Downtown diet: a global meta-analysis of increased urbanization on the diets of vertebrate predators.

Predation is a fundamental ecological process that shapes communities and drives evolutionary dynamics. As the world rapidly urbanizes, it is critical to understand how human perturbations alter predation and meat consumption across taxa. We conducted a meta-analysis to quantify the effects of urban environments on three components of trophic ecology in predators: dietary species richness, dietary evenness and stable isotopic ratios (IRs) (C and N IR).

Identification of Three Antimicrobials Activating Serotonin Receptor 4 in Colon Cells.

The serotonin receptor 4b (5-HTR) is expressed throughout the gastrointestinal tract, and its agonists are used in the treatment of irritable bowel syndrome with constipation (IBS-C). Today, there are no rapid assays for the identification of 5-HTR agonists. Here, we developed a luciferase-based 5-HTR assay capable of assessing one compound per second with a 38-fold dynamic range and nM limit of detection for serotonin.