The scale-invariance of spatial patterning in a developing system

Regulating systems, that is, those which exhibit scale-invariant patterns in the adult, are supposed, to do so on account of interactions between cells during development. The nature of these interactions has to be such that the system of positional information (ldquomaprdquo) in the embryo also regulates. To our knowledge, this supposition regarding a regulating map has not been subjected to a direct test in any embryonic system. Here we do so by means of a simple and novel criterion and use it to examine tip regeneration in the mulicellular stage (slug) ofDictyostelium discoideum. When anterior, tip-containing fragments of slugs are amputated, a new tip spontaneously regenerates at the cut surface of the (remaining) posterior fragment. The time needed for regeneration to occur depends on the relative size of the amputated fragment but is independent of the total size of the slug. We conclude from this finding that there is at least one system underlying positional information in the slug which regulates.

Large-scale characterization of drought pattern: a continent-wide modelling approach applied to the Australian wheatbelt – spatial and temporal trends

* Plant response to drought is complex, so that traits adapted to a specific drought type can confer disadvantage in another drought type. Understanding which type(s) of drought to target is of prime importance for crop improvement. * Modelling was used to quantify seasonal drought patterns for a check variety across the Australian wheatbelt, using 123 yr of weather data for representative locations and managements. Two other genotypes were used to simulate the impact of maturity on drought pattern. * Four major environment types summarized the variability in drought pattern over time and space. Severe stress beginning before flowering was common (44% of occurrences), with (24%) or without (20%) relief during grain filling. High variability occurred from year to year, differing with geographical region. With few exceptions, all four environment types occurred in most seasons, for each location, management system and genotype. * Applications of such environment characterization are proposed to assist breeding and research to focus on germplasm, traits and genes of interest for target environments. The method was applied at a continental scale to highly variable environments and could be extended to other crops, to other drought-prone regions around the world, and to quantify potential changes in drought patterns under future climates.

Population genetics of Australian white sharks reveals fine-scale spatial structure, transoceanic dispersal events and low effective population sizes

Despite international protection of white sharks Carcharodon carcharias, important conservation parameters such as abundance, population structure and genetic diversity are largely unknown. The tissue of 97 predominately juvenile white sharks sampled from spatially distant eastern and southwestern Australian coastlines was sequenced for the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) control region and genotyped with 6 nuclear-encoded microsatellite loci. MtDNA population structure was found between the eastern and southwestern coasts (F-ST = 0.142, p < 0.0001), implying female reproductive philopatry. This concurs with recent satellite and acoustic tracking findings which suggest the sustained presence of discrete east coast nursery areas. Furthermore, population subdivision was found between the same regions with biparentally inherited micro satellite markers (F-ST = 0.009, p < 0.05), suggesting that males may also exhibit some degree of reproductive philopatry; 5 sharks captured along the east coast had mtDNA haplotypes that resembled western Indian Ocean sharks more closely than Australian/New Zealand sharks, suggesting that transoceanic dispersal, or migration resulting in breeding, may occur sporadically. Our most robust estimate of contemporary genetic effective population size was low and close to thresholds at which adaptive potential may be lost. For a variety of reasons, these contemporary estimates were at least 1, possibly 2, orders of magnitude below our historical effective size estimates. Population decline could expose these genetically isolated populations to detrimental genetic effects. Regional Australian white shark conservation management units should be implemented until genetic population structure, size and diversity can be investigated in more detail.

Development of a global inundation map at high spatial resolution from topographic downscaling of coarse-scale remote sensing data

Large-scale estimates of the area of terrestrial surface waters have greatly improved over time, in particular through the development of multi-satellite methodologies, but the generally coarse spatial resolution (tens of kms) of global observations is still inadequate for many ecological applications. The goal of this study is to introduce a new, globally applicable downscaling method and to demonstrate its applicability to derive fine resolution results from coarse global inundation estimates. The downscaling procedure predicts the location of surface water cover with an inundation probability map that was generated by bagged derision trees using globally available topographic and hydrographic information from the SRTM-derived HydroSHEDS database and trained on the wetland extent of the GLC2000 global land cover map. We applied the downscaling technique to the Global Inundation Extent from Multi-Satellites (GIEMS) dataset to produce a new high-resolution inundation map at a pixel size of 15 arc-seconds, termed GIEMS-D15. GIEMS-D15 represents three states of land surface inundation extents: mean annual minimum (total area, 6.5 x 10(6) km(2)), mean annual maximum (12.1 x 10(6) km(2)), and long-term maximum (173 x 10(6) km(2)); the latter depicts the largest surface water area of any global map to date. While the accuracy of GIEMS-D15 reflects distribution errors introduced by the downscaling process as well as errors from the original satellite estimates, overall accuracy is good yet spatially variable. A comparison against regional wetland cover maps generated by independent observations shows that the results adequately represent large floodplains and wetlands. GIEMS-D15 offers a higher resolution delineation of inundated areas than previously available for the assessment of global freshwater resources and the study of large floodplain and wetland ecosystems. The technique of applying inundation probabilities also allows for coupling with coarse-scale hydro-climatological model simulations. (C) 2014 Elsevier Inc All rights reserved.

Generalized Spatial Modulation in Large-Scale Multiuser MIMO Systems

Generalized spatial modulation (GSM) uses n(t) transmit antenna elements but fewer transmit radio frequency (RF) chains, n(rf). Spatial modulation (SM) and spatial multiplexing are special cases of GSM with n(rf) = 1 and n(rf) = n(t), respectively. In GSM, in addition to conveying information bits through n(rf) conventional modulation symbols (for example, QAM), the indices of the n(rf) active transmit antennas also convey information bits. In this paper, we investigate GSM for large-scale multiuser MIMO communications on the uplink. Our contributions in this paper include: 1) an average bit error probability (ABEP) analysis for maximum-likelihood detection in multiuser GSM-MIMO on the uplink, where we derive an upper bound on the ABEP, and 2) low-complexity algorithms for GSM-MIMO signal detection and channel estimation at the base station receiver based on message passing. The analytical upper bounds on the ABEP are found to be tight at moderate to high signal-to-noise ratios (SNR). The proposed receiver algorithms are found to scale very well in complexity while achieving near-optimal performance in large dimensions. Simulation results show that, for the same spectral efficiency, multiuser GSM-MIMO can outperform multiuser SM-MIMO as well as conventional multiuser MIMO, by about 2 to 9 dB at a bit error rate of 10(-3). Such SNR gains in GSM-MIMO compared to SM-MIMO and conventional MIMO can be attributed to the fact that, because of a larger number of spatial index bits, GSM-MIMO can use a lower-order QAM alphabet which is more power efficient.

Small-scale spatial and temporal variability in growth and mortality of fish larvae in the subtropical northcentral Gulf of Mexico: implications for assessing recruitment success

Extensive plankton collections were taken during seven September cruises (1990–93) along the inner continental shelf of the northcentral Gulf of Mexico (GOM). Despite the high productivity and availability of food during these cruises, significant small-scale spatial variability was found in larval growth rates for both Atlantic bumper (Chloroscombrus chrysurus, Carangidae) and vermilion snapper (Rhomboplites aurorubens, Lutjanidae). The observed variability in larval growth rates was not correlated with changes in water temperature or associated with conspicuous hydrographic features and suggested the existence of less-recognizable regions where conditions for growth vary. Cruise estimates of mortality coefficients (Z) for larval Atlantic bumper (n=32,241 larvae from six cruises) and vermilion snapper (n= 2581 larvae from four cruises) ranged from 0.20 to 0.37 and 0.19 to 0.29, respectively. Even in a subtropical climate like the GOM, where larval-stage durations may be as short as two weeks, observed variability in growth rates, particularly when combined with small changes in mortality rates, can cause order-of-magnitude differences in cumulative larval survival. To what extent the observed differences in growth rates at small spatial scales are fine-scale “noise” that ultimately is smoothed by larger-scale processes is not known. Future research is needed to further characterize the small-scale variability in growth rates of larvae, particularly with regard to microzooplankton patchiness and the temporal and spatial pattern of potential predators. Small-scale spatial variability in larval growth rates may in fact be the norm, and understanding the implications of this subtle mosaic may help us to better evaluate our ability to partition the causes of recruitment variability.

Learning large-scale spatial relationships in a maze and effects of MK-801 on retrieval in the rhesus monkey

Monkeys have strong abilities to remember the visual properties of potential food sources for survival in the nature. The present study demonstrated the first observations of rhesus monkeys learning to solve complex spatial mazes in which routes were guid