Ecological mechanisms underpinning climate adaptation services

Ecosystem services are typically valued for their immediate material or cultural benefits to human wellbeing, supported by regulating and supporting services. Under climate change, with more frequent stresses and novel shocks, 'climate adaptation services', are defined as the benefits to people from increased social ability to respond to change, provided by the capability of ecosystems to moderate and adapt to climate change and variability. They broaden the ecosystem services framework to assist decision makers in planning for an uncertain future with new choices and options. We present a generic framework for operationalising the adaptation services concept. Four steps guide the identification of intrinsic ecological mechanisms that facilitate the maintenance and emergence of ecosystem services during periods of change, and so materialise as adaptation services. We applied this framework for four contrasted Australian ecosystems. Comparative analyses enabled by the operational framework suggest that adaptation services that emerge during trajectories of ecological change are supported by common mechanisms: vegetation structural diversity, the role of keystone species or functional groups, response diversity and landscape connectivity, which underpin the persistence of function and the reassembly of ecological communities under severe climate change and variability. Such understanding should guide ecosystem management towards adaptation planning.     

Potent and selective cyclohexyl-derived imidazopyrazine insulin-like growth factor 1 receptor inhibitors with in vivo efficacy

Preclinical and emerging clinical evidence suggests that inhibiting insulin-like growth factor 1 receptor (IGF-1R) signaling may offer a promising therapeutic strategy for the treatment of several types of cancer. This Letter describes the medicinal chemistry effort towards a series of 8-amino-imidazo[1,5-a]pyrazine derived inhibitors of IGF-1R which features a substituted quinoline moiety at the C1 position and a cyclohexyl linking moiety at the C3 position. Lead optimization efforts which included the optimization of structure-activity relationships and drug metabolism and pharmacokinetic properties led to the identification of compound 9m, a potent, selective and orally bioavailable inhibitor of IGF-1R with in vivo efficacy in an IGF-driven mouse xenograft model.     

Age and sex dimorphisms contribute to the severity of bleomycin-induced lung injury and fibrosis

Fibrotic interstitial pneumonias are more prevalent in males of advancing age, although little is known about the underlying mechanisms. To evaluate the contributions of age and sex to the development of pulmonary fibrosis, we intratracheally instilled young (8-12 wk) and aged (52-54 wk) male and female mice with bleomycin and assessed the development and severity of fibrotic lung disease by measurements of lung collagen levels, static compliance, leukocyte infiltration, and stereological quantification of fibrotic areas in histological sections. We also quantified proinflammatory and profibrotic chemokine and cytokine levels in the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid. Aged male mice developed more severe lung disease, indicated by increased mortality, increased collagen deposition, and neutrophilic alveolitis compared with aged female mice or young mice of either sex. Aged male mice also exhibited increased levels of transforming growth factor-β, IL-17A, and CXCL1 in their bronchoalveolar lavage fluid. Young male mice developed a more fibrotic disease after bleomycin instillation compared with female mice, regardless of age. There was no difference in fibrosis between young and aged female mice. Taken together, these findings suggest that the variables of advanced age and male sex contribute to the severity of pulmonary fibrosis in this model. Our findings also emphasize the importance of stratifying experimental groups on the basis of age and sex in experimental and epidemiological studies of this nature.     

Microbial diversity associated with four functional groups of benthic reef algae and the reef-building coral Montastraea annularis

The coral reef benthos is primarily colonized by corals and algae, which are often in direct competition with one another for space. Numerous studies have shown that coral-associated Bacteria are different from the surrounding seawater and are at least partially species specific (i.e. the same bacterial species on the same coral species). Here we extend these microbial studies to four of the major ecological functional groups of algae found on coral reefs: upright and encrusting calcifying algae, fleshy algae, and turf algae, and compare the results to the communities found on the reef-building coral Montastraea annularis. It was found using 16S rDNA tag pyrosequencing that the different algal genera harbour characteristic bacterial communities, and these communities were generally more diverse than those found on corals. While the majority of coral-associated Bacteria were related to known heterotrophs, primarily consuming carbon-rich coral mucus, algal-associated communities harboured a high percentage of autotrophs. The majority of algal-associated autotrophic Bacteria were Cyanobacteria and may be important for nitrogen cycling on the algae. There was also a rich diversity of photosynthetic eukaryotes associated with the algae, including protists, diatoms, and other groups of microalgae. Together, these observations support the hypothesis that coral reefs are a vast landscape of distinctive microbial communities and extend the holobiont concept to benthic algae.