Biosocial Technical Systems: An Emerging Approach to Analyse Responses to Novel Diseases.

The COVID-19 pandemic emerged in the context of a parallel epidemic of information, namely an infodemic. With the development of vaccines occurring in record time, a disinformation campaign ensued rendering the infodemic ever more troubling. As COVID-19 had to be curbed with vaccines opinion pools and surveys indicated that a minority, but relevant, part of the general public had weakened trust in public health policies and also on governmental responses to the pandemic in general.

Prairie restoration promotes the abundance and diversity of mutualistic arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi.

Predicting how biological communities assemble in restored ecosystems can assist in conservation efforts, but most research has focused on plants, with relatively little attention paid to soil microbial organisms that plants interact with. Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi are an ecologically significant functional group of soil microbes that form mutualistic symbioses with plants and could therefore respond positively to plant community restoration. To evaluate the effects of plant community restoration on AM fungi, we compared AM fungal abundance, species richness, and community composition of five annually cultivated, conventionally managed agricultural fields with paired adjacent retired agricultural fields that had undergone prairie restoration 5-9 years prior to sampling.

Interplay of biotic and abiotic factors shapes tree seedling growth and root-associated microbial communities.

Root-associated microbes can alleviate plant abiotic stresses, thus potentially supporting adaptation to a changing climate or to novel environments during range expansion. While climate change is extending plant species fundamental niches northward, the distribution and colonization of mutualists (e.g.

Advancing mycorrhizal trait-based ecology using both pure cultures and community-level traits.

Traits are the intermediate by which species respond to environmental filters and influence ecosystem functions. With the myriad of biogeochemical processes controlled by fungi, the past decade has witnessed a rising interest in applying trait-based approaches, core to the toolkit of plant and animal ecophysiologists, to fungi. One of the first challenges to tackle when working on fungal ecophysiology is to circumscribe the very definition of what we consider a fungal trait.

Structure and impact of root-associated fungi in treatment wetland mesocosms.

Root fungal endophytes have been shown to play a positive role in soil phytoremediation by immobilizing or degrading contaminants. In comparison, little is known about their ecological functions and possible role in improving plant performance in treatment wetlands. In a greenhouse study, we compared the structure of fungal communities associated with Phragmites australis roots in treatment wetland mesocosms fed with pre-treated wastewater to mesocosms fed with drinking water.

Stressful, isolated, yet diverse: Green roofs have rich microbiomes that are not dominated by oligotrophic taxa.

Green roofs are unique ecosystems combining two major community assembly filters, namely stress and spatial isolation. As such, they represent an interesting model ecosystem in community ecology. In this study, we characterized the microbiome structure on 19 green roofs and 5 urban parks as a benchmark comparison (i.

Phylogenetic structure of specialization: A new approach that integrates partner availability and phylogenetic diversity to quantify biotic specialization in ecological networks.

Biotic specialization holds information about the assembly, evolution, and stability of biological communities. Partner availabilities can play an important role in enabling species interactions, where uneven partner availabilities can bias estimates of biotic specialization when using phylogenetic diversity indices. It is therefore important to account for partner availability when characterizing biotic specialization using phylogenies.

Willow Aboveground and Belowground Traits Can Predict Phytoremediation Services.

The increasing number of contaminated sites worldwide calls for sustainable remediation, such as phytoremediation, in which plants are used to decontaminate soils. We hypothesized that better anchoring phytoremediation in plant ecophysiology has the potential to drastically improve its predictability. In this study, we explored how the community composition, diversity and coppicing of willow plantations, influenced phytoremediation services in a four-year field trial.

Fresh Compost Tea Application Does Not Change Rhizosphere Soil Bacterial Community Structure, and Has No Effects on Soybean Growth or Yield.

Soil bacteria drive key ecosystem functions, including nutrient mobilization, soil aggregation and crop bioprotection against pathogens. Bacterial diversity is thus considered a key component of soil health. Conventional agriculture reduces bacterial diversity in many ways.

Deconstruction of annoyance due to air pollution by multiple correspondence analyses.

Annoyance caused by air pollution is a matter of public health as it can cause stress and ill-health and affect quality of life, among other burdens. The aim of this study is to apply the multiple correspondence analyses (MCA) technique as a differential tooling to explore relationships between variables that can influence peoples' behaviour concerning annoyance caused by air pollution. Data were collected through a survey on air pollution, environmental issues and quality of life.

Bioaugmentation of treatment wetlands - A review.

Bioaugmentation in the form of artificial mycorrhization of plant roots and bacterial inoculation has been successfully implemented in several fields including soil remediation or activated sludge treatment. Likewise, bioaugmentation seems a promising approach to improve the functioning of treatment wetlands, considering that natural mycorrhization has been detected in treatment wetlands and that bacteria are the main driver of contaminant degradation processes. However, to date, full scale implementation seems to be rare.

Host identity influences nuclear dynamics in arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi.

The arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are involved in one of the most ecologically important symbioses on the planet, occurring within the roots of most land plants. Knowledge of even basic elements of AM fungal biology is still poor, with the discovery that AMF may in fact have a sexual life cycle being only very recently reported. AMF produce asexual spores that contain up to several thousand individual haploid nuclei of either largely uniform genotypes (AMF homokaryons) or nuclei originating from two parental genotypes (AMF dikaryons or heterokaryons).

Strong specificity and network modularity at a very fine phylogenetic scale in the lichen genus Peltigera.

Identifying the drivers and evolutionary consequences of species interactions is a major goal of community ecology. Network-based analyses can provide mathematical tools to detect non-random patterns of interactions, and potentially help predicting the consequences of such patterns on evolutionary dynamics of symbiotic systems. Here, we characterize the structure of a lichen network at a very fine phylogenetic scale, by identifying the photosynthetic partners (i.

Increased seedling establishment via enemy release at the upper elevational range limit of sugar maple.

The enemy release hypothesis is frequently invoked to explain invasion by nonnative species, but studies focusing on the influence of enemies on natural plant range expansion due to climate change remain scarce. We combined multiple approaches to study the influence of plant-enemy interactions on the upper elevational range limit of sugar maple (Acer saccharum) in southeastern Québec, Canada, where a previous study had demonstrated intense seed predation just beyond the range limit. Consistent with the hypothesis of release from natural enemies at the range limit, data from both natural patterns of regeneration and from seed and seedling transplant experiments showed higher seedling densities at the range edge than in the core of the species' distribution.

Interaction type influences ecological network structure more than local abiotic conditions: evidence from endophytic and endolichenic fungi at a continental scale.

Understanding the factors that shape community assembly remains one of the most enduring and important questions in modern ecology. Network theory can reveal rules of community assembly within and across study systems and suggest novel hypotheses regarding the formation and stability of communities. However, such studies generally face the challenge of disentangling the relative influence of factors such as interaction type and environmental conditions on shaping communities and associated networks.

Using molecular biology to study mycorrhizal fungal community ecology: Limits and perspectives.

Molecular tools have progressively replaced morphological approaches to characterize microbial communities in nature. Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi are no exception to this rule. Yet, one challenge posed by these symbionts is that they colonize simultaneously both plant roots and soil, which complicates their detection and quantification.

Navigating the labyrinth: a guide to sequence-based, community ecology of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi.

Data generated from next generation sequencing (NGS) will soon comprise the majority of information about arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal (AMF) communities. Although these approaches give deeper insight, analysing NGS data involves decisions that can significantly affect results and conclusions. This is particularly true for AMF community studies, because much remains to be known about their basic biology and genetics.

Is root DNA a reliable proxy to assess arbuscular mycorrhizal community structure?

Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi are widespread plant symbionts that extensively colonize both soil and roots. Given their influence on ecosystem processes, such as plant growth, soil carbon storage, and nutrient cycling, there is great interest in understanding the drivers of their community structure. AM fungal communities are increasingly characterized by selectively amplifying their DNA from plant roots, thus assuming that AM fungal community structure within roots provides a reliable portrait of the total (i.

Ecological and evolutionary implications of hyphal anastomosis in arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi.

Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi are important plant symbionts widespread worldwide. Like other fungi, they have the ability to perform hyphal anastomosis, that is, the fusion of encountering vegetative hyphae. Research in other fungal phyla has evidenced numerous potential functional and evolutionary consequences of anastomosis.

A trait-based framework to understand life history of mycorrhizal fungi.

Despite the growing appreciation for the functional diversity of arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi, our understanding of the causes and consequences of this diversity is still poor. In this opinion article, we review published data on AM fungal functional traits and attempt to identify major axes of life history variation. We propose that a life history classification system based on the grouping of functional traits, such as Grime's C-S-R (competitor, stress tolerator, ruderal) framework, can help to explain life history diversification in AM fungi, successional dynamics, and the spatial structure of AM fungal assemblages.

Advanced hepatocellular carcinoma with subtotal occlusion of the inferior vena cava and a right atrial mass.

Hepatocellular carcinoma usually metastasizes to regional lymph nodes, lung, and bones but can rarely invade the inferior vena cava with intravascular extension to the right atrium. We present the case of a 75-year-old man who was admitted for generalized oedema and was found to have advanced HCC with invasion of the inferior vena cava and endovascular extension to the right atrium. In contrast to the great majority of hepatocellular carcinoma, which usually develops on the basis of liver cirrhosis due to identifiable risk factors, none of those factors were present in our patient.

Clipping vs. coiling in acute aneurysmal subarachnoid haemorrhage: Should the patient's medical condition influence treatment modality?

Introduction: Acute subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH) resulting from aneurysmal rupture is a medical condition associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Medical complications resulting from the bleeding itself, along with the patient's underlying medical conditions are known to represent possible prognostic factors in acute SAH. However, their respective significance on the patient's overall clinical outcome following either endovascular coiling (EC) or surgical clipping (SC) remains to be ascertained as well as their potential role in choosing a definitive treatment option.