Monitoring Terrestrial Ecosystem Resilience Using Earth Observation Data: Identifying Consensus and Limitations Across Metrics.

Resilience is a key feature of ecosystem dynamics reflecting a system's ability to resist and recover from environmental perturbations. Slowing down in the rate of recovery has been used as an early-warning signal for abrupt transitions. Recent advances in Earth observation (EO) vegetation data provide the capability to capture broad-scale resilience patterns and identify regions experiencing resilience loss.

Dung predicts the global distribution of herbivore grazing pressure in drylands.

Dryland grazing sustains millions of people worldwide but, when poorly managed, threatens food security. Here we combine livestock and wild herbivore dung mass data from surveys at 760 dryland sites worldwide, representing independent measurements of herbivory, to generate high-resolution maps. We show that livestock and wild herbivore grazing is globally disconnected, and identify hotspots of herbivore activity across Africa, the Eurasian grasslands, India, Australia and the United States.

Unforeseen plant phenotypic diversity in a dry and grazed world.

Earth harbours an extraordinary plant phenotypic diversity that is at risk from ongoing global changes. However, it remains unknown how increasing aridity and livestock grazing pressure-two major drivers of global change-shape the trait covariation that underlies plant phenotypic diversity. Here we assessed how covariation among 20 chemical and morphological traits responds to aridity and grazing pressure within global drylands.

Hotspots of biogeochemical activity linked to aridity and plant traits across global drylands.

Perennial plants create productive and biodiverse hotspots, known as fertile islands, beneath their canopies. These hotspots largely determine the structure and functioning of drylands worldwide. Despite their ubiquity, the factors controlling fertile islands under conditions of contrasting grazing by livestock, the most prevalent land use in drylands, remain virtually unknown.

Dryland microbiomes reveal community adaptations to desertification and climate change.

Drylands account for 45% of the Earth's land area, supporting ~40% of the global population. These regions support some of the most extreme environments on Earth, characterized by extreme temperatures, low and variable rainfall, and low soil fertility. In these biomes, microorganisms provide vital ecosystem services and have evolved distinctive adaptation strategies to endure and flourish in the extreme.

Self-organization as a mechanism of resilience in dryland ecosystems.

Self-organized spatial patterns are a common feature of complex systems, ranging from microbial communities to mussel beds and drylands. While the theoretical implications of these patterns for ecosystem-level processes, such as functioning and resilience, have been extensively studied, empirical evidence remains scarce. To address this gap, we analyzed global drylands along an aridity gradient using remote sensing, field data, and modeling.

Sclerostin antibody improves alveolar bone quality in the Hyp mouse model of X-linked hypophosphatemia (XLH).

X-linked hypophosphatemia (XLH) is a rare disease of elevated fibroblast growth factor 23 (FGF23) production that leads to hypophosphatemia and impaired mineralization of bone and teeth. The clinical manifestations of XLH include a high prevalence of dental abscesses and periodontal disease, likely driven by poorly formed structures of the dentoalveolar complex, including the alveolar bone, cementum, dentin, and periodontal ligament. Our previous studies have demonstrated that sclerostin antibody (Scl-Ab) treatment improves phosphate homeostasis, and increases long bone mass, strength, and mineralization in the Hyp mouse model of XLH.

The global biogeography and environmental drivers of fairy circles.

Fairy circles (FCs) are regular vegetation patterns found in drylands of Namibia and Western Australia. It is virtually unknown whether they are also present in other regions of the world and which environmental factors determine their distribution. We conducted a global systematic survey and found FC-like vegetation patterns in 263 sites from 15 countries and three continents, including the Sahel, Madagascar, and Middle-West Asia.

Climate change impacts on plant pathogens, food security and paths forward.

Plant disease outbreaks pose significant risks to global food security and environmental sustainability worldwide, and result in the loss of primary productivity and biodiversity that negatively impact the environmental and socio-economic conditions of affected regions. Climate change further increases outbreak risks by altering pathogen evolution and host-pathogen interactions and facilitating the emergence of new pathogenic strains. Pathogen range can shift, increasing the spread of plant diseases in new areas.

Sclerostin antibody improves alveolar bone quality in the mouse model of X-Linked Hypophosphatemia (XLH).

X-linked hypophosphatemia (XLH) is a rare disease of elevated fibroblast growth factor 23 (FGF23) production that leads to hypophosphatemia and poor mineralization of bone and teeth. The clinical manifestations of XLH include a high prevalence of dental abscesses, likely driven by poorly formed structures of the dentoalveolar complex, including the alveolar bone, cementum, dentin, and periodontal ligament. Our previous studies have demonstrated that sclerostin antibody (Scl-Ab) treatment improves phosphate homeostasis, and increases bone mass, strength and mineralization in the mouse model of XLH.

Wnt pathway inhibitors are upregulated in XLH dental pulp cells in response to odontogenic differentiation.

X-linked hypophosphatemia (XLH) represents the most common form of familial hypophosphatemia. Although significant advances have been made in the treatment of bone pathology, patients undergoing therapy continue to experience significantly decreased oral health-related quality of life. The following study addresses this persistent oral disease by further investigating the effect of DMP1 expression on the differentiation of XLH dental pulp cells.

Grazing and ecosystem service delivery in global drylands.

Grazing represents the most extensive use of land worldwide. Yet its impacts on ecosystem services remain uncertain because pervasive interactions between grazing pressure, climate, soil properties, and biodiversity may occur but have never been addressed simultaneously. Using a standardized survey at 98 sites across six continents, we show that interactions between grazing pressure, climate, soil, and biodiversity are critical to explain the delivery of fundamental ecosystem services across drylands worldwide.

Sentinel2GlobalLULC: A Sentinel-2 RGB image tile dataset for global land use/cover mapping with deep learning.

Land-Use and Land-Cover (LULC) mapping is relevant for many applications, from Earth system and climate modelling to territorial and urban planning. Global LULC products are continuously developing as remote sensing data and methods grow. However, there still exists low consistency among LULC products due to low accuracy in some regions and LULC types.

Climate legacies drive the distribution and future restoration potential of dryland forests.

Knowing the extent and environmental drivers of forests is key to successfully restore degraded ecosystems, and to mitigate climate change and desertification impacts using tree planting. Water availability is the main limiting factor for the development of forests in drylands, yet the importance of groundwater resources and palaeoclimate as drivers of their current distribution has been neglected. Here we report that mid-Holocene climates and aquifer trends are key predictors of the distribution of dryland forests worldwide.

The potential of groundwater-dependent ecosystems to enhance soil biological activity and soil fertility in drylands.

Water availability controls the functioning of dryland ecosystems, driving a patchy vegetation distribution, unequal nutrient availability, soil respiration in pulses, and limited productivity. Groundwater-dependent ecosystems (GDEs) are acknowledged to be decoupled from precipitation, since their vegetation relies on groundwater sources. Despite their relevance to enhance productivity in drylands, our understanding of how different components of GDEs interconnect (i.

Dentine matrix metalloproteinases as potential mediators of dentine regeneration.

Matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) have been implicated not only in the regulation of developmental processes but also in the release of biologically active molecules and in the modulation of repair during tertiary dentine formation. Although efforts to preserve dentine have focused on inhibiting the activity of these proteases, their function is much more complex and necessary for dentine repair than expected. The present review explores the role of MMPs as bioactive components of the dentine matrix involved in dentine formation, repair and regeneration.

Biogeography of global drylands.

Despite their extent and socio-ecological importance, a comprehensive biogeographical synthesis of drylands is lacking. Here we synthesize the biogeography of key organisms (vascular and nonvascular vegetation and soil microorganisms), attributes (functional traits, spatial patterns, plant-plant and plant-soil interactions) and processes (productivity and land cover) across global drylands. These areas have a long evolutionary history, are centers of diversification for many plant lineages and include important plant diversity hotspots.

Olive Tree Biovolume from UAV Multi-Resolution Image Segmentation with Mask R-CNN.

Olive tree growing is an important economic activity in many countries, mostly in the Mediterranean Basin, Argentina, Chile, Australia, and California. Although recent intensification techniques organize olive groves in hedgerows, most olive groves are rainfed and the trees are scattered (as in Spain and Italy, which account for 50% of the world's olive oil production). Accurate measurement of trees biovolume is a first step to monitor their performance in olive production and health.

Mask R-CNN and OBIA Fusion Improves the Segmentation of Scattered Vegetation in Very High-Resolution Optical Sensors.

Vegetation generally appears scattered in drylands. Its structure, composition and spatial patterns are key controls of biotic interactions, water, and nutrient cycles. Applying segmentation methods to very high-resolution images for monitoring changes in vegetation cover can provide relevant information for dryland conservation ecology.

COVIDGR Dataset and COVID-SDNet Methodology for Predicting COVID-19 Based on Chest X-Ray Images.

Currently, Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), one of the most infectious diseases in the 21st century, is diagnosed using RT-PCR testing, CT scans and/or Chest X-Ray (CXR) images. CT (Computed Tomography) scanners and RT-PCR testing are not available in most medical centers and hence in many cases CXR images become the most time/cost effective tool for assisting clinicians in making decisions. Deep learning neural networks have a great potential for building COVID-19 triage systems and detecting COVID-19 patients, especially patients with low severity.

STIM1 a calcium sensor promotes the assembly of an ECM that contains Extracellular vesicles and factors that modulate mineralization.

Osteoblasts and odontoblasts, are non-excitable cells and facilitate mass calcium transport during matrix mineralization. A sophisticated Ca sensing mechanism is used to maintain Ca homeostasis. STIM1 (Stromal interaction molecule 1) is a calcium sensor protein localized in the ER membrane and maintains calcium homeostasis by initiating the store-operated Ca entry (SOCE) process, following store depletion.