Effects of Land-Use Change on Carbon Stocks in Switzerland

We assessed how consequences of future land-use change may affect size and spatial shifts of C stocks under three potential trends in policy—(a) business-as-usual: continuation of land-use trends observed during the past 15 years; (b) extensification: full extensification of open-land; and (c) liberalization: full reforestation potential. The build-up times for the three scenarios are estimated at 30, 80 and 100 years, respectively. Potential C-stock change rates are derived from the literature. Whereas the business-as-usual scenario would cause marginal changes of 0.5%, liberalization would provoke a 13% increase in C stocks (+62 MtC). Gains of 24% would be expected for forests (+95 MtC), whereas open-land C stock would decrease 27% (−33 MtC). Extensification would lead to a C stock decrease of 3% (−12 MtC). Whereas forest C is expected to increase 12% (+36.5 MtC) at high elevations, stocks of open-land C would decline 38.5% (−48.5 MtC). Most affected are unfavorable grasslands, which increase in area (+59%) but contribute only 14.5% to the C stocks. C sinks would amount to 0.6 MtC y⁻¹ assuming a build-up time of 100 years for the liberalization scenario. C stocks on the current forest area are increasing by 1 MtC y⁻¹. The maximal total C sink of 1.6 MtC might thus suffice to compensate for agricultural greenhouse gases (2004: 1.4 Mt CO₂–C equivalents), but corresponds only to 11–13% of the anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission in Switzerland. Thus, even the largest of the expected terrestrial C stocks under liberalization will be small in comparison with current emissions of anthropogenic greenhouse gases.     

Dispersal failure contributes to plant losses in NW Europe

The ongoing decline of many plant species in Northwest Europe indicates that traditional conservation measures to improve the habitat quality, although useful, are not enough to halt diversity losses. Using recent databases, we show for the first time that differences between species in adaptations to various dispersal vectors, in combination with changes in the availability of these vectors, contribute significantly to explaining losses in plant diversity in Northwest Europe in the 20th century. Species with water- or fur-assisted dispersal are over-represented among declining species, while others (wind- or bird-assisted dispersal) are under-represented. Our analysis indicates that the 'colonization deficit' due to a degraded dispersal infrastructure is no less important in explaining plant diversity losses than the more commonly accepted effect of eutrophication and associated niche-based processes. Our findings call for measures that aim to restore the dispersal infrastructure across entire regions and that go beyond current conservation practices.     

Morphological and molecular investigations of Tubulinosema ratisbonensis gen. nov., sp. nov. (Microsporidia: Tubulinosematidae fam. nov.), a parasite infecting a laboratory colony of Drosophila melanogaster (Diptera: Drosophilidae)

A new species of microsporidia from Drosophila melanogaster was investigated by light and electron microscopy and by ribosomal RNA (rRNA) sequencing. This microsporidium and the previously described Nosema kingi and Nosema acridophagus have been transferred to the new genus Tubulinosema gen. nov. with the following characters: nuclei are in diplokaryotic arrangement during the life cycle. All stages are in direct contact with the host cell cytoplasm, slightly anisofilar polar tube with the last coils being smaller in diameter arranged in one or two rows on both sides of the diplokaryon and small tubuli on the surface of late meronts. Spores are oval or slightly pyriform. Thick endospore wall, thinner over anchoring disc. This new genus and the genus Brachiola have been placed in a new family Tubulinosematidae fam. nov. Phylogenetic analysis of small subunit rRNA sequences by different methods placed Tubulinosema spp. in one clade with the genus Brachiola forming its sister clade, which is distant from the clade containing the true Nosema spp. including Nosema bombycis.     

Factors influencing the spatial distribution of forest plant species in hedgerows of North-western Germany

In North-western Germany woodland fragmentation has caused a decline in many forest plant species. Hedgerows partly offer a similar environment as forests and have been identified as potential habitats for forest plants in various studies from North America and Western Europe. The objective of this study was to examine whether this applies also to Central Europe and which variables affect the spatial distribution and abundance of forest plant species in hedgerows on a local scale. Three hedgerow networks north of the city of Bremen, Germany, were selected as study areas and divided into totally 515 hedgerow segments. In each segment we recorded all vascular plants and a large number of explanatory variables relating to structure, spatial configuration, environment and management. Averaged across species there was a predominant effect of environmental factors on the occurrence of forest species in the hedgerows, followed by spatial configuration and management. Hedgerow structure was found to be less important. In general, forest species were favored by low nutrient and light availability as well as high connectivity with other hedgerows or forest; they avoided hedgerows with a west-easterly orientation and an adjacent land use in the form of fields or grasslands. Forest species found and not found in hedgerows did not differ in their environmental preferences or life history traits. The number of threatened forest species in the hedgerows, however, was lower than expected with respect to their overall proportion to the total number of forest species in the region.     

Optical super-resolution microscopy in neurobiology

Understanding the highly plastic nature of neurons requires the dynamic visualization of their molecular and cellular organization in a native context. However, due to the limited resolution of standard light microscopy, many of the structural specializations of neurons cannot be resolved. A recent revolution in light microscopy has given rise to several super-resolution light microscopy methods yielding 2-10-fold higher resolution than conventional microscopy. We here describe the principles behind these techniques as well as their application to the analysis of the molecular architecture of the synapse. Furthermore, we discuss the potential for continued development of super-resolution microscopy as necessary for live imaging of neuronal structure and function in the brain.     

Blood-based profiles of DNA methylation predict the underlying distribution of cell types

The potential influence of underlying differences in relative leukocyte distributions in studies involving blood-based profiling of DNA methylation is well recognized and has prompted development of a set of statistical methods for inferring changes in the distribution of white blood cells using DNA methylation signatures. However, the extent to which this methodology can accurately predict cell-type proportions based on blood-derived DNA methylation data in a large-scale epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) has yet to be examined. We used publicly available data deposited in the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database (accession number GSE37008), which consisted of both blood-derived epigenome-wide DNA methylation data assayed using the Illumina Infinium HumanMethylation27 BeadArray and complete blood cell (CBC) counts among a community cohort of 94 non-diseased individuals. Constrained projection (CP) was used to obtain predictions of the proportions of lymphocytes, monocytes and granulocytes for each of the study samples based on their DNA methylation signatures. Our findings demonstrated high consistency between the average CBC-derived and predicted percentage of monocytes and lymphocytes (17.9% and 17.6% for monocytes and 82.1% and 81.4% for lymphocytes), with root mean squared error (rMSE) of 5% and 6%, for monocytes and lymphocytes, respectively. Similarly, there was moderate-high correlation between the CP-predicted and CBC-derived percentages of monocytes and lymphocytes (0.60 and 0.61, respectively), and these results were robust to the number of leukocyte differentially methylated regions (L-DMRs) used for CP prediction. These results serve as further validation of the CP approach and highlight the promise of this technique for EWAS where DNA methylation is profiled using whole-blood genomic DNA.