Hugin+ neurons provide a link between sleep homeostat and circadian clock neurons

Sleep is controlled by homeostatic mechanisms, which drive sleep after wakefulness, and a circadian clock, which confers the 24-h rhythm of sleep. These processes interact with each other to control the timing of sleep in a daily cycle as well as following sleep deprivation. However, the mechanisms by which they interact are poorly understood. We show here that hugin+ neurons, previously identified as neurons that function downstream of the clock to regulate rhythms of locomotor activity, are also targets of the sleep homeostat. Sleep deprivation decreases activity of hugin+ neurons, likely to suppress circadian-driven activity during recovery sleep, and ablation of hugin+ neurons promotes sleep increases generated by activation of the homeostatic sleep locus, the dorsal fan-shaped body (dFB). Also, mutations in peptides produced by the hugin+ locus increase recovery sleep following deprivation. Transsynaptic mapping reveals that hugin+ neurons feed back onto central clock neurons, which also show decreased activity upon sleep loss, in a Hugin peptide–dependent fashion. We propose that hugin+ neurons integrate circadian and sleep signals to modulate circadian circuitry and regulate the timing of sleep.

Modeling of Photosynthesis Process and Assessing Of Phytoplankton Dynamics Based On Droop Model

Droop's well-known model simulates phytoplankton biomass dynamics based on nutrient limitation. The defining parameter is the nutrient concentration in phytoplankton cells (cell quota). This model is modified to description of the photosynthesis processes. The effects of photosynthetically active radiation must be taken into account. At the same time, the nutritional factor remains the main one. Water temperature is considered as a controlling factor. The influence of light during photosynthesis plays a decisive role. The decisive factor is the presence of photosynthetic substances. We conventionally combine them under the name "chlorophyll". Sufficient variability in the proportion of chlorophyll in phytoplankton (chlorophyll quota) directly affects biomass production. The equation for the dynamics of chlorophyll quota is added to the Droop model. The parameters of the model depend on the concentration of nutrients, illumination and water temperature. The properties of the solutions in the model are investigated, the conditions for the existence and stability of equilibrium solutions are clarified. Complex dynamic regimes are revealed in the case of unstable equilibria. It was found that the most sensitive parameter for biomass dynamics is the minimum value of the cell quota. The dynamics of indicators for the daily cycle and the annual cycle of seasonal changes are calculated. The influence of nutrition, illumination and temperature on biomass production has been clarified. During the day, the chlorophyll quota fluctuates insignificantly due to a short period of time. The changes are noticeable at longer times for example during the season.

Time-optimized feeding is beneficial without enforced fasting

Time-restricted feeding (TRF) studies underscore that when food is consumed during the daily cycle is important for weight gain/loss because the circadian clock rhythmically modulates metabolism. However, the interpretation of previous TRF studies has been confounded by study designs that introduced an extended period of enforced fasting. We introduce a novel time-optimized feeding (TOF) regimen that disentangles the effects of phase-dependent feeding from the effects of enforced fasting in mice, as well as providing a laboratory feeding protocol that more closely reflects the eating patterns of humans who usually have 24 hour access to food. Moreover, we test whether a sudden switch from ad libitum food access to TRF evokes a corticosterone (stress) response. Our data indicate that the timing of high-fat feeding under TOF allows most of the benefit of TRF without obligatory fasting or evoking a stress response. This benefit occurs through stable temporal coupling of carbohydrate/lipid oxidation with feeding. These results highlight that timing the ingestion of calorically dense foods to optimized daily phases will enhance lipid oxidation and thereby limit fat accumulation.

A climatology of open and closed mesoscale cellular convection over the Southern Ocean derived from Himawari-8 observations

Marine atmospheric boundary layer clouds cover vast areas of the Southern Ocean (SO), where they are commonly organized into mesoscale cellular convection (MCC). Using three years of Himawari-8 geostationary satellite observations, open and closed MCC structures are identified using a hybrid convolutional neural network. The results of the climatology show that open MCC clouds are roughly uniformly distributed over the SO storm track across mid-latitudes, while closed MCC clouds are most predominant in the southeast Indian Ocean with a second maximum along the storm track. The ocean polar front, derived from ECMWF-ERA5 sea surface temperature gradients, is found to be aligned with the southern boundaries for both MCC types. Along the storm track, both closed and open MCCs are commonly located in post-frontal, cold air masses. The hourly classification of closed MCC reveals a pronounced daily cycle, with a peak occurring late night/early morning. Seasonally, the diurnal cycle of closed MCC is most intense during the summer months (DJF). Conversely, almost no diurnal cycle is evident for open MCC.

Influence of Wind Speed on CO2 and CH4 Concentrations at a Rural Site

Meteorological variables have a noticeable impact on pollutant concentrations. Among these variables, wind speed is typically measured, although research into how pollutants respond to it can be improved. This study considers nine years of hourly CO2 and CH4 measurements at a rural site, where wind speed values were calculated by the METEX model. Nine wind speed intervals are proposed where concentrations, distribution functions, and daily as well as annual cycles are calculated. Contrasts between local and transported concentrations are around 5 and 0.03 ppm for CO2 and CH4, respectively. Seven skewed distributions are applied, and five efficiency criteria are considered to test the goodness of fit, with the modified Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency proving to be the most sensitive statistic. The Gumbel distribution is seen to be the most suitable for CO2, whereas the Weibull distribution is chosen for CH4, with the exponential function being the worst. Finally, daily and annual cycles are analysed, where a gradual decrease in amplitude is observed, particularly for the daily cycle. Parametric and nonparametric procedures are used to fit both cycles. The latter gave the best fits, with the agreement being higher for the daily cycle, where evolution is smoother than for the annual cycle.

Exploring the formation of the Arsia Mons Elongated Cloud on Mars

<p>In a recently published paper, we reported the existence and properties of the Arsia Mons Elongated Cloud (AMEC; Hernández-Bernal et al., 2021). We are now exploring models for the theoretical understanding of this outstanding phenomenon.</p> <p>The AMEC forms at sunrise over the western slope of the Arsia Mons volcano, and for ~3 hours expands to the west following zonal winds, leaving behind a characteristic white bright tail. This process repeats in a daily cycle for a long season around the southern solstice. According to observations in MY34, the AMEC reaches a length of up to 1800 km, and expands at a velocity of around 170 m/s (~130 m/s in other years) at ~45 km in altitude. In comparison, winds predicted by the Global Circulation Model LMD-MCD are ~60m/s (Millour et al. 2018).</p> <p>The cloud is clearly driven by upward winds forced by the topography of the volcano. We are analysing from the theoretical perspective the formation and particular features of this cloud.</p> <p><strong>References</strong></p> <p>Hernández‐Bernal, J., Sánchez‐Lavega, A., del Río‐Gaztelurrutia, T., Ravanis, E., Cardesín‐Moinelo, A., Connour, K., ... & Hauber, E. (2021). An extremely elongated cloud over Arsia Mons volcano on Mars: I. Life cycle. <em>Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets</em>, <em>126</em>(3), e2020JE006517.</p> <p>Millour, E., F. Forget,A. Spiga, et al.  "Mars climate database. (Version 5.3)" From Mars Express to ExoMars (2018)</p>

Currents Generated by the Sea Breeze in the Southern Caspian Sea

The sea breeze system is the dominant atmospheric forcing at high frequency in the southern Caspian Sea. Here, we describe and interpret current meter observations on the continental margins of the southern Caspian from 2013 to 2014 to identify and characterize the water column's response to the sea breeze system. Time series analysis provides evidence for diurnal baroclinic current signals of O (0.02 m s−1) and surface height changes of O (0.03 m). A two-layer model, including interfacial and bottom friction is developed to further investigate the sea breeze response. This model is able to reproduce the structure, amplitudes, and phases of observed diurnal current fluctuations, explaining half of the variance in observational current response at frequencies at 1 cpd and higher. The sea breeze response thus results in a “tide-like” daily cycle which is actually linked to the local forcing all along the southern Caspian coast.

Within-day dynamics of plant–pollinator networks are dominated by early flower closure: an experimental test of network plasticity

Temporal variability of plant–pollinator interactions is important for fully understanding the structure, function, and stability of plant–pollinator networks, but most network studies so far have ignored within-day dynamics. Strong diel dynamics (e.g., a regular daily cycle) were found for networks with Cichorieae, which typically close their flowers around noon. Here, we experimentally prevented early flower closure to test whether these dynamics are driven by the temporally limited availability of Cichorieae, or by timing of pollinator activity. We further tested if the dynamics involving Cichorieae and their pollinators also affect the dynamics on other plants in the network. Finally, we explored the structure of such manipulated networks (with Cichorieae available in the morning and afternoon) compared to unmanipulated controls (Cichorieae available only in the morning). We found that flower closure of Cichorieae is indeed an important driver of diel network dynamics, while other drivers of pollinator timing appeared less important. If Cichorieae flowers were available in the afternoon, they were visited by generalist and specialist pollinators, which overall decreased link turnover between morning and afternoon. Effects of afternoon availability of Cichorieae on other plants in the network were inconclusive: pollinator switching to and from Cichorieae tended to increase. On the level of the aggregated (full-day) network, the treatment resulted in increased dominance of Cichorieae, reducing modularity and increasing plant generality. These results highlight that network dynamics can be predicted by knowledge of diel or seasonal phenology, and that fixed species timing assumptions will misrepresent the expected dynamics.

A climatology of trade-wind cumulus cold pools and their link to mesoscale cloud organization

We present a climatology of trade cumulus cold pools and their associated meteorological perturbations based on more than ten years of in-situ and remote sensing data from the Barbados Cloud Observatory. Cold pools are identified by abrupt drops in surface temperature, and the mesoscale organization pattern is classified by a neural network algorithm based on GOES-16 ABI infrared images. We find cold pools to be ubiquitous in the winter trades – they are present about 7.8 % of the time and occur on 73 % of days. Cold pools with stronger temperature drops (∆T) are associated with deeper clouds, stronger precipitation, downdrafts and humidity drops, stronger wind gusts and updrafts at the onset of the front, and larger cloud cover compared to weaker cold pools. The downdraft strength together with the cold-pool front duration explains 50 % of the variability in ∆T. The mesoscale organization pattern has a strong influence on the occurrence frequency of cold pools. Fish has the largest cold-pool fraction (12.8 % of time), followed by Flowers and Gravel (9.9 % and 7.2 %), and lastly Sugar (1.6 %). Fish cold pools are also significantly stronger and longer-lasting compared to the other patterns, while Gravel cold pools are associated with significantly stronger updrafts and deeper cloud-top height maxima. The daily cycle of the occurrence frequency of Gravel, Flowers, and Fish can explain a large fraction of the daily cycle in the cold-pool occurrence, as well as the pronounced extension of the daily cycle of shallow convection into the early afternoon by cold pools. Overall, we find cold-pool periods to be ~90 % cloudier relative to the average winter trades. Also the wake of cold pools is characterized by above-average cloudiness, suggesting that mesoscale arcs enclosing broad clear-sky areas are an exception. A better understanding of how cold pools interact with and shape their environment could therefore be valuable to understand cloud cover variability in the trades.