Detection of genetic variants affecting cattle behaviour and their impact on milk production: a genome‐wide association study

Behaviour traits of cattle have been reported to affect important production traits, such as meat quality and milk performance as well as reproduction and health. Genetic predisposition is, together with environmental stimuli, undoubtedly involved in the development of behaviour phenotypes. Underlying molecular mechanisms affecting behaviour in general and behaviour and productions traits in particular still have to be studied in detail. Therefore, we performed a genome‐wide association study in an F₂ Charolais × German Holstein cross‐breed population to identify genetic variants that affect behaviour‐related traits assessed in an open‐field and novel‐object test and analysed their putative impact on milk performance. Of 37 201 tested single nucleotide polymorphism (SNPs), four showed a genome‐wide and 37 a chromosome‐wide significant association with behaviour traits assessed in both tests. Nine of the SNPs that were associated with behaviour traits likewise showed a nominal significant association with milk performance traits. On chromosomes 14 and 29, six SNPs were identified to be associated with exploratory behaviour and inactivity during the novel‐object test as well as with milk yield traits. Least squares means for behaviour and milk performance traits for these SNPs revealed that genotypes associated with higher inactivity and less exploratory behaviour promote higher milk yields. Whether these results are due to molecular mechanisms simultaneously affecting behaviour and milk performance or due to a behaviour predisposition, which causes indirect effects on milk performance by influencing individual reactivity, needs further investigation.     

High temporal variability of zooplankton,but only weak evidence for a near-bottom effect on composition and distribution in the deep Levantine Basin,eastern Mediterranean

Abundance and composition of the near-bottom zooplankton between 10 and 100 metres above the bottom (mab) were studied in the Levantine Basin, eastern Mediterranean, during four cruises of RV Meteor in June 1993, January 1998, April/May 1999 and October 2001. Copepoda made up 91% of all zooplankton caught. A strong dominance of one single species was observed on all cruises, with Lucicutia longiserrata reaching 50–90% of all Copepoda except in 1993, when Subeucalanus monachus was the most abundant species, with more than 90% of all Copepoda. The year 1993 was also exceptional in terms of total zooplankton abundance, being more than one order of magnitude higher than in the other years. Vertical differences in abundance and composition were small and did not indicate a near-bottom effect or a specialized benthopelagic zooplankton community in the layers sampled.     

From Regional to National Clouds: TV Coverage in the Czech Republic

Media, and particularly TV media, have a great impact on the general public. In recent years, spatial patterns of information and the relevance of intangible geographies have become increasingly important. Gatekeeping plays a critical role in the selection of information that is transformed into media. Therefore, gatekeeping, through national media, also co-forms the generation of mental maps. In this paper, correspondence analysis (a statistical method) combined with cloud lines (a new visual analytics technique) is used to analyze how individual major regional events in one of the post-communist countries, the Czech Republic, penetrate into the media on a national scale. Although national news should minimize distortions about regions, this assumption has not been verified by our research. Impressions presented by the media of selected regions that were markedly influenced by one or several events in those regions demonstrate that gatekeepers, especially news reporters, functioned as a filter by selecting only a few specific, and in many cases, unusual events for dissemination.     

Hemmwirkungen von Pflanzenpreßsäften auf das Tetrazolreduktionsvermögen von Bacterium coli

Zusammenfassung In Anlehnung an frühere Untersuchungen von Wallhäusser u. Rippel-Baldes, in denen sich die Brauchbarkeit des Schnelltestes mit Triphenyltetrazoliumchlorid zur Wertbestimmung von Antibiotica und Desinfektionsmitteln ergab, wurde versucht, mit Hilfe dieses testes einen Einblick in das hemmstoffbedingte Abwehrvermögen höherer Pflanzen gegenüber Mikroorganismen zu gewinnen. Bacterium coli und einige weitere vergleichsweise untersuchte Bakterienarten ließen nach Einwirkung frischer Preßsäfte aus den Blättern verschiedener Pflanzenarten stets eine deutliche — meistens sogar eine tatale — Hemmung ihres TTC-Reduktionsvermögens erkennen.Das Ausmaß der Hemmwirkung der einzelnen Preßsäfte wies erhebliche Unterschiede auf; eine totale Hemmung der mikrobiellen Formazanbildung bewirkten einige Preßsäfte noch in einer Verdünnung von 1/32, eine partielle Hemmung äußerstenfalls noch in einer Verdünnung von 1/128.Die besondere Eignung des Tetrazoltestes zur Untersuchung pflanzlicher Hemmstoffwirkungen auf Mikroorganismen ergibt sich einerseits aus seiner einfachen Handhabung, da er ein Arbeiten mit nichtsterilen Pflanzenpreßsäften gestattet, und andererseits aus der Tatsache, daß er bereits in kürzester Zeit zu Ergebnissen führt; infolgedessen lassen sich Wirksamkeitsveränderungen der Hemmstoffe, die bei anderen Testmethoden während der Bebrütung gegebenenfalls eintreten können, weitgehend vermeiden.     

Klimacharakter und Pflanzendecke

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Studies on prolysostaphin processing and characterization of the lysostaphin immunity factor (Lif) of Staphylococcus simulans biovar staphylolyticus

Lysostaphin is an extracellular glycylglycine endopep-tidase produced by Staphylococcus simulans biovar staphylolyticus ATCC1362 that lyses staphylococcal cells by hydrolysing the polyglycine interpeptide bridges of the peptidoglycan. Renewed analysis of the sequence of the lysostaphin gene (Iss), and the sequencing of the amino-terminus of purified prolysostaphin and of mature lysostaphin revealed that lysostaphin is organized as a preproprotein of 493 amino acids (aa), with a signal peptide consisting of 36 aa, a propeptide of 211 aa from which 195 aa are organized in 15 tandem repeats of 13 aa length, and a mature protein of 246 aa. Prolysostaphin is processed in the culture supernatant of S. simulans biovar staphylolyticus by an extracellular cysteine protease. Although prolysostaphin was staphylolytically active, the mature lysostaphin was about 4.5-fold more active. The controlled expression in Staphylococcus carnosus of Iss and Iss with deletions in the prepropeptide region indicated that the tandem repeats of the propeptide are not necessary for protein export or activation of Lss, but keep Lss in a less active state. Intracellular expressed pro- and mature lysostaphin exert staphy-lolytic activity in cell-free extracts, but do not affect growth of the corresponding clones. We characterized a lysostaphin immunity factor gene (lif) which is located in the opposite direction to Iss. The expression of lif in S. carnosus led to an increase in the serine/glycine ratio of the interpeptide bridges of peptidoglycan from 2 to 35%, suggesting that lysostaphin immunity depends on serine incorporation into the interpeptide bridge. If, in addition to lif, Iss is co-expressed the serine/glycine ratio is further increased to 58%, suggesting that Lss selects for optimal serine incorporation. Lif shows similarity to FemA and FemB