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Invasive Ameisen in Europa: Wie sie sich ausbreiten und die heimische Fauna verändern
Get PDFThe social insects bees, wasps, ants, and termites are species-rich, occur in many habitats, and often constitute a large part of the biomass. Many are also invasive, including species of termites, the red imported fire ant, and the Argentine ant. While invasive social insects have been a problem in Southern Europe for some time, Central Europa was free of invasive ant species until recently because most ants are adapted to warmer climates. Only in the 1990s, did Lasius neglectus, a close relative of the common black garden ant, arrive in Germany. First described in 1990 based on individuals collected in Budapest, the species has since been detected for example in France, Germany, Spain, England, and Kyrgyzstan. The species is spread with soil during construction work or plantings, and L. neglectus therefore is often found in parks and botanical gardens. Another invasive ant now spreading in southern Germany is Formica fuscocinerea, which occurs along rivers, including in the sandy floodplains of the river Isar. As is typical of pioneer species, F. fuscocinerea quickly becomes extremely abundant and therefore causes problems for example on playgrounds in Munich. All invasive ant species are characterized by cooperation across nests, leading to strongly interconnected, very large super-colonies. The resulting dominance results in the extinction of native ant species as well as other arthropod species and thus in the reduction of biodiversity
Toward a quantitative understanding of antibiotic resistance evolution
Get PDFThe rising prevalence of antibiotic resistant bacteria is an increasingly serious public health challenge. To address this problem, recent work ranging from clinical studies to theoretical modeling has provided valuable insights into the mechanisms of resistance, its emergence and spread, and ways to counteract it. A deeper understanding of the underlying dynamics of resistance evolution will require a combination of experimental and theoretical expertise from different disciplines and new technology for studying evolution in the laboratory. Here, we review recent advances in the quantitative understanding of the mechanisms and evolution of antibiotic resistance. We focus on key theoretical concepts and new technology that enables well-controlled experiments. We further highlight key challenges that can be met in the near future to ultimately develop effective strategies for combating resistance
Oral immune priming with Bacillus thuringiensis induces a shift in the gene expression of Tribolium castaneum larvae
Get PDFThe phenomenon of immune priming, i.e. enhanced protection following a secondary exposure to a pathogen, has now been demonstrated in a wide range of invertebrate species. Despite accumulating phenotypic evidence, knowledge of its mechanistic underpinnings is currently very limited. Here we used the system of the red flour beetle, Tribolium castaneum and the insect pathogen Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) to further our molecular understanding of the oral immune priming phenomenon. We addressed how ingestion of bacterial cues (derived from spore supernatants) of an orally pathogenic and non-pathogenic Bt strain affects gene expression upon later challenge exposure, using a whole-transcriptome sequencing approach.
Results
Whereas gene expression of individuals primed with the orally non-pathogenic strain showed minor changes to controls, we found that priming with the pathogenic strain induced regulation of a large set of distinct genes, many of which are known immune candidates. Intriguingly, the immune repertoire activated upon priming and subsequent challenge qualitatively differed from the one mounted upon infection with Bt without previous priming. Moreover, a large subset of priming-specific genes showed an inverse regulation compared to their regulation upon challenge only.
Conclusions
Our data demonstrate that gene expression upon infection is strongly affected by previous immune priming. We hypothesise that this shift in gene expression indicates activation of a more targeted and efficient response towards a previously encountered pathogen, in anticipation of potential secondary encounter
Fast hole tunneling times in germanium hut wires probed by single-shot reflectometry
Get PDFHeavy holes confined in quantum dots are predicted to be promising candidates for the realization of spin qubits with long coherence times. Here we focus on such heavy-hole states confined in germanium hut wires. By tuning the growth density of the latter we can realize a T-like structure between two neighboring wires. Such a structure allows the realization of a charge sensor, which is electrostatically and tunnel coupled to a quantum dot, with charge-transfer signals as high as 0.3 e. By integrating the T-like structure into a radiofrequency reflectometry setup, single-shot measurements allowing the extraction of hole tunneling times are performed. The extracted tunneling times of less than 10 μs are attributed to the small effective mass of Ge heavy-hole states and pave the way toward projective spin readout measurements
A unifying theory of branching morphogenesis
Get PDFThe morphogenesis of branched organs remains a subject of abiding interest. Although much is known about the underlying signaling pathways, it remains unclear how macroscopic features of branched organs, including their size, network topology, and spatial patterning, are encoded. Here, we show that, in mouse mammary gland, kidney, and human prostate, these features can be explained quantitatively within a single unifying framework of branching and annihilating random walks. Based on quantitative analyses of large-scale organ reconstructions and proliferation kinetics measurements, we propose that morphogenesis follows from the proliferative activity of equipotent tips that stochastically branch and randomly explore their environment but compete neutrally for space, becoming proliferatively inactive when in proximity with neighboring ducts. These results show that complex branched epithelial structures develop as a self-organized process, reliant upon a strikingly simple but generic rule, without recourse to a rigid and deterministic sequence of genetically programmed events
Singularities of the density of states of random Gram matrices
Get PDFFor large random matrices X with independent, centered entries but not necessarily identical variances, the eigenvalue density of XX* is well-approximated by a deterministic measure on ℝ. We show that the density of this measure has only square and cubic-root singularities away from zero. We also extend the bulk local law in [5] to the vicinity of these singularities
Vascular tissue development and regeneration in the model plant arabidopsis
Get PDFDevelopment of vascular tissue is a remarkable example of intercellular communication and coordinated development involving hormonal signaling and tissue polarity. Thus far, studies on vascular patterning and regeneration have been conducted mainly in trees—woody plants—with a well-developed layer of vascular cambium and secondary tissues. Trees are difficult to use as genetic models, i.e., due to long generation time, unstable environmental conditions, and lack of available mutants and transgenic lines. Therefore, the use of the main genetic model plant Arabidopsis thaliana (L.) Heynh., with a wealth of available marker and transgenic lines, provides a unique opportunity to address molecular mechanism of vascular tissue formation and regeneration. With specific treatments, the tiny weed Arabidopsis can serve as a model to understand the growth of mighty trees and interconnect a tree physiology with molecular genetics and cell biology of Arabidopsis
Local Law of Addition of Random Matrices on Optimal Scale
Get PDFThe eigenvalue distribution of the sum of two large Hermitian matrices, when one of them is conjugated by a Haar distributed unitary matrix, is asymptotically given by the free convolution of their spectral distributions. We prove that this convergence also holds locally in the bulk of the spectrum, down to the optimal scales larger than the eigenvalue spacing. The corresponding eigenvectors are fully delocalized. Similar results hold for the sum of two real symmetric matrices, when one is conjugated by Haar orthogonal matrix
Statistical and logical methods for property checking
Get PDFThis dissertation concerns the automatic verification of probabilistic systems and programs with arrays by statistical and logical methods. Although statistical and logical methods are different in nature, we show that they can be successfully combined for system analysis.
In the first part of the dissertation we present a new statistical algorithm for the verification of probabilistic systems with respect to unbounded properties, including linear temporal logic. Our algorithm often performs faster than the previous approaches, and at the same time requires less information about the system. In addition, our method can be generalized to unbounded quantitative properties such as mean-payoff bounds.
In the second part, we introduce two techniques for comparing probabilistic systems. Probabilistic systems are typically compared using the notion of equivalence, which requires the systems to have the equal probability of all behaviors. However, this notion is often too strict, since probabilities are typically only empirically estimated, and any imprecision may break the relation between processes. On the one hand, we propose to replace the Boolean notion of equivalence by a quantitative distance of similarity. For this purpose, we introduce a statistical framework for estimating distances between Markov chains based on their simulation runs, and we investigate which distances can be approximated in our framework. On the other hand, we propose to compare systems with respect to a new qualitative logic, which expresses that behaviors occur with probability one or a positive probability. This qualitative analysis is robust with respect to modeling errors and applicable to many domains.
In the last part, we present a new quantifier-free logic for integer arrays, which allows us to express counting. Counting properties are prevalent in array-manipulating programs, however they cannot be expressed in the quantified fragments of the theory of arrays. We present a decision procedure for our logic, and provide several complexity results
Light sheet fluorescence microscopy of plant roots growing on the surface of a gel
Get PDFOne of the key questions in understanding plant development is how single cells behave in a larger context of the tissue. Therefore, it requires the observation of the whole organ with a high spatial- as well as temporal resolution over prolonged periods of time, which may cause photo-toxic effects. This protocol shows a plant sample preparation method for light-sheet microscopy, which is characterized by mounting the plant vertically on the surface of a gel. The plant is mounted in such a way that the roots are submerged in a liquid medium while the leaves remain in the air. In order to ensure photosynthetic activity of the plant, a custom-made lighting system illuminates the leaves. To keep the roots in darkness the water surface is covered with sheets of black plastic foil. This method allows long-term imaging of plant organ development in standardized conditions