Association and Structure of Thermosensitive Comblike Block Copolymers in Aqueous Solutions

The structures and association properties of thermosensitive block copolymers of poly(methoxyoligo( ethylene glycol) norbornenyl esters) in D2O were investigated by small angle neutron scattering (SANS). Each block is a comblike polymer with a polynorbornene (PNB) backbone and oligo ethylene glycol (OEG) side chains (one side chain per NB repeat unit). The chemical formula of the block copolymer is (OEG3NB) 79- (OEG6.6NB) 67, where subscripts represent the degree of polymerization (DP) of OEG and NB in each block. The polymer concentration was fixed at 2.0 wt % and the structural changes were investigated over a temperature range between 25 and 68°C. It was found that at room temperature polymers associate to form micelles with a spherical core formed by the block (OEG3NB) 79 and corona formed by the block (OEG6.6NB) 67 and that the shape of the polymer in the corona could be described by the form factor of rigid cylinders. At elevated temperatures, the aggregation number increased and the micelles became more compact. At temperatures around the cloud point temperature (CPT) T ) 60 °C a correlation peak started to appear and became pronounced at 68 °C due to the formation of a partially ordered structure with a correlation length ∼349 Å.

Macroecology of Caribbean Bats: Effects of Area, Elevation, Latitude, and Hurricane-Induced Disturbance

Understanding the geographic and environmental characteristics of islands that affect aspects of biodiversity is a major theme in ecology (Begon et al. 2006; Krebs 2001) and biogeography (Cox and Moore 2000; Drakare et al. 2006; Lomolino et al. 2006). Such understanding has become particularly relevant over the past century because human activities on continents have fragmented natural landscapes, often creating islands of isolated habitat dispersed within a sea of land uses that include agriculture, forestry, and various degrees of urban and suburban development. The increasingly fragmented or islandlike structure of mainland habitats has critical ramifications to conservation biology, as it provides insights regarding the mechanisms leading to species persistence and loss. Consequently, the study of patterns and mechanisms associated with island biodiversity is of interest in its own right (Whittaker 1998; Williamson 1981), and may provide critical insights into mainland phenomena that otherwise could not be studied because of ethical, financial, or logistical considerations involved with the execution of large-scale manipulative experiments.