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- Gottfried, M., et al.
(author)
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Continent-wide response of mountain vegetation to climate change
- 2012
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In: Nature Climate Change. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1758-678X .- 1758-6798. ; 2:2, s. 111-115
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Climate impact studies have indicated ecological fingerprints of recent global warming across a wide range of habitats(1,2). Although these studies have shown responses from various local case studies, a coherent large-scale account on temperature-driven changes of biotic communities has been lacking(3,4). Here we use 867 vegetation samples above the treeline from 60 summit sites in all major European mountain systems to show that ongoing climate change gradually transforms mountain plant communities. We provide evidence that the more cold-adapted species decline and the more warm-adapted species increase, a process described here as thermophilization. At the scale of individual mountains this general trend may not be apparent, but at the larger, continental scale we observed a significantly higher abundance of thermophilic species in 2008, compared with 2001. Thermophilization of mountain plant communities mirrors the degree of recent warming and is more pronounced in areas where the temperature increase has been higher. In view of the projected climate change(5,6) the observed transformation suggests a progressive decline of cold mountain habitats and their biota.
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- Pauli, H., et al.
(author)
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Recent Plant Diversity Changes on Europe's Mountain Summits
- 2012
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In: Science. - : American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). - 0036-8075 .- 1095-9203. ; 336:6079, s. 353-355
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In mountainous regions, climate warming is expected to shift species' ranges to higher altitudes. Evidence for such shifts is still mostly from revisitations of historical sites. We present recent (2001 to 2008) changes in vascular plant species richness observed in a standardized monitoring network across Europe's major mountain ranges. Species have moved upslope on average. However, these shifts had opposite effects on the summit floras' species richness in boreal-temperate mountain regions (+3.9 species on average) and Mediterranean mountain regions (-1.4 species), probably because recent climatic trends have decreased the availability of water in the European south. Because Mediterranean mountains are particularly rich in endemic species, a continuation of these trends might shrink the European mountain flora, despite an average increase in summit species richness across the region.
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- Putula, Jaana, et al.
(author)
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Agonist ligand discrimination by the two orexin receptors depends on the expression system
- 2011
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In: Neuroscience Letters. - : Elsevier BV. - 0304-3940 .- 1872-7972. ; 494:1, s. 57-60
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Despite the recent successes in producing orexin receptor subtype-selective antagonists, these are not commonly available, and therefore, agonist ligands are regularly used to ascribe cell and tissue responses to OX(1) or OX(2) receptors. In the current study, we have compared the native "subtype-selective" agonist, orexin-B, and its reputedly enhanced synthetic variant, Ala(11), d-Leu(15)-orexin-B, in two different recombinant cell lines. Ca(2+) elevation was used as readout, and the two "selective" ligands were compared to the subtype-non-selective orexin-A, as is customary with these ligands. In transiently transfected HEK-293 cells, orexin-B showed 9-fold selectivity for the OX(2) receptor and Ala(11), d-Leu(15)-orexin-B 23-fold selectivity, when the potency ratios of ligands were compared between OX(1) and OX(2). In stable CHO-K1 cells, the corresponding values were only 2.6- and 14-fold, respectively. In addition to being low, the selectivity of the ligands was also variable, as indicated by the comparison of the two cell lines. For instance, the relative potency of Ala(11), d-Leu(15)-orexin-B at OX(2) in CHO cells was only 2.3-fold higher than its relative potency at OX(1) in HEK-293 cells; this indicates that Ala(11), d-Leu(15)-orexin-B does not show high enough selectivity for OX(2) to be useful for determination of receptor subtype expression. Comparison of the potencies of orexin-A and -B with respect to a number of published responses in OX(1)-expressing CHO cells, demonstrates that these show great variation: i.e., orexin-A is 1.6-18-fold more potent than orexin-B, depending on the response assessed. These data together suggest that orexin receptor ligands show signal trafficking, which makes agonist-based pharmacology unreliable.
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