The attitudes of riparian communities to the presence of water hyacinth in the Wouri River Basin,Douala, Cameroon

Since publication of the first record of Eichhornia crassipes in Cameroon in 1997, the weed has become highly invasive in the Wouri River Basin. Between June and September 2014, a socio-economic survey using participatory and qualitative methods was undertaken in the riparian villages of the Wouri River Basin to assess the perception of respondents to the presence of water hyacinth. The survey revealed that water hyacinth was a significant threat to activities along the river, which included fishing, sand extraction and river transportation. The presence of water hyacinth mats reduced catch rates of several common fish species, river transportation by 75%, and significantly reduced the income for sand extraction. Cameroon employs manual clearing of water hyacinth; however, respondents indicated they would consider other control methods, provided they do not have any negative impacts.     

Methylated bases in the host-modified deoxyribonucleic acid of Escherichia coli and bacteriophage lambda

Gough, Michael (Brown University, Providence, R.I.), and Seymour Lederberg. Methylated bases in the host-modified deoxyribonucleic acid of Escherichia coli and bacteriophage lambda. J. Bacteriol. 91:1460-1468. 1966.-The deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) from strains of Escherichia coli and phage lambda was examined to determine whether the types or amounts of methionine-derived methylated bases present correlated with the host-specific modification of that DNA. The DNA of strain C600 (which has K-12 modification specificity) and of a modificationless mutant of C600 are similar in their content of 5-methylcytosine and 6-methylaminopurine. Strains Bc251 and its P1-lysogen differ in P1-controlled specificity, but they have the same content of 6-methylaminopurine, and both lack 5-methylcytosine in their DNA. Phage lambda contains the same methylated bases as its host of origin, but in reduced amounts and in different proportions. Although minor amounts of these methylated bases may have importance as a result of their location, the presence of the majority of these methylated bases is irrelevant to the specificity of host modification of DNA.     

Shrub shading moderates the effects of weather on arthropod activity in arctic tundra

1. Rapid warming has facilitated an increase in deciduous shrub cover in arctic tundra. Because shrubs create a cooler microclimate during the growing season, shrub cover could modulate the effects of global warming on the phenology and activity of ectotherms, including arthropods. This possibility was explored here using two dominant arthropod groups (flies and wolf spiders) in Alaskan tundra. 2. We monitored arthropods with pitfall traps over five summers at four sites that differed in shrub abundance, and used generalised additive mixed models (GAMMs) to separate the two underlying components of pitfall trap catch: the seasonal trend in arthropod density and the effects of short‐term weather variation (air temperature, wind speed, rainfall, solar radiation) on arthropod activity. 3. We found that shrub cover significantly altered the seasonal trend in the abundance of flies by reducing early‐season pitfall catch, in line with observed later snowmelt in shrub‐dominated plots at these sites. 4. Additionally, shrub cover modulated the effects of many weather variables on arthropod activity: shrub cover shifted wolf spiders' temperature–activity relationship, dampened the positive effect of solar radiation on the activity of arthropods in total, and ameliorated the negative effect of wind on the activity of flies. 5. Thus, these results indicate that shrub encroachment will probably be accompanied by altered arthropod responses to warming and other key weather variables. Because the rate of key ecological processes – herbivory, decomposition, predation – are controlled by activity at the organismal level, these effects on arthropods will have long‐term ecosystem‐level consequences.     

Leukemia inhibitory factor: a biological perspective

The notion that a single hormone may exert a broad range of effects has become well established. As such, leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF) is a prime example. LIF was initially described, purified, and genetically cloned on the basis of its ability to induce the differentiation and suppress the clonogenicity of the monocytic leukemia cell line, M1. Subsequently, it has become apparent that in vitro LIF inhibits the differentiation of pluripotential ES cells, stimulates the synthesis of hepatic acute-phase proteins, induces a switch in neurotransmitter phenotype from adrenergic to cholinergic, suppresses adipocyte lipoprotein lipase activity, and results in an increase in bone resorption. Moreover, elevation of LIF levels in vivo has a number of patho-physiological consequences, many of which parallel those effects observed in vitro. The challenge that lies ahead is to determine whether other sites of LIF action exist and to define more clearly the physiological role LIF plays in vivo. A major mechanism of cell-cell communication is by the production and secretion of polypeptide hormones by one cell type, which act either systemically or locally, via interaction with specific receptors on the surface of responsive cells. Recently, it has become apparent that hormones initially described and named, on the basis of a specific action, in many cases exert a spectrum of effects on a broad range of cell types. Moreover, the effects exerted are often mimicked closely by other hormones. Hormones that act in a pleiotropic manner are, for example, transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta), the various fibroblast growth factors (FGFs), interleukin-6 (IL-6), and leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF). This review will focus on the various biological effects ascribed to LIF.     

Environmental conditions modify density-dependent salmonid recruitment: Insights into the 2016 recruitment crash in Wales

1. Understanding the effects of density-dependent and density-independent factors on recruitment is often inhibited by difficulties quantifying their relative contributions in highly variable recruitment data. Use of data-driven statistical methods with data that include one or more extreme recruitment events could help overcome these difficulties.
2. Juvenile Atlantic salmon and trout abundances in Wales have declined over the last 2 decades, and 2016 was a notably poor recruitment year in rivers around southern Europe, including England and Wales. The 2016 recruitment crash coincided with extreme winter weather conditions, leading to speculation that unusually warm temperatures and high flows adversely affect salmonid recruitment and caused the 2016 crash, although this remains untested.
3. We developed data-driven statistical models to: (1) describe juvenile salmonid recruitment from density-dependent and density-independent factors; and (2) assess whether the density-independent factors probably contributed to the 2016 salmon recruitment crash. We compiled salmon and trout young-of-year juvenile abundances from electrofishing surveys, egg deposition estimates and river flow and air temperature data from 2001–2017 for seven Welsh rivers, broadly representative of rivers around Wales. We used river flow and air temperature data to derive ecologically and behaviourally meaningful density-independent explanatory variables.
4. Salmonid recruitment in Wales was best described using density-dependent and density-independent factors, especially for salmon: after accounting for a concave relationship with egg deposition, salmon juvenile abundance was reduced under (1) warmer spawning temperatures that might inhibit spawning, and (2) higher flood frequencies during pre-emergence and emergence that might washout eggs or alevins. Results were less clear for trout, perhaps because they are behaviourally more plastic.
5. Our findings provide empirical support for general and predictable effects of temperature and flow during spawning and emergence on salmonid—especially salmon—recruitment in Wales. Furthermore, we suggest that the 2016 salmon recruitment crash was caused—in part—by particularly inclement spawning and emergence conditions, which could be more common under future climate change. Our findings suggest that future salmonid stock assessment models could include the effects of density-independent variables on recruitment to improve their predictive power.

     

Localization of the gene for human simple epithelial keratin 18 to chromosome 12 using polymerase chain reaction.

Many human genes encoding keratin intermediate filament proteins are clustered on chromosomes 17 (the type I genes) and 12 (the type II genes). Some have not yet been localized, notably the genes for the primary embryonic keratins 8 and 18, normally expressed in simple epithelia: this is because the numerous pseudogenes for these keratins have made it difficult to identify the true functional gene in each case. Through the use of human-specific primers from within introns of the published gene sequence for human type I keratin 18, human genomic DNA has been specifically amplified using the polymerase chain reaction. A single reaction product was obtained. DNA from a characterized series of mouse-human somatic cell hybrid lines was tested for the presence of sequences able to initiate the chain reaction from these primers, and the presence or absence of this genomic DNA PCR product allowed us to assign a gene for human keratin 18 to chromosome 12 unambiguously. This differs from the location of other human type I keratins on chromosome 17 and may indicate the early divergence of the genes for stratifying cell keratins from that of simple, or embryonic, keratin 18.