Phylogeographic analysis of North American populations of the parasitic herbaceous plant <em>Monotropa hypopitys </em>reveals a complex history of range expansion from multiple late glacial refugia

Aim We carried out a phylogeographic study across the range of the herbaceous plant species Monotropa hypopitys L. in North America to determine whether its current disjunct distribution is due to recolonization from separate eastern and western refugia after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Location North America: Pacific Northwest and north-eastern USA/south-eastern Canada. Methods Palaeodistribution modelling was carried out to determine suitable climatic regions for M. hypopitys at the LGM. We analysed between 155 and 176 individuals from 39 locations spanning the species' entire range in North America. Sequence data were obtained for the chloroplast rps2 gene (n=168) and for the nuclear ITS region (n=158). Individuals were also genotyped for eight microsatellite loci (n=176). Interpolation of diversity values was used to visualize the range-wide distribution of genetic diversity for each of the three marker classes. Minimum spanning networks were constructed showing the relationships between the rps2 and ITS haplotypes, and the geographical distributions of these haplotypes were plotted. The numbers of genetic clusters based on the microsatellite data were estimated using Bayesian clustering approaches. Results The palaeodistribution modelling indicated suitable climate envelopes for M. hypopitys at the LGM in both the Pacific Northwest and south-eastern USA. High levels of genetic diversity and endemic haplotypes were found in Oregon, the Alexander Archipelago, Wisconsin, and in the south-eastern part of the species' distribution range. Main conclusions Our results suggest a complex recolonization history for M. hypopitys in North America, involving persistence in separate eastern and western refugia. A generally high degree of congruence between the different marker classes analysed indicated the presence of multiple refugia, with at least two refugia in each area. In the west, putative refugia were identified in Oregon and the Alexander Archipelago, whereas eastern refugia may have been located in the southern part of the species' current distribution, as well as in the 'Driftless Area'. These findings are in contrast to a previous study on the related species Orthilia secunda, which has a similar disjunct distribution to M. hypopitys, but which appears to have recolonized solely from western refugia. �� 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. <br/> <br/>

The Forgiving Graph: a distributed data structure for low stretch under adversarial attack

<p>We consider the problem of self-healing in peer-to-peer networks that are under repeated attack by an omniscient adversary. We assume that, over a sequence of rounds, an adversary either inserts a node with arbitrary connections or deletes an arbitrary node from the network. The network responds to each such change by quick ���repairs,��� which consist of adding or deleting a small number of edges. These repairs essentially preserve closeness of nodes after adversarial deletions, without increasing node degrees by too much, in the following sense. At any point in the algorithm, nodes <em>v</em> and <em>w</em> whose distance would have been <em>l</em> in the graph formed by considering only the adversarial insertions (not the adversarial deletions), will be at distance at most <em>l</em> log <em>n</em> in the actual graph, where <em>n</em> is the total number of vertices seen so far. Similarly, at any point, a node <em>v</em> whose degree would have been <em>d</em> in the graph with adversarial insertions only, will have degree at most 3<em>d</em> in the actual graph. Our distributed data structure, which we call the Forgiving Graph, has low latency and bandwidth requirements. The Forgiving Graph improves on the Forgiving Tree distributed data structure from Hayes et al. (2008) in the following ways: 1) it ensures low stretch over all pairs of nodes, while the Forgiving Tree only ensures low diameter increase; 2) it handles both node insertions and deletions, while the Forgiving Tree only handles deletions; 3) it requires only a very simple and minimal initialization phase, while the Forgiving Tree initially requires construction of a spanning tree of the network.</p>

The Forgiving Graph:A distributed data structure for low stretch under adversarial attack

We consider the problem of self-healing in peer-to-peer networks that are under repeated attack by an omniscient adversary. We assume that, over a sequence of rounds, an adversary either inserts a node with arbitrary connections or deletes an arbitrary node from the network. The network responds to each such change by quick "repairs," which consist of adding or deleting a small number of edges. These repairs essentially preserve closeness of nodes after adversarial deletions,without increasing node degrees by too much, in the following sense. At any point in the algorithm, nodes v and w whose distance would have been - in the graph formed by considering only the adversarial insertions (not the adversarial deletions), will be at distance at most - log n in the actual graph, where n is the total number of vertices seen so far. Similarly, at any point, a node v whose degreewould have been d in the graph with adversarial insertions only, will have degree at most 3d in the actual graph. Our distributed data structure, which we call the Forgiving Graph, has low latency and bandwidth requirements. The Forgiving Graph improves on the Forgiving Tree distributed data structure from Hayes et al. (2008) in the following ways: 1) it ensures low stretch over all pairs of nodes, while the Forgiving Tree only ensures low diameter increase; 2) it handles both node insertions and deletions, while the Forgiving Tree only handles deletions; 3) it requires only a very simple and minimal initialization phase, while the Forgiving Tree initially requires construction of a spanning tree of the network. �� Springer-Verlag 2012.

Chironomid-based reconstructions of summer air temperature from lake deposits in Lyndon Stream, New Zealand spanning the MIS 3/2 transition

We present chironomid-based temperature reconstructions from lake sediments deposited between ca 26,600 cal yr BP and 24,500 cal yr BP from Lyndon Stream, South Island, New Zealand. Summer (February mean) temperatures averaged 1 1C cooler, with a maximum inferred cooling of 3.7 1C. These estimates corroborate macrofossil and beetle-based temperature inferences from the same site and suggest climate amelioration (an interstadial) at this time. Other records from the New Zealand region also show a large degree of variability during the late Otiran glacial sequence (34,000���18,000 cal yr BP) including a phase of warming at the MIS 2/3 transition and a maximum cooling that did not occur until the global LGM (ca 20,000 cal yr BP). The very moderate cooling identified here at the MIS 2/3 transition confirms and enhances the long-standing discrepancy in New Zealand records between pollen and other proxies. Low abundances (o20%) of canopy tree pollen in records from late MIS 3 to the end of MIS 2 cannot be explained by the minor (o5 1C) cooling inferred from this and other studies unless other environmental parameters are considered. Further work is required to address this critical issue.

In vitro activity of tea-tree oil against clinical skin isolates of meticillin-resistant and -sensitive Staphylococcus aureus and coagulase-negative staphylococci growing planktonically and as biofilms

The susceptibility of Staphylococcus aureus [meticillin-resistant (MRSA) and meticillin-sensitive (MSSA)] and coagulase-negative staphylococci (CoNS), which respectively form part of the transient and commensal skin flora, to tea-tree oil (TTO) was compared using broth microdilution and quantitative in vitro time-kill test methods. MRSA and MSSA isolates were significantly less susceptible than CoNS isolates, as measured by both MIC and minimum bactericidal concentration. A significant decrease in the mean viable count of all isolates in comparison with the control was seen at each time interval in time-kill assays. However, the only significant difference in the overall mean log(10) reduction in viable count between the groups of isolates was between CoNS and MSSA at 3 h, with CoNS isolates demonstrating a significantly lower mean reduction. To provide a better simulation of in vivo conditions on the skin, where bacteria are reported to grow as microcolonies encased in glycocalyx, the bactericidal activity of TTO against isolates grown as biofilms was also compared. Biofilms formed by MSSA and MRSA isolates were completely eradicated following exposure to 5 % TTO for 1 h. In contrast, of the biofilms formed by the nine CoNS isolates tested, only five were completely killed, although a reduction in viable count was apparent for the other four isolates. These results suggest that TTO exerts a greater bactericidal activity against biofilm-grown MRSA and MSSA isolates than against some biofilm-grown CoNS isolates.