Food webs and meso-scale motifs allow us to understand the structure of ecological communities and define species' roles within them. This species-level perspective on networks permits tests for relationships between species' traits and their patterns of direct and indirect interactions. Such relationships could allow us to predict food-web structure based on more easily obtained trait information. Here, we calculated the roles of species (as vectors of motif position frequencies) in six well-resolved marine food webs and identified the motif positions associated with the greatest variation in species' roles. We then tested whether the frequencies of these positions varied with species' traits. Despite the coarse-grained traits we used, our approach identified several strong associations between traits and motifs. Feeding environment was a key trait in our models and may shape species' roles by affecting encounter probabilities. Incorporating environment into future food-web models may improve predictions of an unknown network structure.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ele.12955 | DOI Listing |
Sci Adv
January 2025
Center for Quantitative Biology, Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
Bacterial social interactions play crucial roles in various ecological, medical, and biotechnological contexts. However, predicting these interactions from genome sequences is notoriously difficult. Here, we developed bioinformatic tools to predict whether secreted iron-scavenging siderophores stimulate or inhibit the growth of community members.
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January 2025
Center for Microbiome Research of Med-X Institute, Shaanxi Provincial Key Laboratory of Sepsis in Critical Care Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710061, China.
The rare metal element molybdenum functions as a cofactor in molybdoenzymes that are essential to life in almost all living things. Molybdate can be captured by the periplasmic substrate-binding protein ModA of ModABC transport system in bacteria. We demonstrate that ModA plays crucial roles in growth, multiple metabolic pathways, and ROS tolerance in .
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPLoS One
January 2025
European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Directorate D-Sustainable Resources, Ispra, Italy.
The Black Sea is affected by numerous anthropogenic pressures, such as eutrophication and pollution through coastal and river discharges, fisheries overexploitation, species invasions, and the impacts of climate change. Growing concerns regarding the cumulative effects of these pressures have necessitated the need for an ecosystem approach to assessing the state of this basin. In recent years, the European Commission-JRC has developed a scientific and modelling tool, the Blue2 Modelling Framework with the aim of exploring the consequences of EU management and policy options on marine ecosystems.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Trauma Acute Care Surg
November 2024
From the Department of Surgery and Sepsis and Critical Illness Research Center (J.A.M., L.S.K., E.E.P., C.G.A., K.B.K., L.E.B., P.A.E., A.M.M.), University of Florida College of Medicine, Gainesville; and The Gut Biome Lab, Department of Health, Nutrition, and Food Sciences (G.P., R.N.), Florida State University College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences, Tallahassee, Florida.
Background: Traumatic injury leads to gut dysbiosis with changes in microbiome diversity and conversion toward a "pathobiome" signature characterized by a selective overabundance of pathogenic bacteria. The use of non-selective beta antagonism in trauma patients has been established as a useful adjunct to reduce systemic inflammation. We sought to investigate whether beta-adrenergic blockade following trauma would prevent the conversion of microbiome to a "pathobiome" phenotype.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBot Stud
January 2025
Department of Oceanography, National Sun Yat-Sen University, Kaohsiung, 804, Taiwan.
Background: Large-scale coral bleaching events have become increasingly frequent in recent years. This process occurs when corals are exposed to high temperatures and intense light stress, leading to an overproduction of reactive oxygen species (ROS) by their endosymbiotic dinoflagellates. The ROS buildup prompts corals to expel these symbiotic microalgae, resulting in the corals' discoloration.
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