scholarly journals Coexistence holes characterize the assembly and disassembly of multispecies systems

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Tulio Angulo ◽  
Aaron Kelley ◽  
Luis Montejano ◽  
Chuliang Song ◽  
Serguei Saavedra

AbstractA central goal of life science has been to understand the limits of species coexistence. However, we know surprisingly little about the structure of species coexistence below such limits, and how it affects the assembly and disassembly of ecological systems. Here we introduce a novel hypergraph-based formalism that fully captures the structure of coexistence in multispecies systems. Our formalism uncovers that, below its limits, coexistence in ecological systems has ubiquitous discontinuities that we call “coexistence holes.” These coexistence holes do not occur arbitrarily but tend to obey patterns that make them predictable. We provide direct evidence showing that the biotic and abiotic constraints of empirical systems produce an over-representation of coexistence holes. By highlighting discontinuities in the form of coexistence holes, our work provides a new platform to uncover the order and structure of the assembly and disassembly of ecological systems.

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (51) ◽  
pp. e2104732118
Author(s):  
Andrea Aparicio ◽  
Jorge X. Velasco-Hernández ◽  
Claude H. Moog ◽  
Yang-Yu Liu ◽  
Marco Tulio Angulo

Ecological systems can undergo sudden, catastrophic changes known as critical transitions. Anticipating these critical transitions remains challenging in systems with many species because the associated early warning signals can be weakly present or even absent in some species, depending on the system dynamics. Therefore, our limited knowledge of ecological dynamics may suggest that it is hard to identify those species in the system that display early warning signals. Here, we show that, in mutualistic ecological systems, it is possible to identify species that early anticipate critical transitions by knowing only the system structure—that is, the network topology of plant–animal interactions. Specifically, we leverage the mathematical theory of structural observability of dynamical systems to identify a minimum set of “sensor species,” whose measurement guarantees that we can infer changes in the abundance of all other species. Importantly, such a minimum set of sensor species can be identified by using the system structure only. We analyzed the performance of such minimum sets of sensor species for detecting early warnings using a large dataset of empirical plant–pollinator and seed-dispersal networks. We found that species that are more likely to be sensors tend to anticipate earlier critical transitions than other species. Our results underscore how knowing the structure of multispecies systems can improve our ability to anticipate critical transitions.


Author(s):  
J. T. Stasny ◽  
R. C. Burns ◽  
R. W. F. Hardy

Structure-functlon studies of biological N2-fixation have correlated the presence of the enzyme nitrogenase with increased numbers of intracytoplasmic membranes in Azotobacter. However no direct evidence has been provided for the internal cellular localization of any nitrogenase. Recent advances concerned with the crystallizatiorTand the electron microscopic characterization of the Mo-Fe protein component of Azotobacter nitrogenase, prompted the use of this purified protein to obtain antibodies (Ab) to be conjugated to electron dense markers for the intracellular localization of the protein by electron microscopy. The present study describes the use of ferritin conjugated to goat antitMo-Fe protein immunoglobulin (IgG) and the observations following its topical application to thin sections of N2-grown Azotobacter.


Author(s):  
M. Boublik ◽  
R.M. Wydro ◽  
W. Hellmann ◽  
F. Jenkins

Ribosomes are ribonucleoprotein particles necessary for processing the genetic information of mRNA into proteins. Analogy in composition and function of ribosomes from diverse species, established by biochemical and biological assays, implies their structural similarity. Direct evidence obtained by electron microscopy seems to be of increasing relevance in understanding the structure of ribosomes and the mechanism of their role in protein synthesis.The extent of the structural homology between prokaryotic and eukaryotic ribosomes has been studied on ribosomes of Escherichia coli (E.c.) and Artemia salina (A.s.). Despite the established differences in size and in the amount and proportion of ribosomal proteins and RNAs both types of ribosomes show an overall similarity. The monosomes (stained with 0.5% aqueous uranyl acetate and deposited on a fine carbon support) appear in the electron micrographs as round particles with a diameter of approximately 225Å for the 70S E.c. (Fig. 1) and 260Å for the 80S A.s. monosome (Fig. 2).


Author(s):  
N. Rozhanski ◽  
V. Lifshitz

Thin films of amorphous Ni-Nb alloys are of interest since they can be used as diffusion barriers for integrated circuits on Si. A native SiO2 layer is an effective barrier for Ni diffusion but it deformation during the crystallization of the alloy film lead to the appearence of diffusion fluxes through it and the following formation of silicides. This study concerns the direct evidence of the action of stresses in the process of the crystallization of Ni-Nb films on Si and the structure of forming NiSi2 islands.


Author(s):  
Thao A. Nguyen

It is well known that the large deviations from stoichiometry in iron sulfide compounds, Fe1-xS (0≤x≤0.125), are accommodated by iron vacancies which order and form superstructures at low temperatures. Although the ordering of the iron vacancies has been well established, the modes of vacancy ordering, hence superstructures, as a function of composition and temperature are still the subject of much controversy. This investigation gives direct evidence from many-beam lattice images of Fe1-xS that the 4C superstructure transforms into the 3C superstructure (Fig. 1) rather than the MC phase as previously suggested. Also observed are an intrinsic stacking fault in the sulfur sublattice and two different types of vacancy-ordering antiphase boundaries. Evidence from selective area optical diffractograms suggests that these planar defects complicate the diffraction pattern greatly.


Author(s):  
Uwe Lücken ◽  
Michael Felsmann ◽  
Wim M. Busing ◽  
Frank de Jong

A new microscope for the study of life science specimen has been developed. Special attention has been given to the problems of unstained samples, cryo-specimens and x-ray analysis at low concentrations.A new objective lens with a Cs of 6.2 mm and a focal length of 5.9 mm for high-contrast imaging has been developed. The contrast of a TWIN lens (f = 2.8 mm, Cs = 2 mm) and the BioTWTN are compared at the level of mean and SD of slow scan CCD images. Figure 1a shows 500 +/- 150 and Fig. 1b only 500 +/- 40 counts/pixel. The contrast-forming mechanism for amplitude contrast is dependent on the wavelength, the objective aperture and the focal length. For similar image conditions (same voltage, same objective aperture) the BioTWIN shows more than double the contrast of the TWIN lens. For phasecontrast specimens (like thin frozen-hydrated films) the contrast at Scherzer focus is approximately proportional to the √ Cs.


Author(s):  
K.B. Reuter ◽  
D.B. Williams ◽  
J.I. Goldstein

In the Fe-Ni system, although ordered FeNi and ordered Ni3Fe are experimentally well established, direct evidence for ordered Fe3Ni is unconvincing. Little experimental data for Fe3Ni exists because diffusion is sluggish at temperatures below 400°C and because alloys containing less than 29 wt% Ni undergo a martensitic transformation at room temperature. Fe-Ni phases in iron meteorites were examined in this study because iron meteorites have cooled at slow rates of about 10°C/106 years, allowing phase transformations below 400°C to occur. One low temperature transformation product, called clear taenite 2 (CT2), was of particular interest because it contains less than 30 wtZ Ni and is not martensitic. Because CT2 is only a few microns in size, the structure and Ni content were determined through electron diffraction and x-ray microanalysis. A Philips EM400T operated at 120 kV, equipped with a Tracor Northern 2000 multichannel analyzer, was used.


Author(s):  
S. Ritchie ◽  
J. C. Bennett ◽  
A. Prodan ◽  
F.W. Boswell ◽  
J.M. Corbett

A continuous sequence of compounds having composition NbxTa1-xTe4; 0 ≤ x ≤ 1 have been studied by electron diffraction and microscopy. Previous studies have shown that the end members of the series, TaTε4 and NbTε4 possess a quasi-one-dimensional character and exhibit charge density wave (CDW) distortions. In these compounds, the subcell structure is tetragonal with axes (a × a × c) and consists of the metal atoms (Nb or Ta) centered within an extended antiprismatic cage of Te atoms. At room temperature, TaTε4 has a commensurate modulation structure with a 2a × 2a × 3c unit cell. In NbTε4, an incommensurate modulation with × ∼ 16c axes is observed. Preliminary studies of the mixed compounds NbxTα1-xTε4 showed a discontinuous jump of the modulation wave vector commensurate to incommensurate when the Nb dopant concentration x, exceeded x ≃ 0.3, In this paper, the nature of the compositional dependence of is studied in greater detail and evidence is presented for a stepwise variation of . This constitutes the first direct evidence for a Devil's staircase in CDW materials.


Author(s):  
Vinayak P. Dravid ◽  
V. Ravikumar ◽  
Richard Plass

With the advent of coherent electron sources with cold field emission guns (cFEGs), it has become possible to utilize the coherent interference phenomenon and perform “practical” electron holography. Historically, holography was envisioned to extent the resolution limit by compensating coherent aberrations. Indeed such work has been done with reasonable success in a few laboratories around the world. However, it is the ability of electron holography to map electrical and magnetic fields which has caught considerable attention of materials science community.There has been considerable theoretical work on formation of space charge on surfaces and internal interfaces. In particular, formation and nature of space charge have important implications for the performance of numerous electroceramics which derive their useful properties from electrically active grain boundaries. Bonnell and coworkers, in their elegant STM experiments provided the direct evidence for GB space charge and its sign, while Chiang et al. used the indirect but powerful technique of x-ray microchemical profiling across GBs to infer the nature of space charge.


Author(s):  
Judith M. Brock ◽  
Max T. Otten

A knowledge of the distribution of chemical elements in a specimen is often highly useful. In materials science specimens features such as grain boundaries and precipitates generally force a certain order on mental distribution, so that a single profile away from the boundary or precipitate gives a full description of all relevant data. No such simplicity can be assumed in life science specimens, where elements can occur various combinations and in different concentrations in tissue. In the latter case a two-dimensional elemental-distribution image is required to describe the material adequately. X-ray mapping provides such of the distribution of elements.The big disadvantage of x-ray mapping hitherto has been one requirement: the transmission electron microscope must have the scanning function. In cases where the STEM functionality – to record scanning images using a variety of STEM detectors – is not used, but only x-ray mapping is intended, a significant investment must still be made in the scanning system: electronics that drive the beam, detectors for generating the scanning images, and monitors for displaying and recording the images.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document