scholarly journals Resource availability affects the structure of a natural bacteria–bacteriophage community

2010 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothée Poisot ◽  
Gildas Lepennetier ◽  
Esteban Martinez ◽  
Johan Ramsayer ◽  
Michael E. Hochberg
Keyword(s):  
Resource Availability ◽  
Bipartite Network ◽  
Environmental Perturbations ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
Resource Levels

Antagonistic networks are known to be structured in the wild, but knowledge on how this structure may change as a response to environmental perturbations is scarce. We describe a natural bipartite network between bacteria and lytic bacteriophages, and investigate how it is affected by environmental productivity in the form of different resource levels for the bacteria. We report that low amounts of resource decrease phage generality and lead to less robust and less stable communities. We discuss how resource levels in nature may alter the structure of complex communities.

scholarly journals Communication Among Harvesters Leads to Sustainable Fishing Behaviour in a Continuous Time Common Pool Resource Experiment

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kwabena A. Owusu ◽  
Micaela M. Kulesz ◽  
Agostino Merico
Keyword(s):  
Resource Availability ◽  
Continuous Time ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Sustainable Use ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Common Pool ◽  
Use Of Resources ◽  
Extraction Behaviour ◽  
The Commons ◽  
Resource Levels

The sustainable use of common pool resources (CPRs) such as fisheries constitutes a major challenge for society. A large body of empirical studies conducted in discrete time indicates that resource users are able to prevent the ‘tragedy of the commons' under institutional arrangements that can promote cooperation. However, the variability exhibited by the human behaviour and the dynamic nature of renewable resources require continuous time experiments to fully explain the mechanisms underpinning the sustainable use of resources. We conducted CPR experiments in continuous time to investigate how the extraction behaviour of resource users changes in real-time in response to changes in resource availability under communication and no communication. We find that when communication is allowed, users adjust their extraction efforts based on knowledge of previous resource availability. In contrast, when communication is not allowed, users do not incorporate resource availability into their utility function. These results suggest that communication does not merely provide a forum for coordination but mediates a causal relationship between resource levels and extraction behaviour. Our findings may help the development of effective resource management policies.

scholarly journals Mechanical spectroscopy of insect swarms

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (7) ◽  
pp. eaaw9305 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kasper van der Vaart ◽  
Michael Sinhuber ◽  
Andrew M. Reynolds ◽  
Nicholas T. Ouellette
Keyword(s):  
Information Flow ◽  
Collective Behavior ◽  
Mechanical Spectroscopy ◽  
Bulk Materials ◽  
Animal Groups ◽  
Environmental Perturbations ◽  
Storage And Loss Moduli ◽  
Social Animals ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
Flow Through

Social animals routinely form groups, which are thought to display emergent, collective behavior. This hypothesis suggests that animal groups should have properties at the group scale that are not directly linked to the individuals, much as bulk materials have properties distinct from those of their constituent atoms. Materials are often probed by measuring their response to controlled perturbations, but these experiments are difficult to conduct on animal groups, particularly in the wild. Here, we show that laboratory midge swarms have emergent continuum mechanical properties, displaying a collective viscoelastic response to applied oscillatory visual stimuli that allows us to extract storage and loss moduli for the swarm. We find that the swarms strongly damp perturbations, both viscously and inertially. Thus, unlike bird flocks, which appear to use collective behavior to promote lossless information flow through the group, our results suggest that midge swarms use it to stabilize themselves against environmental perturbations.

scholarly journals Embryonic geometry underlies phenotypic variation in decanalized conditions

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Huang ◽  
T. E. Saunders
Keyword(s):  
Phenotypic Variation ◽  
Regulatory Network ◽  
Physical Space ◽  
Model Organisms ◽  
Wild Type ◽  
Environmental Perturbations ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
Gene Regulatory ◽  
Anterior Posterior

AbstractDuring development, many mutations cause increased variation in phenotypic outcomes, a phenomenon termed decanalization. Such variations can often be attributed to genetic and environmental perturbations. However, phenotypic discordance remains even in isogenic model organisms raised in homogeneous environments. To understand the mechanisms underlying phenotypic variation, we used as a model the highly precise anterior-posterior (AP) patterning of the early Drosophila embryo. We decanalized the system by depleting the maternal bcd product and found that in contrast to the highly scaled patterning in the wild-type, the segmentation gene boundaries shift away from the scaled positions according to the total embryonic length. Embryonic geometry is hence a key factor predetermining patterning outcomes in such decanalized conditions. Embryonic geometry was also found to predict individual patterning outcomes under bcd overexpression, another decanalizing condition. Further analysis of the gene regulatory network acting downstream of the morphogen identified vulnerable points in the networks due to limitations in the available physical space.

scholarly journals Response of insect swarms to dynamic illumination perturbations

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (150) ◽  
pp. 20180739 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Sinhuber ◽  
Kasper van der Vaart ◽  
Nicholas T. Ouellette
Keyword(s):  
Light Exposure ◽  
Collective Behaviour ◽  
Environmental Perturbations ◽  
Full Control ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
Variable Light ◽  
Classical Thermodynamics ◽  
Natural Settings ◽  
Thermodynamic Phase ◽  
Swarming Behaviour

Many animal species across taxa spontaneously form aggregations that exhibit collective behaviour. In the wild, these collective systems are unavoidably influenced by ubiquitous environmental perturbations such as wind gusts, acoustic and visual stimuli, or the presence of predators or other animals. The way these environmental perturbations influence the animals' collective behaviour, however, is poorly understood, in part because conducting controlled quantitative perturbation experiments in natural settings is challenging. To circumvent the need for controlling environmental conditions in the field, we study swarming midges in a laboratory experiment where we have full control over external perturbations. Here, we consider the effect of controlled variable light exposure on the swarming behaviour. We find that not only do individuals in the swarm respond to light changes by speeding up during brighter conditions but also the swarm as a whole responds to these perturbations by compressing and simultaneously increasing the attraction of individual midges to its centre of mass. The swarm-level response can be described by making an analogy to classical thermodynamics, with the state of the swarm moving along an isotherm in a thermodynamic phase plane.

scholarly journals Metabolic Rate Interacts with Resource Availability to Determine Individual Variation in Microhabitat Use in the Wild

2020 ◽  
Vol 196 (2) ◽  
pp. 132-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonya K. Auer ◽  
Ronald D. Bassar ◽  
Daniel Turek ◽  
Graeme J. Anderson ◽  
Simon McKelvey ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Metabolic Rate ◽  
Resource Availability ◽  
Individual Variation ◽  
Microhabitat Use ◽  
In The Wild

scholarly journals Co-expression Networks From Gene Expression Variability Between Genetically Identical Seedlings Can Reveal Novel Regulatory Relationships

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Cortijo ◽  
Marcel Bhattarai ◽  
James C. W. Locke ◽  
Sebastian E. Ahnert
Keyword(s):  
Gene Expression ◽  
Gene Regulation ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Biologically Relevant ◽  
Expression Variability ◽  
Environmental Perturbation ◽  
Environmental Perturbations ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
New Gene ◽  
And Function

Co-expression networks are a powerful tool to understand gene regulation. They have been used to identify new regulation and function of genes involved in plant development and their response to the environment. Up to now, co-expression networks have been inferred using transcriptomes generated on plants experiencing genetic or environmental perturbation, or from expression time series. We propose a new approach by showing that co-expression networks can be constructed in the absence of genetic and environmental perturbation, for plants at the same developmental stage. For this, we used transcriptomes that were generated from genetically identical individual plants that were grown under the same conditions and for the same amount of time. Twelve time points were used to cover the 24-h light/dark cycle. We used variability in gene expression between individual plants of the same time point to infer a co-expression network. We show that this network is biologically relevant and use it to suggest new gene functions and to identify new targets for the transcriptional regulators GI, PIF4, and PRR5. Moreover, we find different co-regulation in this network based on changes in expression between individual plants, compared to the usual approach requiring environmental perturbation. Our work shows that gene co-expression networks can be identified using variability in gene expression between individual plants, without the need for genetic or environmental perturbations. It will allow further exploration of gene regulation in contexts with subtle differences between plants, which could be closer to what individual plants in a population might face in the wild.

Assessing competition intensity along productivity gradients using a simple model

2001 ◽  
Vol 79 (12) ◽  
pp. 1486-1491 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ken Arii ◽  
Roy Turkington
Keyword(s):  
Simple Model ◽  
Resource Availability ◽  
Plant Ecology ◽  
Competition Intensity ◽  
Productivity Gradient ◽  
Surface Variation ◽  
Intensity Changes ◽  
Productivity Gradients ◽  
Resource Levels ◽  
Theory Competition

One of the most highly debated issues in plant ecology has been the manner in which competition intensity changes along productivity gradients. We have used a simple model to attempt to demonstrate that in theory, competition intensity can vary quite considerably along productivity gradients. Our model incorporates three key components: (i) changes in resource availability along a productivity gradient, (ii) changes in resource availability when neighbours are removed, and (iii) growth characteristics of the target species and (or) individuals to varying resource levels (i.e., response surface). Variation and interactions among these three components can potentially give rise to various, and occasionally complex, changes in competition intensity along productivity gradients. This partly explains the divergent, and sometimes contradictory, results reported in previous studies.Key words: competition intensity, productivity gradient, nutrient, light, model.

scholarly journals Maternal effects in disease resistance: poor maternal environment increases offspring resistance to an insect virus

2012 ◽  
Vol 279 (1744) ◽  
pp. 4009-4014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Boots ◽  
Katherine E. Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Disease Resistance ◽  
Maternal Effects ◽  
Resource Availability ◽  
Evolutionary Dynamics ◽  
Disease Risk ◽  
Insect Virus ◽  
Maternal Environment ◽  
Resource Levels ◽  
Host Parasite ◽  
Parasite Exposure

Maternal effects can be adaptive and because of their intrinsic time delays may have important effects on population dynamics. In vertebrates, and increasingly invertebrates, it is well established that offspring defence is in part determined by maternal parasite exposure. It has also been suggested that there may be indirect maternal effects on immunity mediated by other components of the maternal environment, including density and resource availability. Here, we examine the effect maternal resource availability has on the immunity of offspring in an insect—virus system. We use five different maternal resource levels and examine immunity in the offspring both directly, by challenge with a virus, and by measuring a major component of the immune system, across three offspring environments. Both the direct infection assay and the measure of immunocompetence show clearly that offspring from mothers in poor environments are more resistant to parasites. This may result from life-history optimization of mothers in poor environments, or because the poor environment acts as a cue for higher disease risk in the next generation. This emphasizes the importance of maternal effects on disease resistance, mediated through indirect environmental factors that will have important implications to both the ecological and evolutionary dynamics of host–parasite interactions.

scholarly journals Co-expression networks from gene expression variability between genetically identical seedlings can reveal novel regulatory relationships

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
S Cortijo ◽  
M Bhattarai ◽  
J C W Locke ◽  
S E Ahnert
Keyword(s):  
Gene Expression ◽  
Gene Regulation ◽  
Plant Development ◽  
Biologically Relevant ◽  
Expression Variability ◽  
Environmental Perturbation ◽  
Environmental Perturbations ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
And Function

AbstractCo-expression networks are a powerful tool to understand gene regulation. They have been used to identify new regulation and function of genes involved in plant development and their response to the environment. Up to now, co-expression networks have been inferred using transcriptomes generated on plants experiencing genetic or environmental perturbation, or from expression time series. We propose a new approach by showing that co-expression networks can be constructed in the absence of genetic and environmental perturbation, for plants at the same developmental stage. For this we used transcriptomes that were generated from genetically identical individual plants that were grown in the same conditions and for the same amount of time. Twelve time points were used to cover the 24h light/dark cycle. We used variability in gene expression between individual plants of the same time point to infer a co-expression network. We show that this network is biologically relevant and use it to suggest new gene functions and to identify new targets for the transcription factors GI, PIF4 and PRR5. Moreover, we find different co-regulation in this network based on changes in expression between individual plants, compared to the usual approach requiring environmental perturbation. Our work shows that gene co-expression networks can be identified using variability in gene expression between individual plants, without the need for genetic or environmental perturbations. It will allow further exploration of gene regulation in contexts with subtle differences between plants, which could be closer to what individual plants in a population might face in the wild.Author summaryPlant development and response to changes in the environment are strongly regulated at the level of gene expression. That is why understanding how gene expression is regulated is key, and transcriptome approaches have allowed the analysis of transcription for all genes of the genome. Extracting useful information from the high amount of data generated by transcriptomes is a challenge, and gene co-expression networks are a powerful tool to do this. The principle is to find genes that co-vary in expression in different conditions and to pair them together. Communities of genes that are more closely linked are then identified and this is the starting point to look for their implication in the same pathway. Co-expression networks have been used to identify new regulation and function of genes involved in plant development and their response to the environment. They were constructed using transcriptomes generated on plants experiencing genetic or environmental perturbation. We show that co-expression networks can in fact be constructed in the absence of genetic and environmental perturbation. Our work will allow further exploration of gene co-regulation in contexts with subtle differences between plants, which could be closer to what individual plants in a population might face in the wild.

scholarly journals Environmental perturbations induce correlations in midge swarms

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (164) ◽  
pp. 20200018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kasper van der Vaart ◽  
Michael Sinhuber ◽  
Andrew M. Reynolds ◽  
Nicholas T. Ouellette
Keyword(s):  
Long Range ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Collective Behaviour ◽  
Biting Midge ◽  
External Perturbations ◽  
Environmental Perturbations ◽  
Range Correlation ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
New Research ◽  
External Stimuli

Although collectively behaving animal groups often show large-scale order (such as in bird flocks), they need not always (such as in insect swarms). It has been suggested that the signature of collective behaviour in disordered groups is a residual long-range correlation. However, results in the literature have reported contradictory results as to the presence of long-range correlation in insect swarms, with swarms in the wild displaying correlation but those in a controlled laboratory environment not. We resolve these apparently incompatible results by showing that the external perturbations generically induce the emergence of correlations. We apply a range of different external stimuli to laboratory swarms of the non-biting midge Chironomus riparius , and show that in all cases correlations appear when perturbations are introduced. We confirm the generic nature of these results by showing that they can be reproduced in a stochastic model of swarms. Given that swarms in the wild will always have to contend with environmental stimuli, our results thus harmonize previous findings. These findings emphasize that collective behaviour cannot be understood in isolation without considering its environmental context, and that new research is needed to disentangle the distinct roles of intrinsic dynamics and external stimuli.

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