61 results match your criteria: "University of California Santa Barbara Santa Barbara[Affiliation]"

Trade-offs between food acquisition and predator avoidance shape the landscape-scale movements of herbivores. These movements create landscape features, such as game trails, which are paths that animals use repeatedly to traverse the landscape. As such, these trails integrate behavioral trade-offs over space and time.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Latin America's genetic diversity offers a unique opportunity to study Alzheimer's disease (AD) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD), with a focus on identifying related genetic variations.
  • The study involved 2,162 participants from six countries who underwent extensive genomic sequencing and analysis to detect genetic factors linked to these dementias.
  • Results highlighted a mix of American, African, and European ancestries, discovered 17 pathogenic variants, and revealed specific genetic variations tied to AD and FTD inheritance patterns in affected families.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The reaction of 4 equiv. of Li(N[double bond, length as m-dash]C( Bu)Ph) with FeCl results in isolation of [Li(EtO)][Fe(N[double bond, length as m-dash]C( Bu)Ph)] (1), in good yields. The reaction of 1 with 1 equiv.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The transmembrane protein known as the mitochondrial calcium uniporter (MCU) mediates the influx of calcium ions (Ca) into the mitochondrial matrix. An overload of mitochondrial Ca ( Ca) is directly linked to damaging effects in pathological conditions. Therefore, inhibitors of the MCU are important chemical biology tools and therapeutic agents.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The crystal structures of two inter-mediates, 4-amino-3,5-di-fluoro-benzo-nitrile, CHFN (), and ethyl 4-amino-3,5-di-fluoro-benzoate, CHFNO (), along with a visible-light-responsive azo-benzene derivative, diethyl 4,4'-(diazene-1,2-di-yl)bis-(3,5-di-fluoro-benzoate), CHFNO (), obtained by four-step synthetic procedure, were studied using single-crystal X-ray diffraction. The mol-ecules of and demonstrate the quinoid character of phenyl rings accompanied by the distortion of bond angles related to the presence of fluorine substituents in the 3 and 5 () positions. In the crystals of and , the mol-ecules are connected by N-H⋯N, N-H⋯F and N-H⋯O hydrogen bonds, C-H⋯F short contacts, and π-stacking inter-actions.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The electrochemical aptamer-based (EAB) sensor platform is the only molecular monitoring approach yet reported that is (1) real time and effectively continuous, (2) selective enough to deploy in the living body, and (3) independent of the chemical or enzymatic reactivity of its target, rendering it adaptable to a wide range of analytes. These attributes suggest the EAB platform will prove to be an important tool in both biomedical research and clinical practice. To advance this possibility, here we have explored the stability of EAB sensors upon storage, using retention of the target recognizing aptamer, the sensor's signal gain, and the affinity of the aptamer as our performance metrics.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Conservation areas encompassing elevation gradients are biodiversity hotspots because they contain a wide range of habitat types in a relatively small space. Studies of biodiversity patterns along elevation gradients, mostly on small mammal or bird species, have documented a peak in diversity at mid elevations. Here, we report on a field study of medium and large mammals to examine the impact of elevation, habitat type, and gross primary productivity on community structure.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

In this commentary we reflect on the potential and power of geographical analysis, as a set of methods, theoretical approaches, and perspectives, to increase our understanding of how space and place matter for . We emphasize key aspects of the field, including accessibility, urban change, and spatial interaction and behavior, providing a high-level research agenda that indicates a variety of gaps and routes for future research that will not only lead to more equitable and aware solutions to local and global challenges, but also innovative and novel research methods, concepts, and data. We close with a set of representation and inclusion challenges to our discipline, researchers, and publication outlets.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Wildlife must increasingly balance trade-offs between the need to access important foods and the mortality risks associated with human-dominated landscapes. Human disturbance can profoundly influence wildlife behavior, but managers know little about the relationship between disturbance-behavior dynamics and associated consequences for foraging. We address this gap by empirically investigating the consequences of human activity on a keystone predator-prey interaction in a region with limited but varied industrial disturbance.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Understanding the adaptive potential of populations and species is pivotal for minimizing the loss of biodiversity in this era of rapid climate change. Adaptive potential has been estimated in various ways, including based on levels of standing genetic variation, presence of potentially beneficial alleles, and/or the severity of environmental change. Kokanee salmon, the non-migratory ecotype of sockeye salmon (), is culturally and economically important and has already been impacted by the effects of climate change.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Tens of millions of images from biological collections have become available online over the last two decades. In parallel, there has been a dramatic increase in the capabilities of image analysis technologies, especially those involving machine learning and computer vision. While image analysis has become mainstream in consumer applications, it is still used only on an artisanal basis in the biological collections community, largely because the image corpora are dispersed.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Phenotypic divergence is an important consequence of restricted gene flow in insular populations. This divergence can be challenging to detect when it occurs through subtle shifts in morphological traits, particularly in traits with complex geometries, like insect wing venation. Here, we employed geometric morphometrics to assess the extent of variation in wing venation patterns across reproductively isolated populations of the social sweat bee, .

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Salp blooms significantly enhance the ocean's biological carbon pump (BCP) by facilitating the export of organic matter, even though their sporadic nature often leads to underrepresentation in models.
  • During a 2018 study in the northeast subarctic Pacific, it was found that salps produced fecal pellets that accounted for up to 82% of the particulate organic carbon (POC) from the entire epipelagic zooplankton community.
  • The rapid sinking and low degradation rates of salp fecal pellets contribute to a substantial increase in carbon export efficiency, elevating the BCP's functionality and enhancing carbon sequestration, especially in low flux ocean environments.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Habitat heterogeneity is a key driver of the diversity and distribution of species. African savannas are experiencing changes in their vegetation structure causing shifts towards increased woody plant cover, which results in vegetation structure homogenization. Given the impact that increasing woody plant cover has on patterns of animal use, resource managers across Africa are implementing habitat management practices that are intended to reduce woody plant cover.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Variation in behavior within marine and terrestrial species can influence the functioning of the ecosystems they inhabit. However, the contribution of social behavior to ecosystem function remains underexplored. Many coral reef fish species provide potentially insightful models for exploring how social behavior shapes ecological function because they exhibit radical intraspecific variation in sociality within a shared habitat.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The period of disrupted human activity caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, coined the "anthropause," altered the nature of interactions between humans and ecosystems. It is uncertain how the anthropause has changed ecosystem states, functions, and feedback to human systems through shifts in ecosystem services. Here, we used an existing disturbance framework to propose new investigation pathways for coordinated studies of distributed, long-term social-ecological research to capture effects of the anthropause.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The reaction of [AnCl(NR)] (An = U, Th, R = SiMe) with generated lithium-3,3-diphenylcyclopropene results in the formation of [{(NR)}An(CH[double bond, length as m-dash]C[double bond, length as m-dash]CPh)] (An = U, ; Th, ) in good yields after work-up. Deprotonation of or with LDA/2.2.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Animal populations are facing increased challenges from extreme disturbances like megafires, and understanding their behavioral responses is crucial for survival.
  • In the study of black-tailed deer impacted by the 2018 Mendocino Complex Fire, researchers used GPS data and camera traps to analyze changes in movement, home range size, and body condition.
  • Despite severe habitat loss and reduced body condition due to forage scarcity, deer demonstrated remarkable site fidelity, returning to pre-fire ranges and adapting by selecting for remaining vegetation patches, highlighting their resilience in changing environments.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

A plug, print & play inkjet printing and impedance-based biosensing technology operating through a smartphone for clinical diagnostics.

Biosens Bioelectron

January 2022

Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2), Edifici ICN2, Campus UAB, 08193, Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain; Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA), Passeig de Lluís Companys, 23, 08010, Barcelona, Spain. Electronic address:

Simplicity is one of the key feature for the spread of any successful technological product. Here, a method for rapid and low-cost fabrication of electrochemical biosensors is presented. This "plug, print & play" method involves inkjet-printing even in an office-like environment, without the need of highly specialized expertise or equipment, guaranteeing an ultra-fast idea to (scaled) prototype production time.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

DNA metabarcoding is an emerging tool used to quantify diet in environments and consumer groups where traditional approaches are unviable, including small-bodied invertebrate taxa. However, metabarcoding of small taxa often requires DNA extraction from full body parts (without dissection), and it is unclear whether surface contamination from body parts alters presumed diet presence or diversity.We examined four different measures of diet (presence, rarefied read abundance, richness, and species composition) for a terrestrial invertebrate consumer (the spider ) both collected in its natural environment and fed an offered diet item in contained feeding trials using DNA metabarcoding of full body parts (opisthosomas).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Novel anticancer compounds and their precision delivery systems are actively developed to create potent and well-tolerated anticancer therapeutics. Here, we report the synthesis of a novel anthracycline, Utorubicin (UTO), and its preclinical development as an anticancer payload for nanocarriers. Free UTO was significantly more toxic to cultured tumor cell lines than the clinically used anthracycline, doxorubicin.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

A new biaryl phosphine-containing ligand from an active palladium catalyst for ppm level Suzuki-Miyaura couplings, enabled by an aqueous micellar reaction medium. A wide array of functionalized substrates including aryl/heteroaryl bromides are amenable, as are, notably, chlorides. The catalytic system is both general and highly effective at low palladium loadings (1000-2500 ppm or 0.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Dy-based single-molecule magnets (SMMs) are of great interest due to their ability to exhibit very large thermal barriers to relaxation and therefore high blocking temperatures. One interesting line of investigation is Dy-encapsulating endohedral clusterfullerenes, in which a carbon cage protects magnetic Dy ions against decoherence by environmental noise and allows for the stabilization of bonding and magnetic interactions that would be difficult to achieve in other molecular architectures. Recent studies of such materials have focused on clusters with two Dy atoms, since ferromagnetic exchange between Dy atoms is known to reduce the rate of magnetic relaxation quantum tunneling.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Agroforestry, the intentional integration of trees or other woody perennials with crops or livestock in production systems, is being widely promoted as a conservation and development tool to help meet the 2030 UN Sustainable Development Goals. Donors, governments, and nongovernmental organizations have invested significant time and resources into developing and promoting agroforestry policies and programs in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) worldwide. While a large body of literature on the impacts of agroforestry in LMICs is available, the social-ecological impacts of agroforestry is less well-studied.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF