Elephant-induced structural changes in the vegetation and habitat selection by large herbivores in an African savanna     

Marion Valeix  Hervé Fritz  Rodolphe Sabatier  Felix Murindagomo  David Cumming  Patrick Duncan 《Biological conservation》2011,(2):902-912

African elephants can affect the quality of the habitat of other species by breaking or uprooting trees and shrubs in savannas. Their effect on vegetation has been widely studied but less is known about the effects of such vegetation changes on other animals. We studied how changes in the vegetation caused by elephants influence the selection of microhabitats by five African herbivore species (giraffe, kudu, steenbok, impala, and zebra) in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe. There was no clear significant effect of overall elephant-induced vegetation changes on microhabitat selection except for the small species (steenbok and impala) that used vegetation modified by elephants preferentially. This is consistent with a medium-term browsing facilitation hypothesis. More subtle possible effects were detected for larger browsers (giraffe and kudu). They selected areas with broken and uprooted plants and avoided coppiced areas. All of the browsers selected sites characterized by plants uprooted and broken by elephants, which were associated with a higher visibility, and ultimately a better probability of detecting an approaching predator, suggesting that perceived predation risk plays an important role in microhabitat selection. These results illustrate how elephants can initiate indirect effects that influence microhabitat selection by other herbivores. Understanding the indirect effects of elephants through changes in food availability and predation risk thus needs further investigation. The results of this study do not provide support for the hypothesis that elephant-induced changes in the structure of habitats have caused the declines in the populations of the other herbivores in the study area.  相似文献   

Mammalian genes are transcribed with widely different bursting kinetics   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  

Suter DM  Molina N  Gatfield D  Schneider K  Schibler U  Naef F 《Science (New York, N.Y.)》2011,332(6028):472-474

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The impact of high speed, high volume traffic axes on brown bears in Slovenia   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  

Petra Kaczensky  Felix Knauer  Blaz Krze  Miha Adamic 《Biological conservation》2003,111(2):191-204

The Ljubljana-Razdrto highway and the parallel Ljubljana-Trieste railway cut through critical brown bear (Ursus arctos) habitat in south-central Slovenia. These high speed, high volume traffic axes are located close to the main dispersal corridor for bears from the Dinaric Mountain range into the Alps. We analyzed radiotracking data of 15 individual bears that lived within 10 km of the highway, compared transportation related and overall known bear mortality, and analyzed the spatial distribution of bear-vehicle accidents. The highway posed a home range boundary to resident bears, but was not an absolute barrier. Transportation-related mortality was high in the vicinity of the highway and railway, and averaged 31% of the total known local mortality from 1992 to 1999. At present the detrimental impact of transportation routes on the bear population in Slovenia is modest due to the high density of bears and the low density of highways—but new highways are planned or already under construction. Managers have to be aware that, due to bears large home ranges and long dispersal distances, a single highway affects bears from a huge area—emphasizing the importance of international cooperation and a landscape approach in highway planning.  相似文献   

Field Trials for in Situ Decontamination of Heavy Metal Polluted Soils using Crops of Metal-Accumulating Plants     

Hansruedi Felix 《植物养料与土壤学杂志》1997,160(4):525-529

Certain wild plants as well as crop plants, so-called hyperaccumulators, are able to accumulate large amounts of heavy metals in aerial parts. This property may be exploited for the clean-up of soil contaminated by metals (phytoremediation), if the yield and metal accumulation are big enough to finish remediation within a reasonable period (e.g. five years). Therefore, the ability of various plants to accumulate zinc and cadmium were compared in field trials. The wild species Thlaspi caerulescens and Alyssum murale as well as the tree Salix viminalis showed a strong ability to accumulate zinc and cadmium. However, phytoremediation of investigated soils contaminated with cadmium (6.6 ppm) or zinc (810 ppm) lasts too long based on present technology. Literature data and preliminary experiments indicate that major obstacles could be overcome: Yield and metal-uptake rates have to be increased dramatically in order to allow remediation within reasonable periods.  相似文献   

Large‐scale identification of hot spots for soil carbon demand under climate change and bioenergy production          下载免费PDF全文

Uwe Franko  Felix Witing  Greta Jäckel  Martin Volk 《植物养料与土壤学杂志》2015,178(2):199-208

Global change scenarios predict an increased risk for declining amounts of soil organic matter (SOM) for Central Germany. Within this region the production of bioenergy is one important strategy to counteract the rising anthropogenic CO₂‐emissions. Both issues have a close connection: SOM is an important basis for soil productivity and requires a steady reproduction flux. Bioenergy production requires productive soils and partly consumes plant biomass C. Therefore, the available amount for SOM reproduction is reduced. This study provides a methodology for the large‐scale identification of areas with possible conflicts between bioenergy production and SOM reproduction based on (1) the prediction of climate change impact on SOM reproduction and (2) an analysis of the regional distribution of biogas plants. With the C demand index (CDI) and the capacity index (CAP), two indicators were developed which enable the identification of hot spots of high carbon demand for SOM reproduction due to climate change and the usage of bioenergy. As a result of low data requirements, the indicators are widely applicable and transferable to other large‐scale studies. The proposed methodology was applied to Central Germany as a pilot region. Results indicate a growing demand (10–40%) of fresh organic C from biomass for SOM production in comparison to the current level. The analysis reveals that the bioenergy C demand is not evenly distributed within the study region. It also shows some regional clustering. Furthermore, the analysis identifies certain hot spots of a high C demand, where a high capacity of biogas production may conflict with rising demands for biomass to mitigate climate change effects on SOM storage. The hot spot areas—identified and selected on a large scale—can subsequently be analyzed in more detail on a local to farm scale by using high‐resolution data and models which enable the quantification of soil C dynamics.  相似文献   

An animal model for interface tissue formation in cemented hip replacements   总被引：2，自引：0，他引：2  

El-Warrak AO  Olmstead M  Apelt D  Deiss F  Noetzli H  Zlinsky K  Hilbe M  Bertschar-Wolfsberger R  Johnson AL  Auer J  von Rechenberg B 《Veterinary surgery : VS》2004,33(5):495-504

OBJECTIVE: To create a model in sheep for investigation of early changes related to the formation of an interface membrane in hip prosthesis. STUDY DESIGN: Experimental study. ANIMALS: Twenty-four female adult Swiss Alpine sheep. METHODS: Sheep were divided into 2 groups of 12 for unilateral cemented total hip arthroplasty. In Group I, the prosthesis was fixed with retrograde cement gun injection to achieve a complete cement mantle, whereas in Group II a primary cement mantle defect was produced. Groups I and II were further divided into 2 sub-groups with study end points of 2 and 8.5 months after surgery. Radiographs were evaluated postoperatively and at euthanasia for migration of the femoral component and bone resorption. Histologic sections were evaluated semiquantitatively for changes in cell types and numbers, and bone reactions; and quantitatively for size of interface membrane and new bone formation. RESULTS: Radiographically, there tended to be an increase in bone resorption and periosteal bone formation throughout the femoral shaft in Group II compared with Group I, but this was only statistically significant at the region of the femoral neck (R5) at both time periods (P<.05). Semiquantitative histologic evaluation revealed significant increases (P<.05) in cellularity, numbers of fibroblasts, giant cells, macrophages, and mononuclear cells, in Group II primarily at 2 months after surgery. This was also true for interface membrane formation and bone remodeling. Quantitative data showed an increased in the size of the interface membrane and area of bone formation at 8.5 months in Group II. CONCLUSIONS: The cement defect model offered controlled and repeatable production of an interface membrane. The results suggest that a primary cement mantle defect could be a possible trigger for implant instability, eliciting a cascade of biomechanical and molecular events in bone tissue leading to aseptic loosening. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: The results show the effect of defects in the cement mantle in promoting interface membrane formation. Long-term and biochemical studies are required to evaluate the relevance of this interface membrane formation.  相似文献   

Altruistic helping in human infants and young chimpanzees     

Warneken F  Tomasello M 《Science (New York, N.Y.)》2006,311(5765):1301-1303

Human beings routinely help others to achieve their goals, even when the helper receives no immediate benefit and the person helped is a stranger. Such altruistic behaviors (toward non-kin) are extremely rare evolutionarily, with some theorists even proposing that they are uniquely human. Here we show that human children as young as 18 months of age (prelinguistic or just-linguistic) quite readily help others to achieve their goals in a variety of different situations. This requires both an understanding of others' goals and an altruistic motivation to help. In addition, we demonstrate similar though less robust skills and motivations in three young chimpanzees.  相似文献   

Influence of thermal processing conditions on acrylamide generation and browning in a potato model system     

Amrein TM  Limacher A  Conde-Petit B  Amado R  Escher F 《Journal of agricultural and food chemistry》2006,54(16):5910-5916

Fried potato products such as French fries and chips may contain substantial amounts of acrylamide. Numerous efforts are undertaken to minimize the acrylamide content of these products while sensory properties such as color and flavor have to be respected as well. An optimization of the frying process can be achieved if the basic kinetic data of the browning and acrylamide formation are known. Therefore, heating experiments with potato powder were performed under controlled conditions (moisture, temperature, and time). Browning and acrylamide content both increased with heating time at all temperatures and moisture contents tested. The moisture content had a strong influence on the activation energy of browning and acrylamide formation. The activation energy strongly increased at moisture contents below 20%. At higher moisture contents, it was very similar for both parameters. At low moisture contents, the activation energy of acrylamide formation was larger as compared to the one for browning. This explains why the end of the frying process is very critical. Therefore, a lower temperature toward the end of frying reduces the acrylamide content of the product while color development is still good.  相似文献   

Individual cell migration serves as the driving force for optic vesicle evagination     

Rembold M  Loosli F  Adams RJ  Wittbrodt J 《Science (New York, N.Y.)》2006,313(5790):1130-1134

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The structures of COPI-coated vesicles reveal alternate coatomer conformations and interactions     

Faini M  Prinz S  Beck R  Schorb M  Riches JD  Bacia K  Brügger B  Wieland FT  Briggs JA 《Science (New York, N.Y.)》2012,336(6087):1451-1454

Transport between compartments of eukaryotic cells is mediated by coated vesicles. The archetypal protein coats COPI, COPII, and clathrin are conserved from yeast to human. Structural studies of COPII and clathrin coats assembled in vitro without membranes suggest that coat components assemble regular cages with the same set of interactions between components. Detailed three-dimensional structures of coated membrane vesicles have not been obtained. Here, we solved the structures of individual COPI-coated membrane vesicles by cryoelectron tomography and subtomogram averaging of in vitro reconstituted budding reactions. The coat protein complex, coatomer, was observed to adopt alternative conformations to change the number of other coatomers with which it interacts and to form vesicles with variable sizes and shapes. This represents a fundamentally different basis for vesicle coat assembly.  相似文献