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- 2019
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)
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| 2. |
- Santangelo, James S., et al.
(författare)
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Global urban environmental change drives adaptation in white clover
- 2022
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Ingår i: Science. - : American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). - 0036-8075 .- 1095-9203. ; 375
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Urbanization transforms environments in ways that alter biological evolution. We examined whether urban environmental change drives parallel evolution by sampling 110,019 white clover plants from 6169 populations in 160 cities globally. Plants were assayed for a Mendelian antiherbivore defense that also affects tolerance to abiotic stressors. Urban-rural gradients were associated with the evolution of clines in defense in 47% of cities throughout the world. Variation in the strength of clines was explained by environmental changes in drought stress and vegetation cover that varied among cities. Sequencing 2074 genomes from 26 cities revealed that the evolution of urban-rural dines was best explained by adaptive evolution, but the degree of parallel adaptation varied among cities. Our results demonstrate that urbanization leads to adaptation at a global scale.
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| 3. |
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| 4. |
- Haig, David W., et al.
(författare)
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Early Triassic (early Olenekian) life in the interior of East Gondwana : mixed marine-terrestrial biota from the Kockatea Shale, Western Australia
- 2015
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Ingår i: Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. - : Elsevier BV. - 0031-0182 .- 1872-616X. ; 417, s. 511-533
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A new terrestrial marine assemblage from the lower beds of a thin outcrop section of the Kockatea Shale in the northern Perth Basin, Western Australia, contains a range of fossil groups, most of which are rare or poorly known from the Lower Triassic of the region. To date, the collection includes spinose acritarchs, organic-cemented agglutinated foraminifera, lingulids, minute bivalves and gastropods, ammonoids, spinicaudatans, insects, austriocaridid crustaceans, actinopterygians, a temnospondyl-like mandible, plant remains, and spores and pollen. Of these groups, the insects, crustaceans and macroplant remains are recorded for the first time from this unit. Palynomorphs permit correlation to nearby sections where conodonts indicate an early Olenekian (Smithian) age. The locality likely represents the margin of an Early Triassic shallow interior sea with variable estuarine-like water conditions, at the southwestern end of an elongate embayment within the East Gondwana interior rift sag system preserved along the Western Australian margin. Monospecific spinose acritarch assemblages intertwined with amorphous organic matter may represent phytoplankton blooms that accumulated as mats, and suggest potentially eutrophic surface waters. The assemblage represents a mixure of marine and terrestrial taxa, suggesting variations in water conditions or that fresh/brackish-water and terrestrial organisms were transported from adjacent biotopes. Some of the lower dark shaly beds are dominated by spinicaudatans, likely indicating periods when the depositional water body was ephemeral, isolated, or subjected to other difficult environmental conditions. The biota of the Kockatea Shale is insufficiently known to estimate biotic diversity and relationships of individual taxa to their Permian progenitors and Triassic successors, but provides a glimpse into a coastal-zone from the interior of eastern Gondwana. Specialist collecting is needed to clarify the taxonomy of many groups, and comparisons to other Lower Triassic sites are required to provide insights into the pattern of biotic decline and recovery at the end-Permian crisis. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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| 5. |
- Heyland, Daren K., et al.
(författare)
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A Randomized Trial of Enteral Glutamine for Treatment of Burn Injuries
- 2022
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Ingår i: New England Journal of Medicine. - : Massachusetts Medical Society. - 0028-4793 .- 1533-4406. ; 387:11, s. 1001-1010
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BACKGROUNDGlutamine is thought to have beneficial effects on the metabolic and stress response to severe injury. Clinical trials involving patients with burns and other critically ill patients have shown conflicting results regarding the benefits and risks of glutamine supplementation.METHODSIn a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial, we assigned patients with deep second-or third-degree burns (affecting >= 10% to >= 20% of total body-surface area, depending on age) within 72 hours after hospital admission to receive 0.5 g per kilogram of body weight per day of enterally delivered glutamine or placebo. Trial agents were given every 4 hours through a feeding tube or three or four times a day by mouth until 7 days after the last skin grafting procedure, discharge from the acute care unit, or 3 months after admission, whichever came first. The primary outcome was the time to discharge alive from the hospital, with data censored at 90 days. We calculated subdistribution hazard ratios for discharge alive, which took into account death as a competing risk.RESULTS A total of 1209 patients with severe burns (mean burn size, 33% of total body-surface area) underwent randomization, and 1200 were included in the analysis (596 patients in the glutamine group and 604 in the placebo group). The median time to discharge alive from the hospital was 40 days (interquartile range, 24 to 87) in the glutamine group and 38 days (interquartile range, 22 to 75) in the placebo group (subdistribution hazard ratio for discharge alive, 0.91; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.80 to 1.04; P = 0.17). Mortality at 6 months was 17.2% in the glutamine group and 16.2% in the placebo group (hazard ratio for death, 1.06; 95% CI, 0.80 to 1.41). No substantial between-group differences in serious adverse events were observed.CONCLUSIONSIn patients with severe burns, supplemental glutamine did not reduce the time to discharge alive from the hospital.
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| 6. |
- Iliodromiti, Stamatina, et al.
(författare)
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Liver, visceral and subcutaneous fat in men and women of South Asian and white European descent : a systematic review and meta-analysis of new and published data
- 2023
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Ingår i: Diabetologia. - : Springer. - 0012-186X .- 1432-0428. ; 66:1, s. 44-56
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Aims/hypothesis South Asians have a two- to fivefold higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes than those of white European descent. Greater central adiposity and storage of fat in deeper or ectopic depots are potential contributing mechanisms. We collated existing and new data on the amount of subcutaneous (SAT), visceral (VAT) and liver fat in adults of South Asian and white European descent to provide a robust assessment of potential ethnic differences in these factors. Methods We performed a systematic review of the Embase and PubMed databases from inception to August 2021. Unpublished imaging data were also included. The weighted standardised mean difference (SMD) for each adiposity measure was estimated using random-effects models. The quality of the studies was assessed using the ROBINS-E tool for risk of bias and overall certainty of the evidence was assessed using the GRADE approach. The study was pre-registered with the OSF Registries (https://osf. io/w5bf9). Results We summarised imaging data on SAT, VAT and liver fat from eight published and three previously unpublished datasets, including a total of 1156 South Asian and 2891 white European men, and 697 South Asian and 2271 white European women. Despite South Asian men having a mean BMI approximately 0.5-0.7 kg/m(2) lower than white European men (depending on the comparison), nine studies showed 0.34 SMD (95% CI 0.12, 0.55; I-2 =83%) more SAT and seven studies showed 0.56 SMD (95% CI 0.14, 0.98; I-2 =93%) more liver fat, but nine studies had similar VAT (-0.03 SMD; 95% CI -0.24, 0.19;1 2 =85%) compared with their white European counterparts. South Asian women had an approximately 0.9 kg/m(2) lower BMI but 0.31 SMD (95% CI 0.14, 0.48; I-2=53%) more liver fat than their white European counterparts in five studies. Subcutaneous fat levels (0.03 SMD; 95% CI -0.17, 0.23; I-2 =72%) and VAT levels (0.04 SMD; 95% CI -0.16, 0.24; I-2 =71%) did not differ significantly between ethnic groups in eight studies of women. Conclusions/interpretation South Asian men and women appear to store more ectopic fat in the liver compared with their white European counterparts with similar BMI levels. Given the emerging understanding of the importance of liver fat in diabetes pathogenesis, these findings help explain the greater diabetes risks in South Asians.
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| 7. |
- Keles, Engin, et al.
(författare)
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The PEPSI exoplanet transit survey (PETS) I : Investigating the presence of a silicate atmosphere on the super-earth 55 Cnc e
- 2022
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Ingår i: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0035-8711 .- 1365-2966. ; 513:1, s. 1544-1556
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The study of exoplanets and especially their atmospheres can reveal key insights on their evolution by identifying specific atmospheric species. For such atmospheric investigations, high-resolution transmission spectroscopy has shown great success, especially for Jupiter-type planets. Towards the atmospheric characterization of smaller planets, the super-Earth exoplanet 55 Cnc e is one of the most promising terrestrial exoplanets studied to date. Here, we present a high-resolution spectroscopic transit observation of this planet, acquired with the PEPSI instrument at the Large Binocular Telescope. Assuming the presence of Earth-like crust species on the surface of 55 Cnc e, from which a possible silicate-vapor atmosphere could have originated, we search in its transmission spectrum for absorption of various atomic and ionized species such as Fe, Fe +, Ca, Ca +, Mg, and K, among others. Not finding absorption for any of the investigated species, we are able to set absorption limits with a median value of 1.9 × RP. In conclusion, we do not find evidence of a widely extended silicate envelope on this super-Earth reaching several planetary radii.
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| 8. |
- Komatsu, Kimberly J., et al.
(författare)
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Global change effects on plant communities are magnified by time and the number of global change factors imposed
- 2019
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Ingår i: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. - : National Academy of Sciences. - 0027-8424 .- 1091-6490. ; 116:36, s. 17867-17873
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Accurate prediction of community responses to global change drivers (GCDs) is critical given the effects of biodiversity on ecosystem services. There is consensus that human activities are driving species extinctions at the global scale, but debate remains over whether GCDs are systematically altering local communities worldwide. Across 105 experiments that included over 400 experimental manipulations, we found evidence for a lagged response of herbaceous plant communities to GCDs caused by shifts in the identities and relative abundances of species, often without a corresponding difference in species richness. These results provide evidence that community responses are pervasive across a wide variety of GCDs on long-term temporal scales and that these responses increase in strength when multiple GCDs are simultaneously imposed.Global change drivers (GCDs) are expected to alter community structure and consequently, the services that ecosystems provide. Yet, few experimental investigations have examined effects of GCDs on plant community structure across multiple ecosystem types, and those that do exist present conflicting patterns. In an unprecedented global synthesis of over 100 experiments that manipulated factors linked to GCDs, we show that herbaceous plant community responses depend on experimental manipulation length and number of factors manipulated. We found that plant communities are fairly resistant to experimentally manipulated GCDs in the short term (<10 y). In contrast, long-term (≥10 y) experiments show increasing community divergence of treatments from control conditions. Surprisingly, these community responses occurred with similar frequency across the GCD types manipulated in our database. However, community responses were more common when 3 or more GCDs were simultaneously manipulated, suggesting the emergence of additive or synergistic effects of multiple drivers, particularly over long time periods. In half of the cases, GCD manipulations caused a difference in community composition without a corresponding species richness difference, indicating that species reordering or replacement is an important mechanism of community responses to GCDs and should be given greater consideration when examining consequences of GCDs for the biodiversity–ecosystem function relationship. Human activities are currently driving unparalleled global changes worldwide. Our analyses provide the most comprehensive evidence to date that these human activities may have widespread impacts on plant community composition globally, which will increase in frequency over time and be greater in areas where communities face multiple GCDs simultaneously.
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| 9. |
- Kwiecinski, Jakub, 1985, et al.
(författare)
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Activation of plasminogen by staphylokinase reduces the severity of Staphylococcus aureus systemic infection.
- 2010
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Ingår i: The Journal of infectious diseases. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 1537-6613 .- 0022-1899. ; 202:7, s. 1041-9
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BACKGROUND: Staphylokinase (SAK) is produced by the majority of Staphylococcus aureus strains. It is an extracellular protein that activates the conversion of human plasminogen (plg) to plasmin. The role played by SAK in staphylococcal infection is unclear. METHODS: Wild-type S. aureus strain LS-1, which lacks the ability to produce SAK, was modified by an insertion of the sak gene into its chromosome. The sak gene was integrated in 2 forms--(1) linked to its own promoter and (2) fused to the promoter of the protein A gene--which resulted in the overexpression of SAK. SAK is highly specific for human plg and exhibits almost no activity toward murine plg. To investigate the role played by SAK in a murine infection model, human plg transgenic mice and their wild-type counterparts were inoculated intravenously with congenic S. aureus strains differing in SAK production. RESULTS: Human plg transgenic mice inoculated with SAK-expressing strains displayed significantly reduced mortality, less weight loss, and lower bacterial loads in kidneys than did the wild-type mice. No difference in the severity of sepsis was observed between transgenic and wild-type mice infected with a SAK-deficient strain. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that expression of SAK followed by activation of plg alleviates the course of S. aureus sepsis.
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| 10. |
- Morrison, Kathleen D., et al.
(författare)
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Mapping past human land use using archaeological data : A new classification for global land use synthesis and data harmonization
- 2021
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Ingår i: PLOS ONE. - : Public Library of Science. - 1932-6203. ; 16:4
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In the 12,000 years preceding the Industrial Revolution, human activities led to significant changes in land cover, plant and animal distributions, surface hydrology, and biochemical cycles. Earth system models suggest that this anthropogenic land cover change influenced regional and global climate. However, the representation of past land use in earth system models is currently oversimplified. As a result, there are large uncertainties in the current understanding of the past and current state of the earth system. In order to improve representation of the variety and scale of impacts that past land use had on the earth system, a global effort is underway to aggregate and synthesize archaeological and historical evidence of land use systems. Here we present a simple, hierarchical classification of land use systems designed to be used with archaeological and historical data at a global scale and a schema of codes that identify land use practices common to a range of systems, both implemented in a geospatial database. The classification scheme and database resulted from an extensive process of consultation with researchers worldwide. Our scheme is designed to deliver consistent, empirically robust data for the improvement of land use models, while simultaneously allowing for a comparative, detailed mapping of land use relevant to the needs of historical scholars. To illustrate the benefits of the classification scheme and methods for mapping historical land use, we apply it to Mesopotamia and Arabia at 6 kya (c. 4000 BCE). The scheme will be used to describe land use by the Past Global Changes (PAGES) LandCover6k working group, an international project comprised of archaeologists, historians, geographers, paleoecologists, and modelers. Beyond this, the scheme has a wide utility for creating a common language between research and policy communities, linking archaeologists with climate modelers, biodiversity conservation workers and initiatives.
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