The interrelationship between productivity,plant species richness and livestock diet: a question of scale?

Question: What relationship exists between productivity, plant species richness and livestock diet? Are the results dependent on scale? Location: A sheep‐grazed Koelerio‐Corynephoretea sandy habitat of the northern upper Rhine (Germany) as a low productivity model system. Methods: The investigation was carried out for three years at a fine scale (2 m²) and for two years at a broad scale (79 m²). Productivity was measured by means of weighed above‐ground phytomass for fine scale and colour‐infrared (CIR) aerial photographs of the same system for fine and broad scales. For both scales, total numbers of vascular plant species and numbers of endangered vascular plant species were extracted from current vegetation relevés. Additionally, we obtained data on livestock diet (grazed phytomass, crude protein content). Results: Statistical analyses show an influence of the year on all variables; relationships between variables are not significant in every year. Species richness and number of endangered species are negatively related to productivity at fine scale while crude protein content and grazed phytomass are positively related to productivity. At the broad scale the diversity‐productivity relationship shows a ‘hump’ with highest species numbers in middle pioneer stages; numbers of endangered species are highest in all pioneer stages. Conclusions: We found a strong impact of scale and year on the diversity‐productivity relationship. It is inappropriate to analyse only small plots (2 m²), and it is necessary to study different years. This vegetation complex is dependent on grazing impact; thus there is an inversely proportional relationship between nature conservation value (high diversity) and livestock nutrition.     

屋面绿化卷材根系层土壤温度变化特征

根据3种厚度屋面绿化卷材根系层土壤温度、自然条件下的土壤温度和附近气象站大气温度观测资料,采用对比分析、线性回归等方法,对不同屋面绿化卷材根系层土壤温度的变化特征进行了研究。结果表明:屋面绿化卷材根系层土壤温度年变化规律与大气温度年变化规律基本一致;卷材具有一定的隔热保温作用,且随着薄膜厚度的增加,绿化卷材保温隔热效果越明显;不同型号卷材根系层土壤温度的日变幅随薄膜厚度的增加而减小;根系层土温日变幅与厚度关系可拟合成指数函数;不同厚度屋面卷材根系层土壤温度同大气温度之间均存在极显著的线性关系。     

遮荫对‘保佳红’桃树叶片快速叶绿素荧光诱导动力学曲线的影响

以3年生桃品种‘保佳红’为试材,于不同生育时期采用人工遮阴的方法,在叶片生长的不同时期分别设置100%(CK)、80%、60%、40%和20% 自然光照的5个光照强度处理,利用快速叶绿素荧光诱导动力学曲线分析技术,研究了不同光强对桃树叶片快速叶绿素荧光诱导动力学曲线及其参数的影响。结果表明：（1）桃树各生长时期的叶片最大荧光值均随着光照强度的减弱而依次升高。（2）在PSⅡ能量分配比率方面,遮阴下的叶片提高了用于电子传递的量子比率(φ_Eo),降低了用于热耗散的的量子比率(φ_Do)。（3）在PSⅡ反应中心活性方面,遮阴使得单位反应中心吸收的光能(ABS/RC)、捕获的光能(TRo/RC)、用于传递电子的能量(ETo/RC)和用于热耗散的能量(DIo/RC)均下降。（4）各时期不同光强处理的最大光化学效率F_v/F_m均在中午时段出现下降,且光照强度越大,降幅越大,说明桃叶在中午会出现强光抑制。研究认为：在遮阴条件下,桃叶天线色素吸收和捕获的光能减少,PSⅡ反应中心活性降低,但其可以通过增加能量在电子传递方面的分配比率来提高对光能的利用。     

华山新麦草叶片的光合生理特性

对华山新麦草(Psathyrostachys huashanica Keng ex P.C.Kuo)营养叶的净光合速率(Pn)和蒸腾速率(Tr)的日变化曲线进行了分析,并在对叶温(Tl)、气孔阻力(Rs)、光合有效辐射强度(PAR)和气温(Ta)的日变化曲线进行测定的基础上分析了它们对华山新麦草Pn的影响规律。结果表明:华山新麦草Pn的日变化曲线呈"三峰"型,峰值分别为6.5、6.2和9.0μmol.m-2.s-1,依次出现在9:30、11:30和16:30,而且具有明显的"午降"现象;Tr的日变化曲线呈"单峰"型,最大值为1.7 mmol.m-2.s-1,出现在13:30;Tl、Rs、PAR和Ta的日变化曲线均呈"单峰"型,峰值分别出现在12:30、11:30、12:30和13:30。华山新麦草的Pn对Tl、PAR和Ta的响应曲线均呈"抛物线"型,Pn在一定范围内与Tl、PAR和Ta呈正相关,随着Tl、PAR和Ta的升高逐渐增加至最大值后逐渐降低;而Pn与Rs则呈负相关,Pn在一定范围内随Rs的增大逐渐降低。根据拟合方程,华山新麦草营养叶的光补偿点和光饱和点分别为1.1和531.5μmol.m-2.s-1,说明该种类具有很强的喜光性,且对光照强度的适应范围较广。研究结果表明:较大的气孔阻力是造成华山新麦草叶片净光合速率偏低的主要原因。     

Temperature dependence of the functional response

The Arrhenius equation has emerged as the favoured model for describing the temperature dependence of consumption in predator-prey models. To examine the relevance of this equation, we undertook a meta-analysis of published relationships between functional response parameters and temperature. We show that, when plotted in lin-log space, temperature dependence of both attack rate and maximal ingestion rate exhibits a hump-shaped relationship and not a linear one as predicted by the Arrhenius equation. The relationship remains significantly downward concave even when data from temperatures above the peak of the hump are discarded. Temperature dependence is stronger for attack rate than for maximal ingestion rate, but the thermal optima are not different. We conclude that the use of the Arrhenius equation to describe consumption in predator-prey models requires the assumption that temperatures above thermal optima are unimportant for population and community dynamics, an assumption that is untenable given the available data.     

A method for determining the apoplastic water volume of conifer needles

A method for direct estimation of percentage apoplastic water volume (% APO) in conifer needles is described. The method presented here, and designated the pressure-needle (P-N) method, measures the relative water content of the needles to develop a curve similar to the pressure-volume (P-V) curve. P-V and P-N curves were developed for Picea pungens Engelm. cv. Hoopsi, Pinus sylvestris L., Abies gradis (Dougl.) L., and Pseudotsuga menziesii (Mirb) Franco. The % APO estimated by the two procedures varied as much as 2-fold, while other parameters were similar. The P-V method generated consistently higher and more variable % APO than the P-N method, due to the inclusion of the apoplastic water of the stem in the P-V method. For conifers, the P-N method offers a more accurate and precise method for determining % APO.     

The importance of juveniles in modelling growth: butterflyfish at Lizard Island

Synopsis I established and fitted von Bertalanffy growth functions to size-at-age data for four species of chaetodontids at Lizard Island. Special emphasis on juveniles provided detailed information of the early growth period. All four species demonstrated rapid initial growth achieving an average of 92% of maximum theoretical size in the first 2years. I used various constraints of the theoretical age at length zero (t₀) in an analysis of both complete data sets and data sets using only adult fish. An unconstrained value of t₀ resulted in the best-fit (maximum r²) curve when juveniles were included. When excluding juveniles, it was necessary to constrain t₀ to an approximate settling size to most closely represent the growth of the species.     

Addressing the intrinsic disorder bottleneck in structural proteomics

The Center for Eukaryotic Structural Genomics (CESG), as part of the Protein Structure Initiative (PSI), has established a high-throughput structure determination pipeline focused on eukaryotic proteins. NMR spectroscopy is an integral part of this pipeline, both as a method for structure determinations and as a means for screening proteins for stable structure. Because computational approaches have estimated that many eukaryotic proteins are highly disordered, about 1 year into the project, CESG began to use an algorithm (the Predictor of Naturally Disordered Regions, PONDR to avoid proteins that were likely to be disordered. We report a retrospective analysis of the effect of this filtering on the yield of viable structure determination candidates. In addition, we have used our current database of results on 70 protein targets from Arabidopsis thaliana and 1 from Caenorhabditis elegans, which were labeled uniformly with nitrogen-15 and screened for disorder by NMR spectroscopy, to compare the original algorithm with 13 other approaches for predicting disorder from sequence. Our study indicates that the efficiency of structural proteomics of eukaryotes can be improved significantly by removing targets predicted to be disordered by an algorithm chosen to provide optimal performance.