scholarly journals A Trait-Based Clustering for Phytoplankton Biomass Modeling and Prediction

Diversity ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 295
Author(s):  
Crispin M. Mutshinda ◽  
Zoe V. Finkel ◽  
Claire E. Widdicombe ◽  
Andrew J. Irwin

When designing models for predicting phytoplankton biomass or characterizing traits, it is useful to aggregate the myriad of species into a few biologically meaningful groups and focus on group-level attributes, the common practice being to combine phytoplankton species by functional types. However, biogeochemists and plankton ecologists debate the most applicable grouping for describing phytoplankton biomass patterns and predicting future community structure. Although trait-based approaches are increasingly being advocated, methods are missing for the generation of trait-based taxa as alternatives to functional types. Here we introduce such a method and demonstrate the usefulness of the resulting clustering with field data. We parameterize a Bayesian model of biomass dynamics and analyze long-term phytoplankton data collected at Station L4 in the Western English Channel between April 2003 and December 2009. We examine the tradeoffs encountered regarding trait characterization and biomass prediction when aggregating biomass by (1) functional types, (2) the trait-based clusters generated by our method, and (3) total biomass. The model conveniently extracted trait values under the trait-based clustering, but required well-constrained priors under the functional type categorization. It also more accurately predicted total biomass under the trait-based clustering and the total biomass aggregation with comparable root mean squared prediction errors, which were roughly five-fold lower than under the functional type grouping. Although the total biomass grouping ignores taxonomic differences in phytoplankton traits, it predicts total biomass change as well as the trait-based clustering. Our results corroborate the value of trait-based approaches in investigating the mechanisms underlying phytoplankton biomass dynamics and predicting the community response to environmental changes.

2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 593-629 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. H. Hsieh ◽  
Y. Sakai ◽  
S. Ban ◽  
K. Ishikawa ◽  
T. Ishikawa ◽  
...  

Abstract. We compiled and analyzed long-term (1961–2005) zooplankton community data in response to environmental variations in Lake Biwa. Environmental data indicate that Lake Biwa had experienced eutrophication (according to total phosphorus concentration) in the late 1960s and recovered to a normal trophic status around 1985, and then exhibited warming since 1990. Total zooplankton abundance showed a significant correlation with total phytoplankton biomass. Following a classic pattern, cladoceran/calanoid and cyclopoid/calanoid abundance ratio was related positively to eutrophication. Zooplankton community exhibited a significant response to the boom and bust of phytoplankton biomass as a consequence of eutrophication-reoligotriphication and warming. Moreover, our analyses suggest that the Lake Biwa ecosystem exhibited a hierarchical response across trophic levels; that is, higher trophic levels may show a more delayed response or no response to eutrophication than lower ones. We tested the hypothesis that phytoplankton community can better explain the variation of zooplankton community than bulk environmental variables, considering that phytoplankton community may directly affects zooplankton succession through predator-prey interactions. Using a variance partition approach, however, we did not find strong evidence to support this hypothesis. We further aggregate zooplankton according to their feeding types (herbivorous, carnivorous, omnivorous, and parasitic) and taxonomic groups, and analyzed the aggregated data. While the pattern remains similar, the results are less clear comparing with the results based on finely resolved data. Our research explored the efficacy of using zooplankton as bio-indicators to environmental changes at various data resolutions.


2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 1383-1399 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. H. Hsieh ◽  
Y. Sakai ◽  
S. Ban ◽  
K. Ishikawa ◽  
T. Ishikawa ◽  
...  

Abstract. We compiled and analyzed long-term (1961–2005) zooplankton community data in response to environmental variations in Lake Biwa. Environmental data indicate that Lake Biwa had experienced eutrophication (according to the total phosphorus concentration) in the late 1960s and recovered to a normal trophic status around 1985, and then has exhibited warming since 1990. Total zooplankton abundance showed a significant correlation with total phytoplankton biomass. Following a classic pattern, the cladoceran/calanoid and cyclopoid/calanoid abundance ratio was related positively to eutrophication. The zooplankton community exhibited a significant response to the boom and bust of phytoplankton biomass as a consequence of eutrophication-reoligotriphication and warming. Moreover, our analyses suggest that the Lake Biwa ecosystem exhibited a hierarchical response across trophic levels; that is, higher trophic levels may show a more delayed response or no response to eutrophication than lower ones. We tested the hypothesis that the phytoplankton community can better explain the variation of the zooplankton community than bulk environmental variables, considering that the phytoplankton community may directly affect the zooplankton succession through predator-prey interactions. Using a variance partition approach, however, we did not find strong evidence to support this hypothesis. We further aggregated zooplankton according to their feeding types (herbivorous, carnivorous, omnivorous, and parasitic) and taxonomic groups, and analyzed the aggregated data. While the pattern remains similar, the results are less clear comparing the results based on finely resolved data. Our research suggests that zooplankton can be bio-indicators of environmental changes; however, the efficacy depends on data resolution.


Author(s):  
Rodrigo Cueva ◽  
Guillem Rufian ◽  
Maria Gabriela Valdes

The use of Customer Relationship Managers to foster customers loyalty has become one of the most common business strategies in the past years.  However, CRM solutions do not fill the abundance of happily ever-after relationships that business needs, and each client’s perception is different in the buying process.  Therefore, the experience must be precise, in order to extend the loyalty period of a customer as much as possible. One of the economic sectors in which CRM’s have improved this experience is retailing, where the personalized attention to the customer is a key factor.  However, brick and mortar experiences are not enough to be aware in how environmental changes could affect the industry trends in the long term.  A base unified theoretical framework must be taken into consideration, in order to develop an adaptable model for constructing or implementing CRMs into companies. Thanks to this approximation, the information is complemented, and the outcome will increment the quality in any Marketing/Sales initiative. The goal of this article is to explore the different factors grouped by three main domains within the impact of service quality, from a consumer’s perspective, in both on-line and off-line retailing sector.  Secondly, we plan to go a step further and extract base guidelines about previous analysis for designing CRM’s solutions focused on the loyalty of the customers for a specific retailing sector and its product: Sports Running Shoes.


The Holocene ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 095968362199464
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Marcisz ◽  
Krzysztof Buczek ◽  
Mariusz Gałka ◽  
Włodzimierz Margielewski ◽  
Matthieu Mulot ◽  
...  

Landslide mountain fens formed in landslide depressions are dynamic environments as their development is disturbed by a number of factors, for example, landslides, slopewash, and surface run-off. These processes lead to the accumulation of mineral material and wood in peat. Disturbed peatlands are interesting archives of past environmental changes, but they may be challenging for providing biotic proxy-based quantitative reconstructions. Here we investigate long-term changes in testate amoeba communities from two landslide mountain fens – so far an overlooked habitat for testate amoeba investigations. Our results show that abundances of testate amoebae are extremely low in this type of peatlands, therefore not suitable for providing quantitative depth-to-water table reconstructions. However, frequent shifts of dominant testate amoeba species reflect dynamic lithological situation of the studied fens. We observed that high and stable mineral matter input into the peatlands was associated with high abundances of species producing agglutinated (xenosomic) as well as idiosomic shells which prevailed in the testate amoeba communities in both analyzed profiles. This is the first study that explores testate amoebae of landslide mountain fens in such detail, providing novel information about microbial communities of these ecosystems.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Inah Hwang ◽  
Hiroki Uchida ◽  
Ziwei Dai ◽  
Fei Li ◽  
Teresa Sanchez ◽  
...  

AbstractNeural stem/progenitor cells (NSPCs) persist over the lifespan while encountering constant challenges from age or injury related brain environmental changes like elevated oxidative stress. But how oxidative stress regulates NSPC and its neurogenic differentiation is less clear. Here we report that acutely elevated cellular oxidative stress in NSPCs modulates neurogenic differentiation through induction of Forkhead box protein O3 (FOXO3)-mediated cGAS/STING and type I interferon (IFN-I) responses. We show that oxidative stress activates FOXO3 and its transcriptional target glycine-N-methyltransferase (GNMT) whose upregulation triggers depletion of s-adenosylmethionine (SAM), a key co-substrate involved in methyl group transfer reactions. Mechanistically, we demonstrate that reduced intracellular SAM availability disrupts carboxymethylation and maturation of nuclear lamin, which induce cytosolic release of chromatin fragments and subsequent activation of the cGAS/STING-IFN-I cascade to suppress neurogenic differentiation. Together, our findings suggest the FOXO3-GNMT/SAM-lamin-cGAS/STING-IFN-I signaling cascade as a critical stress response program that regulates long-term regenerative potential.


Trees ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 72 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Jiang ◽  
Haiping Tang ◽  
M. Yu ◽  
Ming Dong ◽  
Xinshi Zhang

2011 ◽  
Vol 75 (3) ◽  
pp. 658-669 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yurena Yanes ◽  
Crayton J. Yapp ◽  
Miguel Ibáñez ◽  
María R. Alonso ◽  
Julio De-la-Nuez ◽  
...  

AbstractThe isotopic composition of land snail shells was analyzed to investigate environmental changes in the eastern Canary Islands (28–29°N) over the last ~ 50 ka. Shell δ13C values range from −8.9‰ to 3.8‰. At various times during the glacial interval (~ 15 to ~ 50 ka), moving average shell δ13C values were 3‰ higher than today, suggesting a larger proportion of C4 plants at those periods. Shell δ18O values range from −1.9‰ to 4.5‰, with moving average δ18O values exhibiting a noisy but long-term increase from 0.1‰ at ~ 50 ka to 1.6–1.8‰ during the LGM (~ 15–22 ka). Subsequently, the moving average δ18O values range from 0.0‰ at ~ 12 ka to 0.9‰ at present. Calculations using a published snail flux balance model for δ18O, constrained by regional temperatures and ocean δ18O values, suggest that relative humidity at the times of snail activity fluctuated but exhibited a long-term decline over the last ~ 50 ka, eventually resulting in the current semiarid conditions of the eastern Canary Islands (consistent with the aridification process in the nearby Sahara). Thus, low-latitude oceanic island land snail shells may be isotopic archives of glacial to interglacial and tropical/subtropical environmental change.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis Rödder ◽  
Thomas Schmitt ◽  
Patrick Gros ◽  
Werner Ulrich ◽  
Jan Christian Habel

AbstractClimate change impacts biodiversity and is driving range shifts of species and populations across the globe. To understand the effects of climate warming on biota, long-term observations of the occurrence of species and detailed knowledge on their ecology and life-history is crucial. Mountain species particularly suffer under climate warming and often respond to environmental changes by altitudinal range shifts. We assessed long-term distribution trends of mountain butterflies across the eastern Alps and calculated species’ specific annual range shifts based on field observations and species distribution models, counterbalancing the potential drawbacks of both approaches. We also compiled details on the ecology, behaviour and life-history, and the climate niche of each species assessed. We found that the highest altitudinal maxima were observed recently in the majority of cases, while the lowest altitudes of observations were recorded before 1980. Mobile and generalist species with a broad ecological amplitude tended to move uphill more than specialist and sedentary species. As main drivers we identified climatic conditions and topographic variables, such as insolation and solar irradiation. This study provides important evidence for responses of high mountain taxa to rapid climate change. Our study underlines the advantage of combining historical surveys and museum collection data with cutting-edge analyses.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (13) ◽  
pp. 7193
Author(s):  
Jiyeon Choi ◽  
Baekyung Park ◽  
Jinsun Kim ◽  
Soyoung Lee ◽  
Jichul Ryu ◽  
...  

This study aimed to estimate pollutant unit loads for different landuses and pollutants that reflected long-term runoff characteristics of nonpoint source (NPS) pollutants and recent environmental changes. During 2008–2014, 2026 rainfall events were monitored. The average values of antecedent dry days, total rainfall, rainfall intensity, rainfall duration, runoff duration, and runoff coefficient for each landuse were 3.8–5.9 d, 35.2–65.0 mm, 2.9–4.1 mm/h, 12.5–20.4 h, 12.4–27.9 h, and 0.24–0.45, respectively. Uplands (UL) exhibited high suspended solids (SS, 606.2 mg/L), total nitrogen (TN, 7.38 mg/L), and total phosphorous (TP, 2.27 mg/L) levels, whereas the runoff coefficient was high in the building sites (BS), with a high impervious surface ratio. The event mean concentration (EMC) for biological oxygen demand (BOD) was the highest in BS (8.0 mg/L), while the EMC was the highest in BS (in the rainfall range <10 mm) and UL and forest land (in the rainfall range >50 mm). The unit loads for BOD (1.49–17.76 kg/km2·d), TN (1.462–10.147 kg/km2·d), TP (0.094–1.435 kg/km2·d), and SS (15.20–327.70 kg/km2·d) were calculated. The findings can be used to manage NPS pollutants and watershed environments and implement relevant associated management systems.


Paleobiology ◽  
1975 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 238-257 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth R. Walker ◽  
Leonard P. Alberstadt

Succession involves changes in a community through time, whether internally or externally controlled. As succession progresses, niche specialization, species diversity (variety and equitability), complexity of food chains, and pattern diversity increase; net production and species growth rate decrease. We apply the succession concept to three types of ancient community sequences: 1) fossil reefs (Ordovician—Cretaceous in age), 2) short-term successions occurring through thin stratigraphic intervals, and 3) long-term successions occurring through thicker stratigraphic intervals. Ancient reefs show four vertical zones: (1) a basal stabilization zone (autogenic), 2) the overlying colonization zone (autogenic, pioneer stage), 3) the diversification zone, the bulk of most reefs (diversification culminating in climax), and 4) the uppermost domination zone. The first three zones represent autogenic succession but the final stage may involve allogenic succession. Short-term succession usually occurs where periodic allogenic catastrophes wipe out the community which is rebuilt through autogenic succession. Opportunistic pioneer species are important and in our examples (Ordovician, Silurian, and Cretaceous) are species which pave soft substrata. Paleozoic strophomenid brachiopods filled this role, and inoceramid pelecypods served the function in the Mesozoic. The succession which begins with opportunists progresses to a climax community of equilibrists. Repetition of catastrophe-succession couplets produces a cyclic stratigraphic record. Long-term successions are recorded in thicker stratigraphic sequences, and are of two types: 1) autogenic succession in unchanging physical environments and 2) allogenic succession in changing physical environments. Our examples of these are from the Devonian Haragan-Bois D'Arc formations of Oklahoma and the Lime Creek Formation of Iowa. This type of succession represents a temporal-spatial mosaic. The Haragan data (unchanging environments) indicate characteristic, intergrading, and ubiquitous species in the brachiopod communities. Most ubiquitous species in the pioneer community were eurytopic opportunists. The Lime Creek data allows testing of the prediction that environmental changes cause regression to an earlier succession stage. The brachiopod communities after environmental changes have more ubiquitous and intergrading eurytopic species. These represent an earlier stage in the succession.


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