1,721,137 research outputs found
CO2 concentrating mechanisms in algae: mechanisms, environmental modulation and evolution
No full textThe evolution of organisms capable of oxygenic photosynthesis paralleled
a long-term reduction in atmospheric CO2 and the increase in
O2. Consequently, the competition between O2 and CO2 for the active
sites of RUBISCO became more and more restrictive to the rate
of photosynthesis. In coping with this situation, many algae and some
higher plants acquired mechanisms that use energy to increase the CO2
concentrations (CO2 concentrating mechanisms, CCMs) in the proximity
of RUBISCO. A number of CCM variants are now found among
the different groups of algae. Modulating the CCMs may be crucial in
the energetic and nutritional budgets of a cell, and a multitude of environmental
factors can exert regulatory effects on the expression of the
CCM components.We discuss the diversity of CCMs, their evolutionary
origins, and the role of the environment with CCM modulation
Homeostasis of cell composition during prolonged darkness.
No full textThe chemical composition of organisms in relation to their
environmental resource availability is an area of intense
research activity. We studied the changes in cell composition
of the cyanobacterium
Phormidium autumnale
in
response to prolonged darkness. Cells allocated their
internal resources in a homeostatic manner, oxidizing all
the three major cellular constituents in a proportional way.
This resulted in constant C/N and carbohydrates, lipids and
proteins ratios that remained unaltered throughout the
whole incubation period. We propose the maintenance of
balanced cell composition (homeostasis) as an evolutionary
strategy related to environmental transitory changes
Algae lacking carbon concentrating mechanisms
No full textMost of the algae and cyanobacteria that have been critically examined express a carbon-concentrating mechanism (CCM) when grown at, or below, the current atmospheric CO2 concentration. This paper considers algae that appear to lack a CCM. Critical examination of the evidence on which the presence or absence of a CCM is decided shows that more information is frequently needed before the criteria can be fully applied. Examples are the pathways of glycolate metabolism in nongreen algae, and the 13C/12C discrimination shown by form ID Rubisco in vitro. The available evidence suggests that the algae lacking CCMs are some terrestrial green microalgae, some florideophyte freshwater red macroalgae, and a number of florideophyte red macroalgae from the supralittoral, littoral, and sublittoral, and almost all of the freshwater chrysophytes and synurophytes examined. Certain environmental, biochemical, and biophysical factors may permit the occurrence of algae lacking CCMs. The absence of CCMs is presumably the plesiomorphic (i.e., ancestral) condition in cyanobacteria (and algae?).Key words: CO2 diffusion, chrysophyte algae, ecology, evolution, green algae, photos
Physiological responses of the green alga Dunaliella parva (Volvocales, Chlorophyta) to controlled incremental changes in the N-source
No full textThis work is aimed at obtaining information on the acclimation processes of the green flagellate Dunaliella parva Lerche to gradual changes in the N source from NO3– to NH4+, in continuous cultures. Photosynthesis, dark respiration, and light-independent carbon fixation (LICF) rates, chlorophyll a fluorescence, RUBISCO and phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase (PEPc) activities, plasmalemma electrical potential difference, cell volume, and absolute or relative amounts of major cell constituents were measured. Two phases characterised the response to the transition from NO3– to NH4+: (1) an initial phase in which photosynthesis and anaplerosis were stimulated and protein increased; (2) a subsequent phase in which most parameters reached new values that were close to those at the beginning of the experiment (100% NO3–). The only exceptions were PEPc activity and LICF, whose rates remained at least 2-fold higher than at 100% NO3–, when NH4+ was the sole N source. The results are indicative of a tendency to re-establish homeostasis, after an initial perturbation of the intracellular composition. The roles of different metabolic processes during acclimation are discussed
An anaplerotic role for Mitochondrial Carbonic Anhydrase in Chlamydomonas reinhardti
No full textPrevious studies of the mitochondrial carbonic anhydrase (mtCA) of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii showed that expression of the two genes encoding this enzyme activity required photosynthetically active radiation and a low CO2 concentration. These studies suggested that the mtCA was involved in the inorganic carbon-concentrating mechanism. We have now shown that the expression of the mtCA at low CO2 concentrations decreases when the external NH4+ concentration decreases, to the point of being undetectable when NH4+ supply restricts the rate of photoautotrophic growth. The expression of mtCA can also be induced at supra-atmospheric partial pressure of CO2 by increasing the NH4+ concentration in the growth medium. Conditions that favor mtCA expression usually also stimulate anaplerosis. We therefore propose that the mtCA is involved in supplying HCO3- for anaplerotic assimilation catalyzed by phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase, which provides C skeletons for N assimilation under some circumstances
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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