BACKGROUND Nutrients such as protein may be actively sought by foraging animals. Many predators exhibit foraging plasticity, but how their foraging strategies are affected when faced with nutrient deprivation is largely unknown. In spiders, the assimilation of protein into silk may be in conflict with somatic processes so we predicted web building to be affected under protein depletion. METHO...

BACKGROUND The prevalence of different biotic processes (limiting similarity, weaker competitor exclusion) and historical contingency due to priority effects are in the focus of ongoing discussions about community assembly and non-random functional trait distributions. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS We experimentally manipulated assembly history in a grassland biodiversity experiment (Jena Ex...

Monoculture causes nutrient losses and leads to declines in soil fertility and biomass production over successive cultivation. The rhizosphere, a zone of usually high microbial activities and clearly distinct from bulk soil, is defined as the volume of soil around living roots and influenced by root activities. Here we investigated enzyme activities and microbial biomass in the rhizosphere unde...

Mammalian cell PtdIns (phosphatidylinositol) in vivo is enriched in the sn-1-stearoyl 2-arachidonoyl species, the physiological precursor of phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate. Mechanisms regulating this specificity are unclear but are typically lost for cells in culture. We used ESI-MS (tandem electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry) to determine the molecular species of PtdIns synthesize...

Cystic fibrosis (CF) infections are invariably biofilm-mediated and polymicrobial, being safe to assume that a myriad of factors affects the sociomicrobiology within the CF infection site and modulate the CF community dynamics, by shaping their social activities, overall functions, virulence, ultimately affecting disease outcome. This work aimed to assess changes in the dynamics (particularly o...

The debate whether the coevolution of plants and insects or macroevolutionary processes (phylogeny) is the main driver determining the arsenal of molecular defensive compounds of plants remains unresolved. Attacks by herbivorous insects affect not only the composition of defensive compounds in plants but also the entire metabolome. Metabolomes are the final products of genotypes and are constra...

This study aimed at characterizing fecal microbiota of three captive carnivore species of leopard cats Prionailurus bengalensis, Eurasian otters Lutra lutra and raccoon dogs Nyctereutes procyonoides. We used DNA barcoding sequencing to analyze 16S rRNA genes of uncultured bacteria in the feces collected in the Seoul Zoo. The sequencing analyses revealed that: 1) Firmicutes was the most dominant...

Phosphatidylinositol (PtdIns), phosphatidylinositol 4-phosphate (PtdIns4P) and phosphatidylinositol 4,5-diphosphate [PtdIns(4,5)P2] were isolated from the pancreas of rats fed an ethanol-containing liquid diet for 24 days and from the corresponding pair-fed controls. The isolation involved chromatography on a lipophilic anion exchanger in the phosphate form. The species composition was determin...

Commercial poultry operations involve four types of birds: broiler (meat producing) chickens, layer (table egg) chickens, turkeys, and ducks. Each type differs greatly in size and nutrient requirements. Breeder flocks for each of the species are a major part of the industry, and those flocks also have different nutrient requirements. Distinctly different diets are required for each species and ...