Great Basin summer range forage quality: do plants nutrients meet elk requirements?

Understanding the relative ability of forages to meet the needs of prime-age females, the productive component of elk ( Cervus elaphus ) populations, is necessary to decipher reasons for declines and potential for population growth. Information on forage nutrient dynamics for elk on Great Basin summer-fall ranges is lacking. Our primary objectives were to estimate nutrient levels in common elk forage species in northeastern Nevada at 3 time periods and evaluate whether nutrient levels met good requirements for lactating cow elk at time periods across summers. We compared crude protein, digestible energy, and macromineral levels in 2 forbs, 6 grasses, and 4 woody browse forage species to requirements for lactating cow elk in early summer, midsummer, and early fall 1999 and 2000. Spurred lupine ( Lupinus caudatus ) and snowbrush ceanothus ( Ceanothus velutinus ) were the most proteinaceous plants, exceeding requirements across all seasons. By midsummer, protein levels in all grasses were below elk requirements (12%). Digestible energy was the most limiting nutrient with woody browse meeting lactating cow elk requirements only in early fall (2750 kcal · kg -1 ). Sodium levels never exceeded about 10% of the required 600 μg · g -1 . The potential for maintaining a relatively high density of elk at forage-quality levels that fulfill requirements declines as summers progress on Great Basin summer ranges. Maintaining highly productive elk herds in the Great Basin requires that managers maintain plant communities with a diversity of forbs, grasses, and browse to provide for nutritional needs of lactating cows and their growing calves.     

Interdecadal variation in the extent of South Pacific tropical waters during the Younger Dryas event

During the Younger Dryas event, about 12,000 years ago, the Northern Hemisphere cooled by between 2 and 10 degrees C (refs 1, 2) whereas East Antarctica experienced warming. But the spatial signature of the event in the southern mid-latitudes and tropics is less well known, as records are sparse and inconclusive. Here we present high-resolution analyses of skeletal Sr/Ca and 18O/16O ratios for a giant fossil Diploastrea heliopora coral that was preserved in growth position on the raised reef terraces of Espiritu Santo Island, Vanuatu, in the southwestern tropical Pacific Ocean. Our data indicate that sea surface temperatures in Vanuatu were on average 4.5 +/- 1.3 degrees C cooler during the Younger Dryas event than today, with a significant interdecadal modulation. The amplified annual cycle of sea surface temperatures, relative to today, indicates that cooling was caused by the compression of tropical waters towards the Equator. The positive correlation in our record between the oxygen isotope ratios of sea water and sea surface temperatures suggests that the South Pacific convergence zone, which brings 18O-depleted precipitation to the area today, was not active during the Younger Dryas period.     

Serotonin1A receptor acts during development to establish normal anxiety-like behaviour in the adult

Serotonin is implicated in mood regulation, and drugs acting via the serotonergic system are effective in treating anxiety and depression. Specifically, agonists of the serotonin1A receptor have anxiolytic properties, and knockout mice lacking this receptor show increased anxiety-like behaviour. Here we use a tissue-specific, conditional rescue strategy to show that expression of the serotonin1A receptor primarily in the hippocampus and cortex, but not in the raphe nuclei, is sufficient to rescue the behavioural phenotype of the knockout mice. Furthermore, using the conditional nature of these transgenic mice, we suggest that receptor expression during the early postnatal period, but not in the adult, is necessary for this behavioural rescue. These findings show that postnatal developmental processes help to establish adult anxiety-like behaviour. In addition, the normal role of the serotonin1A receptor during development may be different from its function when this receptor is activated by therapeutic intervention in adulthood.     

Granulocyte colony formation in vitro: Enhancement by human placental (umbilical cord) serum

Summary Addition of human placental umbilical cord serum to bone marrow cultures reproducibly increased the number of granulocyte colonies in vitro. This stimulatory effect was significantly greater than that of fetal calf serum which was seen in cultures of human bone marrow under the conditions described.This work was financed by grant FOR. No. 004.AK.71 (1) from the Swiss Cancer League.The authors wish to express their gratitute to colleagues from Maternity Ward, Frauenspital, Bern, and Department of Thoracic and Vascular Surgery, Inselspital, Bern, through whose kind assistance samples of umbilical blood and fragments of ribs removed at thotacotomies were obtained. MissJ. Blom provided excellent technical assistance.     

Granulocyte colony formation in vitro: enhancement by human placental (umbilical cord) serum.

Addition of human placental umbilical cord serum to bone marrow cultures reproducibly increased the number of granulocyte colonies in vitro. This stimulatory effect was significantly greater than that of fetal calf serum which was seen in cultures of human bone marrow under the conditions described.     

The effect of hyperconjugation upon the boiling points of alkenes

Zusammenfassung Es wird gezeigt, dass die Hyperkonjugation einen entscheidenden Einfluss auf den Siedepunkt der einfach ungesättigten aliphatischen Kohlenwasserstoffe hat. Dieser Zusammenhang wird durch vergrösserte Elektronendelokalisierung in Molekülen, die Hyperkonjugation aufweisen, theoretisch verständlich. Ein grösseres Ausmass der Elektronendelokalisierung führt zu stärkerer Kohäsion und dadurch zu erhöhten Siedepunkten. Die neue Gesetzmässigkeit ergänzt ohne Widerspruch die bekannten Hückelschen Siedepunktsregeln und erklärt Beobachtungen, die aus keiner der bisher aufgestellten Regeln ableitbar waren. Es ist zu erwarten, dass analoge Zusammenhänge in anderen Gruppen von organischen Verbindungen aufgewiesen werden können.