Changes in human skeletal muscle architecture and function induced by extended spaceflight

The aim of this study was to quantitatively describe the relationships between joint angles and muscle architecture (lengths (L_f) and angles (Θ_f) of fascicles) of human triceps surae [medial (MG) and lateral (LG) gastrocnemius and soleus (SOL) muscles] in vivo for three men-cosmonaut after long-duration spaceflight. Sagittal sonographs of MG, LG, SOL were taken at ankle was positioned at 15° (dorsiflexion), 0° (neutral position), +15°, and +30° (plantarflexion), with the knee at 90° at rest and after a long-duration spaceflight. At each position, longitudinal ultrasonic images of the MG and LG and SOL were obtained while the cosmonauts was relaxed from which fascicle lengths and angles with respect to the aponeuroses were determined. After space flight plantarflexor force declined significantly (26%; p < 0.001). The internal architecture of the GM, and LG, and SOL muscle was significantly altered. In the passive condition, L_f changed from 45, 53, and 39 mm (knee, 0°, ankle, −15°) to 26, 33, and 28 mm (knee, 90° ankle, 30°) for MG, LG, and SOL, respectively. Different lengths and angles of fascicles, and their changes by contraction, might be related to differences in force-producing capabilities of the muscles and elastic characteristics of tendons and aponeuroses. The three heads of the triceps surae muscle substantially differ in architecture, which probably reflects their functional roles. Differences in fiber length and pennation angle that were observed among the muscles and could be associated with differences in force production and in elastic properties of musculo-tendinous complex and aponeuroses.     

EVA dosimetry in manned spacecraft

Extra Vehicular Activity (EVA) will become a large part of the astronaut's work on board the International Space Station (ISS). It is already well known that long duration space missions inside a spacecraft lead to radiation doses which are high enough to be a significant health risk to the crew. The doses received during EVA, however, have not been quantified to the same degree. This paper reviews the space radiation environment and the current dose limits to critical organs. Results of preliminary radiation dosimetry experiments on the external surface of the BION series of satellites indicate that EVA doses will vary considerably due to a number of factors such as EVA suit shielding, temporal fluctuations and spacecraft orbit and shielding. It is concluded that measurement of doses to crew members who engage in EVA should be done on board the spacecraft. An experiment is described which will lead the way to implementing this plan on the ISS. It is expected that results of this experiment will help future crew mitigate the risks of ionising radiation in space.     

Accumulation of a tumor suppressor p53 protein in rat muscle during a space flight

We previously reported that the space environment consisting of microgravity and space radiation induced an increased level of p53 protein, a tumor suppressor gene product, in rat skin. Here, we report the increase of p53 protein in the muscles of rats that traveled into space. Rats were divided into three groups. The first group remained on earth (VC), and did not show any change in p53 protein level. The second group made a 14-day flight into space on the Second Spacelab Life Science (SLS-2) Mission (F). The third group was experimentally subjected to the same kinds of stress as those in the second group without making a space flight (SC). F and SC rats were sacrificed on day zero (F-0, SC-0) and day nine (F-9, SC-9) after return from space. F-0 rats showed a 1.5-fold increase in p53 protein level compared with that of SC-0 rats, whereas, F-9 rats showed a 1.35-fold increase in p53 protein compared with that of SC-9 rats. These results suggest that the accumulation of cellular p53 protein induced by space environments occurs not only in rat skin cells, but also in rat muscle cells.     

Radiation risk in manned space flights

This paper addresses some of the pertinent questions relating to the assessment of radiation risk for humans in space; the paper is not intended as a comprehensive review. The radiation field is briefly summarised and doses to be expected are given based on recent on-board measurements. The problems in adapting terrestrial epidemiological data to the space situation are outlined. Apart from the intrinsic uncertainties in deriving risk factors the specific difficulties are mainly concerned with the effects of energetic charged particles for which no human data exist. The necessity for continuing ground-based research is stressed. Also discussed is whether the principles of radiation protection successfully applied on Earth are really suitable for the space situation or whether they should be replaced by a different approach.     

Spatial response properties of homing pigeon hippocampal neurons: correlations with goal locations,movement between goals,and environmental context in a radial-arm arena

The amniote hippocampal formation plays an evolutionarily-conserved role in the neural representation of environmental space. However, species differences in spatial ecology nurture the expectation of species differences in how hippocampal neurons represent space. To determine the spatial response properties of homing pigeon (Columba livia) HFneurons, we recorded from isolated units in birds freely navigating a radial arena in search of food present at four goal locations. Fifty of 76 neurons displayed firing rate variations that could be placed into three response categories. Location cells (n=25) displayed higher firing rates at restricted locations in the arena space, often in proximity to goal locations. Path cells (n=13) displayed higher firing rates as a pigeon moved between a subset of goal locations. Arena-off cells (n=12) were more active when a pigeon was in a baseline holding space compared to inside the arena. Overall, reliability and coherence scores of the recorded neurons were lower compared to rat place cells. The differences in the spatial response profiles of pigeon hippocampal formation neurons, when compared to rats, provide a departure point for better understanding the relationship between spatial behavior and how hippocampal formation neurons participate in the representation of space.     

Optimal conservation effort for a population in a stochastic environment

We study the optimal conservation effort for a population in a fluctuating environment. The survivorship of a population is affected by unpredictable environmental fluctuation (noise) and can be improved by conservation effort accompanied by a cost. The optimal effort level is the one that minimizes the total cost, defined as the weighted sum of the population extinction risk and the economic cost of conservation effort. The optimal effort depends on the variance and the probability distribution of the noise, the relative importance of the population's survival vs. the economic cost, the effectiveness of conservation effort, and the time scope over which we optimize. The analysis of dynamic programming illustrates that the choice of extinction risk function greatly affects the optimal effort level. The conservation effort level that is the best solution of a multiple-year optimization may be higher than that for the corresponding single-year optimization, if the population is relatively safe. However, the conservation level for the multiple-year optimization becomes lower than for the single-year optimization if the population is endangered. In a similar manner, the optimal conservation effort level for the problem with a short time scope is either higher or lower than that for the problem with a long time scope, depending on the extinction risk of the population. Next, for each parameter of the model, we define five different sensitivities of extinction probability or of the total cost. We then study the mean increase in the total cost caused by the uncertainty of parameters. To achieve the best conservation result, we need to invest the limited research effort to the parameter with the largest effect to the optimal effort level, rather than to those with large impacts on the extinction probability or on the total cost. The recommended policy should depend critically on the choice of the criterion to optimize, which shows the importance of theoretical study of the relationship in performing proper decision making in conservation practice.     

Periodic coexistence of four species competing for three essential resources

We show the existence of a periodic solution in which four species coexist in competition for three essential resources in the standard model of resource competition. By assuming that species i is limited by resource i for each i near the positive equilibrium, and that the matrix of contents of resources in species is a combination of cyclic matrix and a symmetric matrix, we obtain an asymptotically stable periodic solution of three species on three resources via Hopf bifurcation. A simple bifurcation argument is then employed which allows us to add a fourth species. In principle, the argument can be continued to obtain a periodic solution adding one new species at a time so long as asymptotic stability can be assured at each step. Numerical simulations are provided to illustrate our analytical results. The results of this paper suggest that competition can generate coexistence of species in the form of periodic cycles, and that the number of coexisting species can exceed the number of resources in a constant and homogeneous environment.     

Phenotypic plasticity and interpopulation differences in life history traits of<Emphasis Type="Italic"> Armadillidium vulgare</Emphasis> (Isopoda:Oniscidae)

The hypothesis that the balance of trade-offs between survivorship, growth and reproductive allocation in the terrestrial isopod Armadillidium vulgare will change when resource input is increased has been investigated experimentally. When the quality of food available was increased, by adding a mixture of litter from herbaceous dicotyledonous plants to a background low-quality food of dead grasses, survivorship was found to be the most phenotypically plastic trait, increasing by 168%. Growth rates increased by 99% but reproductive allocation by only 21%. In the field, members of a population from a site with more high-quality food grew more than twice as fast as those from a site where less high-quality food was available. The population from the site with higher food availability, contrary to predictions from the laboratory study, did not survive as well as that from the site with less available high-quality food. This may be because the site that is more favourable for growth has a more stressful physical environment due to much bigger temperature fluctuations, which are known to be an important cause of mortality in this species. When individuals from both populations were reared under controlled laboratory conditions, both the parental and F1 generations from the poor growth environment survived better than those from the good growth habitat. However, even when given an excess of high-quality food those from the poor growth environment continued to grow more slowly and had a lower reproductive allocation than those from the site with higher food availability. We conclude that microevolutionary changes may have occurred in the balance of resource allocation between survivorship, growth and reproductive allocation, to favour higher survivorship during the longer prereproductive period at the site where growth to the threshold size for reproduction takes longer.     

Selective fruit filling in relation to pollen load size in Alstroemeria aurea (Alstroemeriaceae)

 We conducted an experiment in a natural population of Alstroemeria aurea, a clonal perennial, to determine (1) if reproduction was resource limited, and (2) if fruits would be selectively filled based on differences in pollination intensity when pollen loads were adequate for full seed set. Under these conditions, differences in pollination intensity are unlikely to affect seed number, but could affect seed quality, providing an interesting test of the gametophytic competition hypothesis. To test for resource limitation, percent fruit maturation, number of seeds per fruit and average seed weight were compared to paired controls for ramets in which all but one fruit was removed. To test the effect of pollination intensity on selective resource allocation, three types of pollination treatments were performed: (1) all flowers of the single inflorescence received a low pollen load, (2) all flowers received a high pollen load, (3) alternate flowers of the inflorescence received either a high or a low pollen load. We determined the percentage of fruit that reached maturity, counted the number of seeds and ovules and calculated the average seed weight for all capsules in each treatment. Resources appeared to limit reproduction in this population since seed number and weight were significantly higher than in controls when competing capsules were removed. At the whole ramet level, a four fold difference in pollen loads had no significant effect on any of the parameters measured. However, when pollination intensity varied within an inflorescence, the number of seeds per fruit increased by about 10% in flowers that received the higher pollen load. We observed the same trend in each of 2 years, but the increase was significant in only 1 year. The differences, although not great, were only slightly smaller than when all competing fruits were removed, and were consistent with selective resource allocation based on pollination intensity independent of seed set. Received: 28 September 1997 / Accepted: 30 April 1998     

Effects of nutrient and soil moisture on competition between shape Carex stricta,shape Phalaris arundinacea,and shape Typha latifolia

We investigated the importance of nutrients, soil moisture, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), and interspecific competition levels on the biomass allocation patterns of three wetland perennial plant species, Carex stricta Lam., Phalaris arundinacea L., and Typha latifolia L. A factorial experiment was conducted with high-low nutrient levels, high-low soil moisture levels, and with and without AMF inoculation. Under the experimental conditions, plant inoculation by AMF was too low to create a treatment and the AMF treatment was dropped from the total analysis. P. arundinacea and T. latifolia biomass were 73% and 77% higher, respectively, in the high nutrient treatment compared to the low nutrient treatment. Biomass allocation between shoots and roots remained relatively constant between environmental treatments, although shoot:root ratios of P. arundinacea declined in the low nutrient treatment. For C. stricta, the high nutrient and soil moisture treatments resulted in an increase in biomass of 50% and 15%, respectively. Shoot:root ratios were nearly constant among all environmental conditions. Biomass of T. latifolia and C. stricta was greatly decreased when grown with P. arundinacea. The rapid, initial height growth of P. arundinacea produced a spreading, horizontal canopy that overshadowed the vertical leaves of T. latifolia and C. stricta throughout the study. This pattern was repeated in both high and low nutrient and soil moisture treatments. When grown with P. arundinacea, C. stricta and T. latifolia significantly increased their mean shoot height, regardless of the nutrient or soil moisture level. The results of this experiment suggest that C. stricta and T. latifolia were light limited when growing with P. arundinacea and that canopy architecture is more important for biomass allocation than the other environmental conditions tested. The results also suggest that Phalaris arundinacea is an inherently better competitor (sensu Grime 1979) than C. stricta or T. latifolia.