NMR Structure Determinations of Small Proteins Using only One Fractionally 20% C- and Uniformly 100% N-Labeled Sample.

Uniformly C- and N-labeled samples ensure fast and reliable nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) assignments of proteins and are commonly used for structure elucidation by NMR. However, the preparation of uniformly labeled samples is a labor-intensive and expensive step. Reducing the portion of C-labeled glucose by a factor of five using a fractional 20% C- and 100% N-labeling scheme could lower the total chemical costs, yet retaining sufficient structural information of uniformly [C, N]-labeled sample as a result of the improved sensitivity of NMR instruments.

Development of chloroplast microsatellite markers for giant ragweed ().

Premise: Plant invasions are increasing globally, and extensive study of the genetic background of the source and invading populations is needed to understand such biological processes. For this reason, chloroplast microsatellite markers were identified to explore the genetic diversity of the noxious weed (Asteraceae).

Methods And Results: The complete chloroplast genome of was mined for microsatellite loci, and 15 novel chloroplast primers were identified to assess the genetic diversity of 49 samples.

iMEC: Online Marker Efficiency Calculator.

Premise Of The Study: To accurately design plant genetic studies, the information content of utilized markers and primers must be calculated. Plant genotyping studies should take into account the efficiency of each marker system by calculating different parameters to find the optimal combination of primers. This can be problematic because there are currently no easily accessible applications that can be used to calculate multiple indices together.

The case of conflicting Finnish peatland management - Skewed representation of nature, participation and policy instruments.

Peatlands that are close to a natural state are rich in biodiversity and are significant carbon storages. Simultaneously, peat resources are of interest to industry, which leads to competing interests and tensions regarding the use and management of peatlands. In this case study, we studied knowledge-management interactions through the development of participation and the resulting representation of nature (how nature was described), as well as the proposed and implemented conservation policy instruments.

FORUM: Indirect leakage leads to a failure of avoided loss biodiversity offsetting.

Biodiversity offsetting has quickly gained political support all around the world. Avoided loss (averted risk) offsetting means compensation for ecological damage via averted loss of anticipated impacts through the removal of threatening processes in compensation areas.Leakage means the phenomenon of environmentally damaging activity relocating elsewhere after being stopped locally by avoided loss offsetting.

Signatures of selection in the three-spined stickleback along a small-scale brackish water - freshwater transition zone.

Local adaptation is often obvious when gene flow is impeded, such as observed at large spatial scales and across strong ecological contrasts. However, it becomes less certain at small scales such as between adjacent populations or across weak ecological contrasts, when gene flow is strong. While studies on genomic adaptation tend to focus on the former, less is known about the genomic targets of natural selection in the latter situation.

Baiting improves CPUE in nine-spined stickleback (Pungitius pungitius) minnow trap fishery.

Whether or not baiting influences stickleback catch per unit effort (CPUE) remains a matter of debate among stickleback researchers: While the opinions about the impact of baiting on CPUE differ, supporting quantitative data are scarce. The effect of baiting and trap type on nine-spined stickleback (Pungitius pungitius) CPUE was studied in a field experiment conducted over four consecutive days in a small pond in northeastern Finland. The results show that baited traps yielded better (mean CPUE = 1.

Spore sensitivity to sunlight and freezing can restrict dispersal in wood-decay fungi.

Assessment of the costs and benefits of dispersal is central to understanding species' life-history strategies as well as explaining and predicting spatial population dynamics in the changing world. While mortality during active movement has received much attention, few have studied the costs of passive movement such as the airborne transport of fungal spores. Here, we examine the potential of extreme environmental conditions to cause dispersal mortality in wood-decay fungi.

Strategies of zooplanktivory shape the dynamics and diversity of littoral plankton communities: a mesocosm approach.

Planktivorous fish can exert strong top-down control on zooplankton communities. By incorporating different feeding strategies, from selective particulate feeding to cruising filter feeding, fish species target distinct prey. In this study, we investigated the effects of two species with different feeding strategies, the three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus (L.

Lake size and fish diversity determine resource use and trophic position of a top predator in high-latitude lakes.

Prey preference of top predators and energy flow across habitat boundaries are of fundamental importance for structure and function of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, as they may have strong effects on production, species diversity, and food-web stability. In lakes, littoral and pelagic food-web compartments are typically coupled and controlled by generalist fish top predators. However, the extent and determinants of such coupling remains a topical area of ecological research and is largely unknown in oligotrophic high-latitude lakes.

A comparative analysis of metacommunity types in the freshwater realm.

Most metacommunity studies have taken a direct mechanistic approach, aiming to model the effects of local and regional processes on local communities within a metacommunity. An alternative approach is to focus on emergent patterns at the metacommunity level through applying the elements of metacommunity structure (EMS; Oikos, 97, 2002, 237) analysis. The EMS approach has very rarely been applied in the context of a comparative analysis of metacommunity types of main microbial, plant, and animal groups.

A method for calculating minimum biodiversity offset multipliers accounting for time discounting, additionality and permanence.

Biodiversity offsetting, which means compensation for ecological and environmental damage caused by development activity, has recently been gaining strong political support around the world. One common criticism levelled at offsets is that they exchange certain and almost immediate losses for uncertain future gains. In the case of restoration offsets, gains may be realized after a time delay of decades, and with considerable uncertainty.

Top-down effects of a lytic bacteriophage and protozoa on bacteria in aqueous and biofilm phases.

Lytic bacteriophages and protozoan predators are the major causes of bacterial mortality in natural microbial communities, which also makes them potential candidates for biological control of bacterial pathogens. However, little is known about the relative impact of bacteriophages and protozoa on the dynamics of bacterial biomass in aqueous and biofilm phases. Here, we studied the temporal and spatial dynamics of bacterial biomass in a microcosm experiment where opportunistic pathogenic bacteria Serratia marcescens was exposed to particle-feeding ciliates, surface-feeding amoebas, and lytic bacteriophages for 8 weeks, ca.

Rapid evolutionary adaptation to elevated salt concentrations in pathogenic freshwater bacteria Serratia marcescens.

Rapid evolutionary adaptions to new and previously detrimental environmental conditions can increase the risk of invasion by novel pathogens. We tested this hypothesis with a 133-day-long evolutionary experiment studying the evolution of the pathogenic Serratia marcescens bacterium at salinity niche boundary and in fluctuating conditions. We found that S.

Modeling the role of the close-range effect and environmental variables in the occurrence and spread of Phragmites australis in four sites on the Finnish coast of the Gulf of Finland and the Archipelago Sea.

Phragmites australis, a native helophyte in coastal areas of the Baltic Sea, has significantly spread on the Finnish coast in the last decades raising ecological questions and social interest and concern due to the important role it plays in the ecosystem dynamics of shallow coastal areas. Despite its important implications on the planning and management of the area, predictive modeling of Phragmites distribution is not well studied. We examined the prevalence and progression of Phragmites in four sites along the Southern Finnish coast in multiple time frames in relation to a number of predictors.

Evolutionary ecology of intraspecific brain size variation: a review.

The brain is a trait of central importance for organismal performance and fitness. To date, evolutionary studies of brain size variation have mainly utilized comparative methods applied at the level of species or higher taxa. However, these studies suffer from the difficulty of separating causality from correlation.

Interactive effects between diet and genotypes of host and pathogen define the severity of infection.

Host resistance and parasite virulence are influenced by multiple interacting factors in complex natural communities. Yet, these interactive effects are seldom studied concurrently, resulting in poor understanding of host-pathogen-environment dynamics. Here, we investigated how the level of opportunist pathogen virulence, strength of host immunity and the host condition manipulated via diet affect the survival of wood tiger moth Parasemia plantaginis (Arctidae).

Selection on plasticity of seasonal life-history traits using random regression mixed model analysis.

Theory considers the covariation of seasonal life-history traits as an optimal reaction norm, implying that deviating from this reaction norm reduces fitness. However, the estimation of reaction-norm properties (i.e.

Evaluation and comparison of protein splicing by exogenous inteins with foreign exteins in Escherichia coli.

Protein splicing catalyzed by inteins has enabled various biotechnological applications such as protein ligation. Successful applications of inteins are often limited by splicing efficiency. Here, we report the comparison of protein splicing between 20 different inteins from various organisms in identical contexts to identify robust inteins with foreign exteins.