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- Creator:
- Kroetz, Silvina M., Srinivasan, Jagan, Yaghoobian, Jonathan, Hong, Ray L., and Sternberg, Paul W.
- Description:
- Background: The genetic tractability and the species-specific association with beetles make the nematode Pristionchus pacificus an exciting emerging model organism for comparative studies in development and behavior. P. pacificus differs from Caenorhabditis elegans (a bacterial feeder) by its buccal teeth and the lack of pharyngeal grinders, but almost nothing is known about which genes coordinate P. pacificus feeding behaviors, such as pharyngeal pumping rate, locomotion, and fat storage. Methodology/Principal Findings: We analyzed P. pacificus pharyngeal pumping rate and locomotion behavior on and off food, as well as on different species of bacteria (Escherichia coli, Bacillus subtilis, and Caulobacter crescentus). We found that the cGMP-dependent protein kinase G (PKG) Ppa-EGL-4 in P. pacificus plays an important role in regulating the pumping rate, mouth form dimorphism, the duration of forward locomotion, and the amount of fat stored in intestine. In addition, Ppa-EGL-4 interacts with Ppa-OBI-1, a recently identified protein involved in chemosensation, to influence feeding and locomotion behavior. We also found that C. crescentus NA1000 increased pharyngeal pumping as well as fat storage in P. pacificus. Conclusions: The PKG EGL-4 has conserved functions in regulating feeding behavior in both C. elegans and P. pacificus nematodes. The Ppa-EGL-4 also has been co-opted during evolution to regulate P. pacificus mouth form dimorphism that indirectly affect pharyngeal pumping rate. Specifically, the lack of Ppa-EGL-4 function increases pharyngeal pumping, time spent in forward locomotion, and fat storage, in part as a result of higher food intake. Ppa-OBI-1 functions upstream or parallel to Ppa-EGL-4. The beetle-associated omnivorous P. pacificus respond differently to changes in food state and food quality compared to the exclusively bacteriovorous C. elegans.
- Resource Type:
- Article
- Campus Tesim:
- Northridge
- Creator:
- Dudgeon, Steven R. and Kubler, Janet E.
- Description:
- Seaweeds that lack carbon-concentrating mechanisms are potentially inorganic carbon-limited under current air equilibrium conditions. To estimate effects of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration and ocean acidification on photosynthetic rates, we modeled rates of photosynthesis in response to pCO2, temperature, and their interaction under limiting and saturating photon flux densities. We synthesized the available data for photosynthetic responses of red seaweeds lacking carbon-concentrating mechanisms to light and temperature. The model was parameterized with published data and known carbonate system dynamics. The model predicts that direction and magnitude of response to pCO2 and temperature, depend on photon flux density. At sub-saturating light intensities, photosynthetic rates are predicted to be low and respond positively to increasing pCO2, and negatively to increasing temperature. Consequently, pCO2 and temperature are predicted to interact antagonistically to influence photosynthetic rates at low PFD. The model predicts that pCO2 will have a much larger effect than temperature at sub-saturating light intensities. However, photosynthetic rates under low light will not increase proportionately as pCO2 in seawater continues to rise. In the range of light saturation (Ik), both CO2 and temperature have positive effects on photosynthetic rate and correspondingly strong predicted synergistic effects. At saturating light intensities, the response of photosynthetic rates to increasing pCO2 approaches linearity, but the model also predicts increased importance of thermal over pCO2 effects, with effects acting additively. Increasing boundary layer thickness decreased the effect of added pCO2 and, for very thick boundary layers, overwhelmed the effect of temperature on photosynthetic rates. The maximum photosynthetic rates of strictly CO2-using algae are low, so even large percentage increases in rates with climate change will not contribute much to changing primary production in the habitats where they commonly live.
- Resource Type:
- Article
- Campus Tesim:
- Northridge
- Creator:
- Edmunds, Peter J., Brooks, Andrew J., Schmitt, Russell J., Carpenter, Robert C., Adam, Thomas C., Holbrook, Sally J., and Bernardi, Giacomo
- Description:
- Coral reefs world-wide are threatened by escalating local and global impacts, and some impacted reefs have shifted from coral dominance to a state dominated by macroalgae. Therefore, there is a growing need to understand the processes that affect the capacity of these ecosystems to return to coral dominance following disturbances, including those that prevent the establishment of persistent stands of macroalgae. Unlike many reefs in the Caribbean, over the last several decades, reefs around the Indo-Pacific island of Moorea, French Polynesia have consistently returned to coral dominance following major perturbations without shifting to a macroalgae-dominated state. Here, we present evidence of a rapid increase in populations of herbivorous fishes following the most recent perturbation, and show that grazing by these herbivores has prevented the establishment of macroalgae following near complete loss of coral on offshore reefs. Importantly, we found the positive response of herbivorous fishes to increased benthic primary productivity associated with coral loss was driven largely by parrotfishes that initially recruit to stable nursery habitat within the lagoons before moving to offshore reefs later in life. These results underscore the importance of connectivity between the lagoon and offshore reefs for preventing the establishment of macroalgae following disturbances, and indicate that protecting nearshore nursery habitat of herbivorous fishes is critical for maintaining reef resilience.
- Resource Type:
- Article
- Campus Tesim:
- Northridge
- Creator:
- Braun, David R., Hertel, Fritz S., Ferraro, Joseph V., Plummer, Thomas W., Bishop, Laura C., Ditchfield, Peter W., Kingston, John D., and Potts, Richard
- Description:
- Background: Major biological and cultural innovations in late Pliocene hominin evolution are frequently linked to the spread or fluctuating presence of C4 grass in African ecosystems. Whereas the deep sea record of global climatic change provides indirect evidence for an increase in C4 vegetation with a shift towards a cooler, drier and more variable global climatic regime beginning approximately 3 million years ago (Ma), evidence for grassland-dominated ecosystems in continental Africa and hominin activities within such ecosystems have been lacking. | Methodology/Principal Findings: We report stable isotopic analyses of pedogenic carbonates and ungulate enamel, as well as faunal data from ~2.0 Ma archeological occurrences at Kanjera South, Kenya. These document repeated hominin activities within a grassland-dominated ecosystem. | Conclusions/Significance: These data demonstrate what hitherto had been speculated based on indirect evidence: that grassland-dominated ecosystems did in fact exist during the Plio-Pleistocene, and that early Homo was active in open settings. Comparison with other Oldowan occurrences indicates that by 2.0 Ma hominins, almost certainly of the genus Homo, used a broad spectrum of habitats in East Africa, from open grassland to riparian forest. This strongly contrasts with the habitat usage of Australopithecus, and may signal an important shift in hominin landscape usage.
- Resource Type:
- Article
- Campus Tesim:
- Northridge
- Creator:
- Braun, David R., Hertel, Fritz S., Ferraro, Joseph V., Plummer, Thomas W., Seaman, John W. Jr., Oliver, James S., Pobiner, Briana L., Bishop, Laura C., Seaman, John W. III, Binetti, Katie M., Ditchfield, Peter W., and Potts, Richard
- Description:
- The emergence of lithic technology by ∼2.6 million years ago (Ma) is often interpreted as a correlate of increasingly recurrent hominin acquisition and consumption of animal remains. Associated faunal evidence, however, is poorly preserved prior to ∼1.8 Ma, limiting our understanding of early archaeological (Oldowan) hominin carnivory. Here, we detail three large well-preserved zooarchaeological assemblages from Kanjera South, Kenya. The assemblages date to ∼2.0 Ma, pre-dating all previously published archaeofaunas of appreciable size. At Kanjera, there is clear evidence that Oldowan hominins acquired and processed numerous, relatively complete, small ungulate carcasses. Moreover, they had at least occasional access to the fleshed remains of larger, wildebeest-sized animals. The overall record of hominin activities is consistent through the stratified sequence – spanning hundreds to thousands of years – and provides the earliest archaeological evidence of sustained hominin involvement with fleshed animal remains (i.e., persistent carnivory), a foraging adaptation central to many models of hominin evolution.
- Resource Type:
- Article
- Campus Tesim:
- Northridge
- Creator:
- Alvarez-Lacalle, Enrique, Asfaw, Mesfin, and Shiferaw, Yohannes
- Description:
- A variety of cardiac arrhythmias are initiated by a focal excitation that disrupts the regular beating of the heart. In some cases it is known that these excitations are due to calcium (Ca) release from the sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) via propagating subcellular Ca waves. However, it is not understood what are the physiological factors that determine the timing of these excitations at both the subcellular and tissue level. In this paper we apply analytic and numerical approaches to determine the timing statistics of spontaneous Ca release (SCR) in a simplified model of a cardiac myocyte. In particular, we compute the mean first passage time (MFPT) to SCR, in the case where SCR is initiated by spontaneous Ca sparks, and demonstrate that this quantity exhibits either an algebraic or exponential dependence on system parameters. Based on this analysis we identify the necessary requirements so that SCR occurs on a time scale comparable to the cardiac cycle. Finally, we study how SCR is synchronized across many cells in cardiac tissue, and identify a quantitative measure that determines the relative timing of SCR in an ensemble of cells. Using this approach we identify the physiological conditions so that cell-to-cell variations in the timing of SCR is small compared to the typical duration of an SCR event. We argue further that under these conditions inward currents due to SCR can summate and generate arrhythmogenic triggered excitations in cardiac tissue.
- Resource Type:
- Article
- Identifier:
- 1932-6203
- Campus Tesim:
- Northridge
- Creator:
- van Woesik, Robert, Gross, Kevin, Stat, Michael, Edmunds, Peter J., Fan, Tung-Yung, Baskett, Marissa L., Budd, Ann F., Smith, Tyler B., Baums, Iliana B., McClanahan, Tim R., Carpenter, Robert C., Han, Xueying, Pochon, Xavier, Fabina, Nicholas S., Adjeroud, Mehdi, Putnam, Hollie Marie, Sweatman, Hugh, Gates, Ruth D., van Oppen, Madeleine J. H., Klaus, James S., O'Leary, Jennifer K., Jacobson, Lianne M., and Franklin, Erik C.
- Description:
- The reduction in coral cover on many contemporary tropical reefs suggests a different set of coral community assemblages will dominate future reefs. To evaluate the capacity of reef corals to persist over various time scales, we examined coral community dynamics in contemporary, fossil, and simulated future coral reef ecosystems. Based on studies between 1987 and 2012 at two locations in the Caribbean, and between 1981 and 2013 at five locations in the Indo-Pacific, we show that many coral genera declined in abundance, some showed no change in abundance, and a few coral genera increased in abundance. Whether the abundance of a genus declined, increased, or was conserved, was independent of coral family. An analysis of fossil-reef communities in the Caribbean revealed changes in numerical dominance and relative abundances of coral genera, and demonstrated that neither dominance nor taxon was associated with persistence. As coral family was a poor predictor of performance on contemporary reefs, a trait-based, dynamic, multi-patch model was developed to explore the phenotypic basis of ecological performance in a warmer future. Sensitivity analyses revealed that upon exposure to thermal stress, thermal tolerance, growth rate, and longevity were the most important predictors of coral persistence. Together, our results underscore the high variation in the rates and direction of change in coral abundances on contemporary and fossil reefs. Given this variation, it remains possible that coral reefs will be populated by a subset of the present coral fauna in a future that is warmer than the recent past.
- Resource Type:
- Article
- Campus Tesim:
- Northridge
- Creator:
- Houser, Dorian S., Champagne, Cory D., Crocker, Daniel E., and Costa, Daniel P.
- Description:
- Free-ranging animals often cope with fluctuating environmental conditions such as weather, food availability, predation risk, the requirements of breeding, and the influence of anthropogenic factors. Consequently, researchers are increasingly measuring stress markers, especially glucocorticoids, to understand stress, disturbance, and population health. Studying free-ranging animals, however, comes with numerous difficulties posed by environmental conditions and the particular characteristics of study species. Performing measurements under either physical restraint or chemical sedation may affect the physiological variable under investigation and lead to values that may not reflect the standard functional state of the animal. This study measured the stress response resulting from different handling conditions in northern elephant seals and any ensuing influences on carbohydrate metabolism. Endogenous glucose production (EGP) was measured using [6-3H]glucose and plasma cortisol concentration was measured from blood samples drawn during three-hour measurement intervals. These measurements were conducted in weanlings and yearlings with and without the use of chemical sedatives—under chemical sedation, physical restraint, or unrestrained. We compared these findings with measurements in adult seals sedated in the field. The method of handling had a significant influence on the stress response and carbohydrate metabolism. Physically restrained weanlings and yearlings transported to the lab had increased concentrations of circulating cortisol (F11, 46 = 25.2, p,0.01) and epinephrine (F3, 12 = 5.8, p = 0.01). Physical restraint led to increased EGP (t = 3.1, p = 0.04) and elevated plasma glucose levels (t = 8.2, p,0.01). Animals chemically sedated in the field typically did not exhibit a cortisol stress response. The combination of anesthetic agents (Telazol, ketamine, and diazepam) used in this study appeared to alleviate a cortisol stress response due to handling in the field without altering carbohydrate metabolism. Measures of hormone concentrations and metabolism made under these conditions are more likely to reflect basal values.
- Resource Type:
- Article
- Identifier:
- 1932-6203
- Campus Tesim:
- Sonoma
- Creator:
- Goetz, Kimberly T., Peterson, Sarah H., Champagne, Cory D., Hassrick, Jason L., Gallo-Reynoso, Juan Pablo, Crocker, Daniel E., Villegas-Amtmann, Stella, Goetsch, Chandra, Maresh, Jennifer L., Teutschel, Nicole M., Maxwell, Sara M., Simmons, Samantha E., Costa, Daniel P., McDonald, Birgitte I., Fowler, Melinda A., Robinson, Patrick W., Yoda, Ken, Hückstädt, Luis A., and Kuhn, Carey E.
- Description:
- The mesopelagic zone of the northeast Pacific Ocean is an important foraging habitat for many predators, yet few studies have addressed the factors driving basin-scale predator distributions or inter-annual variability in foraging and breeding success. Understanding these processes is critical to reveal how conditions at sea cascade to population-level effects. To begin addressing these challenging questions, we collected diving, tracking, foraging success, and natality data for 297 adult female northern elephant seal migrations from 2004 to 2010. During the longer post-molting migration, individual energy gain rates were significant predictors of pregnancy. At sea, seals focused their foraging effort along a narrow band corresponding to the boundary between the sub-arctic and sub-tropical gyres. In contrast to shallow-diving predators, elephant seals target the gyre-gyre boundary throughout the year rather than follow the southward winter migration of surface features, such as the Transition Zone Chlorophyll Front. We also assessed the impact of added transit costs by studying seals at a colony near the southern extent of the species’ range, 1,150 km to the south. A much larger proportion of seals foraged locally, implying plasticity in foraging strategies and possibly prey type. While these findings are derived from a single species, the results may provide insight to the foraging patterns of many other meso-pelagic predators in the northeast Pacific Ocean.
- Resource Type:
- Article
- Identifier:
- 1932-6203
- Campus Tesim:
- Sonoma
- Creator:
- Arnould, John P. Y., Harrison, Autumn-Lynn, Hassrick, Jason L., Crocker, Daniel E., Villegas-Amtmann, Stella, Kirkman, Stephen P., Simmons, Samantha E., Costa, Daniel P., Oosthuizen, Herman, Hoskins, Andrew J., and Robinson, Patrick W.
- Description:
- Background: ARGOS satellite telemetry is one of the most widely used methods to track the movements of free-ranging marine and terrestrial animals and is fundamental to studies of foraging ecology, migratory behavior and habitat-use. ARGOS location estimates do not include complete error estimations, and for many marine organisms, the most commonly acquired locations (Location Class 0, A, B, or Z) are provided with no declared error estimate. Methodology/Principal Findings: We compared the accuracy of ARGOS locations to those obtained using Fastloc GPS from the same electronic tags on five species of pinnipeds: 9 California sea lions (Zalophus californianus), 4 Galapagos sea lions (Zalophus wollebaeki), 6 Cape fur seals (Arctocephalus pusillus pusillus), 3 Australian fur seals (A. p. doriferus) and 5 northern elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostris). These species encompass a range of marine habitats (highly pelagic vs coastal), diving behaviors (mean dive durations 2–21 min) and range of latitudes (equator to temperate). A total of 7,318 ARGOS positions and 27,046 GPS positions were collected. Of these, 1,105 ARGOS positions were obtained within five minutes of a GPS position and were used for comparison. The 68th percentile ARGOS location errors as measured in this study were LC-3 0.49 km, LC-2 1.01 km, LC-1 1.20 km, LC-0 4.18 km, LC-A 6.19 km, LC-B 10.28 km. Conclusions/Significance: The ARGOS errors measured here are greater than those provided by ARGOS, but within the range of other studies. The error was non-normally distributed with each LC highly right-skewed. Locations of species that make short duration dives and spend extended periods on the surface (sea lions and fur seals) had less error than species like elephant seals that spend more time underwater and have shorter surface intervals. Supplemental data (S1) are provided allowing the creation of density distributions that can be used in a variety of filtering algorithms to improve the quality of ARGOS tracking data.
- Resource Type:
- Article
- Identifier:
- 1932-6203
- Campus Tesim:
- Sonoma