Faculty Opinions recommendation of Biotic interaction strength and the intensity of selection.

Author(s):  
Joel Kingsolver ◽  
Sarah Diamond
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin G. Freeman ◽  
Micah N. Scholer ◽  
Mannfred M. A. Boehm ◽  
Julian Heavyside ◽  
Dolph Schluter

AbstractThe “biotic interactions” hypothesis—that stronger interspecific interactions in the tropics drive faster evolution and speciation, giving rise to the latitudinal diversity gradient—has inspired many tests of whether certain biotic interactions are indeed stronger in the tropics. However, the possibility that populations have adapted to latitudinal differences in species interactions, blunting effects on evolutionary rates, has been largely ignored. Here we show that mean rates of nest predation experienced by land birds vary minimally with latitude in the Western Hemisphere. This result is surprising because nest predation in birds is a canonical example of a strong tropical biotic interaction. We explain our finding by demonstrating that (1) rates of nest predation are in fact higher in the tropics, but only when controlling for the length of the nesting period, (2) long nesting periods are associated with reduced predation rates, and (3) tropical birds have evolved particularly long nesting periods. We suggest this is a case example of how adaptation to a biotic interaction can alter observed latitudinal gradients in interaction strength, potentially equalizing evolutionary rates among latitudes. More broadly, we advocate for tests of the biotic interactions hypothesis to consider both latitudinal patterns in interaction strength and evolutionary responses to these interactions.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Koya Hashimoto ◽  
Daisuke Hayasaka ◽  
Yuji Eguchi ◽  
Yugo Seko ◽  
Ji Cai ◽  
...  

Recent studies have uncovered that biotic interaction strength varies over time in real ecosystems intrinsically and/or responding to anthropogenic disturbances. Little is known, however, about whether such interaction variability strengthens or weakens community resistance against disturbances. Here, we examine how the change in interaction strength after pesticide application mediates disturbance impacts on a freshwater community using outdoor mesocosms. We show that the change in interaction strength buffered the disturbance impact but amplified it once the disturbance severity exceeded a certain threshold. Importantly, we also show that interactions fluctuating more temporally under no disturbances were more changeable in response to pesticide applications. Our findings suggest that a severe disturbance may have a surprise impact on a biological community amplified by their own interaction variability, but the possibility still remains that we can predict the consequences of the disturbance by measuring the interaction variability before the disturbance occurs.


2013 ◽  
Vol 16 (8) ◽  
pp. 1054-1060 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig W. Benkman

1995 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valérie Colandini ◽  
Michel Legret ◽  
Yves Brosseaud ◽  
Jean-Daniel Baladès

Porous pavements infiltrated with stormwater are faced with clogging problems: runoff particles seep and clog the pervious surface layer of these structures. Clogging material samples (in the form of sludge) have been collected in cleaning operations on the pervious asphalt. This study aims at characterizing these materials, particle size distribution, heavy metal contents by particle size, and studying interactions between metals and particles. A sequential extraction procedure proposed by the experts of the Community Bureau of Reference (B.C.R.) was applied to provide information about heavy metal distribution on particles and to evaluate interaction strength, and consequently potential metal mobility when chemical variations occurred in the environment. Mainly made up of sand, the materials are polluted with lead, copper, zinc and cadmium. The concentrations appeared to be linked with road traffic intensity. The heavy metal contents by particle size showed that the finer are the particles, the higher are the heavy metal concentrations. Heavy metals were found potentially labile; metals contents in the residual fraction (mineral fraction) represented less than 20 % of the total concentration. Cadmium and zinc were apparently more labile than lead and copper.


Atoms ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 14
Author(s):  
Koushik Mukherjee ◽  
Soumik Bandyopadhyay ◽  
Dilip Angom ◽  
Andrew M. Martin ◽  
Sonjoy Majumder

We present numerical simulations to unravel the dynamics associated with the creation of a vortex in a Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC), from another nonrotating BEC using two-photon Raman transition with Gaussian (G) and Laguerre–Gaussian (LG) laser pulses. In particular, we consider BEC of Rb atoms at their hyperfine ground states confined in a quasi two dimensional harmonic trap. Optical dipole potentials created by G and LG laser pulses modify the harmonic trap in such a way that density patterns of the condensates during the Raman transition process depend on the sign of the generated vortex. We investigate the role played by the Raman coupling parameter manifested through dimensionless peak Rabi frequency and intercomponent interaction on the dynamics during the population transfer process and on the final population of the rotating condensate. During the Raman transition process, the two BECs tend to have larger overlap with each other for stronger intercomponent interaction strength.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Hindes ◽  
Victoria Edwards ◽  
Klimka Szwaykowska Kasraie ◽  
George Stantchev ◽  
Ira B. Schwartz

AbstractUnderstanding swarm pattern formation is of great interest because it occurs naturally in many physical and biological systems, and has artificial applications in robotics. In both natural and engineered swarms, agent communication is typically local and sparse. This is because, over a limited sensing or communication range, the number of interactions an agent has is much smaller than the total possible number. A central question for self-organizing swarms interacting through sparse networks is whether or not collective motion states can emerge where all agents have coherent and stable dynamics. In this work we introduce the phenomenon of swarm shedding in which weakly-connected agents are ejected from stable milling patterns in self-propelled swarming networks with finite-range interactions. We show that swarm shedding can be localized around a few agents, or delocalized, and entail a simultaneous ejection of all agents in a network. Despite the complexity of milling motion in complex networks, we successfully build mean-field theory that accurately predicts both milling state dynamics and shedding transitions. The latter are described in terms of saddle-node bifurcations that depend on the range of communication, the inter-agent interaction strength, and the network topology.


Gels ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 102
Author(s):  
Ferenc Horkay

The objective of this article is to introduce the readers to the field of polyelectrolyte gels. These materials are common in living systems and have great importance in many biomedical and industrial applications. In the first part of this paper, we briefly review some characteristic properties of polymer gels with an emphasis on the unique features of this type of soft material. Unsolved problems and possible future research directions are highlighted. In the second part, we focus on the typical behavior of polyelectrolyte gels. Many biological materials (e.g., tissues) are charged (mainly anionic) polyelectrolyte gels. Examples are shown to illustrate the effect of counter-ions on the osmotic swelling behavior and the kinetics of the swelling of model polyelectrolyte gels. These systems exhibit a volume transition as the concentration of higher valence counter-ions is gradually increased in the equilibrium bath. A hierarchy is established in the interaction strength between the cations and charged polymer molecules according to the chemical group to which the ions belong. The swelling kinetics of sodium polyacrylate hydrogels is investigated in NaCl solutions and in solutions containing both NaCl and CaCl2. In the presence of higher valence counter-ions, the swelling/shrinking behavior of these gels is governed by the diffusion of free ions in the swollen network, the ion exchange process and the coexistence of swollen and collapsed states.


Coatings ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 420
Author(s):  
Giuseppina Raffaini

TiO2 is widely used in biomaterial implants. The topography, chemical and structural properties of titania surfaces are an important aspect to study. The size of TiO2 nanoparticles synthetized by sol–gel method can influence the responses in the biological environment, and by using appropriate heat treatments different contents of different polymorphs can be formed. Protein adsorption is a crucial step for the biological responses, involving, in particular, albumin, the most abundant blood protein. In this theoretical work, using molecular mechanics and molecular dynamics methods, the adsorption process of an albumin subdomain is reported both onto specific different crystallographic faces of TiO2 anatase and also on its ideal three-dimensional nanosized crystal, using the simulation protocol proposed in my previous theoretical studies about the adsorption process on hydrophobic ordered graphene-like or hydrophilic amorphous polymeric surfaces. The different surface chemistry of anatase crystalline faces and the nanocrystal topography influence the adsorption process, in particular the interaction strength and protein fragment conformation, then its biological activity. This theoretical study can be a useful tool to better understand how the surface chemistry, crystal structure, size and topography play a key role in protein adsorption process onto anatase surface so widely used as biomaterial.


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