Changes in functional composition and diversity of waterbirds: The roles of water level and submerged macrophytes

1. Water level and submerged macrophytes are critical players for the functioning of shallow lake ecosystems; understanding how waterbird communities respond to changes in both can have important implications for conservation and management. Here, we evaluated the effects of changes in water level and submerged macrophyte status on wintering waterbird community size, functional group abundances, functional diversity (FD), and community assembly by using a dataset compiled over 50 years.
2. We built generalised linear models to evaluate the effects of water level and submerged macrophyte status on the above-listed attributes of the waterbird communities by using mid-winter waterbird censuses, water level measurements, and submerged macrophyte surveys, along with submerged macrophyte macrofossil records from two shallow lakes in Turkey. Using a relevant set of functional traits, we defined functional groups, calculated four FD measures, and simulated null distributions of the FD measures for assessing assembly rules.
3. We found that macrophyte-dominated years had significantly higher abundances of waterbirds in one of the study lakes, and had more diving herbivores and omnivores in both lakes, while diving/scooping fish-eating waterbird abundance was lower in macrophyte-dominated years. Community size in Lake Beyşehir exhibited a negative association with water level; surprisingly, however, none of the functional group abundances and FD indices were significantly related to water level.
4. In our study communities, standardised effect sizes of functional richness and functional dispersion—two indices that are particularly sensitive to community assembly processes—were mostly lower than those of randomly assembled communities, which implies functional clustering. Shifts to a scarce-macrophyte state were associated with increases in these two indices, possibly due to either changes in the relative strength of environmental filtering and limiting similarity in community assembly or sampling of transitional communities. Further studies covering a wider range of the trophic/macrophyte status spectrum are needed to be certain.
5. The results of this study indicate that shifts between abundant and scarce-macrophyte states can have significant effects on wintering waterbird abundances, FD and community assembly. The results also suggest that shallow lakes in macrophyte-dominated states can support more wintering waterbirds, especially diving omnivores, some of which are globally threatened.

     

On Mertensiella luschani helverseni populations in Southwestern Anatolia

Abstract

The leech family Barbronidae is distinguished from the Salifidae and Erpobdellidae by the presence of two accessory copulatory pores, and by the ventral nerve cord with 19 free ganglia and 9 ganglia fused to form the posterior ganglionic mass. Some characteristics of Barbronia assiuti are revised, such as the presence of stylets and the annulation.     

Investigation of the relationship between kinesiophobia and sensory processing in fibromyalgia patients

Abstract

Purpose/aim: The aims of this study are to investigate the relationship between kinesiophobia and sensory processing in fibromyalgia (FM) patients and obtain new information about kinesiophobia in light of these results.

Materials and methods: This study has been conducted with 82 literate subjects aged 18–65?years and diagnosed with FM based on ACR 2010 diagnostic criteria. Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire was used for measuring functional status in FM patients, The Tampa Scale of Kinesiophobia was used for determine the levels of kinesiophobia and Adolescent/Adult Sensory Profile was used for determine the characteristics of sensory process patterns of the individuals.

Results: Among the participants, sensory sensitivity scores of 65.85% and sensation avoiding scores of 40.24% were higher than that in the general population. Sensation seeking scores of 48.78% the subjects were lower compared to the general population. A significant and weak positive correlation was found between the kinesiophobia scores and responses of sensory sensitivity and sensation avoiding (r?=?0.23, p?=?0.04; z?=?0.29, p?=?0.01)

Conclusion: This is the first study conducted to investigate the relationship between kinesiophobia and sensory processing in fibromyalgia patients. However, different studies investigating this subject are warranted in order to be able to generalize the findings and increase the value of evidence.     

The effect of OSAS risk,excessive daytime sleepiness,insomnia severity and sleep quality on dry eye syndrome

Sleep and Biological Rhythms - The purpose of this study was to investigate the association between sleep disturbances and dry eye syndrome (DES). 201 patients with DES were included in this study....     

Structural properties of an engineered outer membrane protein G mutant,OmpG-16SL,investigated with infrared spectroscopy

Abstract

The structural and functional differences between wild type (WT) outer membrane protein G and its two mutants are investigated with Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Both mutants have a long extension to the primary sequence to increase the number of β-strands from 14 (wild type) to 16 in an attempt to enlarge the pore diameter. The comparison among proteins is made in terms of pH-dependent conformational changes and thermal stability. Results show that all proteins respond to pH change but at different degrees. At acidic environment, all proteins contain the same number of residues participated in β-sheet structure. However, at neutral pH, the mutants have less ordered structure compared to WT porin. Thermal stability tests show that mutants differ significantly from WT porin at neutral pH. Although the transition temperature is directly proportional with the amount of β-sheet content, the changes in the pre-transition phase that pave the way to structural breakdown are shown to involve interactions among charged residues by two-dimensional correlation spectroscopy analysis. Results of the analysis show that side chain interactions play an active role under increasing temperature. Both mutants have more unordered secondary structure but they respond to pH change in tertiary structure level. Findings of this study provided deeper insight on the active players in structural stability of the WT porin.

Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma

     

Psychophysical principles of discrete event-driven vibrotactile feedback for prostheses

Abstract

Purpose/aim of the study: We aimed to establish psychophysical principles for non-invasive vibrotactile feedback signalling discrete transition events (e.g., extension to flexion) during use of prostheses, especially for the upper limbs.

Materials and methods: Two vibrotactile actuators were used on both upper arms of 10 able-bodied human participants. Absolute thresholds, psychometric functions, and magnitude estimates were measured to equalize the sensation magnitudes for the tested vibrotactile frequencies and skin sites. Then, same-different and pattern recognition tasks were run to evaluate, respectfully, the discrimination and closed-set identification of stimuli with varying parameters (2 frequencies, 2 magnitudes, 2 sites). Finally, parameters of the left/right stimuli were mapped to hypothetical prosthesis events representing object/force and movement type. The stimuli were applied sequentially in accordance with the discrete event-driven feedback paradigm.

Results: Reliable psychophysical models could be established for individual participants as verified by repetitive threshold measurements and relative adjustment of stimulus levels based on sensation magnitudes. Discrimination accuracy was higher for magnitude versus frequency comparisons; and magnitude discrimination accuracy was correlated with magnitude estimate differences. Pattern recognition recall/precision rates decreased from ～0.7 to ～0.5 for sequential delivery of two stimulus patterns to one arm versus to two arms. Using the patterns as two and three consecutive prosthesis events yielded statistically similar performance rates not correlated with magnitude estimate differences.

Conclusions: By careful calibration of stimuli based on psychophysical principles, discrete event-driven vibrotactile feedback can be used to signal manipulated object and movement information with moderate identification rates as shown by confusion matrices.     

Determining the optimum model parameters for oligosaccharide production efficiency using response surface integrated particle swarm optimization method: an experimental validation study

Abstract

Glucansucrases (GTFs) catalyzes the synthesis of α-glucans from sucrose and oligosaccharides in the presence of an acceptor sugar by transferring glucosyl units to the acceptor molecule with different linkages. The acceptor reactions can be affected by several parameters and this study aimed to determine the optimal reaction parameters for the production of glucansucrase-based oligosaccharides using sucrose and maltose as the donor and acceptor sugars, respectively via a hybrid technique of Response Surface Method (RSM) and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). The experimental design was performed using Central Composite Design and the tested parameters were enzyme concentration, acceptor:donor ratio and the reaction period. The optimization studies showed that enzyme concentration was the most effective parameter for the final oligosaccharides yields. The optimal values of the significant parameters determined for enzyme concentration and acceptor:donor ratio were 3.45?U and 0.62, respectively. Even the response surface plots for input parameters verified the PSO results, an experimental validation study was performed for the reverification. The experimental verification results obtained were also consistent with the PSO results. These findings will help our understanding in the role of different parameters for the production of oligosaccharides in the acceptor reactions of GTFs.     

Reproduction efficiency of the Horse Leech,Haemopis sanguisuga (Linnaeus, 1758)

The aquaculture sector has recently focused on alternative food sources due to increased costs and limited resources. Live food sources, such as invertebrates, have important roles in digestion processes of fish. It was aimed to determine the reproduction efficiency of the horse leech, Haemopis sanguisuga, which is expected to be used as an alternative live nutritional source in aquaculture in this study. The study was conducted at ambient temperature in the laboratory conditions for three months. A total of 25 gravid leeches with an average body mass of 6.91 ± 2.20 g were used. The leeches lost up to 75% of their body mass and laid 4.30 ± 1.49 cocoons at 12.0 ± 8.2 days interval during cocoon laying period. Leeches stopped laying cocoon when the temperature fell to 16 °C. The average of offspring hatched from the cocoons was 6.45 ± 2.86. The length–body mass relationship of the offspring was exponential (W = 0.012L^2.809, R² = 0.898). The results from the current study indicate that the basic biological parameter affecting the reproduction efficiency of H. sanguisuga is the size of the broodstock leeches, and reproduction activity weakens the broodstocks.