under different photoregimens

Age at puberty, fertility and litter size of ewe lambs of synthetic sire and dam strains raised under different photoregimens were determined. The lambs were bred during January, May or September at 30 to 32 weeks of age. Irrespective of birth date, the lambs were reared under continuous light from birth to 5 weeks of age. From 5 to 20 weeks of age, they were kept under 16 hours of light dairy (16L:8D; Treatment A), 8 hours of light daily (8L:16D; Treatment B), or a split photoperiod of 8 hours total light daily (7L:9D:1L:7D; Treatment C). Subsequently, all lambs were exposed to 9 hours of light daily until after breeding. Lambs were exposed to rams for two estrous periods after treatment with fluorogestone acetate-impregnated intravaginal sponges and pregnant mares' serum gonadotropin (PMSG) to induce synchronized estrus. Although the age at puberty (174 days) was similar among treatments, the incidence of puberty prior to progestagen sponge treatment was higher ( approximately 50%) for lambs reared under Treatments A and C than under Treatment B. Fertility and litter size of lambs were not influenced by the previous photoperiod history or by sexual maturity, i.e., puberal or prepuberal, at the start of the sponge treatment. However, strain, age and weight of lambs at breeding influenced significantly the reproductive outcome.     

Evaluation of habitat management strategies for the reduction of malaria vectors in northern Belize.

Mowing and burning of emergent vegetation were evaluated as potential management strategies for the control of the malaria vector, Anopheles vestitipennis, in northern Belize, Central America. The primary aim was reduction of tall dense macrophytes (dominated by Typha domingensis) as preferred larval habitat for An. vestitipennis. Nine experimental plots were established in a Typha marsh in Orange Walk District, Belize. Three plots were burned, three were treated by subaquatic mowing, and three were unaltered controls. After treatment, Typha height was most dramatically affected by the mow treatment. Plant heights at 21 and 95 days post-treatment reflected an 89% and 48% decrease, respectively, compared to pretreatment conditions. The Typha height in the burn plots was not as severely affected. Heights at 21 days post-treatment were 39% lower than those of pre-treatment vegetation, with a return to near pre-test heights by 95 days post-treatment. Both treatments resulted in a significant reduction in the number of An. vestitipennis larvae collected as compared to control plots. Conversely, the treatments resulted in increased larval densities of several other vector and pest mosquito species. Larval population densities ofAn. albimanus, Ochlerotatus taeniorhynchus, and Culex coronator were significantly higher in burn plots. In mow plots, there were significant increases in An. albimanus and Oc. taeniorhynchus larval populations. Non-target invertebrate species affected by the treatments were adult Tropisternus collaris, larval Corythrella, and adult Parapleapuella.     

Determining water level management strategies for lake protection at the ecosystem level

To prevent lake degradation, water level management has been a major focus of research in the past several decades. There are, however, some shortcomings in the traditional studies, and the protection of entire ecosystems is difficult to achieve in practice. In this paper, the framework of a new method for determining ecosystem-based water level regimes (WLRs) for lake protection is proposed. First, historical WLRs are divided into several sub-stages. Then, ecosystem statuses corresponding to different WLRs are quantified and compared. Finally, parameters of optimal and acceptable WLRs are used to determine water level management goals. The proposed method was applied to Baiyangdian Lake, the largest shallow lake in the North China Plain, to test its effectiveness. Results showed that to protect the ecosystem at the optimal status, 50% of the parameter values should fall within the range of the 25th and 75th percentiles of Stage I; and to protect the ecosystem from reverse succession, 50% of the water level parameter values should fall within the range of the 25th and 75th percentiles of Stage II. This method takes ecosystem status into account, and has high practicability in water resources management.     

Behavioral management at the Phoenix Zoo: new strategies and perspectives

It all started with a seemingly simple decision to re-evaluate and document the Phoenix Zoo's behavioral management protocol. The purpose of this project was to present proactive standards for the care and psychological well-being of our living collection, while meeting or exceeding the guidelines of the Animal Welfare Act (U. S. Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health and Inspection Service, Animal Care, 1999). Preparing the protocol was a catalyst to re-evaluate the zoo's philosophy and application of behavioral management. It suggested a restructuring of collection management and the rethinking of future goals and practices. Gradually, the process became more focused and organized. Behavioral enrichment, training, animal behavior issues, and exhibit architecture were embraced as essential components for providing quality of life. Staff from all levels worked side-by-side on assignments. Our way of thinking and working was changing.     

Rapid shallow breathing index and its predictive accuracy measured under five different ventilatory strategies in the same patient group

The rapid shallow breathing index (RSBI) is commonly used clinically for predicting the outcome of weaning from mechanical ventilation. We compared the RSBI and its predictive accuracies measured under 5 ventilatory strategies before weaning trials. Ninety-eight patients were included and divided into successful (n=71) and failed (n=27) groups based on their weaning outcomes. The RSBI was randomly measured when patients spontaneously breathed 21% O2 with no ventilator support (the control strategy) or were connected to ventilator breathing with 21% or 40% O2 and 0 or 5 cm H2O of continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP). We found that the RSBI values did not exhibit significant differences among the 4 ventilator strategies, but all were higher than that of the control; this remained valid in the non-chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) subgroup, but not in the COPD subgroup. Values of the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of the RSBI for the 5 strategies were 0.51-0.62 with no significant difference between any 2 strategies. The incidences of adverse reactions (respiratory rate > or =35 breaths/min or oxygen saturation < or =89% for > or =1 min) were relatively high for the 21% O2-0 and 5 cm H2O CPAP groups (20 patients each) and low for the 40% O(2)-5 cmH2O CPAP group (2 patients). We concluded that RSBI values increased with the use of a ventilator, but not with additional applications of 40% 02 and/or 5 cm H2O CPAP. Their accuracies for predicting weaning outcome were unaltered by any of these interventions, but the incidence of adverse reactions increased with the use of the ventilator and decreased with additional 40% O2 supplementation.     

Dataset size and composition impact the reliability of performance benchmarks for peptide-MHC binding predictions

Background

It is important to accurately determine the performance of peptide:MHC binding predictions, as this enables users to compare and choose between different prediction methods and provides estimates of the expected error rate. Two common approaches to determine prediction performance are cross-validation, in which all available data are iteratively split into training and testing data, and the use of blind sets generated separately from the data used to construct the predictive method. In the present study, we have compared cross-validated prediction performances generated on our last benchmark dataset from 2009 with prediction performances generated on data subsequently added to the Immune Epitope Database (IEDB) which served as a blind set.

Results

We found that cross-validated performances systematically overestimated performance on the blind set. This was found not to be due to the presence of similar peptides in the cross-validation dataset. Rather, we found that small size and low sequence/affinity diversity of either training or blind datasets were associated with large differences in cross-validated vs. blind prediction performances. We use these findings to derive quantitative rules of how large and diverse datasets need to be to provide generalizable performance estimates.

Conclusion

It has long been known that cross-validated prediction performance estimates often overestimate performance on independently generated blind set data. We here identify and quantify the specific factors contributing to this effect for MHC-I binding predictions. An increasing number of peptides for which MHC binding affinities are measured experimentally have been selected based on binding predictions and thus are less diverse than historic datasets sampling the entire sequence and affinity space, making them more difficult benchmark data sets. This has to be taken into account when comparing performance metrics between different benchmarks, and when deriving error estimates for predictions based on benchmark performance.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/1471-2105-15-241) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

Comparing the refuge strategy for managing the evolution of insect resistance under different reproductive strategies

Genetically modified (GM) crops are used extensively worldwide to control diploid agricultural insect pests that reproduce sexually. However, future GM crops will likely soon target haplodiploid and parthenogenetic insects. As rapid pest adaptation could compromise these novel crops, strategies to manage resistance in haplodiploid and parthenogenetic pests are urgently needed. Here, we developed models to characterize factors that could delay or prevent the evolution of resistance to GM crops in diploid, haplodiploid, and parthenogenetic insect pests. The standard strategy for managing resistance in diploid pests relies on refuges of non-GM host plants and GM crops that produce high toxin concentrations. Although the tenets of the standard refuge strategy apply to all pests, this strategy does not greatly delay the evolution of resistance in haplodiploid or parthenogenetic pests. Two additional factors are needed to effectively delay or prevent the evolution of resistance in such pests, large recessive or smaller non-recessive fitness costs must reduce the fitness of resistance individuals in refuges (and ideally also on GM crops), and resistant individuals must have lower fitness on GM compared to non-GM crops (incomplete resistance). Recent research indicates that the magnitude and dominance of fitness costs could be increased by using specific host–plants, natural enemies, or pathogens. Furthermore, incomplete resistance could be enhanced by engineering desirable traits into novel GM crops. Thus, the sustainability of GM crops that target haplodiploid or parthenogenetic pests will require careful consideration of the effects of reproductive mode, fitness costs, and incomplete resistance.     

Integrated management for sustainable cropping systems: Looking beyond the greenhouse balance at the field scale

Cover crops (CC) promote the accumulation of soil organic carbon (SOC), which provides multiple benefits to agro‐ecosystems. However, additional nitrogen (N) inputs into the soil could offset the CO₂ mitigation potential due to increasing N₂O emissions. Integrated management approaches use organic and synthetic fertilizers to maximize yields while minimizing impacts by crop sequencing adapted to local conditions. The goal of this work was to test whether integrated management, centered on CC adoption, has the potential to maximize SOC stocks without increasing the soil greenhouse gas (GHG) net flux and other agro‐environmental impacts such as nitrate leaching. To this purpose, we ran the DayCent bio‐geochemistry model on 8,554 soil sampling locations across the European Union. We found that soil N₂O emissions could be limited with simple crop sequencing rules, such as switching from leguminous to grass CC when the GHG flux was positive (source). Additional reductions of synthetic fertilizers applications are possible through better accounting for N available in green manures and from mineralization of soil reservoirs while maintaining cash crop yields. Therefore, our results suggest that a CC integrated management approach can maximize the agro‐environmental performance of cropping systems while reducing environmental trade‐offs.     

高原移居者红细胞滤过指数的变化及其机理

目的：探讨不同海拔和同一海拔高底氧环境不同血色素范围对高原健康人红细胞流变特性的影响及其可能发生的机制。方法：检测不同海拔高度（2260m、3300m、4080m）对320健康人EFI、SOD、和MDA的影响。结果：随海拔高度的升高,高原健康人EFI和MDA含量明显升高,而红细胞SOD活性明显降低;EFI与MDA呈正相关,而与红细胞SOD活性呈负相关。同一海拔低氧环境Hb增高者,EFI和MDA升高,而红细胞SOD活性降低;随海拔升高,EFI和MDA含量明显升高,而红细胞SOD活性明显降低。结论：不同海拔红细胞流变学和氧自由基代谢差异性的形成,低氧环境起核心作用;而随海拔高度升高和同一海拔低氧环境自由基代谢异常加重者是导致高原健康人红细胞流变学异常的中心环节。     

The balance between predictions and evidence and the search for universal macroecological patterns: taking Bergmann’s rule back to its endothermic origin

Geographical variation in environmental temperatures is expected to impose clinal phenotypic selection that results in the expression of large-scale gradients of body mass variation within animal clades. Body size is predicted to increase with increasing latitude and elevation, and hence, with decreasing temperature, a pattern broadly known as Bergmann’s rule. However, empirical observations are highly conflicting. Whilst most studies support this prediction in endotherms (birds and mammals), analyses conducted on ectotherms often fail to report this pattern. Does it reduce the validity of this macroecological rule? Since the original formulation of Bergmann’s rule only involved endothermic organisms, I argue that the controversy is not a consequence of its predictive power, but a result of the later inclusion of ectotherms as part of the prediction. Here, I propose that the common conception of Bergmann’s rule maintained for half a century is changed back to its original definition restricted to endotherms. This temperature–size relationship might therefore consolidate as a well-established macroecological rule if its original formulation is respected. Finally, I develop these claims on my initial suggestion that Bergmann’s rule should be recognized as the evolutionary outcome of a general process with no phylogenetic scale distinction of species or populations, being equally applicable amongst and within species.     

Energy requirements for the size reduction of poplar and aspen wood

The energy requirements associated with conventional mechanical size reduction of poplar and aspen wood are compared to a new method of size reduction employing a wood planer. Although the planer requires about 2.3 times less energy to achieve the same size reduction as conventional methods, large-scale equipment to implement this approach does not currently exist. Explosive depressurization was also compared to conventional mechanical size reduction. The conventional mechanical methods require roughly 70% more energy to achieve the same size reduction as explosive depressurization. Thus, explosive depressurization appears to be the preferred method and has the added benefit of altering the chemical structure of the wood to enhance the enzymatic hydrolysis of the cellulose fraction.     

Testing for local adaptation in adult male and female fitness among populations evolved under different mate competition regimes

Mating/fertilization success and fecundity are influenced by sexual interactions among individuals, the nature and frequency of which can vary among different environments. The extent of local adaptation for such adult fitness components is poorly understood. We allowed 63 populations of Drosophila melanogaster to independently evolve in one of three mating environments that alter sexual interactions: one involved enforced monogamy, while the other two permitted polygamy in either structurally simple standard fly vials or in larger “cages” with added complexity. Adult male and female reproductive fitness were measured after 16 and 28 generations, respectively, via full reciprocal transplants. In males, reciprocal local adaptation was observed between the monogamy and simple polygamy treatments, consistent with the evolution of reproductively competitive males under polygamy that perform poorly under monogamy because they harm their only mate. However, males evolved in the complex polygamy treatment performed similarly or better than all other males in all mating environments, consistent with previous results showing higher genetic quality in this treatment. Differences in female fitness were more muted, suggesting selection on females was less divergent across the mating treatments and echoing a common pattern of greater phenotypic and expression divergence in males than females.     

1987年大兴安岭特大火灾后不同管理措施对落叶松林的长期影响

采用空间直观景观模型(LANDIS)模拟了3种不同经营措施(假设1987年未发生特大火灾,完全依靠天然更新(M₁);1987年特大火灾发生后依靠天然更新(M₂)和火灾后采取目前森林经营措施 (M₃))下图强林业局落叶松及其成过熟林300年的动态变化.结果表明:林业局整体水平上,M₁和M₃方案下落叶松林面积占森林总面积的比例明显高于M₂方案.M₃方案下落叶松面积比例开始时低于M₁方案,但由于大规模的人工更新,随后迅速增加,约100年后赶上M₁方案.不同经营措施对落叶松面积百分比影响较大,并对其年龄结构有显著影响.M₁方案下落叶松成过熟林面积比例明显高于M₂方案;而在M3方案下,由于火后10年大规模的森林采伐,落叶松成过熟林的面积比例锐减,随后逐渐增加,但需要近100年才能达到并超过其他2种方案.此外,在火烧区和未火烧区,落叶松及其成过熟林在不同经营措施下的变化趋势存在明显差异.