The body size of the New Zealand orb-weaving spider Waitkera waitakerensis (Uloboridae) is directly related to temperature and affects fecundity

Abstract. Waitkera waitakerensis occupies lowland forests of New Zealand's North Island, where temperatures decrease in a southwestward direction. The mean annual temperatures of 18 collecting sites, as extracted from GIS data, are directly related to the first femur length of adult females. Neither site elevation nor phylogeny affected spider size or other variables examined. The direct relationship between spider body size and environmental temperature followed a pattern observed in other terrestrial arthropods with a univoltine life cycle and can probably be explained by the longer growing season of warmer regions. Egg diameter was uniform across the species. Site temperature and female first femur length were each directly related to the number of eggs deposited in egg sacs. The date of egg sac collection was inversely related to egg number, suggesting that clutch size declines during the reproductive season. Females deposit eggs beneath a triangular platform and then cover them with a lower silk sheet. The area of this upper platform and the volume of the egg sac were each directly related to egg number, but not to female first femur length. The depth of the lower covering was not related to egg number or to spider first femur length. This suggests that spiders use information about the volume of eggs in their abdomens to construct an egg sac whose volume will accommodate the volume of eggs to be laid and that females do so principally by adjusting the size of the sac's upper triangular platform.     

蛋白质相互作用数据库及其应用

对蛋白质相互作用及其网络的了解不仅有助于深入理解生命活动的本质和疾病发生的机制,而且可以为药物研发提供靶点.目前,通过高通量筛选、计算方法预测和文献挖掘等方法,获得了大批量的蛋白质相互作用数据,并由此构建了很多内容丰富并日益更新的蛋白质相互作用数据库.本文首先简要阐述了大规模蛋白质相互作用数据产生的3种方法,然后重点介绍了几个人类相关的蛋白质相互作用公共数据库,包括HPRD、BIND、 IntAct、MINT、 DIP 和MIPS,并概述了蛋白质相互作用数据库的整合情况以及这些数据库在蛋白质相互作用网络构建上的应用.     

Creole: a contested,polysemous term

In this paper, we critically examine the polysemous term, creole, used at different times and various geographical areas to describe diverse identities, languages, peoples, ethnicities, racial heritages, and cultural artefacts. Our objective is twofold: (1) to describe the historically contested nature of the term and its connection to broader trends in defining race in the United States and (2) to suggest that a deeper understanding of racially situated terms such as creole can help to highlight the contextualized character of racial/ethnic divisions, trends, and labels. Our analysis shows that in many ways the Creole people of the United States Gulf Coast Region truly represent the “melting pot” mantra in espoused American ideology and exemplify a direct challenge to bygone racial ideologues which espoused the idea that mixing produces hybridized, impudent, weak, and sickly offspring.     

Dynamics of Aboveground and Soil Carbon and Nitrogen Stocks and Cycling of Available Nitrogen along a Land-use Gradient in Rondônia,Brazil

High rates of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon have the potential to alter the storage and cycling of carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) across this region. To investigate the impacts of deforestation, we quantified total aboveground biomass (TAGB), aboveground and soil pools of C and N, and soil N availability along a land-use gradient in Rondônia, Brazil, that included standing primary forest, slashed primary and secondary forest, shifting cultivation, and pasture sites. TAGB decreased substantially with increasing land use, ranging from 311 and 399 Mg ha^–1 (primary forests) to 63 Mg ha^–1 (pasture). Aboveground C and N pools declined in patterns and magnitudes similar to those of TAGB. Unlike aboveground pools, soil C and N concentrations and pools did not show consistent declines in response to land use. Instead, C and N concentrations were strongly related to percent clay content of soils. Concentrations of NO₃-N and NH₄-N generally increased in soils following slash-and-burn events along the land-use gradient and decreased with increasing land use. Increasing land use resulted in marked declines in NO₃-N pools relative to NH₄-N pools. Rates of net nitrification and N-mineralization were also generally higher in postfire treatments relative to prefire treatments along the land-use gradient and declined with increasing land use. Results demonstrate the linked responses of aboveground C and N pools and soil N availability to land use in the Brazilian Amazon; steady reductions in aboveground pools along the land-use gradient were accompanied by declines in inorganic soil N pools and transformation rates.     

小麦叶绿体基因组定点整合表达载体的构建

从小麦中分别克隆了包括rbcL基因3′端部分和完整的psaI、ycf4基因的DNA片段.利用克隆到的DNA片段作为同源重组片段、烟草叶绿体16S rRNA基因的启动子Prrn和PsbA基因的终止子PsbA3′控制筛选标记基因aadA和报告基因gfp的转录,构建了小麦叶绿体基因组定点整合表达载体pRAGY. 用该载体转化大肠杆菌,在激光扫描共聚焦显微镜下,检测到了gfp基因成功表达的产物被激发出的强烈的绿色荧光.     

土地利用变化的时空分异特征及驱动机制——以北京市海淀区、延庆县为例

研究土地利用变化的时空分异规律和机制对认识人类活动在全球变化中的作用机制具有重要意义.选择北京市海淀区、延庆县作为研究区,利用1992、2002年的遥感影像数据,采用转移矩阵法和多元线性回归法,分析了1992～2002年海淀区、延庆县土地利用变化的时空分异特征及其驱动机制.研究表明:①1992到2002年间,海淀区、延庆县土地利用变化的差异主要表现在:海淀区建设用地扩展速度明显高于延庆县,且内部改造强烈;延庆县农业用地面积减少程度明显低于海淀区,且有明显的内部结构调整;海淀区原有建设用地开始转变为林地. ②1992到2002年间,海淀区土地利用变化主要外在驱动力包括人口增长、第二产业(高新技术)、第三产业(房地产)的发展及北京市总体规划政策;最主要内在因素为前期土地利用方式;延庆县土地利用变化的主要外在驱动力包括非农业人口的增长、第三产业(旅游业)的发展、农业结构调整及生态建设;最主要内在因素为地形因素. ③海淀区土地利用变化是政策主导,延庆县土地利用变化是经济发展主导.     

The movement of African elephants in a human-dominated land-use mosaic

Land outside of gazetted protected areas is increasingly seen as important to the future of elephant persistence in Africa. However, other than inferential studies on crop raiding, very little is understood about how elephants Loxodonta africana use and are affected by human-occupied landscapes. This is largely a result of restrictions in technology, which made detailed assessments of elephant movement outside of protected areas challenging. Recent advances in radio telemetry have changed this, enabling researchers to establish over a 24-h period where tagged animals spend their time. We assessed the movement of 13 elephants outside of gazetted protected areas across a range of land-use types on the Laikipia plateau in north-central Kenya. The elephants monitored spent more time at night than during the day in areas under land use that presented a risk of mortality associated with human occupants. The opposite pattern was found on large-scale ranches where elephants were tolerated. Furthermore, speed of movement was found to be higher where elephants were at risk. These results demonstrate that elephants facultatively alter their behaviour to avoid risk in human-dominated landscapes. This helps them to maintain connectivity between habitat refugia in fragmented land-use mosaics, possibly alleviating some of the potential negative impacts of fragmentation. At the same time, however, it allows elephants to penetrate smallholder farmland to raid crops. The greater the amount of smallholder land within an elephant's range, the more it was utilized, with consequent implications for conflict. These findings underscore the importance of (1) land-use planning to maintain refugia; (2) incentives to prevent further habitat fragmentation; (3) the testing and application of conflict mitigation measures where fragmentation has already taken place.     

Facile construction of mutations in Haemophilus ducreyi using lacZ as a counter-selectable marker

Haemophilus ducreyi is a Gram-negative bacterium which is the causative agent of chancroid, an ulcerative sexually transmitted disease. In order to understand the pathogenesis of H. ducreyi disease, studies designed to identify potential virulence determinants and construct mutants deficient in the elaboration of these determinants have been undertaken in several laboratories. At the present time, construction of isogenic mutants is accomplished by electroporation of linearized DNA containing insertionally inactivated H. ducreyi genes followed by selection for the resistance marker encoded on the inactivated gene. In our experience, certain mutants are difficult to construct using this procedure. In the construction of strains containing lacZ as a reporter gene, we observed that the growth of lacZ expressing H. ducreyi was inhibited in the presence of X-gal. We have exploited this observation to develop a new strategy for the construction of isogenic H. ducreyi mutants.