Search results for "Adapta"

Life History Trade-Offs and Relaxed Selection Can Decrease Bacterial Virulence in Environmental Reservoirs

2012

Pathogen virulence is usually thought to evolve in reciprocal selection with the host. While this might be true for obligate pathogens, the life histories of opportunistic pathogens typically alternate between within-host and outside-host environments during the infection-transmission cycle. As a result, opportunistic pathogens are likely to experience conflicting selection pressures across different environments, and this could affect their virulence through life-history trait correlations. We studied these correlations experimentally by exposing an opportunistic bacterial pathogen Serratia marcescens to its natural protist predator Tetrahymena thermophila for 13 weeks, after which we meas…

Seasonal changes in predator community switch the direction of selection for prey defences

2014

Insect communities consist of aposematic species with efficient warning colours against predation, as well as abundant examples of crypsis. To understand such coexistence, we here report results from a field experiment where relative survival of artificial larvae, varying in conspicuousness, was estimated in natural bird communities over an entire season. This takes advantage of natural variation in the proportion of naive predators: naivety peaks when young birds have just fledged. We show that the relative benefit of warning signals and crypsis changes accordingly. When naive birds are rare (early and late in the season), conspicuous warning signals improve survival, but conspicuousness b…

The coffee-machine bacteriome: biodiversity and colonisation of the wasted coffee tray leach

2015

AbstractMicrobial communities are ubiquitous in both natural and artificial environments. However, microbial diversity is usually reduced under strong selection pressures, such as those present in habitats rich in recalcitrant or toxic compounds displaying antimicrobial properties. Caffeine is a natural alkaloid present in coffee, tea and soft drinks with well-known antibacterial properties. Here we present the first systematic analysis of coffee machine-associated bacteria. We sampled the coffee waste reservoir of ten different Nespresso machines and conducted a dynamic monitoring of the colonization process in a new machine. Our results reveal the existence of a varied bacterial community…

Transforming Food Systems at Local Levels: Using Participatory System Dynamics in an Interactive Manner to Refine Small-Scale Farmers’ Ment…

2016

Food systems will need to undergo considerable transformation. To be better prepared for and resilient to uncertainty and disturbances in the future, resource users and managers need to further develop knowledge about the food and farming system, with its dominating feedback structures and complexities, and to test robust and integrated system-based solutions. This paper investigates how participatory system dynamics modeling can be adapted to groups at the community level with low or no formal educational background. The paper also analyzes the refinement of workshop participants’ mental models as a consequence of a participatory system dynamics intervention. For this purpose, we…

Maximizing network capacity in an heterogeneous macro-micro cellular scenario

2011

The problem of resource allocation in cellular networks has been traditionally faced at two different levels: at the network level, in terms of frequency planning and reuse pattern design, and at the cell level, in terms of cell capacity optimizations based on channel-dependent scheduling, link adaptation, power control, and so on. While this second aspect has been deeply investigated in literature, the first aspect has been mainly faced with static or semi-dynamic reuse utilization solutions. In this paper we deal with the problem of multi-cellular resource allocation in heterogeneous OFDMA environments with reuse factor equal to 1, where base stations with different power constraints coex…

"Tajemny wspólnik" Josepha Conrada i "Tajemniczy sojusznik" Petera Fudakowskiego

2018

Although Peter Fudakowski's film is distinctly different from its literary original, and is not a faithful adaptation, it is very faithful to Conrad's message. It tells the story of the young captain; his increasing responsibility for his crew and his ship. Similarity of their (the writer and the filmmaker) memories and experience made Fudakowski understand and express Conrads message and interpret his prose in his own artistic way.

THE ROLE OF MEDITERRANEAN FRUIT TREE ORCHARDS AND VINEYARDS IN MAINTAINING THE TRADITIONAL AGRICULTURAL LANDSCAPE

2012

The Mediterranean area represents one of the most suitable and diversified environments for horticultural crops, being this propriety well expressed in the commonly accepted definition of “Mediterranean cultivated garden”. In Italy, fruit crops have been in the past introduced and expanded in different environments depending on the species and adaptability to the physiographic characteristics of the regions. The climate and the diversity of environmental contexts, the specificity of soils, the plasticity of the cultivated genotypes, have allowed a tight and typical relationship among land and farmers. Since the past centuries olive and fruit orchards, vineyards and Citrus plantations have r…

Adaptation of Fusarium oxysporum and Fusarium dimerum to the specific aquatic environment provided by the water systems of hospitals.

2015

SPE IPM MERS EA; International audience; Members of the Fusarium group were recently detected in water distribution systems of several hospitals in the world. An epidemiological investigation was conducted over 2 years in hospital buildings in Dijon and Nancy (France) and in non-hospital buildings in Dijon. The fungi were detected only within the water distribution systems of the hospital buildings and also, but at very low concentrations, in the urban water network of Nancy. All fungi were identified as Fusarium oxysporum species complex (FOSC) and Fusarium dimerum species complex (FDSC) by sequencing part of the translation elongation factor 1- alpha (TEF-1a) gene. Very low diversity was …

Glucagon-like Peptide-2 and mucosal changes induced by high fat diet in mouse small intestine.

2012

Living with stress: regulation of antioxidant defense genes in the subterranean, hypoxia-tolerant mole rat, Spalax.

2011

Lack of oxygen is life threatening for most mammals. It is therefore of biomedical interest to investigate the adaptive mechanisms which enable mammalian species to tolerate extremely hypoxic conditions. The subterranean mole rat Spalax survives substantially longer periods of hypoxia than the laboratory rat. We hypothesized that genes of the antioxidant defense, detoxifying harmful reactive oxygen species generated during hypoxia and hyperoxia, are involved in Spalax underground adaptation. Using quantitative RT-PCR, we analyzed the mRNA expression levels of seven antioxidant defense genes (catalase, glutathione peroxidase 1, glutathione-S-transferase Pi1, heme oxygenase 1, superoxide dism…