Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Photosynthesis, Rubisco activity and mitochondrial malate oxidation in pedunculate oak (Quercus robur L) seedlings grown under present and elevated atmospheric CO2 concentrations

Des germinations de chene pedoncule ont ete elevees sous 350 et 700 μL/L de CO 2 en chambres de culture. Apres 130 jours de CO 2 eleve, la biomasse du plant entier n'a pas augmente significativement. Les echanges foliaires de CO 2 , l'activite Rubisco, l'oxydation mitochondriale du malate, les teneurs de sucres et d'azote ont ete etudiees sur des feuilles de la quatrieme vague de croissance. A 700 μL/L de CO 2 , le taux de photosynthese nette foliaire augmente de 220 % par rapport a celui a 350 μL/L de CO 2 . La diminution de l'activite Rubisco est accompagnee d'une accumulation de saccharose et de glucose. La diminution de la capacite d'oxydation des mitochondries brutes de feuilles des plants sous CO 2 eleve est reliee plutot a la diminution des teneurs en azote et proteines qu'a l'augmentation de la teneur en sucres dans les feuilles. Neanmoins, les effets directs de l'elevation de CO 2 sur la biochimie de la respiration ne sont pas exclus.
Warm temperatures lead to early onset of incubation, shorter incubation periods and greater hatching asynchrony in tree swallows Tachycineta bicolor at the extremes of their range

The onset of incubation varies in birds, with many species beginning incubation prior to clutch completion. Here we examine whether early onset is more likely to occur during high temperatures, a critical prediction of the egg-viability hypothesis, which suggest that birds begin incubation prior to clutch completion in order to maintain egg-viability. We examined onset of incubation in tree swallows Tachycineta bicolor at two locations at the extremes of their breeding range, Alaska and Tennessee. A majority of individuals (68%) began incubation prior to clutch completion. While females in Tennessee were more likely to begin incubation early, there was no difference between sites when differences in temperatures inside nestboxes were controlled in analyses. Rather, early onset of incubation was predicted by the proportion of daily temperatures above physiological zero during laying, a critical prediction of the egg viability hypothesis. Both warm weather and early onset led to shorter incubation periods and increased levels of hatching asynchrony. We found no effect of timing of nesting, female body condition index or clutch size on the probability of beginning incubation prior to clutch completion. Our results are consistent with the egg viability hypothesis, not consistent with a threshold clutch size rule, and do not support the hurry-up hypothesis, that individuals breeding later in the season would begin incubation early to reduce the time spent nesting. Overall, our results suggest that broad scale geographic differences in incubation behaviour may be explained by individual-level responses to environmental conditions.
Leaf Gas Exchange in Canopy Species of a Venezuelan Cloud Forest

Tropical cloud forests are considered humid ecosystems with frequent cloud cover down to the ground surface. However, seasonal variation in precipitation may induce short‐term water stress. For canopy leaves, this water stress may also be a consequence of large atmospheric vapor pressure deficits. The objective of this work was to study five canopy cloud forest species to determine if there are restrictions to leaf gas exchange as a consequence of seasonality in precipitation and to daily water deficit due to air evaporative demand mainly during maximum incoming radiation hours. Seasonal daily courses of microclimatic variables (air temperature, relative humidity, photosynthetic photon flux density) and plant responses (leaf water potential, stomatal conductance, CO2 assimilation rates, leaf nitrogen concentration) were measured at 2400 m asl in Monterrey, an intermontane valley of the Venezuelan Andes. A gradient in terms of responses to water stress conditions was observed between the species, with Clusia multiflora (a 46% reduction in stomatal conductance between seasons) as the most affected and Miconia resimoides (increased stomatal conductance) responding more favorably to slight water stress conditions. If we consider the limitations of water stress and/or light conditions on CO2 assimilation we may arrange the species into those in which water stress conditions have a greater impact on leaf carbon gain, those where light conditions are determinant and one in which both water stress and light conditions may affect leaf carbon assimilation.
Modification de la structure des enveloppes et du contenu en proteins d'Escherichia coli en survie dans l'eau de mer

A toxigenic strain of Escherichia coli displayed important structural modifications when placed in seawater which naturally lacked nutritive elements, as observed by electron microscopy. These include cell wall and cell body distortion, modification of the membranes, central segregation of the chromosome, and retraction of the cytoplasm. These modifications were accompanied by a decrease in cell protein content of approximately 40%. Certain cytoplasmic membrane proteins were lost, and new ones appeared. The development of these changes was considerably slower in cells that had previously been grown in a seawater medium. This suggests that osmotic regulation mechanisms, which enable E. coli to survive much longer in marine conditions, may have a protective influence.Key words: Escherichia coli, structure, envelopes, survival, seawater. [Journal translation]
Model Legumes Get the Nod

Fu, H. , Kim, S.Y. , and Park, W.D. (1995). High-leve1 tuber expression and sucrose inducibility of a potato Sus4 sucrose synthase gene require 5 ’ and 3’ flanking sequences and the leader intron. Plant Cell7, 1387-1 394. 11 83-1 200. Jefferson, R.A. , Kavanagh, T.A. , and Bevan, M.W. (1 987). GUS fusions: p-glucuronidase as a sensitive and versatile gene fusion marker in higher plants. EMBO J. 6,3901-3907.
Effects of targets impregnated with the chitin synthesis inhibitor triflumuron on the blowfly Lucilia sericata

The effects of exposure of adults of the blowfly Lucilia sericata (Meigen) for 24 h to cloth targets impregnated with the chitin synthesis inhibitor triflumuron plus sucrose or sucrose only, were considered. When both male and female L. sericata were exposed to targets treated with sucrose only, the percentage egg hatch varied between 60–75%. When both sexes were exposed to targets treated with 10% triflumuron plus sucrose the percentage egg hatch varied between 3–7%. When females alone were exposed to triflumuron, prior to the introduction of unexposed males, egg hatch varied between 4–14%. The exposure of males alone to 10% triflumuron treated targets, prior to the introduction of unexposed virgin females, did not give any consistent significant decrease in the mean percentage egg hatch. However, repetition of this trial with males exposed to targets treated with 15 or 20% triflumuron, resulted in a percentage egg hatch of 3.1% and 10.3%, respectively. These results suggest that at relatively high target concentrations, males can transfer effective doses of triflumuron to unexposed virgin females.
Mining α-Helix-Forming Molecular Recognition Features with Cross Species Sequence Alignments†

Previously described algorithms for mining alpha-helix-forming molecular recognition elements (MoREs), described by Oldfield et al. (Oldfield, C. J., Cheng, Y., Cortese, M. S., Brown, C. J., Uversky, V. N., and Dunker, A. K. (2005) Comparing and combining predictors of mostly disordered proteins, Biochemistry 44, 1989-2000), also known as molecular recognition features (MoRFs) (Mohan, A., Oldfield, C. J., Radivojac, P., Vacic, V., Cortese, M. S., Dunker, A. K., and Uversky, V. N. (2006) Analysis of Molecular Recognition Features (MoRFs), J. Mol. Biol. 362, 1043-1059), revealed that regions undergoing disorder-to-order transition are involved in many molecular recognition events and are crucial for protein-protein interactions. However, these algorithms were developed using a training data set of a limited size. Here we propose to improve the prediction algorithms by (1) including additional alpha-MoRF examples and their cross species homologues in the positive training set, (2) carefully extracting monomer structure chains from the Protein Data Bank (PDB) as the negative training set, (3) including attributes from recently developed disorder predictors, secondary structure predictions, and amino acid indices, and (4) constructing neural network based predictors and performing validation. Over 50 regions which undergo disorder-to-order transition that were identified in the PDB together with a set of corresponding cross species homologues of each structure-based example were included in a new positive training set. Over 1500 attributes, including disorder predictions, secondary structure predictions, and amino acid indices, were evaluated by the conditional probability method. The top attributes, including VSL2 and VL3 disorder predictions and several physicochemical propensities of amino acid residues, were used to develop the feed forward neural networks. The sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of the resulting predictor, alpha-MoRF-PredII, were 0.87 +/- 0.10, 0.87 +/- 0.11, and 0.87 +/- 0.08 over 10 cross validations, respectively. We present the results of these analyses and validation examples to discuss the potential improvement of the alpha-MoRF-PredII prediction accuracy.
A comparative analysis of embryo-sac development in three closely-related Gagea species (Liliaceae), with some considerations on their reproductive strategies

Abstract Embryo-sac development in Gagea bohemica, G. chrysantha and G. granatellii conforms to the Euphorbia dulcis-type (=Fritillaria-type), and all three species are proterandrous. G. bohemica and G. chrysantha are embryologically closer to each other than to G. granatellii and both develop seven- and eight-nucleate female gametophytes (although with clearly different proportions). G. granatellii, however develops only seven-nucleate embryo-sacs. All the species share, in various ways, cytological and micromorphological aberrations in both male and female gametophytes. Pollen grains are mostly morphologically regular in G. bohemica and G. chrysantha, while in G. granatellii malformed pollen is dominant. The studied plants of G. bohemica and G. chrysantha produced a very low amount of seeds, while G. granatellii produced no seeds at all.
Dominance hierarchies in Arctic charr, Salvelinus alpinus L.: differential cortisol profiles of dominant and subordinate individuals after handling stress

We examined the effect of social rank on plasma cortisol dynamics after handling stress in juvenile Arctic charr, Salvelinus alpinus L. , reared in groups of 200 individuals in 1.5 m(3) circular tanks (rearing density 0.022 kg L(-1)). Fish obtained by dip-netting were categorized as either socially subordinate, dominant or as holding an intermediate position on the basis of size, skin coloration and occurrence of bite marks. In undisturbed fish, the highest cortisol levels were found in fish ranked as intermediate and the lowest in dominant fish. In contrast to what has been found under conditions of artificial rearing in small groups (two to ten individuals), cortisol was not significantly elevated in subordinates compared with dominant individuals. In small groups of fish, aggressive interactions and restricted access to food may be significant factors leading to increased stress in socially subordinate individuals. Following stress by dip-netting and transfer, the quickest and largest cortisol response was seen in dominant individuals. These results suggest that hypothalamus-pituitary-inter-renal/adrenal axis responsiveness as well as baseline cortisol production is influenced by social rank in fish, as has been shown in other vertebrates.
Effect of sward surface height on intake and grazing behaviour by lactating Holstein Friesian cows

The effect of sward surface height (SSH) on grazing behaviour and intake by lactating Holstein Friesian cows on continuously stocked grass pastures maintained at mean heights of 5, 7 and 9 cm was studied during the growing season. Intake rate was estimated over periods of 1 h by weighing animals before and after grazing, with a correction made for insensible weight loss. Grazing behaviour during that hour and over 24 h was recorded automatically using sensors to measure jaw movements. Although maintained at the overall mean SSH, swards had a patchy appearance with short, frequently grazed areas interspersed with taller, infrequently grazed areas, which is typical of pastures continuously stocked with cattle. Daily organic matter (OM) intake, calculated as the product of daily grazing time and intake rate, was greater at a SSH of 7 cm than at 5 or 9 cm (14.1 vs. 10.5 and 12.1 kg respectively). On the 5-cm sward, OM intake per grazing jaw movement (GJM) was reduced compared with that on the 7-cm sward (0.182 vs. 0.264 g respectively), and because cows were unable either to increase significantly GJM rate (95.8 vs. 90.1 GJM min(-1)) or the proportion of GJM that were bites (0.80 vs. 0.81) OM intake rate was reduced (16.9 vs. 23.5 g min(-1)). Cows were unable to increase their grazing time significantly (628 vs. 604 min d(-1)) to compensate for the reduction in intake rate, and as a result daily intakes were lower. Cows grazing the 9-cm sward also incurred a reduction in OM intake GJM(-1) compared with those on the 7-cm sward (0.237 vs. 0.264 g respectively) and therefore there was a reduction in OM intake rate (21.6 vs. 23.5 g min(-1)). These animals did not compensate by increasing the time spent grazing (581 min d(-1)), probably owing to an increased ruminating requirement per kg of herbage ingested compared with those on 7 cm SSH (2264 vs. 1780 ruminating jaw movements respectively). The results show that SSH can significantly influence intake rate, but, while the cow's only effective strategy to compensate for any reduction in intake rate is to increase grazing time, this may be limited by the requirement for ruminating and non-grazing, non-ruminating activities, which is influenced by qualitative and quantitative aspects of the herbage ingested, whereas the cows' only effective strategy to compensate for any reduction in intake rate is to increase grazing time.
Integrating biotechnology into tree improvement programs

Time is a major constraint in the progress of tree improvement programs. Four ways in which time influences the tree improvement process are (i) evolutionary time, (ii) time to harvest, (iii) time to achieve phenotypic stability, and (iv) time to reach reproductive maturity. The ways in which each of these affects the three phases of a tree improvement program (conservation, selection and breeding, and propagation) are identified and discussed. How biotechnological techniques, as well as other enabling technologies, address the time constraint problem is also discussed. The biotechnological approaches include tissue culture, molecular genetics, and genetic engineering; the enabling technologies include early testing and flower induction. Through tissue culture it is possible to increase genetic gain per unit time and increase total genetic gain by using more of the total genetic variation. Development of high-resolution linkage maps, through application of molecular genetics technology, will provide new a.
Influence of protein segregation on the quality characteristics of Biggar and Genesis Canada Prairie Spring Wheat

The influence of protein segregation on the quality characteristics of Biggar, a Canada Prairie Spring Red wheat cultivar, and Genesis, a Canada Prairie Spring White wheat cultivar has been evaluated using 1989, 1990 and 1991 harvest survey samples. Protein segregation had a strong influence on most physical parameters and processing characteristics all three years. However, the slopes of the regression equations of protein content to values for each quality test exhibited heterogeneity between years. For both wheat cultivars, test weight and kernel weight gave consistently high negative correlations to protein content, indicative of less kernel plumpness at high protein content. The resulting lower endosperm content of the higher protein segregates was reflected by higher wheat ash content, and lower flour yield in 2 of the 3 yr. The milling performance of the higher protein segregates was further diminished by consistently high positive correlations of flour grade color to protein content, indicative of.
Towards a Unifield Foraging Theory

In the broadest sense, foraging adaptations can include problems of finding food, avoid- ing predation while looking for food, and reproducing. In this paper, a theory that treats these three behaviors in a consistent, unified manner, with one common currency, is presented. The theory is called unified foraging theory, although it actually pertains to a wider class of behavioral problems. The theory is based on models using Markovian decision processes and leads to quantitatively testable predictions about behavioral strategies.
Towards a physiological and genetical understanding of the energetics of the stress response

We consider stress as an environmental change that results in reduction of net energy balance (i.e. growth and reproduction). Reduced energy balance restricts the environmental range of an organism and may change the environmental optima at which maximum production can be achieved. We emphasize individual differences in net energy balance and the interrelationships among genetic heterozygosity, rate of protein synthesis, efficiency of protein synthesis and whole organism measures of both routine and maintenance metabolic rate. Lastly, we consider the consequences of genetically determined individual differences in metabolic maintenance costs within the context of variable environments and how genetic/environmental interactions can define individual responses to environmental extremes.
Distinguishing human from animal faecal contamination in water: A review

Abstract Management of faecal contamination of water would be improved if sources could be accurately identified through water analysis. Human faeces are generally perceived as constituting a greater human health risk than animal faeces, but reliable epidemiological evidence is lacking. United States waterborne disease data suggest that human‐specific enteric viruses account for over half the documented outbreaks. However, in New Zealand, where there is a high grazing animal:human ratio (increasing the relative importance of water‐transmissible zoonoses), it seems prudent to assume that human and animal faecal pollution both constitute a risk to human health. Irrespective of the relative risks, the ability to identify sources would assist in overall management of microbial water quality. Faecal streptococci do not appear to provide reliable faecal source identification. Human and animal sources, respectively, maybe distinguishable by two tests on Bifidobacterium spp. —growth at 45°C in trypticase phytone y.
A Revised Conservation Assessment of Dipterocarps in Sabah

Borneo has experienced a rapid decline in the extent of forest cover, which has reduced the amount of habitat available for many plant and animal species. The precise impact of habitat loss on the conservation status of dipterocarp trees is uncertain. We use three contrasting techniques, the extent of occurrence, area of occupancy and ecological niche models derived using maxent, in conjunction with a current land‐use map of Sabah, to derive estimates of habitat loss and infer a regional IUCN Red List conservation status for 33 Sabah dipterocarp species. Estimates of habitat loss differed significantly according to the methods employed and between species on different habitat types. Proportion of habitat loss determined from the ecological niche models varied from 21 percent for Shorea micans to 99.5 percent for Dipterocarpus lamellatus. Thirty‐two of the 33 dipterocarp species analyzed in this study would have their Sabah populations classified as Threatened (equal to a habitat loss of > 30%) under the A2 IUCN Red List criterion. Dipterocarps that occur in lowland forests have experienced greater habitat loss than upland/lower montane or ultramafic species. In addition, species with the lowest predicted area within their historic distributions had the highest proportion of habitat lost, which provides a rationale for targeting conservation effort on the species with narrow distributions. We recommend the ecological niche modeling approach as a rapid assessment tool for reconstructing species’ historic distributions during conservation assessments of tropical trees.
THE AVIFAUNA OF FARALLON DE MEDINILLA, MARIANA ISLANDS

Abstract Farallon de Medinilla is a small island in the western Pacific that is leased by the U.S. military from the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands as an impact area for training exercises. We spent 5.5 h on the island surveying its avifauna on 4 Nov. 1996 and observed a total of 17 species including seabirds, migratory shorebirds, and resident landbirds. Of special interest was the first island record of the endangered Micronesian Megapode (Megapodius laperouse) and breeding colonies of Great Frigatebirds (Fregata minor) and Masked Boobies (Sula dactylatra). Locations of individual megapodes and seabird colonies were mapped and breeding information recorded. Historical records and photographs indicate that since the island has been used as an impact area its vegetative structure has changed from a medium-height, relatively closed canopy forest, to primarily open areas with intermittent patches of low forest. Alterations of native vegetation likely resulted in changes in the density, distribution, and species composition of the island's avifauna, although these changes are difficult to quantify.
Computer Controlled Chamber Measurements for Multiple Contacts for Soil-Skin Adherence from Aluminum and Carpet Surfaces

ABSTRACT A computer-controlled mechanical chamber was used to perform multiple contacts between human cadaver skin or cotton sheet samples and soil-laden carpet or aluminum foil to measure mass soil transfer. The amount transferred was measured with an analytical balance. The contact parameters of pressure (10 to 50 kPa) and time (10 to 50 s) were varied for 760 separate multiple contact experiments, where two soil types (play sand and lawn soil) and two soil sizes (< 139.7 and ≥ 139.7 < 381 μm) were used. Through parametric and non-parametric tests, this article specifically looks at the influence and interaction of these experimental parameters on the transfer of soil or sand to human skin during multiple contacts. The relationships between the amount of soil or sand that transfers for a first contact, for a second contact, and overall are also presented. On average, a second contact added an additional 8% of soil or sand to the adherence material (i.e., cloth, skin). The experimental variables of pressure, time, soil size, and soil type had less influence on the magnitude of transfer for the second contact as compared to the first contact.