Search results for "Biotic component"
showing 10 items of 127 documents
Influence of land-use intensity on the spatial distribution of N-cycling microorganisms in grassland soils
2011
A geostatistical approach using replicated grassland sites (10 m × 10 m) was applied to investigate the influence of grassland management, i.e. unfertilized pastures and fertilized mown meadows representing low and high land-use intensity (LUI), on soil biogeochemical properties and spatial distributions of ammonia-oxidizing and denitrifying microorganisms in soil. Spatial autocorrelations of the different N-cycling communities ranged between 1.4 and 7.6 m for ammonia oxidizers and from 0.3 m for nosZ-type denitrifiers to scales >14 m for nirK-type denitrifiers. The spatial heterogeneity of ammonia oxidizers and nirS-type denitrifiers increased in high LUI, but decreased for biogeochemical …
The effect of a temperature-sensitive prophage on the evolution of virulence in an opportunistic bacterial pathogen
2019
AbstractViruses are key actors of ecosystems and have major impacts on global biogeochemical cycles. Prophages deserve particular attention as they are ubiquitous in bacterial genomes and can enter a lytic cycle when triggered by environmental conditions. We explored how temperature affects the interactions between prophages and other biological levels by using an opportunistic pathogen, the bacterium Serratia marcescens, that harbours several prophages and that had undergone an evolution experiment under several temperature regimes. We found that the release of one of the prophages was temperature-sensitive and malleable to evolutionary changes. We further discovered that the virulence of …
Elucidation of the biosynthesis and degradation of allantofuranone by isotopic labelling and fermentation of modified precursors.
2010
Feeding experiments with the ascomycete Allantophomopsis lycopodina indicated that the potent fungistatic allantofuranone is biosynthesized from phenylalanine. Further experiments with synthetic precursors gave evidence that the naturally occurring polyporic acid serves as a key intermediate in the biosynthesis. In addition to the formation of allantofuranone, its abiotic and metabolic degradation were investigated.
Carbon and nitrogen stable isotope ratios of soils and grasses as indicators of soil characteristics and biological taxa
2019
Abstract The use of stable isotope techniques can assist in understanding interactions of plants with various abiotic and biotic processes. In the research, we focused on carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) isotopes because they are the most important resources influencing plant function and the biogeochemical cycles. The 13C/12C and 15N/14N ratios in plants and in soils and the relationships between these ratios and biological and environmental factors of widely distributed native C3 plants (couch grass, plantain and yarrow) collected from two sites in St. Petersburg, Russia were studied. The soil characteristics of the sites were rather different. This had a significant effect on the isotope rati…
Re-establishment of zooplankton communities in temporary ponds after autumn flooding: Does restoration age matter?
2012
Abstract In temporary ponds, reestablishment of zooplankton communities depends on recruitment from the egg bank, the arrival of dispersers from within the region, and on successful establishment of newly arrived species following interaction with local abiotic and biotic factors. When the ponds dry up, zooplankton species may survive as dormant eggs, and since not all eggs hatch in the next season, eggs will accumulate in the sediment over time, representing an archive of the pond's historical biodiversity. To study the effect of “restoration age” (the time since a water body was restored), we studied groups of ponds that were restored in different years (1998, 2003 and 2007). The restorat…
Importance of Climate Change for the Ranges, Communities and Conservation of Birds
2004
Publisher Summary This chapter focuses on the effects of global climate change on the size and position of geographic ranges and the richness and composition of bird communities. Plenty of evidence demonstrates that range boundaries of birds are correlated with climatic factors. In general, the northern range limit of species seems to be influenced rather by abiotic factors such as cold temperatures. The southern range limit of species appears to be determined by climatic factors such as heat or lack of water in arid regions and by biotic factors in more humid regions. For communities, increases in species richness are predicted for northern latitude and high-elevation sites and declines of…
Prebiotic Evolution and the Origin of Life: Chemical and Biochemical Aspects
1988
Evolution, as the term is used here, signifies any development or change adapting to the environment. Chemical evolution connotes changes of chemical substances, it thus signifies that changes occur fundamentally in the molecules. Frequently “chemical evolution” is used synonymously for “abiotic” or “prebiotic formation” of organic molecules in a cosmic system, usually on the prebiotic (or primitive) Earth. It is then assumed that the organic molecules were formed from the constituents of the primitive atmosphere, hydrosphere, and — in part — lithospere.
Mannitol-producing tobacco exposed to varying levels of water, light, temperature and paraquat
2007
Transgenic mannitol-producing (+mtlD) and wild-type (-mtlD) tobacco plants were exposed to water deficit, varying light intensities, low temperatures, and paraquat applications to test whether mannitol was involved in protection against abiotic stresses. In the water deficit experiment, -mtlD and +mtlD plants were fully irrigated [100% evapotranspiration (ET)] or received 25% ET for 40 d. Water deficit reduced the relative water content (RWC) of both types of plant starting on day 22 and the total stem length (TSL) of -mtlD 25% ET plants after 11 d, whereas TSL of +mtlD 25% ET was reduced only after 34 d. After 30 days of water deficit, a higher percentage of mature foliage was retained by …
Factors controlling planktonic size spectral responses to autumnal circulation in a Mediterranean lake
2006
14 pages, and figures, and tables statistics.
Review paper: Seasonal variation as a determinant of population structure in rotifers reproducing by cyclical parthenogenesis
1998
Monogonont rotifers live in habitats that display extensively variation in both biotic and abiotic components. Much of this variation is seasonal and therefore predictable for a given pond or lake. In 1972, King proposed one physiological and two genetic models presenting alternative modes of adaptation to this temporal variation. Our purpose in the present paper is to review and evaluate how our knowledge of the seasonal structure of rotifer populations has changed in the past 25 years. Seasonal changes in clone frequencies have been reported from three studies of natural populations using electrophoretic analysis of isozymes. In one of these studies there was evidence for substantial temp…