Migrating Whooping Cranes avoid wind-energy infrastructure when selecting stopover habitat.

Electricity generation from renewable-energy sources has increased dramatically worldwide in recent decades. Risks associated with wind-energy infrastructure are not well understood for endangered Whooping Cranes (Grus americana) or other vulnerable Crane populations. From 2010 to 2016, we monitored 57 Whooping Cranes with remote-telemetry devices in the United States Great Plains to determine potential changes in migration distribution (i.

Are whooping cranes destined for extinction? Climate change imperils recruitment and population growth.

Identifying climatic drivers of an animal population's vital rates and locating where they operate steers conservation efforts to optimize species recovery. The population growth of endangered whooping cranes () hinges on juvenile recruitment. Therefore, we identify climatic drivers (solar activity [sunspots] and weather) of whooping crane recruitment throughout the species' life cycle (breeding, migration, wintering).

Dual loss of succinate dehydrogenase (SDH) and complex I activity is necessary to recapitulate the metabolic phenotype of SDH mutant tumors.

Mutations in succinate dehydrogenase (SDH) are associated with tumor development and neurodegenerative diseases. Only in tumors, loss of SDH activity is accompanied with the loss of complex I activity. Yet, it remains unknown whether the metabolic phenotype of SDH mutant tumors is driven by loss of complex I function, and whether this contributes to the peculiarity of tumor development versus neurodegeneration.

Breast Cancer-Derived Lung Metastases Show Increased Pyruvate Carboxylase-Dependent Anaplerosis.

Cellular proliferation depends on refilling the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle to support biomass production (anaplerosis). The two major anaplerotic pathways in cells are pyruvate conversion to oxaloacetate via pyruvate carboxylase (PC) and glutamine conversion to α-ketoglutarate. Cancers often show an organ-specific reliance on either pathway.

Asynchronous food-web pathways could buffer the response of Serengeti predators to El Niño Southern Oscillation.

Understanding how entire ecosystems maintain stability in the face of climatic and human disturbance is one of the most fundamental challenges in ecology. Theory suggests that a crucial factor determining the degree of ecosystem stability is simply the degree of synchrony with which different species in ecological food webs respond to environmental stochasticity. Ecosystems in which all food-web pathways are affected similarly by external disturbance should amplify variability in top carnivore abundance over time due to population interactions, whereas ecosystems in which a large fraction of pathways are nonresponsive or even inversely responsive to external disturbance will have more constant levels of abundance at upper trophic levels.

Predictability of anthrax infection in the Serengeti, Tanzania.

Anthrax is endemic throughout Africa, causing considerable livestock and wildlife losses and severe, sometimes fatal, infection in humans. Predicting the risk of infection is therefore important for public health, wildlife conservation and livestock economies. However, because of the intermittent and variable nature of anthrax outbreaks, associated environmental and climatic conditions, and diversity of species affected, the ecology of this multihost pathogen is poorly understood.

A disease-mediated trophic cascade in the Serengeti and its implications for ecosystem C.

Tree cover is a fundamental structural characteristic and driver of ecosystem processes in terrestrial ecosystems, and trees are a major global carbon (C) sink. Fire and herbivores have been hypothesized to play dominant roles in regulating trees in African savannas, but the evidence for this is conflicting. Moving up a trophic scale, the factors that regulate fire occurrence and herbivores, such as disease and predation, are poorly understood for any given ecosystem.

Detection of herpesviruses and parvovirus B19 in gastric and intestinal mucosa of chronic fatigue syndrome patients.

Background: Human herpesvirus-6 (HHV-6), Epstein-Barr virus and parvovirus B19 have been suggested as etiological agents of chronic fatigue syndrome but none of these viruses is consistently detected in all patients. However, active viral infections may be localized in specific tissues, and, therefore, are not easily detectable. The aim of this study was to investigate the presence of HHV-6, HHV-7, EBV and parvovirus B19 in the gastro-intestinal tract of CFS patients.

Lower frequency of IL-17F sequence variant (His161Arg) in chronic fatigue syndrome patients.

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is characterized by immune dysfunctions including chronic immune activation, inflammation, and alteration of cytokine profiles. T helper 17 (Th17) cells belong to a recently identified subset of T helper cells, with crucial regulatory function in inflammatory and autoimmune processes. Th17 cells are implicated in allergic inflammation, intestinal diseases, central nervous system inflammation, disorders that may all contribute to the pathophysiology of CFS.

Inorganic nitrogen availability after severe stand-replacing fire in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem.

Understanding ecosystem processes as they relate to wildfire and vegetation dynamics is of growing importance as fire frequency and extent increase throughout the western United States. However, the effects of severe, stand-replacing wildfires are poorly understood. We studied inorganic nitrogen pools and mineralization rates after stand-replacing wildfires in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, Wyoming.

Synthesis of N-acyl homoserine lactone analogues reveals strong activators of SdiA, the Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium LuxR homologue.

N-Acyl homoserine lactones (AHLs) are molecules that are synthesized and detected by many gram-negative bacteria to monitor the population density, a phenomenon known as quorum sensing. Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium is an exceptional species since it does not synthesize its own AHLs, while it does encode a LuxR homologue, SdiA, which enables this bacterium to detect AHLs that are produced by other species. To obtain more information about the specificity of the ligand binding by SdiA, we synthesized and screened a limited library of AHL analogues.

Mitochondrial rhomboid PARL regulates cytochrome c release during apoptosis via OPA1-dependent cristae remodeling.

Rhomboids, evolutionarily conserved integral membrane proteases, participate in crucial signaling pathways. Presenilin-associated rhomboid-like (PARL) is an inner mitochondrial membrane rhomboid of unknown function, whose yeast ortholog is involved in mitochondrial fusion. Parl-/- mice display normal intrauterine development but from the fourth postnatal week undergo progressive multisystemic atrophy leading to cachectic death.

Determinants of woody cover in African savannas.

Savannas are globally important ecosystems of great significance to human economies. In these biomes, which are characterized by the co-dominance of trees and grasses, woody cover is a chief determinant of ecosystem properties. The availability of resources (water, nutrients) and disturbance regimes (fire, herbivory) are thought to be important in regulating woody cover, but perceptions differ on which of these are the primary drivers of savanna structure.

Chemical synthesis of (S)-4,5-dihydroxy-2,3-pentanedione, a bacterial signal molecule precursor, and validation of its activity in Salmonella typhimurium.

We describe an original, short, and convenient chemical synthesis of enantiopure (S)-4,5-dihydroxy-2,3-pentanedione (DPD), starting from commercial methyl (S)-(-)-2,2-dimethyl-1,3-dioxolane-4-carboxylate. DPD is the precursor of autoinducer (AI)-2, the proposed signal for bacterial interspecies communication. AI-2 is synthesized by many bacterial species in three enzymatic steps.