scholarly journals Phylogenetic history of vascular plant metabolism revealed using a macroevolutionary common garden

2021 ◽  
Vol 288 (1952) ◽  
pp. 20210605
Author(s):  
Barbara M. Neto-Bradley ◽  
Christopher D. Muir ◽  
Jeannette Whitton ◽  
Matthew W. Pennell

While the fundamental biophysics of C 3 photosynthesis is highly conserved across plants, substantial leaf structural and enzymatic variation translates into variability in rates of carbon assimilation. Although this variation is well documented, it remains poorly understood how photosynthetic rates evolve, and whether macroevolutionary changes are related to the evolution of leaf morphology and biochemistry. A substantial challenge in large-scale comparative studies is disentangling evolutionary adaptation from environmental acclimation. We overcome this by using a ‘macroevolutionary common garden’ approach in which we measured metabolic traits ( J max and V cmax ) from 111 phylogenetically diverse species in a shared environment. We find substantial phylogenetic signal in these traits at moderate phylogenetic timescales, but this signal dissipates quickly at deeper scales. Morphological traits exhibit phylogenetic signal over much deeper timescales, suggesting that these are less evolutionarily constrained than metabolic traits. Furthermore, while morphological and biochemical traits (LMA, N area and C area ) are weakly predictive of J max and V c max , evolutionary changes in these traits are mostly decoupled from changes in metabolic traits. This lack of tight evolutionary coupling implies that it may be incorrect to use changes in these functional traits in response to global change to infer that photosynthetic strategy is also evolving.

1996 ◽  
pp. 4-15
Author(s):  
S. Golovaschenko ◽  
Petro Kosuha

The report is based on the first results of the study "The History of the Evangelical Christians-Baptists in Ukraine", carried out in 1994-1996 by the joint efforts of the Department of Religious Studies at the Institute of Philosophy of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and the Odessa Theological Seminary of Evangelical Christian Baptists. A large-scale description and research of archival sources on the history of evangelical movements in our country gave the first experience of fruitful cooperation between secular and church researchers.


1984 ◽  
Vol 16 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 281-295 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald C Gordon

Large-scale tidal power development in the Bay of Fundy has been given serious consideration for over 60 years. There has been a long history of productive interaction between environmental scientists and engineers durinn the many feasibility studies undertaken. Up until recently, tidal power proposals were dropped on economic grounds. However, large-scale development in the upper reaches of the Bay of Fundy now appears to be economically viable and a pre-commitment design program is highly likely in the near future. A large number of basic scientific research studies have been and are being conducted by government and university scientists. Likely environmental impacts have been examined by scientists and engineers together in a preliminary fashion on several occasions. A full environmental assessment will be conducted before a final decision is made and the results will definately influence the outcome.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Kirschbaum ◽  
Oliver Bossdorf ◽  
J F Scheepens

Abstract Aims Plant populations in managed grasslands are subject to strong selection exerted by grazing, mowing and fertilization. Many previous studies showed that this can cause evolutionary changes in mean trait values, but little is known about the evolution of phenotypic plasticity in response to land use. In this study, we aimed to elucidate the relationships between phenotypic plasticity – specifically, regrowth ability after biomass removal – and the intensity of grassland management and levels of temporal variation therein. Methods We conducted an outdoor common garden experiment to test if plants from more intensively mown and grazed sites showed an increased ability to regrow after biomass removal. We used three common plant species from temperate European grasslands, with seed material from 58 – 68 populations along gradients of land-use intensity, ranging from extensive (only light grazing) to very intensive management (up to four cuts per year). Important findings In two out of three species, we found significant population differentiation in regrowth ability after clipping. While variation in regrowth ability was unrelated to the mean land-use intensity of populations of origin, we found a relationship with its temporal variation in P. lanceolata, where plants experiencing less variable environmental conditions over the last 11 years showed stronger regrowth in reproductive biomass after clipping. Therefore, while mean grazing and mowing intensity may not select for regrowth ability, the temporal stability of the environmental heterogeneity created by land use may have caused its evolution in some species.


2021 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-33
Author(s):  
Blesson Varghese ◽  
Nan Wang ◽  
David Bermbach ◽  
Cheol-Ho Hong ◽  
Eyal De Lara ◽  
...  

Edge computing is the next Internet frontier that will leverage computing resources located near users, sensors, and data stores to provide more responsive services. Therefore, it is envisioned that a large-scale, geographically dispersed, and resource-rich distributed system will emerge and play a key role in the future Internet. However, given the loosely coupled nature of such complex systems, their operational conditions are expected to change significantly over time. In this context, the performance characteristics of such systems will need to be captured rapidly, which is referred to as performance benchmarking, for application deployment, resource orchestration, and adaptive decision-making. Edge performance benchmarking is a nascent research avenue that has started gaining momentum over the past five years. This article first reviews articles published over the past three decades to trace the history of performance benchmarking from tightly coupled to loosely coupled systems. It then systematically classifies previous research to identify the system under test, techniques analyzed, and benchmark runtime in edge performance benchmarking.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yaping Wang ◽  
Bin Liu ◽  
Xiuqiong Fu ◽  
Tiejun Tong ◽  
Zhiling Yu

Abstract Background The traditional Chinese medicine formula Si-Jun-Zi-Tang (SJZT) has a long history of application in the treatment of functional dyspepsia (non-ulcer dyspepsia, FD)-like symptoms. SJZT-based therapies have been claimed to be beneficial in managing FD. This study aimed to assess the efficacy and safety of SJZT-based therapies in treating FD by meta-analysis. Methods Systematic searches for RCTs were conducted in seven databases (up to February 2019) without language restrictions. Data were analyzed using Cochrane RevMan software version 5.3.0 and Stata software version 13.1, and reported as relative risk (RR) or odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs). The primary outcome was response rate and the secondary outcomes were gastric emptying, quality of life, adverse effects and relapse rate. The quality of evidence was evaluated according to criteria from the Cochrane risk of bias. Results A total of 341 potentially relevant publications were identified, and 12 RCTs were eligible for inclusion. For the response rate, there was a statically significant benefit in favor of SJZT-based therapies (RR = 1.23; 95% CI 1.17 to 1.30). However, the benefit was limited to modified SJZT (MSJZT). The relapse rate of FD patients received SJZT-based therapies was lower than that of patients who received conventional medicines (OR = 0.23; 95% CI 0.10 to 0.51). No SJZT-based therapies-related adverse effect was reported. Conclusion SJZT-based prescriptions may be effective in treating FD and no serious side-effects were identified, but the effect on response rate appeared to be limited to MSJZT. The results should be interpreted with caution as all the included studies were considered at a high risk of bias. Standardized, large-scale and strictly designed RCTs are needed to further validate the benefits of SJZT-based therapies for FD management. Trial registration Systematic review registration: [PROSPERO registration: CRD42019139136].


2010 ◽  
Vol 277 (1698) ◽  
pp. 3327-3333 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manabu Sakamoto

Despite the great diversity in theropod craniomandibular morphology, the presence and distribution of biting function types across Theropoda has rarely been assessed. A novel method of biomechanical profiling using mechanical advantage computed for each biting position along the entirety of the tooth row was applied to 41 extinct theropod taxa. Multivariate ordination on the polynomial coefficients of the profiles reveals the distribution of theropod biting performance in function space. In particular, coelophysoids are found to occupy a unique region of function space, while tetanurans have a wide but continuous function space distribution. Further, the underlying phylogenetic structure and evolution of biting performance were investigated using phylogenetic comparative methods. There is a strong phylogenetic signal in theropod biomechanical profiles, indicating that evolution of biting performance does not depart from Brownian motion evolution. Reconstructions of ancestral function space occupation conform to this pattern, but phylogenetically unexpected major shifts in function space occupation can be observed at the origins of some clades. However, uncertainties surround ancestor estimates in some of these internal nodes, so inferences on the nature of these evolutionary changes must be viewed with caution.


2021 ◽  
Vol 99 ◽  
pp. 122-146
Author(s):  
Anna Shnukal

AbstractThroughout its European history, Australia has solved recurrent labor shortages by importing workers from overseas. Situated on shipping lanes between the Pacific and Indian Oceans, the northern Australian pearlshelling industry became a significant locus of second-wave transnational labor flows (1870–1940) and by the 1880s was dependent on indentured workers from the Pacific and Southeast Asia. Exempted from the racially discriminatory Immigration Restriction Act of 1901, indentured Asian seamen, principally Japanese, maintained the industry until the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1941. The Torres Strait pearlshelling industry, centered on Thursday Island in Far North Queensland, resumed in 1946 amid general agreement that the Japanese must not return. Nevertheless, in 1958, 162 Okinawan pearling indents arrived on Thursday Island in a controversial attempt to restore the industry's declining fortunes. This article is intended as a contribution to the history of transnational labor movements. It consults a range of sources to document this “Okinawan experiment,” the last large-scale importation of indentured Asian labor into Australia. It examines Australian Commonwealth-state tensions in formulating and adopting national labor policy; disputes among Queensland policy makers; the social characteristics of the Okinawan cohort; and local Indigenous reactions. Also discussed are the economics of labor in the final years of the Torres Strait pearling industry. This study thus extends our knowledge of transnational labor movements and the intersection of early postwar Australian-Asian relations with Queensland Indigenous labor policy. It also foreshadows contemporary Indigenous demands for control of local marine resources.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document