Ommatidienraster und afferente Bewegungsintegration

Zusammenfassung Das ZNS des Grünkäfers (Chlorophanus viridis, Curculionidae) integriert gleichmäßige Folgen von Hell- und Dunkelreizen zu einer gleichsinnigen Bewegung, Wechselfolgen von Hell- und Dunkelreizen aber zu einer gegensinnigen Bewegung.Sein ZNS vermag zwei Helligkeitsreize auch über ein ungereiztes Ommatidium hinweg zu einer Bewegung zu integrieren (II,2), und zwar in allen geometrisch möglichen Richtungen (III, 1b).Die elementare physiologische Struktur für die Bewegungsperzeption besteht bei Chlorophanus aus zwei einzelnen Sehelementen.Die untere Schwelle für die Perzeption langsamer optischer Bewegungen liegt bei oder tiefer als 1,3°/min.Die Seitentendenzen, die sich in den Wahlen am Spangenglobus auswirken, erweisen sich als zuverlässiger Indikator für geometrische Interferenzbewegungen, die durch wandernde Streifenmuster kleiner Streifenbreite am Ommatidienraster entstehen.Nicht nach den Hauptrichtungen orientierte Ommatidienraster erzeugen mit Streifenmustern geringer Konstanten Interferenzbewegungen mit senkrechter Bewegungskomponente.Aus den Reaktionen auf die Helligkeitswechselfolgen ergibt sich, daß das ZNS von Chlorophanus das Gesichtsfeld seiner Fazettenaugen in der Ebene der Bewegungsintegration nicht räumlich repräsentiert. Bewegung wird repräsentiert nicht als räumliche Fortbewegung, sondern als nichtlokalisierter Vektor.     

Failure of duplexes based on polylaurusin [poly(L), “polyformycin B”] to induce interferon

Polylaurusin[poly(L) or “polyformycin B”] forms double-stranded complexes with polycytidylic acid (poly(C)) and with poly(5-bromocytidylic acid) [poly(br⁵C)] with T_m's of 46.5° (0.2 $\text{M}$ NaCl, pH 7) and 72.5° (0.15 M NaCl, pH 7), respectively. Both complexes fail to provide antiviral resistance (against vesicular stomatitis virus in primary rabbit kidney cells) or to induce interferon in “superinduced” primary rabbit kidney cells, even though they fulfill all previously recognized requirements for effective interferon inducers.     

Pathology of Anopheles stephensi after infection with Plasmodium berghei berghei. II. Changes in amino acid contents.

Infection with Plasmodium berghei results in the disease of a relatively high percentage of mosquitoes depending on the experimental conditions. The damage caused by the parasites may be so severe that the host dies. It can also become manifest for instance in a change in the amino acid content of the mosquito homogenate. The amino acid content of mosquitoes fed on a glucose solution, normal mouse blood, or the blood of infected mice was analysed qualitatively and quantitatively over a period of 14 days. The amino acids lysine, phenylalanine, proline, threonine, and tyrosine are always found in higher concentrations in infected mosquitoes. The content of leucine (and/or isoleucine) increased from the 6th day and glutamic acid from the 9th day compared to the controls. Lower concentrations were found for alanine, aspartic acid, glycine, and serine as compared to uninfected mosquitoes. Further investigations on this subject might help to find the causes for the susceptibility or resistance of individual mosquitoes to plasmodia.     

Thermal ecology and baseline energetic requirements of a large‐bodied ectotherm suggest resilience to climate change

1. Most studies on how rising temperatures will impact terrestrial ectotherms have focused on single populations or multiple sympatric species. Addressing the thermal and energetic implications of climatic variation on multiple allopatric populations of a species will help us better understand how a species may be impacted by altered climates.
2. We used eight years of thermal and behavioral data collected from four populations of Pacific rattlesnakes (Crotalus oreganus) living in climatically distinct habitat types (inland and coastal) to determine the field‐active and laboratory‐preferred body temperatures, thermoregulatory metrics, and maintenance energetic requirements of snakes from each population.
3. Physical models showed that thermal quality was best at coastal sites, but inland snakes thermoregulated more accurately despite being in more thermally constrained environments. Projected increases of 1 and 2°C in ambient temperature result in an increase in overall thermal quality at both coastal and inland sites.
4. Population differences in modeled standard metabolic rate estimates were driven by body size and not field‐active body temperature, with inland snakes requiring 1.6× more food annually than coastal snakes.
5. All snakes thermoregulated with high accuracy, suggesting that small increases in ambient temperature are unlikely to impact the maintenance energetic requirements of individual snakes and that some species of large‐bodied reptiles may be robust to modest thermal perturbations under conservative climate change predictions.

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Leaf size of woody dicots predicts ecosystem primary productivity

A key challenge in ecology is to understand the relationships between organismal traits and ecosystem processes. Here, with a novel dataset of leaf length and width for 10 480 woody dicots in China and 2374 in North America, we show that the variation in community mean leaf size is highly correlated with the variation in climate and ecosystem primary productivity, independent of plant life form. These relationships likely reflect how natural selection modifies leaf size across varying climates in conjunction with how climate influences canopy total leaf area. We find that the leaf size?primary productivity functions based on the Chinese dataset can predict productivity in North America and vice‐versa. In addition to advancing understanding of the relationship between a climate‐driven trait and ecosystem functioning, our findings suggest that leaf size can also be a promising tool in palaeoecology for scaling from fossil leaves to palaeo‐primary productivity of woody ecosystems.     

NLRP3 inflammasome suppression improves longevity and prevents cardiac aging in male mice

While NLRP3‐inflammasome has been implicated in cardiovascular diseases, its role in physiological cardiac aging is largely unknown. During aging, many alterations occur in the organism, which are associated with progressive impairment of metabolic pathways related to insulin resistance, autophagy dysfunction, and inflammation. Here, we investigated the molecular mechanisms through which NLRP3 inhibition may attenuate cardiac aging. Ablation of NLRP3‐inflammasome protected mice from age‐related increased insulin sensitivity, reduced IGF‐1 and leptin/adiponectin ratio levels, and reduced cardiac damage with protection of the prolongation of the age‐dependent PR interval, which is associated with atrial fibrillation by cardiovascular aging and reduced telomere shortening. Furthermore, old NLRP3 KO mice showed an inhibition of the PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway and autophagy improvement, compared with old wild mice and preserved Nampt‐mediated NAD⁺ levels with increased SIRT1 protein expression. These findings suggest that suppression of NLRP3 prevented many age‐associated changes in the heart, preserved cardiac function of aged mice and increased lifespan.