FoRAGE database: A compilation of functional responses for consumers and parasitoids.

Functional responses, the relationships between consumer foraging rate and resource (prey) density, provide key insights into consumer-resource interactions while also being a major driver of population dynamics and food web structure. We present a global database of 2598 standardized functional responses and parameters extracted from the published literature. We refit the functional responses with a Type II model using standardized methods and report the fitted parameters along with data on experimental conditions, consumer and resource taxonomy and type, as well as the habitat and dimensionality of the foraging interaction.

Human Cytomegalovirus Genomes Survive Mitosis via the IE19 Chromatin-Tethering Domain.

The genomes of DNA tumor viruses regain nuclear localization after nuclear envelope breakdown during mitosis through the action of a viral protein with a chromatin-tethering domain (CTD). Here, we report that the human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) genome is maintained during mitosis by the CTD of the viral IE19 protein. Deletion of the IE19 CTD or disruption of the IE19 splice acceptor site reduced viral genome maintenance and progeny virion formation during infection of dividing fibroblasts, both of which were rescued by IE19 ectopic expression.

Temperature alters the shape of predator-prey cycles through effects on underlying mechanisms.

Background: Predicting the effects of climate warming on the dynamics of ecological systems requires understanding how temperature influences birth rates, death rates and the strength of species interactions. The temperature dependance of these processes-which are the underlying mechanisms of ecological dynamics-is often thought to be exponential or unimodal, generally supported by short-term experiments. However, ecological dynamics unfold over many generations.

HCMV Assembly Is Totally Tubular.

Microtubules are normally organized at centrosomes, but other sites can also serve as microtubule organizing centers (MTOCs). In this issue of Developmental Cell, Procter et al. (2018) show that the human cytomegalovirus virion assembly compartment acts as a dynamic Golgi-derived MTOC where EB3 nucleates microtubules and regulates infectious virion production.