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A feeding trial was conducted for sixty three (63) days (9 weeks) to evaluate the effects of feeding raw Senna obtusifolia seed meal (RSOSM) on haematological indices and serum biochemical parameters of broiler chickens. Six experimental diets were compounded for both the starter (23% crude protein - CP) and finisher (20% CP) phases of growth. The diets were formulated to contain 0, 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25% level of raw Senna obtusifolia seed meal replacing roasted soya bean weight for weight in T , T , T , T , T and T respectively. The 0% replacement level (T1) served as the control diet. The broiler 1 2 3 4 5 6, 2 chickens were managed on deep litter pens of 30 birds/2.22 m , weighed and randomly allotted to the six (6) dietary treatments in a randomized complete block design (RCBD). Each treatment group consisted of thirty (30) broiler chicks replicated three times with ten (10) broiler chicks per replicate. Blood samples were collected from the wing vein at the end of the experiment using standard procedure and were analysed for haematological and biochemical profile. The outcome of this study revealed that the haematological indices were not significantly (P>0.05) affected by the dietary treatments. However, the blood chemistry was significantly (P

A laboratory analysis was conducted to evaluate the chemical composition of raw and differently processed Senna obtusifolia seed meal. Senna obtusifolia seeds were processed using boiling, soaking, sprouting and fermentation methods respectively. The processed and raw seed meals were milled and the representative seed meal samples were analysed using standard laboratory methods. The results of the chemical analysis revealed that Senna obtusifolia seed meal possessed good nutritional properties (23.40 – 25.90% crude protein and 2.14 – 2.86 MJ/kg metabolizable energy) and has good amino acid profile as an alternative feed source for livestock. However, the raw seed meal contains 378.5, 247.2, 102.0, 248.6 and 190.0 mg/100.0g of tannins, phytates, oxalate, alkaloids and saponins, respectively. The different processing methods were observed to be effective in reducing the level of the antinutrients with fermentation recording the highest reduction levels of 68.25, 66.32, 43.70, 58.07 and 44.30% for tannins, phytates, oxalate, alkaloids and saponins followed by boiling with reduction levels of 66.27, 46.97, 46.97, 47.89, 58.66 and 45.78% for tannins, phytates, oxalate, alkaloids and saponins, respectively. In conclusion, Senna obtusifolia seed can be effectively process for utilization as feed ingredient using fermentation. Feeding trial should be conducted using Senna obtusifolia seed meal to evaluate the feeding value in livestock especially monogastric animals

Cell wall assembly requires harmonized deposition of cellulose and matrix polysaccharides. Cortical microtubules orient the deposition of cellulose by guiding the trajectory of cellulose synthase complexes. Vesicles containing matrix polysaccharides are thought to be transported by the FRAGILE FIBER1 (FRA1) kinesin to facilitate their secretion along cortical microtubules. The cortical microtubule cytoskeleton thus may provide a platform to coordinate the delivery of cellulose and matrix polysaccharides, but the underlying molecular mechanisms remain unknown. Here, we show that the tail region of the Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) FRA1 kinesin physically interacts with cellulose synthase–microtubule uncoupling (CMU) proteins that are important for the microtubule-dependent guidance of cellulose synthase complexes. Interaction with CMUs did not affect microtubule binding or motility of the FRA1 kinesin but differentially affected the protein levels and microtubule localization of CMU1 and CMU2, thus regulating the lateral stability of cortical microtubules. Phosphorylation of the FRA1 tail region inhibited binding to CMUs and consequently reversed the extent of cortical microtubule decoration by CMU1 and CMU2. Genetic experiments demonstrated the significance of this interaction to the growth and reproduction of Arabidopsis plants. We propose that modulation of CMU protein levels and microtubule localization by FRA1 provides a mechanism that stabilizes the sites of deposition of both cellulose and matrix polysaccharides.

The external globus pallidus (GPe) is a critical node within the basal ganglia circuit. Phasic changes in the activity of GPe neurons during movement and their alterations in Parkinson’s disease (PD) argue that the GPe is important in motor control. PV+ neurons and Npas1+ neurons are the two principal neuron classes in the GPe. The distinct electrophysiological properties and axonal projection patterns argue that these two neuron classes serve different roles in regulating motor output. However, the causal relationship between GPe neuron classes and movement remains to be established. Here, by using optogenetic approaches in mice (both males and females), we showed that PV+ neurons and Npas1+ neurons promoted and suppressed locomotion, respectively. Moreover, PV+ neurons and Npas1+ neurons are under different synaptic influences from the subthalamic nucleus (STN). Additionally, we found a selective weakening of STN inputs to PV+ neurons in the chronic 6-hydroxydopamine lesion model of PD. This finding reinforces the idea that the reciprocally connected GPe-STN network plays a key role in disease symptomatology and thus provides the basis for future circuit-based therapies.Significance StatementThe external pallidum is a key, yet an understudied component of the basal ganglia. Neural activity in the pallidum goes awry in neurological diseases, such as Parkinson’s disease. While this strongly argues that the pallidum plays a critical role in motor control, it has been difficult to establish the causal relationship between pallidal activity and motor (dys)function. This was in part due to the cellular complexity of the pallidum. Here, we showed that the two principal neuron types in the pallidum have opposing roles in motor control. In addition, we described the differences in their synaptic influence. Importantly, our research provides new insights into the cellular and circuit mechanisms that explain the hypokinetic features of Parkinson’s disease.

The external globus pallidus (GPe) is a critical node within the basal ganglia circuit. Phasic changes in the activity of GPe neurons during movement and their alterations in Parkinson's disease (PD) argue that the GPe is important in motor control. Parvalbumin-positive (PV(+)) neurons and Npas1(+) neurons are the two principal neuron classes in the GPe. The distinct electrophysiological properties and axonal projection patterns argue that these two neuron classes serve different roles in regulating motor output. However, the causal relationship between GPe neuron classes and movement remains to be established. Here, by using optogenetic approaches in mice (both males and females), we showed that PV(+) neurons and Npas1(+) neurons promoted and suppressed locomotion, respectively. Moreover, PV(+) neurons and Npas1(+) neurons are under different synaptic influences from the subthalamic nucleus (STN). Additionally, we found a selective weakening of STN inputs to PV(+) neurons in the chronic 6-hydroxydopamine lesion model of PD. This finding reinforces the idea that the reciprocally connected GPe–STN network plays a key role in disease symptomatology and thus provides the basis for future circuit-based therapies. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The external pallidum is a key, yet an understudied component of the basal ganglia. Neural activity in the pallidum goes awry in neurologic diseases, such as Parkinson's disease. While this strongly argues that the pallidum plays a critical role in motor control, it has been difficult to establish the causal relationship between pallidal activity and motor function/dysfunction. This was in part because of the cellular complexity of the pallidum. Here, we showed that the two principal neuron types in the pallidum have opposing roles in motor control. In addition, we described the differences in their synaptic influence. Importantly, our research provides new insights into the cellular and circuit mechanisms that explain the hypokinetic features of Parkinson's disease.

Accelerating declines of an increasing number of animal populations worldwide necessitate methods to reliably and efficiently estimate demographic parameters such as population density and trajectory. Standard methods for estimating demographic parameters from noninvasive genetic samples are inefficient because lower quality samples cannot be used, and they do not allow for errors in individual identification. We introduce the Genotype Spatial Partial Identity Model (SPIM), which integrates a genetic classification model with a spatial population model to combine both spatial and genetic information, thus reducing genotype uncertainty and increasing the precision of demographic parameter estimates. We apply this model to data from a study of fishers (Pekania pennanti) in which 37% of samples were originally discarded because of uncertainty in individual identity. The Genotype SPIM density estimate using all collected samples was 25% more precise than the original density estimate, and the model identified and corrected 3 errors in the original individual identity assignments. A simulation study demonstrated that our model increased the accuracy and precision of density estimates 63% and 42%, respectively, using 3 PCRs per genetic sample. Further, the simulations showed that the Genotype SPIM model parameters are identifiable with only one PCR per sample, and that accuracy and precision are relatively insensitive to the number of PCRs for high quality samples. Current genotyping protocols devote the majority of resources to replicating and confirming high quality samples, but when using the Genotype SPIM, genotyping protocols could be more efficient by devoting more resources to low quality samples.SignificanceWe present a new statistical framework for the estimation of animal demographic parameters, such as abundance, density, and growth rate, from noninvasive genetic samples (e.g., hair, scat). By integrating a genetic classification model with a spatial population model, we show that accounting for spatial proximity of samples reduces genotype uncertainty and improves parameter estimation. Our method produces a fundamentally different approach to genetic capture-recapture by sharing information between the normally disjunct steps of assigning individual identities to genetic samples and modeling population processes. Further, it leads to more efficient protocols for processing genetic samples, which can lower project costs and expand opportunities for applying noninvasive genetics to conservation and management problems.

The November 2018 midterm elections engaged more voters than any midterm election since World War I. Moreover, from a Black Church perspective, the midterm elections arguably engaged more constituent members in secular politics than any time since the Civil Rights Movement and the historic passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. If the axiom is true that, “For every action there is a reaction,” the series of actions that have been part of Donald J. Trump’s “Make America Great Again” narrative have been met with a reaction that is “Making the Black Church Great Again!” This interdisciplinary Article, juxtaposing aspects of law and theology, as well as history and sociology, asks the focal question, “And When Does the Black Church Get Political?” It uses an interdisciplinary approach to respond around a central thesis that Black Church politicization, as a fight for social justice, is responsive to certain sociopolitical and cultural events. In illustratively drawing a parallel between sociopolitical conditions during the Civil Rights Movement and those during the Era of Trump, this Article uses the African Methodist Episcopal Church as a quasi-case study in arguing the Black Church “gets political” when it responds to the needs of marginalized and oppressed people. In addition to an extended literature review, this Article engages ethnographic research by using a set of fixed questions addressed to five members of the Council of Bishops of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in outlining a theology of resistance that is an intricate part of the Black Church experience. In response to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” narrative, I argue the time is now to also “Make the Black Church Great Again!”

Under nutrient and energy-limiting conditions, plants up-regulate sophisticated catabolic pathways such as autophagy to remobilize nutrients and restore energy homeostasis. Autophagic flux is tightly regulated under these circumstances through the AuTophaGy-related1 (ATG1) kinase complex, which relays upstream nutrient and energy signals to the downstream components that drive autophagy. Here, we investigated the role(s) of the Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) ATG1 kinase during autophagy through an analysis of a quadruple mutant deficient in all four ATG1 isoforms. These isoforms appear to act redundantly, including the plant-specific, truncated ATG1t variant, and like other well-characterized atg mutants, homozygous atg1abct quadruple mutants display early leaf senescence and hypersensitivity to nitrogen and fixed-carbon starvations. Although ATG1 kinase is essential for up-regulating autophagy under nitrogen deprivation and short-term carbon starvation, it did not stimulate autophagy under prolonged carbon starvation. Instead, an ATG1-independent response arose requiring phosphatidylinositol-3-phosphate kinase (PI3K) and SUCROSE NONFERMENTING1-RELATED PROTEIN KINASE1 (SnRK1), possibly through phosphorylation of the ATG6 subunit within the PI3K complex by the catalytic KIN10 subunit of SnRK1. Together, our data connect ATG1 kinase to autophagy and reveal that plants engage multiple pathways to activate autophagy during nutrient stress, which include the ATG1 route as well as an alternative route requiring SnRK1 and ATG6 signaling.

Compartmentation is a key strategy enacted by plants for the storage of specialized metabolites. The saffron spice owes its red color to crocins, a complex mixture of apocarotenoid glycosides that accumulate in intracellular vacuoles and reach up to 10% of the spice dry weight. We developed a general approach, based on coexpression analysis, heterologous expression in yeast (

John Dryden has long been central to accounts of eighteenth-century satire. This chapter asks how such accounts have come to be written, and whether there may be new ways of mapping this aspect of the poet, critic, translator, and controversialist. Indeed, one of the chapter’s aims is to question the inevitability of Dryden’s acquiring a reputation as a satirist, both in his own time and in the centuries following. Though we associate the Stuart laureate most closely with the imperial coolness of Absalom and Achitophel, such mastery and control was gained through countless literary skirmishes over the previous two decades. Before we can understand Dryden as satire’s master, this chapter proposes, we must understand him first as its victim.

The starting point of this chapter is Marvell’s cautious relationship to publication and publicity generally and to print publication in particular. On what terms or under what conditions was publication through the press to be avoided or pursued? What were the nature of Marvell’s interactions with the various actors, institutions, and technologies of print culture throughout his career? We have a reasonably good idea of Marvell’s intimacy with the world of print as a Restoration politician and polemicist—though his ingenious manipulations of the material form of the book still bear more scrutiny. But we have some way to go in understanding Marvell’s strategic appearances in—and indeed disappearances from—printed works before 1660. For Marvell the MP, secrecy and pseudo-identity belong clearly to the arts of influence; can the same be said for the lyric poet, or is his fragmentary and reluctant identity as a print author part of some other story?

Detailed analysis of the optical band gap of zinc sulphide (ZnS) film coated with organic dye extract was conducted in this research. The chemical bath deposition technique was used in the deposition of ZnS coated with aqueous and alkanone dye extracts on glass substrate, annealed at different temperatures (100OC, 150OC and 200OC). Transmittance measurements were taken at room temperature in the wavelength range 300–1000 nm. The plots of the square of the product of absorption coefficient and photon energy were used to estimate the optical band gap energy of the film samples. The band gap exhibited red shift for some of the films and blue shift for other samples. Increasing the concentration of the precursor (Zn2+), increased the band gap of some film samples and decreased for others. The Urbach tail estimated from the plot of natural logarithm of the absorption coefficient as a function of photon energy, depicted a linear relationship for some of the film samples with respect to post-deposition temperature. In terms of the effect of concentration, the Urbach rule did not show a trend. The optical band gaps obtained in this study are in the range suitable for use in optoelectronics and solar photovoltaic applications.

The eight-week feeding trial was conducted to evaluate the nutrient digestibility and growth performance of broiler chickens fed raw or processed Senna obtusifolia seed meal (SOSM). Six experimental diets were compounded to contain 0% SOSM and 20% each of the raw, boiled, soaked, sprouted and fermented SOSM respectively. Two hundred and sixteen (216) broiler chicks were randomly allotted to six (6) dietary treatments in a randomised complete block design with three (3) replicates containing 12 chicks each. Data were collected on nutrient digestibility, feed intake, weight gain, feed conversion ratio and mortality. The result of productive performance indicated that feed intake, weight gain and feed conversion ratio were significantly (P

Many large carnivores are recolonizing range as a result of improved management and conservation policy, habitat restoration, and reintroduction programs. American black bears (Ursus americanus) are projected to recolonize portions of the United States, but few studies have characterized or provided practical methods for monitoring this process. We used noninvasive hair sampling at 4 proximal study areas along the Kentucky–Virginia, USA, border during 2012–2013 to estimate demographics and population genetics, and investigate recolonization patterns of an American black bear population that was founded by 55 bears reintroduced to a fragmented mountainous landscape during the 1990s and subjected to harvest 6 years post-reintroduction. Using spatially explicit capture–recapture (SECR) models, we estimated a density of 0.26 bear/km2, or minimum abundance of 482 bears, distributed among 2 primary core areas previously identified by occupancy analysis: a southern and northern core area. The southern core area was established by a founder adult female that exhibited post-release dispersal, but moderate asymmetrical gene flow (Nm = 6 bears) from the northern core area mitigated deleterious genetic consequences typical of such founder events. Effective number of breeders (NB = 62 bears) was similar to the number of founders, suggesting that genetically, the population remains mostly the product of reintroduction. Despite limited connectivity with other populations in the region, genetic diversity (HE = 0.78) was retained because of rapid population growth during the 16 years post-reintroduction (λ = 1.14/year). This bear population exhibited demographic characteristics indicative of continued recolonization, including a significantly female-biased sex ratio (0.53M:1.00F) and female density decreasing with increasing distance from the reintroduction release areas in the northern core. Few bear detections at 2 peripheral study areas and results from SECR model detection function transformation suggested recolonization may continue to the southwest and northeast along prominent linear mountain ridges. Although the population has grown and is genetically stable, because of relatively low population density and recolonization direction, we suggest monitoring demographic vital rates to evaluate harvest sustainability and population viability. Our study demonstrates the utility of noninvasive genetic sampling in conjunction with SECR models to characterize and monitor recolonizing bear populations, which may also be useful for management of expanding populations of other large carnivores. © 2016 The Wildlife Society.

Compelling evidence demonstrates that the external globus pallidus (GPe) plays a key role in processing sensorimotor information. An anatomical projection from the GPe to the dorsal striatum has been described for decades. However, the cellular target and functional impact of this projection remain unknown. Using cell-specific transgenic mice, modern monosynaptic tracing techniques, and optogenetics-based mapping, we discovered that GPe neurons provide inhibitory inputs to direct and indirect pathway striatal projection neurons (SPNs). Our results indicate that the GPe input to SPNs arises primarily from Npas1-expressing neurons and is strengthened in a chronic Parkinson's disease (PD) model. Alterations of the GPe-SPN input in a PD model argue for the critical position of this connection in regulating basal ganglia motor output and PD symptomatology. Finally, chemogenetic activation of Npas1-expressing GPe neurons suppresses motor output, arguing that strengthening of the GPe-SPN connection is maladaptive and may underlie the hypokinetic symptoms in PD.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENTAn anatomical projection from the pallidum to the striatum has been described for decades, but little is known about its connectivity pattern. The authors dissect the presynaptic and postsynaptic neurons involved in this projection, and show its cell-specific remodeling and strengthening in parkinsonian mice. Chemogenetic activation of Npas1+pallidal neurons that give rise to the principal pallidostriatal projection increases the time that the mice spend motionless. This argues that maladaptive strengthening of this connection underlies the paucity of volitional movements, which is a hallmark of Parkinson's disease.

In response to abiotic and biotic challenges, plants rapidly attach small ubiquitin-related modifier (SUMO) to a large collection of nuclear proteins, with studies in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) linking SUMOylation to stress tolerance via its modification of factors involved in chromatin and RNA dynamics. Despite this importance, little is known about SUMOylation in crop species. Here, we describe the plant SUMO system at the phylogenetic, biochemical, and transcriptional levels with a focus on maize (Zea mays). In addition to canonical SUMOs, land plants encode a loosely constrained noncanonical isoform and a variant containing a long extension upstream of the signature β-grasp fold, with cereals also expressing a novel diSUMO polypeptide bearing two SUMO β-grasp domains in tandem. Maize and other cereals also synthesize a unique SUMO-conjugating enzyme variant with more restricted expression patterns that is enzymatically active despite a distinct electrostatic surface. Maize SUMOylation primarily impacts nuclear substrates, is strongly induced by high temperatures, and displays a memory that suppresses subsequent conjugation. Both in-depth transcript and conjugate profiles in various maize organs point to tissue/cell-specific functions for SUMOylation, with potentially significant roles during embryo and endosperm maturation. Collectively, these studies define the organization of the maize SUMO system and imply important functions during seed development and stress defense.

Stewart Mottram’s fine new study is a sustained exercise in synecdochic reading. The nodes of his attention across the book’s five main chapters are literary representations of ruined monasteries a...

This chapter reconsiders John Dryden’s dramatic adaptation of Paradise Lost, The State of Innocence. Not exactly neglected, neither has Dryden’s opera been much appreciated by modern critics. Focusing on the relation between text and paratext, this chapter brings into focus not only Dryden’s ambivalence about Milton but also about the nature and direction of his own art by the middle of the 1670s. Suspended daringly between the heroic and the mock-heroic, Dryden’s opera detunes the antithesis between Milton’s ‘strenuous liberty’ and Restoration libertinage even as it accommodates Milton’s anti-Augustan poetics to Dryden’s mature Augustan vision.

Literary historians long considered Thomas Browne uninterested in the great events of his day. While more recent scholarship has revised this picture, it has tended to place the famous Dr Browne on the wrong side of a conflict between conservatives and radicals. This chapter begins by re-examining the relations between and among writing, politics, and class in revolutionary England, emphasising the fluidity of the ideological context in which Browne’s meditation was first written and published. The second part of the chapter traces the processual character of Browne’s text, that is, the multiplicity of material forms and circumstances in which his Religio Medici might have been encountered, and the various interlocutions that soon attached themselves to it and mediated its meanings. Finally, it seeks to reconstruct the religious subject and the spiritual politics constituted out of the text’s distinctive rhetorical form. Stepping out provisionally, with a sense of limitation, with a sense of style, this chapter argues, Religio Medici brilliantly addresses itself to the heresy of certainty under which Browne saw the Stuart church beginning to buckle.

Notwithstanding its reputation as a secular age, the Restoration was notable for its religious converts, not least its most famous pair of writers, Lord Rochester and the Stuart laureate John Dryden. This chapter explores the development of Dryden’s art in the wake of his conversion to Rome in 1685 and the subsequent failure of Stuart rule. Its theme is ‘transprosing and transversing’, as Dryden and his contemporaries referred to the transformation of one kind of text into another. Dryden’s late work of fable and translation represents an extensive body of transversive writing – one that resonates strongly with his experience as a convert, of fashioning a new spiritual and political identity on top of a prior script that cannot be wholly erased. And indeed, in the palimpsestic play of Dryden’s late aesthetic, this chapter also traces a shift in the poet’s conception of English history, from the providential typologies of Astraea Redux (1660) and Absalom and Achitophel (1681) to the self-consciously contingent allegories of The Hind and the Panther (1687), Don Sebastian (1689), and Fables (1700).

This chapter explores how the framework of a ‘long eighteenth century’ distorts our sense of Restoration literature through a process of selective reading and imagining that emphasises ‘the shape of the future’. The writings of Lord Rochester provide the ground on which this argument is tested. In tracing Rochester’s texts through the circuits of script and print, this chapter illuminates the radical unfixity of Rochester as cultural sign. To privilege Rochester’s ‘Augustanism’, or to see him, as recent commentators would have it, as a ‘proto-Whig’, is perforce to strain against the varied cultural scripts he so promiscuously fashioned and in which he was no less promiscuously apprehended and imagined. More largely, this chapter argues, by refiguring Rochester, we may also appreciate the decidedly mixed character of whatever might be called ‘Restoration modernity’.

Aesthetics of contingency provides an important reconsideration of seventeenth-century literature in light of new understandings of the English past. Emphasising the contingency of the political in revolutionary England and its extended aftermath, Matthew Augustine challenges prevailing literary histories plotted according to structural conflicts and teleological narrative. In their place, he offers an innovative account of imaginative and polemical writing, in an effort to view later seventeenth-century literature on its own terms: without certainty about the future, or indeed the recent past. In hewing to this premise, the familiar outline of the period – with red lines drawn at 1642, 1660, or 1688 – becomes suggestively blurred. For all of Milton’s prophetic gestures, for all of Dryden’s presumption to speak for, to epitomise his Age, writing from the later decades of the seventeenth century remained supremely responsive to uncertainty, to the tremors of civil conflict and to the enduring crises and contradictions of Stuart governance. A study of major writings from the Personal Rule to the Glorious Revolution and beyond, this book also re-examines the material conditions of literature in this age. By carefully deciphering the multi-layered forces at work in acts of writing and reception, and with due consideration for the forms in which texts were cast, this book explores the complex nature of making meaning in and making meaning out of later Stuart England.

The argument of this book follows two main themes: the first has to do with periodicity; the second with politics, especially as a framework within which to view seventeenth-century literature. This chapter maps the disciplinary paradigms which have long produced a view of the seventeenth century saturated by high-definition contrasts: between the earlier and later Stuart periods, but also between factions and ideologies. It then asks what it would look like to write the history of seventeenth-century literature anew, to tell a story about imaginative and polemical writing in this age that remained open to accident and unevenness, to contradiction and uncertainty. Giving illustrative consideration to John Dryden, Andrew Marvell, and John Milton, the chapter begins to suggest some new ways of conceiving how these writers might relate to one other and to the politics and aesthetics of a long seventeenth century.

With the fashioning of an English Bill of Rights and the consolidation of William and Mary’s authority, with the death of James II in exile, the ascendance of Queen Anne, the union of England and Scotland, the succession in 1714 of the Hanoverian Elector George I, and the definitive exclusion of the Stuarts, it would seem that we come to the end of ‘England’s troubles’, and so at last to the solid, rational eighteenth century. ‘Behold!’ Pope commands in the sonorous distiches of ‘Windsor Forest’,...

Long-distance transport along microtubules (MTs) is critical for intracellular organization. In animals, antagonistic motor proteins kinesin (plus end directed) and dynein (minus end directed) drive cargo transport. In land plants, however, the identity of motors responsible for transport is poorly understood, as genes encoding cytoplasmic dynein are absent in plant genomes. How other functions of dynein are brought about in plants also remains unknown. Here, we show that a subclass of the kinesin-14 family, KCH (kinesin with calponin homology domain), which can also bind actin, drives MT minus end-directed nuclear transport in the moss

The turnover of cytoplasmic material by autophagic encapsulation and delivery to vacuoles is essential for recycling cellular constituents, especially under nutrient-limiting conditions. To determine how cells/tissues rely on autophagy, we applied in-depth multi-omic analyses to study maize (Zea mays) autophagy mutants grown under nitrogen-replete and -starvation conditions. Broad alterations in the leaf metabolome were evident in plants missing the core autophagy component ATG12, even in the absence of stress, particularly affecting products of lipid turnover and secondary metabolites, which were underpinned by substantial changes in the transcriptome and/or proteome. Cross-comparison of messenger RNA and protein abundances allowed for the identification of organelles, protein complexes and individual proteins targeted for selective autophagic clearance, and revealed several processes controlled by this catabolism. Collectively, we describe a facile multi-omic strategy to survey autophagic substrates, and show that autophagy has a remarkable influence in sculpting eukaryotic proteomes and membranes both before and during nutrient stress. It has been well established that nutrient starvation induces cell autophagy. Now, researchers present large-scale multi-omics analyses of maize autophagy mutants under nitrogen starvation, and show that autophagy could play more housekeeping roles in plants.

The estimation of animal population density is a fundamental goal in wildlife ecology and management, commonly met using mark recapture or spatial mark recapture (SCR) study designs and statistical methods. Mark-recapture methods require the identification of individuals; however, for many species and sampling methods, particularly noninvasive methods, no individuals or only a subset of individuals are individually identifiable. The unmarked SCR model, theoretically, can estimate the density of unmarked populations; however, it produces biased and imprecise density estimates in many sampling scenarios typically encountered. Spatial mark-resight (SMR) models extend the unmarked SCR model in three ways: 1) by introducing a subset of individuals that are marked and individually identifiable, 2) introducing the possibility of individual-linked telemetry data, and 3) introducing the possibility that the capture-recapture data from the survey used to deploy the marks can be used in a joint model, all improving the reliability of density estimates. The categorical spatial partial identity model (SPIM) improves the reliability of density estimates over unmarked SCR along another dimension, by adding categorical identity covariates that improve the probabilistic association of the latent identity samples. Here, we combine these two models into a “categorical SMR” model to exploit the benefits of both models simultaneously. We demonstrate using simulations that SMR alone can produce biased and imprecise density estimates with sparse data and/or when few individuals are marked. Then, using a fisher (Pekania pennanti) genetic capture-recapture data set, we show how categorical identity covariates, marked individuals, telemetry data, and jointly modeling the capture survey used to deploy marks with the resighting survey all combine to improve inference over the unmarked SCR model. As previously seen in an application of the categorical SPIM to a real-world data set, the fisher data set demonstrates that individual heterogeneity in detection function parameters, especially the spatial scale parameter σ, introduces positive bias into latent identity SCR models (e.g., unmarked SCR, SMR), but the categorical SMR model provides more tools to reduce this positive bias than SMR or the categorical SPIM alone. We introduce the possibility of detection functions that vary by identity category level, which will remove individual heterogeneity in detection function parameters than is explained by categorical covariates, such as individual sex. Finally, we provide efficient SMR algorithms that accommodate all SMR sample types, interspersed marking and sighting periods, and any number of identity covariates using the 2-dimensional individual by trap data in conjunction with precomputed constraint matrices, rather than the 3-dimensional individual by trap by occasion data used in SMR algorithms to date.

The posttranslational addition of small ubiquitin-like modifier (SUMO) is an essential protein modification in plants that provides protection against numerous environmental challenges. Ligation is accomplished by a small set of SUMO ligases, with the SAP-MIZ domain-containing SIZ1 and METHYL METHANESULFONATE-SENSITIVE21 (MMS21) ligases having critical roles in stress protection and DNA endoreduplication/repair, respectively. To help identify their corresponding targets in Arabidopsis thaliana, we used siz1 and mms21 mutants for proteomic analyses of SUMOylated proteins enriched via an engineered SUMO1 isoform suitable for mass spectrometric studies. Through multiple data sets from seedlings grown at normal temperatures or exposed to heat stress, we identified over 1000 SUMO targets, most of which are nuclear localized. Whereas no targets could be assigned to MMS21, suggesting that it modifies only a few low abundance proteins, numerous targets could be assigned to SIZ1, including major transcription factors, coactivators/repressors, and chromatin modifiers connected to abiotic and biotic stress defense, some of which associate into multisubunit regulatory complexes. SIZ1 itself is also a target, but studies with mutants protected from SUMOylation failed to uncover a regulatory role. The catalog of SIZ1 substrates indicates that SUMOylation by this ligase provides stress protection by modifying a large array of key nuclear regulators.

Conjugation of small ubiquitin-related modifier (SUMO) to intracellular proteins provides a dynamic regulatory mechanism that enables plants to rapidly defend against environmental challenges. SUMOylation of mostly nuclear proteins is among the fastest stress responses observed but precisely how this post-translational modification provides stress resilience remains unclear. Here, we describe the plant SUMO system and its expanding target catalog, which implicates this modification in DNA repair, chromatin modification/remodeling, transcriptional activation/repression, epigenetics, and RNA metabolism, with a likely outcome being extensive nuclear re-wiring to withstand stress. In parallel, studies have linked SUMO to developmental programs such as gametogenesis and gene silencing. The accumulating data support the notion that SUMOylation substantially influences the transcriptional and epigenetic landscapes to promote stress tolerance and developmental progression.

Recently introduced unmarked spatial capture-recapture (SCR), spatial mark-resight (SMR), and 2-flank spatial partial identity models (SPIM) extend the domain of SCR to populations or observation systems that do not always allow for individual identity to be determined with certainty. For example, some species do not have natural marks that can reliably produce individual identities from photographs, and some methods of observation produce partial identity samples as is the case with remote cameras that sometimes produce single flank photographs. These models share the feature that they probabilistically resolve the uncertainty in individual identity using the spatial location where samples were collected. Spatial location is informative of individual identity in spatially structured populations with home range sizes smaller than the extent of the trapping array because a latent identity sample is more likely to have been produced by an individual living near the trap where it was recorded than an individual living further away from the trap. Further, the level of information about individual identity that a spatial location contains is determined by two key ecological concepts, population density and home range size. The number of individuals that could have produced a latent or partial identity sample increases as density and home range size increase because more individual home ranges will overlap any given trap. We show this uncertainty can be quantified using a metric describing the expected magnitude of uncertainty in individual identity for any given population density and home range size, the Identity Diversity Index (IDI). We then show that the performance of latent and partial identity SCR models varies as a function of this index and produces imprecise and biased estimates in many high IDI scenarios when data are sparse. We then extend the unmarked SCR model to incorporate partially identifying covariates which reduce the level of uncertainty in individual identity, increasing the reliability and precision of density estimates, and allowing reliable density estimation in scenarios with higher IDI values and with more sparse data. We illustrate the performance of this “categorical SPIM” via simulations and by applying it to a black bear data set using microsatellite loci as categorical covariates, where we reproduce the full data set estimates with only slightly less precision using fewer loci than necessary for confident individual identification. The categorical SPIM offers an alternative to using probability of identity criteria for classifying genotypes as unique, shifting the “shadow effect”, where more than one individual in the population has the same genotype, from a source of bias to a source of uncertainty. We discuss the difficulties that real world data sets pose for latent identity SCR methods, most importantly, individual heterogeneity in detection function parameters, and argue that the addition of partial identity information reduces these concerns. We then discuss how the categorical SPIM can be applied to other wildlife sampling scenarios such as remote camera surveys, where natural or researcher-applied partial marks can be observed in photographs. Finally, we discuss how the categorical SPIM can be added to SMR, 2-flank SPIM, or other future latent identity SCR models.

Since the publication of Marvell’s prose works a decade ago, our understanding of Marvell’s place within Restoration debates over political theology has been richly extended and deepened. This article focuses new attention on the literary significance of Marvell’s controversial prose for the early eighteenth century. Students of Swift have long known that Swift turned to Marvell’s satire The Rehearsal Transpros’d as a model for A Tale of a Tub . In this essay I suggest a much wider debt to Marvell among eighteenth-century satirists than has so far been acknowledged. Not only did Marvell’s character “Mr. Bayes” provide a template for images of the mad, Modern author in the works of Scriblerian “wits” and Grub Street “dunces,” but also, Marvell’s fooling with the nature of the book, I argue, hints at a vital link with the materialist poetics of The Dunciad . This essay thus discovers some novel points of contact between the murky world of Restoration controversy and the “golden age of satire” in England.

© Inter-Research 2017. Emerging infectious diseases cause population declines in many ectotherms, with outbreaks frequently punctuated by periods of mass mortality. It remains unclear, however, whether thermoregulation by ectotherms and variation in environmental temperature is associated with mortality risk and disease progression, especially in wild populations. Here, we examined environmental and body temperatures of free-ranging eastern box turtles Terrapene carolina during a mass die-off coincident with upper respiratory disease. We recorded deaths of 17 turtles that showed clinical signs of upper respiratory disease among 76 adult turtles encountered in Berea, Kentucky (USA), in 2014. Of the 17 mortalities, 11 occurred approximately 14 d after mean environmental temperature dropped 2.5 SD below the 3 mo mean. Partial genomic sequencing of the major capsid protein from 1 sick turtle identified a ranavirus isolate similar to frog virus 3. Turtles that lacked clinical signs of disease had significantly higher body temperatures (23°C) than sick turtles (21°C) during the mass mortality, but sick turtles that survived and recovered eventually warmed (measured by temperature loggers). Finally, there was a significant negative effect of daily environmental temperature deviation from the 3 mo mean on survival, suggesting that rapid decreases in environmental temperature were correlated with mortality. Our results point to a potential role for environmental temperature variation and body temperature in disease progression and mortality risk of eastern box turtles affected by upper respiratory disease. Given our findings, it is possible that colder or more variable environmental temperatures and an inability to effectively thermoregulate are associated with poorer disease outcomes in eastern box turtles.

We assessed Toxoplasma gondii seroprevalence in 53 free-ranging American black bears (Ursus americanus) in the Central Appalachian Mountains, US. Seroprevalence was 62% with no difference between males and females or between juvenile and adult bears. Wildlife agencies should consider warnings in hunter education programs to reduce the chances for human infection from this source.