Human disturbance amplifies Amazonian El Niño–Southern Oscillation signal

The long‐term interaction between human activity and climate is subject to increasing scrutiny. Humans homogenize landscapes through deforestation, agriculture, and burning and thereby might reduce the capacity of landscapes to provide archives of climate change. Alternatively, land‐use change might overwhelm natural buffering and amplify latent climate signals, rendering them detectable. Here we examine a sub‐annually resolved sedimentary record from Lake Sauce in the western Amazonian lowlands that spans 6900 years. Finely‐laminated sediments were deposited from ca. 5000 years ago until the present, and human activity in the watershed was revealed through the presence of charcoal and maize agriculture. The laminations, analyzed for color content and bandwidth, showed distinctive changes that were coupled to more frequent occurrence of fossil maize pollen. As agricultural activity intensified ca. 2200 cal. BP, the 2‐ to 8‐year periodicity characteristic of El Niño–Southern Oscillation became evident in the record. These agricultural activities appeared to have amplified an existing, but subtle climatic signal that was previously absorbed by natural vegetation. When agricultural activity slowed, or land use around Lake Sauce changed at ca. 800 cal. BP, the signal of El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) activity became erratic.     

Night work,light exposure and melatonin on work days and days off

We aimed to examine the effects of night work on salivary melatonin concentration during and subsequent to night work and the mediating role of light. We included 254 day workers and 87 night workers who were followed during 322 work days and 301 days off work. Each day was defined as the 24 hour period starting from the beginning of a night shift or from waking in the mornings with day work and days off. Light levels were recorded and synchronized with diary information (start and end of sleep and work). On average, participants provided four saliva samples per day, and these were analyzed for melatonin concentration by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). Differences between day and night workers on work days and days off were assessed with multilevel regression models with melatonin concentration as the primary outcome. All models were stratified or adjusted by time of day. For light exposure, we estimated the total, direct and indirect effects of night work on melatonin concentrations obtaining 95% confidence intervals through bootstrapping. On work days, night workers showed 15% lower salivary melatonin concentrations compared with day workers (?15.0%; 95% CI: ?31.4%; 5.2%). During the night, light exposure mediated a melatonin suppression of approximately 6% (?5.9%, 95% CI: ?10.2%; ?1.5%). No mediating effect of light was seen during the day time. On days off, we observed no difference in melatonin concentrations between day and night workers. These findings are in accordance with a transient and partly light-mediated effect of night work on melatonin production.     

When can refuges mediate the genetic effects of fire regimes? A simulation study of the effects of topography and weather on neutral and adaptive genetic diversity in fire‐prone landscapes

Understanding how landscape heterogeneity mediates the effects of fire on biodiversity is increasingly important under global changes in fire regimes. We used a simulation experiment to investigate how fire regimes interact with topography and weather to shape neutral and selection‐driven genetic diversity under alternative dispersal scenarios, and to explore the conditions under which microrefuges can maintain genetic diversity of populations exposed to recurrent fire. Spatial heterogeneity in simulated fire frequency occurred in topographically complex landscapes, with fire refuges and fire‐prone “hotspots” apparent. Interannual weather variability reduced the effect of topography on fire patterns, with refuges less apparent under high weather variability. Neutral genetic diversity was correlated with long‐term fire frequency under spatially heterogeneous fire regimes, being higher in fire refuges than fire‐prone areas, except under high dispersal or low fire severity (low mortality). This generated different spatial genetic structures in fire‐prone and fire‐refuge components of the landscape, despite similar dispersal. In contrast, genetic diversity was only associated with time since the most recent fire in flat landscapes without predictable refuges and hotspots. Genetic effects of selection driven by fire‐related conditions depended on selection pressure, migration distance and spatial heterogeneity in fire regimes. Allele frequencies at a locus conferring higher fitness under successional environmental conditions followed a pattern of “temporal adaptation” to contemporary conditions under strong selection pressure and high migration. However, selected allele frequencies were correlated with spatial variation in long‐term mean fire frequency (relating to environmental predictability) under weak dispersal, low selection pressure and strong spatial heterogeneity in fire regimes.     

Gene expression and molecular characterization of a novel C-type lectin,encapsulation promoting lectin (EPL), in the rice armyworm,Mythimna separata

Insect cellular immune reactions differ depending on the target species. Phagocytosis is activated to scavenge microorganisms such as bacteria and fungi. On the other hand, larger invaders such as parasitoid wasps are eliminated by activation of encapsulation. In this study, we hypothesized that novel determinants regulate cellular immunities independent of surface molecular pattern recognition involving pattern recognition receptors (PRRs). Immune-related genes differentially expressed depending on the treated material size were screened in larval hemocytes of the rice armyworm, Mythimna separata. Consequently, we identified a novel C-type lectin gene up-regulated by injection of large beads but not small beads of identical material. Examination of in vitro effect of the recombinant protein on the immune reactions clarified that the protein activated encapsulation reaction, while it suppressed phagocytosis. These results suggest that this novel C-type lectin designated “encapsulation promoting lectin (EPL)” regulates cellular immunity by a novel immune target size-recognition mechanism.     

Fire,food and sexual deception in the neighbourhood of some Australian orchids

The effective use of prescribed fire in biodiversity conservation is currently inhibited by a limited understanding of fire effects on ecosystem processes such as pollination. Orchids inhabiting fire‐prone landscapes are likely to be particularly sensitive because they often exhibit highly specialized pollination systems and provide no reward to pollinators, making them dependent on co‐flowering heterospecifics to attract and support pollinators. We investigated the hypothesis that fire‐driven changes in the local abundance of rewarding heterospecific flowers influence pollination in two rewardless Australian orchid species, Diuris maculata sensu lato and Caladenia tentaculata. Diuris maculata s.l. is thought to achieve pollination by mimicking papilionoid Fabaceae flowers. Caladenia tentaculata attracts male thynnine wasps through sexual deceit, and these wasps forage on the open‐access flowers of other taxa. We used a space‐for‐time substitution design with sites in different stages of post‐fire succession where we recorded capsule set in D. maculata s.l., pollinator visitation to C. tentaculata, the floral abundance of rewarding heterospecifics and abiotic conditions. Many rewarding taxa responded to fire age, but there was only weak evidence that capsule set in D. maculata s.l. was positively related to the local floral abundance of rewarding species. There was evidence of an overriding effect of rainfall on capsule set that may have obscured effects of the floral community. Visitation to C. tentaculata was not positively associated with any rewarding heterospecifics, and was negatively associated with rewarding Burchardia umbellata. Our preliminary findings highlight the need to account for multiple factors when trying to detect fire effects on pollination.     

Convergence of bark investment according to fire and climate structures ecosystem vulnerability to future change

Fire regimes in savannas and forests are changing over much of the world. Anticipating the impact of these changes requires understanding how plants are adapted to fire. In this study, we test whether fire imposes a broad selective force on a key fire‐tolerance trait, bark thickness, across 572 tree species distributed worldwide. We show that investment in thick bark is a pervasive adaptation in frequently burned areas across savannas and forests in both temperate and tropical regions where surface fires occur. Geographic variability in bark thickness is largely explained by annual burned area and precipitation seasonality. Combining environmental and species distribution data allowed us to assess vulnerability to future climate and fire conditions: tropical rainforests are especially vulnerable, whereas seasonal forests and savannas are more robust. The strong link between fire and bark thickness provides an avenue for assessing the vulnerability of tree communities to fire and demands inclusion in global models.     

Prediction of the in planta Phakopsora pachyrhizi secretome and potential effector families

Asian soybean rust (ASR), caused by the obligate biotrophic fungus Phakopsora pachyrhizi, can cause losses greater than 80%. Despite its economic importance, there is no soybean cultivar with durable ASR resistance. In addition, the P. pachyrhizi genome is not yet available. However, the availability of other rust genomes, as well as the development of sample enrichment strategies and bioinformatics tools, has improved our knowledge of the ASR secretome and its potential effectors. In this context, we used a combination of laser capture microdissection (LCM), RNAseq and a bioinformatics pipeline to identify a total of 36 350 P. pachyrhizi contigs expressed in planta and a predicted secretome of 851 proteins. Some of the predicted secreted proteins had characteristics of candidate effectors: small size, cysteine rich, do not contain PFAM domains (except those associated with pathogenicity) and strongly expressed in planta. A comparative analysis of the predicted secreted proteins present in Pucciniales species identified new members of soybean rust and new Pucciniales‐ or P. pachyrhizi‐specific families (tribes). Members of some families were strongly up‐regulated during early infection, starting with initial infection through haustorium formation. Effector candidates selected from two of these families were able to suppress immunity in transient assays, and were localized in the plant cytoplasm and nuclei. These experiments support our bioinformatics predictions and show that these families contain members that have functions consistent with P. pachyrhizi effectors.     

Scale matters: fire–vegetation feedbacks are needed to explain tropical tree cover at the local scale

At a broad (regional to global) spatial scale, tropical vegetation is controlled by climate; at the local scale, it is believed to be determined by interactions between disturbance, vegetation and local conditions (soil and topography) through feedback processes. It has recently been suggested that strong fire–vegetation feedback processes may not be needed to explain tree‐cover patterns in tropical ecosystems and that climate–fire determinism is an alternative possibility. This conclusion was based on the fact that it is possible to reproduce observed patterns in tropical regions (e.g. a trimodal frequency distribution of tree cover) using a simple model that does not explicitly incorporate fire–vegetation feedback processes. We argue that these two mechanisms (feedbacks versus fire–climate control) operate at different spatial and temporal scales; it is not possible to evaluate the role of a process acting at fine scales (e.g. fire–vegetation feedbacks) using a model designed to reproduce regional‐scale pattern (scale mismatch). While the distributions of forest and savannas are partially determined by climate, many studies are providing evidence that the most parsimonious explanation for their environmental overlaps is the existence of feedback processes. Climate is unlikely to be an alternative to feedback processes; rather, climate and fire–vegetation feedbacks are complementary processes at different spatial and temporal scales.     

东北大兴安岭演替初期泰加林灌草层典型植物开花物候与生长对模拟暖干化气候的响应

为了揭示暖干化气候变化趋势对演替初期泰加林灌草层植物开花物候和生长的影响, 以东北大兴安岭演替初期泰加林灌草层(高度<50 cm)植物为研究对象, 根据植物生活史, 选择典型的早花植物圆锥薹草(Carex diandra)和水葡萄茶藨子(Ribes procumbens), 中花植物杜香(Ledum palustre)及晚花植物齿叶风毛菊(Saussurea neoserrata), 监测模拟增温和排水处理2年后其完整的开花物候及生长状况, 以期为认识气候变化下泰加林火后植被恢复演替提供依据。结果显示: 1)模拟增温和排水处理后, 早花植物开花温度限制的提早解除使其花期提前, 而水分限制使得晚花植物花期呈延后趋势, 这可能为中花植物提供更大的生态位空隙, 使其开花数量趋向于增加, 花期提前且呈延长趋势; 2)模拟增温和排水处理后, 圆锥薹草、杜香和齿叶风毛菊的盖度和频度均呈增加的趋势, 以杜香最显著, 而水葡萄茶藨子的盖度和频度均下降; 3)模拟增温与排水处理对植物开花物候的影响无显著交互作用, 但土壤水分降低影响部分植物生长对增温的响应。研究结果表明, 植物开花物候对暖干化气候的响应表现出明显的种间差异, 因植物开花功能群而异。早、中花植物花期趋于提前, 晚花期植物花期趋于延后, 一方面可能导致群落生态位变化, 对种间竞争产生潜在影响, 引发群落组成和结构改变; 另一方面可能成为群落调节其整体物候, 以适应气候变化的重要途径。