The impact of arthropods on fungal community structure in Lascaux Cave

Aims:  To determine the major components of the fungal population present in Lascaux Cave, France. The ceiling, walls, sediments and soil were colonized by Fusarium solani in 2001 and later, in 2006, black stains appeared. However, the origin of the successive fungal invasions is unknown as well as the ecology of the cave.
Methods and Results:  The primers nu-SSU-0817F and nu-SSU-1536R were used for the direct amplification of fungal 18S-rDNA sequences from 11 samples. A total of 607 clones were retrieved. Eight out of the ten most abundant phylotypes corresponded to fungi associated with arthropods and represented about 50% of the clones.
Conclusions:  Entomophilous fungi play an important role in the cave and arthropods contribute to the dispersion of spores and fungal development.
Significance and Impact of the Study:  Choosing appropriate targets for control of fungal dispersal is dependent on knowing the causes of fungal colonization. A control of the arthropod populations seems to be a need in order to protect the rock art paintings in Lascaux Cave.     

Molecular Insights into Frataxin-Mediated Iron Supply for Heme Biosynthesis in Bacillus subtilis

Iron is required as an element to sustain life in all eukaryotes and most bacteria. Although several bacterial iron acquisition strategies have been well explored, little is known about the intracellular trafficking pathways of iron and its entry into the systems for co-factor biogenesis. In this study, we investigated the iron-dependent process of heme maturation in Bacillus subtilis and present, for the first time, structural evidence for the physical interaction of a frataxin homologue (Fra), which is suggested to act as a regulatory component as well as an iron chaperone in different cellular pathways, and a ferrochelatase (HemH), which catalyses the final step of heme b biogenesis. Specific interaction between Fra and HemH was observed upon co-purification from crude cell lysates and, further, by using the recombinant proteins for analytical size-exclusion chromatography. Hydrogen–deuterium exchange experiments identified the landscape of the Fra/HemH interaction interface and revealed Fra as a specific ferrous iron donor for the ferrochelatase HemH. The functional utilisation of the in vitro-generated heme b co-factor upon Fra-mediated iron transfer was confirmed by using the B. subtilis nitric oxide synthase bsNos as a metabolic target enzyme. Complementary mutational analyses confirmed that Fra acts as an essential component for maturation and subsequent targeting of the heme b co-factor, hence representing a key player in the iron-dependent physiology of B. subtilis.     

Rufe beringter V?gel nach ihrer Freilassung

Zusammenfassung An 1554 Kleinvögeln aus insgesamt 51 Arten wurde untersucht, ob sie beim Freilassen aus der Hand rufen oder nicht. Sechs Arten riefen, 17 riefen i.allg. nicht. Sechs weitere Arten zeigten keine signifikante Tendenz im Rufverhalten. In Gruppen ziehende Vögel, die meist der Gilde der Granivoren und Omnivoren angehören, riefen signifikant häufiger als eher einzeln ziehende Vögel, die meist Insektenfresser waren (Abb. 1, Tab. 3).

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The calling behaviour of ringed birds after releasing

Summary After being caught with mist nests and ringed 1554 birds (out of 51 species) were examined for their calling behaviour during releasing. Out of 29 species with sufficient data for further analyses only six did not show a significant tendency. The remaining 23 consistantly called or not. Species living in flocks during migration normally are granivorous or omnivorous birds. These species showed a significant higher rate of calling than solitary migrating birds which were mostly insectivorous.

     

Training in High-Throughput Sequencing: Common Guidelines to Enable Material Sharing,Dissemination, and Reusability

The advancement of high-throughput sequencing (HTS) technologies and the rapid development of numerous analysis algorithms and pipelines in this field has resulted in an unprecedentedly high demand for training scientists in HTS data analysis. Embarking on developing new training materials is challenging for many reasons. Trainers often do not have prior experience in preparing or delivering such materials and struggle to keep them up to date. A repository of curated HTS training materials would support trainers in materials preparation, reduce the duplication of effort by increasing the usage of existing materials, and allow for the sharing of teaching experience among the HTS trainers’ community. To achieve this, we have developed a strategy for materials’ curation and dissemination. Standards for describing training materials have been proposed and applied to the curation of existing materials. A Git repository has been set up for sharing annotated materials that can now be reused, modified, or incorporated into new courses. This repository uses Git; hence, it is decentralized and self-managed by the community and can be forked/built-upon by all users. The repository is accessible at http://bioinformatics.upsc.se/htmr.