Floodplain forests drive fruit-eating fish diversity at the Amazon Basin-scale.

Unlike most rivers globally, nearly all lowland Amazonian rivers have unregulated flow, supporting seasonally flooded floodplain forests. Floodplain forests harbor a unique tree species assemblage adapted to flooding and specialized fauna, including fruit-eating fish that migrate seasonally into floodplains, favoring expansive floodplain areas. Frugivorous fish are forest-dependent fauna critical to forest regeneration via seed dispersal and support commercial and artisanal fisheries.

Kisspeptin is elevated in the brain after intracerebral haemorrhagic stroke.

Intracerebral haemorrhage (ICH) is the most severe subtype of stroke, with a 2-year mortality of nearly 50% and the greatest rate of disability amongst stroke survivors. Whilst treatment options for ICH remain limited, the condition requires prompt identification and rapid intervention to reduce permanent brain damage, with diagnosis traditionally confirmed by CT imaging. Although imaging is excellent at determining the presence of an intracranial bleed, biomarkers may help to identify the type of stroke or when the stroke began.

Potent antitumor activity of a designed interleukin-21 mimic.

Long-standing goals of cancer immunotherapy are to activate cytotoxic antitumor T cells across a broad range of affinities while dampening suppressive regulatory T (Treg) cell responses, but current approaches achieve these goals with limited success. Here, we report a IL-21 mimic, 21h10, designed to have augmented stability and high signaling potency in both humans and mice. In multiple animal models and in human melanoma patient derived organotypic tumor spheroids (PDOTS), 21h10 showed robust antitumor activity.

Phylogeography, Historical Population Demography, and Climatic Modeling of Two Bird Species Uncover Past Connections Between Amazonia and the Atlantic Forest.

We combined mitochondrial DNA sequence data and paleoclimatic distribution models to document phylogeographic patterns and investigate the historical demography of two manakins, and , as well as to explore connections between Amazonia and the Atlantic Forest. ND2 sequences of (75 individuals, 24 sites) and (196, 77) were used in Bayesian inference and maximum likelihood analyses. We estimated mitochondrial nucleotide diversity, employed statistical tests to detect deviations from neutral evolution and constant population sizes, and used species distribution modeling to infer the location of suitable climate for both species under present-day conditions, the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), and the Last Interglacial Maximum (LIG).

The biogeography of the Amazonian tree flora.

We describe the geographical variation in tree species composition across Amazonian forests and show how environmental conditions are associated with species turnover. Our analyses are based on 2023 forest inventory plots (1 ha) that provide abundance data for a total of 5188 tree species. Within-plot species composition reflected both local environmental conditions (especially soil nutrients and hydrology) and geographical regions.