Evaluating Communities of Practice and Knowledge Networks: A Systematic Scoping Review of Evaluation Frameworks

Communities of Practice (CoPs) are increasingly considered a part of ecohealth and other sectors such as health care, education, and business. However, there is little agreement on approaches to evaluate the influence and effectiveness of CoPs. The purpose of this review was to understand what frameworks and methods have been proposed or used to evaluate CoPs and/or knowledge networks. The review searched electronic databases in interdisciplinary, health, education, and business fields, and further collected references and forward citations from relevant articles. Nineteen articles with 16 frameworks were included in the synthesis. The purposes of the evaluation frameworks varied; while some focused on assessing the performance of CoPs, several frameworks sought to learn about CoPs and their critical success factors. Nine of the frameworks had been applied or tested in some way, most frequently to guide a case study. With limited applications of the frameworks, strong claims about generalizability could not be made. The review results can inform the development of tailored frameworks. However, there is a need for more detailed and targeted CoP evaluation frameworks, as many imperative CoP evaluation needs would be unmet by the available frameworks.     

A new proposal concerning the botanical origin of Baltic amber

Baltic amber constitutes the largest known deposit of fossil plant resin and the richest repository of fossil insects of any age. Despite a remarkable legacy of archaeological, geochemical and palaeobiological investigation, the botanical origin of this exceptional resource remains controversial. Here, we use taxonomically explicit applications of solid-state Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) microspectroscopy, coupled with multivariate clustering and palaeobotanical observations, to propose that conifers of the family Sciadopityaceae, closely allied to the sole extant representative, Sciadopitys verticillata, were involved in the genesis of Baltic amber. The fidelity of FTIR-based chemotaxonomic inferences is upheld by modern–fossil comparisons of resins from additional conifer families and genera (Cupressaceae: Metasequoia; Pinaceae: Pinus and Pseudolarix). Our conclusions challenge hypotheses advocating members of either of the families Araucariaceae or Pinaceae as the primary amber-producing trees and correlate favourably with the progressive demise of subtropical forest biomes from northern Europe as palaeotemperatures cooled following the Eocene climate optimum.     

Density-dependent immigration promotes population stability in a long-distance migratory bird

The spatial structure of populations determines the relative importance of reproduction, survival and movement on population dynamics. However, the mechanisms by which local individuals and immigrants interact and the subsequent effects of immigrants on productivity are poorly known. We developed an integrated population model (IPM) to study the extent and consequences of immigration on the dynamics of a neotropical migrant (American redstart, Setophaga ruticilla) over an 11-year period in Ontario, Canada. New immigrants represented the majority of the study population each year with higher immigration rates for males than females and for first-year breeders than breeders in their second year or older. Immigration was negatively density dependent, with immigrants replacing previously established breeders in a compensatory manner following their death or emigration. Because of the tradeoff between immigration and apparent survival, neither had a strong influence on population growth and reproductive output was most strongly correlated with a change in abundance between years. However, if immigration ceased, the study population would become locally extinct within 7 years and thus immigrants were essential for local population persistence. We found no evidence for reduced breeding success when immigrants represented a higher proportion of the study population. Our research highlights the importance of movement in the stability of open populations and the strong correlation between the fates of local breeders and the number of immigrants entering the population. We recommend the use of IPMs to address the spatial scale over which immigration occurs and how different scales influence its contribution to population dynamics.     

TAP score: torsion angle propensity normalization applied to local protein structure evaluation

Background  

Experimentally determined protein structures may contain errors and require validation. Conformational criteria based on the Ramachandran plot are mainly used to distinguish bet ween distorted and adequately refined models. While the readily available criteria are sufficient to detect totally wrong structures, establishing the more subtle differences between plausible structures remains more challenging.     

The first Mesozoic Leptopodidae (Hemiptera: Heteroptera: Leptopodomorpha), from Canadian Late Cretaceous amber

A new genus and species of leptopodid bug, Cretaceomira phalanx McKellar and Engel, is described from Canadian Late Cretaceous (Campanian) amber originating near Grassy Lake, in southern Alberta, Canada. This new record is the first described for the family within the Mesozoic, extending their fossil range by at least 26 Ma. The discovery adds further support to the idea that the subfamily was once much more widespread than its modern, relict distribution in the tropics – adding an occurrence in warm temperate conditions, on the western side of Laurentia (in the modern Palearctic). Beyond confirming the presence of the lineage in the Cretaceous, their expanded distribution suggests that the group is likely to be found in other Cretaceous amber deposits. Furthermore, the distinctive disk-shaped amber nodule that contains the C. phalanx holotype provides limited support for the interpretation of Leptosaldinae as subcortical inhabitants of resin-producing trees as early as the Cretaceous.http://www.zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:E324DF2B-8D99-42B3-BBAC-8F9DC3603490     

Starting over: experimental effects of breeding delay on reproductive success in early‐arriving male American redstarts

Birds that arrive and breed early often have higher reproductive success than late individuals, either as a consequence of timing‐specific advantages (the timing hypothesis) or because these individuals and/or their resources are of higher quality (the quality hypothesis). In this study, we examined the potential influence of several factors affecting reproductive success by experimentally delaying breeding of early‐arriving male American redstarts Setophaga ruticilla, a species for which early male arrival is strongly related to increased reproductive success. Our manipulation involved the capture, holding, and release of males following pairing and territory establishment, resulting in the majority of subjects (67%) losing their initial mate (47%) or mate and territory (20%) and forcing them to start over approximately 12 d after their initial arrival. Males forced to start over (i.e. those losing their first territory and/or mate) did not experience any decrease in body condition, nor did their reproductive behaviour differ from that of early‐arriving control males. We found that naturally early‐arriving but experimentally manipulated males suffered reduced fledging success in comparison to early‐arriving males that bred early or late, but equivalent success in comparison to males that arrived and bred late. Based on our results, we propose that the relationship between early arrival and higher reproductive success in this species is mediated not simply by individual male quality or absolute arrival timing alone, but rather some other aspect of resource quality is likely important. We discuss and present evidence for two alternative explanations under the quality hypothesis: female quality and territory quality. To our knowledge, our study is the first to investigate the effects of experimentally delaying male breeding time, strengthening previous correlational evidence for resource quality as a potentially important selective agent driving early arrival in migratory birds.     

The effect of proflavine on pyruvate kinase I of Escherichia coli B.

Proflavine (PF) inhibited glucose use in sensitive but not resistant Escherichia coli B. Glucose transport (as measured by alpha-methylglucoside accumulation) was only partly inhibited by PF concentration that completely blocked glucose use. Fructose 1,6-diphosphate-(FDP)-regulated pyruvate kinase (PK1) (EC 2.7.1.40), the only glycolytic enzyme affected by PF, was completely inhibited by a dye concentration of 0.8 mM. The inhibition curve for PF was sigmoidal, suggesting that PF was acting as an allosteric inhibitor. PF increased the K 1/2 for phosphoenolpyruvate (PEP) and lowered the V; however, it had no effect on the Hill number for PEP. PF inhibition was partially reversed by FDP but not by cyclic AMP, AMP, ATP, fuctose 6-phosphate, or dithiothreitol. Studies with a variety of acridines indicated that those substituted at the 3-position are the most effective inhibitors and also that hydrophobic interactions may be involved in PF inhibition of PK I. PK I for E. coli B/Pr was also strongly inhibited by PF, indicating that PF resistance does not lie at the level of this enzyme. Ribose-5-phosphate-regulated pyruvate kinase (EC 2.7.1.40) was much less sensitive that PK I to the inhibitory effects of PF. A role for PF as a molecular probe for PK I has been proposed.