Combinatorial technology revitalized by DNA-encoding.

Combinatorial chemistry invented nearly 40 years ago was welcomed with enthusiasm in the drug research community. The method offered access to a practically unlimited number of new compounds. The new compounds however are mixtures, and methods had to be developed for the identification of the bioactive components.

Parallel morphological evolution and habitat-dependent sexual dimorphism in cave- vs. surface populations of the (Crustacea: Isopoda: Asellidae) species complex.

Studying parallel evolution (repeated, independent evolution of similar phenotypes in similar environments) is a powerful tool to understand environment-dependent selective forces. Surface-dwelling species that repeatedly and independently colonized caves provide unique models for such studies. The primarily surface-dwelling species complex is a good candidate to carry out such research, because it colonized several caves in Europe.

Density influences the heritability and genetic correlations of fish behaviour under trawling-associated selection.

Fishing-associated selection is one of the most important human-induced evolutionary pressures for natural populations. However, it is unclear whether fishing leads to heritable phenotypic changes in the targeted populations, as the heritability and genetic correlations of traits potentially under selection have received little attention. In addition, phenotypic changes could arise from fishing-associated environmental effects, such as reductions in population density.

Multi-Instrument Characterization of Magnetospheric Cold Plasma Dynamics in the June 22, 2015 Geomagnetic Storm.

We present a comparison of magnetospheric plasma mass/electron density observations during an 11-day interval which includes the geomagnetic storm of June 22, 2015. For this study we used: Equatorial plasma mass density derived from geomagnetic field line resonances (FLRs) detected by Van Allen Probes and at the ground-based magnetometer networks EMMA and CARISMA; in situ electron density inferred by the Neural-network-based Upper hybrid Resonance Determination algorithm applied to plasma wave Van Allen Probes measurements. The combined observations at ∼ 4, MLT ∼ 16 of the two longitudinally separated magnetometer networks show a temporal pattern very similar to that of the in situ observations: A density decrease by an order of magnitude about 1 day after the Dst minimum, a partial recovery a few hours later, and a new strong decrease soon after.

Triparental care in the collared flycatcher (): Cooperation of two females with a cuckolded male in rearing a brood.

Certain predominant forms of mating and parental care systems are assumed in several model species among birds, but the opportunistic and apparently infrequent variations of "family structures" may often remain hidden due to methodological limitations with regard to genetic or behavioral observations. One of the intensively studied model species, the collared flycatcher (), is usually characterized by social monogamy with polyterritorial, facultative social polygyny, and frequent extrapair mating and extrapair paternity. During a brood-size manipulation experiment, we observed two females and a male delivering food at an enlarged brood.

Recording fine-scale movement of ground beetles by two methods: Potentials and methodological pitfalls.

Movement trajectories are usually recorded as a sequence of discrete movement events described by two parameters: step length (distance) and turning angle (bearing). One of the most widespread methods to record the geocoordinates of each step is by a GPS device. Such devices have limited suitability for recording fine movements of species with low dispersal ability including flightless carabid beetles at small spatio-temporal scales.

An implanted device enables in vivo monitoring of extracellular vesicle-mediated spread of pro-inflammatory mast cell response in mice.

Mast cells have been shown to release extracellular vesicles (EVs) in vitro. However, EV-mediated mast cell communication in vivo remains unexplored. Primary mast cells from GFP-transgenic and wild type mice, were grown in the presence or absence of lipopolysaccharide (LPS), and the secreted EVs were separated from the conditioned media.

Melanin-based ornament darkness positively correlates with across-season nutritional condition.

Sexually dimorphic ornamental traits are widely regarded as indicators of nutritional condition. However, variation of nutritional condition outside the reproductive and the ornament production seasons has rarely been considered, although it affects the generality of information content, especially for ornaments that may be used across the year. We measured several indicators of migratory and molt condition in male and female blackcaps () during their autumn migration, and quantified their crown reflectance.

Subjective status and perceived legitimacy across countries.

The relationships between subjective status and perceived legitimacy are important for understanding the extent to which people with low status are complicit in their oppression. We use novel data from 66 samples and 30 countries ( = 12,788) and find that people with higher status see the social system as more legitimate than those with lower status, but there is variation across people and countries. The association between subjective status and perceived legitimacy was never negative at any levels of eight moderator variables, although the positive association was sometimes reduced.

Comparison of ligand binding and conformational stability of human calmodulin with its homolog from the malaria parasite .

Calmodulin (CaM), the key calcium sensor of eukaryotic cells regulating a great number of target proteins, belongs to the most conserved proteins. We compared function and properties of CaMs from two evolutionarily distant species, the human () representing vertebrates, and the malaria parasite (Pf). The biophysical characterization revealed higher stability of Pf CaM attributed to the more stable C-terminal domain in both Ca free and saturated states.

Is foraging innovation lost following colonization of a less variable environment? A case study in surface- vs. cave-dwelling .

Behavioral innovation is a key process for successful colonization of new habitat types. However, it is costly due to the necessary cognitive and neural demands and typically connected to ecological generalism. Therefore, loss of behavioral innovativeness is predicted following colonization of new, simple, and invariable environments.

Maternal effects and urbanization: Variation of yolk androgens and immunoglobulin in city and forest blackbirds.

Wildlife inhabiting urban environments exhibit drastic changes in morphology, physiology, and behavior. It has often been argued that these phenotypic responses could be the result of micro-evolutionary changes following the urbanization process. However, other mechanisms such as phenotypic plasticity, maternal effects, and developmental plasticity could be involved as well.

Maternal diet affects juvenile Carpetan rock lizard performance and personality.

Differences in both stable and labile state variables are known to affect the emergence and maintenance of consistent interindividual behavioral variation (animal personality or behavioral syndrome), especially when experienced early in life. Variation in environmental conditions experienced by gestating mothers (viz. nongenetic maternal effects) is known to have significant impact on offspring condition and behavior; yet, their effect on behavioral consistency is not clear.

Continental data on cave-dwelling spider communities across Europe (Arachnida: Araneae).

Background: Spiders (Arachnida: Araneae) are widespread in subterranean ecosystems worldwide and represent an important component of subterranean trophic webs. Yet, global-scale diversity patterns of subterranean spiders are still mostly unknown. In the frame of the CAWEB project, a European joint network of cave arachnologists, we collected data on cave-dwelling spider communities across Europe in order to explore their continental diversity patterns.

Contagious fear: Escape behavior increases with flock size in European gregarious birds.

Flight initiation distance (FID), the distance at which individuals take flight when approached by a potential (human) predator, is a tool for understanding predator-prey interactions. Among the factors affecting FID, tests of effects of group size (i.e.

A journey on plate tectonics sheds light on European crayfish phylogeography.

Crayfish can be used as model organisms in phylogeographic and divergence time studies if reliable calibrations are available. This study presents a comprehensive investigation into the phylogeography of the European stone crayfish () and includes samples from previously unstudied sites. Two mitochondrial markers were used to reveal evolutionary relationships among haplogroups throughout the species' distributional range and to estimate the divergence time by employing both substitution rates and geological calibration methods.

Color polarization vision mediates the strength of an evolutionary trap.

Evolutionary traps are scenarios in which animals are fooled by rapidly changing conditions into preferring poor-quality resources over those that better improve survival and reproductive success. The maladaptive attraction of aquatic insects to artificial sources of horizontally polarized light (e.g.

Interspecific transfer of parasites following a range-shift in flycatchers.

Human-induced climate change is expected to cause major biotic changes in species distributions and thereby including escalation of novel host-parasite associations. Closely related host species that come into secondary contact are especially likely to exchange parasites and pathogens. Both the Enemy Release Hypothesis (where invading hosts escape their original parasites) and the Novel Weapon Hypothesis (where invading hosts bring new parasites that have detrimental effects on native hosts) predict that the local host will be most likely to experience a disadvantage.

Design of localized spatiotemporal pH patterns by means of antagonistic chemical gradients.

Spatially localized moving and stationary pH patterns are generated in two-side-fed reaction-diffusion systems. The patterns are sandwiched between two quiescent zones and positioned by the antagonistic gradients of the reactants of the self-activatory process. Spatial bistability, spatiotemporal oscillations, and formation of stationary Turing patterns have been predicted by numerical simulations and observed in experiments performed by using different hydrogen ion autocatalytic chemical systems.

Prevalence dependence in model goodness measures with special emphasis on true skill statistics.

It has long been a concern that performance measures of species distribution models react to attributes of the modeled entity arising from the input data structure rather than to model performance. Thus, the study of Allouche et al. (, 43, 1223, 2006) identifying the true skill statistics (TSS) as being independent of prevalence had a great impact.

The database of the PREDICTS (Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems) project.

The PREDICTS project-Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems (www.predicts.org.